U.S. Policy On Chinese Seat Question In UN During Lyndon Johnson Period

During the period of Lyndon Johnson, the United States had continued the Containment and Isolation policy on China origin of the Cold War. Isolation policy was mainly shown out as the US continued to control and influence the votes of the other countries on Chinese Seat Question in the United Nations that rejected Chinese legal government from occupying its seat year by year. By protecting Taiwan's seat in the UN the United States could defend its strategic status in Asia and the Pacific area to realize its fundamental strategic target which is to contain communism all over the world. The origin of US containing China is pre-secretary of the United States Dulles' judgment that Communism in China would not be a long–standing phenomenon, he believed that the new government of China would collapse soon and the US should speed up the collapse and rejected China to occupy the appropriate seats in the UN. So the US had been helping Taiwan to keep the Chinese Seat question unsolved with the aim of protecting the US strategic advantages. At that time the world environment was not easy to China and the communism camp had no enough strength to help China break through the obstacle made by the United States. But when Lyndon Johnson was in power China's strength couldn't be ignored any more, there happened a series of things which was benefit for Chinese legal government getting back its seat in the UN, including China-France establishing normal diplomatic relations in 1964, Chinese nuclear testing succeeding in 1966, US ally Canada no more voting after the US in 1966 and the US congress holding influential hearings which appealed not to isolate China any more in 1966, too. All these had promoted status of China in the world and helped China to gain more votes in the UN to get back her seat. This had threatened the US, because it conflicted the US strategic aim and directly influence the US policy executing. In this circumstance the US Department officials partly adjusted their policy to mitigate pressures from all sides and took the aim at protecting Taiwan's seat as long as possible. With many factors acting together the US had succeeded rejecting China from entering into the UN again and again. The article takes the International Balance Of Power and the National Interest Principle as the main theoretical foundation. By inspecting the appropriate foreign relations files of the United States during Lyndon Johnson period the article tries to reappear the true situation and process of the US adjusting its policy on Chinese Seat question with the affect of all kinds of factors, including the government internal discussing process, the main measures of the US putting pressure on other countries and US attitude when consulting with Taiwan. Put the whole process into the international circumstance at that time, combining the other decisive factors in the US government, the article analyses painstakingly the main reasons why Sino-US relations didn't alleviate under so many positive conditions and draws out the foreign policy's characters on China of Lyndon Johnson government in whole.