U.S.-Taiwan Military Diplomacy Revisited: Chiang Kai-shek, Baituan, and the 1954 Mutual Defense Pact*.

This article seeks to retrace the making of the 1954 U.S.-Taiwan military alliance and shed new light on the Taiwanese perception of the issue. As will be revealed, the conclusion of the 1954 defense treaty between Washington and Taipei was not only a result of the American Cold War strategy in the Far East, as the numerous existing historical literature have admirably depicted. It was also a representation of Chiang Kai-shek’s sophisticated military diplomacy, involving the role of a hitherto little-known group of Japanese then serving as his “unofficial” advisors. New historical evidence also suggests that, in this military diplomacy, Chiang played with the United States, for signing a defense pact was originally not one of his priorities. Rather, what Chiang had initially sought from America was the means by which to rearm his forces so as to strengthen his position to launch a military recovery of the mainland. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]