Asian Crises

• China


  • World's most populous state
  • Economically backward
  • Fairly weak in global affairs throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries
• Chinese Revolution


  1. Civil War between Nationalists led by Chiang Kai-Shek and Communists led by Mao Zedong

  2. Mao developed his revolutionary ideas from Lenin

  3. Peasants rather than the workers were seen as the revolutionary class

  4. Guerrilla warfare tactics used
• The US backs the Nationalists


  The USSR supports the Communists
• The Nationalists defeat in 1949 came as a shock to US leaders
• Treaty of Friendship


  Treaty aimed to cement the alliance between the USSR and the PRC
• USSR support to PRC


  • $300m in loans (at a high interest rate)
  • 20,000 experts to help China's economy to modernise
• USSR gained


  • Ports of Dalian and Lushun
  • Access to cheap mineral resources
• China wanted USSR's support


  As it feared a US attack and/or a return of the Nationalist forces now on the island of Taiwan
• Korea


  • Divided between the Communist North under Kim Il-Sung, and the US backed non-Communist South led by Syngman Rhee
  • Both believed in the long term they should unify the Korean peninsula under their rule
• The establishment of communist rule in China in 1949


  Suggested that communism was "on the march"
• The US backed South Korea

  But did not do so strongly (e.g. withholding heavy weapons like tanks and aircraft)
• Stalin granted Kim Il-Sung


  His support to invade South Korea
• Escalating tensions in the Korean War


  1. 1950 – The initial invasion. US send combat troops to support South Korea

  2. Oct 1950 – UN landings at Inchon forced N Korean to withdraw north

  3. Nov 1950 – 200k Chinese "volunteers" cross the Yalu river and force UN forces to retreat

  4. US forces were now directly fighting those of the PRC

  5. In March 1951 the UN commander Douglas MacArthur publicly suggested attacking China, potentially using nuclear weapons

  6. 1951 - Tensions declined as the war became a stalemate
• Vietnam


  • French colony up to 1954
  • The Viet Minh, a nationalist and communist movement led by Ho Chi Minh, resisted French rule
  • US provided weapons and other support to French as part of containment strategy
  • French defeat at Dien Bien Phu led to decision to withdraw
  • Geneva Agreement involving the US, USSR and Britain as well as Vietnam and France agreed to French withdrawal from Indochina, Laos would be neutral, Vietnam would be split along the 17th parallel with a communist north and US backed south