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Mission to China

Only weeks after Marshall's retirement, in December 1945, President Harry Truman dispatched Marshall to the Republic of China, where he had served in the 1920s. His new mission was to prevent a resumption of the Chinese Civil War by brokering a coalition government between America's Kuomintang allies under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese Communist Party of Mao Zedong. Marshall had no leverage over the Communists but threatened to withdraw American aid essential to the Nationalists. Both sides rejected his proposals and he returned to the United States in January 1947. As Secretary of State, Marshall disagreed with the Defense and State Department views that Chiang's success was vital to American interests, insisting that U.S. troops not become involved. The war continued, and the Communists won in 1949.