The Sino-Soviet Alliance, the Korean War, and the Predicament of the CCP’s Attack Plans for Taiwan, 1949–50

Abstract Drawing on archival materials from the Republic of China (Taiwan), the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the United States, and the former Soviet Union, this article discusses why the PRC’s 1949–50 strike plans for Taiwan went unfulfilled. What prevented the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from “liberating” Taiwan was the fact that it lacked sufficient naval and air power to overwhelm the comparatively better equipped Kuomintang (KMT). The only way to overcome this disparity in a timely manner was to call upon Soviet assistance. In early 1949, seeking to incorporate China into the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence, Joseph Stalin resolved to support the CCP’s seizure of power. At the same time, he adopted a policy of indirectly assisting the CCP’s preparations to take Taiwan. This was also when US strategy in Asia became focused on preventing the PRC and the Soviet Union from consolidating an alliance. The United States attempted to do so by using the occasion of Mao Zedong’s first visit to Moscow to publicly announce a policy of non-intervention on the Taiwan issue. To pull the PRC into the Soviet camp and prevent the CCP from turning to the United States and the West, as well as to maintain the Soviet Union’s ports and military bases on the Yellow Sea, Stalin responded by acquiescing to Mao’s demands that Dalian, Port Arthur (Lüshun), and the Changchun Railway be returned to China. However, he simultaneously halted indirect assistance for the CCP’s preparations for attacking Taiwan, instead giving Kim Il Sung the green light to launch an attack against South Korea. With the outbreak of the Korean War providing a legitimate pretext, and in response to the signing of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance , the United States adjusted its policy of non-intervention regarding Taiwan. Thus, while the status of Taiwan and Fujian’s coastal islands was considered by both the CCP and the KMT to be China’s internal affair, by 1950, it had already, in Mao’s words, “turned into a complex and serious international struggle.”