ABSTRACT

The purpose of the US-ROC alliance was to consolidate Nationalist China within that system, using its assets as part of the countervailing structure of power in Asia. Among the American elite, too, there were differing degrees of commitment to the dominant doctrine, containment. The Korean truce was signed on 27 July. The Eisenhower Administration accordingly shelved Chiang's proposals for a large-scale invasion of China. Threat of defection is one of the major bargaining dynamics of alliances. Another path to loss of Taiwan via Nationalist demoralization was through increased vulnerability to Communist subversion and pressure. In the case of Chiang Kai-shek and the US-ROC alliance, the threat of defection took a subtle and indirect form, the Kennedy Administration considered Chiang's proposal throughout the spring of 1962. JCS G-2 believed that Chiang's proposal was mainly a "trial balloon" to see if the United States was now ready to support a return. The threatened collapse of Nationalist morale.