The Change Of The American Post-war East Asian Strategy

The American strategy in East Asia during the latter part of the Pacific War and early post-war is focused on the support to China, pinning hopes on the KMT regime to become the powerful helper of the United States in East Asia and the whole world after the World Warâ…¡. To make the U.S. political leader in East Asia, to let the U.S. has the excellent strategy status and guarantee the prosperity and development of the American industry and commerce in the area. To this end, the United States on the one hand actively support China to become a big country, on the other hand spare no effort to thoroughly defeat and transformation of Japan, and in order to achieve this objective, at the meeting in Yalta, at the expense of the interests of China, reached a compromise with the Soviet Union.With the KMT regime's failure in mainland China and the Cold War started on a global scale, the United States had to plan its new strategy in East Asia again. From early 1949,Philip Jessup, U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines, first proposed that U.S. need a new strategy in East Asia, to December 30, 1949, NSC48 / 2 formally tabled, the U.S. decision-makers endured a series of heated arguments and compromises. Finally the new strategy centered on the containment of communism and China came into being. Because of the U.S. government documents' unique openness, we are able to discus the background, the decision-making process of the new strategy, and the context of its landmark, NSC48 / 2. It is one of the focuses of this paper.Despite of the differences in the decision-making process, and the changes of the international environment, the containment of China, the support to Japan, as the key points have never been shaken. The armed intervention of Taiwan, the refusal of the recognition of the new China and the blockade of the trade with China, the support to Japan and the formation of the insular island chains, U.S. took a series of measures to ensure the implementation of the new strategy. This is also one of the key points discussed in this paper. The new strategy has been extended to the 1970s in which U.S. began to concentrate its force in the global scale. In more than 20 years, the impact of the new strategy is enormous and far-reaching. Japan began to resume quickly after the war, but retained a lot of remnants of militarism; China and the United States began a confrontation which is more than 20 years; in the new strategic framework of the containment of China, Southeast Asian countries got some certain advantages, and got some certain development. These effects still exist today. Thus there is a profound and practical significance for us to comprehend the new strategy's formation and its initial implementation process.