With the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, American immigration policy towards Chinese emigrants and the highly controversial subject of foreign policy with regard to the PRC became invariably connected. The United States government was presented with the dilemma of what to do with two separate "Chinas". Both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China wanted be seen as the legitimate government and both parties believed that immigration would assist them in doing so.
During the 1940s and 1950s, the United States, the Republic of China, and eventually the PRC consistently used the movement of people, their laws controlling their borders, citizen services, and their interactions with the Chinese diaspora to promote the legitimacy and positive image of their respective governments internationally. Overseas Chinese were seen as extremely pertinent to either side claiming legitimacy, as both the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China realized the political and social clout held by those overseas Chinese Americans.
Furthermore, the United States also realized that it had to be very careful in choosing the right policies with regard to the status of Chinese immigrants. On the one hand the United States had to come to terms with the fact that mainland China was "lost" to Communism and on the other it had to ensure its interests in Taiwan were not compromised. US immigration policy for the next thirty years was implemented with a notion of duality. The United States government would open its doors to Chinese immigrants from both sides of the strait, however; American public opinion was not so welcoming (see Chinese American history).
Separate policies
Background
In October 1949, the People's Republic of China was established after a bitter and long civil war that had lasted nearly twenty years. The Communists led by Mao Zedong had forced the Kuomintang who had originally ruled China under the Republic of China to retreat to the island of Taiwan, which in effect created two separate "Chinas". The newly established People's Republic of China began constructing its foreign policy dealings with other countries as a way of legitimizing its rule. The first of its dealings was with the Soviets. The Soviet Union recognized the People's Republic on October 2, 1949. Earlier in the year, Mao had proclaimed his policy of "leaning to one side" as a commitment to the socialist bloc. In February 1950, after months of hard bargaining, China and the Soviet Union signed the Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance, valid until 1980.
Many Americans were at a loss of what to do as regards to foreign policy concerning mainland China. The debate which took place in the United States as a result of the removal of the Kuomintang and Chiang Kai-shek to the island of Taiwan centered on Republican charges that the Democrats "lost" China. "Without question, the critics had by early 1949 convinced many Americans that Truman was, shockingly, abandoning China, China being equivalent with Chiang's dying order," journalist Robert J. Donovan wrote in his two-volume history of Truman's presidency. There was much debate on what the United States' policies was to be in regards to this new found duality. But for the next three decades the United States maintained a policy of non-recognition in regards to the People's Republic of China. The Republic of China in Taiwan was to be the legitimate China until 1979.
US policy toward China during President Lyndon B. Johnson's administration remained essentially what it had been during the Kennedy and Eisenhower administrations — non-recognition of the People's Republic of China (P.R.C.), support for Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government and its possession of China's seat in the United Nations, and a ban on trade and travel to the PRC.