U.S. Policy toward South Asia and Tibet during the Early Cold War

In: Journal of Cold War studies, Volume 8, Issue 3, p. 131-144

Abstract

Events in South Asia in the 1950s and early 1960s had a long-term impact on the Cold War and on relations among the countries involved—China, India, Pakistan, the United States, and the Soviet Union. This article provides an overview of U.S. relations with South Asian countries during the early Cold War. It highlights the connections between U.S. policy priorities and commitments in South Asia on the one hand and developments in Tibet on the other. The article considers how U.S. policy priorities and actions in South Asia shaped, and were shaped by, China's reassertion of control over Tibet in the early 1950s and by the frictions that emerged between India and China in 1959 as a result of Beijing's brutal crackdown in Tibet.