America, Asia and the Bomb: Nuclear Weapons, Race and the Containment of China, 1945-1965

这项拟议的研究将导致出版一本书，考察从1945年对日本使用原子弹到1965年美国在越南战争中大规模部署军队之间的美国在远东的核历史。这本书旨在探讨广岛和长崎原子弹爆炸的遗产，以及随后美国在远东和太平洋地区的核政策，对美国与亚洲国家和社会之间的关系。通过展示从美国和英国的各种档案来源获得的许多新的书面证据，这项研究将表明，美国人是如何认识到，过度依赖核武器来遏制亚洲的共产主义威胁和压力会带来严重的政治后果。美国观察人士开始相信，这些问题中的许多都源于亚洲人的普遍看法，即对日本使用核武器带有种族色彩，因为人们觉得美国更愿意对非白人敌人使用这种大规模杀伤性武器。此外，美国似乎再次准备对亚洲人民使用核武器的次数更是雪上加霜。在1950年末朝鲜战争最激烈的时期，中国的干预在华盛顿引起了近乎恐慌，美国总统哈里·S·杜鲁门(Harry S.Truman)在新闻发布会上透露，他正在考虑使用原子弹，这在亚洲报纸上引发了大量警觉的社论，在印度等关键的亚洲国家也产生了很大的反美情绪。焦虑的美国官员监控着这种反应，例如，在1954-55年和1958年的两次台海危机期间，当美国在太平洋进行大气层核试验时，他们也这样做了。1954年比基尼环礁氢弹试验后，核泄漏的意外扩散，马绍尔群岛居民和一艘日本拖网渔船船员当时遭受的伤害，加深了人们的印象，即被挑出来的核受害者是亚洲人，而美国冷酷地漠视该地区人民的生命和福利。过去几年，研究种族在冷战期间美国政策中的作用的学术团体越来越多。尤其是战后美国社会中种族主义的盛行如何阻碍了美国政府试图吸引从殖民主义中走出来的非白人世界的支持。这项拟议中的研究是在这项工作的基础上进行的，强调了美国政策制定者是如何认为，许多亚洲人已经开始将原子弹视为“白人的武器”(这是那个时期的一个常见短语)，这是美国实行种族双重标准的又一种表现。这项研究表明，对亚洲舆论反应的担忧如何影响了美国对可能在该地区的有限战争中使用核武器的态度，并使美国与日本等关键盟友以及印度等不结盟国家的关系复杂化。上世纪50年代，美国国务院实际上否决了日本的核武器部署。这项研究的结论是，当美国摆脱对核武器的依赖，以应对共产主义在远东的有限侵略时，随着有限战争的常规能力的发展，1965年在越南展示了这一点。与此同时，美国官员也参与了对1964年10月中国第一次核试验成为核大国的反应，这对整个亚洲产生了所有影响。通过分析1945年后美国在亚洲的反核情绪读数对美国外交和国防政策的制定和实施的意义，这项研究为冷战的关键时期开辟了新的解释和理解。

The proposed research will lead to the publication of a book examining US nuclear history in the Far East between the use of the atomic bomb against Japan in 1945, and the large-scale deployment of American forces in Vietnam War during 1965. The book aims to explore the legacy of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as subsequent American nuclear policies in the Far East and Pacific, for the relations between the United States and Asian states and societies. Through its presentation of much new documentary evidence, obtained from a wide range of archival sources in the United States and Britain, the research will show how Americans came to perceive that an excessive reliance on nuclear weapons to contain Communist threats and pressures in Asia carried with it serious political consequences. Many of these problems had their origins, American observers came to believe, in the widespread Asian perception that the use of nuclear weapons against Japan had a racial dimension, in that the United States was felt to be more willing to use such weapons of mass destruction against a non-white enemy. This was compounded by the number of occasions when the United States once again appeared ready to use nuclear weapons against Asian peoples. During the height of the Korean War in late 1950, as Chinese intervention caused near panic in Washington, President Harry S. Truman held a press conference where he revealed that use of the atomic bomb was under consideration, prompting a rush of alarmed editorials in Asian newspapers and much anti-American feeling in crucial Asian states such as India. Anxious US officials monitored such reactions, as they also did during, for example, the two Taiwan Straits crises of 1954-55 and 1958, and while the US conducted atmosphere nuclear tests in the Pacific. The accidental spread of fall-out following the test of a hydrogen bomb at Bikini atoll in 1954, and the injuries then suffered by Marshall islanders and the crew of a Japanese fishing trawler helped to reinforce the impression that it was Asians who were singled out as nuclear victims, and that the United States was callously indifferent to the lives and welfare of the peoples of the region.There has been a growing body of scholarship over the last few years which has studied the role of race in US policies during the Cold War, and particularly how the prevalence of racism in post-war US society was an impediment for American governments trying to attract support from the non-white world emerging from colonialism. The proposed research builds on this work by highlighting how American policymakers believed that many Asian peoples had come to regard the atomic bomb as a 'white man's weapon' (a common phrase from the period), which was one more manifestation of the racial double-standards practised by the United States. The research shows how concern over the reactions of Asian opinion influenced US attitudes to the possible use of nuclear weapons in limited war in the area, and complicated US relations with key allies such as Japan, where the State Department effectively vetoed the deployment of nuclear weapons in the 1950s, and with non-aligned states such as India. The research concludes when the United States had moved away from a reliance on nuclear weapons to respond to limited Communist aggression in the Far East with the development of the conventional capacities for limited war that were seen on display in Vietnam by 1965. At the same time, American officials were also engaged in reacting to the emergence of China as a nuclear power with its first test in October 1964, with all the repercussions this held for Asia as a whole.By analysing the significance of US readings of anti-nuclear feeling in Asia in the years after 1945 for the formulation and conduct of US foreign and defence policy the research opens up new interpretations and understandings for a crucial period of the Cold War.