Taiwan, the United States, and the Hidden History of the Cold War in Asia

Divided Allies

Hsiao-Ting Lin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000580839
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Asian Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book explores the challenges which faced the United States and Taiwanese alliance during the Cold War, addressing a wide range of events and influences of the period between the 1950s and 1970s.

Tackling seven main topics to outline the fluctuations of the U.S.–Taiwan relationship, this volume highlights the impact of the mainland counteroffensive, the offshore islands, Tibet, Taiwan's secret operations in Asia, Taiwan's Soviet and nuclear gambits, Chinese representation in the United Nations, and the Vietnam War. Utilizing multinational archival research, particularly the newly available materials from Taiwan and the United States, to reevaluate Taiwan's foreign policy during the Cold War, revealing a pragmatic and opportunistic foreign policy disguised in nationalistic rhetoric. Moreover, this study represents a departure from previous scholarship, emphasizing the dictatorial and incompetent nature of the Chinese Nationalist regime, to provide fresh insights into the nature of U.S.–Taiwan relations.

Presenting a revisionist view of one of the strongest bilateral relationships of the Cold War, this will be an insightful resource for scholars and students of Chinese and East Asia History, Cold War History, Asian Studies, and International Relations.

1 The offshore islands

DOI: 10.4324/9781003229544-2

Small islands that are geographically situated between two or more political entities have often tended to become a source of dispute leading to armed conflicts. The tiny, uninhabited rocky islet of Perejil Island off the southern shore of Gibraltar has generated much trouble between Spain and Morocco, including an exchange of gunfire in 2002. In the present-day Asia-Pacific region, “small islands” have almost become synonymous with potential conflicts involving multiple players, with a tendency for turning diplomatic spats into regional wars that in turn involve world powers such as the United States or the People’s Republic of China. Notable examples include Tsushima Island (Daemado in Korean) located between Japan and Korea, the Senkaku Islands (Diaoyu in Chinese) scattered between japan, China, and Taiwan, and the islands of the South China Sea which consist of over 250 isles, atolls, cays, shoals, reefs, and sandbars, and which involve half a dozen countries with differing religions, social systems, and political ideologies and motivations.

Looking back over the past century, perhaps the most striking example that demonstrates how small islands have played a large role in causing international strife was the struggle for control over the small island groups situated in the Taiwan Strait between Nationalist Chinese-controlled Taiwan of Chaing Kai-shek and the Communist Chinese mainland under Mao Zedong. On two separate occasions during the 1950s, Mao’s forces bombed the islands held by Chiang Kai-shek, and the United States responded by actively intervening on Chiang's behalf.¹ It is no secret that amid the height of these two offshore islands crises, the staunchly anticommunist Eisenhower administration more than once openly threatened Mao’s regime with the use of nuclear weapons. Tensions resulting from the dispute over these small islands elevated to such an extent that at one point, people around the world feared that a “shooting war” between Taiwan and the PRC might escalate into a third world war between the United States and the Soviet Union.²

This chapter revisits the issue of the offshore islands in the Taiwan Strait from a fresh angle by re-examining how they were once at the center of the Washington—Taipei—Beijing triangular relationship during the Cold War. With the benefit of archival materials only recently made available, this chapter further reveals hitherto little-known events surrounding the history of the islands, involving the crucial and private role a retired U.S. admiral played in Chiang Kai-shek’s decision to abandon some of the strategic island redoubts in the early 1950s, the CIA’s use of the isles for anticommunist guerrilla training, the launching of coastal raids against the Chinese mainland, and other underground activities during the Korean War. It will show, for the first time, the cloud of suspicion surrounding the secret contacts between Taipei and Beijing leading up to and during the 1958 offshore islands crisis, and elucidate how such a political tête-à-tête and its resultant tacit consensus over the status of the islands, gradually brought about an end to the conflict not only between Taiwan and Communist China, but also between the Soviet Union and the United States, thus playing a role in the shaping of American cold war policy.

In hindsight, the crisis over the offshore islands along China’s south and southeast coast momentarily brought America closer to war with Communist China while putting the relationship between Taipei and Washington to a serious test. The end result, however, was that while these isles were technically embedded in the unfinished civil war between Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek, and by proxy part of a larger international Cold War, they provided, ironically, an opportunity for secret communications and ultimately a kind of détente between the two supposedly deadly enemies across the Taiwan Strait. So it turns out, a close examination of the details of these crises, along with their attendant military, political, and diplomatic complexities, reveals an amazing amount of political intrigue at both the local level and the international level that was not fully realized until now.

The Gimo, the admiral, and the islands

By the time Chiang Kai-shek and his small entourage fled from the Communist-besieged city of Chengdu in Sichuan Province and reached Taipei on the afternoon of December 10, 1949, the Nationalist (KMT) regime seemed doomed. Now the Republic of China (ROC)’s de facto territorial domain consisted only of Taiwan, the Hainan Island, and a string of offshore islands from Zhoushan off Zhejiang Province down to the South China Sea. As K. C. Wu, then the liberal-minded provincial governor of Taiwan, reminisced, in the last days of 1949 the Generalissimo was constantly in an extremely anxious state of mind: these island territories were the final residue of a huge nation he had once governed, but now no one, including Chiang himself, was certain about their defensibility.³

By the time Chiang arrived in Taiwan in December 1949, the Truman administration was prepared to let Mao Zedong’s forces cross the Strait and defeat the crumbling Nationalist regime, a policy Secretary of State Dean Acheson succinctly elaborated as waiting “until the dust settles.”⁴ However, not everyone in the United States was happy about such a passive stance, at least not for those in the military establishment. In January 1950, when President Truman and his high officials declared the preclusion of Taiwan from America’s “defense perimeter” in the Far East, General Douglas MacArthur, then supreme commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP) and other staunch KMT sympathizers in the military seemed determined to act on their own and rescue Chiang. On January 30, MacArthur sent two of his senior intelligence officers from the Tokyo-based SCAP headquarters to meet with Chiang to discuss the possible installation of radar stations in Taiwan.⁵ Ten days later, Charles M. Cooke, a former commander of the U.S. Seventh Fleet who was now accredited as a correspondent for the International News Service, followed suit. Accompanying the retired admiral was Millard P. Goodfellow, a former deputy director of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). While these visits were occurring, however, the State Department and its representatives on the island were kept in the dark. They were told only that the purpose of Cooke and Goodfellow’s visit was to “conduct private business” in Taiwan, including “selling fertilizer.”⁶

The retired admiral surely had business other than selling fertilizer on his mind. He and the Generalissimo were old acquaintances. Between 1946 and 1948, when Cooke was taking command of the Seventh Fleet and the U.S. Naval Forces in Western Pacific, he maintained a very cordial relationship with top Nationalist officials. In fact, his strong pro-KMT tendency got him into trouble with those who disliked Chiang, such as George Marshall. After arriving in Taiwan in February 1950, Cooke soon won Chiang’s confidence. It is easy to understand why. Externally Chiang was abandoned by the Truman White House, and internally he found it hard to trust any of his own military and political subordinates at such a dire juncture. In the following 18 months, the retired admiral virtually became Chiang’s personal adviser, organizing and leading an unofficial advisory group of 31 retired American officers who now called themselves “special technicians” to perform the role of advising the demoralized Nationalist forces.⁷

What made Charles Cooke’s experience in Taiwan extraordinary was his ability to “privatize” the Nationalist government’s military and security policies in a crucial period leading up to the Korean War, especially with regard to the offshore islands. On April 27, 1950, Chiang Kai-shek brought Cooke with him to undertake a risky inspection tour of the Zhoushan Islands. The Generalissimo and his senior advisors had long held that Zhoushan was strategically vital to the defense of Taiwan. A Nationalist presence on the islands group, a mere 174 miles away from Shanghai, would both pose a threat to the Chinese Communists in that metropolis and deter Mao’s forces from moving southward by sea. Since the spring of 1949, Chiang’s officers had spent huge amounts of money and energy to fortify Zhoushan as a formidable stronghold. By the time of the inspection, a new airfield had just been built, and infrastructure improvements such as radio masts and fortresses were being completed, while more than 130,000 ROC forces, were stationed on the 502-square-kilometer islands.⁸

After inspecting Zhoushan, however, Charles Cooke boldly suggested withdrawing the Nationalist troops and abandoning the islands altogether. The admiral’s rationale was straightforward: the latest intelligence indicated that the Communist airfields in the greater Shanghai area had been outfitted with radar and anti-aircraft batteries, and Soviet jet planes flown by Russian pilots were operating there. Facing this vastly increased Communist airpower were only the two Nationalist airfields on the islands, with inadequate radar equipment and no anti-aircraft batteries.⁹ In the eyes of Cooke, the PLA sea and air superiority in the Zhoushan area was evident, meaning the islands were indefensible and therefore could no longer serve as a useful base for Nationalist air operations. Moreover, Cooke warned that despite the adverse effect that abandoning the islands might have on Nationalist morale, Chiang should order the withdrawal immediately and certainly no later than early June, by which time good weather would allow the PLA to mobilize its air power.¹⁰

Almost all from Chiang’s innermost circle were mad at Cooke’s “crazy” proposal, deeming that it would strike a huge blow to Nationalist morale and prestige. In his personal diary, Chiang somberly noted how his military chiefs lost their tempers in the meetings where Cooke was present, refusing even to shake hands with him.¹¹ Even Chiang Ching-kuo, the Generalissimo’s son, was against the withdrawal and admitted he was deeply disturbed by Cooke’s unwise decision, hoping his father would not be influenced by an American.¹² Declassified State Department files indicate that Chiang’s military men directed their fury at Cooke, privately criticizing the Generalissimo for being taken in by a foreigner and accusing Chiang of cowardice for wanting to abandon a key stronghold without any shots being fired.¹³ Notwithstanding such vehement opposition from his military staff, Chiang decided to take Cooke’s advice and, on the morning of May 10, he ordered the retreat of the Nationalist forces on the islands. Also at Cooke’s suggestion, Chiang assigned the reluctant Admiral Gui Yongqing, then commander in chief of the ROC Navy, to lead his forces to Zhoushan and coordinate the evacuation. On May 16, some 150,000 troops and civilians, along with munitions and materiel, safely reached Taiwan without encountering Communist forces.¹⁴

Charles Cooke equally played a significant role in the final retreat of the Nationalists from Hainan Island which took place 2 weeks ahead of the Zhoushan withdrawal. Around mid-April 1950, the PLA successfully crossed the Leizhou Strait and landed on northern Hainan from Guangdong Province. Th...