The Cold War -Asia

• Cold War


  Somewhat slower to make its appearance in Asia
• Yalta agreement


  1. Stalin formally agreed to enter the Pacific War against Japan three months after the close of the conflict with Germany

  2. Roosevelt promised that Moscow would be granted "preeminent interests" in Manchuria and be allowed to establish a Soviet naval base at Port Arthur

  3. Stalin promised to sign a treaty of alliance with the Republic of China, committing to not aid the Chinese Communists in a future civil war
• Truman administration


  Reluctant to get embodied in a confrontation with Moscow over the unfolding events in East Asia
• US tried to avoid deeper involvement in China


  By brokering a compromise agreement between Chiang Kai-Shek and Mao Zedong
• The root of The Chinese Civil War was in the weakness of Chiang's regime
• As World War II came to an end in the Pacific, relations between the government of Chiang Kai-Shek in China and its powerful US ally had become frayed
• Roosevelt's plan


  For republican China to be the keystone of his plan for peace and stability in Asia after the war
• US officials became disillusioned with the corruption of Chiang's government and his unwillingness to risk his forces against the Japanese
• Chiang Kai-Shek wanted to save his military to fight against the Chinese Communists once the war ended
• Communists in northern China

  • Carried out a "mass line" policy where they responded to the needs of the mass population by reducing land rents and confiscating the lands of the wealthy
• By the end of World War II, 20 to 30 million Chinese were living under the administration of the Communists, and their People's Liberation Army (PLA) included nearly one million troops
• Members of the US liaison team stationed in Yan'an were impressed by the performance of the Communists, and some recommended that the US should support them or at least remain neutral in possible conflict between Communists and Nationalists for control of China
• The Truman administration, though skeptical of Chiang's ability to forge a strong and prosperous country, was increasingly concerned about the spread of communism in Europe and tried to find a peaceful solution through the formation of a coalition government of all parties in China
• By 1946, full-scale war between the Nationalist government and the Communists resumed
• Initially, most of the fighting took place in Manchuria, where newly arrived Communist Units began to surround Nationalist forces occupying the major cities
• In the countryside, millions of peasants, attracted to the Communists by promises of land and social justice, flocked to serve in Mao Zedong's PLA
• In the cities, middle-class Chinese, normally hostile to communism, were alienated by Chiang's brutal suppression of all dissent and his government's inability to slow the ruinous rate of inflation or solve the economic problems it caused
• By the end of 1947, almost all of Manchuria was under Communist control
• With morale dropping in the cities, Chiang's troops began to defect to the Communists
• By 1948, the PLA was advancing south out of Manchuria and had encircled Beijing
• Communist troops took the old imperial capital, crossed the Yangtze the following spring, and occupied the commercial hub of Shanghai
• During the next few months, Chiang's government and 2 million of his followers fled to Taiwan, which the Japanese had returned to Chinese control after World War II
• With the Communist victory in China, Asia became a major theater of the Cold War and an integral element in American politics
• In a white paper issued by the State Department in the fall of 1949, the Truman administration placed most of the blame for the debacle on Chiang Kai-Shek's regime
• Republicans in Congress, however, disagreed. They believed Roosevelt had betrayed Chiang Kai-Shek at Yalta by giving Russia privileges in Manchuria
• In their view, the Soviet troops had hindered the dispatch of Nationalist forces to the area and provided the PLA with weapons to use against their rivals
• In later years, it was determined that the Soviets gave little assistance to the Chinese Communists
• Communist leaders in China, from their new capital of Beijing, probably hoped that their accession to power in 1949 would bring about an era of peace in the region and permit their new government to concentrate on domestic goals
• But the desire for peace was tempered by their determination to erase a century of humiliation at the hands of imperialist powers and to restore the traditional outer frontiers of the empire
• In addition to recovering territories that had been part of the Manchu Empire, such as Manchuria, Taiwan, and Tibet, the Chinese leaders also hoped to restore Chinese influence in former tributary areas such as Korea and Vietnam
• Negotiations between Mao and Stalin, held in Moscow in January 1950, led to Soviet recognition of Chinese sovereignty over Manchuria and Xinjiang
• But the Soviets retained a measure of economic influence in both areas
• Chinese troops occupied Tibet in 1950 and brought it under Chinese administration
• But in Korea and Taiwan, China's efforts to recreate the imperial buffer zone provoked new conflicts with foreign powers
• Tensions between the US and China escalated during the winter of 1949-1950 as the US began to argue that Taiwan was crucial to US defense strategy in the Pacific
• Korea

  After the Sino-Japanese War in 1894-1895, Korea (a Chinese tributary state) had fallen increasingly under the rival influences of Japan and Russia
• After the Japanese defeated the Russians in 1905, Korea became an integral part of the Japanese Empire and remained so until 1945
• The removal of Korea from Japanese control had been one of the stated objectives of the Allies in World War II
• When Japan surrendered in 1945, the Soviet Union and the US agreed to divide the country into two separate occupation zones at the 38th parallel
• They originally planned to hold national elections after the restoration of peace to reunify Korea under an independent government