100 { China’s Quest
Search for US Disengagement from TaiwanA key objective of China’s peace offensive of 1954–1955 was securing US dis-
engagement from Taiwan. Mao and Zhou seem to have believed at this junc-
ture that grand strategic calculations would lead Washington to sacrifice the
Taiwan pawn to influence the grand balance of the USSR, the United States,
and the PRC. The US engagement with Taiwan in June 1950 had been, after
all, a wartime exigency, a measure intended to prevent the war in Korea
from spreading to the Taiwan Strait and to prevent US forces in Korea from
being outflanked to their south. By 1954, the Korean War was over and those
requirements were no longer operative. Chinese leaders were also well aware
that the United States had been prepared before the Korean War to sacrifice
Taiwan for the sake of influencing the PRC’s international alignment vis-à-
vis the United States and the Soviet Union. There were, after all, the famous
January 1950 statements by Acheson and Truman, reinforced by the leaked
State Department directive to overseas missions. Those profound geostrate-
gic variables still operated. If Beijing now signaled willingness for more ami-
cable relations with the United States, Washington would perhaps revert to its
pre–June 1950 strategic calculations and disengage from Taiwan. The delib-
erate relaxation of international tension via moderate policies at Geneva, and
later at Bandung, provided inducement for Washington to disengage from
Taiwan. But that peace offensive was preceded by the powerful military offen-
sive against Dienbienphu and would be punctuated by military demonstra-
tions in the Taiwan Strait from September 1954 to March 1955. In the Taiwan
Strait, as at Geneva and during the Korean War, Beijing followed a policy of
“talking while fighting.”
The negotiating aspect of Beijing’s strategy focused on forty or so American
citizens imprisoned in China for “economic crimes” and espionage during
the campaign to uproot the Western presence in China. These hostages would
be used as incentive to open a “direct channel” with the Americans. It was
apparent that US leaders desired the release of these US citizens, and this
desire would be used to open direct talks, creating a venue in which China
could raise its demands for US disengagement from Taiwan. Once direct
talks had begun, Washington was to be persuaded that there were two sepa-
rate aspects of the Taiwan problem: 1) Beijing-KMT relations, which were an
internal affair of China and with which the United States should not concern
itself, and 2) US-PRC relations regarding Taiwan, which was clearly an inter-
national affair on which Beijing and Washington should discuss and reach
agreement. Beijing proposed simultaneous talks along both dimensions, but
the two tracks were separate and would remain so.^20
Two main factors would impel Washington to disengage from Taiwan,
PRC leaders calculated. US allies in Europe and in Asia did not want a
US-PRC war over Taiwan, and would pressure Washington to that effect.