United States Postwar Policy in Asia

Abstract

The United States faced its greatest postwar op portunities for constructive leadership toward peace not in Eu rope but in Asia—it held the future of most of Asia in its hands and dropped it. The Truman administration had no Asian policy at all, except with respect to China and Japan. Its China policy was disastrously wrong. Its policy in Japan must await the verdict of history. The Eisenhower administration has pursued a fatally wrong policy throughout Asia. Our two great errors of commission were: involvement in the Chinese civil war and the rearming of Pakistan. Our great error of omission was our failure to utilize the ten years in which the United States alone had the ability to supply economic aid to the newly independent Asian nations. We now face dangerous Communist competition. The problem we face falls into two parts: how to stop doing the wrong things in Asia and how to start doing the right ones. The first category requires a new China policy and a new policy toward Pakistan. Correcting our errors of omission requires a new approach to the economic problems of Asia.