China 1945
Mao's Revolution and America's Fateful Choice
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4.8 • 5 Ratings
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
A riveting account of the watershed moment in America’s dealings with China that forever altered the course of East-West relations
As 1945 opened, America was on surprisingly congenial terms with China’s Communist rebels—their soldiers treated their American counterparts as heroes, rescuing airmen shot down over enemy territory. Chinese leaders talked of a future in which American money and technology would help lift China out of poverty. Mao Zedong himself held friendly meetings with U.S. emissaries, vowing to them his intention of establishing an American-style democracy in China.
By year’s end, however, cordiality had been replaced by chilly hostility and distrust. Chinese Communist soldiers were setting ambushes for American marines in north China; Communist newspapers were portraying the United States as an implacable imperialist enemy; civil war in China was erupting. The pattern was set for a quarter century of almost total Sino-American mistrust, with the devastating wars in Korea and Vietnam among the consequences.
Richard Bernstein here tells the incredible story of that year’s sea change, brilliantly analyzing its many components, from ferocious infighting among U.S. diplomats, military leaders, and opinion makers to the complex relations between Mao and his patron, Stalin.
On the American side, we meet experienced “China hands” John Paton Davies and John Stewart Service, whose efforts at negotiation made them prey to accusations of Communist sympathy; FDR’s special ambassador Patrick J. Hurley, a decorated general and self-proclaimed cowboy; and Time journalist, Henry Luce, whose editorials helped turn the tide of American public opinion. On the Chinese side, Bernstein reveals the ascendant Mao and his intractable counterpart, Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek; and the indispensable Zhou Enlai.
A tour de force of narrative history, China 1945 examines the first episode in which American power and good intentions came face-to-face with a powerful Asian revolutionary movement, and challenges familiar assumptions about the origins of modern Sino-American relations.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Asia expert and former foreign correspondent Bernstein (The Coming Conflict with China) addresses a pivotal year in Sino-American relations in this meticulously researched, stimulating book. Recent skirmishes between the superpowers hark back to this "turning point" 70 years ago when relations between Washington and Beijing soured. Bernstein opens with an overview of the devastating and prolonged Second Sino-Japanese War. A cast of American war heroes rescued China from Japan and established a democracy, but American leaders were blindsided by the Chinese Communist Party's alliance with the Soviets, which was a major cause of U.S. involvement in two subsequent Asian wars. Part two introduces the colorful American diplomat Patrick J. Hurley and the ongoing struggle of the U.S. to keep Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the nationalist Kuomingtang, in power, while part three explores the dilemma of U.S. policy toward a China "divided into two countries." President Truman appointed George C. Marshall ambassador to China at the end of 1945, but the following year brought chaos, and nothing could divert Mao from his policy of revolution. Arguing that in 1945 American foreign policy was "bungling, inconsistent, and improvised," Bernstein states that going forward the U.S. must set reasonable goals and pursue them sensibly. It's a timely analysis that sheds light on the realities of American engagement in Asia.
