Chapter 22 Chapter 22 The Place of Refuge

At Sun Moon Lake he carelessly cast his net and caught a fish as large as five feet long.Upon seeing this, the old fisherman said that he had not seen such a big fish for 20 years.Chiang Kai-shek thought, this is a good sign. After Chiang Kai-shek was completely defeated, he decided to stop and reflect. So he found a quiet retreat at Sun Moon Lake in the mountains of central Taiwan.Since Sun Moon Lake is artificially created, the scenery is very beautiful.His son Jiang Jingguo also went with him.As soon as he arrived here, Jiang received a telegram informing him of the complete demise of the Kuomintang in the mainland.

He was silent for a long time, and then said to his son: "Let's go for a walk in the mountains." The two remained silent for a long time, and finally Chiang Kai-shek suggested to go fishing by the lake. So Chiang Ching-kuo hired a boat from a fisherman, and Chiang Kai-shek went out alone.He casually lowered his net and caught a fish that was five feet long.Upon seeing this, the old fisherman said that he had not seen such a big fish for 20 years.Chiang Kai-shek thought, this is a good sign. It was clear that Chiang Kai-shek was running while he waited, and he needed good omens.In fact, this is also the case. In their hometown of Zhejiang, northern Anhui, Sichuan, Guangxi, Yunnan, southern Shaanxi, and the border of Tibet, there are sporadic remnants of the army resisting.

In addition, "Free China" exists in Taiwan, the "base" of "counterattacking the mainland"-Hainan Island, the Zhoushan Islands at the mouth of the Yangtze River, Kinmen Island opposite Xiamen, Dongshan Island, and the Penghu Islands in western Taiwan.At that time, Chiang Kai-shek still had about 800,000 troops of various types, 750 to 1,000 tanks and armored vehicles, and an air force with 300 to 600 aircraft.If only the first-line aircraft are counted, there are only 300, and if all aircraft are included, it will be 600. In addition, there are 70 warships. Chiang Kai-shek believed that all this would not be enough to "counterattack the mainland", but, with luck, would be enough to stand up to the Communists and destroy the Communists' rule through air raids and economic blockades.

In the days when Jiang was ecstatic and full of boundless self-confidence, he rejected the proposal to temporarily abandon the Northeast and concentrate his efforts to keep the pass.As a result, he not only lost the Northeast, but also accelerated his pace of losing the mainland.He stretched out his lines and scattered his forces in an attempt to keep everything.But he did not understand that for a long-term military counter-offensive, sometimes a strategic retreat is also necessary.Of the islands still controlled by the Kuomintang, only Taiwan is a near-death place.Hainan Island off the coast of Guangdong is a piece of fat that he is reluctant to give up.He could take advantage of the iron mines there, the potential naval installations, and the proximity to the mainland, which would be an ideal base for a counterattack against the mainland (probably so if they took effective defensive measures, but they did not do so).

The garrison commander, General Xue Yue (nicknamed "Little Tiger"), had a well-trained regular force of 40,000, but they were often sniped on the inside by communist troops that outnumbered the Kuomintang garrison. Between April and April, the Mainland Communist Army attacked Hainan Island ten times, but all of them were unsuccessful. On April 16, the communist army concentrated its forces and occupied Hainan Island, and the Kuomintang troops quickly retreated to the southern coast.Thus, Chiang Kai-shek ordered General Xue Yue to withdraw his troops to Taiwan. In the following month, a larger army of 150,000 men was also evacuated from the Zhoushan archipelago on the Yangtze River on 16 Liberty steamships and some small boats.

Also abandoned were Wanshan Island leading to Canton and Dongshan Island off the coast of Fujian.The Nationalist withdrawal ended Chiang's blockade of Shanghai and Canton. Since then, Chiang Kai-shek has completely lost the base to counterattack the mainland.Except for Jinmen Island and Matsu Island off the coast of Fujian, and the Penghu Islands, "Free China" gradually retreated to the island of Taiwan. The area of ​​Taiwan Island was less than half that of Scotland, and the area of ​​arable land was the next third. The population at that time was 10 million or 11 million. million, including 1 to 2 million refugees from the mainland.

In this bleak situation, Chiang Kai-shek had two basic goals, namely, maintaining his political status and maintaining the traditional Chinese way of life. However, from the day Chiang came to Taiwan until his death, his well-known goal was to "counterattack the mainland". As time went by, his purpose gradually lost confidence in the hearts of those who had often heard of it.This goal began as a great ambition, then turned into a slim hope, then became an elusive myth, and finally turned into a pure belief. Nevertheless, it played a major role in maintaining the KMT's rule over the Chinese in Taiwan. After Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan at the end of 1949, he established two main tasks for himself, namely, defending the homeland and getting foreign countries to recognize the ROC government as the sole legal government of the Chinese people.

There is an undeniable fact here that Taiwan has no right to control the lives and fates of millions of people under the Maoist government. Through brutal security measures and aggressive reforms, Chiang achieved his first goal, and through a series of unlikely events, he achieved his second goal by keeping the United States in recognition of the Nationalist government and denying the Communist government.One of the most important facts is the Korean War in the 1950s. Chiang Kai-shek took a series of measures to stabilize the situation in Taiwan, the most important of which was the land reform plan.

As soon as Chen Cheng took office, Jiang guided him to carry out this reform.In fact, as early as February 4, 1949, one month after Chen Cheng became the provincial chairman, he began to implement the system of "reducing land rent".This is very necessary.According to the traditional practice, tenant farmers should pay 50% of the grain they produce to the landlord as rent.In some places, the land rent is even as high as 70%. Moreover, regardless of the weather and harvest, the land rent must be paid. During the implementation of the land reform system, the Kuomintang government received technical support from the Sino-US Rural Construction Joint Committee.

On May 25, 1951, the Legislative Yuan set the maximum limit of land rent at 37.5%. Its purpose is to respond to Sun Yat-sen's call for "the land belongs to the people". On May 30, the Executive Yuan promulgated the "Regulations on the Sale of Public Land", forcing landlords to sell their land to the state, and then the state sold the land to tenant farmers, who paid in installments within ten years, and tenant farmers could hand over 25% of their total annual grain income to Give the country as collateral. The regulations allow landowners to own up to two hectares of irrigated land or four hectares of dry land.Compensation can be settled in cash, or in the form of land bonds or shares of public enterprises.

As a result, many landowners became industrial capitalists, and by 1953, the land reform program had been implemented, and nearly 80% of the arable land was owned by its cultivators. There is no doubt that Chen Cheng's land reform program was a major stabilizing factor that brought great prosperity to Taiwan's economy. However, looming security concerns had to be dealt with through stringent management measures.During Chiang Kai-shek's flight to Taiwan, the CCP had fostered many proxies within the Kuomintang personnel, some were high-level officials, for example, General WU Xin (transliteration) Shin, the deputy chief of staff, and his wife.In the first six months of 1950 alone, the Kuomintang handled more than 300 espionage cases.These include an underground organization with more than 1,000 people.In May of the same year, Chiang Kai-shek promised to pardon all those who betrayed the Communist Party and went to Taiwan.More than 400 of them were pardoned.However, communists who were arrested and not granted pardon were usually executed. In addition, Chiang Kai-shek reorganized the Kuomintang. At the enlarged meeting of the Standing Committee of the Central Executive Committee held on July 22, 1950, Chiang Kai-shek declared: We must regard Taiwan as our base for counterattacking the mainland, as the vanguard of the free national struggle in Asia, and as a heroic fighter fighting for world peace with friends.To achieve this, we will completely reorganize our party in order to reorganize our revolutionary machinery and reinvigorate our revolutionary spirit.On the negative side, we must insist on eliminating sectarian and individual conflicts within the party.We can no longer tolerate the existence of individualistic behaviors and ideas that have led to our demise on the mainland, and if we do not resolutely stop them, they will also lead to our demise in Taiwan. Chiang Kai-shek said: The first thing we have to do is to clean up and rectify the party's organizations and institutions.The Central Executive Committee and the Central Inspection Commission were abolished, and Chiang created two smaller agencies on the basis of it: the Central Reform Commission, which exercised executive power, and an advisory committee composed of party veterans. Those Kuomintang celebrities who defected to the Communist Party, such as Fu Zuoyi and Soong Ching Ling, have been expelled, and many centrists who did not defect to Mao Zedong but refused to come to Taiwan have also been expelled from the Kuomintang. The army also cleaned up.Following Chiang Kai-shek's instructions, Chen Cheng dismissed tens of thousands of military officials, and 181 corps, divisions, and smaller military units were disbanded. In fact, these units were in name only, and they were nothing more than rosters to enrich the officers' pockets. The next step is currency reform.After the fall of Shanghai, the Chiang Kai-shek government implemented a new Taiwan dollar system, with gold and foreign exchange as the value card, and the ratio of the Taiwan market to the U.S. dollar was 5: 1. It didn't take long for Chiang Kai-shek to once again assert his absolute sovereignty over the territory and people under his jurisdiction. Because at this time he was not only the commander-in-chief and president of the Kuomintang, but also became the president of the Republic of China again. On February 21, 1950, Chiang called an emergency meeting and issued an ultimatum to Li Zongren, who was still in the United States, asking him to go to Taipei within three days or resign as acting president. Li's answer was vague.On the 24th, the Legislative Yuan asked Chiang to restore the presidency.He didn't refuse.So, on March 1, Chiang became the president again.The first thing he did after becoming President was to accept Yan Xishan's resignation.Yan himself felt that he was old and frail and unable to continue serving as the president of the Executive Yuan. On March 8, Chiang Kai-shek elected General Chen Cheng as the President of the Executive Yuan of the Republic of China. On the day Chiang Kai-shek became president, Mao Zedong's commander-in-chief Zhu De received members of the Taiwan Liberation League in Beijing. Zhu De told them: "The abolition of Chiang Kai-shek's rule in Taiwan has become the top priority of the whole country." He added that they were gathering heavy troops to launch an attack on Taiwan.At that moment of life and death, it seemed that the Communist Party could launch an attack on Taiwan at any moment.However, Chiang Kai-shek and his regime were saved by the Korean War. The key factor for Chiang Kai-shek's survival was the attitude of the United States. The victory of the Communist Party in the mainland made Americans and the US government extremely disappointed with Chiang Kai-shek and his government.Although Mao Zedong's government also made some mistakes, the Americans were willing to recognize his government, just as the British did in January 1950.However, as early as July 1, 1949, Mao Zedong set the tone in one of his speeches.Mao declared that China would side with the Soviet Union.Later, some well-trained Chinese People's Liberation Army soldiers entered the official residence of the US Ambassador Dr. Leighton Stuart.He was sick in bed at the time. On January 13, 1950, Communist forces occupied the U.S. Consulate in Beijing.They arrested Angus Ward, the U.S. consul general in Shenyang, and imprisoned him for four weeks on espionage charges. On January 14, the US State Department ordered the recall of 135 consular personnel and their families stationed in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Nanjing and Qingdao. Politically speaking, it was impossible for Washington to recognize the government of the People's Republic of China at this time, but the United States did not resume its support for the Kuomintang rule afterwards. In fact, on January 5, 1950, President Truman clearly stated that his policy toward China was a "non-interference" policy.He declared that the United States would not intervene in China's civil war, nor would it provide "military assistance and advice" to Chinese troops stationed in Taiwan. Encouraged by Senator William F. Noland, one of the congressional leaders of the China lobby, and in light of the situation in mainland China, Secretary Acheson announced on January 24 a plan to provide economic assistance to Taiwan. The North Korean invasion of South Korea on June 25, 1950 became a turning point in this plan.According to the Yalta International Agreement, the Korean peninsula was divided into North and South Koreas along the 38th parallel. North Korea was taken over by the Soviet Union, and South Korea was taken over by the United States.The United States is satisfied with training a strong security force in South Korea.The Soviets also had a well-trained, well-equipped, and formidable North Korean force, including some combined with the Chinese People's Liberation Army in the Northeast, with extensive combat experience. The change in U.S. policy toward China—as Chiang Kai-shek had predicted—had less than satisfactory results. Stalin had ordered North Korean troops to break through the 38th parallel, and he assumed no American response. There seems to be good reason for his assumption, since Secretary of State Acheson specifically stated in a speech in January that the United States had excluded North Korea from the safety belt in the Pacific region.General Douglas MacArthur, commander-in-chief of the U.S. Far East Army, believed that South Korea and Taiwan still played an important role in the Pacific security system, and North Korea's invasion woke President Truman and Secretary of State Acheson from their passive state. Misjudgment by the Soviets allowed Truman to take action within the UN organization.The Soviet delegation has been boycotting the UN Security Council.If representatives of the Soviet Union attended the meeting, they would deny all resolutions on armed intervention. On June 25, the Security Council met and adopted a resolution 9-0 (the Soviet Union was absent and Yugoslavia abstained) calling for the withdrawal of North Korean troops from South Korea.At the same time, the Security Council called on all United Nations member states: "to assist the United Nations in implementing this resolution at any time, and to stop providing assistance to the North Korean government." On the 27th, President Truman announced that he had ordered the United States Air Force and Navy to help South Korea.In direct relation to Chiang Kai-shek's interests, President Truman also declared Taiwan's neutrality during the Korean War.The Seventh Fleet was ordered to contain the Kuomintang's military offensive on the Chinese mainland and prevent the Communist forces from liberating Taiwan. The last help from the United States could at least comfort Chiang Kai-shek.A few weeks ago, some 150,000 Communist troops were assembled across the Taiwan Strait, but now there is no immediate danger. For South Korea, the first few days of the North Korean invasion were disastrous.Seoul fell, and the South Korean army retreated to Pusan ​​in confusion. Chiang Kai-shek took the opportunity to provide General MacArthur with 33,000 soldiers to help the United Nations army commanded by him.MacArthur immediately suggested that the US Joint Chiefs of Staff accept Chiang's military assistance. His suggestion was not known until his testimony before Congress the following year.Given the strong pressure from Britain (which had recognized the government of the People's Republic of China), the Joint Chiefs of Staff immediately rejected Chiang's aid. However, the Joint Chiefs of Staff did recommend that, because of Taiwan's strategic importance to the United States, the United States should resume military assistance to the KMT and strengthen its defense capabilities.A new U.S. aid advisory group was also established for this purpose, although it did not start working in Taiwan until early 1951.At the same time, General MacArthur will also visit Taiwan and report on the state of the Kuomintang military forces. On July 31, MacArthur flew to Taipei and immediately met with Chiang Kai-shek. This was the first meeting between the two, and it was also a sincere and friendly meeting, because of their understanding of the nature of communism in the mainland and the necessity of opposing communism. A consensus was reached.They also had serious discussions about the possibility of a Kuomintang plan to contain the Communists on the mainland, but to no avail. Now the Soviets were back at the UN, astonished by Truman's initiative in his absence. On August 1, Ambassador Melick took over the work of the UN Security Council. He demanded in strong terms that the Chinese Kuomintang delegation be expelled and that the Beijing delegation be given a seat in the UN immediately. His resolution was supported by Britain, Norway, India and Yugoslavia.Britain's treachery shocked the United States, but there was no determination to support them.This proposal was ultimately rejected. On September 18, General MacArthur reported to the United Nations on Beijing's support for North Korea.He indicated that about 40,000 to 60,000 North Korean soldiers had been trained by the CCP in the Northeast and had been tested in war. These people participated in the invasion of South Korea. Two weeks earlier, General MacArthur had led United Nations forces to land at Incheon, behind the North Korean front.The war situation has changed. On October 1, General MacArthur ordered North Korean troops to surrender unconditionally. On the same day, the People's Republic of China celebrated her first birthday in Beijing.Zhou Enlai warned the United States in a speech that the Chinese people "will never allow the imperialists to act rashly against their neighbors." Chiang Kai-shek's intelligence indicated that Zhou Enlai's threat contained substance.The 4th Field Army led by Lin Biao, numbering 500,000 men, had been moving north along the Beijing-Guangzhou railway line since early July. On October 28, intelligence from the United States said that part of the Fourth Field Army had crossed the Yalu River from the northeast and was joining the North Korean operation. At that time, General MacArthur had led his troops to the mountains on the border of North Korea, killing and capturing 200,000 North Korean soldiers along the way.However, it soon became known that the CCP had sent 500,000 troops to North Korea, called the "Chinese People's Volunteers."Before the Chinese launched a large-scale offensive, it was now MacArthur's turn to retreat. After retreating to Taipei, Chiang Kai-shek calmly observed the development of these major events in frustration. From the point of view of asceticism, Chiang Kai-shek's life was austere.He moves freely and has a peaceful mind. He lives in a bungalow with green bricks and green tiles at the foot of the mountain.Rhododendrons bloomed in the modest garden, which delighted his eyes.The front door was facing an unfamiliar room, about 20 feet wide and 30 feet long, with four square stone pillars in the middle.On the right side of the room is a dining table for 18 people to eat at the same time, and on the left side are several armchairs for people to rest.Servants' quarters and four small bedrooms for assistants and secretaries adjoin this house. Chiang Kai-shek often got up at dawn and wore a traditional Chinese blue robe, or a military uniform without rank.Mrs. Chiang accompanied him in morning prayers in her dressing gown. His breakfast consists of rice, pickles and boiled water.After breakfast, he reads the newspaper until 9:00 a.m., when his secretary brings in a large stack of papers, yellow papers for routine matters, red papers for urgent matters. At 10 o'clock or 11 o'clock, a meeting of officials was called according to the arrangement of the previous day.At noon some officials stayed for a light meal. After lunch, Chiang Kai-shek took a half-hour lunch break before starting work.At 4:30 in the afternoon, he often takes an assistant with him for a walk for a change of air.When he returned from his walk, the tea was already set.After tea, he continued to work until 7 o'clock.Then go back to prayer and meditation until supper. After dinner, he often continues to work.If someone persuaded him that going to a movie is not a waste of time, he would agree to go.Sometimes he would venture into the city to watch a Beijing opera, take a spring bath containing sulfide before going to bed, and then write a diary, which is a habit he has always maintained before going to bed. Chiang Kai-shek was painfully aware that General MacArthur and President Truman differed significantly in their views on the Korean War.General MacArthur, perhaps the greatest strategist of World War II, insisted that victory was the purpose of all wars in which he fought.President Truman took a more measured political approach to the conflict. The action taken by the United Nations police force to counter foreign aggression is legally an undeclared war. When General MacArthur exchanged views with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he always asked for permission to bomb the CCP’s military targets in the Northeast. However, on March 23, 1951, he publicly announced that he was ready to sign an armistice agreement with the commander-in-chief of the CCP.It soon became clear that his aim was to undermine the ongoing diplomacy at the United Nations Command in favor of a truce by prodding the Chinese Communist Party into a decision to reject it. On March 29, the CCP gave him an appropriately negative answer. What is most surprising is that the whole world knows that differences of opinion between the President and the Commander-in-Chief of the Far East cannot be communicated. On April 5, Senator Joseph W. Martin read a letter from General MacArthur to a White House meeting.The Congressman supported General MacArthur's views, and General MacArthur wrote them out unequivocally. In his letter he wrote: The United States should stop limited small-scale wars and make every effort to fight large-scale wars.The United Nations should accept military assistance from President Chiang Kai-shek and support Taiwan in establishing a second front in China. Considering the criticism of those who believed that absolute military superiority should be concentrated in the European theater, MacArthur argued: "If we lose the war to the Communists in Asia, then the defeat in the European theater will also be inevitable." Had MacArthur reserved his views, or limited them to military and political exchanges, or Congressman Martin had remained silent, the matter would have been shelved.However, President Truman was very indignant at General MacArthur's attempt to interfere with political decisions. On April 10, President Truman dismissed MacArthur as commander in chief and ordered him to return to the United States.The president then appointed General Martha Ridgway to take over as commander. Chiang Kai-shek's dream of "counterattacking the mainland" with US military assistance was also shattered. However, Chiang also obtained an important compensation from it, that is, the Americans gave up their stance against the Kuomintang and Chiang Kai-shek stipulated in the "White Paper" in 1949. On May 18, Assistant Secretary of State Dean.Rusk publicly declared that Chiang Kai-shek more truly represented the interests of the Chinese people than his CCP counterparts. In the Senate, 56 lawmakers have vowed against recognizing the communist government and any proposal to hand over Taiwan to Beijing.In October of the same year, the United States allocated US$535.25 million in US public security military expenditures and US$237.5 million in economic aid to Asia and the Pacific region excluding North Korea, most of which will assist Taiwan. Whether in terms of material or survival, this news fits the insurance policy Chiang Kai-shek needs. However, in terms of reputation, this did not take away one of his most recent insults, that is, the Nationalist government was not allowed to attend the Japanese peace conference in San Francisco in September. Chiang Kai-shek's only consolation was that the government of the People's Republic of China was also excluded. Britain joined the Soviet Union in suggesting that the communist government should represent China, adding in a proposal drafted in mid-April that Taiwan should come under the communist government.Chiang Kai-shek was deeply hurt.Wasn't he one of the top four during the war, an ally of Winston Churchill? In June, President Truman's Republican ambassador-at-large traveled to London to settle their differences on the issue with British Foreign Secretary Kenneth Young. The two sides reached a compromise decision.After Japan has gained sovereignty, they should choose for themselves which Chinese government to recognize. At the same time, neither Beijing nor Taipei should be invited to this peace conference.Chiang Kai-shek's foreign minister, Ye Gongchao, strongly protested this, and the Nationalist government went ahead with its own bilateral peace treaty with Tokyo. Much to Chiang Kai-shek's chagrin, the San Francisco Treaty did not determine Taiwan's future status.In addition, the Cairo Declaration that President Roosevelt had promised was broken in Chiang Kai-shek's view. Following MacArthur's dismissal, the Korean War ceased fire in the summer of 1951, and protracted armistice negotiations followed.An armistice was finally reached in July 1953. The communists needed this truce so badly that they demanded from the United Nations that the prisoners of war be free to decide where they would go after their release.The Commission of Neutral Nations, with India as its executive chairman, was responsible for exchanging prisoners of war.There were 14,000 Chinese prisoners of war in the hands of the United Nations, 72% of whom went to Taiwan. The 21 arrested Americans offered to stay on the side of the Communist Party. The CCP has since gained its internationally recognized status. South and North Korea are still facing each other on the 38th Parallel. A heated debate about MacArthur broke out in the United States. President Sheruman's greatest concern was that any contagion of the Korean War to mainland China would prompt Mao Zedong to implement the alliance treaty he had signed with Stalin in early 1950.If Stalin had responded, he would have had no problem attacking Europe, not Asia, and World War III would have been possible. However, MacArthur's dismissal was not widely known in the United States, and the Korean War was a major issue in the 1952 presidential election.Republicans criticized President Truman for adopting a passive policy that would neither bring victory nor an immediate end to the war, and the Republican candidate, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, won the presidential election.He immediately announced a change of line policy towards the Kuomintang. He announced the lifting of the U.S. ban on the Kuomintang's attack on mainland China. If the Chiang Kai-shek government is willing to launch an attack on mainland China, the United States will no longer block it.However, the U.S. Seventh Fleet will continue to protect Taiwan. This is not what Chiang really needs. At most, these are nothing more than the United States allowing Taiwan's "guerrillas" to attack and counterattack on the mainland. Chiang Kai-shek was well aware of his forces, which, while greatly improved in combat efficiency, were not strong enough to launch a counter-offensive against the continent he had lost, and the United States was no longer prepared to help him do so.In fact, Taiwan's "guerrillas" have already carried out activities on a fairly large scale. On June 13, 1950, Mao Zedong estimated that there were about 400,000 "KMT remnants" in action.One million people have been killed or arrested since the fall of the Nationalist government.These acts of resistance occurred sporadically and on a gradually diminishing scale, but would continue into the 1970s. Chiang Kai-shek's increasingly remote hope was that a third world war would break out, but it was something that President Truman had once feared. Chiang Kai-shek once described it this way: "Our plan to defeat the Communist Party and retake the mainland will inevitably take shape,... The general program of the free world focuses on defeating all Communists in the world." When news from the Korean War indicated that armistice negotiations were underway Then, on July 20, 1953, Chiang demanded a Western Pacific Security Pact to which both Taiwan and China's neighbors could participate. At the end of the same year, on November 27, President Singman Lee visited Chiang Kai-shek in Taipei, and the two sides signed a joint communiqué calling on the "free countries" in Asia to establish an "anti-communist unity" supported by other "freedom-loving" peoples. front".Standing in the way of this call, however, are India, Burma and Indonesia, which have recognized the government in Beijing, and the belligerence of the largest "freedom-loving nation" has diminished. In January 1954, U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles gave a speech laying out his new vision of "massive retaliation."He said that such reprisals had already begun in the Far East. At this time, Chiang Kai-shek's hope of counterattacking the mainland was revived. After the fall of the French army in Indochina in the spring of 1953, the United States failed to intervene. However, in September of the same year, the United States took the lead in establishing a new joint defense system for Southeast Asia, but Taiwan was deliberately excluded. On December 2, 1954, Chiang Kai-shek signed a bilateral mutual defense treaty with the United States, but this treaty disappointed him again. In effect, the treaty took a step back from President Eisenhower's original proclamation.under the new treaty.The U.S. pledges to protect Taiwan, excluding Quemoy and Matsu.Taiwan's security will be protected until otherwise stipulated. However, if Chiang Kai-shek wanted to try his luck in overthrowing Mao Zedong's rule, he had to rely on his own strength.In addition, Dr. Ye Gongchao, Chiang's foreign minister, said in a letter to the U.S. Secretary of State on December 10 that Taiwan's troops would never attack the mainland without consulting with the U.S. and obtaining consent. From then on, Chiang's periodic threats to counterattack the mainland sounded more and more like ritual incantations.