In Fieri: The Fox Mission and the Military’s Growing Influence on US Policy towards Taiwan, 1950–1951

Date(s)： 2026/11/19

Time： 10:00~12:00

Venue： Archives 2nd Conference Hall

Host： Prof. Fu Jia-Chen（Associate research fellow, IMH, AS）

Speaker：Prof. KJ Chen, FRHistS (Assistant research fellow, IMH, AS)

Disscussant： Prof. Tao-Chung Hsiao（輔仁大學歷史學系副教授兼系主任）

Organizer： IMH

Abstract,
Following the outbreak of the Korean War, the United States quickly reoriented its Taiwan policy by dispatching the Far East Command Survey Mission (the Fox Mission) to assess the military requirements of Chiang Kai-shek’s regime. Existing scholarship generally treats the Fox Mission as a precursor to the establishment of the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) in Taiwan, while paying comparatively little attention to its impact on decision-making, bureaucratic competition, and the distribution of authority within the Truman administration. My research argues that the Fox Mission was not merely a military survey but a critical turning point that transformed the Taiwan issue from one defined primarily in diplomatic terms into one jointly defined by diplomatic and military considerations.
 The Fox Report transformed debates over Taiwan’s defense from abstract discussions of diplomacy and strategy into concrete questions concerning military requirements, military planning, organisational reform, and the institutionalisation of American military assistance. In the process, the Department of Defense gradually expanded its influence over Taiwan policymaking within the Truman administration. By delaying the circulation of the Fox Report to the State Department and the US Embassy in Taiwan, the Department of Defense was able to consolidate its influence over Taiwan policymaking while promoting the establishment of a MAAG. Although the State Department ultimately accepted the establishment of a MAAG, it insisted that the organisation remain part of the US Embassy in Taiwan, thereby preserving the Embassy’s political authority over the implementation of American aid policy towards Taiwan.
  The Fox Mission laid the institutional foundation for long-term American military assistance to Taiwan. At the same time, it transformed the policymaking process within the Truman administration. It marked the shift from a Taiwan policy dominated by the State Department to one jointly shaped by the State and Defense Departments, revealing a crucial juncture in the American redefinition of the Taiwan question during the early Cold War.