Isolating the Enemy, based on the author's dissertation, offers a multiarchival reexamination of a critical period in the history of Sino-American encounters during the Cold War. Drawing upon deep research in archival collections in the United States, Britain, mainland China, and Taiwan, Tao Wang effectively situates decision-making in Beijing and Washington within the broader context of China's and the United States’ relations with their respective allies and provides a clearer picture than previous accounts of their perceptions/misperceptions of and actions/reactions to each other.
The three events covered in Wang's book—the Geneva Conference on Indochina, the First Taiwan Strait Crisis, and the Bandung Conference—are well chosen and highly revealing. Wang deepens our understanding of mutual perceptions and images between Chinese and American policy makers during the period and identifies a clear pattern in their confrontations. According to Wang, while US officials considered China a major threat to American interests in Asia and sought to weaken China and contain the Communist expansion, Chinese leaders attempted to push back the US encirclement of China to reduce the American threat. To reach their objectives, both Chinese and American leaders devised a strategy of isolating the enemy and both sides were fully aware of their opponent's intention to drive a wedge between them and their allies.
Wang's chapter on the Geneva Conference on Indochina is particularly useful and revealing in terms of illuminating the calculations and decision-making in Beijing, as well as elucidating the interactions and partnership between China and its allies. Wang makes a convincing case that geopolitical considerations determined Beijing's approach to the settlement of the Indochina conflict in 1954. He persuasively demonstrates that fears of the American threat, especially the US efforts to contain China through the creation of the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO), shaped the formation of Beijing's strategy at Geneva. Mao and his colleagues sought to isolate the United States by driving a wedge between Washington and its Western European allies (France and Britain) and by reaching out to the neutral governments of Cambodia and Laos to prevent their participation in SEATO. Wang sheds new light on close coordination and cooperation among Chinese, Soviet, and Vietnamese Communists both before and during the conference.
Unlike many existing accounts that tend to treat China's policies and initiatives toward the Geneva Conference, the Taiwan Strait Crisis, and the Bandung Conference in isolation, Wang's volume succeeds in establishing connection, coherence, and consistency of these policies and initiatives. Whether Beijing adopted a confrontational stance (during the Taiwan Strait Crisis) or followed a conciliatory line (at Geneva and Bandung) in dealing with the United States, these actions and measures all served the same purpose of neutralizing the American threat. Wang thus enriches our knowledge of China's conduct in the Cold War by restoring nuance and complexity to its policy making.
Wang's solid scholarship makes an importation contribution to the study of the Cold War in Asia. At a time when relations between China and the United States are sliding toward greater antagonism and conflict, Wang's study of Sino-American contests during the Cold War is very timely and instructive. As the West struggles to find ways to deal with the rise of China, we need the lessons learned during the Cold War more than ever.
Wang's talent as a historian is on full display in his publications. His scholarly approach is certainly in line with the recent trend in the study of Cold War history that relies on multilingual and multiarchival sources, adopts an international perspective, and decenters from the preoccupation with the two superpowers to explore the agency, visions, agendas, and initiatives of secondary powers and small countries. Wang's writings represent cutting-edge research in the field.
