When Historians Trace The Origins Of The U.S. Navy's Enduring Strategic Relationship With The Republic Of China, The Names That Come Most Readily To Mind Are Familiar Ones: Milton Miles, The Naval Officer Who Co-Directed The Sino-American Cooperative Organization; Admirals Thomas C. Kinkaid And Charles M. Cooke Jr., Who Successively Commanded The Seventh Fleet; Chester W. Nimitz, Supreme Allied Commander In The Pacific; And Ernest King, Chief Of Naval Operations. The Late Senator John McCain (R-Arizona), Whose Family Served The Navy Across Four Generations, Was Perhaps The Most Publicly Outspoken Political Champion Of The Republic Of China In Modern American History.
The U.S. Army Had Its Own Pro-ROC Voices — Albert C. Wedemeyer And Douglas MacArthur Among Them — But The Stilwell Affair, In Which General Joseph Stilwell's Bitter Conflict With Chiang Kai-Shek Nearly Ruptured The Wartime Alliance, Left A Lasting Mark On The Army's Institutional Culture That The Navy Never Shared. The Navy's Stronger And More Consistent Alignment With Chiang's Government Was Shaped, Above All, By Strategic Geography.
Yet None Of These Well-Known Figures Was The True Originator Of The U.S. Navy's "China Hands" Tradition. That Distinction Belongs To Admiral Harry E. Yarnell, Who Served As Commander In Chief Of The U.S. Asiatic Fleet From 1936 To 1939. Yarnell's Support For The Republic Of China Was Not Merely Wholehearted — It Went Further Than Most People Today Would Expect. As Early As 1938, While Still In Uniform, He Publicly Argued That Taiwan And The Penghu Islands Should Be Returned To China After Japan's Defeat. He Was, In Effect, The First Senior American Naval Officer To Advocate For Taiwan's Restoration To Chinese Sovereignty — And He Deserves Recognition As A Founding Father Of The Modern U.S. Navy.
Yarnell Built His China Strategy On Hard Strategic Logic, Not Sentiment
Yarnell's Support For China Was Not Rooted In Cultural Affinity. It Was The Product Of A Career That Had Taken Him From The Spanish-American War — Where He Participated In The Campaigns To Seize Cuba And The Philippines After Graduating From The Naval Academy In 1893 — Through The International Intervention In The Boxer Uprising. Those Experiences Gave Him A Clear-Eyed Understanding Of Asia's Importance To American Control Of Global Maritime Trade Routes, And Of Japan's Emergence As The Primary Obstacle To U.S. Dominance In The Western Pacific. The Imperial Japanese Navy Had Reached The Same Conclusion From Its Own Side: As Early As 1907, Two Years After Its Victory In The Russo-Japanese War, It Had Designated The United States As Its Principal Adversary.
In February 1919, Just Months After World War I Ended, Yarnell Cabled An Official In The Office Of The Chief Of Naval Operations, Warning That Japan Was The Best-Positioned Of All The Allied Victors And Was Already Preparing To Advance Into China. In A Separate Message To Admiral William S. Benson, The First Chief Of Naval Operations, He Laid Out A Precise Analysis Of A Future American-Japanese War: Neither Power Could Strike The Other's Home Territory Directly, But The U.S. Navy Lacked The Logistical Capacity To Sustain Its Main Battle Fleet In The Philippines. The Islands Would Fall Quickly. Japan Would Simultaneously Threaten Guam, The Aleutians, And Potentially Alaska, While Attacking American Commercial Shipping. His Prescription Was To Concentrate The Fleet At Hawaii, Blockade Japan, And Carry The War Into Asian Waters — Backed By Heavy Investment In Large Submarines For A Long-Term Stranglehold On Japanese Supply Lines.
A 1932 War Game Predicted Pearl Harbor With Eerie Precision
When Aircraft Carriers Entered Service, Yarnell Updated His Strategic Calculus And Concluded That Even Hawaii Might Not Be Secure. In February 1932, During A Naval Exercise, He Defied His Orders. Rather Than Keeping USS Lexington (CV-2) And USS Saratoga Alongside The Battleship Formation As Required, He Broke Away From The Fleet And Launched A Simulated Surprise Attack On Pearl Harbor — Which Succeeded Completely. His Maneuver Predicted, With Unsettling Accuracy, What The Imperial Japanese Navy Would Execute Nine Years Later. At The Time, No One In Senior Naval Leadership Took The Warning Seriously.
Yarnell Saw China's Endurance As America's Strategic Shield
The Asiatic Fleet Had Been Established In 1902 In Response To America's Acquisition Of The Philippines, With Its Yangtze Patrol Force Projecting U.S. Naval Power Deep Into China's Interior. As The Fleet's Penultimate Commander, Yarnell Witnessed The Courage Of Nationalist Chinese Forces During The Battle Of Shanghai, And That Experience Made Him One Of Chiang Kai-Shek's Most Steadfast American Advocates.
After Relinquishing Command And Returning To The United States In November 1939, He Delivered A Major Address In Boston Praising China's Resistance At Length. He Even Assessed The Nationalist Government's Controversial Decision To Breach The Yellow River Dikes At Huayuankou — A Deliberate Flood That Caused Mass Civilian Casualties To Slow The Japanese Advance — As Militarily Defensible In Context. His Reasoning Was Unsentimental: As Long As Nationalist Forces Kept Fighting, They Would Pin Down Japanese Armies On The Mainland And Relieve Pressure On The U.S. Navy Across The Entire Pacific.
"There Is No Race In The World That Can Endure Poverty And Suffering With Such Fortitude And With So Little Complaint," He Said Of The Chinese People. "They Are A Remarkable People, With An Amazing Capacity For Work And An Ability To Live On Almost Nothing. When They Have Work And Food, There Are Few People In The World Who Are More Cheerful And Kindly."
After Pearl Harbor, Yarnell Receded From The Strategic Center But His Assessment Of China's Importance Only Deepened. He Argued Against The "Europe First" Strategy, Insisting That Asia Was Where America's Long-Term Future Lay, And Warned Washington That Allowing Chiang's Government To Collapse Would Be A Strategic Catastrophe. He Became A Supporter Of General Claire L. Chennault, Arguing That The United States Should Maximize The Hump Airlift To Supply The Fourteenth Air Force — Which He Saw As A Means Of Helping The Navy Sever Japan's Maritime Supply Lines. Military Authority, However, Remained Firmly With Army Generals Such As George C. Marshall, And The "Europe First" Strategy Held.
Taiwan's Postwar Status: Yarnell Staked His Position In 1938
Until Japan's Defeat In 1945, Taiwan's Role As A Japanese Staging Ground For The Invasion Of The Philippines Made It A Direct U.S. Strategic Concern, Generating Broad Consensus Among American Military And Political Leaders That The Island Could Not Remain Under Hostile Control After The War. The Republic Of China — Then As Now The Most Pro-American Government In Asia — Had Been Elevated To One Of The "Four Powers" Through Franklin D. Roosevelt's Backing, And Taiwan's Postwar Return To Chinese Sovereignty Was Widely Accepted Within American Policymaking Circles.
Dissenting Voices Existed. A Cohort Of Younger U.S. Navy Officers, Of Whom George Kerr Was The Most Prominent, Questioned Whether The Nationalist Government Could Govern Taiwan Effectively. Their Deeper Worry Was That A Postwar China Might Turn Communist, Transforming Taiwan Into A Naval And Air Base For The Chinese Communist Party Or Even The Soviet Union — Recreating The Threat Japan Had Posed By Using The Island As A Platform To Attack The Philippines. From 1942 Onward, These Concerns Produced Proposals For Placing Taiwan Under International Trusteeship.
Yarnell Rejected That Logic. He Argued That The Overall Stability Of The Republic Of China Mattered More Strategically Than The Question Of Who Controlled A Single Island, And That Washington Should Commit To The Nationalist Government Before Conceding Defeat On Taiwan. His Case For Returning The Island To China, Which He Had Been Making Since 1938, Rested On A Straightforward Demographic Argument: More Than 95% Of Taiwan's Population Were Han Chinese — Ethnically And Culturally Continuous With The Mainland.
That Position Earned Him Gratitude From An Unlikely Quarter. The Taiwan Revolutionary League — An Anti-Japanese Organization Of Taiwanese Exiles In Wartime Chongqing Whose Leaders Li Yu-Pang, Hsieh Nan-Kuang, And Sung Fei-Ju Were All Left-Leaning Politically — Wrote To Yarnell On April 15, 1942, Through U.S. Ambassador Clarence E. Gauss, To Thank Him For His Support. That Men Ideologically Opposed To Everything Yarnell Stood For Would Extend Their Gratitude Speaks To The Unusual Cross-Ideological Weight His Advocacy Carried.
Before Pearl Harbor, Yarnell's Strategic Logic Was Straightforward: Japan Was America's Primary Enemy, And Anyone Who Fought Japan — Including The Chinese Communist Party — Was A Potential Partner. This Explains Why He Had Actively Supported Marine Corps Officer Evans F. Carlson's Mission To Yan'an To Observe Communist Forces In The Early Years Of China's War Against Japan. As It Became Increasingly Clear That The CCP Was Exploiting Japanese Pressure On The Nationalists To Expand Its Own Power Base, However, The U.S. Navy's Attitude Toward The Communists Shifted From Cautious Engagement To Open Wariness.
Japan's 1944 Offensive Tested Yarnell's Convictions — And He Held
Japan's Sweeping Ichi-Go Offensive In 1944 Inflicted Devastating Losses On The Nationalist Government And Disillusioned Many Americans Who Had Previously Backed Chiang, Inclining Them Toward Accommodation With The Chinese Communists. Yarnell Was Unmoved. If The Nationalist Government Collapsed During The War, He Argued, The CCP Would Inherit All Of China — And He Had Always Regarded The CCP As A Soviet-Backed Movement Whose Victory Would Pose An Unprecedented Threat To American Security.
By The War's Final Phase, His Primary Concern Had Shifted From Defeating Japan To Preventing The Premature Collapse Of The Nationalist Government. He Argued That American War Aims Should Extend Beyond Military Victory To The Construction Of A Durable Postwar International Order — Including An Organization Along The Lines Of What Would Become The United Nations. He Had Supported Aid To The Soviet Union During The War But Harbored Persistent Doubts About Stalin's Intentions, Believing Moscow Would Become A Destabilizing Force Once The Fighting Stopped.
His Public Position Never Wavered: The United States Had To Sustain The Republic Of China, Because Only A Pro-American China Would Guarantee American Access To Naval And Air Bases At Port Arthur, Dalian, Qingdao, And Taiwan. If The Nationalist Government Survived And Stabilized The Postwar Order, The Pacific War Would Not Have Been Fought In Vain.
Yarnell's Framework Was Carried Forward By The Naval Officers Who Followed Him — From Admiral King To Senator McCain — All Of Whom Shared His Conviction That Chiang Kai-Shek's Hold On China Had To Be Sustained. After The War, The Seventh Fleet Established Its Headquarters At Qingdao. Had China Not Fallen To Communism In 1949, Yokosuka Might Never Have Acquired The Strategic Centrality It Holds Today. The Loss Of The Mainland Was, By Any Measure, The Greatest Defeat Of Yarnell's Life. He Had Ten Years Left.
Too Old To Join The China Lobby's Active Operations As Chennault Did, He Nevertheless Used The Moral Authority Of A Senior Naval Statesman To Speak Publicly For The Republic Of China. He Did Not Persuade Washington To Back A Nationalist Counteroffensive. But Taiwan Remained In Pro-American Hands, And The Containment Logic He Had Applied To Japan Was Taken Up By His Successors And Applied To The People's Republic — Forming The Strategic Foundation From Which The Later Indo-Pacific Rebalancing Strategy Would Grow.
Assessed Across His Full Career, Yarnell Was Not Merely The U.S. Navy's Foremost China Expert Of His Era. He Was The Intellectual Architect Of The Navy's Long-Term Strategic Approach Toward China — One Who Recognized China's Centrality To American Maritime Supremacy And, Through Successors Such As Admiral King, Shaped Naval Planning For The Better Part Of A Century. In 1944 He Even Weighed In On American Shipbuilding Capacity, And His Warnings About Industrial Shortfalls Anticipate The Very Production Constraints That Haunt The U.S. Navy Today.
Now That The People's Liberation Army Navy Has Surpassed The U.S. Navy In Total Hull Numbers, The Strategic Risk Yarnell Identified Eight Decades Ago Has Become A Lived Reality. The Problem Is That The People's Republic, Like Imperial Japan After The Russo-Japanese War, Has No Intention Of Permanently Subordinating Itself To An American-Designed Regional Order. Beijing Does Not Intend To Be The Compliant, Pro-American Partner Yarnell Envisioned. It Has Its Own Agenda: The "Reunification" Of Taiwan, Dominance Over The East And South China Seas, And What It Calls The Great Rejuvenation Of The Chinese Nation.
Had Yarnell Lived To See Richard Nixon's Opening To Beijing, He Might Have Found Some Measure Of Consolation — The United States Was Once Again Enlisting China's Weight Against The Soviet Union, Which Was Precisely The Kind Of Triangular Balancing He Understood. A Strategist Of His Cast Of Mind Might Even Have Accepted The Logic Of Engaging The People's Republic If Doing So Served American Containment Of Soviet Power, Since For Him The Color Of China's Government Mattered Less Than Whether China Was Aligned With American Interests. President Trump's Recent Visit To Beijing Suggests That Washington Is Now Dealing With A China That Cannot Be Managed By The Patient, Relationship-First Approach That Yarnell Pioneered — And That The Strategic Legacy He Left Behind Has Never Been More Urgently Needed.
*The author is a military historian. （Related： U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Renamed Back to Pacific Command — Scholars Warn of Trump Concession to China? ｜ Latest ）
