From abandonment to salvation : Washington's Taiwan dilemma, 1949-1950 /

Finkelstein's study reiterates the agonizing uncertainties of the US government during 1949 and '50 over how to handle the breach between the Chinese communists on the mainland and the Nationalist government on Taiwan. Antithetical to a communist regime it had virtually ignored until forced to acknowledge Mao's takeover, and unwilling to support--much less recognize--a regime it felt anathema toward after a decade-long experience of corruption and incompetence, Washington was in a no-win situation, ready to grasp at straws. One that Finkelstein uncovers is the wishful thinking stimulated by Tito's removal of Yugoslavia from Stalin's grip. Could Mao be counted on to do the same? Certain State Department officials saw, ten years before its time, the rift between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. They thought or hoped that the US could massage a position of political limbo until "Mao Tse-Tito" would turn on his erstwhile allies and be induced into the American-backed camp. However, North Korea's invasion of South Korea impelled the US to act; President Truman saw no alternative than to back a staunch anticommunist, Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek. Although Finkelstein does draw on many newly declassified sources, his arguments, aside from the "Tito" theory, are for the most part a repeat of numerous studies of this indecisive period in US diplomacy toward China. Upper-division undergraduates and above. A. Wittenborn; San Diego State University