Taiwan Strait Crises
Taiwan Strait Crises (1955; 1958).Several small, obscure island groups in the 100‐mile‐wide Taiwan Strait, which separates the Chinese mainland from Taiwan Island (also known as Formosa), twice became the center of world attention in the 1950s when conflicts between the Chinese Communists and the Chinese Nationalists threatened to draw the United States and other countries into wide‐scale military conflict, including the use of nuclear weapons. The U.S. handling of the crises also became an important issue in domestic politics, particularly during the 1960 presidential contest between John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard M. Nixon.
After the triumph of the Communists over the Nationalists in 1949 on the mainland, the Chinese civil war continued in the offshore islands. The Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai‐shek, in addition to holding...
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