New Analysis Of The U.S. Military Advisory Group In China In The Early Stage Of The Postwar Period (1945-1949)

This thesis is a detailed study of the role of the U.S. Military Advisory Group in China from the year 1945 to 1949. In order to completely eradicate the Japanese militarism and confront the Soviet Union, The United States contemplated to prop up the Chiang Kai-shek regime and build a powerful, unified and pro-American China to serve its postwar Asian policy. For the sake of eliminating the civil war crisis in China, the U.S. sent out diplomatic envoys to mediate the conflicts between the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Communist Party of China (CPC), made every effort to urge Chiang Kai-shek to carry out political democratization reform and to lure the CPC into joining the representative coalition government under the rule of the Chiang Kai-shek regime. Furthermore, it dispatched the Military Advisory Group (MAG) to assist Kuomintang in rectifying the armed forces and strengthening the military might. After the outbreak of the civil war, the U.S. intensified its support for Kuomintang so as to confront the CPC on condition that it would not be directly drawn into in the war. With the escalation of the war, the MAG consequently expanded its scope of activities until things were clear that the KMT had lost the war. At that time, U.S.-Soviet contradictions were getting increasingly intense in other parts of the world, which impelled the U.S. to re-define the strategic position of Japan and China under the reign of the KMT in Asian area and began to withdraw from China. Soon afterwards, the MAG staff started to pull out of China. This paper, on the basis of a detailed review of the activities of the MAG in China during the civil war, explores thoroughly the relations between the MAG and the shift of the U.S. policy towards China and the Asian area at large, and then analyses the role of the U.S. Military Advisory Group in China in the early stage of postwar period.