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A review by vivian_m_anderson
The Struggle for Taiwan: A History of America, China, and the Island Caught Between by Sulmaan Wasif Khan
informative
medium-paced
4.25
a wonderfully concise, clear, accessible guide to the history of us, china, and taiwan relations. in a moment where politics is often cloaked in obscure terms and the human error--primarily, khan notes, mistakes, confusion, and hesitance--of government officials is ignored, the struggle for taiwan provides a thorough and fast-moving account of how the united states, china, and taiwan got to the terrifyingly precarious place we are in now. world war three is always a looming distant threat in our collective imagination (though we even treat wars and genocides that are actively occuring as equally looming and distant) but this book makes it clear just how close we are and have come to a total nuclear holocaust. recommended reading for anyone with a vested interest in our country's relationships to taiwan in china, which should, as this book illustrates so well, be everyone. particular quotes highlighted below.
"Commentators like to portray the contemporary US-China relationship as an ineluctable function of great power politics. Revisionist and status quo powers, we are told, invariably clash...telling the story in this was obscured the role of choice in bringing us to our current juncture...Decision-makers in Washington, Beijing, and Taipei were not the helpless victims of circumstance...Tempting as it is to frame those decisions in terms of virtue--good versus evil, freedom versus authoritarianism--the historical record does not bear that out. For the most part, the choices made were the result of confusion, panic, stubborness, and a stunning inability to think through long-term consequences" (247).
"On March 6, 1955, Eisenhower told Dulles that he was willing to use 'automic weapons as interchangable with conventional weapons' to defend Kinmen and Matsu. Dulles began to work on creating 'a better public climate for the use of atomic weapons.' This was reckless beyond belief" (88).
"America had not agreed to set a date for terminating arms sales, it had not agreed to consult China on arms sales, it had not agreed to mediate between Beijing and Taipei, it had not agreed to revise the TRA, it had not agreed to take a position on the issue of Taiwan's sovereignty, and it would not take exert pressure on Taiwan to negotiate with the PRC" (136).
"Commentators like to portray the contemporary US-China relationship as an ineluctable function of great power politics. Revisionist and status quo powers, we are told, invariably clash...telling the story in this was obscured the role of choice in bringing us to our current juncture...Decision-makers in Washington, Beijing, and Taipei were not the helpless victims of circumstance...Tempting as it is to frame those decisions in terms of virtue--good versus evil, freedom versus authoritarianism--the historical record does not bear that out. For the most part, the choices made were the result of confusion, panic, stubborness, and a stunning inability to think through long-term consequences" (247).
"On March 6, 1955, Eisenhower told Dulles that he was willing to use 'automic weapons as interchangable with conventional weapons' to defend Kinmen and Matsu. Dulles began to work on creating 'a better public climate for the use of atomic weapons.' This was reckless beyond belief" (88).
"America had not agreed to set a date for terminating arms sales, it had not agreed to consult China on arms sales, it had not agreed to mediate between Beijing and Taipei, it had not agreed to revise the TRA, it had not agreed to take a position on the issue of Taiwan's sovereignty, and it would not take exert pressure on Taiwan to negotiate with the PRC" (136).