Chinese Ports Blockade by the Nationalists Navy, Background to the 1954 Capture of the Tanker Tuapse
In 1949, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army drove Chiang Kai-shek’s followers from the mainland to the island of Taiwan, but the Chinese Nationalists did not resign themselves to defeat. Enlisting the support of its American allies, the Kuomintang tried to impose a naval blockade on the People’s Republic of China and detained foreign cargo ships on their way to the communists. The Nationalists announced the closure of the ports taken over by the CCP-led military forces, which gradually turned into an economic and military blockade of the entire China coastline. As a result, foreign and Chinese merchant ships that were carrying cargo to the PRC were shelled, destroyed, or detained by Nationalist naval ships. The notorious one was the seizure of the Soviet oil tanker Tuapse in 1954. The author, referring to the prehistory of the Tuapse detention, investigates the Nationalists’ justification of the closure policy, its goals and objectives. The paper reveals also the rules adopted by the government of the ROC Navy's interaction with foreign vessels, and touches upon the extent of the US involvement in maritime operations, using unexplored documents, and comments of senior ROC government officials.