The divergence of policy between Britain and the United States over the recognition of Communist China is now twelve years old. In the spring of 1950 nobody could have anticipated that it would go so deep or last so long. When the British Government transferred de jure recognition as the Government of China from the Kuomintang régime still holding out in Formosa to the new Communist authority which by victory in the civil war had gained control of the whole Chinese mainland, it was not considered in London to be an act contrary to American policy because it was understood that the American Government would do the same after a short interval of time. The policy of the Truman Administration, after the failure of the ill-conceived Marshall Mission, had been one of disengagement from the Chinese civil war; it was in accordance with this line that the War Department obstructed the delivery to the National Government of the arms voted by Congress in the China Aid Bill of 1948. When the Kuomintang régime collapsed on the mainland, the American Government made it clear that it would take no action to preserve its remnant in Formosa; the Secretary of State declared that America's “defence perimeter” lay in Japan, Okinawa and the Philippines, excluding Formosa and South Korea. No objection was raised in Washington to the British Government's intention to give de jure recognition at an early date, but it was hinted that because of the domestic political situation the United States would have to wait until the mid-term Congressional elections of 1950 were safely over.