Communists sympathizers within the United States successfully sought to deny military equipment from the U.S. to be shipped to Chiang Kai-shek to fend off the Japanese invaders and Mao’s Red Army during World War II. They had also successfully persuaded the U.S. government to pull out all their military forces in China.
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During the years 1937-1949 the United States furnished Chiang Kai-shek's government a considerable amount of material and financial aid. Financial assistance was the dominant form of aid furnished because American neutrality laws precluded most other ...
In following the policy of supporting Chiang Kai-shek, President Roosevelt made concessions to Chiang in order to placate the Chinese leader, promote more cordial relations, and keep China in the war. Opposition developed, during the l ate war years, among American officials to unqualified support of Chiang Kai-shek.
Opposition developed, during the l ate war years, among American officials to unqualified support of Chiang Kai-shek. Some American officials thought that Chiang was merely taking all of the American aid he could get, then conserving his forces for a future struggle with the Chinese Communists f or control of China.
Abstract. Chinese-American diplomatic relations for the period 1937-1949 developed into a very controversial subject. In considering this fact the questions arose as to what the American policy toward Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalist government was and how that policy was implemented. Through a study of available material it has been determined ...
Pentagon chiefs recommended a “modest, well-directed, and closely supervised” program of military assistance for Taiwan , together with an immediate survey of its defense requirements. The State Department rejected this proposal, in a session chaired by President Truman. U.S. military action might postpone a Communist takeover, Acheson argued, but could not prevent it. The decision amounted to a virtual abandonment of Taiwan and Chiang.
On January 3, 1951, Mao sent his aide to the FBI and to the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations, accusing the CIC of illegally procuring ammunition on behalf of the Nationalists. He also accused a few State Department officials of having inappropriate relations with the CIC and unfairly helping it to get export licenses. The FBI and the Air Force launched investigations of the CIC. Pending their conclusion, Taiwan received neither radar nor aircraft licenses, nor clearance for new radar technicians.
Cooke and the CIC surreptitiously bought a considerable amount of munitions from the Philippines on behalf of the Nationalists in March. The items included $8 million worth of aircraft spare parts, 300 cases of radar equipment, and 100 tracked landing vehicles. Rumor had it that CIC agents in Manila were also purchasing 426 surplus tanks to ship to Taiwan. (The Nationalists’ acquisition of so many surplus tanks disturbed politicians at both the U.S. State Department and the British Foreign Office, who worried that these heavy weapons would eventually fall to the Chinese Communists when Taiwan was captured, thus posing a threat to the West.) Although the tanks never made it to Taiwan, Cooke and the CIC did purchase 300 armored cars and scout cars in Philadelphia and shipped them to Taiwan. In early April, Cooke helped Chiang obtain 23,000 artillery rounds from Yokosuka, the U.S. naval base in Japan. The Nationalists desperately needed ammunition to defend their precarious offshore bases that spring, and Cooke exercised his influence in both Washington and Tokyo to acquire the surplus ammunition at a good price.
Retired admiral Charles Cooke flew to Taiwan ostensibly to conduct “private business,” including selling fertilizer. Cooke and the CIC surreptitiously bought a considerable amount of munitions from the Philippines on behalf of the Nationalists in March.
Cooke’s third trip was undoubtedly related to the fomenting U.S. stance toward Chiang. Chiang urged Cooke to convey a secret, personal invitation to MacArthur to conduct an inspection tour of Taiwan, and then to assume command over the island’s military if the situation ultimately required it. Meanwhile, through Cooke, Chiang also petitioned Dulles, Louis Johnson, and Joint Chiefs Chairman Omar Bradley for American advisers, economic and military assistance, and a “positive declaration of policy” toward Chiang and his leadership. Despite Chiang’s humbly expressed intention to hand over political authority, MacArthur was determined to keep him in power and preserve Taiwan for future “military rollback.” Accordingly, a coup to remove Chiang was out of the question.
Yet the damage to Cooke, the CIC, and the STP had been done. MacArthur was dismissed in April 1951, so the CIC lost its patron. General William Chase was appointed the first chief of the American MAAG in Taipei, and the days of the Special Technician Program were numbered. After transferring most advisory and training activities to Chase’s new group, the STP was abolished.
Soon, large-scale military and economic aid would flow to the Taiwan-based Nationalists. How that aid came about, however, is a story that has never been fully told. During those crucial months surrounding the outbreak of the Korean War, Chiang Kai-shek had begun to rely heavily on a small group of underground U.S. military personnel to form and implement policies to rescue his demoralized regime. This ad hoc group of unofficial foreign and military advisers, led by retired admiral Charles M. Cooke, former commander of the Seventh Fleet, launched covert military training and reform projects in the early 1950s that would play a crucial role in strengthening the tottering Nationalist government in Taiwan before the tide turned in Washington.
Chiang Kai-Shek: Internal and External Conflict in China. Chiang Kai-Shek: Civil War and Government in Exile. Chinese military and political leader Chiang Kai-shek joined the Chinese Nationalist Party (known as the Kuomintang, or KMT) in 1918.
Chiang initially focused on the communist threat rather than confront Japan directly, a choice that angered many of his supporters. In the Sian (Xian) Incident of December 1936, one of his generals seized Chiang and held him captive for two weeks until he agreed to ally with Mao Zedong’s Communist forces against Japan.
Chiang Kai-shek's second wife, Soong Mei-ling, became a significant political figure in her own right. In addition to her address of Congress in 1943, the Wellesley-educated "Madame Chiang" wrote many articles on China for the American press. With Sun’s support, Chiang founded a military academy at Whampoa, near Canton, in 1924.
China fought Japan on its own for more than four years, until the Allies (with the exception of the Soviet Union) declared war on Japan in 1941. For its efforts, China earned inclusion among the Big Four powers, and Chiang’s international reputation skyrocketed.
Li Zongren's memoirs pointed out the so-called fundamental cause of the explosive growth of the communist bases and enclaves in the early years, i.e., Chiang Kai-shek deliberately ignoring the Communists for sake of exercising the economic, military & political dictatorship.
Chiang Kai-shek was said to have made a quick appearance at the meeting and scared the financiers by hinting that the communist insurgents might come to Shanghai to stage a rebellion should the financiers fail to assist his government in the crackdown on the communist enclaves.
The Expedition army was rebuilt into the New 1st Corps. Stilwell agreed to equip the Chinese armies with the American weapons. Chiang Kai-shek's future crack force, as commonly known, were the remnants of Stilwell's X-force from India and the Y-force from Yunnan-Guangxi provinces.
In the aftermath of the May 1947 Menglianggu Campaign debacle, Chiang Kai-shek, in deep remorse, renamed one of the British bribery warships by the name of Lingfu in commemoration of General Zhang Linfu.)
In June 1940, France stopped China from using the Vietnamese-Chinese highway and railway; in July, Britain forbade China from using HK and Burma as the transport routes. Pro-communist scholar Ma Yinchu attacked Kong Xiangxi (HH Kung) for 1) the bond market manipulation, 2) the foreign exchange manipulation.
Conflicting records, which dated from the Comintern-instigated Stilwell assassination against Chiang Kai-shek of 1943-1944, claimed that both Mms Chiang and Mme Kung were kicked out of China due to implication in the assassination.
The foreign exchange, which was maintained by the Nationalist Government in cooperation with Britain and America, had been fluctuating in synchronization with the war developments. China's "legalized currency" was impacted by the 1937 war outbreak in Shanghai when there was a flight of capital to HK and elsewhere.