Cold War Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===Chinese Civil War, SEATO, and NSC 68=== {{Main|Cold War in Asia}} [[File:Mao, Bulganin, Stalin, Ulbricht Tsedenbal.jpeg|thumb|left|[[Mao Zedong]] and [[Joseph Stalin]] in Moscow, December 1949]] In 1949, [[Mao Zedong]]'s [[People's Liberation Army]] defeated [[Chiang Kai-shek]]'s United States-backed [[Kuomintang]] (KMT) Nationalist Government in China. The KMT-controlled territory was now [[Kuomintang's retreat to Taiwan|restricted]] to the island of [[Taiwan]], the nationalist government of which exists to this day. The Kremlin promptly created an alliance with the newly formed People's Republic of China.{{sfn|Gaddis|2005|p=39}} According to Norwegian historian [[Odd Arne Westad]], the communists won the Civil War because they made fewer military mistakes than Chiang Kai-Shek made, and because in his search for a powerful centralized government, Chiang antagonized too many interest groups in China. Moreover, his party was weakened during the [[Second Sino-Japanese War|war against Japan]]. Meanwhile, the communists told different groups, such as the peasants, exactly what they wanted to hear, and they cloaked themselves under the cover of [[Chinese nationalism]].{{sfn|Westad|2012|p=291}} Confronted with the [[Chinese Communist Revolution|communist revolution in China]] and [[Soviet atomic bomb project|the end of the American atomic monopoly in 1949]], the Truman administration quickly moved to escalate and expand its [[containment]] doctrine.{{sfn|LaFeber|1993|pp=194β197}} In [[NSC 68]], a secret 1950 document, the National Security Council proposed reinforcing pro-Western alliance systems and quadrupling spending on defense.{{sfn|LaFeber|1993|pp=194β197}} Truman, under the influence of advisor [[Paul Nitze]], saw containment as implying complete [[rollback]] of Soviet influence in all its forms.{{sfn|Layne|2007|pp=63β66}} United States officials moved to expand this version of containment into [[Asia]], [[Africa]], and [[Latin America]], in order to counter revolutionary nationalist movements, often led by communist parties financed by the USSR.{{sfn|Gaddis|2005|p=212}} In this way, this US would exercise "[[power projection|preponderant power]]," oppose neutrality, and [[Grand strategy|establish global]] [[hegemony]].{{sfn|Layne|2007|pp=63β66}} In the early 1950s (a period sometimes known as the "[[Pactomania]]"), the US formalized a series of alliances with [[Japan]] (a former WWII enemy), [[South Korea]], [[Taiwan]], [[Australia]], [[New Zealand]], [[Thailand]] and the [[Philippines]] (notably [[ANZUS]] in 1951 and [[Southeast Asia Treaty Organization|SEATO]] in 1954), thereby guaranteeing the United States a number of long-term military bases.{{sfn|Byrd|2003}} Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page