Word: quemoy
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Nearly two decades ago, the U.S. almost went to war over the Chinese offshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu. "If you are scared to go to the brink, you are lost," Secretary of State John Foster Dulles said of the crisis, thus arousing anxious critics to denounce him for what they called "brinkmanship." Today, these half-forgotten pinpoints of land rank with the Rock of Gibraltar and the Maginot Line as among the world's most notable military anachronisms. Yet they are still guarded by an intrepid army of some 100,000 Chinese Nationalists, who are sporadically shelled every...
This new policy left military bases surrounding China on South Korea, Japan, Quemoy-Matsu, and Taiwan. American theoreticians led by John Foster Dulles (and lauded by Congressman Richard Nixon) calculated that the spread of communism had to be stopped from reaching South East Asia, gold mine for new international markets and cheap labor. Without hesitation, America stepped up its support of the French war in Indo-China and took over the load in 1954. Later in the 60's, Secretary of State Dean Rusk staunchly supported this dual policy of containment of China and "protection of American interests...
...hand over Taiwan, Dr. Paul Lin of McGill University, Canadian citizen who lived in China from 1949-64 and spent five months there in 1970 notes that America is still building up B-52 bases on Taiwan. In addition Dr. Lin stresses that the recent Japanese-American agreement returning Quemoy-Matsu to the Japanese escalates China's encirclement. The agreement returns Quemoy-Matsu to the Japanese fully armed with American arms and personnel. On the other hand, Nixon might well have calculated the treaty as a bone thrown to the Japanese so they won't complain when America control...
Other Cold War Resolutions make similar grants of authority. The Formosa Resolution of 1955, for example, still gives the President the legal right to go to war with Communist China in defense of Quemoy and Matsu. Progressive though they are, the repeals advocated by Mathias demonstrate the negative character of Congressional participation in foreign affairs...