Brothers in Arms (88 page)

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Authors: Odd Arne Westad

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mestic policies. The key question Mao tried to answer by introducing the lean-to-one-side approach was how to define the general direction of New China's development.

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Not surprisingly, despite the fact that the development of the CCP-Soviet relations had been tortuous during the Chinese revolution, Mao and the CCP leadership made genuine efforts to strengthen their relations with Moscow when the party was winning China's civil war. From late 1947 Mao actively prepared to visit the Soviet Union to "discuss important domestic and international issues" with Stalin.
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From January 31 to February 7, 1949, Mao and other CCP leaders received Anastas Mikoyan, a Soviet Politburo member and Joseph Stalin's representative, at Xibaipo, then CCP headquarters, and introduced him to the party's strategies and policies. As the first major contact between top CCP and Soviet leaders in many years, Mikoyan's visit proved to be the first step toward a new mutual understanding and cooperation between the CCP and the Soviet Union.
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In May and June 1949 the CCP kept the Soviets well informed of the meetings between CCP foreign relations official Huang Hua and John Leighton Stuart, U.S. ambassador to China.
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From late June to mid-August 1949, Liu Shaoqi, the CCP's second most important leader, visited Moscow. During meetings with Soviet leaders, Stalin promised Liu that the Soviet Union would give the Chinese Communists substantial political, military, and other material support. Moreover, the Soviets and the Chinese discussed the "division of labor" between them in promoting the world revolution and reached a general consensus: While the Soviet Union would remain the center of the international proletarian revolution, promoting Eastern revolution would become primarily China's duty. Liu's visit promoted Sino-Soviet strategic cooperation, making Mao and his fellow CCP leaders more confident in dealing with the international problems facing revolutionary China.
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The CCP's efforts to achieve a strategic alliance with the Soviet Unioñ culminated in December 1949-February 1950 with Mao's visit to the Soviet Union. The contacts during the visit, however, were uneasy. During Mao's first meeting with Stalin on December 16, the Soviet leader asked him what he hoped to achieve from his visit. Mao, according to his interpreter's recollections, first replied that he wanted to "bring about something that not only looked nice but also tasted delicious" an obvious reference to his wish to sign a new Sino-Soviet treaty.
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However, Stalin greatly disappointed Mao by initially emphasizing that it was not in Moscow's or Beijing's interests to abolish the 1945 Sino-Soviet treaty he had signed with the GMD.
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Mao's visit was at a deadlock for almost three weeks before the Soviets relented.
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Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai

 

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arrived in Moscow on January 20 to negotiate the details of the new alliance treaty, which was signed finally on February 14, 1950. The Chinese, however, had to agree to allow the Soviets to maintain their privileges in China's Northeast and Xinjiang

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; in exchange, the Soviets agreed to provide more military and other material support to China, including taking the responsibility of providing air defense to coastal areas of the People's Republic.
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Mao's feelings when he left Moscow to return to China must have been complicated. On one hand, he had reasons to celebrate the signing of the Sino-Soviet alliance treaty. The alliance would greatly enhance the People's Republic's security, and, more important, it would strengthen the CCP's position to promote the revolution at home: With the backing of the Soviet Union, Mao and his comrades were in a powerful position to wipe out the political, economic, social, and cultural legacies of the old China and carry out China's state-building and societal transformation on the CCP's terms. It was not just rhetoric when the CCP chairman, after returning to Beijing, told his comrades that the making of the Sino-Soviet alliance would help the CCP to cope with both domestic and international threats to the Chinese revolution.
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On the other hand, however, Mao could clearly sense that a divergence persisted between Stalin and himself. Stalin's raw use of the language of power put Mao off. Mao's wish to discuss revolutionary ideals and the Communists' historical responsibilities came to nothing. Mao never enjoyed meeting Stalin face to face, and he was extremely sensitive toward Stalin treating him, the revolutionary leader from the "Central Kingdom," as the inferior "younger brother.
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The signing of the Sino-Soviet treaty made the lean-to-one-side approach the cornerstone for PRC foreign relations, yet, because of the way it was worked out, the future development of Sino-Soviet relations was bound to be uneasy.
The Alliance and Chlna's Entry into the Korean War
The first major test for the Sino-Soviet alliance came just eight months after it had been established, when, in October 1950, the CCP leadership decided to dispatch Chinese troops to enter the Korean War. From Beijing's perspective, such a test not only allowed Mao and his comrades to define more specifically the alliance's utility for China's national security; it also provided them with a valuable opportunity to better understand how the alliance would serve Mao's continuous revolution projects. China's Korean War experience, consequently, would profoundly influence both Mao's concerns about the future of the Chinese Revolution and the future development of the Sino-Soviet alliance.
As revealed by new Russian and Chinese sources, the Korean War was, first of all, North Korean leader Kim Il Sung's war, which he initiated on the basis of his judgment (or misjudgment) of the revolutionary situation existing on the

 

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Korean peninsula.

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Stalin initially feared that such a war could result in direct military conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States, and he did not endorse Kim's plans of unifying his country by military means until the end of January 1950, when U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson's statement of excluding Korea from America's western Pacific defense perimeter appears to have convinced him that direct U.S. military intervention in the peninsula was unlikely.
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In the months prior to the outbreak of the Korean War, the Soviet Union provided large amounts of military aid to the Korean Communists, but Stalin had reservations on two key issues. First, he never made the commitment to use Soviet military forces in Korea. Second, he insisted that Kim travel to Beijing to consult with Mao Zedong, so that the Chinese Communists would share responsibility for Kim's war preparations.
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Mao and the CCP leadership faced a dilemma on the Korean issue. Since the remaining Nationalist forces were still occupying Taiwan, Mao and his comrades were reluctant to see a war to break out in Korea; they worried that that might complicate the situation in East Asia and jeopardize the CCP's effort to liberate Taiwan.
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Yet, because Mao and his comrades were eager to revive China's central position on the international scene through supporting revolutionary movements in other countries (especially in East Asia), and because between the Chinese and North Korean Communists there existed profound historical connections, it would have been inconceivable for Mao to veto Kim's plans to unify his country through a revolutionary war.
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From 1949 to 1950, in meeting North Korean leaders (including Kim II Sung in mid-May 1950), Mao made it clear that the CCP supported the Korean revolution but hoped that the Koreans would not initiate the invasion of the South until the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) had seized Taiwan.
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In the meantime, during Mao's 1949-1950 visit to the Soviet Union, the CCP chairman shared with Stalin his belief that it was unlikely that the United States would involve itself in a revolutionary civil war in East Asia, thus enhancing Stalin's determination to back Kim's plans to invade the South.
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Further, from summer 1949 to spring 1950, the Chinese sent 50,000 to 70,000 Korean-nationality PLA soldiers (with weapons) back to Korea.
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As a result, Mao virtually gave Kim's plan to invade the South a green light.
The Korean War erupted on June 25, 1950. U.S. President Harry Truman quickly decided to come to the rescue of Syngman Rhee's South Korean regime and to dispatch the Seventh Fleet to "neutralize" the Taiwan Straits, which changed the Korean War into an international crisis. Chinese leaders quickly decided to postpone the invasion of Taiwan and to focus on dealing with the crisis in Korea.
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On July 13 the CCP leadership formally established a Northeast Border Defense Army, the main task of which was to prepare for military interven-

 

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tion in Korea in case the war turned against North Korea.

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By early August over 260,000 Chinese troops had taken up positions along the Chinese-Korean border.
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On August 18 Mao set the end of September as the deadline for these troops to complete preparations for military operations in Korea.
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Beijing based its handling of the Korean crisis on the assumption that if China entered the Korean War, the Soviet Union would honor its obligations in accordance with the Sino-Soviet alliance treaty and provide China with all kinds of support, including ammunition, military equipment, and air cover for Chinese land forces. Early in July, when the Chinese leaders informed Stalin of the decision to establish the Northeast Border Defense Army, Stalin supported it and promised that if the Chinese troops were to fight in Korea, the Soviet Union would "try to provide air cover for these units."
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In the following weeks the Soviets accelerated military deliveries to China, and a Soviet air force division, with 122 MiG-15 fighters, entered China's Northeast (Manchuria) to help with air defense there.
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All of this must have enhanced Beijing's belief that China's entry into the Korean War would warrant substantial Soviet military support.
When the course of war reversed after U.S. troops landed at Inchon on September 15, however, Stalin's attitude regarding Soviet military assistance changed. He became more determined than ever to avoid a direct military confrontation with the United States. In a telegram to Chinese leaders dated October 1, Stalin pointed out that the situation in Korea was grave and that without outside support, the Korean Communist regime would collapse. He thus asked the Chinese to dispatch their troops to Korea. It is noticeable, however, that he did not mention what support the Soviet Union would offer China, let alone touch on the question of Soviet air support.
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At this time, serious differences in opinions already existed among top Chinese leaders on whether China should enter the war. Mao favored dispatching troops to Korea. On October 2 he personally drafted a long telegram to respond to Stalin's request, informing Stalin that the Chinese leadership had decided "to send a portion of our troops, under the name of [Chinese People's] Volunteers, to Korea, assisting the Korean comrades to fight the troops of the United States and its running dog Syngman Rhee." Mao summarized the reasons for this decision, emphasizing that even though China's intervention might cause a war between China and the United States, it was necessary for the sake of the Korean and Eastern revolutions. Mao also made it clear that in order to defeat the American troops in Korea, China needed substantial Soviet military support as well as air cover for Chinese land forces.
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Mao, however, apparently failed to dispatch this telegram, probably because of the divided opinions among top CCP leaders.
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According to Russian archival documents, Mao met with Nikolai Roshchin, the Soviet ambassador to

 

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