China's Emergence as a Superpower (till 2014)

[Backwards Observer]

A blast from the past by some guy named Ike:

Dear Winston: I have heard how earnestly you supported throughout the Conference of Prime Ministers the proposition that nothing must create a serious rift in British-American relationships. Not only do I applaud that sentiment, but I am most deeply grateful to you for your successful efforts.

I realize that it has been difficult, at times, for you to back us up in the Formosa question and, for this reason, I want to give you a very brief account of our general attitude toward the various factors that have dictated the course we have taken. You understand, of course, that we have certain groups that are violent in their efforts to get us to take a much stronger, even a truculent position. The number that would like to see us clear out of Formosa is negligible. I know that on your side of the water you have the exact opposite of this situation.

Because the Communists know these facts, there is no question in my mind that one of the principal reasons for their constant pressing on the Asian frontier is the hope of dividing our two countries. I am sure that we, on both sides of the water, can make quite clear that, no matter what may be our differences in approach or even sometimes our differences in important convictions, nothing is ever going to separate us or destroy our unity in opposing Communist aggression.

To Winston Spencer Churchill (Doc#1300; Feb 10, 1955) - The Presidential Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower - eisenhowermemorial.org

First Taiwan Strait Crisis - Wikipedia

***

Never a Dulles moment:

Returning to Washington last week from a grueling, 24,000-mile trip to Formosa, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles got down from an Air Force KC-135 jet transport to face a battery of cameras and microphones. Question: "Did Chiang Kai-shek agree to a reduction of forces on the offshore islands?" Dulles: "We talked about matters far more fundamental than that. That's just a detail."

From the Dulles-Chiang talks on fundamental matters emerged a fundamental result that made Dulles' trip to Formosa a diplomatic achievement of a sort. One nagging hindrance to the Administration's Far Eastern policy is the impression, widespread among the free world's leaders and opinion-shapers, that Nationalist China's Chiang Kai-shek is fanatically bent on invading the mainland at whatever cost, even nuclear world war. In an effort to correct that impression, Dulles got from Chiang a formal declaration renouncing force as the "principal means" of liberating the mainland Chinese.

Formosa Declaration - Time Magazine - Nov 3, 1958.