Crusade for China: the China Lobby, Christian Conservatism, and the Making of Cold War US-China Relations, 1945-1953

From 1945 to 1953, with the rise of the Cold War conservative movement in the United States, US-China relations underwent a drastic change from allies to enemies. During this period, while mainstream policy prioritized a Europe-first strategy, the China Lobby, one of many conservative forces that rallied people with different social backgrounds from both China and the United States, urged an Asia-first strategy to counter Communism in China. Previous research has primarily examined the China Lobby’s impact on US-China relations and American Cold War culture through political, strategic, and orientalist lenses and has fallen into binary assessments. This thesis departs from these approaches by analyzing the China Lobby through a religious lens, reconceptualizing it as a Christian cultural project that fused religious conviction, anti-Communist ideology, and geostrategic interests. Drawing on archival sources, contemporary newspaper research, government documents, and religious debates, the thesis argues that even when it failed to fully redirect strategic decision- making, the China Lobby played a formative role in shaping American foreign policy toward China by defining a militant rollback strategy and expanding the geographic scope of containment from Europe to Asia. Through its Asia-first strategy, the China Lobby mobilized conservative Christian sentiment and morality to frame China as the spiritual and strategic keystone in a global struggle for the future of Christian civilization. These findings suggest that conservative Christian ideology was a driver of U.S. foreign policy, and that early Cold War conservatives used the issue of U.S.-China relations as a springboard to renegotiate, reclaim, and advance their Christian identity and vision of American global leadership both at home and abroad.