30 { China’s Quest
supported the KMT against the CCP. When this policy of counterrevolution-
ary interference in China’s internal affairs began to crumble, Washington,
again in the CCP view, switched to trying to split “intermediate” forces
away from the CCP-led anti-imperialist united front, to create an “opposi-
tion” within the revolutionary camp. The task of the Chinese revolution, Mao
explained, was to build socialism in China. There would be strong opposi-
tion to this from China’s “liberal bourgeoisie,” from wavering intermedi-
ate elements, and from outright counterrevolutionaries, all supported and
encouraged by US imperialism. Strong backing and support from the Soviet
Union would be essential to defeat US efforts to block China’s advance down
its chosen revolutionary path. As Professor Chen Jian noted, Mao and the
CCP’s perception of the US threat derived not primarily from US policies but
from Marxist-Leninist ideology, which taught that the United States was an
inherently aggressive and counterrevolutionary imperialist power.^2 A social-
ist China rapidly industrializing with Soviet assistance and supporting the
revolutionary forces of Asia could quickly emerge as the leading power in
Asia, or so CCP leaders hoped.
While CCP policy was moving toward alliance with the Soviet Union,
Washington was maneuvering toward a hoped-for opening to the emerging
CCP-led China. In late 1948, following the catastrophic KMT defeat in the
battle of Huaihai (November 6, 1948, through January 10, 1949), US policy
makers recognized that earlier US policy toward China had failed, that the
KMT was doomed, and that the CCP was likely to rule China. It was neces-
sary, therefore, to reconsider US interests and policy. After an intense debate,
US leaders decided by the end of 1948 that the overriding US interest in the
Far East was minimizing Soviet power in that region, and that this could
best be achieved by preventing communist-ruled China from becoming an
adjunct of Soviet power. The premise underlying this policy was that conflicts
between China and the USSR—for example Soviet special privileges in China’s
northeast and Xinjiang, as stipulated by documents ancillary to the August
1945 Sino-Soviet treaty—far exceeded conflicts of interests between China
and the United States. If the United States disengaged from the Chinese civil
war—that is, if it disengaged from Chiang Kai-shek, his Nationalist regime,
and the KMT bastion on Taiwan; let the dust settle from the recent conflict;
avoided making itself an enemy of new CCP-ruled China; and allowed some
time for Sino-Soviet contradictions to emerge—the opportunity for an open-
ing to the new, communist-ruled China might materialize within a few years.
Chinese nationalist communism, “Chinese Titoism” in the parlance of that
era (and after the Yugoslav leader; see below), might be courted away from
Moscow.^3 One policy expression of this new US approach consisted of orders
to US missions in China, the embassy in Nanjing and consulates in Shenyang,
Tianjin, Shanghai, and Beiping (as Beijing was named before 1949), to remain
in place when communist forces occupied those areas, seek to avoid conflict,