ABSTRACT
With the passage by overwhelming majorities of the Formosa Resolution, which empowered the President to defend the offshore islands if he deemed that necessary to the defense of Taiwan. One understanding was worded so that Senate approval of the Mutual Defense Treaty could not be construed as United States (US) recognition of Taiwan as part of China. A conference would have offered Peking advantages well worth the manageable risk of introducing the subject of Taiwan into an international forum. In talks with Attlee in August 1954, Mao had used the word "regulated" in reference to his hopes for the Taiwan situation, and had apparently hoped that the UK would help regulate the situation by pressing the US to withdraw. Taiwan itself could not be taken against American opposition. Even as the United States threatened war in defense of Taiwan and the offshore islands, it moved to assure Peking that it would not support a Nationalist invasion of the mainland.
