Relations with China 1945–76

Abstract

It is strange to think that the Kuomintang’s right-wing dictatorship owed much of its international credibility, and even its survival, to North Korea’s Kim Il-sung, most extreme of all the Stalinist leaders thrown up by the People’s Democratic Republics formed in the wake of the Second World War. Yet until the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, the KMT’s future, even on Taiwan, seemed doomed. US support in the 1943 Cairo Declaration and the 1945 Potsdam agreement for the ceding of Taiwan by Japan to China had been based on the assumption that the Kuomintang would, after the Japanese defeat, become the rulers of a strong, united, Western-aligned China. In the meantime, the priority was to placate Chiang Kai-shek and pre-empt any thought he may have had of seeking a separate peace with Japan.