From Yijiangshan to Bandung

Abstract

On 18 January 1955, the PRC upped the ante by recovering the obscure Nationalist-controlled Yijiangshan islands as a prelude to occupying the neighboring Dachen islands. In a news conference on 16 March, Eisenhower publicly threatened the use of nuclear weapons. At the first Afro-Asian Conference held on 18-24 April 1955 in Bandung, Indonesia, PRC premier Zhou Enlai announced that China was not averse to negotiating with the US over the Taiwan Strait. Zhou’s conciliatory gesture was quickly accepted by the US over virulent protests by the ROC. This chapter explores the motivations for the actions of China, the US and Taiwan. It further explicates on the development of Sino-US relations from the eve of the Yijiangshan campaign to the Bandung Conference.