China In World Affairs

The Foreign Policy Of The Prc Since 1970

G. W. Choudhury

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367018993
• eBook ISBN: 9780429716157
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Asian Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This up-to-date textbook reviews China's foreign policy goals since the PRC's active reemergence in world affairs following the Cultural Revolution of 1966–1969, covering China's quest for security, the breakthrough in China-U.S. relations, and the course of Sino-Soviet rivalry.

1
Introduction

The primary aim of this book is to describe China's outward-looking foreign policy, which began at the end of Beijing's (Peking's) self-imposed isolation during the great proletariat Cultural Revolution of 1966-1969. Even in the late 1960s, while still under the leadership of Mao Zedong, who had initiated the Cultural Revolution and was thus also responsible for the country's diplomatic isolation during the upheaval caused by it, China had to pay attention to serious problems of national security and defense. The gravest threat to China's security and territorial integrity came from the country's former ideological ally, the Soviet Union, which massed nearly 1 million Russian army troops, equipped with the most sophisticated weapons, on China's northern frontiers. Mao and Premier Zhou Enlai, who was one of China's ablest statesmen, particularly in foreign affairs, had to give top priority to China's external relations as a result of the near-war situation between the two communist giants.

Communist China has been involved with the quest for security since 1949. The search for security is a universal phenomenon for all states, even superpowers, but the degree of the problem varies according to the particular circumstances of each. For the People's Republic of China (PRC), the problem was of great significance and urgency for two decades (1950-1970) because of its strained relationship with the United States and then, for a short period, because of simultaneous unfriendly relations with both of the superpowers, the United States and the USSR. Since 1969, the problem has centered on a possible confrontation with the Soviet Union. Like any country that lacks adequate military strength in comparison with its principal enemy, China has had to combine military strength with constructive diplomacy to meet its urgent problems of national security and defense.

Under Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou Enlai, China followed a foreign policy that was a mixture of ideology and pragmatism and, like any other country, practiced a policy based on both ideology and national interests. That type of policy is being continued by the post-Mao leaders. International politics are essentially power politics, and although statesmen may try to define foreign policy objectives in the light of an ideology or of broader goals, foreign policies are actually formulated and executed with regard to more immediate factors. Of course, the PRC has always stressed its ideological affinities in stating its foreign policy goals.

When Mao was confronted with the huge U.S. military presence in the Korean peninsula, South Vietnam, Japan, the Philippines, and other parts of the Asian-Pacific region, he had to look to Moscow for aid in solving China's compelling security problems. That policy was, however, backed by the Chinese theory of a world divided into two camps. In this formative phase of China's foreign policy, Mao justified his policy of a closer alliance with the other communist power, the USSR, by his theory of a world dominated by two camps-the socialist camp and the imperialist camp. In his essay, "On the People's Democratic Dictatorship" (June 30, 1949), Mao declared that externally China must "unite in a common struggle with those nations of the world which treat us as equals" and added, "internationally we belong to the side of the anti-imperialist's front headed by the Soviet Union and so we can turn only to this side for genuine and friendly help, not to the side of the imperialist front."¹ He described the latter, which was headed by the United States, as "friends with honey on their lips and murder in their hearts. Who are these people? They are imperialists."² So Mao decided to lean to the side of socialism and not to the side of imperialism. He dismissed any idea of a third camp, such as the nonaligned group that Asian countries' leaders like Nehru of India and Sukarno of Indonesia were trying to form, as China, during this formative phase, followed the Soviet Union in treating the newly independent countries of Asia as "stooges" of the imperialists.

But soon China began to cultivate the friendship of the new nations of Asia and Africa so the two-camp theory had to be modified. That modification process started when the five principles of coexistence {concerning Tibet) were signed by India and China on April 20, 1954, as that agreement marked one of the earliest adjustments of the two-camp theory in favor of an acceptance of a third camp, and Zhou Enlai's superb performance at the first Afro-Asian Nations Conference at Bandung in 1955 led China to accept the reality of a third camp. Mao then began to modify his earlier theory of the two camps and his total rejection of a middle path. In a speech to the Supreme Soviet in Moscow on November 6, 1957, Mao made his first comment on the concept of an intermediate zone between the two camps by referring to the American imperialist's interference in the internal affairs of all nations, "particularly in the various nations of the intermediate zones situated between the American and Socialism camps."³ Mao's concept of an intermediate zone or zones was further developed in talks with visiting foreign delegations in China in the late 1950s. Intermediate zones were regarded as "the rear areas of imperialism," which absorbed the imperialist aggressive thrust and constituted a protective buffer.⁴

In the early 1960s, when the Sino-Soviet rift began to be manifest, China made further modifications of the two-camp theory as China no longer considered itself a part of the Soviet-led camp, nor could the Soviet Union now be regarded as genuine friend-as Mao had considered that country when he had advocated leaning "to the side of the socialist camp." In addition to the concept of an intermediate zone or zones, China now began to perceive of the world in terms of "rural" and "urban." Peng Zhen, then mayor of Beijing, explained the struggle between the "world countryside" (developing nations) and the "world cities" (industrialized nations) in a speech in Jakarta in May 1965, and the concept was also expressed by Mao's chosen successor, Lin Biao, in his 1965 essay, "Peoples' War."⁵ Lin Biao's comments on the rural-urban division of the world have been referred to extensively by authors who have examined China's changing perceptions of the world. According to Mayor Peng Zhen, Asia, Africa, and Latin America are the rural areas of the world taken as a whole, and Europe and North America are its cities.⁶ In order to win victory in the world revolution, the proletariat must attach great importance to the revolutions in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, that is, to the revolutions in the world's rural areas, as there is no other path.⁷ As the Soviet Union belongs to the "world cities," that country was obviously excluded from the proletariat world's revolutionary movement, and the USSR was "demoted" to the group of social imperialists.

In 1974, Chairman Mao developed his theory of "three worlds," which his successor, Chairman Hua Guofeng, explained in a report to the Eleventh Congress of the Chinese Communist party on August 12, 1977. Hua said that "Chairman Mao's thesis differentiating the three worlds which he set forth in 1974 is of profound and far-reaching significance Applying the method of class analysis," Hua added, "he [Mao] studied the changes in the development of the basic contradictions in the contemporary world, the division and the realignment of the different political forces and political and economic status of each country in the international context and in consequence arrived at this scientific conclusion regarding the present-day strategic situation in the world."⁸

What is this concept of three worlds, what are their component parts, and what is the significance of the "strategic situation" in the present-day world? According to Mao's theory of three worlds, the two superpowers (the United States and the USSR) form the First World; the Second World comprises the developed states of Europe, Japan, Australia, and Canada; and the "progressive" Third World comprises the developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The PRC considers that it belongs to the Third World and tries to create the impression of being its champion and spokesman. China's entry into the United Nations in October 1971, after its exclusion from that world body for two decades because of strong pressure from the United States, was largely owing to the wide support the PRC got from the countries of the Third World, and since that time, the PRC has sought to identify itself with the hopes and aspirations of those countries.

Chairman Mao also developed a theory of principal enemy or primary contradictions. For instance, during the fight against Japan in the 1930s, China had considered Japan's imperialism as the principal enemy or the primary contradiction. In order to defeat the principal enemy or to fight the primary contradiction, a country, according to Chairman Mao, may enter into temporary alliances with its secondary enemies. Because of China's growing fears of a Soviet aggression against it and to counteract the Soviet policy of isolating and weakening the PRC, the post-Cultural Revolution foreign policy of the PRC seems to treat the USSR, or "the Soviet social imperialists," as the current principal enemy or primary contradiction. To meet the threats from Moscow, China has made almost revolutionary changes in its policy of alignment since 1970.

The principal aim of this book is to examine the Chinese assessment of the present-day strategic stituation in the world and to analyze how Beijing has sought to react to the changed international order. That new order is the result of the lapse of a bipolar world, which was based on the rivalry and competition between the two superpowers, and the rise of a multipolar world in which China, though strongly denying that it is a superpower, is an emerging major power if not a superpower.

Chapter 2 presents a resume of China's foreign relations from 1949 to 1969. During the early years of the PRC's external relations, Mao turned to Moscow for both security and economic reasons. Mao also made some secret attempts to normalize relations with Washington, but those attempts failed. Subsequently, Beijing's relations with Washington entered an era of confrontation, and the United States and the PRC were drawn into the Korean War in 1950. Within a year of the emergence of the PRC, therefore, hostile relations between the world's most populous nation (the PRC) and the world's most powerful nation (the United States) had begun, and that hostility continued for two decades. China's quest for security led it to develop close links with Moscow, which gave the appearance of a monolithic communist order under the control of the Kremlin at a time when the East-West cold war tensions were at their height, and during the Eisenhower-Dulles years (1952-1958), the United States initiated an active policy of isolating, weakening, and perhaps ultimately destroying the "atheistic communist regime" in China. China not only forged links with Russia, but also sought to cultivate friendly relations with its Asian neighbors. China was successful in forming close relations with a number of major Asian countries, most notably, India, but its next-door Asian neighbors in Southeast Asia were not responsive to China's gestures. They were more worried about China's support of communist insurgent movements in Southeast Asia and looked to Washington for support against those movements.

China's relations with Moscow soon began to show strains and stresses, and by the end of the 1950s, the unity between the two communist giants was being replaced by the Sino-Soviet conflict, which led to major changes in China's foreign policy. The impact of the Sino-Soviet conflict was not immediately felt because of a number of factors-such as the 1962 Sino-Indian border conflict, the Vietnam War of the 1960s, and the Cultural Revolution in China of 1966-1969-but the Sino-Soviet rift continued to intensify until it led the two ideological allies to serious armed conflict in the spring of 1969.

By the time Richard Nixon occupied the White House in January 1969, the United States was no longer regarded as China's number-one enemy. The Soviet Union now held that status, and Soviet social imperialism constituted, according to the Chinese, the most dangerous source of a world war. That situation led to major changes in the global politics, and Chapters 3, 4, and 5 examine the profound breakthrough between Beijing and Washington that began in 1969. President Nixon realized fully the implications of the growing Sino-Soviet rift, and he sought to take advantage of it to benefit the global interests of the United States. Under Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou Enlai, Beijing responded to Nixon's gestures for a normalization of the relationship between the PRC and the United States, not out of any love for the Americans, but out of grave fears of a preemptive Soviet strike against China, and a full account is given of the top-secret negotiations between Beijing and Washington that were channeled through Pakistan. That country was an ally of the United States by virtue of its membership in the U.S.-sponsored Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), a military pact that is partly directed against the PRC, and yet, Pakistan was also China's most friendly noncommunist ally in Asia. Although Nixon used a number of channels to find out China's reaction to his new gestures to the PRC, it was Pakistani President Yahya Khan who turned out to be Nixon's principal "courier." I was a member of the Yahya cabinet in Pakistan and was involved in the secret negotiations, and before President Yahya died in 1980, he gave me a copy of all of the unpublished correspondence between Beijing and Washington that had been channeled through Pakistan in 1969-1971 before Richard Nixon announced, to the surprise of the entire world, that he would journey to Beijing to be greeted by Mao. Twenty years of frozen and hostile relations were broken after Henry Kissinger's top-secret trip to Beijing via Pakistan in July 1971, and a full account is given of the Sino-American relations from the 1972 Peking Summit between President Nixon and Premier Zhou Enlai to the establishment of full diplomatic relations between the two countries and ultimately to the beginning of a limited security link between Beijing and Washington. From having been an arch enemy, the PRC is now regarded by the United States as a potential "ally in arms" against the Russians.

Chapters 6 and 7 are devoted to examining the Sino-Soviet rift and the resultant triangular diplomacy between Beijing, Moscow, and Washington. The discussion on the Sino-Soviet rift is confined to developments in the 1970s and the likely trends in the 1980s, and the emphasis is on the rivalry between Beijing and Moscow in Asia, where the two communist giants are engaged in a bitter struggle for power and influence. Tokyo, New Delhi, and Hanoi have been the major targets of this competition, and there have been communist wars-the 1978 war between Vietnam and Cambodia and the 1979 war between China and Vietnam-in addition to the ever-growing cold war between Beijing and Moscow.

Since the beginning of the limited rapprochement between Beijing and Washington after the 1972 summit, the United States has seemed to play what is known as its "China card" in its dealings with Moscow, which has resulted in a triangular relationship among the two superpowers, the United States and the USSR, and the emerging power, the PRC. In this triangular diplomacy, "each country is to some degree the adversary of the other two. Simultaneously, each country is a potential ally of the remaining one against the other."⁹ That triangular diplomacy is reviewed and the implications of it are examined, and the same is done for the emerging triangular relationship among Beijing, Tokyo, and Washington, which is presumably directed to contain Soviet expansionist designs in the Asian-Pacific region in light of the Soviet-backed Vietnamese aggression against Cambodia in 1978 and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. The most recent tensions in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf areas have given rise to some common, though not identical, interests among the PRC, the United States, and Japan, backed by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), ANZUS (Australia, New Zealand, and United States mutual security pact), and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries, against the Soviet Union's worldwide expansionism and its huge military buildup.

Chapters 8 and 9 review China's role in Asia and that country's recent vigorous moves to cultivate friendly relations with its Asian neighbors. What are the complicating factors in China's bid for closer links with its close neighbors in Asia, and how is Beijing trying to mollify the fears of its Asian neighbors without totally sacrificing its image as the leader of the national liberation movements in the Third World?

There have been great upheavals and changes in post-Mao China. Chairman Mao has...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Growth of Chinese Foreign Policy, 1949-1969
• 3 Sino-American Relations: The Profound Breakthrough
• 4 The Peking Summit and the Beginning of the New Relations Between Beijing and Washington
• 5 Complications and Ultimate Success in the Normalization Process Between Beijing and Washington
• 6 The Sino-Soviet Conflict
• 7 The Great Triangular Relationship: Beijing-Moscow-Washington
• 8 China and Its Asian Neighbors; Japan, Korea, and Indochina
• 9 China and Its Asian Neighbors: Southeast and South Asia
• 10 China and the Third World
• Selected Bibliography
• Index