Cold War in Manchuria: Sino-Soviet-United States relations, 1948--1953 (Soviet Union, China)

The dissertation examines the international relations in Manchuria, also known as the Chinese Northeast, which involved the Chinese Communist Party, the Soviet Union, and the United States from 1948 to 1953. At the end of 1948, military forces of the CCP won a civil war in Manchuria, after which the Party leaders began to build socialism in the region following the Soviet model and use it as a logistic base in their war against the United States in Korea from 1950 to 1953. Stalin and other Soviet leaders initially viewed the CCP victory with uncertainty but, in the process of the following several years, adapted Soviet security considerations to the CCP ambitions and needs. As a result, the Soviet Union had made valuable friends with the Chinese by 1953. In part because of U.S. legacies in China in the immediate aftermath of World War II, Truman administration officials had difficulties adjusting U.S. foreign policy to a dramatically changed situation in Manchuria as caused by the CCP victory. In the several years that followed, Washington was never able, or willing, to overcome the initial difficulties. By 1953, America's political and economic presence in Manchuria was forced to withdraw from Manchuria, losing for the United States half century's efforts of Open Door in China.