The China Threat: Memories, Myths, and Realities in the 1950s

Diplomacy did not come easily after the artillery shelling of the offshore islands had begun. Eisenhower and Dulles watched as sentiment in the United States became more harshly critical of China. A September 1954 public opinion poll showed that a 59 percent majority actually opposed better relations with China (compared to just 26 percent who supported better relations).¹ Nevertheless, even as their public rhetoric became tougher, the president and secretary sought nonmilitary remedies for the deteriorating state of U.S.-China relations.

For Eisenhower and Dulles, the most appealing approach was one that had attracted policymakers since the creation of the People’s Republic and exile of the Republic of China in 1949: diplomatic relations with two Chinas. Many Americans saw such a strategy as acknowledging reality, freeing them from the untenable fiction that the Chinese Nationalists represented the entire Chinese people. Such a policy would prompt relief in Europe and Japan, where Washington’s position on China had little support.

Eisenhower’s solution to the offshore islands dilemma reflected the logic of Two Chinas as well as a military man’s desire for a clean break, a pragmatic remedy. The president believed that Chiang Kai-shek could be persuaded to relinquish the islands with pledges of support for more important strong points and logical arguments about international opinion and military capabilities.

Two Chinas comprised a familiar reality for American separatists from the British Empire, who in 1776 had created a new entity speaking the same language as Britain and enjoying a comparable culture. The close decades-old friendship between Washington and London attested to the benefits such an arrangement could yield. The possibility of Taiwan’s severance from the mainland became a regular topic of discussion during the Truman years, and John Foster Dulles became a convert to, and champion of, the idea. Its apparent logic and simplicity made it difficult for him and other Americans to understand why the Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait objected. Although most often in disagreement with U.S. policies in the Strait, European governments, especially Britain’s, promoted Two Chinas, hoping thereby to prevent Nationalist leaders from luring the United States into foolhardy military adventures.²

Advocacy of a Two Chinas policy by Eisenhower and Dulles remained low-key but frequent. Dulles recommended it in a draft article for Life magazine in 1953 but dropped it at the advice of Dean Rusk, then president of the Rockefeller Foundation, who believed such an approach was “a fish that wouldn’t swim.”³ Dulles told British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden in 1954 that he saw the Mutual Defense Treaty as an opportunity to detach Taiwan from China.⁴ Eisenhower told the press on January 19, 1955, that dealing with two Chinas was “one of the possibilities that is constantly [being] studied.” Newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal thereupon speculated that inevitably the United States would have to deal with two Chinas.⁵ Dulles urged ROC Foreign Minister George Yeh to accept the reality that Nationalist China, like West Germany and South Korea, must accommodate to being part of a divided nation.⁶ He assured the National Security Council that, although nonrecognition of Beijing remained administration policy, he would deal “with it on a de facto basis when circumstances made this useful.”⁷ In 1956 Dulles even approached former Assistant Secretary of State and Truman administration colleague Dean Rusk and asked him to discuss a new bipartisan China policy with Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Walter George (D-GA) that would be based on Two Chinas.⁸

In China—both Chinas—the American plan was anathema. Success for a Two Chinas approach was never contingent upon security strategies or individual personalities. The fundamental issues were sovereignty, history, and culture. Taipei and Beijing each claimed to rule all of China. Having experienced 100 years of imperialist exploitation, the Chinese nurtured a strong imperative for unity. Beijing and Taipei, at war over every other question, agreed on this. Thus, both parties resented conditions that maintained an unsatisfactory status quo: Washington’s protection for Taiwan made it impossible for Beijing to attack, but its refusal to underwrite mainland recovery thwarted KMT policy as well.

The Nationalist Chinese reacted with dismay and anger to American flirtation with a Two Chinas policy. They had anticipated that the election of Eisenhower and his appointment of Dulles would simplify their relations with the United States and guarantee increased support.⁹ But distrust, refined over long and often unhappy association with Americans, made Kuomintang officials sensitive to the slightest indication that the United States’ China policy might be altered to deal more flexibly with Beijing.¹⁰ When Dulles told Congress and the press that a mainland government that distanced itself from the Soviet Union would be more acceptable, he astonished and alarmed Taipei.¹¹ Ambassador Rankin reported that growing interest in a Two Chinas formula in the United States had seriously undermined morale in Taiwan:

Chiang’s strongest ally in denouncing Two Chinas unsurprisingly was Mao Zedong. Although Mao had mounted the offshore island campaign with the intention of gradually moving toward the liberation of Taiwan, he came to recognize that he could not capture Taiwan in the near term and that Chinese pressure could push it away from the rest of China. In November 1954, the New China News Agency denounced U.S. efforts to “hoodwink world public opinion by arranging for the traitorous Chiang Kai-shek group to ‘quit’ the coastal islands.”¹³ Mao realized that should American compulsion force the Nationalists to pull their troops out, Beijing would have to reach across a 100-mile divide to strike at Chiang rather than being able to challenge him within sight of shore. Thus the Chinese Communists contended that the real problem was Washington’s interference in Chinese internal affairs. Taipei should, they insisted, cooperate directly in negotiations to resolve the issue without Washington’s intimidating participation.¹⁴

Eisenhower, Dulles, and many other Americans clearly did not understand the passion in the issue. Dulles speculated that whereas the Chinese Communists would “never [accept] the alienation of the offshore islands like Jinmen… the Reds might agree to the independence of Formosa.”¹⁵ He and subsequent generations of U.S. policymakers were wrong.

Even as the offshore island crisis encouraged the United States to think more about a Two Chinas policy, Beijing saw it as an opportunity for renewal of dialogue with Washington begun at the Geneva conference. Chinese leaders hoped that the use of force and clear dissatisfaction with American policy would produce a new round of negotiations, defusing the volatile situation in the Strait and dealing with broader issues. Already in meetings with the Burmese prime minister and the Swedish ambassador in February, Zhou had indicated the need for direct conversations with the Americans.¹⁶ In April, he took the opportunity presented by an Afro-Asian meeting of nonaligned states at Bandung, Indonesia, to renew that suggestion. For the Chinese, the Bandung conference meant access to a global forum, improvement of China’s international image, establishment of better relations with other Asian states, and imposition of restraints on U.S. threats to China’s survival.¹⁷ At a Politburo session days before the meeting, Chinese leaders decided to avoid raising divisive issues. Thus when delegates in Bandung voiced their concern about possible fighting in the Strait, Zhou’s response was more than conciliatory in its call for dialogue with Washington.¹⁸

For the United States, the convening of the Bandung conference and the denouement of the Taiwan crisis proved a mixed blessing. The Eisenhower administration welcomed termination of the precarious situation in the Strait—an end that had not required the surrender of Jinmen and Mazu, exchanges of gunfire, or further risk of war. There was also relief that the Chinese had not been able to manipulate the Bandung conferees into providing “a green light to… start violence in the Formosa area.” However, no one could deny that Zhou Enlai’s posture at Bandung had eroded China’s international isolation and that the negotiations necessitated by his proposal would further enhance Beijing’s prestige.

In this way, Bandung was as detrimental as Washington had long anticipated. U.S. officials repeatedly expressed alarm that Bandung would create a vigorous nonaligned movement, build a dynamic anti-colonial/anti-racism coalition, and be a “coming out” party for Beijing, perhaps serving as a platform for China to challenge India’s dominance over the neutralist states.¹⁹ The contemporary dread among Americans of China’s yellow hordes translated into anxiety that, in the competition between Beijing and Washington for the allegiance of the third world’s nonwhite peoples, the United States would surely lose. World War II had expedited a surge toward independence of colonial populations in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. Americans believed that, as they emerged from World War II, they could boast of reasonably good anti-colonial credentials. Franklin Roosevelt had repeatedly emphasized his opposition to the re-imposition of colonial privileges at the end of the conflict, and Washington freed its own Philippine colony voluntarily immediately after the war.

But the Cold War quickly revealed the fragility, and sometime duplicity, of America’s position. Washington listened to its allies when they insisted on retaining colonies to strengthen vulnerable economies and shared concerns that newly liberated, but unprepared, colonials would be defenseless against the international Communist conspiracy. During the 1950s, as liberation progressed, the United States saw itself in constant competition with Communist forces for political and economic loyalties in a wide range of underdeveloped countries.²⁰ China, it seemed certain, hoped to create an Afro-Asian bloc that would force out American business and end political ties to the West.²¹

The State Department convinced itself that the Bandung meeting would be so dangerous it should be prevented. Dulles believed that the organizers were Communist “dupes.” As late as January 1955, he insisted that Washington should not just accept it as inevitable.²²

But inevitable it was, and Washington turned from disrupting the conference to reshaping its results, curbing incipient solidarity among third world peoples, and circumscribing China’s influence.²³ The United States sought to stabilize its dominance over East Asia, preventing autonomous activities that would shut it out, and simultaneously warn against Communist expansion. One vehicle was to encourage pro-U.S. governments to attend and promote favorable policies. Dulles, for instance, urged that they endorse cease-fire resolutions to resolve the Taiwan situation.²⁴ Pakistan and Ceylon (Sri Lanka) even tried to substitute Taiwan for China as representative of the Chinese people.²⁵

Another tactic shifted attention to the China threat and away from European colonialism. Dulles initiated an Operations Coordinating Board special task force on Bandung to prepare propaganda highlighting Soviet and Chinese “aggression and imperialism.”²⁶ At least one official at the United States Information Agency, who was not above using scurrilous racist tactics, proposed playing on the “dislike and fear” that countries throughout the world entertained for the Chinese “because they are Chinese rather than because they are Communists.”²⁷ That Beijing should be allowed to present itself as a peacemaker seemed abhorrent, and the probability that its new posture would lull many nations of the free world into passivity and carelessness frightened the administration.

In the end, Zhou’s use of the Bandung forum to call upon Washington to talk, and the enthusiastic response he evoked from countries both neutral and allied with the United States, made his initiative inescapable.²⁸ As William Sebald, the acting assistant secretary of state for Far Eastern affairs, observed, Zhou’s

The United States had been surprised by Zhou’s resourcefulness and the virtually unavoidable prospect of direct talks with China. The president and the secretary worried that being seen to deal with the Red Chinese on a routine, if not friendly, basis would indicate to susceptible Asian states either that Beijing need no longer be feared or, more critically, that the United States placed its own national interests ahead of the security of the region. The result could be disillusionment with U.S. principles and loyalties, an increased willingness to open relations with China, greater opportunity for Chinese subversion, and the collapse of American efforts to keep China a pariah outside the international system. Ambassador Rankin insisted that Asians saw the talks as “de facto recognition of Red China and proof positive of American determination to reach a general accommodation with the communists at almost any cost.”³⁰

More immediate was the threat at home. Eisenhower and Dulles did not want to be seen as having capitulated to Chinese pressure regardless of what the president or secretary might see as a desirable future for Sino-American relations. Criticism would flow from Congress, China watchers, and even from within the executive branch. To mollify Chiang supporters, the White House responded by insisting that Taiwan must attend all meetings.

Dulles, however, wanted to engage with China. Less worried about Taiwan’s equities, he rejected a posture that amounted to rebuffing Zhou’s proposal. The secretary also decided to ignore the China Lobby’s denunciation against dealing directly with the communist Chinese, although Senator William Knowland (R-CA) accused the administration of inviting “another Munich.” Moreover, Dulles actually drafted a letter to Zhou in which the secretary welcomed the latter’s Bandung remarks and emphasized Washington’s peaceful intentions as well as its hope to negotiate with a similarly inclined Beijing. That letter never was sent, but Dulles’s desire to seize the moment did not disappear.³¹

Among the general public, opinion favored negotiation. According to a Gallup poll, by a five to one margin respondents welcomed the opening for arranging a peaceful settlement despite having to work directly with Red China.³² On the eve of the talks, press comment suggested a mixture of satisfaction and trepidation. The New York Times warned that Chinese Communist leaders hoped to maneuver the United States out of the Pacific and themselves into the UN, and the Washington Post cautioned against appeasement. Conversely, the Washington Post and the Christian Science Monitor observed that the administration, having for the first time used the title the People’s Republic of China, might be ready for more enlightened policies in the future.³³

Dulles also got support in Congress, although initially from Democrats, not Republicans. Democratic leaders of the 84th Congress, including Walter George and Lyndon Johnson, offered cooperation on the China question even though they could have tried to thwart the Republican administration.³⁴ Not until May 1st did twelve leading Senate Republicans come forward to back the talks.

The exchanges that followed demonstrated that there would be no simple path to better Sino-American relations. The United States agreed to raise the talks from consular to ambassadorial level. When Beijing released American detainees, the administration minimized negative comments on their imprisonment so as not to jeopardize the talks.³⁵ Dulles also urged Ambassador U. Alexis Johnson to keep negotiations going and the door ajar.³⁶ Dulles told his staff that “direct contacts are less dangerous than ineffectual intermediary activities… [which can misrepresent] what the Chinese Communists really think or vice versa.”³⁷ He personally reviewed instruction to the U.S. delegation line by line.³⁸ Dulles simultaneously saw the talks as a mechanism for entangling the Chinese in exchanges that would lessen the possibility of military confrontation and favored the bilateral forum as a way to keep China from further international exposure in a multinational meeting such as that suggested by Moscow on several occasions in 1955.³⁹

Administration defensiveness about going forward with the talks meant that the issues it put on the table for resolution never posed a true challenge to a dysfunctional status quo. The agenda was either too narrow or too broad: seeking the release of Americans still held by the Chinese and the renunciation of the use of force in the Strait.⁴⁰ Repatriation made the idea of talks acceptable since it meant the freeing of Americans held in Chinese prisons. As for the renouncing of force to recover Taiwan, Dulles did not expect agreement. On the other hand, if China complied he was prepared to reshape relations by reducing American troops on the island and modifying trade restrictions.⁴¹ In the interim, when the Chinese raised other subjects, American representatives listened but refused to engage or concur even on minor points.⁴²

Beijing’s approach was far more expansive than Washington’s. China seized on the talks as an opportunity to examine a wide range of outstanding Sino-American disputes. Anxious to begin a process that would reduce the U.S. threat to China’s security as well as obtain positive international publicity, Chinese leaders moved to release Americans accused of espionage on the eve of the first meeting and were willing temporarily to set aside Taiwan and tackle trade or cultural issues in order to ameliorate tensions. Having established their strength and determination through the offshore island shelling, Chinese leaders believed they had expanded the ground for exchange. Zhou voiced optimism and placed two trusted officials in charge of a task force to advise the negotiating delegation.⁴³

Beijing sent as its representative Wang Bingnan, who thought of Americans as “frank, open, lively, and easygoing,” having had considerable experience, dating from the 1930s, in dealing with them.⁴⁴ Wang and his American counterpart, Alexis Johnson, grew to like and respect one another and, in stark contrast to the hostile Korean armistice talks at Panmunjom, attempted to relax the atmosphere by informal get-togethers. Johnson insisted to Assistant Secretary Robertson that Wang, while tough, was not unreasonable and that China could not be expected to meet all of Washington’s demands instantly.⁴⁵ Wang made clear to Johnson that the American and Chinese economies were complementary and that China wanted to buy goods like automobiles, which were better made than the Russian variety, and send students to the United States.⁴⁶

To expedite change, China urged the United States to upgrade the conversations to the foreign minister level, in a request echoed by some members of the U.S. Congress, including Senator George, who also favored recognition and a Dulles-Zhou meeting.⁴⁷ Subsequent Chinese delays in freeing captive Americans could be traced directly to their disappointment in Washington’s refusal to consider a meeting between Dulles and Zhou, its unwillingness to respond constructively to the Chinese agenda, and its demand that Beijing renounce the use of force in the Taiwan Strait.⁴⁸

Although it could not liberate Taiwan militarily so long as the Seventh Fleet remained in the area, the People’s Republic refused to make an explicit pledge not to employ force. China’s representative insisted that using force to recover Taiwan would be a matter of national sovereignty not subject to international scrutiny or prohibitions. U.S. troops present in Taiwan, by contrast, were occupiers and must be withdrawn.⁴⁹

In fact, China came closer to renouncing the use of force in this period than it would again until 1978. But the United States did not respond, allowing suspicion of the Chinese and the pressure of internal politics to block progress. In late July, for instance, on the eve of talks Zhou delivered a speech suggesting that the liberation of Taiwan would be carried out so far as possible through peaceful means.⁵⁰ Moreover, in December, at the ambassadorial talks Beijing’s Wang told Johnson that “although Taiwan [is an] internal matter… [China was] willing [to] settle that question by peaceful means.”⁵¹ In 1956 China remained interested in improving relations with the United States. In January it appeared to consider the idea of mentioning Taiwan in a renunciation-of-force statement. Simultaneously, Zhou announced that Beijing was willing to begin direct talks with Taipei regarding peaceful reunification, and an exchange of secret envoys followed.⁵² On June 29th, Zhou declared that “the possibility of peacefully liberating Taiwan is increasing… because international tensions are definitely easing.”⁵³

In not one of these cases did Washington seize China’s remarks as an opening, however modest, to be explored or exploited. Indeed, Dulles instead bragged about the effectiveness of brinksmanship in an ill-conceived interview in Life magazine on U.S. strategic doctrine. Dulles alluded to three occasions when the United States had contemplated using atomic bombs against China, outraging the Chinese, who declared U.S. rhetoric about a renunciation of force in the Strait rank hypocrisy.⁵⁴ As James Reston noted in the New York Times, Dulles “doesn’t stumble into booby traps: he digs them to size, studies them carefully, and then jumps.”⁵⁵

Thus Sino-American contacts, especially the ambassadorial talks, which had begun with excitement and some hope, became stilted and unproductive. After the agreement repatriating Americans and Chinese reached on September 10, 1955, at Geneva, no further formal accords followed. Each side on occasion proved slightly more flexible, but the moments of tractability never coincided. Before the end of 1956, a deadlock had developed, and the possibility of ending the talks loomed. Ralph Clough, who attended and wrote instructions for the meetings, recalled, “it got so that really the only thing we’d agree on… was the date for the next meeting.”⁵⁶ British officials who had encouraged the Americans to meet with the Chinese unhappily concluded that little more would result.⁵⁷

For months thereafter, Americans and Chinese nevertheless held on to the form, if not the substance, of discussion. U.S. officials believed that China was using some prisoners as bargaining chips to keep the talks going.⁵⁸ Zhou Enlai told the Third Plenary Session of the National People’s Congress in June 1956 that “the United States attempted to indefinitely prolong the talks in order to freeze the status quo of the Taiwan situation.”⁵⁹ Above all each side sought to blame the other if the talks collapsed, so both endured the unproductive prepared statements and the tedious repetition of arguments. When the Chinese ignored U.S. objections and raised questions about the trade embargo and the granting of visas for travel to China, the United States just did not respond.

Before the end of 1957, things fell apart. Mao Zedong decided that a tougher stance against U.S. threats was vital and abandoned Beijing’s conciliatory posture. At the same time, he jettisoned the whole idea that Communism and capitalism could coexist peacefully.⁶⁰

The United States, no more happy about the direction of talks, scuttled any prospect of near-term change with its response to bureaucratic necessity. Alexis Johnson’s ambassadorial tenure in Eastern Europe was expiring, leaving Washington with the choice of extending his assignment, appointing a new ambassadorial representative, or dropping exchanges below the ambassadorial level. Dulles somewhat reluctantly opted for the latter, which Robertson argued would show U.S. unhappiness with Beijing’s continued detention of Americans and failure to renounce the use of force.⁶¹ It also predictably disrupted the talks, although Dulles cautioned it should not end them. Dulles could, had he wanted to scuttle the talks entirely, have named Karl Rankin to deal with the Red Chinese. Rankin had not merely been ambassador to the ROC but was invariably an outspoken proponent of Chiang’s cause. This Dulles did not do, but he certainly angered Beijing. Edwin Martin, who was named the new, lower-level, representative to Warsaw, remarked later, “I don’t know whether they honestly thought in Washington that the Chinese would accept the downgrading of the talks; I never thought they would.”⁶²

Eisenhower, upon becoming president, found that resolving the China problem would be difficult and time consuming. The president knew he faced a determined adversary in Mao, who dominated the mainland, had appreciable popular support, and was committed to Communism. He also understood that he was in a struggle with his own ally, Chiang Kai-shek, a tenacious man whose agenda was quite different from his own. Under such conditions, Eisenhower maneuvered cautiously, not coming as close to the brink of war as many historians have argued, although he was surrounded by advisers who were willing to take much greater risks with U.S. security than was he. Indeed, Eisenhower hoped to find a diplomatic solution to his problems with China through a Two Chinas policy and, when necessary, ambassadorial talks with Beijing. Ultimately, these efforts failed, and friction between Washington and Beijing continued, especially in the Taiwan Strait, where further confrontations erupted in 1958, 1962, and 1995–1996.

The 1954–1955 Strait confrontation nevertheless had a significant impact on Eisenhower’s policies. First, the use of nuclear threats and their apparent repeated success (in Korea as well as the Taiwan Strait) inflated expectations of what nuclear capabilities could accomplish. Eisenhower and Dulles congratulated themselves on the wisdom of their defense policy, the New Look, with its reliance on brinksmanship and massive retaliation.⁶³ Second, Eisenhower expanded presidential power with the Formosa Resolution. Not only did this measure marginalize Congress in the Taiwan Strait, surrendering its power to declare war on China, it also set a precedent for later abdications of congressional authority, such as the Vietnam War–era Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which gave Lyndon Johnson discretion to use force against armed attack and aggression when he saw fit. And third, Eisenhower and Dulles signed a long-lasting alliance with Chiang Kai-shek, entangling Washington ever more deeply in the Chinese civil war.

The crisis, fourth, made U.S. diplomatic dealings with China a reality. The ambassadorial talks, which the administration entered into hesitantly, became an enduring feature of Sino-American relations until normalization in the 1970s. Although not a link affording a frank exchange of views or facilitating problem solving, the talks provided an important venue at which Washington and Beijing regularly interacted in ways enjoyed by few other governments.

Finally, Washington came to understand, if not yet accept, that its effort to keep China out of the UN was doomed. The explosiveness of the cross-Strait situation strengthened the conviction of increasing numbers of states that for international security and stability Beijing must be admitted to the UN. To them it seemed obvious that China should be subject to the UN Charter and its peacemaking mechanisms.

Simultaneously, as Eisenhower and Dulles had feared, the Strait crisis led Mao to conclude that confrontation could be useful in heightening China’s prestige. Beijing proved it was strong enough to confront Washington and emerge intact. It could defend its national interests and define its sovereignty. It succeeded in compelling the United States to engage in ambassadorial talks, and at Bandung, Zhou Enlai used the nonaligned movement to break out of U.S. efforts to isolate Beijing. The international community would in the future have to pay greater attention to China.

Mao also decided to commit his resources to development of an atomic bomb so that China could avoid being subjected again to nuclear blackmail. Beijing had closely followed Eisenhower’s public statements regarding the New Look policy, with its emphasis on nuclear weapons. China’s leaders watched U.S. atomic testing in the Pacific during 1954, including the dramatic detonation at Bikini Atoll that killed one Japanese fisherman, sickened twenty-two others, and shook U.S. relations with Japan.⁶⁴ By 1954 Mao no longer dismissed atomic weapons as paper tigers as he had in 1947—that is, as an apparently devastating threat that would in reality be harmless—having learned about the actual power of the bombs. Suddenly with confrontation in the Strait, China emerged as a potential target, although the United States did not issue an explicit warning until that spring. By the time the Politburo met for a final determination on a program in mid-January 1955, the United States had nuclear-capable carrier battle groups deployed in the East China Sea. A Chinese nuclear program, then, proved a direct response to an inchoate American threat, rendering defense of the tiny offshore islands very costly.⁶⁵

The Strait crisis also contributed significantly to the eventual rupture of Sino-Soviet relations, a development much anticipated by Eisenhower and Dulles. Mao turned to, and got help from, Moscow, initially strengthening Sino-Soviet ties in a sensitive arena. But China also found itself unable to secure a timely public pledge from Moscow that, were the United States to bomb China, the Soviet Union would attack American soil with nuclear weapons in retaliation.⁶⁶ As McGeorge Bundy observed in retrospect, “this may be the high-water mark of third-party arrogance in the nuclear age.”⁶⁷ For the president and the secretary, the tell-tale signs of Sino-Soviet tension suggested opportunities to improve relations with one of the Communist contenders as they labored to avoid further dangerous clashes in Asia.