First Taiwan Strait Crisis (1954–1955): Shelling of Quemoy

The First Taiwan Strait Crisis was a military confrontation between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan, backed by the United States, from September 1954 to spring 1955. It began when the PRC shelled the Nationalist-held island of Quemoy (Kinmen) and grew into a crisis in which Washington openly threatened nuclear weapons. It ended without a wider war, but it shaped the Taiwan question for decades.

Background

At the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government retreated to Taiwan. It also kept a chain of small islands just off the mainland coast: Quemoy near Xiamen, Matsu near Fuzhou, and further north the Tachen (Dachen) and Yijiangshan islands.

The Korean War changed American policy. In June 1950 President Truman sent the Seventh Fleet into the Taiwan Strait to prevent an attack on Taiwan. After the Korean Armistice Agreement of July 1953, Beijing turned its attention back to Taiwan, while Chiang’s government sought a formal defence treaty with the United States.

The shelling of Quemoy

On 3 September 1954 PRC artillery began a heavy bombardment of Quemoy. Two American military advisers were among those killed. The US Joint Chiefs of Staff were divided, and some recommended strikes on the mainland, possibly with nuclear weapons. President Dwight D. Eisenhower chose a more cautious course.

Diplomacy moved forward instead. On 2 December 1954 the United States and the ROC signed the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty, which committed the US to defend Taiwan and the Pescadores (Penghu). It deliberately did not mention Quemoy, Matsu or the other offshore islands.

Yijiangshan and the Formosa Resolution

On 18 January 1955 the PLA launched its first combined air, sea and land amphibious operation against Yijiangshan, a small island north of the Tachens. The Nationalist garrison of around 700 to 1,000 men was killed or captured after fierce fighting.

The fall of Yijiangshan made the nearby Tachen Islands indefensible. Congress responded by passing the Formosa Resolution, signed by Eisenhower on 29 January 1955. It authorised him to use US forces to defend Taiwan, the Pescadores and “related positions”, leaving Beijing uncertain whether Quemoy and Matsu were included.

In February 1955 the US Seventh Fleet helped evacuate the Tachen Islands, moving tens of thousands of Nationalist troops and civilians to Taiwan. The PLA then occupied the islands.

Nuclear threats and the end of the crisis

In March 1955 the crisis reached its most dangerous point. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and then Eisenhower himself said publicly that tactical nuclear weapons could be used against military targets, much like conventional weapons. Behind the scenes, the administration also explored ways to persuade Chiang to reduce his garrisons on the offshore islands.

China stepped back. At the Bandung Conference of Asian and African states in April 1955, Premier Zhou Enlai declared that China did not want war with the United States and was willing to negotiate. The shelling stopped by 1 May 1955, and Sino-American ambassadorial talks opened in Geneva in August 1955.

Key people

• Mao Zedong (1893–1976), chairman of the PRC, approved the bombardment as a way of pressing China’s claim and probing American intentions without risking a full war.
• Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975), president of the ROC, saw the offshore islands as stepping stones for an eventual return to the mainland and resisted American suggestions to give them up.
• Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969), US president, combined firm public warnings with private caution, keeping Washington’s intentions over Quemoy and Matsu deliberately ambiguous.
• John Foster Dulles (1888–1959), Secretary of State, negotiated the defence treaty and was the leading voice of the policy later called “brinkmanship”.
• Zhou Enlai (1898–1976), premier and foreign minister of the PRC, used the Bandung Conference to lower tensions and open the way to direct talks with the United States.

Consequences

The PRC gained Yijiangshan and the Tachens, but Quemoy and Matsu stayed in Nationalist hands. The United States was now formally committed to Taiwan’s defence by treaty. Historians debate whether American nuclear threats deterred China or whether Beijing had limited aims from the start; Mao also concluded that China needed its own nuclear weapons, and Chinese work on a bomb began in 1955.

The unresolved status of the offshore islands led to a second crisis in 1958, when the PLA again bombarded Quemoy.

Timeline

• 1954, 3 September: PRC artillery begins shelling Quemoy.
• 1954, 2 December: The US and the ROC sign the Mutual Defense Treaty.
• 1955, 18 January: The PLA captures Yijiangshan.
• 1955, 29 January: Eisenhower signs the Formosa Resolution.
• 1955, February: The Tachen Islands are evacuated with US Navy help.
• 1955, March: Dulles and Eisenhower publicly mention using nuclear weapons.
• 1955, 23 April: Zhou Enlai offers talks at the Bandung Conference.
• 1955, 1 May: The shelling effectively ends.

Why it matters

The First Taiwan Strait Crisis was one of the first Cold War confrontations in which nuclear weapons were openly threatened. It fixed the lines between the PRC and Taiwan that still largely exist today, tied the United States formally to Taiwan’s defence, and pushed China towards developing its own atomic bomb.