Chinese Foreign Policy

Robert G. Sutter

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429726989
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Chinese History
• Index: History

Chinese foreign policy has changed radically since the Cultural Revolution of 1966-1969. This book focuses on turning points in China's policy and looks at the influence of foreign pressures on China. It assesses the impact of internal political struggles on the conduct of Chinese foreign affairs.

Part One
The Evolution of Chinese Foreign Policy, 1966-1977

Introduction

Peking's foreign policy has been designed on the one hand to guarantee the development and advancement of China's vital interests in world affairs, and on the other hand to spread Maoist ideology and world revolution. The vital interests of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in international affairs center on the following points:

• Peking is anxious to obtain and consolidate control over regions that traditionally have been subject to Chinese rule. Taiwan is a notable example.
• Peking seeks to develop an independent and strong position in world affairs, free from the dominance of outside powers.
• Peking strives to develop its wealth and power to the point where China will be able to reattain its historically influential position in East Asian politics.

Peking's leaders have long realized that a pragmatic approach to foreign affairs, devoid of ideological encumbrances, has provided the most efficient way for the PRC to secure its national interests. However, these same leaders have remained committed to Maoist ideology and have promoted the spread of international communist revolution. This situation has led to a continuing contradiction— and a source of dynamism—in Chinese foreign policy. The interaction and frequent conflicts between the pursuit of China's vital interests and the concurrent drive for world revolution have given Chinese foreign policy an unpredictable changeable quality.

Two other sources of change in Chinese foreign policy have been the influence both of PRC internal politics and of international politics. Thus, for example, revelations of PRC leadership upheavals since the start of the Cultural Revolution in the mid-1960s have made it clear that Chinese internal politics sometimes have had a major impact in PRC foreign affairs. On the other hand, the influence of the U.S. containment policy against China in the 1950s and the impact of Soviet pressure on China during recent years underline the frequently heavy impact of international politics on the conduct of PRC foreign policy.

PRC foreign policy up to 1958 was influenced primarily by international pressures on China. The start of the Cold War and the buildup of U.S. strategic power in East Asia prompted the Chinese to move closer to their ideological allies in the USSR—leading to the establishment of the Sino-Soviet alliance in 1950. The new ties with the USSR provided the PRC with a necessary strategic guarantee of security in the face of the major threat Peking saw posed by the United States. They also gave Peking a source of supplies for modernization, as the USSR began to transfer technological expertise and economic assistance to China.

Following the Korean War, Peking's foreign perspective became dominated by a growing concern over the U.S. strategic network in East Asia designed to "contain" Chinese influence. U.S. military forces were reinforced throughout the region, and Washington began establishing bilateral and multilateral pacts with a number of noncommunist Asian states. In the face of the growing menace it saw posed by U.S. containment, Peking looked to its Soviet ally for increased support. It found Moscow—in the wake of Stalin's death— decidedly less interested in supporting China against the United States in East Asia. Moscow was now stressing Soviet desire for peaceful coexistence with the United States, especially in Europe. It showed little interest in backing efforts by China which risked confrontation with the United States in East Asia.

Judging that the use of force against the United States would be foolhardy unless they were sure of strong Soviet support, the Chinese chose to seek negotiations with the United States. Meeting with the United States for two years during bilateral ambassadorial-level negotiations in Geneva, Chinese representatives strove to find a common ground. However, the negotiations proved fruitless, in large part because of U.S. determination not to compromise with the PRC.

Soviet rocket successes of late 1957 brought about an apparent change in Peking's view of the international balance of power, which in turn prompted a shift in PRC foreign policy. Peking now saw Moscow as strengthened vis-à-vis the United States and tried to elicit greater Soviet support for PRC objectives blocked by U.S. containment in East Asia. This policy failed during the 1958 Taiwan straits crisis: Moscow only belatedly supported China in the face of a strong U.S. response to the PRC blockade of off-shore islands held by Taipei.

Over the next ten years, Peking came to see international politics and the balance of power in East Asia as relatively stable. Peking continued to strongly oppose the United States, and it also began increasingly virulent polemics against its former ally, the USSR. The Chinese apparently judged that they now could afford to alienate both superpowers, since neither the United States nor the Soviet Union showed signs of significantly endangering PRC national security. For example, the USSR acted to insure that its polemics with China would not lead to an open military conflict, and the United States carefully reassured China regarding U.S. intentions following the escalation of U.S. military involvement in Indochina.

It was during this ten-year period—from 1959 to 1969— that PRC internal politics and leadership disputes appeared to play a pivotal role in the conduct of PRC foreign policy. Not faced with an immediate threat to their security, the Chinese could afford to allow their foreign policy to be influenced significantly by factors other than the need to secure national defense and strategic safety. In particular, leadership power struggles and domestic disruptions during the 1966-1969 Cultural Revolution brought normal PRC foreign policy functioning to a halt. Senior Chinese diplomats were recalled to China and junior officers remaining overseas were required to proselytize in the name of Mao Τsetung. Rigidly ideological conduct in foreign affairs was the order of the day, leading to a severe downturn in Chinese relations with a large number of previously friendly states. This resulted in increasing PRC diplomatic isolation, to a point where China's circle of foreign friends was limited to Albania, Pakistan, and a handful of African states.

Over the next several years—1969-1976—Chinese foreign policy returned to a more pragmatic, conventional diplomatic approach better designed to protect and strengthen China's vital interests in the East Asian balance of power. A sharp change in the strategic balance during the late 1960s— brought on most notably by the rapid growth of Soviet power along the Sino-Soviet frontier—was responsible for this shift toward pragmatism and moderation in Chinese foreign affairs. In this context, PRC internal politics and leadership disputes came to play an increasingly less important role in Chinese foreign policy. Thus, the past ten years can be viewed as a progression from a period when PRC internal politics and Maoist ideology were dominant influences to a time when international pressures on China and a pragmatic approach to world affairs became the overriding features of Chinese foreign policy.

Early Efforts To Resume Normal Diplomacy, 1968

As the Cultural Revolution drew to a close in 1968, Chinese foreign policy was only beginning to emerge from the disruption and disorganization caused by the previous three years of leadership purges and strident support for Maoist ideology and insurrection abroad. Red Guard demonstrations against foreign installations in China had been halted, and Chinese officials had begun efforts to restore diplomatic functioning with a few, selected third world states.

Peking's limited resumption of normal diplomacy was well illustrated by its differing approach to third world states during mid-1968. At that time, a succession of official visitors to China indicated an effort on the part of the PRC to reduce its isolation in foreign affairs while striking a more careful balance between the politics of Maoist insurrection and conventional diplomacy. Visits to the PRC by a joint Guinean-Malian foreign ministers' delegation, a Malian military delegation, and President Nyerere of Tanzania gave Peking an opportunity to bolster its footholds in Africa and undertake a diplomatic offensive with offers of aid and support in the name of Afro-Asian unity in opposition to imperialism. While Peking predictably used the Africans' visits to play up the antiimperialist line, the Chinese at the same time sought to refurbish their image in a less radical context by paying renewed homage to peaceful coexistence—a theme which emerged with notable prominence during the visit in late May of the Nepalese deputy prime minister.

The emerging trend toward normalization of the PRC's foreign affairs introduced a more orderly arrangement in Peking's dealings with the external world. However, Peking's hard line toward the United States and the Soviet Union remained intact, along with continued pressure on regimes of the third world regarded as pawns in a Soviet-U.S. attempt to contain China within a hostile environment. Regimes in the latter category included India and Burma, which continued to be the targets of propaganda attacks and PRC-supported, Maoist-style people's wars.

The vist of Deputy Prime Minister Bista of Nepal in 1968 afforded Peking an opportunity to demonstrate a desire for normal relations with a regime sharing a minimum of China's revolutionary interests. The joint communique issued on 1 June reflected a prominent theme of the visit in registering satisfaction with the development of friendly relations based on "the five principles of peaceful coexistence." The communique noted that a new trade agreement had been reached and that the PRC offered to extend increased economic aid to Nepal. On foreign affairs matters, however, the communique simply noted that the two sides had exchanged views on questions of common interest.

Unlike recent radical African visitors to China, Bista did not favor his hosts with endorsements of Chinese revolutionary aims or of the Cultural Revolution, generally limiting himself to words of appreciation for PRC economic aid and for the "correct and friendly" manner in which Nepal had been treated. Such remarks and the invocation of the five principles reflected a mutual desire to remove the strains resulting from the troubles of the previous summer, when Maoist evangelism had spilled over into Nepal and stirred up local sensitivities. During the visit the Chinese did, however, inject elements of their own particular orientation, as on 24 May when Foreign Minister Chen I at a banquet described friendly relations between the two countries as an example of the five principles and a contribution to Afro-Asian unity against imperialism.

Several days after Bista's visit, at a Nepalese embassy reception on 11 June celebrating King Mahendra's birthday, Chen I gave a blatantly tendentious reading of the five principles in a context clearly aimed at India. After claiming that the Chinese under Mao "first initiated and consistently carried out" the five principles of peaceful coexistence, Chen assailed "certain people" for "feverishly tailing after imperialism and modern revisionism" in vilifying China and attempting to form an anti-China alliance. He added that the unnamed Indians had discarded the five principles of peaceful coexistence which they had once supported. Peking's revival of the Bandung spirit thus proceeded in a selective manner.

Underlining its selective approach to third world nations, Peking continued its severe pressure on India, both as a rival for Asian power whose interests were regarded as inimical to those of China and as a prime target for Peking's insurrectionary line. Chinese propaganda pounded away at the growing relations between the Soviets and India in the wake of Premier Kosygin's visit to India in early 1968, and persistently offered evidence of Indian involvement in alleged Soviet and American efforts at forging a ring of encirclement to contain Chinese influence. Thus a New China News Agency (NCNA) report on 8 June, discussing Mrs. Gandhi's tour of Australia, New Zealand, and Malaysia that spring, charged that she had discarded Nehru's "phony" stance of nonalignment and had openly engaged in efforts to further plans by Washington and Moscow to set up an anti-China alliance in Asia.

On the insurrectionary front, Chinese propaganda sought to encourage peasant insurgencies and armed uprisings by dissident minorities in India. Thus a 15 June NCNA dispatch took note of the serious clashes which erupted a week earlier between Naga guerrillas and Indian government forces. The dispatch, which referred to "courageous resistance" by Naga and Mizo armed forces "struggling for national liberation," did not acknowledge Indian charges that the insurgents were trained and supplied by the Chinese. A protest lodged by India on 19 June accused the PRC of complicity in aiding subversive elements in northeastern India.

As in the case of India, Peking continued to give low-level publicity to subversive actions in Burma by communists and dissident minority groups. A roundup of reported actions issued by Peking on 11 June mentioned the armed forces of the pro-Peking Burmese communists, various nationality groups, and the National Democratic United Front engaged in sabotage activities against the "reactionary" Burmese government. Chinese propaganda also attacked the Burmese regime for allegedly collaborating with Thailand and India in efforts to suppress the "people's armed forces" operating in the three countries. On 14 June NCNA quoted the insurrectionary "Voice of the People of Thailand" transmitter which denounced the "Thanom-Praphat traitorous clique" and the "Ne Win reactionary clique" for having agreed the previous month to join in subduing the rebels. A similar theme had been played by Peking regarding the Nagas at the time of Ne Win's visit to India in March.

Impact of Soviet Pressure, 1968-1969

Peking's efforts in conventional diplomacy did not begin to pick up steam until Chinese leaders became aware of the serious international pressures on China in the late 1960s. China was in a particularly weak and vulnerable position, in part because its military forces had become bogged down in domestic chores involving the maintenance of order and management of civilian administrative affairs. At the same time, the Brezhnev leadership had begun a largescale buildup of Soviet forces along the Sino-Soviet frontier, to a point where Moscow had the capability of striking deeply into China along most sections of the border.

Peking did not show an awareness of the serious weakness of its position vis-à-vis the USSR until after the August 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. The Soviet action and its justification in terms of the so-called Brezhnev doctrine of limited sovereignty served notice to Peking that Moscow might be inclined to use its strategic advantage against China just as it had against Czechoslovakia. In response, Peking for the first time began to protest alleged Soviet intrusions along the Sino-Soviet border. It also took several steps to broaden China's heretofore limited circle of foreign friends—trying in this way to improve PRC international leverage against the USSR. In particular, Peking moved quickly to solidify its relations with Albania and Romania, and began efforts to patch up its strained ties with France and Yugoslavia. The Chinese also showed signs of a thaw in Sino-Vietnamese relations, which had been particularly cool following Hanoi's decision to disregard Peking's advice and enter into negotiations with the United States in Paris in May 1968.

The most notable feature of the newly moderate Chinese approach to foreign affairs was the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman's unusually mildly worded statement of 26 November 1968 proposing the reconvention of the Warsaw ambassadorial talks with the United States on 20 February 1969. The initiative—timed to coincide with the coming to power of the Nixon administration—was closely associated with Premier Chou En-lai. Chou presumably judged that improved relations with the United States would serve to offset the Soviet pressure on China. Peking also appeared interested in sounding out the new U.S. administration— which was urging broad cutbacks in U.S. commitments abroad—over its intentions toward China.

Chou's initiative soon ran into opposition from leftists in the PRC leadership, who argued that it was improper for China to negotiate with a major enemy such as the United States. While they did not explicitly attack Chou's initiative, the leftists sponsored a media line opposing the use of negotiations in dealing with the United States. They eventually won over the majority of the Chinese leadership, forcing the cancellation of the scheduled Sino-U.S. meeting in Warsaw, using as a pretext the U.S. role in the early 1969 defection of the PRC charge' d'affaires in the Netherlands.

Over the next eight months, Peking did little to develop a pragmatic approach in foreign affairs. Although China was preoccupied with the Soviet threat following the March 1969 outbreak of armed border clashes along the Manchurian frontier, the Chinese continued to rebuff the overtures of the Nixon administration. Chou En-lai and other advocates of a more pragmatic Chinese foreign policy were blocked by leftist Chinese Politburo members headed by Chiang Ching, who presumably had the backing of Chou's major rival for power in the Chinese leadership—Defense Minister Lin Piao.

As a result of the leadership impasse, little progress was made in efforts toward normalization in PRC foreign policy. In May 1969, Peking announced the start of restaffing of the ambassadorial posts left vacant during the Cultural Revolution. On the 15th Peking stated that Keng Piao had been appointed ambassador to Albania, and on 20 May it reported that Huang Chen was returning to his post in France. These moves toward more conventional diplomacy had been presaged on May Day, when Mao Tse-tung had made a point of receiving eight newly accredited ambassadors to the PRC.

Meanwhile, Peking showed some signs of a more active role in Eastern Europe. NCNA on 31 May announced the departure of a PRC foreign trade delegation to Romania and Czechoslovakia. On 22 May, the Polish press agency reported the arrival of a PRC trade delegation for talks on an agreement for 1969. These were the first Chinese trade delegations to go to Eastern Europe since the advent of the Cultural Revolution. On 8 May Peking sent a message greeting the Czech Government on Czechoslovakia's national day—the first such Chinese message to a Soviet bloc nation in over a year.

Such small gestures did little to improve China's weakness and isolation before the Soviet Union, however. Serious clashes along the Sino-Soviet frontier and an escalation in threatening Soviet propaganda during August finally prompted a change in Chinese policy. Intensified Soviet pressure set the stage for talks at the Peking airport on 11 September 1969 between Kosygin and Chou En-lai. Soviet pressure forced the Chinese leaders to disavow their previous ideologically based opposition to talks with "imperialist" enemies such as the United States and the Soviet Union, and marked the beginning of an increasingly pragmatic Chinese approach to foreign affairs.

It was clear that Peking could no longer stridently oppose Moscow over the border problem. Under the guidance of Chou En-lai, Peking compromised and agreed to start negotiations in order to defuse the border crisis and guarantee Chinese national security. However, Peking's move came only after apparently heated debate and behind-the-scenes bargaining within the Chinese leadership. After Kosygin made an offer for border talks on 11 September, the Chinese waited almost a month before announcing their acceptance on 7 October. The talks began on 20 October, but were accompanied by media commentaries (associated with the leftists) that voiced opposition to negotiations with the Soviet Union. As in the case of leftist-inspired commentaries criticizing Chou's initiative towards the United States in late 1968, the current commentaries did not explicitly attack the border talks with the USSR, but made clear an opposition to the principle of using negotiations in dealing with major enemies like the United States and the Soviet Union.

In contrast to a year earlier, Chou and his allies were able to weather this opposition from the leftists; the tal...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Map
• Preface
• List of Abbreviations
• Part One: The Evolution of Chinese Foreign Policy, 1966-1977
• Part Two: Recent PRC Policy on Specific Foreign Issues
• Chronology
• Bibliography
• Index