Читать книгу Fateful Triangle - Tanvi Madan - Страница 15

Initially, the Korean War increased India’s importance in the US. This was partly a result of the strategic reconsideration evident in NSC-68. The document represented a more comprehensive view of US strategy, blurring the line between vital and peripheral interests. Drafted in the first half of 1950, it asserted that “a defeat of free institutions anywhere is a defeat everywhere.” This turned Lovett’s assertion on its head: the US was now opening the door to underwriting the security of the whole world. Threats were now both physical and psychological. A country’s importance flowed not just from its military potential, economic capacity, and geographical position but also from how its loss could affect perceptions of US credibility and prestige, and thus the balance of power.¹²⁷

At the time that NSC-68 was being drafted, Europe remained the Truman administration’s primary area of focus. Policymakers accepted the potential loss of certain areas outside Europe—indeed Acheson said as much in his January speech. The Soviet Union remained the main threat; China was a secondary one. Fostering a Sino-Soviet split was still under consideration. But NSC-68 envisioned international communism rather than the Soviet Union as the threat, with no short-term possibility of “fragmentation.” Earlier reluctance to oppose a communist takeover of Taiwan (for fear that doing so would push China closer to the Soviet Union) was also revisited. A State Department reassessment of China policy in spring 1950 instead called for estimating the impact of such a takeover on perceptions of the global balance of power.

As John Lewis Gaddis has noted, NSC-68 might have had little impact had it not been for the Korean War. But the outbreak of the war, which eventually involved millions of soldiers and resulted in over 30,000 US combat deaths, “validate[d] several of NSC-68’s most important conclusions.”¹²⁸ It also turned the spotlight on Asia, including China and India.

Initially, in the aftermath of the North Korean invasion of South Korea on June 25, 1950, the US and India were on the same page. India voted for the US-sponsored UN Security Council resolution demanding the withdrawal of North Korean troops from the south. Two days later, the Indian abstention on a resolution that asked UN members to provide assistance to South Korea did cause consternation in Washington. But Nehru noted publicly that India supported the second resolution;¹²⁹ Delhi had just not had time to relay instructions to the Indian delegation at the UN.¹³⁰

Differences between India and the US, however, soon emerged, and they often revolved around China. Washington saw Beijing as hostile; it needed to be confronted. Perhaps influenced by Panikkar’s reporting from China,¹³¹ Nehru, however, believed China to be motivated by insecurity—and Washington needed to reassure it, not isolate or provoke it. Fearing an expanded war, he argued that China and the Soviet Union could be—indeed had to be—part of the solution. Indian officials suggested this could be facilitated if the People’s Republic of China got the Chinese seat at the UN, where the issue could be resolved through diplomacy rather than force. American officials, however, thought Beijing was part of the problem and should not be rewarded with a UN seat for its part in the invasion. They resented Delhi’s support for Moscow’s efforts to get Beijing seated at the UN. Moreover, American officials saw this as distracting from the aggression in Korea,¹³² and they criticized India for linking the latter and Chinese UN representation issues.¹³³

India, in turn, disagreed with the Truman administration’s linkage of Taiwan and Indochina-related issues with the Korean situation. Following the outbreak of the war, despite internal disagreements, the administration had announced an increase in aid to anticommunist forces in Indochina and its intention to defend Taiwan in the event of a communist attack. Indian policymakers thought the Korean War had already disturbed the stability in Asia; linking the additional issues would further destabilize the region. This mattered because they needed time for nation building and, as Nehru had asserted when he had been in Washington, “If there is war in any part of Asia it has some close effect on India.”¹³⁴ Rudra Chaudhuri has suggested that this linkage, moreover, contributed to Indian hesitation about getting involved militarily in the US-led UN effort because it would “drag India into a US-led war against China.”¹³⁵

Indian officials believed that American actions such as the dispatch of the Seventh Fleet to the Taiwan Strait in June—even if intended as a defensive measure—would unnecessarily provoke China. Panikkar reported that the Chinese leadership differentiated between Korea, where Beijing did not want to get involved in the fighting, and Taiwan, where it would not back down. He suggested that the American approach would only push Beijing toward Moscow—a view shared by Kennan and others in the US.¹³⁶ Even China skeptics like Bajpai, who believed that Beijing saw India as a “potential rival,”¹³⁷ thought the American approach was counterproductive.¹³⁸ He also had a parochial concern about the escalating crisis: it might mean little potential economic or military assistance “left over in the USA for us.”¹³⁹

Indian officials took on what became a recurring role, urging China and the US to reassure each other. Speaking to Henderson, Bajpai conveyed Panikkar’s view that while Beijing’s fear of a US attack on the mainland might be groundless, it nonetheless saw signs of hostility: the US defense relationship with Thailand, American involvement in Indochina, UN Command chief and Supreme Allied Commander General MacArthur’s visit to Taiwan in July 1950, and the US stance at the UN. Bajpai hoped Washington would ratchet down its rhetoric and suggested ways it could alleviate Chinese concerns about its intentions, especially vis-à-vis Taiwan.¹⁴⁰

American officials generally dismissed the Indian recommendations. Henderson told Bajpai no assurances would be forthcoming as long as China or the Soviet Union posed a threat; Beijing should already know that the US would not attack the mainland as long as China did not attack Taiwan or elsewhere in Asia.¹⁴¹ MacArthur stressed that Nehru would achieve nothing with “appeasement.” He dismissed Truman’s special assistant Averell Harriman’s caution about Jiang leading the US to a position on Taiwan that could cause a split with Britain and India.¹⁴² Acheson, in turn, warned London and Delhi that they would create “sharp differences” if they pushed Washington on Taiwan.¹⁴³ He told Delhi that occasional statements that China wanted peace were not borne out by Chinese behavior. Its hostile words and actions toward a number of countries were driving the American attitude toward Beijing and keeping it out of the UN. Acheson asserted that Beijing, not Washington, needed to reassure others if it wanted to change perceptions of China.¹⁴⁴

Throughout summer and fall 1950, India indeed had simultaneously urged China to temper its actions in order to reassure the US. Nehru had instructed Panikkar to inform Chinese officials that, even if India sympathized with their claims, Delhi would not support or ignore any Chinese attempt to take Taiwan by force. Indeed, it (and others) would judge China’s intentions from the way it behaved vis-à-vis Taiwan. The Indian government urged Beijing to stop threatening to use force against Taiwan and Tibet, and decrease or cease its anti-American activities. This would make it more likely that China would receive a fairer hearing at the UN. The Chinese retort to these Indian calls for restraint, however, was that the US was to blame.¹⁴⁵

The Indian leadership did not always give China the benefit of the doubt at US expense, even though Washington might not have seen it that way. Bajpai, for instance, acknowledged conciliatory American steps. The government also recognized that Beijing could be difficult—one reason Delhi, for example, asked its representative not to vote to include it in UN talks on Korea.¹⁴⁶ And then there was the Chinese action that raised doubts in—and had serious implications for—Delhi: its move into Tibet in October 1950.