国际交流英文演讲与辩论原文英语政论 (6).pdf

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1、Unit 6 China and America: 1941-1991 Nancy Bernkopf Tucker 1. How important is China to the United States? Among the most enduring legends of Sino-American interaction has been the insistence that Americans and Chinese have special relationship, a friendship unusual in international affairs. But in t

2、ruth China has always been of secondary significance to the United States-important simply in the context of crises with other countries. Only now, for the first time, with the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the absence of a new credible enemy must the United States deal with China for its o

3、wn sake and decide where the Chinese fit in the American concept of a new world order. 2. The history of Sino-American relations in the past fifty years has been a tale of how Americans, preoccupied with the affairs of Europe, thought they could use China, subordinating its needs and interests to th

4、e realization of weightier objectives elsewhere. China played a role in defeating Japan and Germany in the 1940s, slowing Soviet industrialization in the 1950s and 1960s, and complicating Moscows defenses in the 1970s and 1980s. The United States did not focus on China, as China, because of its lack

5、 of wealth and its purely regional power, did not necessitate direct attention. 3. Not surprisingly, disappointment plagued this distorted relationship. Neither country seemed willing or able to fulfill the expectations of the other. Americans saw the Chinese both as allies and adversaries, as peopl

6、e to be helped and feared, as potential customers and competitors, as strategic partners and expansionist aggressors. Such contradictions colored the efforts of statesmen to structure policy and of the public to understand what has transpired between the two states. 4. Differences in political objec

7、tives were aggravated by cultural discord. Americans determined to elicit political social reforms commensurate with their investments- financial and emotional-felt frustrated by the Chinese rejection of Western values. Both before and after the communist takeover in 1949 China sought to modernize w

8、ithout having to Westernize. 1 A source of tension throughout the Third World, the clash between change and tradition has been nowhere more powerful than in China and nowhere more troublesome than in Sino-American relations. 1 See the stimulating argument offered by Paul A. Cohen, The Post-Mao Refor

9、ms in Historical Perspective, Journal of Asian Studies, August 1988, pp. 518-540. The use here of the terms Westernize/Westernization is somewhat different: a shorthand for acceptance of Western political culture. II 5. Possibly the most striking illustration of Chinas peripheral status and the thwa

10、rting of both Chinese and American expectations can be found in their respective responses to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. What President Franklin D. Roosevelt called a day of infamy was a blessing to Nationalist (Kuomintang) Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek in his fog-ens

11、hrouded wartime capital. According to an observer in Chongqing, The military council was jubilant. Chiang was so happy he sang an old opera aria. . . . The Kuomintang government officials went around congratulating each other, as if a great victory had been won.2 The divergence between Americas dist

12、ress and Chinas joy underscored the differences between American and Chinese national interests. Washington, although now Chinas ally and a more forthright participant in the anti-Japanese struggle, put the war in Europe and the defeat of Hitler first. Roosevelt wanted to use the Chinese to bleed Ja

13、pan, to thwart Tokyos attempt to create a new order in Asia and seize European colonial holdings. To these ends the United States tried to reorganize Chiangs war effort by diverting him from Chinas civil conflict, training his troops and providing an American commander. 6. Chiang Kai-shek, in contra

14、st, had assumed that the United States would take over the fight against Japan, freeing him to concentrate on eliminating the internal communist threat. The Nationalist leader saw no reason to send his soldiers to die opposing Tokyo when Americans could defeat Japan without them, and he had no use f

15、or the American commander and adviser in China, General Joseph Stilwell, whose efforts to replace loyal but inept Chinese officers threatened to destabilize his regime. Chiang expected Washington simply to send money, tend to the larger war and leave him to deal with Chinas domestic politics. 7. The

16、 clash in priorities escalated when Americans sought contacts with Mao Zedongs forces at Yanan. Negotiations with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) were vital to the rescue of downed U.S. pilots and the staging of an American assault on Japans home islands from the Chinese coast. They would also all

17、ow the American military access to the only allies operating freely behind Japanese lines in north China. But the Nationalists adamantly rejected the idea of consorting with their enemy, relenting only under extreme pressure. And the Nationalists arguably had been right in their resistance, given th

18、e enthusiasm with which Americans responded to the communist Chinese. The Americans praised Maos government and army, whose energy, integrity, efficiency and idealism so forcefully highlighted the corruption, disarray and torpor of the Nationalists. Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai welcomed the first Ameri

19、can observer mission by celebrating the Fourth of July in 1944 and offering to travel to Washington to meet with Roosevelt to coordinate war strategies. 2 Han Suyin as quoted in Michael Schaller, United States and China in the Twentieth Century, New York: Oxford University Press, 1979, p. 70. 8. Nev

20、ertheless the United States remained, if reluctantly, tied to the Kuomintang government, disappointing the communists and encouraging the Nationalist Party to maintain an unrealistic assessment of its importance to Washington. In actuality Chiangs refusal to mount an energetic effort against Japan g

21、radually eroded U.S. support and ensured substitution of an island-hopping strategy for winning the Pacific war. But, although he despaired of making Chiang an active wartime asset, Roosevelt continued to imagine that China after the peace could become a great power and useful American partner. Thus

22、 he insisted, over the protests of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, that the Chinese be given a seat in the Security Council of the soon to be created United Nations. 9. Such extravagant assertions of Chinas significance did not prevent Roosevelts willing betrayal of Chinese interests at th

23、e Yalta Conference in February 1945 in pursuit of better relations with the Soviet Union and a swifter end to the war. In exchange for Moscows agreement to fight in the Pacific and to sign a treaty with Chiangs government, Roosevelt arbitrarily sacrificed Chinas control over Outer Mongolia, Port Art

24、hur and Dairen, as well as a share in the Chinese Eastern and South Manchuria railways. Although the United States could have done little to keep these territories and assets out of Soviet hands, it is also true that the president neither sought Chiangs approval nor worried much about the postwar im

25、pact of these choices on Chinas sovereignty. III 10. President Roosevelts compromises at Yalta did nothing to prevent the deterioration in Soviet-American relations that accelerated with the end of the Second World War. Americans insisted upon forward bases and open markets vulnerable to U.S. domina

26、tion. The Soviets demanded security buffers and exploited unrest to spread revolutionary ideology. The resulting Cold War pitted competing blocs of antagonistic states against each other, slowly inducing the United States to see that Chinas strategic location and market potential could actually make

27、 it a useful partner. 11. Americas policy in the tense days immediately following Japans surrender consisted of creating a strong and prosperous China by avoiding renewal of civil conflict and focusing government attention on political reform and economic rehabilitation. If Harry Truman felt constra

28、ined to support anti-communist forces under Chiang Kai-shek, he nevertheless did not yet see the Cold War as the critical variable in Asia and could contemplate establishing a Nationalist-Communist coalition. But Chiang, confident of U.S. patronage, refused compromise, opting for military victory. H

29、e disregarded American advice and tried to project his forces into Manchuria beyond the capacity of his supply system. His forces squandered popular support by preying upon the newly liberated cities of east China, treating the citizenry as collaborators for having lived under Japanese rule. His int

30、erference in battlefield command threw planning into disarray, and when the Peoples Liberation Army trapped frontline troops Chiang bombed his own units to prevent their equipment from falling into enemy hands. 12. Chiang saw the key to success as unstinting American aid. In a relentless campaign to

31、 secure ever-increasing amounts of assistance, he devised inventive ways to entangle the United States directly in the war effort. But despite U.S. assistance amounting to $2 billion between 1945 and 1949, neither money nor weapons could compensate for what the Nationalists lacked in competent leade

32、rship, ideals or popular devotion. Furthermore Chiangs suspicion of foreigners and distrust of modernization projects that threatened his control reinforced Washingtons inclination to focus on pressing European problems, such as the Berlin blockade and implementation of the Marshall Plan, where Amer

33、ican help would be better utilized and more appreciated.3 13. As a result the Truman administration searched for ways to escape Chiangs grasp and move toward diplomatic relations with a new regime in China. In August 1949 Secretary of State Dean Acheson published an expos of Chiangs blundering, know

34、n as the China White Paper, which argued that a generous and sympathetic United States could do no more on Chiangs behalf. Acheson spoke publicly of the practical value of diplomatic relations. Despite incidents like the house arrest of Consul General Angus Ward by communist forces in Mukden and lab

35、or confrontations with businessmen in Shanghai, American missionaries, diplomats and others remarked upon the surprising civility shown to foreigners in the midst of a civil war. 14. By December 1949 the Kuomintangs demise appeared imminent. Chiang had been forced to flee the mainland and had taken

36、refuge among a hostile population on the island of Taiwan. American intelligence asserted that a communist attack would encounter little Nationalist resistance. On January 5, 1950, Truman announced that the United States would not interfere. Acheson placed Taiwan and Korea outside Americas defensive

37、 perimeter in Asia. It was only a matter of time before Taiwan would collapse and the administration could accept the reality of communist control in Beijing. 15. For the United States, however, there could be no simple transition from Nationalist to communist control in China. Republican desperatio

38、n to recapture the presidency in the late 1940s triggered a red scare, blighting domestic affairs and undermining American foreign policy. Borrowing charges from the China lobby (a conglomeration of missionaries, businessmen, publishers, journalists, military figures and politicians who vigorously p

39、romoted the interests of Chiang and the Kuomintang), the GOP insisted that communist sympathizers in 3 Chiang Kai-shek, Chinas Destiny, New York: Roy Publishers, 1947. The volume originally was published in China in 1943. the State Department had lost China. But it remained for the Korean War and Se

40、nator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.) to turn Chinas loss into political dynamite. In need of an election issue, McCarthy waged a vitriolic attack upon the Truman administration, sweeping otherwise responsible Republicans up in the frenzy. The senator knew little about China but, armed with documents from

41、China lobby activist Alfred Kohl berg, McCarthy capitalized on the shock arising from sudden war in Asia to generate national hysteria. 16. North Koreas attempt to unify the Korean peninsula had a profound impact upon the course of the Cold War and Sino-American relations. Trumans resistance to huge

42、 military budgets evaporated. The administration used the Korean War to justify rearming Germany and militarizing NATO. It escalated appropriations to France for the fight against Ho Chi Minh in Indochina and dispatched its first technical advisers. Soon the United States would disregard Soviet and

43、Chinese objections to conclude a peace treaty with Japan and would sign security pacts with Japan, Australia and New Zealand.4 17. For Chinese-American relations the Korean War proved an unmitigated disaster. Beijing leaders had taken Truman and Acheson at their word and anticipated an unopposed eff

44、ort to oust Chiang from Taiwan. But Washington now reversed itself and placed the Seventh Fleet in the Taiwan Strait to prevent expansion of the war either by a CCP attack or a Nationalist feint that would force U.S. intervention. Beijings frustration was compounded by fear when U.S. forces, under U

45、.N. auspices, threatened Chinas Yalu River border. Recently revealed documents from Beijing indicate that Mao, believing a military confrontation with the United States inevitable over either Vietnam, Taiwan or Korea, opted to fight in the arena most accessible and easiest to control.5 Thus Zhou Enl

46、ai cautioned the Americans not to move north, and when they dismissed his warnings because the Chinese appeared weak and preoccupied with domestic troubles-not a match in any case for American soldiers-China struck. 18. President Truman had hoped that a short conflict in Korea would mean but a brief

47、 reinvolvement in the Chinese civil war and a momentary distraction from European affairs. Although the president was quickly reassured that war in Korea was not simply a diversion to facilitate communist aggression in the West, he continued escalating military expenditures for Europe, revealing the

48、 administrations true priorities. But the Korean War dragged on and, despite administration antipathy, the network of economic and military ties with the Kuomintang grew more complex and self-perpetuating. IV 4 Robert Jervis, The Impact of the Korean War on the Cold War, Journal of Conflict Resoluti

49、on, December 1980. 5 Exciting new work on China and the Korean War has been appearing recently. See Zhai Zhihai and Hao Yufan, Chinas Decision to Enter the Korean War: History Revisited, China Quarterly, March 1990; Chen Jian, Chinas Changing Aims During the Korean War, manuscript; and the important review essay by Rosemary Foot, Making Known the Unknown War: Policy Analysis of the Korean Conflict in the Last De