Controlling the Waves: Dean Acheson and U.S. Foreign Policy in Asia [Hardcover]

Ronald L. McGlothlen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1993

At the end of World War II the nations of Asia, no less than those of Europe, lay in economic and political ruins. This is the story of their reshaping through the planning of American State Department officials led by the Secretary of State, Dean Acheson. The foremost task in the post-war years was to raise a beleaguered Japan once again into the natural "workshop of Asia" - a rehabilitation that would ensure a broad-based Asian recovery through trade and contain growth of communism in Asia. This Japan-centred strategy involved risks - the Korean and Vietnam wars and a long feud with the People's Republic of China, but on the whole Acheson and his group were remarkably successful. Told through the use of recently released documents and dozens of new interviews, this is the story of bare-knuckle diplomacy and high-stakes economic expansion, as well as the personal story of a visionary who shaped the Asian world today.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Dean Acheson (1893-1971) was one of the first to recognize that Japan was crucial to the expansion of U.S. trade throughout Asia and to the containment of Asian communism. As Undersecretary of State and later as Secretary during the Truman administration, he orchestrated State Department efforts to restore postwar Japan's military stability and economic power and to rebuild its regional trade network. In this scholarly, instructive study, McGlothlen, who formerly taught history at Northern Illinois University, argues that U.S. commitment to the postwar rehabilitation of Korea was fundamental to Acheson's plans for the long-term recovery of Japan but that the Korean War blocked both the revival of Japan's trade with that country and tentative efforts to estabish a trade partnership with the People's Republic of China. Though he succeeded in laying the foundations for a dramatic resurgence of Japanese power, the cost was great, for in the process Acheson initiated America's awkward commitment to Taiwan, a 20-year feud with the People's Republic of China and involvement in the Korean and Vietnam wars.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

As the Clinton Administration prepares for a potential trade war with Japan, historian McGlothlen--drawing on interviews with contemporaries of former secretary of state Dean Acheson (Dean Rusk and Paul Nitze among them) and quoting from original policy memoranda--outlines in detail the evolution of US policy toward Japan's trading partners. First as undersecretary of state and later as secretary under Truman, Acheson, says McGlothlen, viewed America's Asia policy not as one of containment but rather as an essential element of Japan's postwar recovery. Japan was the ``workshop'' of Asia, dependent upon the other countries of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere--Korea, China, Taiwan, and Indochina- -for raw materials such as oil, iron, and coal, as well as for food to feed its growing population. Only by rebuilding Japan's delicate balance of trade with its Asian neighbors could the US ensure its control over ``every wave in the Pacific Ocean'' and continue to expand its own trade in the region while protecting itself from the drain of the collapsed Japanese economy. Acheson sought Japan's economic and political security by revising reparations obligations, replacing the US military economic staff, and negotiating a final, less burdensome, peace treaty. But these efforts, McGlothlen argues, brought about more than Japan's stability: They also drew the US into conflicts in South Korea (which provided much of the food for Japan) and in Vietnam (which, as China turned Communist, became an important export market). And Taiwan became an Asian linchpin as well, dominating Japan's trade routes. It's ironic, McGlothlen notes, that Japan's economy--rebuilt at great American expense--has risen up to challenge the US trade dominance that Acheson's plans were designed to protect. A provocative and--given our concern about an imbalance of trade with Japan--unusually relevant examination. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc; Stated First Edition edition (June 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393035204
• ISBN-13: 978-0393035209
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,974,957 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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