 | | porary, individual, and lucrative export and import business with these countries at a local level for some needed goods.
18
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This hardly meant, Mao maintained, that China would adopt a "closed-door" policy toward all foreign governments, including the Soviet Union. He saw no reason for Moscow to reject another Communist state's request for economic help; perhaps Moscow would instead treat the CCP regime as an equal. "The Soviet Union and other democratic forces have struggled against the reactionary forces," and more important, "the Soviet policy is not to interfere with any country's internal affair,'' Mao explained to the Politburo in September 1949.
19
Wishful as it may have sounded, Mao felt that acquiring Soviet aid was highly desirable, if not necessary, so as to resolve the nation's immediate economic problems; at the same time, however, he was clearly wary of Soviet dominance over China. The end result entailed mixed feelings concerning several important aspects of economic relations with the Soviet Union.
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The CCP's immediate priority was to establish trade relations with the Soviet Union. As early as August 1946, the CCP's Northeastern Bureau had approached the Soviet authorities at Dalian (Darien) to sell grain (wheat, corn, soybeans) and buy cloth, medicines, and other necessities of daily life so as to stabilize that region' s market. The initial endeavor did not work out, because the Soviets would not include cloths in the deal. At the end of 1946, however, scattered, small-scale trade did begin.
20
After as many as fifteen rounds of negotiations in early 1949, the Chinese were able to strike a more comprehensive trade deal with the Soviets.
21
In the summer of that year, the CCP central leadership clearly wanted to enhance trade with the Soviet Union. As a major component of New China's diplomacy, Liu Shaoqi assured Stalin in July, the CCP would "promote [foreign] trade relations with, in particular, the Soviet Union and other new democratic [socialist] countries, but under the premise of equality and mutual benefit."
22
Stalin seemed understanding and supportive. Suggesting that the barter system would be "more appropriate" than "the cash-sale practice of the capitalist world," he promised Liu that his government would compensate for China's losses by bartering low-priced agriculture products for Soviet high-priced machinery.
23
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Encouraged by Stalin's favorable attitude, Mao endorsed his Central Committee's instructions on foreign trade policy on February 16, 1949, which clearly gave priority to trade with the Soviet Union. The instructions stated:
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| | The basic guideline of our foreign trade policy is that we should export to and import from the Soviet Union and other new democratic countries so long as they need what we are able to offer or they can offer what we need. Only in the situation that the Soviet Union and
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