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XIXIAO GUO
The Climax of Sino-American Relations, 1944-1947
(Under the direction of WILLIAM M LEARY, JR)
The mid-1940s was a climactic time in the history of Sino-American relations. During this period, an unprecedented number of Americans, mostly soldiers, were in China mingling with the Chinese. The timing was bad. The China that they met was first in the abyss of war, then in the midst of postwar chaos. The Chinese whom they encountered were among the worst--the soldiers, the officers, the bureaucrats, the racketeers, the thieves, the beggars, the prostitutes and the scavengers. Against the backdrops of the time, the meeting of the two cultures became traumatic. In the ill-starred intercourse, intimacy only led to disappointment and revulsion.
China could be different things to different Americans. To the China Hands, it was the mooring of their lifetime journey, a land worth fighting for and a story of which they were part. To Albert Wedemeyer, the China Theater Commander, and Patrick Hurley, the Ambassador to China, it was a base to build up American power and a ground for a promising political career. To George Marshall, the Army Chief of Staff and then the Presidential Envoy to China, it was a backwater in US global strategy, an irritating source of international tensions, yet a country toward whose people he retained great respect and sympathy.
The scenarios unfold the interaction of the Americans and Chinese in the struggles between peace and war, democracy and tyranny, life and decay. They highlight not the abstractions of policymaking, but the feelings that the Americans in China experienced with their five senses The stories are told not only from an American point of view; they are seen through the eyes of all the protagonists--the Americans, the Chinese Communists, the Chinese Nationalists and the Chinese people. With insights from both historians and contemporaries, the dissertation lightens certain obscure spots in Sino-American relations in the mid-1940s.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION: CHINA THE CHAMELEON
CHAPTER 1 THE GIS IN CHINA
The Backwater China TheaterChina at its Worst
The GIs and "the Chinks"
CHAPTER 2 THE CHINA HANDS IN CHINA
The Great Field That Lay BeyondThe China of Two Worlds
Spent the War in China
On the Brink of Extinction
Attracted to the Chinese Communists
Blow the Lid Off
Driven Out of China
CHAPTER 3 WEDEMEYER AND HIGH POLITICS
Took the China CommandAs Chiang's Chief of Staff
CHAPTER 4 PEACE AND WAR (1)
The CCP-KMT Peace Talks Since 1936"Exit Pat Hurley"
The Marshall Mission
The US Plans Carried Out
The Game
CHAPTER 5 PEACE AND WAR (2)
"A New Era of Peace and Democracy"Peace Talks Dragged On
The Barehanded Third Force
CHAPTER 6 A HELL HOLE: US SERVICEMEN IN POSTWAR CHINA
Return to an Exotic LandFight For the KMT
Cultural Shocks
The Real Life
A Foreign Army of Occupation
Lost in the Hell Hole
CHAPTER 7 REVULSION
The Anping IncidentThe Rising Tides of Anti-Americanism
The Rape of China
"This Is China's Failure--Not His"
CONCLUSION
ABBREVIATIONS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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