Transcript Asia in the Cold War

Asia in the Cold War
China, Korea, Vietnam
China
• Opium War 1839-1842 vs. GB
• Open Door Policy 1900
– US offered equal trade rights for everyone
• Boxer Rebellion 1900
– Put down by international military force
Nationalists establish Chinese
Republic (1911-1912)
• Kuomintang (Nationalist Party)
established by Sun Yat-Sen
– Advocated program of
• Nationalism: replace weak
Manchus with strong central
government
• Democracy
• People’s livelihood: adopt
Western agriculture and industry
– 1912 overthrew Manchus, became
republic
– Failed to control entire country,
only small part of south
• Soviets offered to help put down
warlords
– Sun died in 1925, Chiang Kai-shek
(Jiang Jieshi), military leader,
came to power
Nationalists vs. Communists
• Communists operated at first within Kuomintang,
but Chiang opposed them
• 1927 Chiang drove Communists out of
Kuomintang
• Communists fought back, 10 years of civil war
• 1937 Communists, led by Mao Ze-dong,
established a capital at Yenan in N. China
• 1937, truce to meet challenge of Japan
WWII and China
• Japan invaded China in 1937
(had taken Manchuria in 1931)
• Britain and US loaned
equipment to Chinese
Nationalists
• During invasion Japan forced a
“Holocaust” on China
(Nanking, 300,000 killed)
• Promised China
– End special imperialist
privileges
– Restore Taiwan and Manchuria
– Place in “Big Five” of UN
Nationalists lose to Communists
• Nationalists (Chiang Kai-Shek
[Jiang Jieshi]) lost support
because
– Dictatorship of corruption and
inefficiency
– Wasted $ US gave (US backed
against Communists)
– Did not earn soldiers loyalty
– Ignored peasants desires for
land & workers for better
conditions
• Communists (Mao Ze-Dong)
– Gained military superiority
– By 1949, driven Chiang to
Taiwan
China Under Communism
• Beijing Capital, became
People’s Republic of
China
– under Premier Zhou Enlai
and Communist party head
Mao Ze-dong
• Government
– One-party dictatorship
– Army and secret police to
enforce authority
– Purged several million
More Communism
• Economy
• Industry:
– Five-Year plans
– Since early 1960’s remarkable growth in output, 10% a
year
– 1980s
• Imported modern tech, from capitalist nations (Japan and US)
• Relaxed government controls & some private enterprise
• Invited foreign companies to develop offshore oil fields
Great Leap Forward
• Agriculture
– Great Leap Forward:
Peasants transferred land to
communes, huge
agricultural establishments
owned by government, pays
workers, children in
community centers,
communal dining halls
– Freed people from family
duties=greater output (?!?)
– Strong peasant resentment
led to agricultural shortages
Ideology
• Drove out Western ideas,
banned missionaries and
books
• Used mass communication
and schools to
– Promote communist
teachings
– Wean people away from
Confucianism
• Primary duty to state, not
family
China vs. USSR
• Gradually split over
– Ideological differences: Mao against peaceful
coexistence
– Border Disputes
– World Communist leadership
Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution 1966
•
•
•
•
•
After Great Leap Forward, split in Communist party; Pragmatists wanted
practical reforms (led by Deng Xiaoping)
Mao, old, did not want China to adopt “Soviet revisionism”
Millions of young people formed into Red Guards with copies of Mao’s
sayings “Little Red Book”, attacked teachers, politicians, and other leaders for
betraying Mao
Time of disorder and confusion, schools closed, factory production dropped,
violence erupted
1968, Mao called army to regain order, 10,000s died
China to Present
• Deng Xiaoping in power after
Mao’s death in ’76
• attempts to modernize
economically while
maintaining totalitarian
control
– Result - Tiananmen Square
massacre, ‘89. Students in
Beijing demonstrating for
political freedom were brutally
crushed.
• Human rights issues with
Tibet - autonomous region
seized by China in ‘59,
forcing Buddhist spiritual
leader Dalai Lama into exile
China to Present
• Jiang Zemin became president
in ‘97
• Economic growth continues
• Hong Kong regained in ‘97,
Macao in ’99
• Taiwan remains independent.
• 2002 Hu Jintao became
president
• 2008 Summer Olympics in
China-supposed to be a
showcase of progress of China;
eclipsed by human rights
violations in Tibet
Korean War
•
•
•
•
Korea a Japanese Colony until end of
WWII
Soviet troops occupied Korea north of
38th parallel, US occupied south
1948, communist govt. established in
north at Pyongyang, pro-US govt.
established in south at Seoul.
Korean War
–
–
•
June 1950: N. Korean troops invaded
the South. Quickly take Seoul and
threaten to overrun entire peninsula.
UN Security Council, with USSR
absent, votes to send troops to aid S.
Korea.
US troops from Japan, led by Gen.
MacArthur, arrive in S. Korea. After
amphibious landing at Inchon, US &
UN troops push into N. Korea
More Korea
• Nov. 1950: as US-led forces
move toward Yalu River, border
between N. Korea & China,
Communist Chinese enter the
war.
• UN troops pushed back
– MacArthur wants to use Abombs against mainland China,
threatening WW III
– President Truman fires
MacArthur.
• War stabilizes into a stalemate
along the 38th Parallel
• armistice isn’t reached until
July 1953 (nearly 5 million
died, mostly Korean &
Chinese).
Vietnam War
•
•
•
•
•
•
Japan conquered French Indochina
(SE Asia) during WW II
France tried to reestablish colonial
control in areas such as Vietnam
Vietnamese communists, led by Ho
Chi Minh, went to war and
defeated the French at Dien Bien
Phu, 1954
Communist govt. in the north, proWestern govt. in the South.
South Vietnam’s leader, Diem,
given US economic and military
assistance
Vietcong: Guerillas in the South,
aided by N. Vietnam & USSR,
waged war
More Vietnam
• US leaders: Kennedy, then Johnson, subscribed to the
Domino Theory – if one nation in a region became
communist, all could become communist.
• Johnson increased US military presence in Vietnam during
1960s.
• Aug. 2, 1964 LBJ announced that North Vietnam had fired
on U.S. ships: Gulf of Tonkin Incident
• LBJ ordered air strikes
• Gulf of Tonkin Resolution gave President Johnson broad
war powers
• March 1965 U.S. sent the first ground troops to Vietnam
Even More Vietnam
• 1968: Vietcong launch offensive during
Buddhist New Year – Tet Offensive.
No end to the war in sight;
• unpopular in the US, Johnson refuses
to run for 2nd term
– Nixon: ”peace with honor,” last US
troops withdrawn by Nixon in 1973
• Communist North overruns the capital
of the South, Saigon, falls in 1975.
• 2 million died, 58,000 Americans. 10
million S. Vietnamese refugees, some
to the US