versities between 1900 and 1920; and 5,500 did so between 1920 and 1940.
They studied in 370 institutions and tended to major in such practical sub-
jects as engineering and business. They returned to China as a new elite in
Chinese business, academic, and government circles. 62
Chapter Three
Relations during World War II,
Civil War, Cold War
US-CHINA RELATIONS DURING WORLD WAR II
AND CHINA’S CIVIL WAR
US Interests, Actions, and Perceptions
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor thrust the United States into a leader-
ship position in China and in global affairs. American debates over interna-
tional involvement and the long-standing US reluctance to assume costs and
risks of leadership were put aside. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his
war cabinet enjoyed broad domestic support as they mobilized millions of
American combatants and enormous contributions of equipment and treasure
in working with and leading Allied powers in the largest war the world has
ever seen. The coalition eventually defeated the Axis powers. US leaders and
interests focused on effectively fighting the massive worldwide conflict and
dealing with issues that would determine the postwar international order.
The United States emerged as the most important foreign power in China.
However, waging war in China and dealing with complications there, notably
the bitter rivalry between Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist forces and the Com-
munist forces under the direction of Mao Zedong, received secondary atten-
tion. Circumstances in China contrary to American plans and expectations
also repeatedly forced US leaders to adjust strategies. 1
Early American assessments that China would provide strong forces and
reliable bases for the defeat of Japan proved unrealistic given the many
weaknesses of Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist armies, the inability of the
United States to supply and train large numbers of Chinese forces on account
of Japan’s control of the main surface routes of supply, and the primacy
37
38
Chapter 3
Chiang’s Nationalists (KMT) and Mao’s Communists (CCP) gave to their
struggle with one another. The United States shifted focus to defeating Japan
by advancing through the Pacific Islands; it strove to keep China in the war
as a means to tie down the one million Japanese soldiers deployed to the
country. 2
The turning tide of the war with Japan caused US planners to look beyond
generalities about China’s leading role as a partner of the United States in
postwar Asia to the realities of preparations for civil war in China possibly
involving the United States and Soviet Union on opposite sides. Debate
among US officials about how to deal with the Chinese Nationalists and the
Chinese Communists and the postwar order in China eventually led to direct
US arrangements with the Soviet Union, notably those negotiated at the
Yalta conference of February 1945, and continued American support for
Chiang’s Nationalist government. In this context, US leaders encouraged
negotiations and mediated between the Chinese Nationalists and Chinese
Communists in order to avoid civil war and shore up China’s position as a
power in Asia friendly to the United States. 3
Though they were repeatedly and deeply disappointed with the weak-
nesses and corruption of the Nationalist Chinese government, American offi-
cials tended to follow paths of least resistance when dealing with the dispute
between the Chinese Nationalists and the Chinese Communists. US actions
and policy choices reinforced existing American proclivities to back Chiang
Kai-shek’s Nationalists, who continued to enjoy broad political support in
the United States. They avoided the difficult US policy reevaluation that
would have been required for US leaders to position the United States in a
more balanced posture in order to deal constructively with the Chinese Com-
munists as well as the Chinese Nationalists. Though some American officials
pushed for a more balanced US approach, others were suspicious of the
Communists on ideological grounds and because of their ties to the USSR.
There also was skepticism about the strength and prospects of the Commu-
nist forces. In the end, it appeared that moving American policy from support
for Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists would be too costly for American interest
in shoring up a postwar Chinese government friendly to the United States.
The drift and bias in US policy, strengthened by interventions of important
US officials such as US presidential envoy and ambassador to China Patrick
Hurley, foreshadowed the US failure in China once the Communists defeated
the Chinese Nationalists on mainland China in 1949 and moved in early 1950
to align with the Soviet Union against the United States in the Cold War. 4
Chinese Interests, Actions, and Perceptions
Having survived with enormous cost and deprivation four years of war with
Japan, Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist government were relieved as the
Relations during World War II, Civil War, Cold War
39
United States entered the war with Japan in 1941. The eventual defeat and
collapse of the Japanese empire seemed likely. The Nationalist government
was prepared to cooperate with its new US ally in the war effort against
Japan, but repeatedly it showed greater interest in using US supplies and
support in order to prepare to deal with the opposing Communist forces and
securing Nationalist leadership in postwar China. Chiang Kai-shek and his
lieutenants sought to maximize the material, training, financial, and political support from the United States, while fending off repeated US requests for
greater contributions by Nationalist armies in the war effort against Japan.
When US officials in China repeatedly became frustrated with the lackluster
support of the war effort from what was often seen as a corrupt, repressive,
and narrowly self-serving Nationalist Chinese government, Chiang and his
allies tried to outmaneuver them through such means as appeals to top US
leaders and special US envoys sent to China, lobbying in Washington, and
thinly veiled warnings that the Nationalists might seek accommodation with
Japan. 5
The Nationalists also resisted efforts by US officials in China to open
direct American communication with and possible support for the Chinese
Communist forces. Furthermore, Chiang and his government fended off re-
peated US calls for greater reform and accountability in the Chinese Nation-
alist government. They accommodated US mediation efforts to bridge the
divide between the Nationalists and Communists. They found strong com-
mon ground with US mediator Patrick Hurley. US mediator George Marshall
was much more critical of Chiang Kai-shek and Nationalist policies and
actions. The Nationalists appeared to have little choice but to grudgingly go
along with the humiliating arrangements imposed on them as a result of US-
USSR negotiations at Yalta. Their future depended on preserving US sup-
port. They strove to continue this support without conditions that would
The Chinese Communists under the leadership of Mao Zedong had strong
and well-developed ideological and foreign policy leanings opposed to US
policy in China and US leadership in world affairs. Their connections with
the Soviet Union and the influence of the USSR on their approach to the
United States also were significant. They endorsed the twists and turns of
Soviet maneuvers in the early years of the war, and they followed Moscow’s
lead in an overall positive approach to the United States as it entered the war in 1941. 7
Probably more important in Chinese Communist calculations were the
realities of power in China. Like Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists, the Com-
munists under Mao foresaw the eventual defeat of Japan at the hands of the
United States. The United States rapidly became the predominant power in
East Asia, and in China it brought its power, influence, and aid to bear solely on the side of Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists, who were determined to sub-
40
Chapter 3
ordinate and suppress the Communists. For CCP leaders, there was a serious
likelihood that the United States, because of growing association with Chi-
ang Kai-shek, might use its enormous power against the CCP during the
anticipated Chinese civil war following Japan’s defeat. 8
To counter this prospect, the Communists had the option of looking to
their Soviet ally for support. But Moscow at that time was showing little
interest in defending CCP interests against a challenge by US-backed Nation-
alist forces. The Communists saw that only at great risk could they ignore the
change that had taken place in the balance of forces in China. Seeking to
keep the United States from becoming closely aligned with Chiang Kai-shek
against CCP interests, the Communists decided to take steps on their own to
ensure that Washington would adopt a more evenhanded position. They
strove to put aside historical difficulties with the United States and soft-
pedaled ideological positions that might alienate Washington as they sought
talks with US officials in order to arrive at a power arrangement that would
better serve CCP interests in China. 9
The United States chose to rebuff the Communist initiatives, leaving the
CCP facing the likelihood of confrontation with a strong US-backed KMT
army at the end of the Pacific war. Fortunately for the CCP, Moscow built its
strength in East Asia during the final months of the war and the period
following Japan’s defeat, and the United States rapidly withdrew its forces
from East Asia at the war’s end. Later in the 1940s, the Communists obtained
more support from the USSR, leading eventually to the Sino-Soviet alliance
of 1950. Meanwhile, the Communist forces grew in strength while the larger
Nationalist forces suffered from significant weaknesses including poor lead-
ership and morale, paving the way to Communist victory against the US-
supported Nationalists in 1949. 10
Encounters and Interaction in the 1940s
It is hard to imagine a decade of more consequence for modern China and its
relations with the United States than the 1940s. The US entry into World War
II marked the beginning of the end of Japanese aggression in China and the
Asia-Pacific. The stalemate between Japanese forces occupying the more
well-developed eastern regions of China and the Chinese Nationalists and
Chinese Communist forces holding out in China’s interior eventually broke
and ended under the pressure of the US-led war effort against imperial Japan.
The end of the Japanese occupation of China opened the way to Chinese civil
war and resolution of the decades-long conflict between Chinese Nationalist
and Chinese Communist forces. As the leading foreign power in China, the
United States wielded its influence in ways seen to accord with US interests
and goals. At bottom, the US actions and policies did not mesh well with
realities in China. The result by the end of the decade was a massive failure
Relations during World War II, Civil War, Cold War
41
of US efforts to establish a strong China, friendly to the United States, in
postwar Asia. 11
The China theater was a secondary concern in the overall war effort, as
the United States first focused on defeating Adolf Hitler and the Nazi-led
forces in Europe. Initial expectations that China could be built up and play an active strategic role in the war effort, with Chinese armies under Chiang Kai-shek’s leadership pushing back the Japanese and allowing China to become a
staging area for attack on Japan, proved unrealistic. Chiang’s Nationalist
armies were weak, and the Americans were unable to provide large amounts
of military equipment because Japan cut off surface routes to Nationalist-
held areas of China. US strategists turned to an approach of island-hopping in
the Pacific, with US-led forces coming from the south and east of Japan,
taking island positions in step-by-step progress toward the Japanese home
islands. The role for the Chinese armies in this strategy mainly was to stay in the war and keep the many hundreds of thousands of Japanese forces in
China tied down and unable to reinforce Japanese positions elsewhere. 12
The United States recognized Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese National-
ist government as China’s representative in war deliberations and insisted
that Chiang’s China would be one of the great powers that would lead world
affairs in the postwar era. President Roosevelt strongly supported China’s
leading role and met with Chiang Kai-shek and British prime minister Wins-
ton Churchill at an Allied conference in Cairo in 1943 that determined,
among other things, that territories Japan had taken from China would be
restored to China. US aid in China flowed exclusively to Chiang and his
officials. The commanding American general in the China theater, Joseph
Stilwell, was appointed as Chiang Kai-shek’s chief of staff. American con-
tact with and understanding of the rival Chinese Communists were minimal.
Mao Zedong’s forces were cut off from American and other contact by a
blockade maintained by Nationalist Chinese forces. There were American
contacts with the Chinese Communist liaison office allowed in the Chinese
wartime capital of Chungking. 13
Chiang Kai-shek welcomed American support but constantly complained
that it was insufficient. General Stilwell and many other US officials in
China were appalled by what they saw in the poor governance of the Chinese
Nationalist leadership, and the unwillingness of Chiang and his lieutenants to
use US assistance against Japan as they focused on building capabilities to
deal with the Chinese Communists. Stilwell and his American staff were
interested in establishing relations with the Chinese Communist forces, who
seemed more willing to fight Japan. Chiang resisted these American lean-
ings. 14
Despite widespread dissatisfaction with Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese
Nationalist government on the part of many American officials as well as
media and other nongovernment American observers in China, Chiang Kai-
42
Chapter 3
shek maintained a positive public image in the United States. Publicists such
as Henry Luce, who used Time and Life magazines, continued to laud the leadership of the courageous leader of China in the face of Japanese aggression. President Roosevelt’s personal emissary to China, Lauchlin Currie,
traveled to China in 1941 and again in 1942. He advised the US president to
follow policies of strong support for Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese Na-
tionalists: The Chungking government should be treated as a “great power”;
Chiang should be given greater economic and military support and should be
encouraged to reform. In Currie’s view and the views of other US officials in
Washington, close US cooperation with Chiang would promote cooperation
within China and ensure a more effective struggle against Japan. While Pres-
ident Roosevelt’s private calculations regarding Chiang Kai-shek and the
situation in China remain subject to interpretation, his actions and statements generally adhered to this kind of positive American orientation toward Nationalist China. 15
Emblematic of broader support for the Chiang administration in the Unit-
ed States was the positive reception given to Madame Chiang Kai-shek when
she toured the United States from November 1942 to May 1943. In February
1943 she delivered a stirring speech to the US Congress. She appealed for
more American aid and higher US priority to the war effort in China. Roose-
velt and his war planners were unwilling to change their focus on defeating
Germany first, but the US Congress took steps to redress the grossly discrim-
inatory US immigration policies against China. In 1943 it acknowledged
China as an ally and amended exclusion provisions to permit 105 Chinese to
immigrate annually. Initial steps also were taken to amend the various treaty
provisions between the United States and China that supported unequal rela-
tions that were offensive to Chinese nationalism. In 1943 the administration
signed a treaty surrendering American extraterritorial rights in China, and the Senate readily agreed. 16
Some influential US military leaders, notably General Claire Chennault
of the American Volunteer Group (“Flying Tigers”) and the Army Air Force,
US-China Relations (3rd Ed) Page 7