Complicated relations as China celebrates its 60th anniversary

On the other side of the world, what Winston Churchill aptly termed the “Iron Curtain” had descended across Europe. Allied cooperation of World War II had disintegrated. The Soviet blockade of West Berlin, combined with oppressive occupation of Eastern Europe, prompted the United States to create the NATO alliance in the same year that Mao's movement seized all of mainland China. Moscow followed suit with the counterpart Warsaw Pact military alliance with Eastern Europe in 1955.

In late June 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea, and the ensuing bitter and bloody war profoundly changed the geopolitical map. The conflict between the Soviet Union and the U.S., termed the Cold War, suddenly was regarded in global rather than European regional terms. Washington, which had implicitly written off Taiwan along with the mainland of China, suddenly became forcefully committed to the defense of the offshore redoubt.

In Western Europe, awareness of the important roles of Communist parties in resisting Nazi Germany tended to mitigate right-wing reactions, but this was not the case in the U.S. Anti-Red hysteria for a time dominated our politics. Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin emerged as principal leader of coalition of ideologues and opportunists which fed the atmosphere of fear.

Gen. George C. Marshall, after orchestrating the enormous logistics and strategic planning of World War II, went on to loyal service as Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense in the Truman administration. McCarthy viciously slandered him along with others for “losing China” and other alleged acts of treason. America's politics consequently was poisoned, and our global strategic leadership hindered, for years.

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