Following the Chinese Communists’ defeat of the Nationalists in 1949, U.S. foreign policy became focused on preventing communism from expanding into Southeast Asia. How this policy played out in Indochina is well known. Yet early in the Cold War, Washington viewed newly independent Burma as nearly as important as Vietnam. U.S. diplomatic historian and Wilson Center Fellow Kenton Clymer will argue that because Burma shared a long border with China and chose a strictly neutral international stance, the U.S.-Burma relationship during this period was fascinating, delicate, and complex.