ABSTRACT
This chapter reveals the fissures that developed in the U.S.–Taiwan relationship when disagreements over the status of Tibet arose. In hindsight, the commonly shared anti-PRC stance of the United States, Taiwan, and the Dalai Lama during the Cold War did not bring the three parties together into a coherent and coordinated anticommunist movement. Rather, nationalism, Han Chinese irredentism, and vestiges of pre-1949 Chinese policy pushed Chiang Kai-shek and his deadly Communist enemies in Beijing closer to the same side, as the 1959 Tibetan uprising grew internationalized. The irony stemming from the divergent policies of the United States and Taiwan toward the status of Tibet thus elucidates the intricacy, volatility, and subtlety of international politics, as well as the precarious balance of the Cold War alliance across the Pacific.
