Loss of China

The "loss of China" refers, in U.S. political discourse, to the Communist Party take over mainland China from the Nationalists in 1949,[1] and therefore the "loss of China to communism". The "loss of China" was portrayed by critics of the Truman Administration as an "avoidable catastrophe".[2] It led to a "rancorous and divisive debate" and the issue was exploited by the Republicans at the polls in 1952.[3] It also played a large role in the rise of Joseph McCarthy,[4] who, with his allies, sought scapegoats for that "loss", targeting notably Owen Lattimore, an influential scholar of Central Asia.[5]

According to Noam Chomsky,

“ In 1949, China declared independence, an event known in Western discourse as "the loss of China" – in the US, with bitter recriminations and conflict over who was responsible for that loss. The terminology is revealing. It is only possible to lose something that one owns. The tacit assumption was that the U.S. owned China, by right, along with most of the rest of the world, much as postwar planners assumed. The "loss of China" was the first major step in "America's decline." It had major policy consequences.[1] ”

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Noam Chomsky (14 February 2012). ""Losing" the World: American Decline in Perspective, Part 1". Guardian Comment Network. Retrieved March 10, 2012.
  2. ↑ Hirshberg, Matthew S. (1993). Perpetuating Patriotic Perceptions: The Cognitive Function of the Cold War. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 55–56. ISBN 9780275941659.
  3. ↑ Herring, George C. (1991). "America and Vietnam: The Unending War". Foreign Affairs. America and the Pacific, 1941-1991 (Winter, 1991) (Council on Foreign Relations) 70 (5): 104–119. doi:10.2307/20045006.
  4. ↑ VanDeMark, Brian (1995). Into the Quagmire: Lyndon Johnson and the Escalation of the Vietnam War. Oxford University Press. p. 25. ISBN 9780195096507. As [President Lyndon Johnson] later recalled "I knew Harry Truman and Dean Acheson had lost their effectiveness from the day that the Communists took over in China. I believed that the loss of China had played a large role in the rise of Joe McCarthy. And I knew that all these problems, taken together, were chickenshit compared with what might happen if we lost Vietnam."
  5. ↑ Ellen Schrecker (Fall 2005). "The New McCarthyism in Academe". Thought & Action. Campus Watch. Retrieved July 2, 2012.

Further reading