The term China Hand originally referred to 19th-century merchants in the treaty ports of China, but came to be used for anyone with expert knowledge of the language, culture, and people of China. In 1940s America, the term "China Hands" came to refer to a group of American diplomats, journalists, and soldiers who were known for their knowledge of China and influence on American policy before, during, and after World War II.
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In China now, Zhongguo tong 中國通 (simplified Chinese: 中国通; traditional Chinese: 中國通; pinyin: Zhōng guó tōng; literally: "China expert") refers to a foreigner who shows a familiarity with, or affinity for, Chinese language and culture.
The China Hands
The China Hands during World War II were Foreign Service Officers of the United States Department of State, most of whom had experience in China, some of them going back to the 1920s. Since the general expectation was that the war would continue for perhaps another two years and that the invasion of Japan would be based in China, General Joseph Stilwell determined that American interest required liaison with the considerable military force of the communists. At his behest, the Dixie Mission was sent to Yan'an in July 1944. Colonel David Barrett and John S. Service reported favorably on the strength and capabilities of the Chinese Communist Party compared with the Chinese Nationalists. Many China Hands argued that it would be in American national interest to work with the communists if, as many China experts correctly expected, they gained power. Theodore White, correspondent for Time magazine was among the many journalists who visited Yan'an and described the effectiveness of communist political mobilization. This view was opposed by the new U.S. Ambassador to China Patrick Hurley. Hurley, a Republican recruited by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to promote a bipartisan China policy, initially felt there was no more difference between the Chinese communists and Nationalists than between the Democrats and Republicans in his home state of Oklahoma, but wanted to form a coalition government led by Chiang Kai-shek. He accused Foreign Service Officers such as Service, Davies, and John Emmerson of disloyalty and had them removed from China.
After the sudden surrender of Japan in 1945 and the onset of the Cold War, the Communists and the Nationalists locked in a Civil War. The China Hand view was propounded by Harvard professor John Fairbank in his The United States and China (1948) and in the bestselling book Thunder Out of China, published in 1946 by Theodore White and Annalee Jacobee. They hoped that American policy could encourage Chinese nationalism and prevent alignment with Soviet communism. Patrick Hurley testified to Congress that the China Hands had subverted his mission and General Albert Wedemeyer blamed the State Department for failing to act. When the Chinese Communists declared victory in 1949, an immediate outcry by anti-communists asked "Who lost China?" John T. Flynn, Louis F. Budenz, Freda Utley, none of whom had any professional expertise in Chinese history or politics, were among the many who charged that China Hands had undermined Chiang Kai-shek, misled the American public and lost China either through naive ignorance of the true nature of Marxism or even allegiance to the Soviet Union. John Service, they pointed out, had admitted that before he went to Yan'an he had not read the basic texts of Marxism, and the other China Hands were no better informed. Senator Joe McCarthy expanded these accusations to include Owen Lattimore, who had served as personal adviser to Chiang at the beginning of the war. These charges were developed in a series of congressional hearings, including those into the Institute of Pacific Relations. Foreign Service Officers O. Edmund Clubb, John Paton Davies, Jr., John Emmerson, John S. Service, and John Carter Vincent were forced out of the Foreign Service, while journalists such as Edgar Snow and Theodore White could not continue their careers in magazine journalism.
Not until the opening of relations between the People's Republic of China and the United States under the initiative of President Richard M. Nixon in the 1970s did public opinion change towards the China Hands. Notable was the invitation to the surviving China Hands to testify to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in 1971. The Chairman, Senator J. William Fulbright, remarked to John Paton Davies on how the China Hands who had "reported honestly about conditions were so persecuted because [they] were honest. This is a strange thing to occur in what is called a civilized country." John Service, reflecting on the low level of understanding of China in the American public at the time, joked that the loss of China had been blamed on "three Johns": John Service, John Fairbank, and "John" Kai-shek." A significant historical vindication of the China Hands' view comes from that belief that it was under the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower's staunchly anti-communist vice president, Richard Nixon, that the China Hands' position gained its vindication, and the China Hands their own.