Lyndon B. Johnson and the China Enigma

Abstract

Among the many reasons publicly given for America's involvement in Vietnam was the conviction that the Vietnamese communists were the proxies of the People's Republic of China. On many occasions members of the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson claimed that the North Vietnamese could not have infiltrated south and undermined its ally in the Republic of (South) Vietnam without the active connivance and support of the Beijing government. American policy-makers repeatedly insisted that if they failed to meet the challenge of China's presumed claim for pre-eminence in South-east Asia there would be a substantial enlargement of Chinese influence involving a dangerous change in the balance of power. Johnson put it bluntly: 'We face an ambitious and aggressive China, but we have the will and the strength to help our Asian friends resist that ambition.'1 Notwithstanding the frequent references made to China's backing of communist forces in Vietnam, there were some doubts within Washington about the nature of China's power and the real extent of its involvement in socalled wars of national liberation. There were several reasons for this understated uncertainty. In the first place it was difficult to reconcile Beijing's assertive and sometimes unequivocal declarations of support for the Democratic Republic of Vietnam with its equally confident pronouncements that the war could be won without the direct involvement of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. The confusion was compounded by the recognition of policy-makers that they could better justify America's massive war effort if they could identify a clear threat to American security. Leading Vietnam advisers, such as Dean Rusk, Secretary of State, McGeorge Bundy, National Security Adviser, and Robert MacNamara, Secretary of Defence, were able to clarify the broader international context by convincing each other that Beijing was behind Hanoi's extraordinary ability to keep up the relentless flow of guerrilla forces.2 For example, on 7 November 1965, Robert McNamara