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Office of Intelligence Research Report No. 451767
The Strategic Importance of China Proper and Manchuria to the Security of the U. S.
summary
A full evaluation of China’s actual or potential significance to American strategic interests must necessarily include point-by-point comparisons between China and other areas of the world. As a preliminary to this process, the factors contributing to strategic importance can be evaluated for China considered in semi-isolation. This preliminary analysis permits tentative conclusions but leaves unanswered the question of China’s relative place among the powers.
As a prospective military ally of the US in a war with the USSR, China offers both advantages and liabilities. Given an effective government and the menace of aggression, China might achieve sufficient unity to become a useful asset to the US. China’s influence in Asia is of importance as a factor that might retard the growth of Communism in other Far Eastern areas. As the source of a few industrial raw materials, China can make some contribution to American economic strength. In purely military terms, China could provide bases and perhaps manpower for use against the USSR.
To be weighed against these considerations is the fact that an alliance with China must necessarily place upon the US the responsibility for providing economic and military assistance, first to obtain some measure of stability within China and later to develop China’s economic and military resources for use in modern warfare.
The present unstable situation in China, viewed in the light of US–USSR tensions throughout the world, constitutes a source of international friction and is therefore a potential danger to the security interests of the US. A reasonably unified, non-Communist China, [Page 287] on the other hand, would probably serve to further American security interests; the emergence of such a state, moreover, would be damaging to the prestige of the USSR throughout the world.
It may be assumed that a Communist China would be closely aligned, politically, economically, and militarily, with the USSR. This situation would give the Soviet Union assured access to the food and raw material resources of North China and Manchuria and to naval and air bases in China; Chinese manpower reserves would probably be of only minor significance to the USSR. The development of a Chinese Communist state would tend to enhance the power of the Communist political movement in Asia and thereby contribute to the extension of Soviet influence in the world. If these prospective gains were to be exploited in full, however, the USSR would find it necessary to allocate from its scarce domestic resources capital equipment and possibly consumers’ goods for the rehabilitation and development of the Chinese economy.
The probable cost to the US of securing China proper (excluding Manchuria) for the National Government can be estimated only within wide ranges. On the assumption that a minimum of internal economic stability is needed to maintain the National Government’s military-political position, it is estimated that American non-military grants or credits totaling roughly US $2 billion would be required for the three-year period 1948–50. In order to have reasonable assurance of a Nationalist military victory over the Communists in China proper within the three years, it would be necessary for the US to provide military support in the form of equipment and continuing weapon and ammunition supplies for thirty Nationalist divisions. If the problem is viewed as one of restoring to Nationalist control all of China proper plus the Manchurian provinces, these estimates must be increased, perhaps by as much as 100 percent.
[Here follows detailed report.]
- Forwarded on October 3 to the Director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs (Butterworth) by the Chief of the Division of Research for Far East (Stelle), with the comment that it “was prepared as a contribution to a Central Intelligence Agency roundup of materials on the question of China’s strategic significance, viewed in the context of a possible conflict between the US and the USSR.”↩