Useful Adversaries [Hardcover]

Thomas J. Christensen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 11, 1996 | Series: Princeton Studies in International History and Politics

Thomas Christensen's Useful Adversaries provides a new analysis of why relations between the United States and the Chinese Communists were so hostile in the first decade of the Cold War. Employing extensive documentation from the United States and China, it offers a fresh approach to long-debated questions such as why Truman refused to recognize the Chinese Communists, why the United States aided Chiang Kai-shek's KMT on Taiwan, why the Korean War escalated into a Sino-American conflict, and why Mao shelled islands in the Taiwan Straits in 1958, thus sparking a major crisis with the United States.

Editorial Reviews

Review

[Christensen] makes a convincing and original argument that political leaders, in order to secure public support for their fundamental grand strategy, may have to adopt a more hostile foreign policy than they would prefer . . . This volume is indispensable for anyone interested in Sino-American relations. -- Foreign Affairs --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From the Publisher

This book provides a new analysis of why relations between the United States and the Chinese Communists were so hostile in the first decade of the Cold War. Employing extensive documentation, it offers a fresh approach to longdebated questions such as why Truman refused to recognize the Chinese Communists, why the United States aided Chiang Kaishek's KMT on Taiwan, why the Korean War escalated into a SinoAmerican conflict, and why Mao shelled islands in the Taiwan Straits in 1958, thus sparking a major crisis with the United States.

Christensen first develops a novel twolevel approach that explains why leaders manipulate lowlevel conflicts to mobilize popular support for expensive, longterm security strategies. By linking "grand strategy," domestic politics, and the manipulation of ideology and conflict, Christensen provides a nuanced and sophisticated link between domestic politics and foreign policy. He then applies the approach to Truman's policy toward the Chinese Communists in 194750 and to Mao's initiation of the 1958 Taiwan Straits Crisis. In these cases the extension of short term conflict was useful in gaining popular support for the overall grand strategy that each leader was promoting domestically: Truman's limitedcontainment strategy toward the USSR and Mao's self strengthening programs during the Great Leap Forward. Christensen also explores how such lowlevel conflicts can escalate, as they did in Korea, despite leaders' desire to avoid actual warfare. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr (November 11, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691026386
• ISBN-13: 978-0691026381
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,080,667 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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