The 1945--1946 GMD -CCP peace talks and the origins of the Chinese Civil Wa

This dissertation deals with the peace talks between the Chinese Nationalist Party (Guomindang) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from the end of August 1945 to mid-November 1946, which ended in failure. The dissertation has two aims: to present a detailed account of the peace talks, and to discover the most important reason why the peace talks failed. The most important reason for the failure of the peace talks was that the Guomindang and CCP could not resolve the two disputes about the size of the CCP army and CCP base areas. Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) attempted to reduce the CCP army to an insignificant level and to take over CCP-controlled areas. But Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) did not want to reduce his army, nor did he agree to hand over his base areas to Jiang, because Mao had long realized that the Chinese Communist revolution was military in nature, and that the army and base areas were the two most important means of revolution.;Since military factors decisively impacted the 1945--1946 Guomindang-CCP peace talks, I examine the peace talks primarily in a civil-war or civi1-war-related context. The main criterion I use in the dissertation to judge the Guomindang's and the CCP's performances in the peace talks is the goal of peaceful national re-unification based on democracy, which was what the Guomindang and the CCP claimed to pursue. Apparently, both parties failed to meet the criterion. In addition, in order to help readers understand the historical conditions out of which the two items of dispute about the CCP army and their base areas emerged, I briefly investigate the origins of the dispute.;In short, since the Guomindang and CCP were unable to find a peaceful solution for the disputes about the CCP army and their base areas, the 1945--1946 peace talks ended in failure.