Marshall Mission

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General Marshall with General Zhang Zhizhong and Zhou Enlai in 1946.

The Marshall Mission (

US Army General George C. Marshall to China in an attempt to negotiate between the Chinese Communist Party and the Nationalists (Kuomintang
) to create a unified Chinese government.

Historical background

Committee of Three, from left, Nationalist representative Zhang Qun, George C. Marshall and Communist representative Zhou Enlai. 1946.

Throughout the

John Service visited the Communists and praised them. He claimed that they were democratic reformers, likened them to European socialists, rather than Soviet Communists; and claimed that they were less corrupt and chaotic than the Nationalists.[3][4][5][6]

US Ambassador to China

Comintern statistics) that Communists were doing more than the Nationalists, and he sought to cut off all US aid to China.[7][8]

American attempts during the

Patrick Hurley approached both groups and believed that their differences were comparable to the Republicans and Democrats in the United States.[9]

Throughout the war, both the Communists and the Nationalists had accused the other of withholding men and arms against the Japanese in preparation for offensive actions against the other. Thus, in a desperate attempt to keep the country whole, US President

Harry S Truman in late 1945 sent General George C. Marshall
as his special presidential envoy to China to negotiate a unity government.

General Marshall with Zhang Zhizhong and Zhou Enlai (right) at Haokou in China, 1946

Marshall arrives in China

Marshall arrived in China on 20 December 1945. His goal was to unify the Nationalists and the Communists with the hope that a strong non-Communist China would act as a bulwark against the encroachment of the Soviet Union.

Immediately, Marshall drew both sides into negotiations, which occurred for more than a year. No significant agreements were reached, as both sides used the time to further prepare themselves for the ensuing conflict.

The Gexin movement was among the KMT factions which strongly opposed the Marshall mission.[10]: 138–139 

To assist in brokering a ceasefire between the Nationalists and the Communists, US sales of weapons and ammunition to the Nationalists were suspended between 29 July 1946 to May 1947.[11]

Finally, in January 1947, exasperated with the failure of the negotiations, the Marshall mission left China. Marshall had already left in 1946, due to deteriorating health, domestic criticism of Truman's handling of the China situation, and other pressing foreign policy objectives. Soon, Marshall was appointed

US Secretary of State
.

The failure of the Marshall Mission signaled the renewal of the Chinese Civil War.

Attack by MacArthur and McCarthy

On 9 June 1951,

William F. Knowland. On 14 June 1951, as the Korean War stalemated in heavy fighting between American and Chinese forces, Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy attacked the Marshall Mission and stated that Marshall was directly responsible for the "loss of China," which turned from friend to enemy.[13] McCarthy said the only way to explain why the US "fell from our position as the most powerful Nation on earth at the end of World War II to a position of declared weakness by our leadership" was because of "a conspiracy so immense and an infamy so black as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man."[14] McCarthy argued that General Albert Coady Wedemeyer had prepared a wise plan that would keep China a valued ally but that it had been sabotaged; "only in treason can we find why evil genius thwarted and frustrated it."[15]
Specifically, McCarthy alleged:

When Marshall was sent to China with secret State Department orders, the Communists at that time were bottled up in two areas and were fighting a losing battle, but that because of those orders the situation was radically changed in favor of the Communists. Under those orders, as we know, Marshall embargoed all arms and ammunition to our allies in China. He forced the opening of the Nationalist-held Kalgan Mountain pass into Manchuria, to the end that the Chinese Communists gained access to the mountains of captured Japanese equipment. No need to tell the country about how Marshall tried to force Chiang Kai-shek to form a partnership government with the Communists.[16]

Public opinion on Marshall's record became bitterly divided along party lines. In 1952,

Truman administration's failures in Korea, campaigned alongside McCarthy, and refused to defend Marshall's policies.[17]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Brady p. 47.
  2. ^ Kenneth E. Shewmaker, "The "Agrarian Reformer" Myth," The China Quarterly 34 (1968): 66–81. [1]
  3. ^ John Service, Report No. 5, 8 March 1944, to Commanding General Fwd. Ech., USAF – CBI, APO 879. "The Communist Policy Towards the Kuomintang." State Department, NARA, RG 59.
  4. ^ U.S. Congress. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and the Other Internal Security Laws. The Amerasia Papers: A Clue to the Catastrophe of China. Vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1970), 406 – 407.
  5. ^ "John Service, Report No. 5, 8 March 1944, to Commanding General Fwd. Ech., USAF – CBI, APO 879. "The Communist Policy Towards the Kuomintang." State Department, NARA, RG 59.
  6. ^ The full story of Marshall's mission is told by Daniel Kurtz-Phelan in The China Mission: George Marshall's Unfinished War, W.W. Norton & Co., 2018. http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?ID=4294994542
  7. ISBN 978-0674054714
    .
  8. ^ Wesley Marvin Bagby, The Eagle-Dragon Alliance: America's Relations with China in World War II, p.96
  9. ^ Russel D. Buhite, Patrick J. Hurley and American Foreign Policy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell U Press, 1973), 160 – 162.
  10. ISBN 978-1-009-29761-5
    .
  11. ^ "Foreign Relations of the United States, 1948, the Far East: China, Volume VII – Office of the Historian".
  12. ^ "Chinese Civil War".
  13. ^ The speech was published as a 169-page book, America's Retreat from Victory: The Story of George Catlett Marshall (1951).
  14. ^ Joseph McCarthy, Major Speeches and Debates (1951) p. 215
  15. ^ McCarthy, Major Speeches and Debates (1951) pp. 264.
  16. ^ McCarthy, Major Speeches p. 191, from speech of March 14, 1951; see also Thomas C. Reeves, The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy (1982) pp 371–74.
  17. ^ Reeves, McCarthy 437-8

Sources

Primary sources

External links

  • The MacArthur Hearing: The China Mission Time Magazine article dated Monday, 21 May 1951. General Marshall responds to questions about the China Mission regarding both the political and military situation.
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