The two Taiwan Strait crises took place during a particularly tense period of the Cold War. Although each incident was relatively brief, their consequences loom large. Based on analyses of newly ...available documents from Beijing, Taipei, and Washington, Pang Yang Huei challenges conventional wisdom that claims Sino-US misperceptions of each other’s strategic concerns were critical in the 1950s. He underscores the fact that Washington, Taipei, and Beijing were actually aware of one another’s strategic intentions during the crises. He also demonstrates conclusively that both “crises" can be understood as a transformation from tacit communication to tacit accommodation. An important contribution of this study is a better understanding of the role of ritual, symbols, and gestures in international relations. While it is true that these two crises resulted in a stalemate, the fact that all parties were able to cultivate talks and negotiations brought relations, especially between the US and China, to a new and more stable level. Simply averting the threat of war was a major achievement. Strait Rituals is an important micro-history of a significant moment during the Cold War and a rich interpretation of the theoretical use of multiple points of view in writing history. It sets a new standard for understanding China’s place in the world.
In the aftermath of the Korean War, the People's Republic of China was effectively an international pariah. Accounts of this period in Chinese textbooks emphasize how the Chinese turned this around, ...either during the Geneva Conference or the Bandung Conference, through deft planning and enterprise. Yet few pay any attention to how such manipulation of world opinion became increasingly difficult for Beijing after that initial success. One outcome of China's public relations campaign meant friendly Afro-Asia leaders voiced their opinions, in alarming numbers, to their Chinese counterparts regarding issues such as Asian security, mainland China's economic development, and the Taiwan problem. Indeed, recently declassified Chinese Foreign Affairs archive documents demonstrate that China tried to marshal such non-Soviet bloc opinions to its advantage during the first Taiwan Strait crisis (1955). Chinese efforts were successful in that there was no lack of volunteers to air dissent with American foreign policy. But these new allies also wished to mediate between the United States and the Republic of China, on the one side, and mainland China on the other. Moreover, such efforts were often at variance with China's domestic and strategic outlook in the region. China thus had to embark upon an active ‘management’ of disparate world opinions, which was an entirely new endeavour. Although China tried to provide a sanitized ‘script’ for its new friends, most had their own ideas. By the time of the second Taiwan Strait crisis (1958), the volume of third party interference had grown. Overwhelmed by such international attention, China responded by openly rejecting unwelcome mediation efforts and demanded outright condemnation of the United States. Thus, ironically, with its growing prominence on the international stage, China found itself unbearably weighted down by the burden of world opinion, a position previously occupied by the United States.
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The 'Nixon Doctrine,' announced on 25 July 1969, which emphasised the singularity of US interest over all others, was a reflection of US war weariness and the President Richard Nixon's political ...constraints. The net effect was the unilateral withdrawal of troops in phases and Vietnamisation returning combat responsibilities to the South Vietnamese. Indeed, negotiations and diplomacy fell short of expectations, failing to force the North Vietnamese to abandon their objectives. However, Vietnamisation, the third leg of Nixon's strategy, became the most visible of Nixon's failures. Such was the debacle that Nixon was sorely tempted to simply walk away concluding, 'Vietnamization has been completed and South Vietnam President Nguyen Van Thieu then can do what he likes.'
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For much of the 1950s, ROC President Chiang Kai-shek tried to formulate viable "counteroffensive" plans to reclaim mainland China. A main part of this vision was to attract US military sponsorship; ...for the ROC conspicuously lacked the military strength to reconquer mainland China. However, the formulation of these plans had unintended results for Taiwan. Firstly, the military plans gave Chiang's subordinates an indirect way of stating the impossibility of returning to mainland China, while strenuously proclaiming their loyalty. Secondly,
Chiang Kai-shek's admonishment "???" Wu Wang Zai Ju (Forget Not the time at Ju), the clarion call for the ROC's mainland counter offensive, unwittingly promoted a more sedentary form of national identity for the average Taiwanese. Finally, the more Taiwan developed economically by means of US aid, the more the Taiwanese silently distanced themselves from Chiang's Quixotic dream of reclaiming mainland China. Thus, Chiang's leadership in "counteroffensive" planning did more to distance the island state from the mainland than "reclaim" it.
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After the Sino-US ambassadorial talks ceased in December 1957, further talks were suspended indefinitely. On August 23, 1958, the PRC again bombarded Quemoy and Matsu, igniting the Second Taiwan ...Strait Crisis. However, the 1958 Taiwan Strait Crisis stood out for its swift resolution compared to the 1954–1955 crisis. On September 6, both Zhou and Dulles publicly announced possible peaceful measures and this led to the convening of the Sino-US negotiations in Warsaw from September 15 onwards. Although US Ambassador Jacob Beam and PRC Ambassador Wang Bingnan would adopt rigid positions for their respective governments, Beam did consider the talks
In assessing international relations, Akira Iriye argued that irrational factors such as “ideals, visions, or prejudices” can be important, and how “cultures define their own realities, quite ...separate from realities that confront decision makers.”¹ Iriye’s observations are especially prescient when one examines the sustaining linkages in the US-PRC-ROC relations that occurred between May 1955 and December 1957. In the interest of perspicuity, four areas will be scrutinized, namely: the Sino-US ambassadorial talks (August 1955–December 1957), the ROC-PRC secret back channels (1955–1957), the May 1957 Taiwan riots, and the ROC and its fangong mission (1955–1957).² What were the
The Warsaw Gambit Huei, Pang Yang
Strait Rituals,
06/2019
Book Chapter
Following the outbreak of the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis on August 23, 1958, Zhou and Dulles publicly announced on September 6 possible peaceful measures and this led to the convening of the Sino-US ...negotiations in Warsaw from September 15 onwards. Both the US and the PRC claimed credit for the resolution of the quandary, but on different grounds. The Chinese expressed their satisfaction with the “lesson,” the artillery bombardment of Quemoy and Matsu, while Washington reaffirmed its faith in nuclear deterrence. Chiang Kai-shek proclaimed peaceably that the wisdom of Sun Yat-sen’s Sanmin zhuyi (Three principles of the people) would henceforth
The Geneva Accords, signed on July 21, 1954, marked the end of the Geneva Conference. On September 3, 1954, China launched a massive artillery bombardment on Quemoy and Matsu islands, triggering the ...First Taiwan Strait Crisis. This attack prompted the US to sign the Mutual Defense Treaty with Taiwan on December 2, 1954. This chapter forms the first part of a reevaluation of the First Taiwan Strait Crisis. Existing scholarship has concentrated on the major events in Sino-US relations and viewed misconceptions as the primary factor in igniting hostilities. However, the process of reconciliation of misconceptions to produce a more
Three months before the Korean War Armistice, the New York Times on April 9, 1953, reported that President Eisenhower was resolved to accept the 38th parallel and would relegate the Taiwan problem to ...the backburner. The White House hotly denied this embarrassing leak. Well-known columnist Drew Pearson sardonically recorded in his diary, “The White House immediately denied the story, despite the fact that it had come from John Foster Dulles himself.”¹ Denials aside, the account, largely based on the National Security Council meeting the day before, accurately captured the tensions of the Cold War in East Asia. Undoubtedly, in the
