Lanxin Xiang - Recasting the Imperial Far East: Britain and America in China, 1945-50

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Recasting
the
Imperial
Far East

Based on extensive research in British Foreign Service records and in U.S. State Department documents, this study sheds new light on the Anglo-American rivalry in China in the period between the defeat of Japan and the triumph of the Chinese Communists. Disputing the dominant historiographical perspectives of both Anglo-American and East Asian studies, the author rejects the Cold War approach of Soviet-American rivalry as the focus of analysis and concentrates instead on the relatively neglected dimension of Anglo-American relations, detailing the significant tensions between a rising imperial power (the United States) and a declining imperial power (the United Kingdom) over China policy issues.

What emerges from this study is a rich picture of conflict, rivalry, and disagreement between American officials who acted as if they were natural heirs to Britains dominant prewar position in China (among Western powers) and British officials who viewed the United States with only partly disguised contempt and were loathe to concede the field to the upstart Americans. Congruent with the revelations that result is a new and timely perception of the behavior of American power in the Far East, and fresh insights on the roots of wars to come in Korea and Vietnam.

Recasting
the
Imperial
Far East

Britain and America
in China, 19451950

LANXIN XIANG

First published 1995 by M.E. Sharpe

Published 2015 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright 1995 by Lanxin Xiang. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Notices
No responsibility is assumed by the publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use of operation of any methods, products, instructions or ideas contained in the material herein.

Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility.

Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Xiang, Lanxin, 1956
Recasting the imperial Far East: Britain and America in China,
19451950 / Lanxin Xiang.
p. cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-56324-459-4.ISBN 1-56324-460-8 (pbk.)
1. Great BritainForeign relationsChina. 2. China
Foreign relationsGreat Britain. 3. United States
Foreign relationsChina. 4. ChinaForeign relations
United States. 5. Great BritainForeign relations1945
6. United StatesForeign relations19451954.
7. ChinaForeign relations19121949.
8. ChinaForeign relations1949
I. Title.
DA47.9.C6X53 1994
327.51017521dc20 9430256
CIP

ISBN 13: 9781563244605 (pbk)
ISBN 13: 9781563244599 (hbk)

Contents

In late October 1950, as the tension in Korea was mounting, Sir Maberly Esler Dening arrived at Hongkong. Whitehall had announced that, as the British Foreign Offices top man on the Far East, Dening would make a routine tour of several Asian countries. Communist China was not on the list, not only because there were not yet diplomatic relations between the two nations, but also because Dening, widely known at the time as ambassador-designate to China, was not the appropriate person to enter China as a special envoy at that time. However, Denings main mission was to go to Peking; not even his private secretary was aware of it.

Dening was an expert on Japan and a key architect of British Far Eastern policy during and after the war. After ending a successful tour as Lord Louis Mountbattens political adviser at the Southeast Asian Command, Dening returned to London after the war and soon became assistant undersecretary for Far East affairs. Later, he also served as chairman of the Foreign Offices Far Eastern Committee. Denings assignment to Peking at this juncture was a desperate move. The Labour government was on the brink of a breakthrough in negotiations with the Chinese Communists when the Korean conflict erupted. Washingtons strategy of forcing the allies to support its China policy by linking the Korean conflict immediately to Peking was leading the United States precipitously toward an armed showdown with Communist China. One of Denings major tasks was to give the Chinese a chance to vent their spleen against the Americans and to reassure them that the U.S. policy did not necessarily enjoy support from the Allies.

As Dening anxiously awaited an entry visa that was being delayed by the Chinese, news came that General Douglas MacArthur had ordered the crossing of the Thirty-eighth Parallelwhere the Chinese had drawn the line. Thus, the frustrated British envoy went to Japan, where he became convinced that MacArthurs saber-rattling had definitely goaded the Chinese into the conflict. As the Chinese engaged MacArthur shortly thereafter, all hopes for political settlement with ChinaBritains preferred policy optionwere smashed. By the mere presence of their troops in Korea, the British found themselves at war with China.

Dening never made it to Peking as the British ambassador; he ended up in Tokyo instead. He knew that the postwar British problems in the Far East, particularly in China, largely hinged on one factor: the Anglo-American relationship. He was convinced that an erroneous U.S. policy in China would eventually drag Britain through the mud.

Ever since the publication of Christopher Thomes studies on Far Eastern diplomatic history from multilateral perspectives, the Anglo-American relationship in various parts of the world has attracted scholarly attention.1 Thomes multiarchival approach is both rewarding and demanding. It requires historians to understand the multiple cultural settings that affect international events and to transcend often biased single-country perspectives.

Anglo-American relations in China is not a new subject. Thorne had done extensive work on the Manchurian Incident and the wartime Anglo-American conflict over China. From the American side, the Sino-U.S. relationship has long been a field of study by itself. Thus, it seems risky to choose a subject that has presumably been over-studied. My topic appears to fall into the sphere of either a big historical category such as U.S.-East Asian relationsa major preoccupation of American diplomatic historiansor Anglo-American relationsa subject of great importance to the British historical profession. But having looked at postwar historical writings, I find my topic to have been, in fact, grossly understudied. In most cases, historians of Anglo-American relations have ignored those relations in the Far East, not least perhaps because Anglo-American relations there jar the prevailing notion of a special relationship. Often preoccupied with strategic studies, scholars of postwar history inevitably focus their attention on the U.S.-USSR confrontation, a perspective that tends to minimize conflicts within the special relationship.

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