Acheson and the Lure of Chinese Titoism
An episode that
occurred during Mao’s stay in Moscow was symptomatic of both the
fraught relations within the Communist world as well as the
potential and looming role of the United States in that emerging
triangle. The occasion was an attempt by Secretary of State Dean
Acheson to answer the chorus of domestic critics on who had “lost”
China. Under his instructions, the State Department had issued a
White Paper in August 1949 addressing the collapse of the
Nationalists. Though the United States still recognized the
Nationalists as the legitimate government for all of China, the
White Paper described them as “corrupt, reactionary and
inefficient.”8 Acheson had therefore concluded, and he
advised Truman in the White Paper’s letter of transmittal,
that
[t]he unfortunate but inescapable fact is that the ominous result of the civil war in China was beyond the control of the government of the United States. Nothing that this country did or could have done within the reasonable limits of its capabilities could have changed that result. . . . It was the product of internal Chinese forces, forces which this country tried to influence but could not.9
In a speech to the
National Press Club on January 12, 1950, Acheson reinforced the
White Paper’s message and put forward a sweeping new Asia policy.
His speech contained three points of fundamental importance. The
first was that Washington was washing its hands of the Chinese
civil war. The Nationalists, Acheson proclaimed, had displayed both
political inadequacy as well as “the grossest incompetence ever
experienced by any military command.” The Communists, Acheson
reasoned, “did not create this condition,” but had skillfully
exploited the opening it provided. Chiang Kai-shek was now “a
refugee on a small island off the coast of China with the remnants
of his forces.”10
Having conceded the
mainland to Communist control and whatever geopolitical impact this
might have, it made no sense to resist Communist attempts to occupy
Taiwan. This was in fact the judgment of NSC-48/2, a document
reflecting national policy prepared by the National Security
Council staff and approved by the President. Adopted on December
30, 1949, it concluded that “the strategic importance of Formosa
[Taiwan] does not justify overt military action.” Truman had made a
similar point at a press conference on January 5: “The United
States Government will not provide military aid or advice to
Chinese forces on Formosa.”11
Second and even more
significantly, Acheson left no doubt about who was threatening
China’s independence in the long run:
This Communistic concept and techniques have armed Russian imperialism with a new and most insidious weapon of penetration. Armed with these new powers, what is happening in China is that the Soviet Union is detaching the northern provinces [areas] of China from China and is attaching them to the Soviet Union. This process is complete in outer Mongolia. It is nearly complete in Manchuria, and I am sure that in inner Mongolia and in Sinkiang there are very happy reports coming from Soviet agents to Moscow. This is what is going on.12
The final new point
in Acheson’s speech was even more profound in its implications for
the future. For it did nothing less than suggest an explicit
Titoist option for China. Proposing to base relations with China on
national interest, Acheson asserted that the integrity of China was
an American national interest regardless of China’s domestic
ideology: “We must take the position we have always taken—that
anyone who violates the integrity of China is the enemy of China
and is acting contrary to our own interest.”13
Acheson was laying
out a prospect for a new Sino-American relationship based on
national interest, not ideology:
[Today] is a day in which the old relationships between east and west are gone, relationships which at their worst were exploitation, and which at their best were paternalism. That relationship is over, and the relationship of east and west must now be in the Far East one of mutual respect and mutual helpfulness.14
Such a view toward
Communist China would not be put forward again by a senior American
official for another two decades, when Richard Nixon advanced
similar propositions to his Cabinet.
Acheson’s speech was
brilliantly crafted to touch most of Stalin’s raw nerves. And
Stalin was in fact lured into trying to do something about it. He
dispatched his foreign minister, Andrey Vyshinsky, and his senior
minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, to call on Mao, still in Moscow for
the alliance negotiations, to warn him of the “slander” being
spread by Acheson and, in effect, inviting reassurance. It was a
somewhat frantic gesture, not in keeping with Stalin’s usual
perspicacity. For the very request for reassurance defines the
potential capacity for unreliability of the other side. If a
partner is thought capable of desertion, why would reassurance be
credible? If not, why would it be necessary? Moreover, both Mao and
Stalin knew that Acheson’s “slander” was an accurate description of
the current Sino-Soviet relationship.15
The Soviet pair asked
Mao to disavow Acheson’s accusations that the Soviet Union might
seek to detach parts of China, or a dominant position in them, and
recommended that he describe it as an insult to China. Mao did not
comment to Stalin’s emissaries except to ask for a copy of the
speech and inquire about Acheson’s possible motives. After a few
days, Mao approved a statement sarcastically attacking Acheson—but
in contrast to Moscow’s response, which was issued in the name of
the Soviet foreign minister, Beijing left it to the head of the
People’s Republic of China’s official news bureau to reject
Acheson’s overtures.16 The language of the statement decried
Washington’s “slander” but its relatively low protocol level kept
China’s options open. Mao chose not to address the full
implications of his view while he was in Moscow, trying to
construct a safety net for his still isolated country.
Mao revealed his true
feelings about the possibility of separating from Moscow later, in
December 1956, with characteristic complexity, in the guise of
rejecting the option once again albeit in a more muted way:
China and the Soviet Union stand together. . . . [T]here are still people who have doubts about this policy. . . . They think China should take a middle course and be a bridge between the Soviet Union and the United States. . . . If China stands between the Soviet Union and the United States, she appears to be in a favorable position, and to be independent, but actually she cannot be independent. The United States is not reliable, she would give you a little something, but not much. How could imperialism give you a full meal? It won’t.17
But what if the
United States were ready to offer what Mao called “a full meal”?
That question would not be answered until 1972, when President
Nixon began his overtures to China.