Brothers in Arms (66 page)

Read Brothers in Arms Online

Authors: Odd Arne Westad

Tags: #Political Science, #International Relations, #General, #test

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6.
Sino-Soviet Economic Cooperation
Shu Guang Zhang
The Sino-Soviet disputes, which had developed largely in secret in the 1950s, became open after 1960. In addition to ideological and political quarrels, the economic aspects deserve a careful reexamination. Such an undertaking is crucial to a better understanding of the disintegration of the Sino-Soviet alliance. How much did the Chinese Communists have to rely on their Soviet comrades? How much did the Sino-Soviet economic relations contribute to the growing tensions in the alliance?
In addressing these questions, most studies of the Sino-Soviet relations have followed two different lines. Some have asserted that the alliance broke down mainly because of Beijing's dissatisfaction with Soviet aid. Soviet grants and loans to China were comparatively small, thus making only modest contributions to China's economic development. This limited Soviet assistance, compared to much larger-scale Soviet aid to other socialist countries, allegedly caused discontent and resentment on the part of the Chinese Communist leadership that consequently served as a potential source of tension in the alliance. On the other hand, however, some have argued just the opposite that the strains in the alliance stemed not from Chinese dissatisfaction but from Soviet resentment at the economic burdens imposed by the relationship. Those who hold this view refer to the fact that Sino-Soviet economic relations were essentially disadvantageous to the Soviet Union. To an increasingly distressing extent, especially from the Soviet point of view, Chinese growth was being substituted for Soviet growth, because "Chinese trade meant a forced transfer of resources from growth to consumption, to the extent that they [the Soviets] were not able in return to relocate their resources."

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Plausible as they are, however, both arguments provide only partial explanations. While calculations based on purely economic benefits or advantages do matter, a good number of cultural factors, including beliefs, images, perceptions, attitudes, motives, and expectations, prove perhaps more important. After all, an international alliance relationship not only survives and thrives on the premises of state interests, political or economic, but also grows in the hearts and minds of people, political leaders in particular. Interests and feelings often are intertwined, inadvertently affecting one another. The Sino-Soviet alliance experience was no exception.
New China: The Imperatives of State Construction
Based on its perception of external threats to its regime, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership saw East Asia as an arena of Cold War competition that would require a Sino-Soviet alignment. However, the Chinese wanted to form the alliance as much to balance against their perceived threats as to bandwagon (that is, to ally with a dominant and threatening power).

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The foreign policy outlook of CCP paramount leader Mao Zedong deserves special attention. Mao understood realpolitik, or balance of power, fairly well. The postwar international political scene, in his view, evolved into an all-front, long-term struggle between ''two camps"a U.S.-led capitalist one and a Soviet-headed socialist one. Establishing a Communist regime in China in October 1949, he believed that the United States posed a major threat to his nation. This belief derived mainly from what he perceived as a hostile U.S. policy toward the Chinese Communist revolution. Washington had openly supported Jiang Jieshi's (Chiang Kai-shek's) nationalist regime during China's civil war (1946-1949). Despite its failure to undertake a direct, armed intervention in the civil conflict prior to 1949, the United States, Mao feared, might feel compelled or ready to do so in the face of Jiang's impending defeat. Washington's long-term objective, Mao was convinced, was to place China under its control or within its sphere of influence. As to what U.S. leaders could do to achieve this goal, Mao in August 1949 anticipated three possibilities: first, "they could smuggle their agents into China to sow dissension and make trouble"; second, "they could incite the Chinese reactionaries and even throw in their own forces to blockade China's ports"; and third, "if they still long for adventure, they will send some of their troops to invade and harass China's frontiers." All of these scenarios, Mao assured, were "not impossible"
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Mao's recondite concerns about U.S. threats led him and his comrades to believe that "leaning" to the Soviet side was essential to China's security. Assessing the postwar international situation at the CCP Politburo meeting on September 8, 1948, Mao pointed out that there existed "the danger of [another world]

 

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war." Thus he advocated that "we should assume the task of utilizing the people's force all over the world to prevent it," and priority should be given to the Soviet Union. This was because "the strength of the world democratic force led by the Soviet Union has surpassed that of the [American and British] reactionaries and will continue to grow." If the peace could endure for the next ten or fifteen years, Mao envisioned, world wars might "never happen again," because "if the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries can maintain peace and concentrate on [economic] production during the next ten to fifteen years, the Soviet Union should have elevated its productivity to the level of producing 60,000,000 tons of steel per year. By that time, no one can hope to top it." With three years already passed since the end of World War II, China should waste no time in siding with the Soviet bloc in the ''remaining twelve years" of possible peace.

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Mao, indeed, wasted little time in persuading Stalin to form an alliance with his regime. With nationwide victory ensured after seizing Nanjing, Jiang's capital, in April 1949, the CCP undertook several steps toward that direction: The CCP's vice-chairman, Liu Shaoqi, secretly visited Moscow in July; Mao openly proclaimed that his country would "lean" to the Soviet side in August; and in December the chairman himself traveled to Moscow with high expectations. To have a serious and comprehensive negotiation over the future Sino-Soviet relationship, he planned to discuss with Stalin "all the [outstanding] issues that our Central Committee is concerned with" or, at least, to "make all our positions clear [to the Soviets]."
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But Mao's highest priority was to sign a new alliance treaty, of which "the basic spirit . . . should be to prevent the possibility of Japan and its ally [the United States] invading China," and that would "enable us to use it as a big political asset to deal with imperialist countries in the world."
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That Mao was able to accomplish in Moscow.
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Mao proclaimed in April 1950 that
since the foundation of the People's government, one of its significant achievements is the signing of the alliance treaty. . . . [Since] the imperialists still exist in the world, we therefore need friends and allies under this circumstance. . . . Now that the treaty has confirmed the friendship of the Soviet Union and formed the alliance relationship, we will thus have a good hand of assistance if the imperialists prepare to invade us.
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At no point, however, did Mao concede that China would have to be a Soviet satellite. Quite the contrary, he expected Moscow to treat his regime as an equal partner. Seeking equality, national integrity, and sovereignty, perhaps much more than balancing external threats, dominated the CCP foreign policy agenda.

 

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This conscious inclination clearly had its roots in the nation's struggles against foreign influence. The Opium War of 1839 to 1842 marked the beginning of Western imperialism in modem China. Since then a major shaping force in China's foreign policy was the search for a way to survive in the new world that had been forcibly thrust upon it by the West. This search involved an extremely hard struggle against the weight of pride, disdain for things foreign, and the inveterate feeling of "national humiliation." The images and symbols of "foreign devils" foreign gunboats, unequal treaties, international settlements with signs reading "No Chinese and Dogs Allowed'' planted deeply the seeds of distrust and hatred toward foreigners, feelings that stood as monumental reminders of the nation's sufferings and humiliations caused by imperialists. Meanwhile, the search for a path to survival also created new illusions such as "self-strengthening," "learning the superior barbarian technique with which to repel the barbarians," "using the barbarians to control the barbarians," and "forming a united front against foreign invasions." The call for "national liberation" the recreation of an independent and sovereign China and restoration of the nation's prestige and power in the word became very appealing to most Chinese people.
It was in the midst of this popular anxiety and aspiration for "a new China [
xinzhongguo
]" that Mao and his revolution had emerged and expanded. Throughout his political career, Mao had taken as his primary goal the radical transformation of Chinese society in order to liberate the nation from imperialist dominance. He and his comrades were determined that the New China should resume its rightful place among the nations. "In order to avoid errors in implementing our foreign policy," a CCP CC order on diplomatic work dated August 18, 1944, had specified, "we must first of all adhere to our principle of nationalism." It further explained:
In the history of China's foreign relations over the past hundred years, there existed two misunderstandings regarding nationalism. One emerged before the Boxer Rebellion when the anti-foreign sentiment was almost an obsession. The other was seen after the Rebellion when the fear of foreign powers was prevalent. From the May Fourth Movement to the Northern Expedition, this xenophobic sentiment toward foreign countries has been overshadowed by the high tide of nationalism.
These two tendencies, the order pointed out, were erroneous. "To avoid these two mistakes, on the one hand, we should enhance our confidence in and self-respect for our nation by welcoming foreigners to the country; on the other hand, we should know how to work with them in order to learn their advanced expe-

 

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