American China Policy Association

Last updated
American China Policy Association (ACPA)
Formation1946 January 1950
FounderJ. B. Powell, Helen Loomis
Founded at New York City
Headquarters New York City
Location
  • 1 West 37th Street
Chairman President
Alfred Kohlberg
President
J. B. Powell, Clare Booth Luce, William Loeb III
Vice President
Helen Loomis
Alfred Kohlberg, Freda Utley, Irene Corbally Kuhn, Max Eastman, Walter H. Judd, William R. Johnson, Isaac Don Levine, David Prescott Barrows, William Henry Chamberlin, George Creel, Roscoe Pound
Key people
Alfred Kohlberg
Affiliations Plain Talk magazine, American Jewish League Against Communism

The American China Policy Association (ACPA) was an anti-communist organization that supported the government of Republic of China, now commonly referred to as Taiwan, under Chiang Kai-shek. [1] [2]

Contents

Origins

On July 17, 1946, [2] J. B. Powell, correspondent, and Helen Loomis, missionary teacher, founded the American China Policy Association (ACPA). Alfred Kohlberg, a leader in the China Lobby joined as chairman [3] shortly thereafter to promote American interests by promoting the Republic of China under Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang as a counter to Soviet and Chinese Communist support. [1] (Another source says that Kohlberg established ACPA. [2] )

Activities

In 1947, co-founder J. B. Powell died, succeeded by Clare Booth Luce (wife of Henry R. Luce) as president for one year, then by newspaper publisher William Loeb III. [1]

In 1949, when the Chinese Communist Party seized full control of mainland China and established the People's Republic of China, the ACPA accused the United States Department of State of "losing China." ACPA supported its allegations with copious literature: letters, pamphlets, brochures, press releases, and book reviews. Kohlberg's name went on most of those publications. [1]

ACPA obtained two US Army intelligence reports, which it reproduced via "photolithography" and made available to the press; these documents showed numerous errors and omissions by the State Department. [2]

Directly and through ACPA, Kohlberg criticized US President Harry S. Truman and US Secretary of State George C. Marshall. [2]

During the Korean War, ACPA advocacy "effectively changed" America's orientation with regard to Communist China. [1]

Members

ACPA's board of directors included:

Another person associated with ACPA was Edna Lonigan. [2]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chiang Kai-shek</span> Chinese politician and military leader (1887–1975)

Chiang Kai-shek was a Chinese politician, revolutionary, and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China (ROC) and the Generalissimo of the National Revolutionary Army. He held these positions in mainland China from 1928 until 1949, when his nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) party was defeated in the Chinese Civil War by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—thereafter, he led the remnant of the ROC government on the island of Taiwan until his death.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kuomintang</span> Taiwanese political party

The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially based on the Chinese mainland and then in Taiwan since 1949. It was the sole ruling party in China during the Republican Era from 1928 to 1949, when most of the Chinese mainland was under its control. The party retreated from the mainland to Taiwan on 7 December 1949, following its defeat in the Chinese Civil War. Chiang Kai-shek declared martial law and retained his authoritarian rule over Taiwan under the Dang Guo system until democratic reforms were enacted in the 1980s and full democratization in the 1990s. In Taiwanese politics today, the KMT is a centre-right to right-wing party and is the largest party in the Pan-Blue Coalition. The KMT's primary rival in elections is the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and its allies in the Pan-Green Coalition. As of 2023, the KMT is the largest opposition party in the Legislative Yuan. The current chairman is Eric Chu.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Soong Mei-ling</span> First Lady of the Republic of China (1898–2003)

Soong Mei-ling, also known as Madame Chiang Kai-shek or Madame Chiang, was a Chinese political figure who was First Lady of the Republic of China, the wife of President Chiang Kai-shek of the Republic of China. Soong played a prominent role in the politics of the Republic of China and was the sister-in-law of Sun Yat-sen, the founder and the leader of the Republic of China. She was active in the civic life of her country and held many honorary and active positions, including chairwoman of Fu Jen Catholic University. During World War II, she rallied against the Japanese; and in 1943 conducted an eight-month speaking tour of the United States to gain support.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chinese Civil War</span> 1927–1949 civil war in China

The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China and the forces of the Chinese Communist Party, with armed conflict continuing intermittently from 1 August 1927 until 7 December 1949, resulting in a Communist victory and subsequent control of mainland China.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Xi'an Incident</span> 1936 political crisis in China

The Xi'an Incident, previously romanized as the Sian Incident, was a political crisis that took place at the Huaqing Pool complex in Xi'an, Shaanxi in 1936. Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Nationalist government of China, was detained by his subordinate generals Chang Hsüeh-liang and Yang Hucheng, in order to force the ruling Chinese Nationalist Party to change its policies regarding the Empire of Japan and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Luce</span> American magazine publisher (1898–1967)

Henry Robinson Luce was an American magazine magnate who founded Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated magazines. He has been called "the most influential private citizen in the America of his day".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bai Chongxi</span> Chinese general

Bai Chongxi was a Chinese general in the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China (ROC) and a prominent Chinese Nationalist leader. He was of Hui ethnicity and of the Muslim faith. From the mid-1920s to 1949, Bai and his close ally Li Zongren ruled Guangxi province as regional warlords with their own troops and considerable political autonomy. His relationship with Chiang Kai-shek was at various times antagonistic and cooperative. He and Li Zongren supported the anti-Chiang warlord alliance in the Central Plains War in 1930, then supported Chiang in the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War. Bai was the first defense minister of the Republic of China from 1946 to 1948. After losing to the Communists in 1949, he fled to Taiwan, where he died in 1966.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Owen Lattimore</span> American Orientalist and writer (1900–1989)

Owen Lattimore was an American Orientalist and writer. He was an influential scholar of China and Central Asia, especially Mongolia. Although he never earned a college degree, in the 1930s he was editor of Pacific Affairs, a journal published by the Institute of Pacific Relations, and then taught at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, from 1938 to 1963. He was director of the Walter Hines Page School of International Relations there from 1939 to 1953. During World War II, he was an advisor to Chiang Kai-shek and the American government and contributed extensively to the public debate on American policy in Asia. From 1963 to 1970, Lattimore was the first Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Leeds in England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patrick J. Hurley</span> American diplomat and politician

Patrick Jay Hurley was an American politician and diplomat. He was the United States Secretary of War from 1929 to 1933, but is best remembered for being Ambassador to China in 1945, during which he was instrumental in getting Joseph Stilwell recalled from China and replaced with the more diplomatic General Albert Coady Wedemeyer. A man of humble origins, Hurley's lack of what was considered to be a proper ambassadorial demeanor and mode of social interaction made professional diplomats scornful of him. He came to share pre-eminent army strategist Wedemeyer's view that the Chinese Communists could be defeated and America ought to commit to doing so even if it meant backing the Kuomintang and Chiang Kai-shek to the hilt. Frustrated, Hurley resigned as Ambassador to China in 1945, publicised his concerns about high-ranking members of the State Department, and alleged they believed that the Chinese Communists were not totalitarians and that America's priority was to avoid allying with a losing side in the civil war.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liaoshen campaign</span> 1948 Communist offensive of the Chinese Civil War

The Liaoshen campaign, an abbreviation of Liaoning–Shenyang campaign after the province of Liaoning and its Yuan directly administered capital city Shenyang, was the first of the three major military campaigns launched by the Communist People's Liberation Army (PLA) against the Kuomintang Nationalist government during the late stage of the Chinese Civil War. This engagement is also known to the Kuomintang as the Liaohsi campaign, and took place between September and November 1948, lasting a total of 52 days. The campaign ended after the Nationalist forces suffered sweeping defeats across Manchuria, losing the major cities of Jinzhou, Changchun, and eventually Shenyang in the process, leading to the capture of the whole of Manchuria by the Communist forces. The victory of the campaign resulted in the Communists achieving a strategic numerical advantage over the Nationalists for the first time in its history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Huaihai campaign</span> Battle of the Chinese Civil War (1948–49)

The Huaihai campaign, or Battle of Hsupeng, was one of the military conflicts in the late stage of the Chinese Civil War between the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The campaign started when the People's Liberation Army (PLA) launched a major offensive against the Kuomintang headquarters in Xuzhou on 6 November 1948, and ended on 10 January 1949 when the PLA reached the north of the Yangtze.

Alfred Kohlberg was an American textile importer. A staunch anti-Communist, he was a member of the pro-Chiang "China lobby", as well as an ally of Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, a friend and advisor of John Birch Society founder Robert W. Welch Jr., and a member of the original national council of the John Birch Society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Second United Front</span> 1937–41 alliance between the Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang

The Second United Front was the alliance between the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to resist the Japanese invasion of China during the Second Sino-Japanese War, which suspended the Chinese Civil War from 1937 to 1945.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Socialist ideology of the Kuomintang</span>

The historical Kuomintang socialist ideology is a form of socialist thought developed in mainland China during the early Republic of China. The Tongmenghui revolutionary organization led by Sun Yat-sen was the first to promote socialism in China.

In American political discourse, the "loss of China" is the unexpected Chinese Communist Party coming to power in mainland China from the U.S.-backed Chinese Kuomintang government in 1949 and therefore the "loss of China to communism."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chinese Communist Revolution</span> 1927–1949 revolution establishing the Peoples Republic of China

The Chinese Communist Revolution was a social and political revolution that culminated in the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. For the preceding century, China had faced escalating social, economic, and political problems as a result of Western imperialism, Japanese imperialism, and the decline of the Qing dynasty. Cyclical famines and an oppressive landlord system kept the large mass of rural peasantry poor and politically disenfranchised. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was formed in 1921 by young urban intellectuals inspired by European socialist ideas and the success of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. The CCP originally allied itself with the nationalist Kuomintang party against the warlords and foreign imperialist forces, but the Shanghai Massacre of Communists ordered by Kuomintang (KMT) leader Chiang Kai-shek in 1927 forced them into the Chinese Civil War spanning more than two decades.

Lawrence Kaelter Rosinger was an American specialist on modern East Asia, focusing on China and India.

The Joint Committee Against Communism, also known as the Joint Committee Against Communism in New York, was an anti-communist organization during the 1950s.

Joseph C. Keeley (1907–1994) was an American public relations expert who became editor of American Legion magazine (1949-1963) and wrote a biography of Alfred Kohlberg called The China Lobby Man in 1969.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chiangism</span> Political philosophy

Chiangism, also known as the Political Philosophy of Chiang Kai-shek, or Chiang Kai-shek Thought, is the political philosophy of President Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, who used it during his rule in China under the Kuomintang on both the mainland and Taiwan. It is a right-wing authoritarian nationalist political ideology which is based on mostly Confucian and Tridemist ideologies, and was used in the New Life Movement in China and the Chinese Cultural Renaissance movement in Taiwan. It is a syncretic mix of many political ideologies, including revolutionary nationalism, Tridemism, socialism, militarism, Confucianism, state capitalism, constitutionalism, fascism, authoritarian capitalism, and paternalistic conservatism, as well as Chiang's Methodist Christian beliefs.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Waskey, Jack (2010). "American China Policy Association". In Song, Yuwu (ed.). Encyclopedia of Chinese-American Relations. McFarland. p. 21. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Keeley, Joseph C. (1969). "The China lobby Man: The Story of Alfred Kohlberg". Arlington House Publishers. pp. ix (neighbors), xxv (ACPA 1946.07.17, Plain Talk 1946.10), xvi (1951.06.25), 1 (Mandel), 3 (Lattimore, Jessup), 54-71 (ABMAC), 77-93 (IPR), 154 (photolithography), 166-208 (IPR), 192 (Lonigan), 233 (establishment), 233-234 (ACPA vs. IPR), 235 (Clare Booth Luce), 253-253 (SISS testimony), 257 (Mason), 313 (offices), 314 (dozen years). Retrieved 14 June 2020.
  3. "Register of the Alfred Kohlberg papers". OAC CDLIB. 1998. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
  4. 1 2 3 State Department Employee Loyalty Investigation. US GPO. 1950. p. 775. Retrieved 12 June 2020.