Zhou Enlai and China's Policy toward the United States in the Mid-1950s

China’s policy toward the United States in the mid-1950s was marked by two seemingly contradictory tendencies: China initiated the First Taiwan Strait Crisis in 1954, bringing China and the US to the “edge of war,” but on the other hand, China sought detente with the US, which culminated in the beginning of ambassadorial talks between the two states in August 1955, despite US hostility toward China and the military confrontation between the two states. How can this contradiction be explained? Based on the newly declassified government documents from China, Russia and Vietnam, as well as sources from the US and Britain, my paper attempts to find the consistency under China’s shift of policy toward the US, and explores the role Zhou Enlai personally played in China’s foreign policy making from 1953 to 1955. It will put China’s diplomacy into the broader context of its understanding of the relations between the US and its allies, and shed new light on China’s relations with Vietnam and the Soviet Union.

My research finds that the Chinese government consistently adopted a strategy of isolating the US, China’s archenemy, from its allies and neutral states in Asia, in order to reduce the security threat it perceived the US was posing. Throughout this period, Zhou Enlai played instrumental personal role in China’s policy-making. He first suggested playing off the Western powers against each other to meet the US threats. The experiences he gained from his diplomacy offered the Chinese leadership precious background information, on which they made their policy. And Zhou’s painstaking diplomatic efforts were critical in realizing the goals Chinese leaders set up