War in Korea and Indochina } 73
Taiwan. First Jinmen and Zhoushan Islands were to be taken, then Hainan,
and finally Taiwan. The invasion of Taiwan was set for mid-1951. Preparations
for the Taiwan invasion continued. By early 1950, 300,000 to 380,000 troops
were assembled along the central China coast training for amphibious assault
operations. A CCP Central Committee meeting in early June 1950 reviewed
the status of preparations for the Taiwan invasion. As a result of the review,
four additional field armies were deployed opposite Taiwan for the assault,
making a total of sixteen armies allocated for that mission.^34
The critical problem confronting a PLA invasion was not troop strength but
weakness of air and naval forces. In fall 1949, the CCP ordered a crash program
to acquire vessels that could be used for an assault on Taiwan—build them, buy
them in Hong Kong or elsewhere, refurbish captured KMT vessels, or requisi-
tion them from civilian use. As for air power, the PLA air force had only 185 air-
craft of Japanese, British, and US manufacture. Far more powerful forces would
be necessary to protect PLA troop transports and support forces once ashore.
Mao turned to Stalin for assistance in strengthening his air force. Securing
Soviet assistance in quickly developing air and naval forces for a Taiwan in-
vasion was high on Liu Shaoqi’s Moscow agenda in mid-1949. During his
Moscow talks, Liu Shaoqi requested that the Soviet Union supply the PLA
with air and naval equipment for a Taiwan invasion. Stalin rejected this pro-
posal out of hand, according to scholars Goncharov, Lewis, and Xue, because
it posed too great a danger of war with the United States. It might even trigger
a third world war, Stalin reportedly said.^35 Truman and Acheson’s January
1950 announcement that the United States would not intervene in a PLA in-
vasion of Taiwan led Stalin to agree to China’s request for rapid creation of
an air force to facilitate an assault on Taiwan. By mid-1950, Soviet training of
Chinese personnel for a new PRC air force was well under way. Prospects for
the successful liberation of Taiwan looked good. Then came the Korean War.
The difficult but authoritative December 1949 US decision to sacrifice
Taiwan was scrapped on June 27, 1950, two days after North Korea’s attack. In
a statement on that day, President Truman indicated that in the new circum-
stances created by the Soviet- and Chinese-supported North Korean attack,
“The occupation of Formosa by Communist forces would be a direct threat
to the security of the Pacific area and to United States forces ... in that area.”
Therefore, Truman continued, he had ordered the US Seventh Fleet to prevent
any communist attack on Formosa and any attack by Chinese Nationalist
forces against the mainland. The determination of the “future status” of
Taiwan would have to await future developments, Truman said.^36 China had
lost an opportunity to secure Taiwan without confronting the United States.
It had done this in furtherance of essentially North Korean and Soviet rea-
sons. To the extent that Mao bore responsibility for allowing Kim Il Sung to
launch his war plan when and how he did, Mao must bear responsibility for
US abandonment of its hands-off policy toward Taiwan.