Brothers in Arms (70 page)

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Authors: Odd Arne Westad

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

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as of this date some people [in Moscow] remain suspicious of whether our socialism can be successfully constructed [in China]. They adhere to the assertion that our Communist Party is a phony one. What can [we] do? These people eat and sleep everyday and then propagate that the Chinese Communist Party is not really a Communist party, China's socialist construction is bound to fail. To them, it would be a bewildering thing if [China] could build a socialist [country]!
Because China's success would cause serious concerns that
China might become an imperialist state, a fourth imperialist state to join America, Britain, and France; [although] at present China has little industry, thus is in no position [to be an imperialist state], [China] will become formidable in one hundred years: Genghis Khan might be brought to life; consequently Europe would suffer again, and Yugoslavia might be conquered!
Mao, however, stressed, that "there is absolutely no chance for revival of the 'Yellow Peril,' "because "the CCP is a Marxist-Leninist Party."

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He thus asserted that Moscow had no grounds to distrust and defame China.

Given Moscow's persistent distrust of the CCP, Mao became suspicious that the Soviets might have ulterior motives that they wanted to tighten controls as well as to take advantage of China. During Khrushchev's 1954 China visit, Mao already had bluntly dismissed the possibility that China would be part of the Soviet-Eastern European economic system. After hearing out Khrushchev's proposals for coordinating aid, trade, and production, the CCP chairman stated that "there is no such need, because [such an arrangement] will have no real meaning to China' s construction and development." On the contrary, linking itself to the Soviet-Eastern European system "would cause a lot of troubles which might in turn get [China] so much tangled up that [its] progress would be unraveled and blocked."
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Beijing believed that the Soviet Union had been counting on China in its efforts to circumvent Western trade restrictions. The second half of the 1950s saw a rapid increase in Soviet exports of manufactured products to China; the Chinese became convinced that Soviet industries would have to depend on China's market.
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More important, over 30 percent of China's exports to the Soviet Union were of raw materials, especially those of "strategic importance," such as tungsten, tin, antimony, lithium, beryllium, tantalum, molybdenum, magnesium, and sulfur mineral ore and pellets. More than 70 percent of the annual

 

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yield of rubber manufactured on China's Hainan Island was being sold to the Soviets at "preferential prices." The Chinese understood that these strategic materials were "indispensable" in Soviet development of missiles and nuclear weapons.

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Given its special relations with Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, and other non-Communist countries, China, even in the late 1950s, could acquire some materials on the lists of Western trade embargo and conduct
entrepôt
trade on behalf of the Soviet Union. According to Chinese sources, between 1953 and 1957 China imported for the Soviet Union a large amount of rubber, jute, coconut oil, and black pepper worth a total of 330 million yuan. Moreover, the Chinese leaders also believed that their country's agricultural products of rice, beans, peanuts, vegetable oil, salt, beef, pork, mutton, eggs, and fruit, which made up more than 48 percent of its exports to the Soviet Union, were essential to Soviet efforts to survive the Western trade embargo. During the same period, China also had been paying back Soviet loans with gold and hard currencies. Understanding that the Soviets were short of U.S. dollars, by 1958 Beijing had paid Moscow a total of $156 million in cash.
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Wary that the Soviets would take more advantage of China, Beijing initiated negotiations with Moscow in July 1956, requesting that Soviets compensate for and rectify their "unreasonable pricing system" and "inequitable payment" in the Sino-Soviet trade. The CCP criticized Moscow for its failure to adhere to the principle of mutual respect and equality, and also expressed "serious" concerns over Soviet "chauvinistic'' treatment of the brotherly socialist countries. Under the Chinese pressure, Moscow returned the money it had presumably overcharged China in trade and accepted a "more equitable" pricing and payment system.
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Entertaining the old Chinese belief in
li shang wanglai
(courtesy on the basis of reciprocity), CCP leaders felt that they deserved more favorable treatment from Moscow, especially in their development of nuclear weapons. While Khrushchev was in Beijing in 1954, Mao already had probed the possibility that Moscow could help China get the bomb, but the Soviet leader had responded bluntly that China should concentrate on economic reconstruction, "not develop these kinds of weapons." So long as China had Soviet nuclear protection, he asserted, such weapons would be "a huge waste" for China. If China wanted to develop a nuclear energy industry, the Soviet Union "can assist in building a small atomic reactor" for training and scientific research purposes. Evidently disappointed at and skeptical of Khrushchev's offer, Mao replied, "Let us think it over before making any decisions."
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Mao soon discovered that the Soviets were willing to extend a nuclear umbrella over China but not to help the Chinese to build an atomic bomb. Moscow had sent a group of geologists to China to prospect for uranium early in 1950

 

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and on January 20, 1955, signed an agreement on a Sino-Soviet joint effort to mine uranium. In response to China's request, the Soviet leaders, late in April of that year, agreed to provide the technology and equipment for the Chinese to construct a heavy-water-moderated reactor and a cyclotron accelerator. They also promised to help the Chinese build a laboratory for nuclear research in August 1958. All these agreements, however, provided that Soviet nuclear technology would be "for peaceful use" only.

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The Soviet policy was hardly satisfactory to Beijing, given the CCP's desire to construct its own bomb. In September 1957 Marshal Nie Rongzhen, the vice-premier in charge of military and nuclear industries, led a mission to Moscow to procure Soviet assistance in China's nuclear development. Nie's trip led to the signing of another Sino-Soviet protocol in October; in it the Soviets agreed to provide a training model of an atomic bomb and related equipment. But they deliberately left open exactly what equipment would be delivered, when, and how. When Nie pressed for more definite answers, the Soviet leaders replied that "we are not ready to discuss these issues and we won't be ready in the near future."
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In August 1958 Moscow did send a delegation to Beijing to make specific arrangements concerning the transfer of Soviet atomic technology. The Chinese leaders, however, found that "the Soviets tried to find all possible excuses not to help us." Although Moscow had dispatched, late in 1957, 102 Soviet missile specialists and two Soviet P-2 short-range ground-to-ground missiles, in fact it never intended to satisfy Beijing's quest for atomic technology and equipment.
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Rather than helping the Chinese build an atomic bomb, Moscow, at least in Beijing's view, seemingly intended to incorporate China's coastal defense into its East Asian defense system. On April 18, 1958, in a letter to Peng Dehuai, Marshal Rodion I. Malinovskii, the Soviet minister of defense, suggested "jointly" building a powerful long-wave radio station linking the Chinese navy with the Soviet navy in East Asia. Malinovskii made it clear that the Soviet Union would provide the technology and most of the money needed.
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Meeting with Mao on July 21, Pavel Iudin, the Soviet ambassador to Beijing, also proposed on behalf of Khrushchev that the Soviet navy would like to establish a joint flotilla of nuclear-powered submarines with China "for a common defense in the Far East." Iudin explained that Russia's coastal conditions were not appropriate for the Soviet navy's newly developed submarines and that China had a long coast and better "harbor conditions for our advanced [nuclear] submarines to demonstrate their strength."
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Moscow's proposals led the Chinese leaders to believe that the long-suspected Soviet intention to control China was unfolding. To confront the Soviet "joint radio station" suggestion, Mao instructed the Ministry of Defense on June

 

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6, 1958, that "China must come up with the money to pay for [the financial cost] which must not be covered by the Soviet side." Should the Soviets "take the high-handed [attitude toward us], [we] shall not respond [to their request] and let it drag for a while, or [we] may respond after the central leadership discusses it." No matter how the two governments "settle" this issue, he stressed:
China must shoulder the responsibility of capital investment for this radio station; China is duty-bound in this case. [We] may have to ask for Soviet comrades' help with regard to construction and equipment, but all the costs must be priced and paid in cash by us. [We] may share its use after it is constructed, which ought to be determined by an agreement between the two governments. This is the position of Chinese [government], not purely mine.

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On June 12, Mao directed Peng to cable Malinovskii saying that China welcomed the Soviet offers but would accept the Soviet Union's technological assistance only.
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Particularly irritated by Iudin's "joint submarine flotilla" suggestion, Mao had a long meeting with him on July 22. "After you left yesterday I could not fall asleep, nor did I have dinner," he told Iudin. "Today I invited you over to talk a bit more so that you can be [my] doctor: [after talking with you], I might be able to eat and sleep this afternoon." Mao immediately focused on the joint nuclear submarine flotilla request. He was agitated particularly by the proposed "joint ownership'' and "joint operation," because although "the issue of ownership has long before been dealt with," now it was resurfacing. He concluded firmly:
You never trust the Chinese! You only trust the Russians! [To you] the Russians are the first-class [people] whereas the Chinese are among the inferior who are dumb and careless. Therefore [you] came up with the joint ownership and operation proposition. Well, if [you] want joint ownership and operation, how about having it all let's turn into joint ownership and operation [all of our] army, navy, air force, industry, agriculture, culture, education? Or, [you] may have all of [China's] more than ten thousand kilometers long coastal line and let us only maintain a guerrilla force. With a few atomic bombs, you think you are in a position to control [us] through joint ownership. Other than [these bombs], what else [do you have] to justify [your request]?
Mao then opened old wounds. "Pressured by Stalin, [we conceded that] the Northeast and Xinjiang became two [Soviet] spheres of influence and four

 

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