Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T19:57:07.675Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

5 - Pan American Airlines and the Birth of Chinese Air Power

from Part II - Entanglements of American Empire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 December 2024

Zach Fredman
Affiliation:
Duke Kunshan University
Judd Kinzley
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Get access

Summary

This chapter analyzes the impact of American funds, technology, and expertise on Chinese civil aviation during the 1940s, focusing on the case of the China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC). It argues that socioeconomic crisis and disparity both shaped and was intensified by Sino-American aviation projects. Driving forces in cooperation lay in American efforts to establish political, technical, and economic foundations for Pan Am’s planned trans-Pacific routes, as well as Chinese hopes of accessing American technology and funding to support domestic aviation. The resulting programs rarely made concrete progress on this goal. Rather, they reflected the messy entanglement of Chinese and American engineers, businessmen, and officials in a web of quasi-official relationships sharing knowledge, equipment, and financial resources.

Type
Chapter
Information
Uneasy Allies
Sino-American Relations at the Grassroots, 1937–1949
, pp. 77 - 94
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×