295. Letter From the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Parsons) to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Gray)0
Dear Mr. Gray: I am enclosing herewith for your information a copy of an informal study which was made in the Department of State on the subject of “Uprisings in Communist China”.1 You may recall that in the Planning Board meeting of August 4 Mr. Marshall Green mentioned that such a study had been prepared in the Department and that he would make a copy available to you. As Mr. Green said at that time, we feel that the subject is more properly dealt with as a contingency paper rather than as a part of a NSC policy paper.
The content of the memorandum may be summarized as follows:
- Part I of the memorandum, which deals with the likelihood of uprisings in Communist China, concludes that in view of the widespread dissatisfaction which the Chinese Communist regime’s domestic policies are believed to have generated, uprisings of a small-scale, local nature will probably continue to occur intermittently. Within national minority areas, such as Tibet, these uprisings may take on fairly serious proportions. However, uprisings on a national scale or even large-scale regional uprisings are most unlikely to occur within the foreseeable future.
- Part II of the study deals hypothetically with various types of uprisings and examines probable GRC and Soviet reactions to them. The question of free world reaction is not dealt with in detail, since such reaction would vary widely.
- Part III of the study seeks to determine under what conditions
the United States should encourage and support GRC intervention,
or act to prevent it, in the different types of hypothetical
uprisings discussed under Part II. It concludes that the United
States should restrain the GRC from the use of force against the
mainland in support of local uprisings, or uprisings confined to
national minority areas, since the chances of such intervention
leading to overthrow of the Peiping regime would be extremely
remote. Uprisings on a national or regional scale would
inevitably result in very strong pressure from the GRC for
United States agreement to its intervention with force. The
prospects for success of GRC
[Page 584]
intervention would depend upon such
factors as the attitude of the revolting forces. Unsuccessful
GRC intervention might well spell the end of the GRC, while
under some circumstances GRC intervention might actually inhibit
the success of the revolt. Therefore, it would seem advisable
for the United States to restrain the GRC from intervention on
the mainland in support of large-scale uprisings until such time
as we could satisfy ourselves that:
- (a)
- GRC intervention would not be likely to cause the mainland strife to spread into a general war;
- (b)
- There was a reasonable prospect that GRC intervention would prove successful in making possible the establishment of control over a substantial area of mainland China by the GRC, or by mainland elements committed to a policy of non-alignment with the Soviet Union and the international Communist movement.
Soviet reaction would almost certainly be very strong to any large-scale uprising holding out the serious possibility of overthrowing the Peiping regime, and the Soviets could be expected to take strong action to prevent such an outcome. In the case of a complete collapse of Peiping’s authority, however, the Soviet Union would probably not attempt to occupy the whole country, but would probably seek to occupy adjacent Chinese territory such as Manchuria, Inner Mongolia and Sinkiang. United States intervention with United States forces would run a high risk of precipitating Soviet intervention with Soviet forces, thus bringing about a direct United States-Soviet clash of arms. GRC intervention alone without any United States action except logistic support would be less likely to bring about direct Soviet intervention.
To sum up, it seems clear that while the occurrence of large-scale uprisings in Communist China might well create a situation in which the use of force by the GRC against the mainland would be in our interest, it is equally clear that GRC intervention would not necessarily be advantageous and in some circumstances might even be disastrous. Certainly caution would have to be exercised in giving agreement and support to GRC intervention until the nature of the uprisings and implications of such intervention became fairly clear. On the other hand, the mission of the GRC military establishment, which is both to defend Taiwan and to contribute to overall free world defense and deterrent posture in the Western Pacific, continues to be an important one. By retaining its present general counter-offensive capabilities to support rebellions on the mainland, the GRC military establishment obviously helps deter Chinese Communist military adventures not only in the vicinity of Taiwan but elsewhere around the periphery of the bloc.
Because of the important intelligence aspects of the problem of uprisings on Communist China, the Department has requested CIA for its comments. I would be glad to have your own reaction to the memorandum [Page 585] and any suggestions as to the contingency planning which might usefully be undertaken.
A similar letter, enclosing a copy of the “Uprisings” study, has been sent to General Campbell of JCS.
Sincerely yours,
- Source: Eisenhower Library, White House Office Files, Project Clean Up. Top Secret. Filed with a covering memorandum of August 19 from Calhoun to Gray, sent through Goodpaster.↩
- Unsigned and undated; see the Supplement. According to a memorandum of July 24 from Parsons to Murphy, attaching a copy of the study, it was prepared by an informal working group representing FE, S/P, INR, and EUR. (Department of State, ROC Files: Lot 75 D 76, Military Action Against Mainland China)↩