China, Japan and the Cold War in Asia

From the moment that it was clear that the CCP was heading for victory, the question of how the West would respond to the creation of a communist China and what direction that country would take in its relations with foreign Powers concentrated minds around the world.

This optimism was misplaced, for it showed a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the Chinese Revolution. For both nationalist and ideological reasons, the CCP had no intention of developing relations with America. It saw the United States as an imperialist-capitalist state that had armed and supported Jiang and which, in the shape of the Sino-American Commercial Treaty of 1947, had attempted to become the latest in the long line of foreign exploiters of Chinese resources. Convinced of American hostility and determined to uphold China's independence, the CCP therefore decided to strengthen its ties with its natural ideological ally, the Soviet Union. Accordingly on 30 June 1949 Mao declared that, in the context of the Cold War, China had no choice but to ‘lean to one side' — that is, towards the socialist bloc. In December Mao travelled to Moscow to negotiate a Sino-Soviet treaty of alliance which, after some delay, was signed on 14 February 1950. The alliance was primarily a military agreement which committed the two sides to come to each other's aid if either was attacked by Japan ‘or any other state which should unite with Japan', in other words, the United States.

Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV)

The official name of communist Vietnam; the DRV was initially proclaimed by Ho Chi Minh in 1945. Between 1954 and 1975 it comprised only the northern part of Vietnam (North Vietnam).

The signing of this agreement, added to the fact that in January 1950 both the PRC and the USSR recognized the Viet Minh's Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), can be interpreted as the point at which the Cold War arrived in earnest in Asia. There was, after all, now a coherent communist bloc in the region that was determined to challenge America's interests. However, this grouping did not emerge merely in order to advance the communist cause; it was also partly defensive in character as a reaction against American activities in the region, and specifically as a response to changes in the American policy towards the occupation of Japan.

Even before the formal foundation of the PRC, the United States had begun to view East Asian affairs through a Cold War prism. One factor that had led to this development was clearly the prospect of the CCP's impending victory, but China's becoming communist was not the only factor that brought about a rapid

Debating PRC-American relations and the 'lost chance' thesis

Of all areas in international history, study of the origins of the Cold War in East Asia has probably benefited most from the increasing availability of archival material from the former USSR and the PRC. This in turn has helped to revise some of the arguments that were put forward when only American sources were available. This is particularly evident in the case of the 'lost chance'debate about the relationship between Washington and the CCP in 1949-50. In the 1970s and 1980s some historians, such as Nancy Tucker (1983), Warren Cohen (1980) and Michael Hunt (1980), speculated about the possibility that if the United States had proved more forthcoming, it could have established working relations with the PRC and avoided the next twenty years of animosity. This 'lost chance'thesis rested largely on the discovery from American documents released in this period that in the spring of 1949 the CCP had suggested that it was willing to explore diplomatic and economic ties with America, but that no positive response had been forthcoming from Washington.

In positing this argument, the 'lost chance'historians were, however, making a large assumption, which was that the original CCP overtures were sincere rather than mere tactical gestures designed to mislead the Americans.The partial opening of the PRC's archives over the past decade has clarified the CCP's intentions and appears to demonstrate that there was little prospect of better relations. It transpires that in the spring of 1949 the CCP leadership and the Soviets were concerned about the prospect of the United States intervening in China to prevent the fall of the former treaty ports, and that the overtures had been sanctioned to thwart such an occurrence. Moreover, as noted in the main text, it seems from Chinese documents that such was the hostility felt towards the United States that there was little or no chance of any kind of diplomatic relationship with America. However, in this area some caution is still necessary, for it needs to be understood that the PRC still has strong controls over the release of documents and one cannot discount the possibility that the availability of material is influenced by contemporary political considerations.

transformation. In addition, Washington was subject to other influences, such as its concern about the fragile state of the capitalist world economy and the deterioration of its relations with the Soviet Union in Europe. This forced American decision-makers to consider what role East Asia should play both in the revival of international trade and in its policy of containment.

reverse course

The change of emphasis from democratization to economic reconstruction that the United States introduced in its occupation of Japan, 1947-49.

The most important change came in relation to the occupation of Japan. Since 1945 occupation policy in Japan had focused on democratization and demilitarization, but in 1948 the United States put aside these policies and began to stress, in what is known as the reverse course, the need for Japanese economic

Bretton Woods

The site of an inter-Allied conference held in 1944 to discuss the post-war international economic order.

recovery and eventually rearmament. The decision to reconstruct Japan came about as the result of a number of interlocking factors. In part, the United States moved in this direction as a result of its disillusionment with China as the latter slipped into civil war, but another significant motivation was the importance of re-establishing Japan's position within the global and Asian economies. In the inter-war period Japan had exported its consumer goods to Asian countries and in turn imported substantial quantities of raw materials. These trade patterns failed to revive after the end of the Pacific War, with the result that Japan itself and Asia as a whole remained mired in depression. This was a matter of great concern, as it constituted part of a larger picture in which the failure of countries in Europe and Asia to recover from the recent war threatened to prevent the establishment of the Bretton Woods international economic order. Just as Germany was considered to be the linchpin for economic recovery in Europe, so Japan was seen as vital in Asia. Indeed, in May 1947 the under-secretary of state, Dean Acheson, referred to these countries as the ‘two great workshops of the world'. Thus, for economic and financial reasons, Washington considered it necessary from 1948 to provide dollar loans to help rebuild Japan.

The Americans did not, however, have only economic considerations in mind when they began the pump-priming of Japanese industry, for security motives also played a part. As in Western Europe, there was a fear that perpetual economic paralysis would prove to be a fertile breeding ground for the spread of com­munism.

The growing significance of Japan in American Cold War policy naturally also had implications for its attitude towards other areas in the region. One important effect arose from the calculation that if the Japanese economy were to recover, it needed trading partners. With China in disarray, the only way to achieve this was to encourage Japan to send its manufactured goods to South-East Asia in return for that region's raw materials. This was one other reason why from 1948 South­East Asia became of such importance to the United States. In addition, the emphasis on Japan led the United States to consider how it might strengthen its strategic position in the region and to focus on what base facilities it needed in Japan, Okinawa and the Philippines, and what role Taiwan might play should a general war break out.

However, while the Americans saw the economic rehabilitation of Japan as defensive, in that it was in part a response to the perceived threat to domestic stability posed by the Japanese Communist Party, this was not how it appeared to Russia and China. These countries had, after all, a long history of competition with Japan, and had no wish to see any renewal of Japanese aggression. To them, therefore, it appeared that the United States was encouraging the rebirth of Japanese militarism and intended to use Japan as its cat's-paw for American ambitions in the region.

Conversely, in the tense environment of the Cold War the United States refused to accept that the Sino-Soviet grouping was defensive in nature. It believed instead that the CCP had betrayed Chinese nationalism by becoming a Soviet client state, and responded to the appearance of the Sino-Soviet bloc by further reassessing its strategic planning for the region and heightening its assistance to South-East Asia. In early 1950 America extended economic and military aid to Indonesia, Thailand and Burma. In addition, in the light of the Chinese and Russian recognition of the DRV, aid was given to the French in Indochina: the first fateful American commitment. Thus by mid-1950 the United States had begun to extend containment from Japan to cover South-East Asia as well. At the same time the Chinese government responded by increasing its support for the DRV, with the result that there were the makings of a proxy war in Vietnam. In the end, however, it was not Vietnam but Korea that was to lead to the eruption of a ‘hot war' in Asia.