The Honeymoon and Communist Victory in China
A common enemy, Japan, consolidated the scattered good will between the Chinese and American peoples and transformed it into a comprehensive wartime alliance. In 1943, Congress repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act that had haunted Sino-US relations for six decades; American wartime propaganda elevated China’s Nationalist ruler, Chiang Kai-shek, to the rank of heroic world leaders.
Although Chinese students remained troubled by daily racism in America, they were nonetheless welcomed and accepted into the United States more than ever. Governmental exchange programs also became regular. In 1944 and 1945 alone, “more than three thousand trainees from China arrived for military and technical training in fields ranging from aeronautical engineering to telecommunications in over 350 U.S. companies.” It is highly probable that Dr. Chang interacted with these trainees at the Glenn Martin Aircraft Company.
The Second World War ended in 1945, but a bloody civil war ensued between Communists and the incumbent Nationalist government. The war wreaked havoc until the fall of 1949, when a decisive Communist victory ended speculations of China’s future. Meanwhile, Chang’s alma mater, Northeastern University of China, ceased to exist after its fragmentation in exile and several mergers with other universities in the 1940s and early 1950s. When Dr. Chang earned his doctoral degree from Caltech in 1950, Theodore Roosevelt’s vision of a pro-American leadership in China had been cornered to the tiny island of Taiwan. The future of mainland China, a place Chang still called home, was to be decided by the vigorous Chinese Communist Party.
