The Cold War’s Odd Couple: The Unintended Partnership between the Republic of China and the UK, 1950–1958 (review)

When examining the Asian front in the Cold War, most scholars, such as Robert Accinelli, Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, and James Tang, have focused on three major players: on one side, the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), on the other, the United States. Steve Tsang Yui-Sang, the director of the Taiwan Studies Program at Oxford University, attempts to redress this imbalance by investigating the crucial roles of the United Kingdom and the Republic of China (ROC, or Taiwan) in the Asian Cold War in the 1950s. Using the Chiang Kai-shek Papers at the Academia Historica in Taiwan and documents from British and U.S. archives, Tsang contends that the two principals constituted an “odd couple” at that time. Despite being declining powers and secondary partners in Cold War alliances, they made strenuous efforts to assert themselves as much as possible, and both sought to influence the outcome of the Taiwan Straits crises provoked by the PRC. By 1958 the two states had reached a de facto, albeit temporary, strategic partnership.

Until 1950 Britain sought to defend its own security and to safeguard the oil routes to the Middle East and the sea-lanes of communications with its colonies and Commonwealth partners. After India gained independence, Asia, except for the defense of Malaya and Singapore, became rather peripheral to British foreign policymakers. After the Nationalist regime on the mainland collapsed and its leaders fled to Taiwan in 1949, the British government anticipated that the offshore island would inevitably soon fall to the Communist victors. Although the United Kingdom quickly recognized the PRC as the legitimate government of China, it also maintained a consulate in Tamsui, Taiwan, from which British consuls and military attachés sent their government invaluable reports on political, economic, and military developments on the island. The ROC likewise maintained low-level unofficial representation in London.

The outbreak of the Korean War significantly enhanced the significance of Asia in general and Taiwan in particular. Taiwan’s position off the Chinese coast meant that it was an invaluable naval and air base, part of the U.S. defense perimeter in the drive to contain Chinese Communism. This situation, together with China’s diversion of forces to Korea, saved the ROC from the invasion that had previously been expected (and indeed planned by Mao Zedong). To Chiang Kai-shek, the ROC’s leader, who realized that a war would bolster the ROC’s chances of survival, the Korean conflict came as a godsend, essentially making it impossible for the PRC to invade Taiwan.

Although Britain did not wish to see Communist forces seize Taiwan, British leaders were unwilling to go to war to prevent an invasion. In the first half of the 1950s, Britain endeavored to restrain militarily aggressive U.S. policymakers, especially Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. In 1954 Mao Zedong, seeking not only to deter the United States from signing a mutual defense treaty with the ROC but also to forestall future ROC covert operations against the PRC from offshore islands, precipitated the first Taiwan Strait crisis. Britain supported Operation Oracle, measures intended to defuse the Strait Crisis, and sought through persuasion to restrain the United States from defending any offshore islands. The British attitude infuriated Chiang, who deeply resented what he considered British attempts to neutralize Taiwan and its offshore islands. As a result, relations plummeted.

British power declined substantially in the wake of the 1956 Suez crisis. From then on, according to Tsang, Britain was no more than a junior partner of the United States. Britain recognized, furthermore, that Chiang’s successful agrarian and political reforms had bolstered KMT support in Taiwan, giving his regime new legitimacy and strength. Despite recognizing the PRC as the only legitimate government of China, Britain somewhat inconsistently supported U.S. efforts to keep the ROC seated...