· American Studies UWA ·

   AS30020: America in the era of the Cold War

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Assess the facts with regard to the debates on 'Who lost China' after 1949?  How did they interact with domestic American politics?

·        “the suppression of radicalism and radical organizations in the United States was a struggle against a dangerous subversive element controlled by a foreign power that posed a real danger to the security of the country”

·        Many saw China as a variation of the Soviet Union and fought to maintain it as an un-communist country. If it maintained its level of communism many thought it would spur the domino effect throughout the world.

·        Dulles – SEATO (South East Asian Treaty Organisation) in 1956 a mutual security alliance aimed to isolate communist China.

·        Truman has wanted to gradually disengage from the Chinese civil war (between Formosa and the mainland.) however Truman had engaged the naval fleet to act as a neutraliser and Eisenhower wanted it not to allow Chiang to unleash his forces but to shield communist china from it.

·        Defence programs were no longer seen as a foolproof method against communism; in regards to China new threats of attacks meant communists had to guess where American was next going to attack (in both the geographical and political sense).

·        China created a much more real threat throughout the United States in regards to communism. Before that it had been Europe that was under threat but with the closeness of the Indochina subcontinent it meant that communism was a real threat, therefore curbing Communism in America became a front-runner in domestic politics.  McCarthy's accusations echoed the conservative Republic position on the
victory of Mao Tse-Tung and the Communists in the Chinese civil war.

·        The threat of Communism was used to 'roll back the New Deal' as extremes
abroad were good for the Republicans at home. Paranoia and fear of the
foreign (xenophobia) were common traits of the American National Psyche
and could have been used to the Party's advantage. 

·        American's feared the Chinese people had been 'brainwashed' into
Communism,  believing that because of the 'special friendship' said to
exist between the United States and China (encouraged during World War 2)
that it would happen to them. Ironic in light of McCarthy's behaviour, as
alluded to in the film 'Invasion of the Body Snatcher'. 

·        The State Department released an official government report - the White
Paper - designed to document Chiang's responsibility for his own defeat
because of incompetence and corruption within the Chinese government, thus
exonerating the American government.  However the "China lobby", the
anti-Communist network and the right wing Republicans had a shared
interest in the "loss-of-China" scenario.  Promoting the idea that a
Communist influence within the State Department had engineered Chiang's
defeat. 

·        For the China lobbyists this not only took the blame off Chiang Kai-Shek
but also allowed them to provide the rest of the nation with their own
opinions on East Asian affairs.

·        For the anti-Communists the allegation of Communist subversion being
responsible increased their clout with the public and gave substance and
credibility to any further charges they brought.

·        For the Republicans it provided new ammunition for the attack on the
Truman administration.

·        Within the government, the insecurities that McCarthyism inflicted on the State Department lingered for years, especially with regard to East Asia. The campaign against the "loss" of China left such long-lasting scars that American policymakers feared to acknowledge the official existence of the People's Republic of China until Richard Nixon, who was uniquely impervious to charges of being soft on communism, did so as president in 1971. And it was in part to avoid a replay of the loss-of-China scenario that Nixon's Democratic predecessors, Kennedy and Johnson, dragged the United States so deeply into the quagmire of Vietnam.”

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 · American Studies UWA ·