CIAO DATE: 04/02

The United States and the Republic of China, 1949-1978: Suspicious Allies

This paper discusses the relationship between the United States and the Republic of China (ROC) from 1949 to 1979. This was an association that began and ended with an American determination to distance itself from the government on Taiwan, in the interests of improved relations with the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) on the mainland. In the intervening years, the United States and the ROC were aligned in a relationship– formalized by a mutual defense treaty from 1955 to 1979–which weathered two (almost three) military confrontations with the PRC.1 Considerable cooperation, as well as often bitter bargaining, characterized this complex and evolving alliance. The primary purpose of the discussion that follows is to trace the evolution of this alliance and to describe the manner it which it was managed. Its secondary purpose is to relate that analysis to the present state of America's Asian alliances.

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