John Leighton Stuart’s Thought About The Relation Between China And The United States Of America(1946-1949)

In a very special period, John Leighton Stuart became the American ambassador in China. Histhought about the relation between China and the United States of America would have a certaineffect to that relation without doubt. In order to summarize his thought, we need to read Stuart’sexperience and personal works carefully.Stuart was born in China, and lived here for decades. He returned China as an adult, and didChristian missionary work at the beginning. After a few years, Stuart started to engage in educationcareer and made a great success in founding the famous university-Yenching university. Duringthis period, Stuart came into contact with various social characters in China, and kept a very closerelationship. He understood the Chinese society quite deeply. These factors have played a big roleon the formation of his thought.In order to analysis it, Stuart’s thought about the relations between China and the United Statesof America was divided into three parts: the Kuomintang and the USA, the communist party andthe USA, the democratic parties and the USA.1. For the pursuit of democracy and the feelings to Chiang kai-shek, Stuart supported thenational government,hoping America to provide aids to China and urge it to reform. After thedisappointment in Chiang kai-shek, he sought other methods which could change the presentsituation of the KMT, but finally failed. However, when the KMT retreated to Taiwan, Stuart wasconfident to it again.2. As a Christian, Stuart was against communist ideology firmly, which did not affect hiscontact with the CCP in a certain period. Stuart’s first consideration was to promote the CCP andthe KMT to form a coalition government. When he found that there were so many contradictionsbetween them, he chose to arouse people to persue the western democracy through the propaganda,and limit the development of the CCP peacefully. When the KMT failed him completely, Stuartwished that the USA should admit the rule of the CCP in China, and make it get rid of theinfluence of the Soviet union. But his idea did not get the official approval.3. Chinese democratic parties were in accord with Stuart’s idea, but they never had enoughpower to bring much influence to the situation in China. Although Stuart hope that the democraticparties could play a role in dispute between the KMT and the CCP, he also doubted their abilities.In fact, the USA did not have great expectations of them.In dealing with relations between China and the USA, Stuart put the interest of the United Statesand the Chinese common people as the main factor. But because of his lack of professionaldiplomatic knowledge, he was often affected by personal feelings, beliefs, and other unstablefactors. So his thought usually wandered between the ideal and the reality.