10.2 Chiang Kai-shek inspects the island of Quemoy, ca. 1954. The first offshore island crisis contributed unwittingly to a mutual defense pact between Taipei and Washington, which led to legalizing an islands-rooted Nationalist Chinese state. (Courtesy of the KMT Party History Institute)
Back in Taipei, Chiang and his top officials were kept totally in the dark about Oracle and the U.S. decision to begin treaty negotiations. On the evening of October 12, when the flight carrying Robertson arrived in Taiwan, Chiang was still in the midst of his retreat outside Taipei.57 The following day, in a three-round discussion packed into twenty-four hours, Chiang fully demonstrated his opportunist-cum-nationalist nature in dealing with his American patrons. He first objected vigorously to the Oracle scheme to be presented by New Zealand in the United Nations, deeming such a move detrimental to the morale of his people and government. The internationalization of cross-Strait issues was the last thing Chiang wanted. Chiang then exclaimed that he had ordered his troops on the offshore islands to fight to the last man, with or without U.S. assistance. When Robertson stated that Oracle combined with a mutual defense pact would surely improve the position of Nationalist China, an alert Chiang immediately caught the message and changed his tune. He replied that the prospect of a defense pact would definitely have a bearing on his evaluation of the UN scheme. If implementing Oracle was inevitable, Chiang urged that a formal announcement of an intention by Washington and Taipei to negotiate a defense pact should precede the New Zealand move so that any harmful effects of Oracle could be mitigated.58
A week later, George Yeh, Chiang’s foreign minister, was in Washington for the treaty discussion with his counterparts from the State Department. The Communist bombardment of the Dachens off Zhejiang on November 1, and the resultant issues surrounding the Nationalist withdrawal from these offshore outposts and the hitherto undecided U.S. responsibilities and roles in defending the islands, all made the conclusion of a defense treaty urgent and opportune.59 During the lengthy process of negotiation, three things emerged as the main points of contention between the two sides, over which Washington ultimately got the upper hand.
The first was the definition of the territorial scope of U.S. military commitments in the treaty. George Yeh tried to avoid specifying only Taiwan and the Pescadores so as to avoid giving the impression that the Nationalist territory was limited to these two island regions and did not include the mainland. Dulles refused to consent. He was only willing to state that the treaty would be “applicable to such other territories [than Taiwan and the Pescadores] as may be determined by mutual agreement.”60 Yeh conceded, after obtaining approval from Chiang Kai-shek, who actually did not mind much about the wording and instead was satisfied overall with the terms proposed by Dulles.61
The second point was the limitation of Nationalist military operations. To underscore that the pact provided for a Nationalist military that was purely defensive, the State Department insisted that, without mutual consent, the Nationalists would not take any offensive action that might provoke retaliation by the Chinese Communists. George Yeh argued that, for psychological reasons, Chiang Kai-shek had consistently tried to avoid subscribing to any public statement committing him not to retake the mainland or take part in an anti-Communist campaign without U.S. approval. The Chinese people in Taiwan were not prepared for an open renunciation of the nominal right of the Nationalist government to liberate the mainland; and it would be difficult to present a surrender of Nationalist independence of action in a form acceptable to the Chinese people. As the State Department continued to hold its ground, Taipei again backed down, only requesting that the provision be made secret so as not to cause any damage to the morale of Free China.62
The third point of disagreement in the treaty negotiations concerned the restriction on the disposition of Nationalist forces within the KMT-controlled territory. The State Department insisted that the United States should have some voice about Nationalist military deployment. In other words, without a joint arrangement, the bulk of Nationalist forces might be stationed on the offshore islands, thus creating a serious problem for the United States in its commitment to the defense of Taiwan. Taipei defended its position by arguing that this issue was hypothetical and would be inconceivable in practice, and the restrictions on the movement of troops to the offshore islands would make it possible for the Nationalists to be assured of their right of self-defense on the offshore islands. Nevertheless, the State Department held its ground.63 In the end, Chiang maintained that an early conclusion of the mutual defense pact was more imperative than renegotiating the critical terms imposed by the United States.64 Both sides then agreed to rephrase the wording which stated that the forces deployed on Taiwan and the Pescadores should not be reduced “to a degree which would substantially diminish the defensibility of such territories.” Adding to this proviso was Washington’s stern refusal to guarantee “full logistic support” of the Nationalist forces stationed on the offshore islands.65 Again, the Nationalists had no option but to agree.
On December 2, 1954, the mutual defense treaty between the United States and Nationalist China was signed by Dulles and Yeh. By deliberately not mentioning the offshore islands in the main text, Washington hoped to deter Beijing from attacking Chiang Kai-shek’s position there and at the same time to discourage Chiang from using the islands as a stepping-stone to invasion of the mainland. The reaction from the Nationalist upper echelons was mixed. Psychologically, the treaty freed Taipei from the embarrassing position of not having a defense pact, while the United States had concluded such treaties with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and other countries in East Asia. The treaty was also concrete proof of U.S. determination to continue recognition of Taipei, thus easing fears that British pressure might eventually encourage Washington to recognize Beijing or to accept the idea of placing Taiwan under UN trusteeship. However, as Karl Rankin observed, the treaty also invited critical comments among the highest Nationalist echelons on such sensitive questions as the eventual liberation of the Chinese mainland and the protection of the offshore islands.66
Those who raised these doubts might not have realized that the result was what Chiang Kai-shek had planned. Chiang, writing in his diary on the day the treaty was signed, December 2, 1954, deemed the treaty a marvelous achievement considering the disgrace and insults he had endured over the previous decade, as well as the bitter struggle for his very survival since 1949, the year the Communists took over the Chinese mainland. His gratification lay not so much in the fact that an elevated Nationalist military strength could be expected but in the fact that Taiwan, his last power redoubt, was now finally secured.67 True, Chiang had gotten what he wanted, a mutual defense alliance with the United States, but the alliance not only confined Nationalist jurisdiction to Taiwan and the Pescadores, but it also essentially shattered any real hope of Chiang’s military recovery of the mainland. Indeed, with the defense treaty, and the now deeply-rooted MAAG influence over the Nationalist military and security policy planning on Taiwan, any subsequent ideas or attempts by the Nationalists to resort to military means to topple the Communist regime and recover China would prove to be no more than fantasy.
Conclusion
ON NOVEMBER 25, 1954, a week before the mutual defense treaty between Taipei and Washington was signed, Chiang Kai-shek established the Planning Commission for the Recovery of the Mainland, to be chaired by his vice president, Chen Cheng. When addressing the commission members at its inauguration ceremony, Chiang emphasized that the consolidation of the Taiwan power base had become crucial in influencing and transforming the Communist mainland. Chiang stressed the necessity of cultivating Taiwan’s cultural, social, economic, and educational assets, in what would later become known as “soft power,” to be used one day instead of military force to overthrow the Communist regime on the mainland.1 At this point, Chiang might have already sensed that the price of a mutual defense alliance with the United States would be a permanent Nationalist China base
d on Taiwan and the Pescadores, and not on the mainland. He therefore began promoting the island redoubt as the new center for the preservation of traditional Chinese civilization, and the model of Nationalist governance in Taiwan as the blueprint for the mainland’s future.2
A Nationalist China based in Taiwan and separate from the mainland seemed to be exactly what top policy designers in Washington at this juncture had in mind. In November 1954, the Chinese Communists dispatched warships, motor junks, and yard patrols first to assault the Dachens off Zhejiang Province and then to the tiny, isolated Wuqiu isle in between Quemoy and Matsu. On the evening of November 14, the PLA torpedoed and sank one Nationalist destroyer escort near the Dachens. It was the first positive indication of the Communist ability to use torpedoes in night work. The consequence, as the Americans quickly realized, was “a reduced reluctance” of the PLA to conduct sea warfare in waters theoretically under Nationalist control. It would be especially significant if the Chinese Communists were aware of the presence of the Seventh Fleet in that area.3 The American military and intelligence chiefs further concluded that, while no evidence suggested that the PLA submarines were operating outside the Yellow Sea, the “state of training of crews [was] considered sufficiently advanced to permit offensive operations should the Chinese Communists so decide.”4 If the United States wanted to avoid a genuine military clash with the PRC, the withdrawal of the Nationalist troops on the offshore islands seemed inevitable.
On January 10, 1955, Mao Zedong again ordered the PLA to mount a massive attack on the Dachens. Eight days later, about 10,000 PLA troops launched a successful air, amphibious, and land operation to occupy Yijiangshan, approximately nine miles north of the Upper Dachen, inflicting heavy casualties on the approximately 1,000 Nationalist defenders on the islet. In the face of the renewed Taiwan Strait crisis, John Foster Dulles proposed a U.S.-assisted evacuation of all the Nationalist-held offshore islands except Quemoy (and later, Matsu) in combination with a defensive commitment for the latter. Despite some strenuous objections from his national security advisors, President Eisenhower stood firmly behind Dulles’s idea.5
In Taipei, a pragmatically minded Chiang Kai-shek saw no reason to reject Dulles’s proposal. Abandoning the Dachens, the last territorial hold of his home province, was certainly distasteful, but Chiang was aware of their vulnerability and their marginal value as Taiwan’s defensive outposts. In addition, as his diaries reveal, Chiang reckoned that their loss was part of a tacit quid pro quo without which Taipei could not count on American assistance to protect the more strategic Quemoy and Matsu. More significantly, Chiang worried that refusing to accept the proposal would generate a very negative impression at the very time Congress was in the process of ratifying the Mutual Security Treaty he had already negotiated.6
With Chiang on board, President Eisenhower delivered his message to Congress on January 24, now called the Formosa Resolution. Delegating the president to employ U.S. armed forces to defend Taiwan and the Pescadores, the final resolution provided the authority for the “securing and protection of such related positions and territories of that area now in friendly hands” and the taking of such other measures as the president would judge to be required or appropriate in assuring the defense of Taiwan and the Pescadores. Congress approved the resolution the next day; and on February 9, it also ratified the Mutual Security Treaty.7 Chiang was bitterly disappointed about the deliberate omission of Quemoy and Matsu in the resolution; but, except for the grumblings in his diaries over the negligence of his “idle and incapable” foreign affairs officials, Chiang made no move to pursue the issue with Washington. Instead, privately Chiang deemed the passing of the resolution on Capitol Hill a blessing for the fate of his nation—something which brought him much comfort and satisfaction.8
Conceivably, both the Mutual Security Treaty and the Formosa Resolution served as a two-edge sword to the Nationalists’ military and defense policy formulation. With the professed U.S. commitment, their territorial base was certainly made more secure against Communist encroachment. Yet, an inevitable corollary of the treaty and resolution was that Taipei’s military capability would henceforth be purely defensive in nature, and would be substantially restricted in scope by its American ally, with little probability of stretching beyond the island territories the Nationalists now claimed as the Republic of China. When meeting with John Foster Dulles in Taipei in early March 1955, Chiang Kai-shek assured the secretary of state that he would take no independent action insofar as the use of military force was concerned, and would undertake no large-scale military operations against the mainland without full consultation with Washington. Plainly and without embarrassment, Chiang told Dulles that the only problem he could foresee was how to publicly handle these matters in order to bolster morale and keep alive the hope that the Nationalists would one day return to the mainland.9
In the following decade, despite the U.S.-Taiwan defense treaty, the desire by Chiang Kai-shek and his government to launch a military counterattack never really evaporated. This underlying attitude was first demonstrated in the years before the second offshore island crisis of 1958, and then again revealed in the development of a series of secret plans for a military reconquest of the mainland in the early 1960s, the details of which have become disclosed in recent years.10
Between 1956 and 1957, Chiang steadily deployed his best troops to Quemoy and Matsu. Whereas in September 1954, there were 30,000 Nationalist soldiers stationed on the two offshore island groups, by April 1956, the island garrisons totaled nearly 100,000 men, along with more than a third of the major military equipment available to Nationalist ground forces.11 Many American leaders at the time perceived these military deployments as Chiang’s attempt to draw the United States into a war with Communist China. When the PLA bombarded Quemoy and Matsu in August 1958, and tension mounted in the Taiwan Strait once again, Chiang rejected the renewed U.S. call to withdraw some of his forces from the offshore islands. Instead, Chiang warned the Eisenhower administration that unless Nationalist forces were permitted to take aggressive action on an extensive scale, Quemoy, along with one-third of Taiwan’s army, would be lost.12
Such a hawkish stance during the 1958 crisis partly resulted in America’s determination to distance itself from Nationalist actions when the tension in the Taiwan Strait began to subside. A joint communiqué issued on October 23, 1958, at the conclusion of John Foster Dulles’s visit to Taipei, forced Chiang to declare that his government would henceforth depend on political means, rather than military force, to recover the Chinese mainland. Chiang was forced to accept the principle of an appreciable reduction of armed forces on Quemoy and Matsu.13 Washington had become so concerned about what it perceived as Nationalist efforts to embroil the United States in a war with the PRC that Defense Secretary Neil McElroy at one point proposed sponsoring a coup against Chiang to bring to power someone willing to evacuate the offshore islands.14 In the same way, Chiang Kai-shek was extremely uneasy and unhappy about having to compromise with Dulles’s request that his government limit itself to political rather than military means to recover the mainland. And yet in his private diaries a no-less-stubborn Chiang had to reckon that such a conciliatory approach was the only policy now available to him.15 After all, Chiang was not only a nationalist and perhaps an opportunist, but also a pragmatist.
If Chiang Kai-shek was happy about securing his island Chinese state in the mid-1950s, by the early 1960s his desire, even determination, to return to the mainland apparently revived as a result of the failure of Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward and the resultant economic chaos in China. As manifested in new historical evidence, Chiang thought that his moment had come and once again contemplated counterattack seriously.16 That this did not come to pass is largely due to the constraints imposed by the military and diplomatic framework created by the Americans in the mid-1950s. It may be reasonable to argue that, after the mid-1950s, the creation of a Nationalist Chinese state on Taiwan did not end but continued, in
volving still more actions and inactions, political maneuvering and contingencies, a virgin field that deserves further scholarly investigations.
When Chiang Kai-shek died in April 1975, his political will urged his fellow Nationalists and the people on the island to carry out the restoration of the Chinese mainland and reunify the Republican Chinese nation. Nevertheless, for more than two decades, neither his son Ching-kuo nor other KMT leaders were able to achieve the dream. Two regimes, each claiming to be the sole legitimate central government representing all of China, remained separated by the Taiwan Strait, as it had been since December 1949.
We have become complacent about the divided China issue, forgetting the less-told and yet significant historical fact that this state of affairs itself was never been intended. This book begins with the Cairo Conference in the fall of 1943, when Nationalist China and the United States were wartime allies against the Axis powers. It now ends with the signing of a mutual defense pact between Taipei and Washington in late 1954, when the island-rooted Nationalist state officially realigned itself with the United States, and when Taiwan took its permanent form as the Nationalist Chinese center.
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