War in Korea and Indochina } 71
and fear that would be fostered during the war would make it clear to China’s
bourgeoisie that resistance would be dangerous, greatly facilitating liquida-
tion of China’s bourgeoisie as a class via transition to socialism.
Precipitating US Intervention to Shelter Taiwan
One immediate consequence of North Korea’s attack on South Korea was a US
decision to scrap the six-month-old policy of sacrificing Taiwan and instead
use US military power to protect Taiwan from PLA invasion. North Korea’s
invasion, together with the conclusion of the Sino-Soviet alliance in February
1950, fundamentally altered US thinking about Taiwan’s status. As noted in an
earlier chapter, Soviet submarines operating from Taiwan would very substan-
tially strengthen the threat those submarines posed to US sea lines of com-
munications in the Western Pacific. In late 1949, US leaders had decided, after
an intense and difficult debate, to abandon Taiwan to PLA takeover. This was
to be done for the sake of seeking a modus vivendi with CCP-ruled China.
This policy was abruptly discarded by US leaders once North Korean armies
smashed across the 38th parallel with apparent Soviet and PRC support.
The US decision to abandon Taiwan was a difficult one. There was strong
opposition. The US navy, which traditionally had great influence on US
policy in the Pacific, and Congress, where sympathy for the KMT regime
was strong, were loath to sacrifice Taiwan. There was strong sympathy for
“Free China” among American communities, many of whom had long sup-
ported missionary efforts in the ROC, whose leaders, the Generalissimo and
Madame Chiang, were Protestant Christians (Methodists to be precise), many
Americans noted favorably. The Truman administration was also under
increasing attack for being “soft on communism,” and abandoning Taiwan
and the KMT to the CCP would, and did, add to that criticism.
In November 1948, as KMT forces crumbled at the battle of Huaihai, the
US Joint Chiefs of Staff reported to the President that a communist takeover
of Taiwan would be “seriously unfavorable” to US security interests in the Far
East, largely because of that island’s strategic location for control of sea lines
of communication.^30 These naval views contributed to a National Security
Council decision of February 1949 to deny Taiwan to communist control, but
only insofar as that could be achieved via “diplomatic and economic means.”
The State Department especially insisted that use of US military power be
excluded, since that would contradict too directly the overriding strategic
goal of courting “Chinese Titoism.” By late 1949, however, it was clear that
efforts to deny Taiwan to the PLA by purely nonmilitary means had failed,
and that Taiwan would soon fall to PLA invasion unless US military forces
intervened to protect it. The pros and cons of such direct military interven-
tion were debated intensely within the Administration, but eventually it