Why US could not stop China becoming communist in 1945?'

Usually, your enemy's enemy is your friend. However, if your friends are ideally different from one another and yet pretending that they are the same, it becomes a different story. When three friends travel together, normally one of them can feel isolated at some point. The same happened in 1945 at the end of the Second World War to China. The communist China and the Soviet Union fought together against Japan, but they were not really friends.

This book discovers the moves of the U.S., which had to play a very complex game with China and the Soviet Union in 1945 when Japan's defeat seemed certain. The author, who majored in Chinese history and worked as a correspondent in China, argues that the moves of the U.S., China, and the USSR became the beginning of the conflict between the U.S. and China that has lasted over decades.

The McCarthyism that prevailed in the U.S. right after the Second World War resulted in giving power to ideologues in foreign policy. Such a structure was bound to prevent practical and balanced public policy. The most impressive example was the conflict between Patrick Hurley, the U.S. Ambassador to China, and his subordinate diplomats. Hurley had a strong support from President Roosevelt and distrusted the communist party of China. On the other hand, the diplomats from the U.S. State Department dispatched to the embassy were China watchers, fluent in Chinese and in frequent contact with Chinese politicians. They argued that in order to defeat Japan quickly, the U.S. should lend military articles to the communist party, which was receiving the public's support. Their suggestion caused severe conflicts with Hurley. Finally, the diplomats had to leave China as Hurley interfered with their activities, and China's distrust in the U.S. grew stronger.

The author sharply criticizes the dove diplomats' ability to comprehend the situation, that they fantasized Mao Zedong and his communist party. "The China watchers did not even know that at the very moment when the communist party was requesting that the Chinese nationalist party respect civil rights, it was also suppressing the opposing party," said the author.

If the U.S. isolated the communist party of China completely and increased support to the Chinese nationalist party, would it stop China becoming a communist country? The author notes that the U.S.'s effort would go in vain anyway as long as Mao Zedong, who was infatuated with socialist revolutionary ideas, had power. Especially, the U.S.'s request to the USSR for attacking Manchuria in August 1945 became the decisive reason for the union between Mao Zedong and Stalin.

김상운 기자sukim@donga.com