Katherine Chipman and Dr. Eric Hyer, Political Science
The time period from 1947 to 1949 presented a unique turning point in Sino-American relations. Harry S. Truman had the opportunity to formalize relations with the emerging Communist Chinese State but choose not to. In the following time span of 20 years, the US faced intense conflict with the Chinese including the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Spartly Island incident. Today Taiwan is still a major point of contention between the US and China and no doubt would lead these two nations to war if tension escalated. These and other conflicts might have been avoided had Truman not passed up his opportunity to establish diplomatic relations with China after the Communists came to power in 1949.
The events contributing to Truman’s seemingly irrational decision to turn his back on mainland China presents an interesting case. Previous research focuses on the “Lost China” question and why the Nationalists failed to establish a democratic regime. This case study takes a deeper look at the opposite question of why Truman did not recognize the Communists.
A well-known modern political scientist, Robert Jervis , developed a new and novel theory of misperception. For Jervis, the mindset of a person is the major factor determining how individuals act and respond. Furthermore, game theory explains how a rational leader may make a mistake even given the payoffs for different decisions. A simple incomplete information game predicts how a leader may respond to two sets of payoffs with an unknown chance of either one. I found that Truman’s actions appear irrational but are actually quite logical given his best guess of Chiang’s character. Jervis’ theory explains why Truman chose the payoffs he did and led him to what now appears to be an irrational choice.
The game can be thought of as a three player game. It includes a benevolent Chiang ‘B’, a power-hungry Chiang ‘P’, and Truman ‘T’(refer to Figure 1). Truman options were to support or not support and Chiang’s were comply or deceive represented by ‘s’, ‘n’, ‘c’, and ‘d’ respectively. I defined my payoffs for Truman as α, β, γ, and δ and Chiang’s as a, b, c, d where α > β > γ > δ and a > b > c > d. Truman did not know in advance whether Chiang was benevolent or power-hungry. I defined ‘ρ’ as the chance that Chiang is benevolent and ‘1- ρ’ as the chance that he is power-hungry. Truman made his best guess of Chiang’s character and selected his strategy accordingly.
Truman assumed the wrong Chiang and made a mistake in picking an optimal strategy because of his misperceptions. Truman’s resulting payoff was ‘δ’. The US paid the price to support the Nationalist party but did not get the payoffs of a democratic China. Essentially, Truman put a lot of resources and money into China and gained nothing in return. The net result was a sizable lost to the US. Truman was too hopeful and wedded to his strategy for peace to accept contrary information and give up on the Nationalist party and assume a power-hungry Chiang.
The findings were interesting and show that decision-makers need to consider their personal filters and a broader range of options then might appear necessary. I found that misperceptions can lead to poor decisions that restrict the potential payoffs a leader may choose in the future. Today, it would be far more advantageous for the US to not be involved in Taiwan and have closer ties with China. However, Truman’s decision back in 1949 has made it impossible for President Bush to back out from Taiwan without other repercussions.
This work had its difficult and trying challenges. I reworked the analysis of the thesis several times and threw away pages and pages of work. It was not until the theory and conclusion clicked that I enjoyed the process and really pictured the potential and worth of research.
I have come to understand how to research and write papers better than I ever learned in any of my classes. I know my future employer was impressed by my additional experience I have gained through writing an honors thesis. Overall this experience has been a good and beneficial one. I also want to thank Professor Eric Hyer and Val Lambson for their encouragement and support.