Useful Adversaries: Grand Strategy, Domestic Mobilization, and Sino-American Conflict, 1947-1958

Thomas J. Christensen

Published by Princeton University Press 1997

Useful Adversaries

Grand Strategy, Domestic Mobilization, and Sino-American Conflict, 1947-1958

Thomas J. Christensen

Volume 179 in the series Princeton Studies in International History and Politics

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691213323

Overview
Contents

About this book

This book provides a new analysis of why relations between the United States and the Chinese Communists were so hostile in the first decade of the Cold War. Employing extensive documentation, it offers a fresh approach to long-debated questions such as why Truman refused to recognize the Chinese Communists, why the United States aided Chiang Kai-shek's KMT on Taiwan, why the Korean War escalated into a Sino-American conflict, and why Mao shelled islands in the Taiwan Straits in 1958, thus sparking a major crisis with the United States.

Christensen first develops a novel two-level approach that explains why leaders manipulate low-level conflicts to mobilize popular support for expensive, long-term security strategies. By linking "grand strategy," domestic politics, and the manipulation of ideology and conflict, Christensen provides a nuanced and sophisticated link between domestic politics and foreign policy. He then applies the approach to Truman's policy toward the Chinese Communists in 1947-50 and to Mao's initiation of the 1958 Taiwan Straits Crisis. In these cases the extension of short-term conflict was useful in gaining popular support for the overall grand strategy that each leader was promoting domestically: Truman's limited-containment strategy toward the USSR and Mao's self-strengthening programs during the Great Leap Forward. Christensen also explores how such low-level conflicts can escalate, as they did in Korea, despite leaders' desire to avoid actual warfare.

Author / Editor information

Thomas J. Christensen is currently Assistant Professor of Government at Cornell University. He formerly held an SSRC/MacArthur Foundation fellowship in international peace and security and was an Olin National Security Fellow at Harvard University.

Reviews

"[Christensen] makes a convincing and original argument that political leaders, in order to secure public support for their fundamental grand strategy, may have to adopt a more hostile foreign policy than they would prefer . . . This volume is indispensable for anyone interested in Sino-American relations."

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Figures and Tables Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Note on Translation and Romanization Publicly Available Download PDF	xv
Chapter 1. Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter 2. Grand Strategy, National Political Power, and Two-Level Foreign Policy Analysis Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	11
Chapter 3. Moderate Strategies and Crusading Rhetoric: Truman Mobilizes for a Bipolar World Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	32
Chapter 4. Absent at the Creation: Acheson's Decision to Forgo Relations with the Chinese Communists Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	77
Chapter 5. The Real Lost Chance in China: Nonrecognition, Taiwan, and the Disaster at the Yalu Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	138
Chapter 6. Continuing Conflict over Taiwan: Mao, the Great Leap Forward, and the 1958 Quemoy Crisis Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	194
Chapter 7. Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	242
Appendix A. American Public Opinion Polls, 1947-1950 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	263
Appendix B. Mao's Korean War Telegrams Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	271
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	277
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	305

Language: English
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 352
Illustrations
- Other: 1 halftone 16 line illus.
Keywords: alliances; anticommunism; Asialationism; bipolarity; Chinese Civil War; Clubb; O. Edmund; conflict manipulation; deterrence; Europe; Eastern; factional politics; France; grand strategy; Ho Chi Minh; Huang Hua; ideological crusading; isolationism (U.S.); Japan; Johnson; Louis; Kennan; George F.; KMT (Kuomintang); Liu Xiao; Manchuria; Mao Zedong; Navy (U.S.); Peng Dehuai; psychological explanations; realism; Republican Party; Soviet Union; Sputnik; Titoism; United Nations

eBook

Published: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 9780691213323