US considered nuclear attack on China over Taiwan in 1958: report

Ground Report | New Delhi: US military strategists insisted on a nuclear attack on China in 1958 to protect Taiwan. Former US military analyst Daniel Ellsberg, who is known by the ‘Pentagon Papers’, has claimed this by posting parts of the alleged confidential documents online.

It has also been claimed that the American military strategists at that time also believed that the then Soviet Union would assist its ally China with nuclear weapons, which could kill a large number of people.

According to this report published in the American newspaper The New York Times , American strategists were also ready to pay this price to protect Taiwan. Part of the confidential documents of which Daniel Ellsberg has made public, were first made public in the year 1975.

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Ellsberg told ‘The Times’ that he had copied the top secret study of the Taiwan crisis in the early 1970s, but is now releasing it because the US and China are currently under intense tension over Taiwan. is.

According to the authors of the document, at that time Joint Chief of Staff General Nathan Twining made it clear that if there was an invasion, the US would use nuclear weapons at China’s air base to stop a successful air embargo campaign.

The document quoted Twining as saying – if this does not stop the attack, then there was no other option to go north to Shanghai inside China to carry out a nuclear attack. But in this case, US President DD Eisenhower decided to rely on conventional weapons.

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The crisis of 1958 ended when the Chinese army halted artillery attacks on the islands controlled by Taiwan, leaving the area under the control of nationalist forces under Chiang Kai-shek. China considers Taiwan as its subject. The US recognizes China since 1979, but considers Taiwan its important ally.

Like many other countries, the US does not have diplomatic relations with Taiwan. But under a law, the US can assist Taiwan in self-defense. Recently, the US warned about China’s increasingly aggressive attitude towards Taiwan. China considers Taiwan its share under the One China policy, while Taiwan considers itself a sovereign nation.

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