Maintaining the Status Quo: U.S. Response to Chinese Nationalist Mainland Recovery Efforts, 1961–1963

Abstract

When the Kennedy administration came to office, the president and his advisers confronted immediate and critical issues such as the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban missile crisis, renewed antagonisms with the Soviet Union over the status of Berlin, and negotiations for a nuclear disarmament treaty; still, they could not ignore China policy. Domestic and international circles burgeoned with speculation. John F. Kennedy and his cabinet projected images of “new frontiersmen” who promised to offer fresh and innovative solutions to problems around the world. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., special assistant to the president, described Kennedy as “the first representative in the White House of a distinctive generation, the generation which was born during the First World War, came of age during the depression, fought in the Second World War and began its public career in the atomic age.” But the course of Sino-American relations would be determined not by New Frontier intentions but by interactions with, and resulting perceptions of, the government of the Republic of China (GRC) and the People's Republic of China (PRC).