The China Mission - Daniel Kurtz-Phelan

The China Mission details George Marshall's attempt to help the Nationalists and Communists in China form some kind of unified, stable government. Marshall was ready to retire with the conclusion of World War II, and then Truman asked him to go to China. Marshall didn't feel he could refuse his President's request.

This was a mistake.

To be fair, the first three months go pretty well. All parties are willing to meet, and appear willing to make concessions and compromises. Marshall returns to the U.S. to do some work trying to gain support for aid packages to China, and things disintegrate.

Kurtz-Phelan suggests the problem is more the situation between the U.S. and USSR deteriorated, and this changed the mental calculus of the major players. As the wartime alliance broke down between those two, other things change around it. The Soviets go from encouraging Mao to negotiate to encouraging a more aggressive response (even though it takes a long time before they start to think the Chinese Communists can actually win a civil war). And as the Cold War begins, Chiang Kai-shek becomes less willing to give way on any point. Because he figures that no matter how undemocratic or repressive he becomes, the U.S. will still back him, so long as he is fighting Communists.

Not a bad assumption to make, really.

So by the time Marshall returns, neither side seems all that interested in negotiating in good faith. Each side is willing to do so only when things on the battlefield are going against them, and they still spend their time pointing out the other side's breaches on conduct. Marshall begins to lose his patience, and doubts whether he has any hope of success, but stays for over a year. But as the book is structured, it becomes clear there are only so many arguments he can use, and the two sides grow increasingly immune or disinterested in him.

The phrase that comes to mind to describe Marshall is "company man", which feels disrespectful. But he didn't really want this task, but took it because he felt it his duty. After he returns, he deals with being attacked by his countrymen (ranging from drunk imbecile Joe McCarthy, to a young JFK, to frickin' Eisenhower) as an appeaser. He deals with Chiang repeatedly accusing Marshall of being a dupe of the Communists, and the Communists accusing him of trying to help the Nationalists destroy them.

That last is sort of true. Marshall hoped that a coalition government, where the Communists can have a voice and move the country's politics gradually to the left, will in effect help unmake them. The major points of unrest in the peasants' lives the Communists use to rally them will be dealt with, and the Communists will lose support. I don't know if it would have played out like that. Is Mao the kind of man you can control by bringing him into the apparatus?

'Chiang had a sense of Stalin's approach. He had been playing his own double game, also attempting to use barbarian to check barbarian. He wanted to secure as much U.S. support as possible without spooking Moscow, and to placate Moscow without angering Washington.'