In 1949, the Chinese government was overthrown by a revolution led by Mao Zedong, leader of the Chinese Communist Party, who established a Communist government and changed the name of China to the People’s Republic of China. To the American President, Harry Truman, the loss of China to communism represented a failure of containment, which was a key point of the Truman doctrine. According to this doctrine, named in honor of President Truman, the United States had to help countries that were threatened by communist guerrillas or Soviet influence in an attempt to avoid the "domino effect" of several countries and entire regions falling to communism. For this reason, the loss of China to communism was a failure of the policy of containment of communism.
This containment policy was effective in preventing the spread of communism. ... These military bouts served to further the containment policies goal by preventing the spread of communism through direct military action.