The Marshall Mission (Chinese: 馬歇爾使華; pinyin: Mǎxiē'ěr Shǐhuá; 20 December 1945 – January 1947) was a failed diplomatic mission undertaken by United States 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.
General Marshall with Chiang Kai-shek and Zhou Enlai in 1946.
Committee of Three, from left, Nationalist representative Zhang Qun, George C. Marshall and Communist representative Zhou Enlai. 1946.
Throughout the length of the Second Sino-Japanese War an uneasy stalemate had existed between the Chinese Communists (CCP) and the Chinese Nationalists (KMT), while prior to the war, both parties had been in open conflict with each other. During this period numerous US military personnel and private writers visited and reported on the Chinese Communist Party. In 1936, international journalist Edgar Snow traveled and interviewed leading members of the Chinese Communist Party. Snow reported that Mao was a reformer rather than a radical revolutionary,[1] and many readers got the impression that the Chinese communists were "agrarian reformers."[2] In the 1944 Dixie Mission, US Colonel John Service visited the Communists and praised them, claimed that they were democratic reformers, likening 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 Clarence Gauss recommended the United States "pull up the plug and let the whole Chinese Government go down the drain". General Patrick Hurley claimed that the Chinese Communists were not real communists. China Burma India Theater Commander Joseph Stilwell repeatedly claimed (in contradiction to Comintern statistics) that Communists were doing more than the KMT, and sought to cut off all US aid to China.[7][8]
American attempts during the Second World War to end the intermittent Chinese Civil War between the two factions had failed, notably the Hurley Mission: in 1944 General 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 CCP and the KMT 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, President Harry S Truman in late 1945 sent General George 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 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 would occur for more than a year. No significant agreements were reached, as both sides used the time to further prepare themselves for the ensuing conflict. In order to assist in brokering a ceasefire between the Nationalists and Communists, the sale of weapons and ammunition by the US to the Nationalists were suspended between 29 July 1946 to May 1947.[10] Finally, in January 1947, exasperated with the failure of the negotiations, Marshall left China. Soon afterward, Marshall was appointed United States Secretary of State (foreign affairs secretary).
The failure of the Marshall Mission signaled the renewal of the Chinese Civil War.
Attack by MacArthur and McCarthy
On 9 June 1951, Douglas MacArthur charged that the post-war Marshall mission to China committed "one of the greatest blunders in American diplomatic history, for which the free world is now paying in blood and disaster"[11] in a telegram to Senator 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. He stated that Marshall was directly responsible for the "loss of China," as China turned from friend to enemy.[12] 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."[13] 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."[14] 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.[15]
Public opinion on Marshall's record became bitterly divided along party lines. In 1952, Dwight Eisenhower, while campaigning successfully for US President, denounced the Truman administration's failures in Korea, campaigned alongside McCarthy, and refused to defend Marshall's policies.[16]
See also
China White Paper, U.S. State Department defense of its actions issued in 1949
^Kenneth E. Shewmaker, "The "Agrarian Reformer" Myth," The China Quarterly 34 (1968): 66–81. [1]
^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.
^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.
^"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.
^Taylor, Jay (209). Stilwell's The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China. Harvard University Press. p. 297,298. ISBN978-0674054714.
^Wesley Marvin Bagby, The Eagle-Dragon Alliance: America's Relations with China in World War II, p.96
^Russel D. Buhite, Patrick J. Hurley and American Foreign Policy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell U Press, 1973), 160 – 162.
^"Foreign Relations of the United States, 1948, the Far East: China, Volume VII – Office of the Historian".
Brazinsky, Gregg. "The Birth of a Rivalry: Sino‐American Relations during the Truman Administration" in Daniel S. Margolies, ed., A Companion to Harry S. Truman (2012): 484–97.
Feis, Herbert. The China tangle; the American effort in China from Pearl Harbor to the Marshall mission (1965) online
Homeyard, Illoyna. "Another Look at the Marshall Mission to China." Journal of American-East Asian Relations (1992): 191–217.; disagrees with Levine (1979); the mission was in fact an attempt to lay the groundwork for the establishment of a stable, democratic China. in JSTOR
Kurtz-Phelan, Daniel. The China Mission: George Marshall's Unfinished War, 1945–1947 (2018) except
Levine, Steven I. "A New Look at American Mediation in the Chinese Civil War: the Marshall Mission and Manchuria." Diplomatic History 1979 3(4): 349–375. ISSN 0145-2096
May, Ernest R. "1947–48: When Marshall Kept the U.S. out of War in China." Journal of Military History (2002) 66#4: 1001–1010. online
Pogue, Forrest. George C. Marshall: Statesman 1945–1959 (1987) pp 51–143.
Purifoy, Lewis McCarroll. Harry Truman's China Policy. (Franklin Watts, 1976).
Rose, Lisle Abbott. Roots of Tragedy: United States and the Struggle for Asia, 1945–53 (1976)
Song, Yuwu, ed. Encyclopedia of Chinese-American Relations (2009)
Stueck, William W. The Road to Confrontation: American Policy Toward China and Korea, 1947–1950, (1981)
Tanner, Harold Miles. The Battle for Manchuria and the Fate of China: Siping, 1946 (Indiana University Press, 2013).
Tsou, Tang. America's Failure in China, 1941–50 (1963), a view from the right
Westad, Odd Arne. Decisive encounters: the Chinese civil war, 1946–1950 (Stanford University Press, 2003). excerpt
Primary sources
Marshall, George Catlett. The Papers of George Catlett Marshall. Vol. 5: "The Finest Soldier," January 1, 1945 – January 7, 1947. Larry I. Bland and Sharon Ritenour Stevens, eds. Johns Hopkins U. Press, 2003. 822 pp.
May, Ernest R. ed. The Truman Administration and China 1945–1949 (1975) summary plus primary sources. online
Sharon Ritenour Stevens and Mark A. Stoler, ed. (2012). The Papers of George Catlett Marshall: "The Whole World Hangs in the Balance," January 8, 1947 – September 30, 1949. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN978-1-4214-0792-0.
US Congress, House, Committee on International Relations. Selected Executive Session Hearings of the Committee, 1943-50 (8 vols., Washington, 1976), Vol. VII: United States Policy in the Far East pt. 1 and Pt 2.
U.S. Department of State. Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1945. online
---. Volume VII. The Far East: China. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1969.
---. Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1946. Volume IX. The Far East: China. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1972.
---. Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1946. Volume X. The Far East: China. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1972.
---. Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1947. Volume VII. The Far East: China. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1972.
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.
January 26, 2023
marshall, mission, chinese, 馬歇爾使華, pinyin, mǎxiē, shǐhuá, december, 1945, january, 1947, failed, diplomatic, mission, undertaken, united, states, army, general, george, marshall, china, attempt, negotiate, between, chinese, communist, party, nationalists, kuom. The Marshall Mission Chinese 馬歇爾使華 pinyin Mǎxie er Shǐhua 20 December 1945 January 1947 was a failed diplomatic mission undertaken by United States 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 General Marshall with Chiang Kai shek and Zhou Enlai in 1946 Contents 1 Historical background 2 Marshall arrives in China 3 Attack by MacArthur and McCarthy 4 See also 5 Notes 6 Further reading 6 1 Primary sources 7 External linksHistorical background Edit Committee of Three from left Nationalist representative Zhang Qun George C Marshall and Communist representative Zhou Enlai 1946 Throughout the length of the Second Sino Japanese War an uneasy stalemate had existed between the Chinese Communists CCP and the Chinese Nationalists KMT while prior to the war both parties had been in open conflict with each other During this period numerous US military personnel and private writers visited and reported on the Chinese Communist Party In 1936 international journalist Edgar Snow traveled and interviewed leading members of the Chinese Communist Party Snow reported that Mao was a reformer rather than a radical revolutionary 1 and many readers got the impression that the Chinese communists were agrarian reformers 2 In the 1944 Dixie Mission US Colonel John Service visited the Communists and praised them claimed that they were democratic reformers likening 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 Clarence Gauss recommended the United States pull up the plug and let the whole Chinese Government go down the drain General Patrick Hurley claimed that the Chinese Communists were not real communists China Burma India Theater Commander Joseph Stilwell repeatedly claimed in contradiction to Comintern statistics that Communists were doing more than the KMT and sought to cut off all US aid to China 7 8 American attempts during the Second World War to end the intermittent Chinese Civil War between the two factions had failed notably the Hurley Mission in 1944 General 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 CCP and the KMT 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 President Harry S Truman in late 1945 sent General George 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 1946Marshall arrives in China EditMarshall arrived in China on 20 December 1945 His goal was to unify the Nationalists and 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 would occur for more than a year No significant agreements were reached as both sides used the time to further prepare themselves for the ensuing conflict In order to assist in brokering a ceasefire between the Nationalists and Communists the sale of weapons and ammunition by the US to the Nationalists were suspended between 29 July 1946 to May 1947 10 Finally in January 1947 exasperated with the failure of the negotiations Marshall left China Soon afterward Marshall was appointed United States Secretary of State foreign affairs secretary The failure of the Marshall Mission signaled the renewal of the Chinese Civil War Attack by MacArthur and McCarthy EditOn 9 June 1951 Douglas MacArthur charged that the post war Marshall mission to China committed one of the greatest blunders in American diplomatic history for which the free world is now paying in blood and disaster 11 in a telegram to Senator 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 He stated that Marshall was directly responsible for the loss of China as China turned from friend to enemy 12 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 13 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 14 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 15 Public opinion on Marshall s record became bitterly divided along party lines In 1952 Dwight Eisenhower while campaigning successfully for US President denounced the Truman administration s failures in Korea campaigned alongside McCarthy and refused to defend Marshall s policies 16 See also EditChina White Paper U S State Department defense of its actions issued in 1949 Dixie Mission China Burma India Theater against Japan Red Star Over China Wartime perception of the Chinese CommunistsNotes Edit Brady p 47 Kenneth E Shewmaker The Agrarian Reformer Myth The China Quarterly 34 1968 66 81 1 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 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 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 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 amp Co 2018 http books wwnorton com books detail aspx ID 4294994542 Taylor Jay 209 Stilwell s The Generalissimo Chiang Kai shek and the Struggle for Modern China Harvard University Press p 297 298 ISBN 978 0674054714 Wesley Marvin Bagby The Eagle Dragon Alliance America s Relations with China in World War II p 96 Russel D Buhite Patrick J Hurley and American Foreign Policy Ithaca NY Cornell U Press 1973 160 162 Foreign Relations of the United States 1948 the Far East China Volume VII Office of the Historian Chinese Civil War The speech was published as a 169 page book America s Retreat from Victory The Story of George Catlett Marshall 1951 Joseph McCarthy Major Speeches and Debates 1951 p 215 McCarthy Major Speeches and Debates 1951 pp 264 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 Reeves McCarthy437 8Further reading EditBrazinsky Gregg The Birth of a Rivalry Sino American Relations during the Truman Administration in Daniel S Margolies ed A Companion to Harry S Truman 2012 484 97 Feis Herbert The China tangle the American effort in China from Pearl Harbor to the Marshall mission 1965 online Homeyard Illoyna Another Look at the Marshall Mission to China Journal of American East Asian Relations 1992 191 217 disagrees with Levine 1979 the mission was in fact an attempt to lay the groundwork for the establishment of a stable democratic China in JSTOR Kurtz Phelan Daniel The China Mission George Marshall s Unfinished War 1945 1947 2018 except Levine Steven I A New Look at American Mediation in the Chinese Civil War the Marshall Mission and Manchuria Diplomatic History 1979 3 4 349 375 ISSN 0145 2096 May Ernest R 1947 48 When Marshall Kept the U S out of War in China Journal of Military History 2002 66 4 1001 1010 online Pogue Forrest George C Marshall Statesman 1945 1959 1987 pp 51 143 online edition Purifoy Lewis McCarroll Harry Truman s China Policy Franklin Watts 1976 Rose Lisle Abbott Roots of Tragedy United States and the Struggle for Asia 1945 53 1976 Song Yuwu ed Encyclopedia of Chinese American Relations 2009 Stueck William W The Road to Confrontation American Policy Toward China and Korea 1947 1950 1981 Tanner Harold Miles The Battle for Manchuria and the Fate of China Siping 1946 Indiana University Press 2013 Tsou Tang America s Failure in China 1941 50 1963 a view from the right Westad Odd Arne Decisive encounters the Chinese civil war 1946 1950 Stanford University Press 2003 excerptPrimary sources Edit Marshall George Catlett The Papers of George Catlett Marshall Vol 5 The Finest Soldier January 1 1945 January 7 1947 Larry I Bland and Sharon Ritenour Stevens eds Johns Hopkins U Press 2003 822 pp May Ernest R ed The Truman Administration and China 1945 1949 1975 summary plus primary sources online Sharon Ritenour Stevens and Mark A Stoler ed 2012 The Papers of George Catlett Marshall The Whole World Hangs in the Balance January 8 1947 September 30 1949 Johns Hopkins University Press ISBN 978 1 4214 0792 0 US Congress House Committee on International Relations Selected Executive Session Hearings of the Committee 1943 50 8 vols Washington 1976 Vol VII United States Policy in the Far Eastpt 1 and Pt 2 U S Department of State Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers 1945 online Volume VII The Far East China Washington D C GPO 1969 Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers 1946 Volume IX The Far East China Washington D C GPO 1972 Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers 1946 Volume X The Far East China Washington D C GPO 1972 Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers 1947 Volume VII The Far East China Washington D C GPO 1972 External links EditThe 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 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Marshall Mission amp oldid 1122172348, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
