ABSTRACT
The optimal strategic outcome for the United States would be to split the Sino-Soviet alliance and then keep denying Taiwan to the PRC or to the USSR. Once China broke from the USSR, a new Sino-American relation would be worked out, and Taiwan would remain beyond the PRC's grasp. An analysis of US policy toward the Nationalist-held offshores must begin with an understanding of the utility of those islands as an instrument for pressuring Communist China. US policy shifted in late 1949, when Washington decided to "ignore the strictly legalistic approach" and "permit the Nationalists to take the kind of action that would make the running of the [Nationalist] blockade unprofitable for those engaged in it". Truman directed US agencies to do nothing to reduce the effectiveness of Nationalist blockading actions. On 24 September 1954, as the first Taiwan Strait crisis escalated, Eisenhower reconsidered his 1953 decision encouraging Nationalist raids against Chinese Communist territory and seaborne commerce.
