After World War II, the United States became increasingly interested in areas bordering on the Pacific Ocean, and, as a result of the COLD WAR, Asia became the site of a number of conflicts.
Following the defeat of the Japanese by American forces in World War II, the United States occupied Japan. Reforms included a new constitution, war crime trials, women’s rights, the dismantling of the feudal landowner-ship system, and American censorship of Japanese films, so that Emperor Hirohito was not depicted as a god but as a constitutional monarch.
As a more pacifist culture replaced militarism in Japan, the cold war became more contentious in China, where Mao Zedong led his forces to victory in a triumph of COMMUNISM. Feeling threatened by a revived Japan, the Soviet Union was sympathetic to Mao, while it was at the same time anxious about American expansion in Asian markets.
Mao came to power in 1949. The communists defeated the Guomindang, the corruption-riddled Nationalist government led by Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek), and drove him and his supporters to the island of Taiwan. The U. S. government then issued the China White Paper, a lengthy document offering reasons why the United States was unable to alter the result of the communist victory. In his “Letter of Transmittal,” or brief summary of the situation, Secretary of State Dean Acheson wrote to President Harry S. Truman saying, “nothing that this country [the United States] did or could have done within the reasonable limits of its capabilities could have changed the result.” As Nationalists retreated to Taiwan, the United States refused to recognize the People’s Republic of China. Because Mao needed an ally, he negotiated with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to obtain a treaty of friendship and alliance, declaring that each nation would come to the other’s aid if attacked by a third party.
Soon after the Chinese Revolution, the United States found itself involved in Korea. The nation had been divided at the end of World War II along the 38th parallel, with American troops accepting surrenders in the North, and the Soviet Union doing the same in the South. Soviet and American occupation forces clashed when the communist North invaded the South in 1950, triggering the Korean War. Truman readied American naval and air forces and directed General Douglas MacArthur in Japan to supply South Korea. The United States went to the UN Security Council to secure a unanimous resolution branding North Korea the aggressor, and another resolution calling on UN members to assist South Korea. When the United Nations intervened and repulsed the North Korean troops, Communist China became involved. A stalemate resulted, in part because of Truman’s decision to conduct only a limited war, provoking a bitter struggle between MacArthur and Truman, which culminated in Truman firing the general for insubordination. The Korean War led to the election of a Republican administration in 1952, and helped fuel fear of communist subversion in the United States.
No Asian country was untouched by the ideological confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. Vietnam became another trouble spot. During the Vietnam War, Communist forces won in Vietnam when China and the Soviet Union aided North Vietnam in the defeat of the United States-supported South Vietnam in 1975. From 1946 to 1954, the Vietnamese had struggled for their independence from France, the colonial power for much of the century, during the First Indochina War. After the Vietnamese defeated the French, the country was divided into North and South Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh, the communist leader in the North, hoped to bring all Vietnam under his control. The United States became involved because it believed that if Vietnam fell under communist rule, then all of Southeast Asia could fall as well. This “domino theory” triggered U. S. support of the South Vietnamese government, first through aid and then through military involvement. The United States failed to achieve its goal of preventing the collapse of the South Vietnamese government. In 1975, unified under communist control, the nation became the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. During the conflict, millions of Vietnamese lost their lives.
Other areas faced similar turbulence. On the Indian subcontinent, religious separatism caused a continuing rift between Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India after partition and independence in 1947.
Further reading: Fredrik Logevall, Choosing War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999); Qiang Zhai, The Dragon, the Lion and the Eagle (Kent, Ohio.: Kent State University Press, 1994).
—John E. Bibish IV
World History
