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A riveting account of the watershed moment in America’s dealings with China that forever altered the course of East-West relations
As 1945 opened, America was on surprisingly congenial terms with China’s Communist rebels—their soldiers treated their American counterparts as heroes, rescuing airmen shot down over enemy territory. Chinese leaders talked of a future in which American money and technology would help lift China out of poverty. Mao Zedong himself held friendly meetings with U.S. emissaries, vowing to them his intention of establishing an American-style democracy in China.
By year’s end, however, cordiality had been replaced by chilly hostility and distrust. Chinese Communist soldiers were setting ambushes for American marines in north China; Communist newspapers were portraying the United States as an implacable imperialist enemy; civil war in China was erupting. The pattern was set for a quarter century of almost total Sino-American mistrust, with the devastating wars in Korea and Vietnam among the consequences.
Richard Bernstein here tells the incredible story of that year’s sea change, brilliantly analyzing its many components, from ferocious infighting among U.S. diplomats, military leaders, and opinion makers to the complex relations between Mao and his patron, Stalin.
On the American side, we meet experienced “China hands” John Paton Davies and John Stewart Service, whose efforts at negotiation made them prey to accusations of Communist sympathy; FDR’s special ambassador Patrick J. Hurley, a decorated general and self-proclaimed cowboy; and Time journalist, Henry Luce, whose editorials helped turn the tide of American public opinion. On the Chinese side, Bernstein reveals the ascendant Mao and his intractable counterpart, Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek; and the indispensable Zhou Enlai.
A tour de force of narrative history, China 1945 examines the first episode in which American power and good intentions came face-to-face with a powerful Asian revolutionary movement, and challenges familiar assumptions about the origins of modern Sino-American relations.
- Sales Rank: #569489 in Books
- Published on: 2014-11-04
- Released on: 2014-11-04
- Format: Deckle Edge
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.49" h x 1.61" w x 6.60" l, 1.95 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 464 pages
Review
“If you read only one book on this crucial period, Mr. Bernstein’s work should be it.”
—The Washington Times
“Excellent….Bernstein…covers China’s political context in 1945 like a scholar, but maintains his journalist’s eye for human drama.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“Elegant and compelling….This thoughtful book moves decisively beyond sterile old debates to demonstrate that in the end, China’s fate in 1945 was for the Chinese people, and not Americans, to decide.”
—Foreign Affairs
“Skillfully crafted…Mr. Bernstein provides a rich account of just how far the Communist leaders went in wooing, and misleading, the Americans….This attention to the Chinese point of view sets Mr. Bernstein’s book apart from its most celebrated precursor, Barbara W. Tuchman’s 1971Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-1945.”
—The Wall Street Journal
“Excellent….An important book.”
—The Washington Post
“Authoritative and engaging.”
—NPR
“Extensively researched….[Bernstein’s] findings about the limits of US influence in China are relevant to more recent American interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
—The Christian Science Monitor
“A fascinating, sometimes harrowing account of an uncertain period…pointedly relevant to today’s global dilemmas as well.”
—Richmond Times-Dispatch
“A rich, compelling book told with subtlety and grace. For those interested in understanding how China went Communist in the middle of the 20th century, it is well worth the read.”
—David Sibley, Military History Quarterly
“Stimulating….A timely analysis that sheds light on the realities of American engagement in Asia.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Thoroughly researched and well-argued…highly recommended.”
—Library Journal
“Immensely readable….A nuanced hindsight assessment that expertly pursues the historical ramification of roads not taken.”
—Kirkus
“Cogent and engaging.”
—Booklist
“The current rivalry between the United States and China for the dominant role in East Asia is rooted in a complicated history dating back to 1945. Richard Bernstein’s compelling and moving examination of U.S.-China relations during and immediately after World War II sparkles with fresh insights into the tragic events and colorful personalities of that era. A model of historical writing for non-specialist readers, its only fault is that once begun it is almost impossible to put down.”
—Steven I. Levine, co-author of Mao: The Real Story
“The dramatic events of 1945 continue to shape American relations with China. Mao, Zhou Enlai, Stilwell, General George Marshall—these and other giant personalities come to life in these pages, as we relive the fateful choices events forced on them in a year of nonstop crises. The book offers a thoughtful examination of the roots of authoritarianism in China, the sources of Chinese-American mistrust, and the intractability of history.”
—Andrew J. Nathan, co-author of The Tiananmen Papers
“Richard Bernstein’s China 1945 is the rare book that under-promises on its title. The author goes far beyond delivering up that pivotal year, providing instead a learned and compelling narrative of the characters and forces that drove China and the United States apart and created today’s world.”
—Howard French, author of China’s Second Continent
“At the beginning of 1945, America had the chance to forge a good relationship with Mao and his Chinese communist rebels. Richard Bernstein’s fascinating and important tale of what happened provides crucial lessons about creative diplomacy that are still very relevant, both in dealing with China and around the world.”
—Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs
“Extensively researched, elegantly written, and provocatively argued, China 1945 reexamines a fateful period when Roosevelt’s wrong decisions combined with Stalin’s geostrategic ambitions and Mao’s ideological inclinations to seal the fate of the Cold War in Asia for a quarter century—with enduring consequences for Sino-American antagonisms to this day. An illuminating and sobering study well worth reading by all American policymakers and China watchers.”
—David Shambaugh, George Washington University & The Brookings Institution
“At a time when the United States and China are groping for a 'new model' of great power relations, Richard Bernstein’s stimulating and informative book casts essential light on the era that led to today’s challenge. China 1945 makes us more aware than ever of the hideous complexities of American involvement in East Asia, the importance of history and the limited perspectives of those who make fateful choices.”
—Jerome A. Cohen, co-director, NYU’s US-Asia Law Institute; adjunct senior fellow for Asia, Council on Foreign Relations
“In this thoroughly researched and lucidly written book, Richard Bernstein describes a watershed moment of historical change: 1945, a year when the kaleidoscopic pattern of Chinese politics and that volatile country’s relationship with the U.S. and the world irrevocably changed. China 1945 is an enormously engaging narrative filled with a cast of colorful actors who set the terms of the game for the next half century.”
—Orville Schell, director, Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society
About the Author
Richard Bernstein has been a reporter, culture critic, and commentator for more than thirty years. He was a foreign correspondent in Asia and Europe for Time magazine and The New York Times, and was the first Beijing bureau chief for Time. He is the author of many books on Chinese and Asian themes, among them The Coming Conflict with China and Ultimate Journey, the latter of which was a New York Times Best Book of the Year. He is also the author of Out of the Blue: A Narrative of September 11, 2001, which was named by The Boston Globe as one of the seven best books of 2002. He lives in New York.
richardbernstein.net
@R_Bernstein
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
As part of the Sino-Soviet agreement, a negotiating committee, set up ostensibly to supervise the transfer of control from the Soviet Union to China, was already in place in the city of Changchun in south central Manchuria, which was where Marshal Malinovsky had his headquarters. Malinovsky, the hard, seasoned, highly decorated, utterly reliable Communist officer, the man in whom there was “not a drop of gentleness,” was from an impoverished family in Ukraine. He had escaped a nasty childhood by joining the pre-Soviet Russian army when he was fifteen years old, and he had been fighting ever since, participating in just about every Russian and Soviet armed conflict occurring during his lifetime. He was wounded twice during World War I. He fought on the Soviet side in the civil war that followed the revolution of 1917. He was a volunteer during the Spanish Civil War, and when he returned home he was awarded the Order of Lenin in recognition of his bravery. After the German attack in 1941, he became one of the heroes of the bloody, do-or-die defense of Stalingrad where, for the first time in World War II, the tide turned in favor of the Russians, and he got the Order of Suvorov for outstanding generalship, the highest decoration in the Soviet army.
Later, Malinovsky was the victor in the battles for Budapest, Brno, and Bratislava as the Russian armies ground down German divisions in the march to Berlin. At the end of the war in Europe, he was transferred to Asia, and he commanded the Soviet rout of the Japanese in Manchuria. Years later, he was minister of defense of the Soviet Union; in 1960 he was pictured on the cover of Time magazine under the headline “Russia’s New Hard Line.” He was “hulking” and “impassive,” the magazine said; he was “a true son of the socialist motherland,” according to the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. He was short and heavy-set with a kind of bulldog determination imprinted on his unsmiling face, not a man to be intimidated or to be afflicted by the sentiment known in the Communist lexicon as bourgeois humanitarianism. He was also, as the Chinese delegation soon discovered, a master of a kind of bureaucratic obstructionism, of the fake excuse.
The Chinese team, led by General Hsiung Shih-hui, arrived in Changchun on August 12. They soon had occasion to count the many ways by which the Russians could hinder them in achieving their purpose, which was to replace the Soviets with soldiers and officials of the central government. There were petty obstructions. The Chinese learned, for example, that the Soviets had ordered a suspension in the Bank of China’s activities in Manchuria, so the negotiating team had difficulty paying its expenses. At one point, complaining of some press coverage of Soviet domestic politics, the Russians actually searched the KMT offices in Changchun, summoned the entire staff for interrogation, accused them of distributing propaganda without first getting permission from the Soviet high command, held them overnight, and then ordered them to cease all their activities, including the sending of teams to investigate conditions in various places in Manchuria. For weeks, the Soviets complained about what they called “anti-Soviet activities” in Manchuria, and they held the KMT’s representatives responsible. The Soviets even refused to allow the Chinese to send representatives to Jehol, the region just west of Manchuria, to buy leather for uniforms, saying that the route to Jehol was “disorderly.”
One member of the team, an American-educated economist named Chang Kiangau, noted on arriving at the Changchun airport that it was “filled with Soviet officers and soldiers,” and that there were very few Chinese around. “Then we found that we cannot use the national currency,” he wrote in his diary. “On the same day I received a report saying the Soviet Army was plundering industrial equipment”—power generators, furnaces, broadcasting equipment, automobiles, even office furniture. When the Chinese asked when they could install their own administrations in various places, Malinovsky replied that he needed to get instructions from his superiors. When asked if he could provide transportation for the Chinese delegates, Malinovsky said there were no vehicles, ships, or planes available, though, he added, “this issue can be negotiated between the two governments on the basis of the Sino-Soviet treaty.” Would the Soviets allow the Chinese to take over the printing bureau of the former puppet regime? Malinowsky needed to seek instructions from his superiors on that too.
Not surprisingly, the initial meetings with the Soviet commander led Chang to the impression that “the Soviets have no intention of actively supporting the transportation of our troops into the northeast,” though Soviet obstructionism was always veiled behind a phony offer of some other way to help. Malinovsky urged the Chinese to use the railroads to move their men into position, but the Chinese knew, and surely Malinovsky knew, that Communist troops in Shanhaiguan had cut the railroad lines between Manchuria and China proper.
As October wore on, the fullness of Soviet control of Manchuria became clearer and clearer, the obstructionism less petty. An aide to Malinovky identified by Chang as Major General Pavlovsky, formally notified the Chinese that they considered all the former Japanese industrial equipment in Manchuria to be war booty that belonged to the Soviet Union. The Chinese protested. The Soviets compromised, saying that Japanese state-owned industry would be war booty. Private Japanese property, of which there was much less, could go to China. The Soviets had 1.5 million troops on the ground. There was nothing China could do to resist.
It’s easy to imagine the disadvantage of the Chinese in what was supposed to be collaboration but was really a dictation of terms. Here was Malinovsky, representing the triumphant army of the second most powerful country on earth, facing off against the representative of a weak, devastated, and divided country armed with nothing much more than the declared friendship of a faraway superpower. On the most urgent matter of the ostensible return of Manchuria to Chinese government control, General Hsiung informed Malinovsky that China intended to transport troops from Hong Kong on American vessels and land them at the port of Dalian. Malinovsky’s reply was that the Sino-Soviet treaty had declared Dalian to be an open city devoted only to commercial purposes, and therefore it would be a violation of the treaty to allow Chinese troops to land there. In other words the Soviets, having, in that very treaty, recognized China’s central government as the country’s sole legitimate authority, to which they were obliged to give moral and material support, were now telling that same government that it was barred from dispatching its own armed forces to portions of its own territory.
Astonished at the bluntness and audacity of Soviet obstructionism, Chang Kia-ngau wrote to Chiang Kai-shek warning him that the Soviet intention was to create a “special regime” in the north wherein the northeast provinces of China would be “completely surrounded.” “I’m afraid even the Manchurian coastline is in danger of being blockaded,” Chang said, and when that happened, “the northeast is bound to become a sitting duck for the Soviet Union.”
Malinovky, always ready with some reasonable alternative solution, assured the Chinese and their American escorts that, while Dalian, which was Manchuria’s biggest and best deep-water port, was closed to them, they could land troops farther north at the smaller ports of Huludao and Yingkou, and the Americans, not wanting a fight, agreed to that. But when the small armada of American ships arrived at Huludao, they found that Chinese Communist troops were in control of the port and were vowing to fight if the government forces tried to land there.
It was an extraordinary scene. As at Chefoo earlier, Rear Admiral Daniel E. Barbey was in command of the American ships, charged with helping the government retake control of its territory. Barbey had ample forces with him to deal with the Communists if it came to a fight, but he had been instructed to avoid conflict. Given the circumstances, he told the Chinese Nationalists to negotiate the matter with the Russians. General Hsiung duly brought up the landing at Huludao with Malinovsky, pointing out that the Soviet commander had assured him of a safe disembarkation there. Malinovsky had given a window between November 5 and 10 for the landing. The American task force arrived on the 7th. Malinovsky replied that the Communist troops had not come through territory under Soviet control but from the south, so what could he do? The ever-eager-to-help Malinovsky suggested that Hsiung talk things over with the Eighth Route Army, which Hsiung naturally said he could not do, knowing that the Communists were not going to politely give up Huludao and allow government troops to land there just because he asked them to. When Hsiung inquired of Malinovsky what the Russians would do if there was a clash between the Communists and the government troops, the Soviet commander’s reply was that he would desist from interfering in China’s internal affairs.
The task force, still under Barbey, proceeded to Yingkou, the last alternative Manchurian port where the government troops could be landed. There, the Communist-appointed mayor of the town was on the dock shouting to the Americans at the railings of their ships that the Communists would resist any effort by the government to land its forces. Barbey, following orders not to interfere in China’s internal affairs, ordered the ships back to sea. The landing of the government forces would take place well to the south at the port of Qinwangdao, and, indeed, after sailing the Bohai for days with no result, the American task force deposited its consignment of troops there in mid-November.
By now, Chiang Kai-shek’s son, Chiang Ching-kuo, who spoke fluent Russian, had joined the Chinese negotiating team at Changchun. On November 4, the younger Chiang went to see Malinovsky and complained to him that Communist troops had prevented the expected landing of government forces at Yingkou. Malinovsky’s reply was that Soviet troops were few in number in Yingkou, so resistance to the Communist troop movements was impossible. “It is very clear,” Chang Kia-ngau noted in his diary, “that the Soviets deliberately are allowing Eighth Route Army men into Huludao and Yingkou to obstruct the efforts of government troops to land there.”
Chang Kia-ngau was beginning to understand the reasons for Soviet obstructionism: the friendly wartime relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were turning sour in the postwar period. Many times, speaking in a “stern” tone, Malinovsky protested to the Chinese that the Americans had sent a warship to Dalian. Chang understood that the Russians wanted to exclude any and all American forces from Manchuria, and this put China in a bind. In the background to this were American actions to exclude the Soviets from playing a role in the occupation of Japan, which Moscow was demanding as a reward for the five days its troops had participated in the war. Soviet propaganda trumpeted the theory already advanced by Mao that it had been the Russian invasion of Manchuria, rather than the succession of American victories in the Pacific and the use of the atomic bomb, that had turned the tide in the Asian war. This was the justification advanced by the Russians as they systematically stripped Manchuria of Japanese-built industry. Possession of the Japanese-built factories was just compensation for the losses the Soviets had suffered in the war. The message was clear: If the United States insisted on monopolizing postwar Japan, the Soviets would do the same in northeast Asia.
And so the charade continued. Malinovsky’s next helpful suggestion was for the central government to airlift troops into the cities of Mukden and Changchun, and dilatory negotiations proceeded in November on the execution of this plan. But by this time, Chiang Kai-shek was growing pessimistic about the whole Manchurian matter, uncertain that he could prevail if he forced the issue and worried that any steps toward civil war would incur the anger of the population. This was easy to understand. China’s revitalized press was full of ardent expressions of hope for civil war to be avoided. At the end of October, ten liberal professors in Kunming, still the location of several of the universities displaced during the war, sent an open letter to Mao and Chiang urging the end of China’s “one-party dictatorship” and the convocation of a political council composed of representatives of all parties and factions. Noting the growth of this sentiment, the American embassy cautioned that “these professors are distressed at what they described as the ‘new American policy toward China.’ They’re at a loss to understand the ‘all-out support’ given to the Central Government by the U.S., which they believe merely increases the determination of Gen Chiang Kai-shek not to establish a genuine coalition government in China and not to surrender any real power now held by the KMT.”
The Communists, cleverly aligning themselves with this growing trend in public opinion, were making the same complaint about the KMT’s one-party dictatorship and the same demand for a coalition government. In fact, Chiang Kai-shek had announced plans to hold a political consultative conference in Chungking in November, a gathering of all the political factions in China that would decide on the means for later elections to a national assembly. Chiang seemed in this to be responding to the clamor among the intelligentsia and to pressure from the United States to move toward democracy, and, indeed, he had taken some steps in that direction. In the spring, even as the CCP was holding its ceremonial glorification of Mao at its Seventh Congress, Chiang presided over the Sixth Kuomintang Conference, the first since 1938. Among its resolutions was one calling for a general national conference for later in the year that would make arrangements for a multiparty election for a new national assembly. Chiang also ended the system of stationing political commissars with every major army unit, a move, urged on him by his American advisers, that aimed at moving away from party control of the armed forces—a move that the Communists have not made to this day. When the war ended, Chiang also took steps toward political reform, notably ending press censorship and releasing political prisoners. Was this pure window-dressing, as the Communists and many later historians have assumed? The Chinese government under Chiang was still a one-party dictatorship, but public criticism was taking place and being tolerated; there was ferment in the air. The announcement of a political consultative conference was an element of this ferment, and at the end of the talks in Chungking, Mao agreed to it in principle, though, as we will see, the Communists never really gave it much of a chance in practice.
Mao’s own sincerity is deeply questionable. In Yenan after his negotiation with Chiang ended, Mao oversaw the CCP’s propaganda, which advertised the CCP as the party of peace, and he continued to move his troops as fast as possible into Manchuria. The Eighth Route Army had blocked all the ports except for Qinwangdao. In mid-November, Lin Biao occupied Changchun, one of the cities that the Soviets had designated as an airlift destination for government forces. The Soviets, always eager, they said, not to interfere in China’s internal affairs, did nothing to stop this from happening. Chiang Kai-shek was reduced to hoping that if he could maintain good relations with the Russians, proving to them that he would cause them no trouble in Manchuria, they could still be persuaded not to help the Communists. And so the plans for an airlift were dropped.
Most helpful customer reviews
38 of 40 people found the following review helpful.
The story of how everyone was wrong about China, but how some were more wrong than others
By Chefdevergue
When I was in college in the early 1980's, the prevailing wisdom was that, had the USA been more accommodating to Mao and the Chinese Communists & not thrown their support behind Chiang Kai-Shek, a lot of the unpleasantness of the 1950's and the 1960's could have been avoided. This view of history replaced the earlier view which held that traitorous elements within the US State Department deliberately laid the foundation for Mao's success, thus resulting in the USA "losing" China.
Bernstein, the student of one the "China Hands," John King Fairbank, could very easily be expected to take up the defense of the diplomats whose careers were destroyed in the fall-out. In fact, he does point out that the experts like John Paton Davies and Jack Service accurately predicted Mao's triumph, and he spends a lot of time excoriating Patrick Hurley (accurately depicting him as a man fantastically unqualified for the job, and perpetually clueless). However, Bernstein also points out that the China Hands, as well as a number of sympathetic journalists, were naïve and spectacularly wide of the mark when it came to assessing Mao's true commitment to Communism and his allegiance to Stalin.
Bernstein is also much more sympathetic towards Chiang than I would have expected. He observes that Chiang was not given nearly the credit he deserves for having fought the Japanese invasion as successfully as he did, and only receives criticism for not having committed more troops to the fight (as well as leaving commanders who were clearly incompetent in their posts). Bernstein explains that Chiang had very good political reasons for doing this, which were simply beyond the comprehension of US officials due to the cultural divide. Even if Chiang had wanted to make the KMT government less corrupt and anti-democratic, it is unclear if he could have survived politically.
Bernstein provides a thorough examination of all of the players involved in the struggle, and concludes that the only way the USA could have avoided "losing" China would have been to commit massive numbers of troops, presaging Viet Nam by a generation and probably with the same domestic results. Simply put, Mao had the domestic support, and Stalin had played his cards too well (basically backing both sides, so that even if Chiang had actually won, he still would have been forced to make China subservient to the Soviet Union). Could the hostility between China and the USA have been avoided? Probably not, says Bernstein, since Mao's commitment to his own acquisition of absolute power, and a basic lack of trust of the West, made it almost a foregone conclusion that the US imperialists were going be cast in the role of China's villainous enemy.
This is a thorough, even-handed account (unless, for some reason, you are a fan of Patrick Hurley) which provides a great deal of understanding of events which still have an impact on all of us today. It is also very well-written; despite a tremendous wealth of detail, it was quite easy to read. Very strongly recommended to anyone interested in the recent history of this region.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful.
Details of what led to Communist victory
By LD
Personal comment: In 1964-5 I had an Asian history teacher who was Chinese. He explained that the way Orientals and Americans analyze a situation and draw conclusions were incompatible (his college roommate was in the CIA). Everything in this book confirms what he said.
Richard Bernstein provides a thorough discussion of the multiple situations, the thinking of the individuals involved, their decisions/actions, and unforeseen outcomes. I found his research fascinating- things we haven’t heard or read. Could China have been non-communist? That is the speculative question. Different readers will draw different opinions. One thing is for sure- without some actions by US officials the battle between Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong would have been drawn out much longer. And perhaps Korea and Vietnam would have turned out differently.
Here’s some of the events discussed in the book so you can see the wide research that Bernstein did:
1) Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong were allies in trying to defeat the warlords and unify the country. Chiang then broke with Mao and was on the verge of victory when Japan invaded.
2) Chiang was betrayed and then kidnapped by the communists. Mao wanted to kill him but Stalin said no. The two then agreed to a joint war with the Japanese.
3) Chiang’s army did most of the fighting and his domain suffered the most, resulting in disillusionment of the peasants and the army. p79,86
4) US officials did not understand Chiang’s strategy of defense in depth and reducing casualties. He was forced to fight and lose battles (weakening his position) in following the US strategy. p38
5) Unabashed admirers of Stalin and communism in the FDR administration and journalists reported that Mao was defeating the Japanese and was the future leader. They wanted the US to supply Mao and reduce Chiang. Communist seduction of delusional Americans completely hid Mao’s present and future goals. p100
6) Mao used Stalin’s methods (secret police, torture, confession, show trials) to silence dissent and rivals. Like Russia, communist officials lived an idyllic life compared to their subjects. p127,131
7) The biographies of Zhou Enlai and others reveal much not contained in history books.
8) By the time US officials realized what was happening, they knew that without US ground troops, the communists could not be defeated.
When you read the detailed accounts, you will see that the story is much more complex than these few highlights. Here’s an example: Mao told the Japanese prime minister in 1972, who was apologizing for the invasion, that without the war his remaining 7000 soldiers in 1937 could not have eventually won. p143
You will understand what life was like for the common people in different provinces of China and how that is impacting current modernization plans.
I think that both history and military buffs will find the behind the scenes enlightening. You will certainly better understand what is not being reported by the news media and why they can’t get beyond the headline.
17 of 20 people found the following review helpful.
What Lies Beneath
By ck
One of the enduring ironies of the decades after World War II is how two of America's allies, Russia and China, became her foes. The USSR kept German troops occupied on a second front at great cost. Similarly, China battled Japan in isolation for four years, and still as the war drew to a close in 1945, a weakened China continued to keep more than a million Japanese troops on its soil, preventing them from battling the Allies elsewhere in the Pacific.
If we want to understand the seemingly rapid shift in the U.S. government's perception and policies toward China in the watershed year of 1945, we must begin several decades beforehand. Thus, although author Richard Bernstein calls this book China 1945 it by necessity is much larger in scope.
Bernstein frames this book as an exploration of how choices the United States made in its relationship with China during a single year sowed the seeds of the harvest we have been reaping ever since. However, before he teases out the events of 1945, Bernstein explores two significant precursors. The first is China's bitter struggles with Japan dating to 1895; the second is the rise of two philosophically different groups, the Kuomintang (KMT) or Nationalists, and the Communist Party of China (CCP).
Because of an interest in Japan's history, even before I began reading this book, I was familiar with Japan's quest for expansion. Although I knew some of the details Bernstein covered, he placed them into a more meaningful context than I'd had previously, and one that is essential before exploring the choices during WWII, especially in 1945. I found Bernstein's chronology of Japan's engagements between 1895 and 1937 cogent and detailed, and think that readers with less familiarity will not be at sea.
Bernstein provides the same thorough, arms-length approach that makes his analysis of China's relationship with Japan so informative as he explores China's domestic situation and the evolution of its political evolution following the revolution that led to the creation of the Republic of China in 1912.
Only after readers have these contextual details firmly at hand does Bernstein begin teasing apart the key fissure lines and combustible events of 1945. Without a full grounding in what went before, for example, it is difficult to comprehend why China was in a "poor and fragile state" -- even before eight years of war waged by poorly outfitted, poorly fed troops, and a death toll of 20 to 30 million. Similarly, Bernstein makes it evident that one of the beneficiaries of Japan's advances on China was the Communist Party of China, led by Mao Zedong.
By the middle of 1944, Bernstein posits, Mao and his rival, KMT President Chiang Kai-shek, both believed that the U.S. would defeat Japan. That realization freed them to focus on which of the two sides would win victory in the internal struggle for control of China after the war ended. In this vein, he questions how subsequent events might have enfolded had the U.S. created a cooperative relationship with Mao on par with that it had developed with Chiang.
Bernstein maintains this high level of research and inquiry throughout the book, analyzing the policies and actions of a number of key players, both Chinese and American. This information reaches critical mass, so that we readers are prepared to work through the chain of events at war's end, when the CCP notified the U.S., Great Britain, and the Soviet Union that it had earned the authority to accept the surrender of its foes. Not only was the CCP explicitly claiming its right to take possession of the troops, but implicitly laying claim to their weapons and territory.
What happened next has echoed for decades, and Bernstein guides us through the unfolding of a host of confusing posturings and events, both directed at the domestic population and for consumption beyond China's borders. To his credit, he provides enough dispassionate information and analysis that we readers are able to evaluate his conclusions from an informed vantage point and formulate our own opinions.
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