Taiwan Strait Crises

Taiwan Strait Crises (1955; 1958).Several small, obscure island groups in the 100‐mile‐wide Taiwan Strait, which separates the Chinese mainland from Taiwan Island (also known as Formosa), twice became the center of world attention in the 1950s when conflicts between the Chinese Communists and the Chinese Nationalists threatened to draw the United States and other countries into wide‐scale military conflict, including the use of nuclear weapons. The U.S. handling of the crises also became an important issue in domestic politics, particularly during the 1960 presidential contest between John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard M. Nixon.

After the triumph of the Communists over the Nationalists in 1949 on the mainland, the Chinese civil war continued in the offshore islands. The Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai‐shek, in addition to holding Taiwan and Pescadores Island, also controlled several smaller islands, many just off the China coast, of which the most important were Quemoy and Matsu. The contending Chinese forces regularly fought for these small bits of territory, which were sparsely populated, economically unimportant, and of questionable military value.

During and after the Korean War, the Nationalists used the islands as staging areas for harassment of the mainland and Communist shipping lanes. U.S. policy under both Truman and Eisenhower supported the Nationalists' retention of all territory under their control. Washington wanted no further territory to fall to the Communists. Elements of the U.S. Seventh Fleet had patrolled the strait since 1950 and U.S. military advisers were stationed on the islands.

The first major crisis began in September 1954, when Communist shore batteries heavily shelled Quemoy. The Nationalists retaliated with punishing air raids against the mainland and strengthened their island fortifications. Communist pressure on the islands continued, and top‐level officials in President Dwight D. Eisenhower's ad ministration began to believe that the Communists were preparing to assault all the offshore islands and possibly even Taiwan itself. Washington strengthened its commitment to Chiang Kai‐shek with a mutual defense treaty and congressional passage of the “Formosa Resolution,” which allowed the president to commit U.S. forces to Taiwan's defense.

The crisis came in April 1955, when the United States threatened to use nuclear weapons in the event of a Communist assault on Quemoy and Matsu. Simultaneously, Chinese premier Zhou Enlai signaled Beijing's willingness to negotiate with the United States. Tensions rapidly dissipated and direct talks between the two sides began in Warsaw. It does not appear, however, that the Communists were actually deterred by the nuclear threat.

In August 1958, during an international crisis in the Middle East, another U.S.‐China confrontation broke out over Quemoy and Matsu, after the Communists again bombarded the islands from onshore batteries. This confrontation was shorter but more intense than the first one. For several weeks, it again appeared that the United States, which sent several carrier groups to the region, might be drawn into a war with China, and possibly with the Soviet Union, which publicly supported Beijing's “Liberate Taiwan” campaign. But like the first crisis, tensions broke as Washington and Beijing resumed negotiations and Beijing backed away from an assault.

Over the years, Beijing seized most of the offshore islands, except Quemoy and Matsu, which remain in Nationalist hands.
[See also China, U.S. Military Involvement in; Chinese Civil War, U.S. Military Involvement in the; Cold War: External Course; Middle East, U.S. Military Involvement in the.]

Bibliography

Alexander L. George and and Richard Smoke , Deterrence in American Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice, 1974.
Gordon H. Chang , Friends and Enemies: The United States, China and the Soviet Union, 1948–1972, 1990.

Gordon H. Chang