China White Paper

The China White Paper is the common name for United States Relations with China, with Special Reference to the Period 1944—1949, published in August 1949 by the United States Department of State in response to public concern about the impending victory of Chinese Communist forces in the Chinese Civil War. Secretary of State Dean Acheson directed his staff to prepare it in order to answer critics of American policy who blamed the administration for the "Loss of China".^[1] The introduction by Acheson became controversial. Acheson wrote:

The unfortunate but inescapable fact is that the ominous result of the Civil War in China was beyond the control of the government of the United States. Nothing that this country did or could have done within the reasonable limits of its capabilities could have changed the result; nothing that was left undone by this country has contributed to it.^[2]