ABSTRACT
This chapter revisits the issue of the offshore islands in the Taiwan Strait from a fresh angle by re-examining how they were once at the center of the Washington–Taipei–Beijing triangular relationship during the Cold War. It will reveal hitherto little-known events surrounding the history of the islands, involving the crucial and private role a retired American admiral played in Chiang Kai-shek’s decision to abandon some of the strategic island redoubts in the early 1950s; the CIA’s use of the isles for anticommunist guerrilla training, the launching of coastal raids against the Chinese mainland, and other underground activities during the Korean War. It will also unearth the cloud of suspicion surrounding the secret contacts between Taipei and Beijing leading up to and during the 1958 offshore islands crisis, elucidating how such a political tête-à-tête and its resultant tacit consensus over the status of the islands gradually brought about an end to the conflicts not only between Taiwan and Communist China but also between the Soviet Union and the United States, thus playing a role in the shaping of American Cold War policy.
