As the People's Liberation Army pressed its advantage in the Taiwan Strait, the Nationalist government under Chiang Kai-shek, with American naval support, withdrew its garrison from the Dachen Islands off the Chinese coast. The evacuation, part of Operation King Kong, marked a retreat in the broader Chinese Civil War standoff and heightened Cold War tensions over Taiwan.
The Dachen Islands sat exposed off the Zhejiang coast, a forward outpost the Nationalists had clung to since fleeing the mainland in 1949. By early 1955, with the Communist air force and navy tightening their grip and the nearby Yijiangshan garrison already overrun in a bloody January assault, Chiang Kai-shek's government concluded the islands were indefensible.
The United States Seventh Fleet, honoring its commitment to defend Taiwan under the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty, provided cover and transport for the withdrawal. American warships and aircraft escorted roughly 15,000 soldiers and 10,000 civilian islanders to Taiwan, destroying stores of ammunition and fortifications they could not carry away rather than leave them for the Communists.
For Washington, the episode was a delicate balancing act, projecting resolve to defend Taiwan proper while avoiding a larger war over minor offshore islands. For Beijing, capturing the Dachens was proof that Nationalist power was receding from the mainland's coastal approaches for good. The crisis, one of several Taiwan Strait flare-ups during the 1950s, underscored how easily a local skirmish could threaten to draw two nuclear powers into direct confrontation.
Key people: Chiang Kai-shek