Cold War In Asia

Cold War In Asia

The Cold War in Asia   1945-1980

Asia was the second battleground of the cold war. To Marxist idealogy , Asia was not a good place for a communist revolution as it was not an industrialised country with a large proletariat. However, neither was russia.

The Chinese Civil War was probably the first sign of the cold war coming to asia.   The communist forces, led by Mao had the support of the rural population while the nationalist forces tried to cling on to their decaying powerbase. The civil war actually began in 1927, and   ended in 1949, with a truce in world war two when they were fighting the common enemy, imperialist japan. The communists eventually won, due to the support of the populace and better tactics, and the Nationalists fled to the island of Taiwan. America was supporting the nationalists, and , naturally the new communist government was very anti-american, and signed a treaty with the USSR. The US government was widely critisised for not preventing this spread of communism, now the two most populated countries in the world had become communist.

In 1950 the Korean war broke out. There is much similarity to the division of korea to the division of Germany. Russia wanted a communist government, while the US wanted a democratic form of government, and the country was divided at the 38th parralel. These two Korean governments were hostile to each other and on 25th of June 1950 North Korea invaded South Korea and defeated the under equipped South Korean army. In response, the UN voted to intervene in korea. The USSR was protesting about China not having a seat on the security council. A U.S.-dominated United Nations coalition came to the aid of South Korea in responding to an invasion by North Korea, which was aided by the USSR and allied with Communist China; the war ended in a military stalemate and the restoration of the political status quo. Concurrently, the United States was assuming increasing leadership of the Western nations against what...