Legacies of Engagement with East Asia

This concluding chapter summarizes Kennan’s experience with East Asia and the legacies of his engagement with the region. It surveys his strategic approach to the Far East and highlights his explanation of why he did not believe his doctrine of containment was applicable there. It tracks the evolution of his thinking about China, Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia—and the attitudes he maintained toward each—from the 1960s until the end of his life. The chapter offers a balance sheet of the strengths and weaknesses of his approach to East Asia. Finally, it discusses the current policy relevance of the key issues Kennan confronted in the region and his response to them.

China

This chapter chronicles Kennan’s and Davies’s central and successful role in formulating US policy toward China on behalf of Secretary of State Marshall during 1947-49. Their focus was on justifying gradual disengagement from US involvement in the Chinese civil war and retreat to a policy of minimum aid to the Koumintang (KMT or Nationalist) government of Chiang Kai-shek, on the grounds that Chiang’s regime was a lost cause and China was strategically expendable. The chapter discusses Kennan’s and Davies’s relative assessments of the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and the prolonged debate over China policy between the State Department and the US military establishment (the Defense Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff).