The Legacy of the Korean War: Impact on U.S.-Taiwan Relations

Title:

The legacy of the Korean War: Impact on U.S.-Taiwan relations.

Authors:

Lin, Cheng-yi

Source:

Journal of Northeast Asian Studies; Winter92, Vol. 11 Issue 4, p40, 18p

Document Type:

Article

Subject Terms:

*KOREAN War, 1950-1953
UNITED States -- Foreign relations
TAIWAN -- Foreign relations

Geographic Terms:

UNITED States
TAIWAN

Abstract:

Focuses on the impact the Korean War had on the United States' (U.S.) relationship with Taiwan. Information on the military aid which was provided by the U.S. to Taiwan; Indepth look at the deterioration of the Republic of China's international status; Discussion on the economic aid the U.S. gave to Taiwan.

Full Text Word Count:

8059

ISSN:

07387997

Accession Number:

9612310573

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THE LEGACY OF THE KOREAN WAR: IMPACT ON U.S.-TAIWAN RELATIONS

If there had not been a Korean War, the Chinese Communists would probably have invaded Taiwan in 1950. After the outbreak of the Korean War, the United States began to reverse its hands-off policy toward the Chinese Nationalists on Taiwan. The Korean War first compelled the United States to grant military aid to Taiwan and then put the island under U.S. protection. The war forestalled the deterioration of the ROC's international status, but the legal status of Taiwan became undetermined in the eyes of U.S. policymakers. U.S. economic aid prevented Taiwan from sliding into an economic depression in the 1950s, and greatly contributed to the island's later economic takeoff.

The former Republic of China (ROC) ambassador to the United States, Wellington Koo, once drew a parallel between the Korean War and Pearl Harbor because both hit Washington by surprise, and in both cases U.S. decision-makers disregarded prior warnings from the Chinese.1 Both attacks compelled the United States to go to war, and on both occasions this simultaneously saved the Kuomintang (KMT) from total defeat. One high-ranking KMT official even described the Korean War as the Sian incident in reverse- an unexpected twist of fate that saved the KMT from total annihilation.[ 2] Before the outbreak of the Korean War, KMT-controlled Taiwan (then called Formosa) fell outside the U.S. defense perimeter, and the Truman administration had assumed the final defeat of the KMT to be only a matter of time. Immediately after the outbreak of the war, President Harry S. Truman decided to neutralize Taiwan, both to protect it from communist invasion and to prevent the MT from using it as a base to mount an assault on the mainland. The Korean War also forced President Truman and Secretary of State Dean Acheson to resume their entanglement with the KMT.

In the three sections of this article, the author will analyze the military, political and economic dimensions of relations between the United States and the ROC following the Korean War to determine whether the war marked a new beginning for the ROC.

1. From Taiwan Abandoned to Taiwan Neutralized

On December 9, 1949, the KMT under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek established its anti-communist bastion in Taipei. Two weeks later, the U.S. State Department sent a telegram to its overseas embassies indicating that Taiwan was expected to fall into the Chinese Communist hands and that the island held "no special military significance" to U.S. security.[ 3] On December 29, 1949, the National Security Council (NSC) decided that "no further action would be taken to assist the Chinese Nationalists to hold Formosa.[ 4]

On January 5, 1950, President Truman announced that the United States would "not provide military aid or advice to Chinese forces" on Taiwan.[ 5] A week later, Secretary of State Acheson declared in a later controversial speech delivered before the National Press Club in Washington that the U.S. defense perimeter ran from the Aleutian Islands to Japan, the Ryukyu Islands, and south to the Philippines.[ 6] Acheson's speech was criticized as one of the key reasons for the outbreak of the Korean War, but it is unfair not to point out that on March 1, 1949, General Douglas MacArthur said the same thing in an interview but reversed the geography.[ 7] What separates MacArthur from Acheson is that he and the joint chiefs of staff (JCS), by the end of 1949 strongly urged the implementation of a "modest, well-directed and closely supervised program of military aid" to Chiang Kai-shek, while Acheson believed that "the Nationalists would not fight in Formosa any harder than they had fought for the mainland.[ 8] The State Department and the NSC, with the endorsement of President Truman, gained the upper hand in U.S. policy toward the shaky Chiang Kai-shek regime.

President Truman compared the North Korean invaders with Hitler, Mussolini, and the Japanese, and firmly believed that there would be a domino effect if the invasion was allowed to go unchallenged.[ 9] On June 27, 1950, Truman approved State and Defense Department recommendations and "ordered the Seventh Fleet to prevent any attack upon Formosa," calling upon "the Chinese Government on Formosa to cease all air and sea operations against the mainland.[ 10] The KMT agreed to Truman's request in principle but asserted that its sovereignty over Taiwan should not be challenged.[ 11] The Chinese Communist leaders Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai saw Truman's statement as an act of aggression and intervention against China, as it sought to block their "liberation" of Taiwan.[ 12]

Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson and the JCS seized upon the evolving crisis in the Far East to reverse the position of the State Department and NSC toward Taiwan. In a NSC meeting on July 27, 1950, President Truman approved "the granting of extensive military aid to Nationalist China; a military survey by MacArthur's headquarters of the requirements of Chiang Kai-shek's forces; and the plan to carry out reconnaissance flights along the China coast to determine the imminence of attacks against Formosa.[ 13] However, President Truman made it clear on August 30, 1950, that the United States was ready to withdraw the Seventh Fleet as soon as peace was restored in the Korean Peninsula.[ 14]

It should be noted that Truman did not grant the all-out support to Taiwan that the KMT had expected. The president adopted a "three-nos" policy toward Taiwan-no U.S. fighter squadrons to be based on Taiwan, no U.S. forces to be based ashore on the island, and no U.S. defense commitments to be extended to the offshore islands.[ 15] Against this backdrop, Truman was furious to learn about MacArthur's remarks to the annual gathering of Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW):

As a result of its geographic location and base potential, utilization of Formosa by a military power hostile to the U.S. may either counter-balance or overshadow the strategic importance of the central and southern flank of the U.S. front line position. Formosa in the hands of such a hostile power could be compared to an unsinkable aircraft carrier and submarine tender ideally located to accomplish offensive strategy and at the same time checkmate defensive or counter-offensive operations by friendly forces based on Okinawa and the Philippines .... Nothing could be more fallacious than the threadbare argument by those who advocate appeasement and defeatism in the Pacific that if we defend Formosa we alienate continental Asia.[16]

President Truman to MacArthur's suggestion of a "military policy of aggression" and he had deliberately rejected President Chiang Kai-shek's offer to send 33,000 Nationalist troops to assist South Korea because "it would be a little inconsistent to spend American money to protect an island while its natural defenders were somewhere else.[17]

The People's Republic of China's (PRC) intervention in the Korean War struck the U.S. Eighth Army and X Corps a heavy blow in November 1950, and the JCS began to question President Truman's military neutralization of Formosa. On November 20, 1950, the JCS sent the Department of Defense a memorandum, to which acting Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett concurred, arguing that military neutralization of Formosa would:

a. Considerably improve the Communists' strategic position and release some of their defense forces for building-up elsewhere; and

b. Substantially reduce our [America's] own strategical position in the area and would restrict freedom of action in the event the military situation requires that an armed attack against the Chinese Communists on the mainland be mounted.[18]

The JCS then emphasized "the strategic importance of Formosa" and suggested that "it would be desirable to have port facilities and airfield on Formosa available to the United States," if a full-scale war should develop against Communist China and the Soviet Union[ 19] The new Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall, who was not as supportive of the KMT as his predecessor Louis Johnson, argued that Taiwan was "of no particular strategic importance" in U.S. hands, but it "would be of disastrous importance if it were held by an enemy.[ 20] In December 1950, Truman indicated to British Prime Minister Clement Attlee that Chiang Kai-shek intended to get the United States involved militarily on the Chinese mainland. Under pressure from the U.S. Senate, Truman stated the United States would not allow Formosa to fall into Communist hands.[21]

~~~~~~~~

By January 1951, Taiwan had received military hardware worth US $29 million, and the U.S. Department of Defense, responding to reports on Taiwan by Major General Alonzo P. Fox's military survey group, requested President Truman to allocate US $71.2 million for Formosa for FY 1951.[ 22] Later that same month, the State Department instructed the U.S. embassy in Taipei to exchange notes with the ROC Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which led to a Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement (MDAA) between the two governments.[23] The MDAA was designed to legitimize the use of incoming U.S. military aid to Formosa for the island's internal security and self-defense.

In March 1951, the departments of State and Defense urged the establishment of a Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) on Formosa, and soon after appointed Major General William C. Chase as chief of MAAG, Formosa.[ 24] The responsibilities of MAAG, Formosa included checking military aid shipments on receipt, control of distribution, and advising the KMT on military training and reorganization.[ 25] The U.S. minister to the ROC, Karl Rankin, recommended an increase in U.S. MAAG personnel in 1951, but it was not until 1952 that his recommendation was acted upon and the number was increased to about 770.[ 26] The MAAG advised the ROC government to reorganize its armed forces into twenty-one army divisions (originally thirty-one divisions), a small modern air force, and a navy capable of little more than coast patrols.[ 27] However, MAAG, Formosa failed to convince President Chiang Kai-shek to abolish the system of political commissars in the armed forces.[ 28]

2. Deneutralization of Taiwan and the U.S.-Taiwan Defense Pact

President Truman's neutralization policy was discarded when Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected president in November 1952. Even before the inauguration, Eisenhower and Secretary of State-designate John Foster Dulles conveyed to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in January 1953 their intention to revise Truman's policy toward Taiwan.[ 29] The British believed the new move would have "great international political repercussions," and suggested "consultation among the interested powers.[ 30] However, Eisenhower announced on February 2, 1953, in his first State of the Union address to Congress that since the Chinese Communists had consistently rejected the Korean armistice proposals, he was issuing "instructions that the Seventh Fleet no longer be employed to shield Communist China.[ 31] On February 3, 1953, President Chiang, who had been notified two days earlier of Eisenhower's public statements, praised the new U.S. move as "judicious" and "militarily sound." In addition, Chiang Kai-shek requested closer "organized cooperation" between the U.S. and ROC armed forces and that U.S. protection be extended to the ROC-held offshore islands.[32]

On February 5, the MAAG, Formosa Chief William Chase suggested to ROC Chief of General Staff Chou Chih-jou that the ROC draw up plans to blockade the mainland and increase the frequency of raids against the Chinese Communists.[ 33] MAAG, Formosa requested the ROC not to utilize aircraft in raids on the mainland and to consult with them beforehand about "significant attacks" (any raids participated in by more than five hundred men) on the mainland.[ 34]

According to KMT estimates, there were approximately 1.5 million antiCommunist guerrilla forces on the mainland at the end of 1950.[ 35] After the Chinese Communist intervention in Korea, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) became involved in training the KMT to conduct guerrilla-style commando raids against the mainland from the ROC-held offshore islands and northern Burma.[ 36] By the end of 1952, such Nationalist hit-and-run raids had immobilized Chinese Communist forces of at least 200,000 in Southeast China, and killed or wounded 41,727 Communist troops.[ 37] The Truman administration made it clear in NSC 48/5 (May 1951) that if the PRC started conducting aggression outside Korea it was ready to incorporate the ROC forces and impose a blockade on the mainland coast.[ 38] President Eisenhower's policy of unleashing Chiang Kai-shek was thus achieved in an incremental way.

Chiang Kai-shek was "unleashed" by Eisenhower and Dulles's deneutralization of Taiwan, but Chiang's commitment not to invade the mainland was a requirement of the U.S. transfer of jet aircraft to the island. In an NSC meeting on April 8, 1953, Eisenhower approved a proposal that:

( 1) The U.S. Commander-in-chief of the Pacific should be instructed to expedite obtaining a commitment from the Chinese Nationalist Government that Chinese Nationalist forces will not engage in offensive operations considered by the United States to be inimical to the best interests of the United States.

( 2) Pending such a commitment, further shipments to Nationalist Government of jet planes from the United States should be stopped and the transfer to the Chinese Nationalist Government of jet planes already shipped should be delayed.[ 39]

On April 23, Chiang Kai-shek pledged not to "alter patterns and tempo of operations" against the mainland and on June 19, the ROC Air Force received its first allocation of U.S. F-84 jet aircraft. On July 16, the Nationalists launched a large-scale amphibious attack against Tungsban Island in Fukien Province, and later made an air strike to cover withdrawal from the island. Prior U.S. clearance of such air strikes was required, but proved impractical in actual engagement. Nevertheless, ROC Chief of Staff Chou Chih-jou later assured the MAAG that it would not happen again.[40]

After persistent requests from Nationalist China, the United States decided in July to extend its military aid and training program to the offshore islands, such as Quemoy and Matsu.[ 41] The NSC meeting on July 23, approved the transfer of two additional U.S. destroyers or destroyer escorts to the ROC.[ 42] This implied that the United States was encouraging the KMT to hold the offshore islands. In the meantime, Admiral Felix Stump, the U.S. Navy commander-in-chief, Pacific, divided the offshore islands into two categories. The Ta-chen island groups, in the low priority category, were regarded as "not essential to defense of Formosa and Pescadores."[ 43]

If the Korean War was the salvation of the ROC, an armistice in Korea could naturally complicate the U.S.-Taiwan security relationship. On March 19, 1953, ROC Ambassador Wellington Koo explored the question of a U.S.-ROC mutual security pact, but received a cold response from Secretary of State Dulles.[ 44] In June 1953, Chiang Kai-shek wrote at least two letters to President Eisenhower probing the possibility of U.S.-initiated Asian multilateral mutual security pacts.[ 45] Although Eisenhower believed that a mutual security arrangement must come from the Asian nations themselves, by August 1953 the United States had concluded mutual defense treaties with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand.

The ROC government took the initiative and handed a draft U.S.-ROC mutual security pact to U.S. Ambassador Rankin on December 18, 1953. The Eisenhower administration was unwilling to include the offshore islands in the security treaty, and delayed any consideration of such a treaty until the conclusion of the Geneva Conference (April 1954) and Manila Conference (September 1954).

Immediately after the first offshore island crisis, precipitated by the heavy CCP bombardment of Quemoy on September 3, 1954, what proved of greatest concern in U.S. NSC meetings was not a security treaty with the ROC but rather a cease-fire proposal to be raised by New Zealand in the United Nations.[ 46] On October 7, 1954, President Eisenhower revealed to Dulles that he had decided to conclude a security treaty with the ROC provided that Generalissimo Chiang was prepared to assume a defensive posture on Taiwan.[ 47]

On October 13, 1954, Chiang Kai-shek complained to Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs Walter Robertson about the connection between the offshore islands crisis and the U.S. postponement of negotiations for a mutual defense treaty with the ROC. President Chiang also expressed his misgivings about the New Zealand cease-fire proposal.[ 48] It was not until October 18, 1954, that Eisenhower and Dulles began to work out a list of congressional leaders to consult with concerning the security treaty with the ROC.[ 49]