Land reform in pre-1949 Kuomintang China

Decades after Sun Yat-sen had proclaimed the goals of "land to the tiller" and "equalization of land ownership," it seemed that the Republic of China was finally getting serious about land reform. Journals, newspapers, and public meetings provided forums for specialists who were offering suggestions to solve the rural crisis. The Legislative Yuan, beginning in July, undertook a major discussion of the agrarian problem. In September, 86 members of the Yuan finally presented a bill that would abolish the system of tenancy and make every farmer an owner of his own land. Proponents of the bill explained that the land problem was so serious that it was "the source of all disasters and the key to the nation's survival."

Within the administrative organs of the government, too, there was a feeling that something had to be done for the peasants. First, in the "pacification areas"--areas recovered from the Communists or close to the Communist base areas--the central government ordered that rents would be reduced by one-third. "It also formulated plans to buy up landlord holdings and distribute the land to the cultivators. Next, the government ordered the National Land Administration to draw up plans to nationalize all land in the country. Landlordism would thus finally be eliminated...In addition, several provincial governments--from Manchuria to Kwangtung--in rapid succession proclaimed rent-reduction and other agrarian reform measures." Lloyd E. Eastman, *Seeds of Destruction: Nationalist China in War and Revolution 1937-1949* (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1984), p. 84 https://books.google.com/books?id=OTasAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA84 (unless otherwise indicated, this post is based on Eastman's book).

There was one problem with all this flurry of activity: it happened in *1948.*

Obviously, this was too late to make a difference, with the Communists on the verge of victory. Moreover, even in 1948 land reform ran into opposition. Some opponents resorted to sophistry--e.g., "Dr. Sun advocated 'land to the tiller' but he never said that *non*-tillers could not also own land" etc. "More responsible critics, like Tung Shih-chin, director of the China Peasant Union, argued that the root of China's rural crisis was not landlordism at all, but the general process of rural impoverishment that had resulted from primitive methods of production, political insecurity, exploitative taxes, natural calamities, and excess population." (Eastman, p. 84) Even if that is true, one might observe that if the peasants *thought* that landlordism was the cause (or at least *a* major cause) of their problems, land reform could be vital in winning their allegiance.

In the end, all that came of the 1948 debate on land reform was the creation in 1948 of the Sino-American Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction, "which subsequently played a leading role in the agricultural renascence of Taiwan." Eastman, p. 84 (One is tempted to look at land reform in Taiwan as proof that the KMT could indeed do effective land reform--and do so in a way much more humane than that used by the Communists. But of course in Taiwan, there was a much smaller population to work with, the Taiwan Straits meant that the experiment could be conducted in peace, and it was politically much easier, not only because the loss of the Mainland had provided a lesson, but also because the people who held the most land *in Taiwan* had little or no influence in the KMT...[1])

So the big question is: What if the KMT had turned to land reform earlier? Even after it moved to the Right after breaking with the Communists in 1927 (and subsequently, though less violently, purging its own "leftists") it never repudiated land reform as a goal:

"In 1930 the recently established National Government promulgated a Land Law sufficiently progressive and practical for the Communists to adopt it substantially unchanged during the New Democracy period. It also provided the model for the land-reform program in Taiwan in the early 1950's. Yet during most of its tenure on the mainland, the National Government had rarely acted on its commitments to the farmers. As Chiang Kai-shek admitted in 1946, land reform had not been carried out because there had been 'insufficient administrative push.' Although he did not say so, an important reason for that lack of push was that he himself had consistently placed a low priority on the rural problem." Eastman, p. 82. https://books.google.com/books?id=OTasAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA82

There were those within the KMT who took land reform seriously, though. In May of 1945, a group of youngish KMT "radicals" even successfully agitated for a party resolution calling for the distribution of all farm land to the tillers and for an end to landlordism. Immediately after the war, too, the government ordered that all rents be reduced by 25 percent. Once again, however, hopes of reform were frustrated. Under the influence of conservatives associated with the CC Clique, the Central Executive Committee in March 1947 abandoned the plank of immediate land distribution in favor of more moderate reform. At the local level, reform ran into even more opposition; in Hunan, for example, one land reformer was assassinated. "And everywhere landlords frustrated attempts to reduce rents or otherwise encroach on their prerogatives. Two years after the war, therefore, the Nationalist had not perceptibly advanced toward their stated goal of agricultural reform." Eastman, p. 83. https://books.google.com/books?id=OTasAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA83 The revived interest in land reform in 1948, mentioned above, was a product of the desperate military situation, and came far too late.

What difference did the lack of land reform make? Peasant discontent was deep, manifesting itself in riots, banditry, and flight from the villages. But in China, peasant revolts never in themselves threatened to overturn the old order in the countryside, as they did in the French and Russian revolutions. "Indeed, Chinese peasants rarely attacked the existing socioeconomic institutions until the Communists' military or political presence assured them of protection from the retribution of the former elites." (Eastman, p. 85) https://books.google.com/books?id=OTasAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA85 Yet even in the Nationalist areas peasants' contribution to the revolutionary outcome in 1949 was real--perhaps even decisive--though indirect: it consisted first and foremost of depriving the National Government of grain, money, and men. In the Communist areas, by contrast, although most of the peasants probably remained essentially apolitical [2] they tended to cooperate with the insurgent regime, and some--especially the youth--actively supported the Communists.

So what if Chiang in, say, 1945, had really insisted on a serious land reform program? Chiang never seemed to have his heart in economics. When he tried to explain his loss of the mainland, he put more emphasis on moral than economic factors. Yet he was not opposed to land reform in principle, and if he had been more insistent, he might have gotten it enacted despite opposition from KMT conservatives--though admittedly implementation in the face of landlord obstructionism would be harder. It seems to me that this could have worked but only if he had done it as part of what General Wedemeyer urged: that instead of sending large numbers of troops to Manchuria, where they became bogged down and overextended, Chiang should (with US aid) seek to consolidate his rule south of the Great Wall and introduce a broad program of reforms there. [3] The huge expense of the Manchurian campaign mandated impossibly high taxes and requisitions from the peasants, and when these failed, the regime resorted to finance by hyperinflation, which made things worse...

Thoughts?

[1] George Kerr's *Formosa Betrayed* is biased but he does have a point when he writes:

"On the mainland an abusive traditional Chinese landlord system had long been recognized as a prime source of peasant discontent. The Nationalists had talked of reform but for years had done nothing on a significant scale. The Communists exploited these unfulfilled promises to woo support among the landless peasants. Very late - after World War II - American advisors in China had persuaded the Nationalist Government to organize a Sino-American Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction. It made little headway on the mainland, for its reform program disturbed too many great landholders who were influential members of the Nationalist Party, Army and Government. They would not tolerate change. The JCRR, as it was called, was transferred to Formosa during the great retreat.

"In Formosa it could surge ahead with its land redistribution plans. The Formosan landholders were fair game; no one in the Government or Party hierarchy was hurt by land reform except perhaps those who had acquired extensive property under the Chen Yi and Wei administrations..." http://homepage.usask.ca/~llr130/taiwanlibrary/kerr/chap20.htm

[2] A joke among peasants who had lived under both KMT and CCP rule: "Under the Nationalists--too many taxes. Under the Communists--too many meetings." http://books.google.com/books?id=GN2cXHxg_6oC&pg=PA41

[3] OTOH, it has been argued by Matrin Bernal that Chiang "*had* to send troops to Manchuria. In war-devastated China the relatively undamaged plant in Manchuria probably made up over 80 percent of Chinese heavy industrial capacity. He was also convinced-—wrongly—-that the Russians who were occupying Manchuria were working hand in glove with the Chinese Communists. Finally, and in my view this was crucial, Chiang had to be a national leader or he was nothing. If he failed in this he would be seen by China and the world to be a mere warlord. As 'leader of China' it was essential he assert himself in Manchuria which foreigners had been trying to prize away from China for the previous fifty years. If he was to stake a claim in Manchuria only his best American trained troops could make good use of the American air transport provided and only these could hope to withstand the Communists..." http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1971/feb/25/how-mao-won/
 

raharris1973

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[3] OTOH, it has been argued by Matrin Bernal that Chiang "*had* to send troops to Manchuria. In war-devastated China the relatively undamaged plant in Manchuria probably made up over 80 percent of Chinese heavy industrial capacity. He was also convinced-—wrongly—-that the Russians who were occupying Manchuria were working hand in glove with the Chinese Communists. Finally, and in my view this was crucial, Chiang had to be a national leader or he was nothing. If he failed in this he would be seen by China and the world to be a mere warlord. As 'leader of China' it was essential he assert himself in Manchuria which foreigners had been trying to prize away from China for the previous fifty years. If he was to stake a claim in Manchuria only his best American trained troops could make good use of the American air transport provided and only these could hope to withstand the Communists..." http://www.nybooks.com/articles/arch...5/how-mao-won/


This is what Chiang *thought* he had to do, but the blows to his prestige and economy, all would have been recoverable if he had maintained military superiority, actively worked to deny competitors a chance to replace him. So what if by conceding (and it would be de facto, not
, concessions anyway) he's thought of as just a mere warlord. He's still be the biggest and baddest warlord of them all, the one most respected by the world, and the one who led the anti-Japanese coalition.

The economic point the reviewer made seems rather silly. And its investigable. How much revenue did Chiang actually derive from Manchuria compared with what he spent on campaign there? And even with a victory in a year's campaign, how productive would the region be with so much of its moveable physical plant looted by the Soviets? Would a costly, rapid replacement of all that physical plant have seen a quick return on investment of several hundred percent? I sort of doubt it.

Manchuria, Manchuria, Manchuria- from the late 19th century through the 20s the world was positively frickin' gaga, irrationally so, in my view, over the relative economic importance of Manchuria in East Asia.

Notice how Manchuria has not been regarded the same way during the history of the PRC, at least since the 1950s.

Today, yes, Liaoning is one of the relatively prosperous Chinese provinces, but so many other parts of the country, Shanghai, Beijing, all southeastern coast provinces, drive economic growth in China even more.

The only excuse that people earlier in the 20th century had to be so monomaniacal about Manchuria was that the prevailing global model was heavy industry and yes Manchuria had impressive coal and iron reserves. But that's not all that matters. And, the mineral wealth of other parts of China (Shanxi and Hebei iron for instance) is nothing to sneeze at.

I suspect that the relative economic criticality of Manchuria was hyped more because it was politically so contested (by Chinese, Japanese and Russians) rather than it was politically so contested because it was so uniquely valuable.


---but enough of my ranting about Manchuria monomania---

Getting to the core idea of the OP, an attempted post-WWII land reform, I would say that demonstrated consistency in following through on a program, whether a fairly conservative one or a fairly radical one, would have been vital for KMT-led land reform to make a decisive difference in peasant and intelligentsia political loyalties. And consistent policy would have been very hard for the KMT to do, especially with their personnel policy of constantly rotating the regime's most reliable and/or competent people to be "firemen" handling the most urgent issue of the day and then being moved on to the next crisis.

A herky-jerky policy of repeated promises, some real delivery, and then inadequate follow-through and some roll-back, would not have been of too much political value for the KMT. Trying reform could prolong the regime's popular and foreign support, but if expectations are disappointed too much in the process, beneficial effects on the domestic political environment, and eventually would even exhaust the patience of the Americans.

Now, as to the issue political resistance by right-wing cliques- I don't see them having anywhere else to go, or being capable of providing an alternate leadership locus to Chiang Kai-shek. Their hope of killing or sabotaging reform would come through slow-rolling, obstruction and tactical resistance to implementation at the local level - death by a thousand cuts, rather than a big confrontation.

Thoughts?
 
One more note on Manchuria: According to Jay Taylor's *The Generalissimo*, Marshall has to take some of the blame for (initially) encouraging Chiang to assert his authority over Manchuria:

"The State Department's White Paper, issued in 1949, declared that
Chiang's government 'in occupying Manchuria took steps contrary to the
advice of competent United States military observers who were aware that
the Government could not reoccupy Manchuria and pacify the rest of
China.' This claim is one of the most important unexamined, and incorrect,
assumptions of the Chinese civil war. Wedemeyer did tell Chiang and the
Pentagon in November 1945 that the Nationalists could not win in Manchuria
and probably not in North China, but policymakers in Washington did not
adopt this point of view. In addition, earlier that year Wedemeyer himself
had been optimistic about the Nationalist Army's prospects for dealing
successfully with the Communists in the postwar period, including in
Manchuria. Beginning with the negotiations on the Sino-Soviet treaty in
the summer of 1945 in Moscow, the United States had made clear it wanted
Chiang to take a tough stand in asserting Nationalist China's sovereignty
in Manchuria. After Japan's surrender, America stood ready to transport
almost a quarter million Nationalist soldiers to the region for this
purpose and it completed the task during the Marshall Mission. At the
beginning of the mission, the firmly, albeit privately, stated policy
objective of Truman and Marshall was to support Chiang's takeover of all
of Manchuria while trying to prevent a civil war. To accomplish this goal,
the United States sought to promote a coalition government, but did not
make such a coalition a quid pro quo of U.S. assistance to Chiang.
Marshall at first clearly encouraged Chiang to continue to try to assert
his authority throughout the Northeast. Marshall's original peace plan
provided for a huge 14-1 advantage in government troop presence in
Manchuria, and gave the Nationalist government the right to deploy its
military anywhere in the region in order to establish its authority.
Marshall even promised to find surplus winter clothing for the Nationalist
troops heading north. As noted earlier, *as far back as mid-November 1945,
Chiang had decided tentatively to withdraw from Manchuria, but positive
Soviet moves and Marshall's initial steps and statements changed his
mind.* [my emphasis--DT]

"It was not until the spring of 1946 that Marshall began to tell Chiang he
could not defeat the Communists in Manchuria, but even then, still
believing a genuine coalition was possible, he did not urge Nationalist
withdrawal from the region. Prior to Marshall's arrival, Chiang had ranged
from less to more pessimistic about Soviet cooperation in Manchuria and
thus about his own prospects in the Northeast, and *probably he would have
withdrawn if Marshall, during their first meetings, had strongly echoed
Wedemeyer's advice.* [my emphasis-DT]

"If Marshall had given this counsel, however, and Chiang had agreed, it
would have saddled the United States with the responsibility for helping
the Nationalists assert and maintain control along a line somewhere south
of the Great Wall. America would have been caught up in the enormous civil
war over whether there was to be one China under the Communists or two
Chinas, and if two, where the lines between them would be drawn. Almost
certainly, neither Marshall nor Truman had thought this through; they
simply wanted the best of both worlds--to avoid getting caught up in the
civil conflict while maintaining a united, non-Communist, non-Soviet,
allied China that included Manchuria. Thus they pursued the chimera of the
optimal solution: Mao's abandonment of not only his revolutionary
ideology, powerful army, and large territorial and population base, but
also his support from China's superpower neighbor, all in order to serve
as junior partner in a democratic government and a truly amalgamated army
under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek.

"Within weeks of Marshall's arrival, Chiang began to fear that the
Americans were headed down the path of appeasing the Communists, and he
could have easily abandoned the struggle for Manchuria. It was primarily
the Nationalist military victories in 1946 that misled Chiang into
thinking he could hold the southern half of Manchuria, and he proceeded to
pour in more and more troops for another almost two years, even when,
beginning in early 1947, he again recognized that it was highly unlikely
he could succeed. During the final and decisive 1948 Manchurian campaign
from September to late October, Chiang, as usual, sent detailed
instructions to the field commanders and often made it difficult for his
senior commanders to give their subordinate generals tactical as well as
strategic orders. But according to General Barr, 'in spite of this
unorthodox procedure,' the plans Chiang made and the orders he gave in the
decisive battles for Manchuria in the fall of 1948 'were sound.' Had they
been obeyed, the American general concluded, 'the results probably would
have been favorable.' Barr's assessment seems highly doubtful given the
powerful position the Chinese Communists with Soviet help had established
in the region and the financial and moral decay within the Nationalist
regime. But it does give some weight to the argument that *had Chiang
pulled out of Manchuria even as late as the spring of 1948, he might have
had enough military strength to hold the line at either the Yellow River
or the Yangtze, albeit only with large-scale U.S. military and economic
aid.*" [my emphasis-DT]

https://web.archive.org/web/20131209210222/http://thegeneralissimo.net/excerpts.htm
 
Chiang always intended to do land reform at some point. His protege and appointed successor at various Time, Chen Cheng, had introduced land reforms in Hubei during the war which he repeated in Taiwan.

Chiang however knew he had to balance his reforms with political support. The premature attempt at reforming the army had led to the Central Plains War. Chiang knew he had to become the paramount military leader first. Only then could he afford to alienate members of his coalition with land reforms.

Nor would land reform after WWII saved him. Chiang did not fall because he failed to do land reform. He fell because the Soviets gave huge support to the Chinese Communists while the American support for Chiang was schizophrenic. The arms embargo and cutting off at aid at various points, plus the ongoing ceasefires, severely hampered the Nationalists. Land reform was not going to change that dynamic. The early Truman administration fundamentally misunderstood the true nature of Mao's Communists.

If Truman understood that Mao was not truly just an agrarian reformer and was a mass murdering tyrant and supported Chiang fully (which Stalin expected which is why he was surprised Mao won) like he would do in Greece, then Chiang would have won and probably enacted land reforms by the early 1950s. Perhaps not as extensive as he did in Taiwan because the total costs of thorough reform in all China was beyond the capacity of Chiang to finance, but it'd be extensive and alleviate a lot of the burden on the peasantry.
 
Nor would land reform after WWII saved him. Chiang did not fall because he failed to do land reform. He fell because the Soviets gave huge support to the Chinese Communists while the American support for Chiang was schizophrenic.

Mmm. I don't think this is accurate. Chiang got billions of dollars in U.S. Aid. I guess we didn't give him nuclear weapons, but it's not like we didn't pour tons of resources into him.
 

raharris1973

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I love discussing the operational-military (and diplomatic) aspects of the Chinese Civil War and Chiang's campaigns post-WWII, but I wondered if anybody had additional thoughts on the sociopolitical aspects, the potential for changing each side's grassroots support and effects on RoC political cohesion of an early attempt at land reform as suggested in the OP.
 
Chiang Kai-shek did *not* blame lack of US aid for his defeat on the mainland. He felt that *in spite of Soviet aid to the Chinese Communists* his forces were materially superior and lost due to moral reasons. http://www3.nccu.edu.tw/~lorenzo/Who Lost China.pdf


"Chiang's testimony regarding the causes of the Nationalists' defeat should dampen one of the more heated and politically consequential historical debates of recent times. Since the late 1940s, many of the Nationalists' more emotional and politically motivated supporters have claimed that the National Government fell to the Communists primarily as a result of American betrayal and inadequate material support, rather than as a result of internal Chinese factors."

" In his post-mortem analysis, Chiang indicated repeatedly that the army held a technological superiority over the Communists; *never did he complain of shortages of weapons or ammunition which might have been caused by inadequate or dilatory American aid.* [my emphasis--DT] He did, however, occasionally voice grievances against the United States. He claimed, for example, that " our government mistakenly believed in Marshall's mediation." As a result, the Nationalist army committed a strategic error in sending crack troops to Manchuria, thereby leaving China-proper vulnerable to communist attack.33 (This complaint overlooked the fact that General Albert Wedemeyer in November 1945 had advised Chiang against sending large military forces into Manchuria, so that the Nationalists could first consolidate control of China south of the Great Wall.34)

"Chiang also regretted the psychological effects upon his followers of the alliance with the United States. The army, he declared, acquired numerous dissolute tendencies from contact with United States troops, becoming soft and luxury-loving.35 In society as a whole, the people abandoned their traditional sense of self-reliance and became dependent upon United States aid. As a consequence, said Chiang, when the State Department's White Paper appeared in August 1949, indicating that the United States would send no more aid, " everyone felt that the hope of victory against the Communists had already been practically lost."36

"Clearly, then, Chiang in 1949 and 1950 was not entirely happy with his one-time ally. Yet little space in his collected speeches is devoted to recriminations against the United States. And the weight of his remarks, taken as a whole, clearly indicates that he believed the collapse on the mainland had resulted from weaknesses and mistakes of the Nationalists themselves, rather than from foreign influences."

I would also suggest that those who think more US military aid would have saved Chiang consider this passage from Derk Bodde's *Peking Diary* describing the great PLA victory parade in Beijing in 1949:

"Of chief interest was, of course, the Liberation Army itself. I
missed the first contingents of infantry and cavalry, as well as part
of the motorized units. But in what I did see, lasting about an
hour, I counted over 250 heavy motor vehicles of all kinds tanks,
armored cars, truck loads of soldiers, trucks mounted with ma-
chine guns, trucks towing heavy artillery. Behind them followed
innumerable ambulances, jeeps, and other smaller vehicles. As
probably the greatest demonstration of Chinese military might
in history, the spectacle was enormously impressive. *But what
made it especially memorable to Americans was the fact that it
was primarily a display of _American_ military equipment, virtually
all of it captured or obtained by bribe from Kuomintang forces
in the short space of two and one half years.*" [my emphasis--DT]
https://archive.org/stream/pekingdiaryayear009614mbp#page/n131/mode/2up
 
Post WWII is too little too late, what needs to be done to make US aid to China more effective is for them to send almost anyone other then fricking Stillwell. That way the KMT could have more early success and maybe win the Chinese civil war, or at least ensure they have firm control of the south, so that we'll end up with two more equal China's.
 
Mmm. I don't think this is accurate. Chiang got billions of dollars in U.S. Aid. I guess we didn't give him nuclear weapons, but it's not like we didn't pour tons of resources into him.

I normally don't resurrect threads, but saw this when I was responding to more recent post about KMT land reforms. I did not see this so many months ago.

This is certainly the common assumption - that the US gave Chiang billions and it was all squandered, but the actual facts are very different.

1) China received very little Lend Lease during WWII mostly because the Burma Road was cut and very little could be flown over the hump. What little military supplies could be flown over were retained by the US military itself to support the aborted bomber campaign and the US 14th Air Force. Much of the financial aide to be given was illegal withheld by Communist agents in the Treasury like Harry Dexter White and Frank Coe.

2) Dean Acheson mentioned an over-all figure of $2 billion of postwar aid to China. This includes a total of $799 million of "economic aid," and $797.7 million of "military aid," which together add up to something over $1.5 billion. This figure overstates actual US support for Nationalist China in the postwar period.

$474 million is for United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) aid. This has no military value.

$335.8 million, the largest single item of military aid is "services and expenses" that refers to the cost of repatriating the million or more Japanese soldiers in China, and of transporting the Chinese Nationalist forces to accept the surrender of the Japanese Army in the liberated territories. Obviously the expense of returning Japanese soldiers to China had no military benefit. Transporting troops to Manchuria had some benefit to Chiang, but this was limited to simply making sure Chinese troops could occupy their own country after WWII.

This leaves us with $461.9 million of postwar military aid to China. However, this figure includes the $100 million of non-military "surplus war stocks" sold to China in 1946. So China actually bought this - it was not given, although it was at a reduced price. 40 per cent consisted of quartermaster supplies, and only $3 million consisted of the small-arms and ammunition required in the war against the Communists. It should be noted that most of the Chinese armed forces used different rifles, and thus needed different ammunition, than what any US army surplus could have provided.

This leaves only a total of some $360 million military aide for the entire postwar period. This was of dubious help to China for...

2) Harry Truman instituted an arms embargo in summer 1946 against Nationalist China that lasted until July 1947. Truman and Marshall hoped to coerce Chiang into a negotiated settlement with Mao. This year was a critical period of the Chinese Civil war. we are not even talking about America not sending aid here - China couldn't even buy arms or ammunition. After July 1947, China could now buy arms from the US, but it wasn't being given any aid.

3) The April 1948 China Aid Act provided for $125 million of munitions, but for practical reasons this was not delivered until nine months or a year later, and by that time the Communists had already conquered most of China.

Therefore we are looking at very small American military support for China during the civil war. We have two major sections of aide - a small amount given in early 1946 that consisted mainly of US army surplus, and a aid packaged approved in 1948 that could not be delivered until the Nationalists had practically lost the war in 1949. For most of the war, 1946-1948 the Nationalists did not receive any aide, and for one whole year couldn't even buy arms with their own money.

You can read more here.

This is why I said that it was a mistake for the US not to have backed Chiang to the hilt during the civil war. In retrospect, it would have been much cheaper in blood and money than OTL where both the Korean and Vietnam Wars can be said to have been fought because of the presence of Communist China. A Nationalist China would likely have seen neither war.
 
On the arms embargo (which lasted for eight months) "In military terms, however, the embargo's effect was limited, since the Nationalist forces had already been well equipped with surplus materiel from U.S. bases in the Pacific." Odd Arne Westad, *Decisive Encounters: The Chinese Civil War, 1946-1950* (Stanford University Press 2003), p. 49.https://books.google.com/books?id=JBCOecRg5nEC&pg=PA49

"Overall, however, the KMT had ample supplies of weapons and probably lost more to capture, defection, and poor planning than to maintenance failure. A 1950 classified evaluation by the Nationalist Ministry of National Defense accurately assessed the issue:'“We have never heard it said that our military defeat in recent years resulted from a lack of ammunition or an insufficiency of other supplies. Rather, we inadequately understood bandit-suppression and anticommunism; we had insufficient morale; and our government, economy and programs completely failed to provide close support for the bandit-suppression military effort.' Jonathan M. House, *A Military History of the Cold War, 1944–1962* (University of Oklahoma Press 2012). https://books.google.com/books?id=T5lxAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT144

BTW, arguing that all aid that was not strictly "military" (as House notes, even during the arms embargo, the US "gave or sold China another $200 million worth of 'nonmilitary' wartime surplus trucks and other equipment, often at advantageous rates") somehow "doesn't count" is absurd. The more such aid the KMT got--*if it was effective* (and the *effectiveness* of US aid, both military and economic is a different matter from its extent) the more it could devote to the war. Money, after all, is fungible. There may have been some spare parts the KMT could only get from the US but as noted they were hardly decisive.

As I noted, the Nationalists themselves did not blame lack of military equipment for their defeat. But if instead you want to believe in the objectivity of Freda Utley, you are welcome to do so...
 
It's also worth noting that the corruption of the KMT made Truman's reluctance to support them understandable. Take the conscription program, where hundreds of thousands of soldiers died because medicine, food, etc. were taken by the higher-ups. Or the Henan famine, which alienated many peasants when officials took the starving peasants' food as "taxation". Yes, Mao was worse but the Nationalists' corruption was unbelievable to most Americans.
 
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