1958 Taiwan Straits Crisis
In the early fall of 1958 one of the most mysterious crises of the Cold War erupted in the Taiwan Straits. The Chinese began shelling the offshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu, but they did not try to invade or deliberately provoke a war with the Americans. This incident provides a great study on how perceptions of international and domestic events shape the actions that a country takes, and how the Chinese government worked in a crisis situation. In this case perceptions that Mao held combined with Mao’s leadership converged to formulate the decision to shell the islands. With the same idea, the response that the Americans made to Mao’s aggression was formulated out of the perceptions that they had of Mao’s intentions. Examining this crisis is important to understand the history of the Taiwan issue and to understanding what possibly actions the PRC could take in the future on this issue. Perceptions play an immensely important role in shaping the policy outcomes of a nation. Mao wielded an enormous amount of power, so the views he held shaped many of the decisions and views that the other communist leaders held. Therefore, we will address both the domestic and international factors and the perceptions that Mao himself
When the American’s response developed in late August and September to the communists’ shelling of Quemoy, Mao changed his policy from possibly taking Quemoy by force to wanting Chiang’s troops to remain on the island. The US’s response was firm enough that Mao, and the rest of the leadership, decided that it would be difficult to take Quemoy. He knew that the US was reluctant to defend Quemoy but that, if necessary, they would. Although all of the reasons why the communists decided not to invade Quemoy are not known, we can at least speculate at them and discuss the ideas that the US military officials had on why Mao would not order the invasion. In order to look at the ideas that the US officials had on potential communist actions it is necessary to evaluate the perceptions that they had about the communists. The US armed forces commander in Taiwan (Smoot), with instructions from JCS, Defense and State Departments, held Chiang back and limited his options. Chiang was prevented from making strikes against the mainland by creating doubt in his mind on when and under what conditions the US would support him, which prevented escalation from retaliatory bombings of Formosa by the communists. The US administration did not want to get dragged into a general war with the soviet bloc at this time by Chiang. This commitment is illustrated as well by the US desire to de-militarize, or remove most of Chiang’s troops from these offshore islands. This desire filled a twofold purpose, one was to limit the chance of another crisis taking place (while at the same time taking the ability away from the Chinese communists to create tension whenever they wanted by lobbing a few shells at Quemoy and Matsu) and secondly because the US military officials (including Defense Secretary McElroy) did not believe that these islands were very defensible nor that they were necessary to the defense of Formosa. US realized that if Chiang kept his forces on Quemoy then the potential for conflict would be pretty high for the future. If the Chinese communists did escalate to air strikes and massive bombings of the offshore islands, then the US would likely have to step in because of the increased chance that the Nationalists would not be able to repel a determined Chinese communist force. If the Chinese communists included air strikes and invasion forces against Quemoy & Matsu, then the US would respond with increased material support for the Nationalists which would then escalate to include reciprocal air strikes against Chinese communist forces (against their artillery emplacements and against the invasion force if there is one) by the Nationalists and by the US forces in the area. The administration believed that this course of events would lead up to an attack on Formosa or the 7th Fleet (which was deployed to the area at the time) directly by the Chinese communists. This direct attack would lead to the retaliation by US forces in the area, with a high possibility of nuclear weapons being employed. The second view developed when Dulles (along with many others in the administration) believed that since the Chinese communists had not used aerial bombing on Quemoy and Matsu, the communists wanted to avoid bringing the US into the conflict and were only testing how the US would respond to their moves. This view had crept up early, but the officials decided to err on the side of caution and assume that an invasion of the outer islands was possible if the US did not support the Nationalists in maintaining their position on the outer islands. This perception was largely correct, Mao did want to avoid bringing the US into a direct conflict with his forces, in fact he strictly ordered his forces not to attack any US forces in the region without his expressed permission. These perceptions of the Chinese communist actions developed into the manner in which the US would respond to this aggression. In light of the ambiguity
Some topics in this essay:
Quemoy Matsu,
Quemoy Mao,
Americans Mao’s,
Sino- Soviet,
Eisenhower Dulles,
North Vietnamese,
Leap Forward,
Air Command,
Admiral Burke,
III Mao,
chinese communists,
quemoy matsu,
nuclear weapons,
offshore islands,
free world,
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communist leaders,
chiang’s forces,
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create international tension,
hundred flowers movement,
islands quemoy matsu,
armed forces commander,
chinese communists escalate,
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Approximate Word count = 6151
Approximate Pages = 25 (250 words per page double spaced)
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