Vladilen

Vorontsov

FROM US China Policy

THE
MISSIONARY
DAYS
TO
REAGAN

m
Progress Publishers
Moscow
Translated from the Russian by David Skvirsky
Designed by Vladimir Bisengaliev

В. Б. Воронцов

ОТ МИССИОНЕРОВ ДО РЕЙГАНА
(Политика США в отношении Китая)

На английском языке

© Политиздат, 1986
English translation of the revised Russian text © Progress Publishers 1987

Printed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

0801000000— 190^
B- 014 ( 01)—87 -36—87
Contents
Page

Introduction ............................................................................................... 9
Chapter One. Missionaries “Discover” China: Hopes and Disappoint­
ments ..............................., ................................................................. 19
Chapter Two. The US Fiasco in China (1 9 4 0 s)............................................35
Chapter Three. “Asia First” ................................................................................ 58
Chapter Four. On the Road of C onfrontation................................................ 78
Chapter Five. The Dulles Policy and Its Reassessment . . . . 98
Chapter Six. Turn Towards P a rtn e rsh ip .................................................... 130
Chapter Seven. US Far Eastern Commitments: Test of Credibility 172
Chapter Eight. Balancing in a Tense S itu a tio n ............................................196
Chapter Nine. Leftist Liberalism and Right-Wing Anti-Communism 222
Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 258
Many alumni of the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies of
the mid-1950s had the good fortune to study under such pro­
minent academics as, for instance, professor G.N. Voitinsky,
who left a deep imprint in my memory. In the 1920s Voitinsky
had written of his meetings with the great son of the Chine­
se people, Dr. Sun Yatsen. At the Moscow Institute of Oriental
Studies Voitinsky endeavoured to convey to students his in­
herent optimism, his hope that socialism would be established
in China.
S.L. Tikhvinsky and G.V. Yefimov, among others, soon won
renown as Orientalists. Taking over from G.N. Voitinsky, they
closely studied the heritage of Dr. Sun Yatsen and showed how
significant this heritage was for the development of friendly
relations between the Soviet and Chinese peoples. In those years
we saw the events in the Far East basically as an unhindered
process of the spread and triumph of socialist ideas.
But already then among Soviet Orientalists there were vari­
ous opinions about the development of the revolutionary pro­
cess in China. Some called this a people’s democratic revolution,
others believed that it was an anti-imperialist, anti-feudal
revolution, and still others were convinced that Chinese society
was undergoing a socialist restructuring. However that may be,
our perception of the political events in China, of the develop­
ment of Soviet-Chinese relations depended chiefly on the pre­
vailing atmosphere.
We rejoiced over the proclamation of the People’s Republic
of China, knew of the immense assistance our country was ex­
tending to China in building the foundations of socialism, and
5
 many of our alumni had grounds for regarding themselves
involved in this construction. As members of the Moscow YCL
organisation of those years, we felt it was our duty to contribute
to the success of the visits of Chinese youth delegates to our
country. We were familiar with the name of Hu Yaobang, then
First Secretary of the New Democratic Youth League of China
CC, and heard his speeches, in which time and again he
urged closer friendship between the young people of the USSR
and China.
Those who continued working as Orientalists often recalled
the years when the foundation of friendly relations between
the Soviet Union and China was built. There was a big demand
for books on Soviet-Chinese relations that came out in the
1950s. “The friendship between the Soviet and Chinese
peoples, which has deep roots and long-standing tradi­
tions,” Kapitsa noted, “withstood stern tests and no force could
prevent its growth. Both peoples will go on strengthening their
friendship and cooperation.” Of course, even as early as the
1950s people in the Soviet Union knew that there were other
sentiments among part of the Chinese leadership. But our com­
rades saw their duty in mustering every effort to foster the in­
ternationalist tendencies in the development of Soviet-Chinese
relations. The Orientalists who began their career in the 1950s
saw these relations as a reflection of the revolutionary, genuinely
internationalist currents in the history of the USSR and China.
In those years, at the height of the cold war, of the
American witch-hunt, people in the USA avidly read the
works of Owen Lattimore, who was one of the first victims
of McCarthyism. It was precisely then that in the USA much was
said about the “loss” of China to the USA and a feverish search
was instituted to find those responsible for this “loss”. Those
who were charged with betraying US interests clearly stated
their stand: Can one lose something that one does not have?
In 1958 John K. Fairbanks The United States and China was
published in the USA. Recognised as the leading US Sinologist,
Fairbank urged his countrymen to accept the political real­
ities of China without embellishment, to avoid subjectivist
assessments of these realities, to desist from wishful think­
ing, and try to acquire a clear understanding of the fundamen­
tal distinctions between the Chinese and American societies.
6
 Fairbanks conclusion was that Americans could not remake
Chinese society along the pattern of their own society but
should help to draw the West and China closer together.
Ever since the initial US penetration into China, the US
attitude to China has undergone many changes. America's rulers
looked on the revolution in China with horror, American liberals
saw it as bringing the Chinese people deliverance from the
detested Chiang Kai-shek regime, while American progressives
welcomed the triumph of the Communist Party of China.
The political developments in China were ideologically
unacceptable to the conservative Republican right wing, from
John Foster Dulles and Douglas MacArthur to Richard Nixon
and Ronald Reagan. But in the 1970s and 1980s they reconsider­
ed the basic guidelines of their policy towards China. This evo­
lution inevitably took into consideration the changes in Chi­
na itself and in the posture of China’s leaders towards the
USSR.
In the USA, as in the entire capitalist world, considerable
optimism was generated when China embarked upon an Open
Door policy in the 1980s. But the question of how useful this pol­
icy would be in terms of Western interests has never lost its
significance, especially to Washington. Of course, in the USA
they are hoping that the internal changes in China will open the
door to capitalist development in that country. US protagonists
of closer relations with China have their sights on both current
and long-term foreign policy aims. They are encouraged by, in
particular, the circumstance that individual ranking government
officials in China are amassing wealth and degenerating. In
China the objective conditions have indeed taken shape for this.
Deng Xiaoping’s words about there being “two systems in one
state” are not simply a slogan; they reflect the fact that ele­
ments of capitalism are developing in China. Capitalism’s essence
does not change, of course. The market economy fosters con­
sumer sentiments among different sections of the Chinese people
and inflames the passion for gain. Concerned over capitalism’s
destinies in the world, American politicians are using all the
means at their disposal to promote the development of
bureaucratic-capitalist tendencies in China.
To what extent is the experience of US-Chinese relations
consistent with the intentions of the West, of the USA in the
7
 first place, to stimulate the development of capitalist tenden­
cies in China? Can the revolutionary, progressive traditions of
the Chinese people’s historical past exercise a restraining
influence on such tendencies in that country? What are the
potentialities and limits for the development of relations be­
tween the USA and China? In this book, the author endeavours
to answer these and related questions.
The author has attempted to analyse Sino-American relations
from the angle of history, ideology, and politics. Naturally, he
examines subjects that he feels are of the greatest import and
interest. This is a vast theme and many of its aspects, dealt
with only in outline or omitted in this book, will unquestion­
ably be researched by other scholars.

Vladilen Vorontsov
INTRODUCTION

A major factor shaping China’s present foreign policy and

substantiating and justifying the changes that have taken place
in China’s relations with the West has been the relevant inter­
pretation of historical experience, primarily the experience of
US-Chinese relations. In 1972, when President Richard Nixon
visited Beijing, the mass media both in the USA and in China
hailed the idea that friendship between the Chinese and Ameri­
can peoples was traditional.
What Richard Nixon started was continued in the 1980s by
his party associate Ronald Reagan. On April 27,1984, during his
visit to China, President Ronald Reagan addressed community
leaders in the Great Hall of the People. He reminded his listeners
that Richard Nixon, who had visited China 12 years before him,
“turned a new page” in the history of the USA and China. Rea­
gan evidently realised that having mentioned the “new page”, no
American political leader could afford to forget the pages pre­
ceding it. He spoke of America’s long interest in China, which,
he said, dated back to the beginning of the USA’s history. In
support of this interest he referred to the Founding Fathers of
the USA—George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jef­
ferson—whose personal dinner settings were of Chinese origin.
He spoke in glowing terms of the first American acquaintance­
ship with China. “Back in 1784, when the first American
trading ship, the Empress of China, entered your waters," Rea­
gan told his hosts, “my country was unknown to you. We were
a new republic, eager to win a place in international commerce.”
Much of the freight aboard the first United States ship to
China was owned by Robert Morris. He was not mentioned by
9
 Reagan, although researchers into the history of US expan­
sion note that to the period of primary accumulation of US
capital of the eighteenth century Robert Morris was approxi­
mately what Rockefeller was to industrial capitalism of the nine­
teenth. The President’s drilled assistants inserted into his speech
an excerpt from a letter written home by an American seaman,
who described his visit to China, writing that the Amer­
icans managed to persuade the Chinese of the importance of
trade. Some American political personalities and academics are
more restrained in their assessments of the history of US-Chinese
relations. In many of their writings they note that the ships
that returned from China to America (some did not return)
brought enormous wealth, rare spices, and the hope of more
riches. The flags flown by these ships might well have borne the
words: “For God, gold, and glory!” It was not the desire to pro­
mote trade for the good of the two countries but the ambitions of
the capitalists that motivated US expansion in the East.
In the Great Hall of the People President Reagan said that
since the close of the eighteenth century the USA and China
had both profited from the exchange of people and that “Chinese
settlers helped tame” the American continent. It evidently es­
caped his mind that American businessmen used cheap Chinese
labour to drain marshes and grow rice, fruit, tea, tobacco, cot­
ton, etc. Chinese began crowding out American workers, partic­
ularly in industries that employed mainly manual labour, com­
peting “in the labour market with American workers on the ba­
sis of the Chinese living standard, which was the lowest of all”.1
The gold rush in California and then the railway construction
boom stimulated the employment of cheap imported labour. In
league with Chinese suppliers of labour, Chinese businessmen
redoubled their efforts to recruit workers. In 1850 there were
600 Chinese working in California’s goldfields; within ten years
their number rose to 30,000. The interests of American and Chi­
nese businessmen intertwined in the employment of cheap Chi­
nese labour. Both the former and the latter were in the grip of an
elementary drive for profit. But as the Chinese population in
the USA grew and the positions of the Chinese suppliers of la-
1 “Engels an Nikolai Franzewitsch Danielson in Petersburg. London,
22 September 1892”, in Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Werke, Bd. 38,
Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1968, p. 470.

10
hour gained strength, anti-Chinese feeling increased in various
segments of American society. Some states passed laws that were
undisguisedly racist and struck at Chinese immigrants. The Chi­
nese worker was duped by Chinese businessmen and made the
victim of political gambles by American businessmen, who went
to all lengths to blunt the social thrust of the growing working-
class movement.
Chinese historians will hardly forget that the foundation
of the mammoth fortunes of American’s wealthiest families was
built by cheap Chinese labour.
American academics could not, of course, refrain from
attempts at taking a new look at the past experience of relations
with China. For instance, in seeking the roots of the USA’s China
policy of the 1970s in events of the distant past, Marvin Kalb and
Elie Abel offer the conclusion that US foreign policy in Asia
has been more or less stable during the last 200 years. Judging by
their studies, there is absolutely no evidence in history that the
USA was guided by imperialist motives, that the only proof ob­
tainable is that the USA had been magnanimous and that it had
inaccurately assessed its potentialities for attaining its “lofty”
aims in Asia. These theories are hardly new. The spokesmen of
US anti-colonialism have always counterposed the “exclusive­
ness” of American experience in Asian affairs to West European
colonialism. In the 1840s Caleb Cushing, who led a military and
diplomatic mission to China, publicly stigmatised the actions
of the British in China. But in conversations with his coun­
trymen he spoke favourably of British policy in China. Dur­
ing the Opium Wars in China (1840-1842), when the Bri­
tish fought and the Americans remained neutral, Britain be­
nefited enormously from US neutrality. As neutrals, the Amer­
icans in many cases protected British property in and out­
side China. The first shackling Sino-US treaty was signed
in 1844, when the USA took advantage of Britain’s victory
in China and used the threat of force to achieve objectives
that were not lofty in any sense.
Caleb Cushing was one of the first Americans to begin
talks with China from positions of strength. He arrived in
China at the hlead of a special mission authorised to conclude
a treaty with the Chinese authorities. The guns of three
US naval vessels were his strongest arguments to justify the
li
 objectives of his mission. Through a demonstration of naval
strength Cushing forced the unequal 1844 treaty upon the
Chinese authorities in Wangxia. This treaty exacted larger
concessions from the Chinese than they had made in their trea­
ties with Britain (1842-1843). The Americans obtained extra­
territorial rights, most-favoured nation status in trade, a clause
stipulating that the treaty would be revised in 12 years, and so
forth.
In 1856, when the British started hostilities in China,
the Chinese coast was shelled heavily by United States warships.
The US Navy was built, writes the American Sinologist John
K. Fairbank, chiefly as a defence against pirates from the Mos­
lem states of North Africa. (“The Navy was built to protect this
[US] trade by police action.”) 1 Many of the naval officers who
operated on the Barbary Coast turned up in the Far East twenty
or thirty years later. Fairbank cites the example of Commo­
dore Perry, who began his career on the Barbary Coast in the
1820s. According to Fairbank, the US fleet stationed along
the Chinese coast operated in the spirit of the “defensive” tradi­
tions formed in the clashes with pirates. However, it was none
other than Commodore Matthew Galbraith Perry who urged
determined action with the objective of establishing an Ameri­
can protectorate over Siam, Cambodia, Borneo, and other te­
rritories. It was none other than he, acting contrary to the spirit
of “defensive” traditions, who insisted that the US Navy Depa­
rtment turn Formosa into an American base in the Far East.
In the Pacific and, particularly, in China, the Americans
acted independently of the European powers, often imitating the
worst patterns of behaviour from the history of colonialism.
Small wonder that US statesmen and their associates from
among the political community of their country called the Pacif­
ic a “sphere of traditional US interests”. In the nineteenth cen­
tury unequal treaties were forced upon China and Korea by
military strength and by subterfuges.
The Chinese attained an intimate knowledge of Americans
when Frederick Townsend Ward, who had by then acquired no­
toriety as a soldier of fortune, appeared in China in 1860. The
colonial powers had sided irrevocably with the imperial govern-
1 John K. Fairbank, Chinese-American Interactions: A Historical Sum ­
mary, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1975, pp. 12-13.

12
 ment against the Chinese people (Boxer Uprising). The Qing
court signed unequal treaties with colonial powers (the
USA forced the Tianjin [Tientsin] Treaty of 1858 on Chi­
na, and the 1901 Protocol was signed under pressure from the
USA after the Yihetuan—Boxer—Uprising was crushed).
Ward, having struck a deal with the imperial court, decided to
muster an army of cutthroats. Spurred by easy gain, riffraff with
criminal elements among them responded to his call for recruits.
At first only foreigners were admitted to this army of thugs, but
later Ward began recruiting Chinese as well. For every town
taken from the rebels Ward received payment ranging from the
equivalent of 40,000 to 130,000 dollars. The “great American
citizen”, as Ward is called by some Western historians, relied on
the touching unity among the colonialists. Ward’s mercenaries
got their weapons and equipment from the British, and in many
of their punitive operations they were supported by marines
from British and French frigates. In the nineteenth century
the Chinese people thus saw the true face of their foreign
friends, and the worth of the assurances dispensed generously
by the colonialists. If John K. Fairbank is to be believed, up
to the year 1870 the Americans acted as private persons, op­
erating independently of their government and motivated entire­
ly by a thirst for adventure or gain. In this context a rosy picture
is given of the activities of Anson Burlingame, who was the
American minister in China. Western, particularly US, historio­
graphy peddles the legend that in the 1860s Burlingame contri­
buted to building up “friendly” relations between China and the
USA. Americans thought highly of the activities of their diplo­
mat, so much so that an American poet, Oliver Holmes, dedica­
ted a poem to him. Holmes wrote with rapture—the topicality of
this poem is mentioned by Fairbank—about there being features
in common between East and West, between China and the USA.
In his despatches Burlingame wrote bluntly that (“if neces­
sary”) the Western powers could intervene in China’s internal
affairs. He justified the operations of the foreign troops aimed
at suppressing the Taiping movement, which was a spontaneous
protest of the Chinese people against the Qing tyranny. Indeed,
Burlingame’s practical actions also show the hollowness of the
argument that in US-Chinese relations the miscalculations and
“misunderstandings” of the past were accidental. In 1868, in
13
 collaboration with the US Secretary of State William Henry Se­
ward, Anson Burlingame drafted a treaty with China, known as
the Burlingame Treaty, that de jure codified new forms of
slave-trade. The treaty gave American businessmen the possibili­
ty of using cheap Chinese labour shipped to the USA from
China. This subsequently led to an uncontrolled growth of Chi­
nese immigration in the USA with the resultant difficult internal
problems for the government in Washington. One of the clauses
of the Burlingame Treaty envisaged the possibility of giving the
USA jurisdiction over part of China’s territory and its inhabi­
tants, and although this treaty contained the reservation that spe­
cial agreement would be needed for this it was evidence of the
colonial essence of the USA’s China policy.
By the mid-nineteenth century the US political and military
machine had acquired vast experience of armed adventure in the
Pacific and of the barbarous use of weapons against civilians in
China, Korea, Japan, and the Pacific islands. In the nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries US diplomacy still did not feel it
was necessary to shift and dodge in order to produce suitable
justification for plunder and violence. In complex situations
US political leaders used what they saw as the best possible
pretexts: “the need to punish natives’’, “protection of the proper­
ty and lives of US citizens”. History shows that these pretexts
were used in China time and again by US diplomacy: the
“protection” of the interests of United States citizens in China
in 1854 and 1855; the “protection” of US interests in Guangzhou
(Canton) in 1866; the “protection” of US interests in Shanghai
in 1859; “punishment” for an attack on a US Consul in 1859; the
“punishment” of persons suspected of murdering the crew of a
United States vessel on Taiwan in 1867; the “protection” of US
interests in 1894-1895; the “protection” of the US Mission in
Beijing and of the US Consulate in Tianjin in 1898-1899; the
“protection” of the interests of foreign powers during the Boxer
Uprising in 1900; “protection” of private property in Hangzhou
and Shanghai and the landing of troops in Nanking in 1911; the
“protection” of US interests in 1912; the “protection” of US
property in Beijing and the road to the sea in 1912; “protec­
tion” of US property in China in 1920, 1924, and 1925-1927.
The appetites of the young US monopolies grew. They could
no longer be satisfied by the domestic market, by internal re-
14
sources. The American bourgeoisie was increasingly attracted by
the idea of extending its influence beyond the frontiers of its
own country. The most important factor motivating plans for
further expansion was the seizure of the Philippines. US impe­
rialism, to quote Lenin, saw the conquest of the Philippines as “a
step towards Asia and C h i n a " } In the US Congress states­
men argued about “protecting American interests”, while mil­
itary leaders and businessmen, driven by a thirst for profit,
vainglory, or simply adventure resorted to force, deceit, or
cunning to compel Eastern nations to sign unequal treaties,
giving the former extraterritorial rights and other benefits in
return for promises of “good services” in time of need, and
demanded the opening of ports, trade benefits, and so forth. The
United States embarked upon the building of an empire. The
ideologues of the “American age” dreamed of an empire extend­
ing ever farther to the south (Central and South America) and
to the west (the Pacific basin). The USA was moving into leading
economic and political positions, pushing Britain into the back­
ground. The American bourgeoisie followed in the footsteps of
the colonialists, complying with the classical canons of colo­
nialism and contributing to capitalist expansion in Asia. In
effect, the USA became the spiritual heir to European colonial­
ism in Asia.
Through United States representatives in London, St Pe­
tersburg, and Berlin, on September 6, 1899, US Secretary of
State John Hay addressed notes to the governments concerned,
declaring that the USA wanted freedom of trade in China. Simi­
lar notes were later received by the governments of France, Ja­
pan, and Italy. This was, in effect, the official birth of the Open
Door, or Hay, doctrine.
In many American non-Marxist studies the Open Door doct­
rine is portrayed as a boon for the Chinese people, as evidence of
the USA’s lofty intention of “achieving justice”. The architects
of the Open Door doctrine linked it to, as Fairbank believes,
apprehensions about Russian expansion in Manchuria and dem­
onstrated the aspirations of the Americans to achieve what
they termed as “political justice”. One can hardly dispute the an­
ti-Russian thrust of the doctrine, but its true objectives were1
1 V. I. Lenin, “Notebooks on Imperialism", Collected Works, Vol. 39,
Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1976, p. 210.

15
much broader. Was it not with this doctrine to fall back upon
that the USA paved the way for expansion in China? Was it not
this doctrine that was the weapon of US capital against Euro­
pean competition? Although its methods differed from those of
European policy, US policy in China was expansionist. N. Gor­
don Levin, an exponent of Wilsonian “liberal anti-imperialism”,
saw United States “anti-colonialism”, born in the crucible of in­
ter-imperialist contradictions, as the USA’s new approach to the
world’s colonial problems. “New Freedom Foreign Policy in re­
gard to China and Latin America, during Wilson’s first term,”
Levin writes, “exemplified the relation of the President’s ideolo­
gy of moral and material export to his liberal anti-imperialism.” 1
What was Wilson’s “anti-imperialism” relative to China? In
answering this question. Levin obviously had in mind the
attitude of many of his fellow-countrymen who charged Wil­
son with disregarding the USA’s national interests. The Wil­
sonian concern for the “territorial integrity, stability,
and political independence of China” was not, according
to Levin, “an abstract anti-imperialist position”. “Ac­
tually,” he writes, “Wilson’s opposition to the traditional
policies of spheres of influence ... was inextricably bound
up with his concept of the type of liberal world order of com­
mercial freedom within which the genius of American cap­
italism could best win its rightful place in the markets
of the world.”*2 Levin notes that such a League-supported
programme of non-discriminatory trade and the “peaceful”
capitalist penetration of the world’s underdeveloped areas
was to foster the Open Door policy in Asia and Africa.3
Chinese historians of the 1950s wrote much about the
Open Door doctrine, exposing it as a cover for United States
expansion of China, as the commencement of the struggle
between US imperialism and Japan for control over China.4
However, an improvement of relations between China and the
' N. Gordon Levin, Jr., Woodrow Wilson and World Politics. America’s
Response to War and Revolution, Oxford University Press, New York,
1968, p. 18.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid., p. 237.
4 Hu Sheng, Aggression in China by Imperialist Powers, Moscow, 1951,
translated from the Chinese (in Russian); Liu Danian, US Aggression in
China: a History, Moscow, 1953, translated from the Chinese (in Russian).

16
 USA and the establishment of diplomatic relations between
them induced Beijing to reconsider the assessments of the US
Open Door doctrine offered previously by Chinese historians.
Indicative in this respect is an article by Wang Xi (in
the journal World History, No 3, 1979), in which the
USA is portrayed as a supporter of China’s territorial in­
tegrity despite having had the intention of consolidating and ex­
tending its own economic and political interests. This Chinese
historian reminds the USA of its “miscalculations” in giving
effect to the Open Door doctrine; this, he notes, was seen in
Washington’s “indecision”, in its reluctance to take a more
energetic stand against its rivals in China, primarily Russia,
of course.
The true motivations of the Europeans and Americans in the
East have been shown by the Marxists. It was not “moral values”,
as is claimed by many bourgeois academics, but the interests of
capital that formed the locomotive spreading West European
and United States influence in Asia. The attempts to justify co­
lonialist outrage in China had been denounced by Karl Marx.
“Wherever the real demand for commodities imported into
Asiatic countries does not answer the supposed demand—which,
in most instances, is calculated on such superficial data as the
extent of the new market, the magnitude of the population, and
the vent foreign wares used to find at some outstanding sea­
ports—commercial men, in their eagerness at securing a larger
area of exchange, are too prone to account for their disap­
pointment by the circumstance that artificial arrangements,
invented by barbarian Governments, stand in their way, and
may, consequently, be cleared away by main force... Thus the
artificial obstacles foreign commerce was supposed to encoun­
ter on the part of the Chinese authorities, formed, in fact, the
great pretext which, in the eyes of the mercantile world,
justified every outrage committed on the Celestial Empire.” 1
As the turbulent Sino-US dialogue developed in the 1970s,
many officials in Washington missed no opportunity to remind
the world of the “touching concern” shown by American philan­
thropists for their “Chinese proteges”. Some historians have al-
1 Karl Marx, "Trade With China”, in Karl Marx, Frederick Engels,
Collected Works, Vol. 16, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1980, pp. 536-37.

2-0768 17
together written off US expansion in China, flagrant interfer­
ence of the colonial powers in China’s internal affairs, claiming
that there only were “mistakes”, “misunderstandings”, and the
like.
Many Americans who wrote books about China in those years
deliberately sought to persuade people that the USA had always
had the desire to facilitate the creation of a united and inde­
pendent China, to act exclusively for the good of the Chinese
people. Under this same pretext attempts are being made to
justify, for instance, US interference in China’s internal affairs,
its support for the bankrupt Chiang Kai-shek regime, the
aggression against the Korean people that was a direct threat
to China itself and, lastly, the aggression in Indochina, attrib­
uting all this to errors and miscalculations by individual
statesmen and political leaders (Patrick J. Hurley, Douglas
Mac Arthur, John Foster Dulles, and others). It cannot be said,
of course, that US political leaders and historians had not for­
merly been in the habit of saying that in relation to China
their fellow-countrymen were disinterested and altruistic, of
claiming that a “sense of justice” was the principal motivation
of the USA’s China policy. But in the books about China pub­
lished in the period of the normalisation of US-Chinese relations,
such claims have become very visible indeed.
The years that have passed since the publication of the
Shanghai communique (1972) have shown what complications
and contradictions the process of Sino-American detente is en­
countering. Contradictions between Beijing and Washington
over Taiwan grew acute in 1982. The compromise achieved did
not mean an extinguishing of such contradictions.
The ups and downs in Sino-US relations are due not only to
the political situation. These relations are influenced by the
impact of historical traditions, by the glaring differences in
the economic development of China and the USA, and by dis­
tinctions of a social and ideological character.
CHAPTER ONE

MISSIONARIES “DISCOVER” CHINA:

HOPES AND DISAPPOINTMENTS

First Steps

American missionaries began their systematic penetration of

China early in the nineteenth century. In 1812 the American
Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions consisted of influ­
ential members of the Congregational and Presbyterian Churches
in the USA. China became one of the Board’s main objec­
tives. The Qing Closed Door policy was a serious impediment to
the advance of the American missions that the American Board
was planning to establish in that country. US religious organisa­
tions began spreading their evangelical activities to the coun­
tries around China and then, having acquired some experience,
they planned a massive expansion in China.
The arrival of the first Protestant missionary in Canton
in 1807 was a noteworthy event. As the first British missionary
in China, Robert Morrison might have been expected to enjoy
the extraordinary patronage of the British Crown. But the facts
tell quite a different story. When Morrison landed in China
he had in the pocket a letter of recommendation from the US
Secretary of State James Madison to the United States Consul
in Guangzhou. He arrived in China aboard an American vessel,
while American merchants had not only financed his voyage but
given him every possible moral and material assistance. Morri­
son’s arrival in China was one of the early testimonies not only
of the unity between the American bourgeoisie, which was
strengthening its positions, and the British colonialists, but also a
striking illustration of the growing interest that American
business was showing in missionary activity in China. Ever since
the young American bourgeoisie appeared in the arena of world
trade, which was growing rapidly, the knowledge that Americans
19
 had of China and the Chinese had of the USA was formed lar­
gely under the influence of the adherents of the missionary
movement, from the links that were established between the heirs
of the Pilgrim Fathers and their pupils in China.
With the laying of a new milestone in the development
of relations between Beijing and Washington, a milestone
clearly marked out by the visit of US President Richard
M. Nixon to the PRC in 1972, Chinese and United States his­
torians had a ponderable reason for looking back over the
history of Sino-US relations and over the history of the
missionary movement. After the death of Mao Zedong Chinese
historians variously assessed the activities of the Christian
Church in China. Some—for example, Wang Xi—wrote
that the American missionaries played a positive role in
China,1 while Ding Mingnan, Zhang Zhenkun*2 showed that the
American missionaries were nothing less than an instrument
of foreign aggression in China. The former viewpoint is
very close to that of American pundits, who for their
part sought to praise the efforts of their countrymen in
^reading Christianity in China and thereby helping to create
a more conducive political atmosphere for the promotion of
relations between the USA and China.
The exponents of the various viewpoints about the role of the
Christian Church in China do not deny that the missionaries
left an imprint on the history of US-Chinese relations. Huang
Hua, who became Foreign Minister and Deputy Premier of
the PRC soon after Mao Zedong’s death, was one of the many
Chinese who studied at Yanjing University, which was under the
control of missionary organisations. The American journalist
Edgar P. Snow saw in Huang Hua a “Christian Communist’’.
“Having dropped the supernaturalism of the faith, which is
irreconcilable with Chinese rationalism’’, young people of
Huang Hua’s stamp were, Snow wrote, “able to synthesize the
social teachings of Christianity with their daily political
catechism’’. He assumed that the “elemental ad apostolic
equalitarianism” of local life fostered the illusion that this
was expedient behaviour. In this context he cited the self-
sacrifice of Father Vincent Lebbe, a Belgian priest, who took his
' Shijie lishi. No. 3, 1979, (Beijing), pp. 11-23.
2 Jindai shi yartjiu. No. 2, 1979, (Beijing), pp. 89-113.
20
Christian hospital to join the CPC’s armed forces and declared
that he felt no conflict between his principles and those pract­
ised by General Zhu De (Chu T eh )1.
Confronted by social and political changes in China, the
foreign missionaries had to have recourse to more flexible
forms of activity, to show tolerance, find a common language
with people of a different faith, and take the population’s sen­
timents and thinking into account. Father Vincent Lebbe’s deed
was a natural one in the light of clerical modernism. The turn
by students (such as Huang Hua) from Christian educational
institutions to the revolutionary movement was also quite natu­
ral. In China the Christian Church was hit by a serious reli­
gious crisis, when the upsurge of the anti-imperialist movement
was seen clearly in, among other things, intense anti-missionary
actions.
In some American propaganda publications the discourses
about US “traditional friendship” with China are usually replete
with arguments claiming that the missionaries had made a huge
“enlightening contribution” not only to Chinese culture but also
to the Chinese revolution. It is asserted that the missionaries
came to China exclusively for educational purposes, in order
to enlighten the “ignorant” Chinese people by bringing the
“word of God” to them. In this context propagandists often quote
words spoken by John Griffith at a China missionary confer­
ence in 1877: “We are here, not to develop the resources of the
country, not for the advancement of commerce, not for mere
promotion of civilization; but to do battle with the powers of
darkness, to save men from sin, and conquer China for Christ.”12
These propagandists claim that John Griffith and his associates
played a “constructive” role, and usually try to show the mission­
ary movement in China as activity that had nothing at all in
common with economic and political expansion.
The development of US-Chinese relations in the 1970s re­
quired that American historians look for new themes that would
reaffirm that the US missionary movement played a creative
role, that it had a constructive impact on the destiny of the Chi-
1 Edgar Snow, The Bailie for Asia, Random House, New York, 1941,
p. 252.
2 Jessie Gregory Lutz, China and the Christian Colleges. 1850-1950,
Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1971, p. 11.

21
nese revolution. In line with the euphoria about China in the
early 1970s, quite a few books were published in an effort to show
how much noble work was done by the American missionaries
who set up a network of Christian educational institutions for
the alleged purpose of saving “heathen souls from eternal fire”.
This argument is to be found not only in treatises. In the
1970s it began to appear in newspapers and journals.
However, in China they will hardly consign to oblivion the
tragedy that accompanied the first steps made by the capitalist
West in its expansion in the Far East. The American missions
were a major element of this expansion. New ports were opened
for commerce with foreign countries, and the Christian mission­
aries were given a free hand for their activities. Among them
were many, who, without fear of retaliation, approved violence
as a major means of spreading foreign influence in China. In
May 1840 they gave their blessing to what amounted to British
military actions against China and inclined the US government
to follow suit. The time had come, wrote a missionary journal
published in Guangzhou, when China had to bend or be broken.
During the Opium Wars many missionaries supported an
enlargement of the foreign expansion in China.
In 1858 the city of Tianjin (Tientsin) was besieged by Brit­
ish and French troops. In the ranks of the allies there were
Americans who portrayed themselves as “mediators”. The
American missionaries W.A. Martin and Samuel Wells Wil­
liams persistently conducted negotiations in the Chinese camp.
On May 19 a special messenger brought them the news that on
the next day the allies would storm the forts protecting the ap­
proaches to Tianjin. Despite this foreknowledge, the missio­
naries went on with the negotiations, hoping in this way to lull
the vigilance of the city’s defenders. This “mediation” of the
missionaries helped the allies take the enemy unawares. Mar­
tin, who inspected the battlefield with the eye of a con­
queror, noted: “It was a sickening sight. Trails of blood
were to be seen in all directions, and in some places it
stood in pools, while the corpses of soldiers were roast­
ing in their burning barracks.” 1
1 W.A. Martin. A Cycle of Cathay or China, South and North. With
Personal Reminiscences, Fleming H. Revell Company, New York, Chicago,
Toronto, 1896, p. 163.
 It seemed that the conditions most conducive for the activ­
ity of the missionaries in China took shape after the Brit­
ish and the French signed treaties with the Chinese (the
Tianjin Treaties of 1858). But at the turn of the century a wave
of disoffection rolled across China. This was the Yihetuan Upris­
ing during which the missionaries saw how deep-rooted the peo­
ple’s wrath was. Lenin, who was a contemporary of the Yihe­
tuan Uprising, wrote in the first issue of Iskra in December 1900:
“How can the Chinese not hate those who have come to
China solely for the sake of gain; who have utilised their
vaunted civilisation solely for the purpose of deception, plunder,
and violence ... who hypocritically carried their policy of
plunder under the guise of spreading Christianity?’’1
The anti-foreign actions under the slogan calling for struggle
against the humiliating terms of the unequal treaties forced
upon China by the West gained momentum. As a result of an
action on May 28, 1895 in Chengdu (Chengtu), Sichuan (Sze­
chwan) Province, three foreign missions, one of which was
American, were destroyed. Soon afterwards there was a rising
in Gutian (near Fuzhou [Foochow], Fujian [Fukiang] Prov­
ince). As in most other localities, the rising in Gutian was direc­
ted by secret societies. The secret Buddhist Vegetarian Society,
which had up to 12,000 members in Fujian Province, consisted
chiefly of persons who were, willy-nilly, vegetarians—the rules
banned meat, wine, tobacco, and opium; as for the poor their
joyless life fitted into these rules. Tang Gue, a scholar who led
the rising in Gutian, urged the insurgents to “kill the foreign
devils”. The tragic events at Lanzhou on October 28, 1905 are
widely known. Hundreds of Chinese attacked an American
mission. Five missionaries lost their lives. The USA responded
with vigorous military and diplomatic efforts: in Washington it
was decided to enlarge the US naval squadron in Far Eastern
waters.
The complicated dialectics of the missionary movement is
self-evident. Those who went to China to spread the Gospel
risked their lives time and again amidst hostile surroundings.
On the one hand, they sought to save children from cholera.

' V.I. Lenin, ‘T h e War in China". Collected Works, Vol. 4, 1977,

p. 373.

23
 thereby endangering their own lives. They sincerely believed
that they were making this sacrifice in order to heal misled hea­
thens. But, on the other hand, they approved the perfidy and
brutality of the foreign troops on Chinese soil, believing that
“heathen” blood was being spilt for a sacred cause. By and large,
the impression was given that the missionaries condemned the
opium trade—Christian morality officially came into conflict
with the evil that addiction to opium was holding out for the
Chinese. But missionary publications contended that opium was
no more harmful than alcohol, while some zealous and enterp­
rising American missionaries travelled (most often as interpret­
ers) aboard ships trading in opium. The American missionary
was a teacher, doctor, and interpreter, and in this sense should
have contributed to the enlightenment of the “ignorant” Chinese
masses. However, the Americans saw the missionaries as a po­
werful instrument capable of “rejuvenating” the Chinese spir­
itually and thereby facilitating China’s penetration by capitalist
production and capitalist political institutions. Among the mis­
sionaries there were, of course, those who were guided entirely
by religious motivations, devoting themselves to charitable work
in the East. Some sincerely believed that they were contributing
to the education and health of the peoples of backward countries.
The first echelon in the movement of capitalist America into
a backward Asian country had, as had the British in India, in
their time, to accomplish a double mission, to quote Marx:
“...one destructive, the other regenerating”.1
Many Americans acknowledged, as they still do, that the
missionary was the “forerunner of commerce”. “Inspired by ho­
ly zeal,” writes the American envoy Charles Denby, “he goes into
the interior where the white man’s foot has never trod. He builds
a little chapel, a dispensary, a schoolhouse, a workshop. He
effects a lodgment in the heart of the country. The drummer
follows behind, and foreign commerce begins.”12 It is admitted
in US official quarters that in the twentieth century the Amer-

1 Karl Marx, “The Future Results of British Rule in India”, in

Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 12, 1979, p. 217.
2 Charles Denby, China and Her People. Being the Observations, Remi­
niscences, and Conclusions of an American Diplomat, in two volumes.
Vol. I, L.C. Page & Company, Boston, 1906, p. 220.
24
ican monopolies Standard Oil Co. and British American Tobac­
co Co. were, thanks to missionaries, able to function profitably
in China.

The “Golden Age”

In the early twentieth century, when Washington was stepping

up its activities in the Far East, it nevertheless had to reckon
with the ambitions of the Japanese colonialists—this was the
result of the USA’s belated appearance in the arena of struggle
for the colonial division of the world. In objective terms, this
circumstance placed a constraint on the activity of American
missionaries in China. Some American authors, missionaries
among them, were ready to censure United States ruling circles
for “lacking a keen interest” in China’s affairs. The American
missionaries were sounding the alarm at the time. Members of
the top echelon of Chinese society had begun to turn away from
the missionary schools and preferred to send their sons to China’s
Eastern neighbour to learn the secrets of Japanese successes.
They felt it was incredible that having, seemingly, only recently
been in the grip of ignorance, Japan had by force of arms come
forth as a powerful nation. The USA had to accept a compro­
mise. For its tacit agreement to the annexation of Korea in 1910
Washington obtained Japan’s recognition of its seizure of the
Philippines.
The strengthening of Japan’s positions in the Far East visibly
affected the destinies of the missionary movement in China.
Anti-American propaganda led to a renunciation of the services
of American schoolteachers and of the use of American text­
books. Japan, Germany, and Britain became more attractive
to Chinese students than the USA. The struggle for the spiritual
leadership of the then existing and future elite of China intensi­
fied. American politicians gave strident publicity to a symbolic
gesture—in 1908 the US Congress renounced the USA’s share
of the indemnity that was imposed on China after the massive
rebellion of 1900 was suppressed by the leading imperialist
powers. The Americans returned to China a portion of the
“Boxer” indemnity and accompanied their seemingly magnani­
mous gesture with the conditions that this money would be used
to promote education in China, naturally, under US supervision.
25
In 1911 Qinhua University was founded on the basis of this
“gift”. It was in this educational institution that Chinese students
got their training before continuing their studies in the USA.
By 1947 Qinhua University alone had sent 2,000 young Chinese
to study in the USA.
The USA gave its backing to pro-imperialist elements in
China, using levers of economic pressure for this purpose. This
was its motivation when it first undertook the central role in the
affairs of a consortium of six powers (USA, Britain, France,
Russia, Japan, and Germany), which extended a so-called large
reorganisation loan to the government of Yuan Shikai, who was
proclaimed China’s President on June 18, 1912. A precondition
for the loan was that the USA would have “equal” opportunities
with the other imperialist powers in the Chinese market, in other
words, its aim was to consolidate the influence of US capital
in China. The latter received only 33 per cent of the initially
stipulated loan of 25 million pounds sterling. A large portion of
this money was withheld as overdue payments on various
indemnities, under the guise of commission, and so on.
The older monopoly associations, such as the Morgan empire,
acted in close collaboration with the European colonial powers,
vigilantly safeguarding the traditional preserves of colonialism.
The Rockefellers, who felt they had been unfairly left out of the
old colonial world, were attracted to China by the alluring
prospect of using continental territory for further penetration
into countries of the Far East and Southeast Asia, into new
markets for goods and capital.
Private American foundations, hoping to reinforce the USA’s
positions, put up money to encourage the activities of American
missions in China. The Rockefeller and other foundations
contributed millions of dollars for the requirements of the
missionaries. In this given case Rockefeller was not a philan­
thropist.
There was self-seeking motivation for the Rockefellers’
concern for missionary schools and hospitals. Many American
historians liked to refer to the first decade of the twentieth cen­
tury as the “golden age” of the missionary movement. There
was nothing to indicate that these efforts were in vain. By 1925
there were, in China, 27 missionary-run colleges and univer­
sities, of which 21 were opened after the year 1900.
26
 The reminiscences of Americans who looked back with nos­
talgia to the “good old days” of their residence in China (1920s)
in fact reconstructed the system of White domination under
which business flourished. Indeed, in those years the foreigners,
with many Americans among them, grouped themselves in China
not only around missionary societies but, above all, around privi­
leged clubs. They enjoyed every luxury life could offer and eve­
ry whim was instantly fulfilled by servants. Just as individuals
from other capitalist powers, Americans were part of the elite
dominating the lives of the ordinary Chinese people. They were
not burdened by responsibility for the situation in the country in
which they lived or for the destiny of its people. Many Americans
argued in all seriousness that the Chinese people were unable to
maintain order in and effectively administer their own country.
While the American businessmen were spending their time in
cosy entertainment, revelling in the good things of life which
they appropriated to themselves with a sense of having every
right to do so, the Chinese people on the other side of the social
watershed were submerged in tragedy. The missionaries certain­
ly saw a different China. Every morning corpses were found
in the streets of Shanghai. In only one year there were 20,000
deaths from hunger, cold, and suffering. The city’s streets were
filled with beggars, children were employed on backbreaking
labour, and the life span of the huge numbers of coolies was
unbelievably short.
What political force can govern China? This was a perennial
question and it worried the capitalist world. The developments
of the latter half of the 1920s carried Chiang Kai-shek to the
pinnacles of power. Many people thought at the time that China’s
new leader would set his country upon the road of Christianity
and thereby save it. It were the missionaries who sowed these
unjustified illusions. Prominent personalities of the missionary
movement besieged the Wilson administration, demanding that,
to counter the political force led by the revolutionary-democrat
Sun Yatsen, it recognise the dictatorship of the warlords Yuan
Shikai and Wu Peifu. In the onslaught against the Chinese revo­
lution of 1925-1927 the USA backed the bourgeoisie to sup­
press the revolutionary movement of the Chinese people.
During the revolution of 1925-1927 the missionary centres
again drew attention to themselves—they personified oppression
27
by foreign imperialism. Once more thousands of missionaries
had to go into hiding, to ask for protection from foreign powers
and for more brutal military and political actions against the
revolutionary forces. By that time there appeared among Ameri­
can missionaries, some of whom were quite influential, support­
ers of Chiang Kai-shek. The differences that surfaced in the
attitudes of the American missionaries mirrored the contradic­
tory character of US policy in China. In Washington, on the
one hand, they pondered ways and means of eroding the Chinese
people’s unity in their struggle against the colonialists and, on the
other, counted on turning the Kuomintang leaders into depend­
able creatures, especially in view of the growing Japanese
intrusion into China.
Unlike the established colonial powers, the USA was, by virtue
of the specifics of its own development, not closely associated
with the most reactionary, feudal-bureaucratic elements of
Chinese society. It therefore endeavoured to portray itself as
a champion of “anti-colonialism” and camouflage the true aims
of its expansion in the Far East. But this can hardly absolve the
USA of responsibility for the tragedy of the Sino-Japanese war.
It is common knowledge that the ruling circles in the USA
contributed much to extinguish the revolution of 1925-1927
and sought to use the counter-revolution to suppress the libera­
tion movement of the Chinese people. The 6-inch guns of US
warships were targeted on the peaceful city of Nanking. Claren­
ce S. Williams, commander of the US naval forces in Shanghai,
firmly insisted that the Americans had the prerogative over the
British to shell Nanking. On March 27, 1927, the newspaper
Pravda wrote: “The land of George Washington and the Decla­
ration of Independence is now seen by China in the person of the
monster Williams, who is drowning the independence of the
Chinese people in torrents of blood.” This was precisely the
period that saw the birth and consolidation of the traditions of
the USA’s Far Eastern policy aimed at eroding the united anti-
imperialist actions of the Chinese people. Most of the American
missionaries did not support the political forces headed by the
revolutionary-democrat Sun Yatsen, rejecting his programme
for creating an independent, free China after the overthrow of
the Qing dynasty.
Chiang Kai-shek flirted with wealthy Chinese families and
28
 with foreign capital. At the same time, the nationalistic platform
of China’s new leader aroused suspicion among Western business­
men, who saw a threat to themselves in the manoeuvrings of
Chiang Kai-shek. When Japan began serious preparations to
invade China, the anti-Western sentiments in the Chiang
Kai-shek camp were supplanted by anxiety in the face of the
threat from China’s dangerous neighbour. Chiang Kai-shek
began looking to the West with the hope of getting the help
needed for resistance. How to allay the suspicions of the business
community in the USA and other capitalist countries? The
Kuomintang leader decided to demonstrate his spiritual affinity
with the American nation. He became a Christian and with this,
it seemed, satisfied the hopes of the missionary community,
which wanted a Christian to govern the “Middle Kingdom’’.
Chiang Kai-shek married a brilliant member of the Song family,
Song Meiling, who was educated in the USA. He became a mem­
ber of the Methodist Church as was his young wife.
Chiang Kai-shek and his wife were highly respected by mis­
sionary circles. The Americans expected that together with Chri­
stianity the Chinese leadership would adopt the American expe­
rience of state development and the “values” of American de­
mocracy. It did not worry them that patriots were dying in the
Kuomintang prisons, that disobedience to the dictatorship was
cruelly punished, and that corruption was flourishing. What
mattered was that Chiang Kai-shek and his wife were Chris­
tians and that the Kuomintang leader’s entourage consisted chie­
fly of graduates of missionary-controlled schools and universit­
ies. With this were linked the hopes that there would be
unbounded official support for missionary activity in China.
Beginning with the early 1930s the missionaries became the
medium for influencing American public opinion. As the con­
tradictions between the USA and Japan mounted, this medium
acquired growing importance for US-China relations. The then
young Edgar Snow, known for his partisanship with liberal
American Sinologists, shared and, judging by his early works,
propagated the views of the missionaries urging a more active
China policy by the USA. One of Snow’s earliest books, pub­
lished in 1933, bore the title Far Eastern Front. The young
author’s first lines in this book were a warning that the USA was
apparently heading into war with Japan. China, he wrote, was
29
of major significance to the USA. A potential market, it was
already then absorbing 3.5 per cent of the total American
exports. American business, he noted, was supporting in China
an American community of some 7,000, including about 4,000
missionaries.1At the time, the USA was indeed making all-sided
use of its treaties with China: in 1927 a total of 5,670 officers
and enlisted men of the US Army were serving in China, and 44
United States warships were in Chinese waters; 3,027 US officers
and enlisted men were landed in China in 1933. The interests
of Standard Oil of New York, Texas Oil, Ford, General Motors,
and other corporations were represented in China.
Japanese aggression in Manchuria in the early 1930s caused
considerable anxiety in the USA. Already then US foreign
policy was confronted by the rather complex dilemma of how
to protect the interests of US capital and sustain its own image
as the ‘Triend” of the Chinese people and ally of Japanese
militarism against the “communist threat”. Clearly, in the USA
they took the magnitude of the anti-Japanese movement in
China into account. In many of the anti-Japanese demonstra­
tions in China the initiative was taken by students of Christian
colleges. The participation of persons professing Christianity
in these demonstrations acquired a political hue. Being largely
a proponent of Anglo-Saxon interests, the Christian movement
countered the Japanese expansion.
The Stimson Doctrine (Henry L. Stimson was Secretary of
State in the Hoover administration) of the early 1930s took the
growth of anti-Japanese feeling in China into consideration.
This doctrine proclaimed the USA’s non-recognition of Japan­
ese expansion in the Far East but, in fact, did not help to safe­
guard China’s territorial integrity. The diplomatic gestures desig­
ned to reprove presumptuous warlords and demonstrate that the
USA was a true friend of the Chinese people did not prevent the
United States from selling armaments and raw materials to the
aggressor.
In 1937, when the Japanese started their offensive in China,
the USA began to pay more attention to developments in that
country. In 1941 missionaries and circles closely associated
1 Edgar Snow, Far Eastern Front, Harrison Smith and Robert Haas,
New York, 1933, p. 322.

30
with them orchestrated a campaign in the USA with the objective
of persuading the government in Washington that it was impera­
tive to attach greater significance to its China policy. At a time
when the Japanese had set about putting their “Co-Prosperity
Sphere” plan into effect and the USA and the European capital­
ist powers were successfully pursuing a policy of appeasing the
aggressor, the missionaries tried to press the White House into
ordering a halt to sales of military hardware to Japan. The
initiators of this campaign urged strong opposition to what they
believed was the widespread view that in order to avoid a conflict
with Japan the USA should evacuate all its citizens and military
personnel from China. Missionary propaganda focussed on
well-disposed assessments of the Chiang Kai-shek government’s
policies. The following is a sample: “Missionaries ... have never
failed to point with pride to the fact that a high percentage of
the officials of the government [of China] have been educated
in Christian institutions and that many of them are themselves
Christians... Madame Chiang has practically become a saint to
them.” 1One of the zealots of this propaganda was the editor-in-
chief and publisher of the journal Time Henry Luce, whose
parents were American missionaries in China. His journal
named the Chiangs the most popular couple of 1938.
But what could the missionaries offer as a counter to the
political game that was being played at the time by the US ruling
elite, who regarded the Soviet Union as the main threat to them?
The missionaries and their friends set up various committees
that urged a boycott of Japanese goods and were vociferous
in demanding “non-participation in the Japanese aggression”.
Activities of this sort only helped the government in Washington
to somewhat camouflage its actual political objectives, namely,
to direct Japanese aggression to the North, against the Soviet
Union.
The attempts of the missionaries to pressure the US Congress
had no chance of success because a rupture with Japan was
seen as conflicting with the economic interests of the leading
US monopolies.
The sending to China of medical supplies as a result of the
1 John W. Masland, “Missionary Influence Upon American Far Eastern
Policy’*, The Pacific Historical Review, Vol. X, No. 3, September 1941,
pp. 286-87.
31
philanthropic activities of the missionaries was largely of sym­
bolic significance. But the sales by the US monopolies to, for
example, the Ayukawa concern of equipment for steel mills,
for the Japanese oilfields in South Sakhalin, and the financial
and technical assistance to the Nakajima, Mitsubishi, and other
concerns were of very real significance for the build-up of
Japan’s military-industrial capability.
According to statistics provided by the US commercial attache
in Tokyo and cited by Stanley Hornbeck, chief of the Far East­
ern division of the US State Department, in January 1941 the
USA accounted for 40 per cent of Japan’s metal and cotton
imports, 50 per cent of its oil imports, 70 per cent of its metal
scrap imports, and so on. Impressed by Japanese military succes­
ses at the turn of the century, US financiers joined a consortium
of US and British banks to extend a large loan to the Japanese
government in the 1930s. Warships built at Japanese docks in
accordance with American designs and of American metal
steamed towards Pearl Harbor in December 1941, while US
dollars were used to purchase the equipment and weapons that
Japanese troops used successfully against the US armed forces
in the Philippines and in China.
In the 1960s and the 1970s it became the fashion in US aca­
demic circles to criticise Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roose­
velt for their short-sighted Far Eastern policy, to re-write the
past Far Eastern policy of the USA. The conspicuous changes
in the world balance of strength and the impasse in which US
policy found itself юп account of the US aggression in Indochina
in the 1960s and the early 1970s stimulated the appearance in
the book market of works revising historical experience and
attempting to attribute to “past errors’’ the USA’s setbacks in the
confrontation with the forces of socialism and the liberation
movements in the initial decades after the Second World War.
In one way or another, leading American analysts repeated
the theories that were implicit in missionary propaganda in the
1930s. They asserted that Washington’s lack of determination
and desire to support China in the 1930s was the principal cause
of the USA’s setbacks in the Far East. Fairbank believes that in
the 1930s the combination of the US Open Door policy, or rather
the declarations relating to that policy, with “ignorant isola­
tionism’’ paved the way for the catastrophic results of the 1940s,
32
 for the destruction by Japan of the finest, “non-militarist part
of Nationalist China”.
Moreover, in the 1970s it began to be said in the USA that
the US administration’s main miscalculation in China was linked
to its intention to support Chiang Kai-shek, to manoeuvre be­
tween him and the Communist Party of China at the closing sta­
ge of the war, leaving without attention other forces in China
that were allegedly pursuing the same aims as the USA. In their
efforts to present the history of the USA’s China policy in a new
light, American historians claimed that there was a “third force”
consisting of, among others, secret societies, the troops of the
Guangxi (Kuanghsi) warlords, and pro-American intellectuals.
The Association of Older Brothers (Gelaohoi), a sort of Chinese
mafia founded as early as the eighteenth century, functioned
as a secret paramilitary organisation. It is now said that secret
societies of this type, opposed as they were to Chiang Kai-shek,
should have been accorded special attention and might have
become Washington’s mainstay in China. American historians
have focussed attention on the personality of Wang Jingwei,
who on March 30, 1940 became head of the “reorganised
government” in Nanking. Wang officially obtained from Tokyo
the authority to administer all Chinese territory seized by Japan
(with the exception of Manchukuo and Inner Mongolia), but in
fact he was no more than a puppet of the Japanese militarists.
In the 1920s he had made common cause with the Guangxi war­
lords and in 1931 was appointed head of a national government
set up by the Guangxi warlords in opposition to the Chiang
Kai-shek government in Nanking. There is little doubt that
Wang might have been useful to the USA as a personality
standing at the centre of the US-Japanese flirtation in China
aimed against the Soviet Union and the liberation movement
in China itself.
On the other hand, the proponents of the “pro-Japanese”
interpretation of history feel that the USA had paid a high price
for its reluctance to make concessions to Japan during the pre­
war decade, for the inability of its leaders to ensure to Japanese
militarism the role of an advanced outpost in the struggle against
the Soviet Union. In 1975, when the rate of US-Chinese rappro­
chement somewhat slowed down, Charles New published a
book under the title The Troubled Encounters: The United Sta-
3-0768 33
tes and Japan. He cautions the initiators of the USA's “new Chi­
na policy" against excessive eagerness, reminding them of what
were, in his view, dismal lessons of history, notably the circum­
stance that the USA's orientation on China during the Manchu­
rian crisis of the early 1930s allegedly led to an underes­
timation of Japan's significance. An outcome of this orien­
tation, as New sees it, was an ineffective US Far Eastern
policy and miscalculations that ultimately brought about the
collision between Japan and the USA. New's arguments boil
down to the contention that as the USA's leading ally in Asia,
Japan is disturbed by the demonstration of the "old American
love" for China.
Washington’s China policy is determined by the political
realities in the world rather than any "old" or "new" love for
China. Pearl Harbor was not the outcome of "errors" by the
US administration, nor of the alleged disregard for the urgings
of the missionaries that the USA stop aiding Japan, nor of the
American renunciation of dependence on a "third force", nor
of any "underestimation" of cooperation with Tokyo. At the
close of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth
century, at a time when the booty was shared "between two or
three powerful world plunderers armed to the teeth (America,
Great Britain, Japan)",1 the USA joined actively in the sharp
struggle to partition the Far East into spheres of influence. The
contradictions between the imperialists proved to be much
stronger than the subjective ambitions relative to the world’s first
socialist state. These contradictions could not be settled by
appeasement. It was not the wish of the US administration to
heed the missionary propaganda in defence of China but the
bombs dropped on Pearl Harbor that compelled a vitalisation
of the US participation in Chinese affairs during the Second
World War.

1 V.I. Lenin, “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism”, Collected

Works, Vol. 22, 1974, p. 191.
CHAPTER TWO

THE US FIASCO IN CHINA (1940s)

General Stilwell’s Mission

On July 12,1943 General Joseph W. Stilwell1went to see Chiang

Kai-shek in the latter’s office. This veteran soldier—who, in
fact, held the main levers of US military strategy in China in his
hands—saw that the disastrous policies pursued by Chongqing
would have serious consequences for the Allies. He gave the
Chongqing dictator an overall picture of the military and politi­
cal situation in Europe and the Pacific. His arguments, it must
be acknowledged, hit the mark. The scale of the fighting on the
Soviet-German front was much larger than that of the hostili­
ties in the Pacific. The Soviet people were bearing the brunt of
the struggle against the strike force of world fascism, and the
destiny of the Second World War was being decided on the
battle-fronts in Russia. In only 1943 the Soviet Army had
crushed 218 enemy divisions, destroying 14,300 aircraft, 7,000
tanks, 5,000 pieces of artillery, and 296 enemy warships of var­
ious classes. The contribution of the US Armed Forces to the
common struggle against fascism is well-known: the heavy fight­
ing for Saipan; to gain possession of the Marianas the Americans
lost 5,000 men; the battle at Leite; the fighting at the near ap­
proaches to Iwojima and Okinawa. These and other develop­
ments are evidence of the important role played by the USA in
the anti-fascist coalition. The Japanese were going over to the
1 General Stilwell began his carrer in China as a junior officer. He was
a military attache (1935-1939) accredited to Chiang Kai-shek. He arrived
in Chongqing on March 6. 1942, serving as Allied Supreme Commander
in the Chinese-Burmese-lndian theatre of hostilities, Chiang Kai-shek's Chief-
of-Staff, and deputy commander of the Allied troops in the Southeastern theatre
of hostilities.

35
defensive and their plans for a compromise peace with Chong­
qing were linked mainly to their desire to compensate in China
for the losses suffered by them in the Pacific. In this context
Stilwell warned Chiang Kai-shek that a compromise peace was
fraught with the threat of a civil war in China.
This talk with Stilwell and then with the US Ambassador
C.E. Gauss, who conveyed to Chiang Kai-shek Roosevelt's
displeasure with Chongqing’s diplomatic manoeuvres and with
the passiveness of the Kuomintang armies at the firing lines,
unquestionably influenced the stand of the Chiang Kai-shek
clique. Many years later ardent defenders of the Kuomintang
extolled the “heroism” of Chiang Kai-shek, who allegedly
rendered the entire anti-fascist coalition an inestimable service
by his staunchness in the talks with Tokyo and by his refusal
to sign a compromise peace with the Japanese. Chiang Kai-
shek’s well-wishers forget that because of the victories on the
Soviet-German front and the radical turn in the course of the
Second World War Chongqing had no alternative to acceding to
the Americans. For Chiang Kai-shek a decision to sign a
compromise peace would have been tantamount to suicide.
He preferred to reaffirm his loyalty to the Allied cause and ask
for American aid and armaments.
Chiang Kai-shek’s rejection of a separate deal with Tokyo
by no means signified an end to difficulties for the USA’s China
policy.
On one occasion President Roosevelt said of Stilwell: “I know
of no other man who has the ability, the force and the determina­
tion to offset the disaster that now threatens China.” 1
It was Stilwell’s mission to do all in his power to attain the
basic strategic objective of the US ruling circles: to hit Japan as
hard as possible with the resources of the USA’s Far Eastern ally.
Stilwell was stunned by what he saw when he arrived in China—
the Kuomintang was sabotaging the military efforts against
Japan, ceaselessly launching raids against units of the People’s
Liberation Army, and tightly blockading the liberated areas.
In the provinces administered by Kuomintang generals, the
revolutionary forces were subjected to vicious repressions and
1 Barbara W. Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China,
1911-1945, The Macmillan Company, New York, 1971, p. 1.

36
democratic elements were harassed by agents of Chiang Kai-
shek’s secret service. The unity that Chiang Kai-shek so enthusi­
astically talked about was no more than a coalition of Chinese
warlords. From 1926, when his armies moved to the north, up to
the fighting with militarist Japan, Chiang Kai-shek’s goal was
to win the civil war. He owed his survival to his agile tactics and
intrigues among notorious local Chinese warlords. He relied on
a group of generals, who had studied at the Whampoa Academy
and remained loyal to him. The Generalissimo calmly kept his
eyes closed to corruption and crime if any of the Whampoa
clique were involved.
The Kuomintang’s policies and the corruption in Chiang Kai-
shek’s state apparatus evoked discontent among various strata of
society and drastically debilitated the anti-Japanese front in
China. Chiang Kai-shek used his best troops (20 divisions with
a total strength of 800,000 troops) to blockade the liberated
areas. This was a strange war, indeed. An inevitable outcome
of the strange war policy was the weakening of the Allied posi­
tions along China’s southern frontiers. The Sino-Burmese-Ind-
ian theatre was described figuratively by Theodore H. White and
Annalee Jacoby as “a fabulous compound of logistics ... despot­
ism, corruption, imperialism, nonsense, and tragic impotence”.1
Upon seeing with his own eyes what Chiang Kai-shek was
capable of, Stilwell quite justifiably doubted the latter’s ability
to cope with the difficult tasks confronting him. A sober assess­
ment of the developments in the Sino-Burmese-Indian theatre
of hostilities made Stilwell see that the Eighth and the New
Fourth People’s Armies were extremely efficient fighting machi­
nes. He felt that in the interests of ultimate strategy it was qu­
ite realistic to use the forces of the Chinese Communists in any
part of China; he endeavoured to stop the Kuomintang from per­
secuting Communists, to prevent the Chiang Kai-shek raids on
the CPC’s armed forces. The Kuomintang leadership gave Stil-
well's recommendations a hostile reception, but saw eye to eye
with General Claire Chennault, commander of the US Fourte­
enth Air Force in China. The latter’s links to the largest aircraft
manufacturers in the USA explained his insistence on enlarging
1 Theodore H. White and Annalee Jacoby, Thunder Out of China,
William Sloane Associates, Inc., New York, 1946, pp. 145-46; Modern
History of China: Essays, Moscow, 1956, p. 131 (in Russian).

37
the air force in China. The American plans for fighting the war
in China mainly in the air, of which Chennault was an ardent
champion, fell in with the wishes of Chiang Kai-shek. The
Kuomintang clique sought to preserve its land forces in order
to fight the Communists, and conduct the war against Japan with
US technological means.
Stilwell saw the behaviour of Chiang Kai-shek and Chennault
as a serious hindrance to his actions. During the first years of
the war in the Pacific the US Supreme Command, which sought
to throw anything against the enemy wherever possible, suppor­
ted Stilwell’s line of thought. The Kuomintang, on the contrary,
aroused suspicion in Washington, where the signing of a
compromise peace between Chongqing and Tokyo was seen as a
very real possibility. American political leaders did all in their
power to keep China on their side in the hostilities. George
C. Marshall, Chief of Staff, and Admiral Ernest J. King, head
of the US Navy, sided unequivocally with Stilwell who, in their
view, believed in the Chinese Communists that constituted a
stronger and more reliable fighting force in the struggle against
the Japanese.
StilwelTs conclusions were backed up by reports of the US in­
telligence from China. The Office of Strategic Services analysed
the situation in China and endeavoured to give an unbiassed
assessment of what was taking place there. A special secret report
on the situation in North China noted that in North China the
Communists exercised the strongest influence and had the only
broadly representative organisation. The army, the report said,
was a communist organisation and throughout North China the
Communists were the principal organisers of the new political
and social system. An OSS officer was much impressed by what
he saw in the liberated areas: he was amazed by the social and
economic progress and by how committed the people were in
North China. He reported that even in remote mountain villages
people were eager for news about the war in Europe. The bulk
of the people regarded the Communists as fighters against op­
pression and denial of rights, against all that in the course of ma­
ny years the colonialists had endeavoured to force upon China.
The US intelligence saw this as one of the sources of the CPC’s
strength, and little wonder President Roosevelt believed “that
there was no chance that the Chinese Communists would
38
surrender to the Japanese ... whereas there was always the
possibility that the Kuomintang might make a separate peace”.1
Realistically-minded statesmen in the USA were aware that
to achieve victory over the Axis powers as quickly as possible
cooperation within the framework of the anti-fascist coalition
was vital not only with the Soviet Union but also with those
forces of the national liberation movements that the USSR, true
to the principles of internationalism, steadfastly supported in
its foreign policy.
The Soviet people extended disinterested assistance to the
Chinese people in the latter’s struggle against Japanese aggres­
sion. In the period from the autumn of 1937 to the beginning
of 1942 more than 5,000 Soviet citizens were personally involved
in helping the Chinese behind and at the firing lines. Many of
them laid down their lives. These included over 200 volunteer
pilots. In the summer of 1939 more than 400 volunteer pilots
and aircraft technicians arrived in China from the USSR. Even
during the initial years of the Great Patriotic War, years that
were particularly hard for the Soviet people, there were Soviet
experts, advisers, and volunteer pilots in China. The Soviet
government recalled all its advisers by March 1942 after it
became clear that the Kuomintang government was openly
provoking Japan to attack the USSR and the Kuomintang troops
were intensifying their pressure against areas controlled by the
Communists, almost entirely ceasing active operations against
Japan. The anti-Soviet campaign started by the Kuomintang
authorities led, in effect, to the breakdown of trade and other
links between the USSR and the government of China.
American military supplies, which began to arrive in China
in large quantities in 1942, were used mainly to reinforce the
Chiang Kai-shek troops blockading the Eighth and Fourth
Armies. Eager to get as much as possible from his friendship
with the USA, Chiang Kai-shek made a statement to the effect
that his US ally was pursuing the aim of bringing peace and
liberation to Asia. The Charter signed by the USA and Britain
on August 14, 1942 proclaimed that the sovereign rights and
self-government of nations had to be restored. US political

' Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins. An Intimate History,

The Universal Library, Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1950, p. 740.

39
 personalities began to stress that the provisions of the Atlantic
Charter related also to countries of the Pacific. The Kuomintang
leader was quick to take advantage of the USA’s “anti-coloni­
alist” slogans. The delighted welcome that the Kuomintang
ruling circles gave to the promise of “independence” to Pacific
nations was due, of course, not to an aspiration that these nations
become sovereign. The attention that Chiang Kai-shek and his
sycophants gave to the question of the “freedom of Asian peo­
ples” was motivated chiefly by the Kuomintang’s eagerness to
participate in resolving the numerous problems of the Far East
and Southeast Asia, to avoid finding itself being done out of its
share when the time came to divide the booty. In Chongqing
there was a special agency studying postwar problems. It was
headed by Wang Changhu, General Secretary of the Supreme
National Defence Council. One of this agency’s assignments was
to analyse the future relations between China and Japan and the
postwar arrangement in the Far East as a whole.
Although the USA intended to make Chiang Kai-shek a
postwar ally, it tried to limit the influence exercised by Kuomin­
tang China and reduce the Chongqing politicians to the status
of pawns serving US global strategy. Ever since the war broke
out the US State Department had been closely scrutinising the
Kuomintang’s plans for the world’s postwar arrangement and
collecting information related to this question in one way or
another. In a telegram to the US Embassy in China on July 21,
1942 Secretary of State Cordell Hull wrote: “Department is
endeavoring to follow closely 1) outstanding ideas both publicly
and privately advanced, and 2) trends of thinking in the several
United Nations on post-war problems.” 1 The US Embassy in
China was requested to state its opinion in this context. The
State Department carefully checked the reliability of the reports
carried by The Washington Post and the Central Daily News
of an address made by the President of the Legislative Yuan, Dr.
Sun Fo calling for the independence of India, French Indochina,
Korea, and the Philippines. On August 18, 1942 the US Ambas­
sador in China reported to Washington that China had some
territorial claims. In this connection mention was made of

1 Foreign Relations of the United States. Diplomatic Papers. 1942.

China, IJ.S. G.PX>., Washington, 1956, p. 733.
40
Korea, Indochina, and Burma. The US Ambassador Gauss as­
tutely noted that the Kuomintang government was only outward­
ly trying to show its fidelity to the Atlantic Charter. Gauss offered
the conclusion that these actions indicated that it was China’s
ambition to become the leader of the Asian nations.
In 1942 the Kuomintang openly declared its claims on
neighbouring countries. Attention is attracted by the circum­
stance that in August 1942 the semi-official Kuomintang press,
notably the Central Weekly and the National Herald, recom­
mended granting Indochina “independence” with the significant
reservation that if Indochina was not prepared for self-adminis­
tration China would, when the peace conference was held, offer
to be its mandatory. The foreign policy of the Kuomintang reac­
tionaries was characterised by great-power chauvinism and
great-Han nationalism. The territorial claims on neighbouring
countries were one of the most eloquent indications of the
great-power policy. Chinese nationalism’s great-power foreign
policy programme was expounded explicitly by Chiang Kai-shek
in his book China’s Destiny (1943). China’s natural frontiers,
he wrote, were the Pamir Plateau and the Tien Shan and Altai
Mountains in the northwest; Manchuria in the northeast; the
Kunlun Mountains and the Himalayas; and the Mid-Southern
Peninsula (meaning Indochina, Burma, and Malaya.—V.V.)
in the south. Formosa, the Pescadores, the four northeastern
provinces, and Inner and Outer Mongolia were together and
individually fortresses, it was claimed, vital to the defence and
security of China.
The reports in the Chinese press about the Kuomintang’s
plans relative to some Asian countries were a compelling cause
of anxiety for American political leaders. This is eloquently
demonstrated by many of Gauss’ letters and telegrams. In one of
his despatches to Washington Gauss noted: “One sees increased
Chinese attention to neighboring countries and to her border
regions in the organization under Chinese auspices of Sino-
Burmese and Sino-Korean Cultural Associations.” 1 Lastly, in
Kai-shek wrote: “Korea must be free and independent.” The
US State Department closely followed the Chiang Kai-shek go-

1Foreign Relations of the United States. Diplomatic Papers. 1942. China,

p. 748.
41
vernment’s plans relative to Korea. On February 12, 1942 Gauss
informed Hull of his conversation with Tew So Wang, Foreign
Minister of the “Provisional Government of Korea”.1The latter
confidentially informed the US Ambassador that he suspected
the Kuomintang was planning to rule Korea after the war. In a
memorandum to President Roosevelt Hull gave a justified
description of the Kuomintang’s policy relative to the problem
of Korea, writing that the Chinese government was possibly
acting on its desire, by granting recognition to the “Provisional
Government of Korea”, to crush in embryo the forming of any
groups “supported by the Soviet Union”. The Secretary of State
did not comment on the Kuomintang’s delusions: the revolu­
tionary movement of the Korean people had already sunk deep
roots and only short-sighted politicians failed to see its actual
strength; it had gone through the period of formation and had
become the foundation for the creation of an independent
Korean state. Of course, it was beyond the Kuomintang’s
strength to suppress the revolutionary movement of the Korean
people and spread its influence to Korea.
American political leaders surely saw Chiang Kai-shek’s
heightened interest too, in the postwar problem of Thailand as
well. At the close of July 1942 John C. Vincent, counsellor of the
US Embassy in China, had a talk with the heads of a number of
departments of the Chinese Foreign Ministry. In this talk he
mentioned the statements in the Kuomintang press to the effect
that China should have the protectorate over postwar Thailand.
The Kuomintang representatives declined to give a definite
reply. Vincent wrote of his observations in a memorandum,
a copy of which was sent to the State Department. Several days
later Gauss reported to Hull on the Embassy’s findings in its
study of the Kuomintang’s view of postwar problems. Among
other things the Embassy noted that Thailand in accordance
with the view then current in Kuomintang circles should be
deprived of its independence and made a protectorate under
China.
The Kuomintang leaders did not confine themselves to decla-
1 Headed by the leader of the Korean nationalists Kim Ku, the “Provisional
Government of Korea” was, at the beginning of the war in the Pacific, in Chong­
qing, where it was under the tutelage of and funded by Chiang Kai-shek. This
government had close links to Korean emigres residing in the USA.
42
rations about what they saw as desirable for the postwar arrang­
ement for the countries neighbouring on China. Chongqing
showered the British with offers to send two Chinese army
corps to “reinforce the Burmese forces”. The British ignored
this wooing by Chiang Kai-shek and quite reasonably asked
whether the Kuomintang would want to withdraw from Burma
after there was no longer a need for its military presence. Fred
Eldridge, a war correspondent who accompanied General
Stilwell in the latter's campaigns, noted that the British did not
want Chinese troops in Burma, fearing that once they entered
Burma they would not want to leave. Eldridge recalled that
there was a reason why the Chiang Kai-shek government clung
to maps on which much of Burma’s territory was marked as
Chinese. Under pressure from the Americans the British had
to agree to the presence of Kuomintang troops in Burma. In
June 1942 Kuomintang troops appeared in Burma in the vicinity
of Myitkyina, where the Japanese had never penetrated. They
pulled down frontier posts and announced that the British had
departed and that henceforth they were masters of the country.
A Kuomintang administration ruled this area until it was driven
out by the Japanese at the close of 1943.1
US intelligence agencies were in a position to see the Kuo-
mintang’s actual intentions towards Thailand as well. Nikol
Smith, an OSS officer charged with maintaining contact with the
Kuomintang intelligence service and its chief Dai Li, subse­
quently wrote that the Kuomintang went to all lengths to counter
the US penetration of Thailand. Illustrative of this was the fact
that two members of Smith’s group, taken across Indochina by
Dai Li’s agents, found themselves, not without Kuomintang
complicity, in the hands of the Japanese.
1 After Chiang Kai-shek was defeated in the civil war remnants of the
Kuomintang army, numbering some 15,000 troops, marauded territory along
China's southern frontiers and in Burma. Kuomintang troops occupied a large
area 200 miles southwest of Kunming. They were under the command of
General Li Mi, whom the CIA had secretly moved from Taiwan to Northern
Burma. The CIA organised and controlled the airlifting of armaments,
equipment, and other supplies to General Li across Indochina and Thailand.
In the meantime, the US government was assuring the world that it had no
contacts with Li Mi.
In the UN on May 30, 1954 the Burmese government raised the question
of Kuomintang gangs, but clashes with these marauders continued on Burmese
territory until the beginning of the 1960s.
43
 The USA was very cool to the Kuomintang’s foreign policy
programme. In Washington it was feared that China’s territorial
claims might aggravate the USA’s relations with its Allies, with
Britain in the first place, in this most bitter period of the war
when the USA was doing everything to avoid superfluous dis­
putes with the British over the ticklish problem of the future of
colonial peoples. Moreover, it was also seen in Washington at
the time that China’s territorial claims affected the interests of
the Soviet Union. “In the northern part of the Pacific ... where
American territory approaches closely to Siberia, Korea, and
Japan,’’ Roosevelt noted in a letter to Chiang Kai-shek, “it would
be undesirable to attempt to exclude Russia from such problems
as the independence of Korea. To isolate Soviet Russia in this
area of the world would run the danger of creating tension in­
stead of relieving tension.” The USA’s far-reaching plans in the
Western Pacific were put in the following words in this letter:
“South of Korea the question of actual bases from which China
and America might protect the peace of the Western Pacific
is one of those details which may well be left for later considera­
tion.” 1 Naturally, in Washington they took into account the
Kuomintang’s influence among some quarters of the national
bourgeoisie in the Asian countries bordering on China. Ameri­
can political leaders planned to turn pro-Kuomintang agents
into a US mainstay in Asia. Considerable hopes in this context
were linked also to overseas Chinese emigres. This factor was
not discounted by the State Department because it was believed
that overseas Chinese would have a colossal influence on the
domestic and foreign policies of Asian countries.
The USA intended to use for its own ends the plans of the
Kuomintang relative to neighbouring countries. It counted on
China becoming a strong power after the war capable of coun­
tering Japan on the Asian mainland and, subjected economically,
usable by the USA for expansion in other countries of the Par
East and Southeast Asia. Hence the large role assigned to eco­
nomic aid to China in the USA’s plans. It was calculated that this
aid would, on the one hand, keep China in the war on the side
of the Allies and as far as possible stabilise it internally and, on

' Foreign Relations of the United States. Diplomatic Papers. 1942. China,
p. 186.

44
 the other hand, enmesh it in debt that would tie it firmly to US
capital.
On February 7, 1942 the US Congress passed Act 442 autho­
rising the Secretary of the Treasury, provided there was presi­
dential approval, to extend to China a credit of 500 million dol­
lars. On March 21, 1942 US and Chinese representatives signed
the agreement for this credit, which was several times larger
than the loans hitherto received by Chiang Kai-shek. The Sino-
US agreement on lend-lease was signed in July of the same year.
As far as the USA was concerned, lend-lease aid to China was
not as effective as in other regions. This is what the US Treasury
Secretary had in mind when he called the US credit a duplicate
of lend-lease. The money extended under the agreement was
used by the Kuomintang government to purchase gold for sale
in China. The architects of the loan counted that this would halt
the inflation and provide the reserves for paying out dollar-
backed bonds.
The USA’s rulers endeavoured to take the fullest advantage
of the military situation for an assault on the positions held by
European powers in the Far East and in Southeast Asia.
Washington believed that the Chiang Kai-shek clique would
be of considerable help in carrying out this plan. This caused
Britain much anxiety. The British ruling circles saw the anti­
colonialist declarations of Kuomintang China as a threat to the
future of the British Empire, especially as in his relations with
Britain Chiang Kai-shek depended on his American ally, helping
the latter in every way to bring pressure to bear on British
foreign policy and finding solutions to the war-generated
problems in Asia to benefit the USA.
Chiang Kai-shek tried to show vigorous support for the US
policy towards India. In August 1942 he voiced his apprehen­
sions that the Indian leaders might go over to the Japanese if
“they could not count upon sympathy from the United Nations”.
The only way out, according to Chiang Kai-shek, was for the
USA to offer its good offices. In February 1942 Chiang Kai-
shek visited India, where he met with members of the Indian
National Congress. It was his aim to persuade its leadership
that they had to cooperate with the USA and Britain. At one
of these meetings he declared that if Britain were to offer India
the status of a self-administrating dominion India ought to
45
accept. This attitude irritated the British government. Chur­
chill displayed firmness, sending Chiang Kai-shek a personal
message in which he categorically rejected Sino-US mediation
in matters affecting the future of the British Empire. He wrote:
“We respected the sovereign rights of China, and had abstained
from comment even when the differences between the Kuomin-
tang and the Communists were most acute. We therefore hoped
that General Chiang Kai-shek would not be drawn into political
correspondence with the Indian Congress or with individuals
trying to paralyse the war effort of the Government of India
and to disturb peace and order.” 1
All this motivated Britain's marked coolness towards its
Chinese ally. From the outset of the war in the Pacific the Bri­
tish government refused to take seriously Kuomintang China's
claims to active participation in the guidance of military opera­
tions. US political leaders regarded British intractability in this
issue as an attempt to “write down” China in the interests of the
British Empire. However, the Kuomintang clique and the US
ruling circles found an insuperable obstacle to their plans in the
person of the Soviet Union, which was pursuing a consistent
policy in relation to the colonial peoples' future and defending
their right to independence. The Soviet Union’s involvement in
the war against fascism determined the humanist character of
the anti-fascist coalition's objectives in the Far East and in
Southeast Asia. The Kuomintang’s official proclamation of its
aggressive plans only weakened the front of struggle against the
Axis powers and adversely affected the efforts of the Allies in the
Pacific.
In January 1944 General Joseph Stilwell and the British
commander-in-chief Lord Louis Mountbatten agreed that the
Kuomintang troops concentrated in Yunnan would take part in
the Burma campaign. On behalf of the command Mountbatten
wrote to Roosevelt and Churchill requesting them to use their
influence on Chiang Kai-shek. At a time when the Allies were
engaged in crucial operations in the Pacific Roosevelt had to
send one message after another to the government at Chongqing.
In many of them he endeavoured to compel Chiang Kai-shek

1 Llewellyn Woodward, British Foreign Policy in the Second World

War, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, London, 1962, p. 422.
46
to pay more attention to the Burmatheatre of hostilities. More
often than not Chiang Kai-shek evaded answering. Most of the
refusals from Chongqing to send troops to Burma were officially
motivated by “preoccupation with the struggle against the Com­
munists and preparations to repulse a pending Japanese offen­
sive in the vicinity of Han-Luoyang”. While American political
leaders and strategists were coaxing Chongqing, Japanese troops
forced the Chindwin River, invaded Assam and Manipur, and
began an offensive against India. The US government could not
remain indifferent to intransigence from Chongqing: in January
1944 Roosevelt informed Chiang Kai-shek that unless the
Kuomintang forces began an offensive from Yunnan lend-lease
aid to China would be cut off.
With the USA bringing pressure to bear Chinese land forces,
under American command, became active in Burma. In August
1944 Myitkyina was retaken from the Japanese. In Washington
they hailed this victory of American and Chinese arms as further
evidence of the USA contributing to the liberation of British
colonies. But in that same year, 1944, fortune played false with
the American strategists in the Chinese theatre. In March 1944
the Japanese command, which sought in China compensation
for the defeats on other fronts, launched a powerful offensive
against the Kuomintang troops. The Japanese military's calcula­
tions were to seize convenient bridgeheads in China and thereby
prolong the war in the Pacific and try and come to terms with
the US ruling circles on a compromise peace.
The Japanese offensive was successful to a marked degree.
Within eight months the invaders occupied much of the territory
of Henan, Hunan, Guangxi, Guangdong, and Fujian provinces.
Several US airfields were captured. The crushed Kuomintang
front did not pose the Japanese units with any serious problem;
danger awaited them behind their lines, where the Eighth and
the New Fourth Armies were operating effectively. These revo­
lutionary forces were steadily enlarging the liberated areas.
The growing corruption in the Kuomintang ruling elite was
giving many US military leaders and diplomats misgivings.
Stilwell sent a report to Washington on the situation in which
the Chiang Kai-shek government was finding itself, writing that
Chiang Kai-shek’s position now hinged on the reactionary
policies of the government and the efforts of his secret police to
47
suppress democratic thought. This was also the conclusion of a
group of US experts on the Far East stationed in China since
the end of 1943. These experts noted that the balance of strength
in China had tilted in favour of the Communists and only “if he
is able to enlist foreign intervention on a scale equal to the Japa­
nese invasion of China will Chiang probably be able to crush the
Communists... The Communists are already too strong for him.” ‘
They declared their concern over the situation in China in
no uncertain terms. Most of them were shocked by the wrong­
doing and chaos in the Kuomintang itself. They were so certain
that the national liberation movement would be victorious that
they took no pains to conceal their apprehensions. Some military
advisers came to what for them was the disturbing conclusion
that the US plans to set up an anti-Soviet springboard in China
would inevitably fail. They held that by his domestic and foreign
policies Chiang Kai-shek was helping the Soviet Union to
become the dominant power in East Asia, that these policies
were making China much too weak to serve as a counterbalance
to Russia. Lastly, they were worried that the USA would lose
Chiang Kai-shek himself and, with him, China’s northern
provinces, Manchuria, Korea, and Formosa (Taiwan).
American political leaders felt that the Kuomintang had
placed itself in a dangerous situation. US Vice President Henry
A. Wallace went on an urgent mission to Chongqing in June
1944. The purpose of this mission was to determine if there were
possibilities and ways and means of bolstering the Chiang Kai-
shek regime. Wallace approved the sending of a fact-finding
mission to China’s northern regions. Its assignment was to ga­
ther intelligence about the Japanese and about the forces resist­
ing the latter. Members of this mission who went to the liberated
areas recommended that the US administration should try to
explore ways of coming to an understanding with the Communist
Party of China. The CPC’s leaders, John S. Service reported,
believed that the country’s capitalist development could ensure
economic growth, provided there was liberal foreign assistance,
and that the USA was the only country in a position to extend
such assistance. Service hoped the USA would have a hand in1
1 United States Relations with China with Special Reference to the
Period 1944-1949, Department of State Publications, Washington, 1949,
p. 573.

48
China’s postwar economy, which, he felt, would attract consider­
able American investments. American Sinologists holding
diplomatic posts regarded the political situation in China in the
context of the developments in the theatres of hostilities. Vice
President Wallace expressed the confidence that Roosevelt
would take effective steps to halt the steady deterioration of the
situation in East China. If such steps were not taken, he said,
the President had to be prepared to “lose” China.
The destiny of the Chinese theatre of hostilities seriously
worried military quarters. In July 1944 Stilwell reported that
the situation in China was deteriorating and, writing that Chiang
Kai-shek was helpless, requested a reinforcement of this impor­
tant sector of the front against Japan. Stilwell’s report received
favourable attention from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. A memo­
randum was drawn up and it was signed by Admiral William D.
Leahy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This memorandum addressed
to the President began on a pessimistic note: “Whether or not
there is a possibility of our exerting a favorable influence on
the chaotic condition in China is questionable.” However, the
Joint Chiefs of Staff were not prepared to abandon hope and
insisted on drastic measures to prevent the US effort in that
region from ending in disaster.
With Japan doing everything to prolong the war and thereby
get the best possible terms for ending it, US governmental and
military circles probed the potentialities for making the Chinese
theatre more effective. The recommendation of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff to the President was: “Until her [China’s] every reso­
urce, including the divisions at present confronting the Com­
munists, is devoted to the war against the Japanese, there is little
hope that she can continue to operate with any effectiveness.”1
Stilwell was a most suitable choice to head the effort to achieve
this aim: he had always had a high opinion of the combat
capability of the armed forces of the liberated areas and wanted
cooperation with them in order to defeat Japan. But towards
the close of 1944 there was a major shuffle in the US Command
in China. The White House appointed General Patrick J. Hurley
and Donald M. Nelson as the President’s special representatives1
1 Charles F. Roman us and Riley Sunderland, Stilwell's Command
Problems, Office of the Chief of Military History. Department of the Army,
Washington, 1955, pp. 381, 382.

4-0768 49
at Chiang Kai-shek’s headquarters. On October 31, after
Stilwell’s dismissal, General Albert A. Wedemeyer took over as
commander of the US forces in China, and in November of the
same year Hurley replaced Gauss as US Ambassador.
The upper hand was thus finally won by the influential mo­
nopoly circles in the USA who in their attitude to China gave
priority to “political considerations”.
After the Second World War had passed its turning point, the
US ruling circles became concerned with planning American
postwar expansion in the Pacific. Political considerations, which
were aimed at extending and consolidating American influence
in Asia, in China in the first place, began to determine the USA’s
military strategy as well. The USA used all the means at its
disposal to unite China under Chiang Kai-shek, at the same time
trying to combine the current tasks of the war against Japan with
the implementation of Washington’s plans for the postwar
arrangement affecting the whole of China.

The Missionaries and the Revolutionary Events

Young, well-trained experts with a knowledge of China were

valued at the headquarters of General Joseph W. StilwelL.
Most of these experts came from missionary families or were
closely associated with the Christian Church in China. The
sons and close friends of many American missionaries were
on the staff of the US Embassy in Chongqing.
During the war polarisation in the missionary community
grew increasingly more visible. Some of its members, who had
close links to the Kuomintang leaders, went no further than
to rebuke their ‘friends” for “mistakes”. Others, most of whom
were associated with the National Council of Churches in the
USA, more sternly criticised the Kuomintang regime, charging
its leaders with corruption, ignorance, and misgovernment.
Chiang Kai-shek s past and the degeneration of his entourage
repelled many American missionaries and the liberal politicians
who shared their views. Well known for his close connections
with organised crime, the Generalissimo achieved the status of
head of state through his dirty use of the contradictions between
individuals and between groups and through the support he got
50
from the secret police, which crushed opposition ruthlessly.
In 1946 President Harry Truman’s special representative
offered John Leighton Stuart, President of Yanjing University,
the post of US Ambassador to China. This was no accidental
choice. Stuart was born in a missionary family in Hanzhou
[Hangchow] in 1876. In 1902 he graduated from a theological
seminary in Richmond, Virginia, and two years later with his
wife returned to Hanzhou. The young Stuart continued the work
of his parents, becoming a teacher in the expanding network
of Christian educational institutions in China that depended
on the support of 21 Protestant organisations and many Ameri­
can universities. In 1919 he became president of Yanjing
University. He remained in this post until he turned 70. Because
of Stuart’s reputation as a liberal with no known sympathies
for any particular school of political thought, General Marshall
at first enlisted his assistance into forming a coalition govern­
ment. The new American Ambassador was quite closely ac­
quainted with some leaders of the Communist Party of China.
Kept abreast of the US Ambassador’s activities, Chiang Kai-shek
did all in his power to get the information reaching Stuart
come from Kuomintang sources only.
After the Kuomintang offensive on Yanan of March 1947
Chiang Kai-shek assured Stuart that in August or at the begin­
ning of September the Communists would be either destroyed or
enlocked in regions far inland. The reason for Chiang Kai-shek’s
underestimation of his adversary was not only his own narrow­
mindedness but also his overriding desire to justify, if only in
words, the expediency of continued US aid to the Kuomintang.
Some of the experts on the Marshall mission believed that
the Kuomintang administration could be democratised by bring­
ing liberals into the government and thereby strengthening
the position of the liberals outside the CPC. Hopes of this kind
were harboured by influential members of the missionary
community. In July 1947 five Christian leaders met with Chiang
Kai-shek’s closest associates and stated their views. They tried
to persuade the Kuomintang to renounce military force as the
only way for saving the regime and urged the liberalisation of the
government. They suggested regaining the confidence of the
people by democratising state institutions and protection of
human rights and freedoms, advised the government to show
51
that it was anxious to establish an order that would give the
people a better livelihood. Madame Chiang, who participated
in this talk, was polite and friendly. She admitted that she felt
a sense of guilt for the hardships of the people. However, the
Kuomintang leader’s wife did not confine herself to repentance.
She declared flatly that Christians “should not appease Satan”,
that it was their first duty to support the government in the
fight with the CPC.1
The last hopes of the missionaries close to the Chiang Kai-
shek government for saving the Kuomintang regime faded
towards the close of 1948. Hostility for the Chiang Kai-shek re­
gime spread among the people. The growth of the prestige of the
Soviet Union and of the ideals brought to life by the struggle
of the anti-fascist coalition objectively enhanced the prestige
enjoyed by the Communist Party of China. The tactics of the
CPC leaders, who called for democracy and a united front
against China’s enemies, attracted the Chinese liberal intellec­
tuals harassed and tyrannised by ignorant rulers. This current
was also joined by the movement of young Christians brought
up at missionary educational institutions.
Many students of the Christian colleges welcomed the Chinese
Communists as the “spokesmen of Chinese nationalism”. The
striving of these students to follow the CPC was based, according
to the assertions of American historians, on “national” rather
than “ideological loyalty”. One of the first protests against
foreign interference (it came from the Centre of Christian
Colleges in Chengdu) demonstrated an attitude to a foreign
power that was rare for the Christian movement In an open
letter to the Americans in mid-October 1945, 18 Christian
organisations deplored the use of American marines in territories
in North China controlled by the CPC. Military actions of this
sort, the letter stated, would only create a tense situation and
would in no way help to form a coalition government in China.
The student movement in the winter of 1946-1947 began on the
threshold of the civil war, when no hope was left that US media­
tion (the Marshall mission) would make it possible to set up a
coalition government in China. Students of Christian colleges
1 Paul A. Varg, Missionaries, Chinese, and Diplomats. The American
Protestant Missionary Movement in China, 1890-1952, Princeton University
Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1958, p. 301.

52
joined in the demonstrations protesting against the civil war and
the policies of the Kuomintang. After futile attempts to influence
the Kuomintang government, some Christian leaders questioned
the expediency of appealing to Chiang Kai-shek’s reason.
Shedding the last of his illusions, Frank Price, a Presbyterian
clergyman and a personal friend of Chiang Kai-shek, tried to
analyse the reasons for the ignominious downfall of the Kuomin­
tang regime. The people, he said, were “utterly weary of war and
hungry for peace, food and economic recovery at almost any
price”. Those who supported the Communists, to use Pricers
words, associated the Kuomintang government with the defence
of “favored families, special classes and privileges, vested finan­
cial interests, speculators and profiteers, useless officials and
bureaucrats”.1
Thus, already during the Second World War and the early
postwar years, there were among the missionaries and among
American political leaders diverse and sometimes conflicting
views on the question of the further road for China’s develop­
ment. The American China experts grouped around General
Stilwell and the missionaries harbouring illusions miscalculated.
The heirs of the missionary movement in China hoped that
the Christian Church would continue to be active within the
“new democracy” programme proclaimed by Mao Zedong,
a programme uniting the different strata of Chinese society and
people belonging to the various religious denominations. Indeed,
the calls for a broad front under the “new democracy” policy
inspired the leaders of the Christian movement in China with
the hope that their organisations would continue to function
after 1949. Representatives of both Christians and Buddhists
were elected to the National People’s Congress. A programme
giving wide freedom to the profession of religion was broadly
publicised in China. “Brothers and Sisters in Christ,” stated a
message of the National Christian Council of China, “our
country has already entered upon a new era in its history, and as
Christians we should with the greatest enthusiasm give praise
and glory to God for that awakening of the social conscience
which we see spreading day by day under the New Democracy ...
Although the Christian Church in China has had a history of

Ibid., pp. 295, 296.

53
little more than a hundred years, within this short period it has
made a very real contribution to the early beginnings and
humble struggles of this movement which has now awakened
China to a new destiny."1 The National Christian Council
pledged its support for the new government in Beijing.
However, in 1949-1950 the new authorities placed the Christi­
an colleges under rigorous supervision, controlling their per­
sonnel, budget, taxes, and so on. By 1950 five of these colleges
had found themselves without a president and with few foreign
teachers. But before October 1950, when Chinese volunteers
joined in the war in Korea, representatives of US Christian orga­
nisations were still hoping that their colleges would remain inde­
pendent institutions in the new state (the colleges were being
funded from abroad, they still had foreign teachers—although
their numbers had dwindled—the practices in them were tradi­
tional, and so on). At the peak of the Resist America, Aid Korea
campaign, the leaders of the Christian movement came to the
conclusion that the removal of American missionaries from
work in the Christian colleges would help to preserve Christian
institutions in China. Most of the American missionaries left
China. By May 1951 eight Christian colleges did not have a
single American on their staffs.2
Many American historians have attempted to prove that the
Christian Church played a “noble role" in China, that it contrib­
uted constructively to the Chinese revolution. John K. Fairbank
asserts that the missionaries were revolutionaries from the outsi­
de, “for their teaching was essentially an attack on Confucian­
ism and on the Confucian social order". This, he claims, “was
potentially much more devastating than mere communism". To
win recognition for the claim that Christian enlightenment
played a revolutionary role in China’s socio-political life, the
main arguments put forth are usually the following: Christian
religious organisations were the conduit carrying Western civili­
sation and the Western educational system to China and were
the object relative to which the anti-imperialist orientation of
Chinese nationalism was strikingly manifested (in other words,
they were a “stimulator of revolution"). Other historians main-

1 Jessie Gregory Lutz, op. cit., p. 451.

*' Ibid., pp. 451-59, 461-63.

54
tain that because of the Christian colleges changes in China
became not only possible but necessary.
Objectively speaking, the missionaries were indeed a mainstay
of foreign expansion in China. Were not the missionaries the
people who strove to train in China the personnel needed by
American industrialists and businessmen? Were they not the
people who helped to create the climate facilitating the sale of
American goods in the Chinese market? Did not missionary
propaganda extol US policy and the activities of US political
institutions? Small wonder that the unequal treaties imposed
upon China by the capitalist states contained the provision that
missionary activity would not be obstructed.
The complex dialectics of the missionary movement is quite
evident. On the one hand, the missionaries acted as advisers
and interpreters to merchants and industrialists. But, on the
other hand, many of them, motivated by altruism, sacrificed
their lives to save people suffering from infectious diseases,
compiled dictionaries, and translated literature, in other words,
they made a contribution to the development of Chinese culture.
Influential American religious organisations had not entirely
lost their hope of recovering their influence in China. This was
seen at the close of the 1950s when voices were to be heard in the
USA noting that there was the possibility of according official
recognition to the PRC. At a conference convened in November
1958 by the National Council of Churches, the Protestant
Church made public its recommendations that the US govern­
ment should establish diplomatic relations with Beijing while
preserving its guarantees to Taiwan and South Korea, and that
it should take steps to have the PRC admitted to the United
Nations Organisation. Representatives of religious organisations
in the USA made no secret of their hope that the restoration
of relations between China and the USA would make it possible
to restore links between the Chinese and American churches.
Spokesmen of the Christian Church in the USA stressed that
the wisdom and strength of the opposition to communism did
not lie in a refusal to conduct any negotiations with the PRC.
They urged giving thought chiefly to the terms on which the
USA could send its Ambassador to Beijing. The Kuomintang
lobby in the USA and right-wing spokesmen of the opposition
regarded these recommendations as evidence of the Church’s
55
“penetration by Communists”. In the USA undisguised anti­
communism was fanned also by the many Christians who fol­
lowed Chiang Kai-shek to Taiwan and settled there.
Converting the population in China to Christianity was a US
objective the Americans failed to achieve. The number of
Chinese Christians never exceeded one per cent of the popula­
tion. Following the expulsion of the missionaries, the Christian
Church in the PRC became a weak institution and its future
looked uncertain.
After Mao's death and the Chinese leadership's reconsidera­
tion of the legacy of the “cultural revolution”, the Christian
Church regained a growing role in China. It seemed that it had
been dealt an irreparable blow in the mid-1960s, at the height
of the “cultural revolution”. All churches and church-run
schools were closed in 1966. Priests, monks, and nuns were
sent to factories and rural communes for “re-education”. The
Young Men’s Christian Association, one of the most important
centres of the Christian Church in the country, ceased to
function even in Shanghai, China’s most cosmopolitan city.
Since the 1970s many Western theologians, sociologists, and
Sinologists began to reappraise the role played by the missionary
movement in China. Some sought to answer the question
whether the Church was not partly to blame for the failure of
missionary activity in China. Others, taking for granted the
egalitarian ideas of the “cultural revolution”, tried to find a
symbiosis between Christian morals and the views of the archi­
tects and inspirers of the Chinese commune.
The world's leading religious organisations called upon
their followers to study the “Chinese phenomenon”. In 1972,
when Richard Nixon made his voyage to Beijing, a Chinese
department was opened at the Brussels Catholic Centre, while
a department for the study of Marxism in China was set up
at the Lutheran World Federation. By 1975 at least 25 Christ­
ian China research centres had been opened in the USA,
Europe, and Australia. The Brussels Catholic Centre initiated
the formation of the Catholics of Europe Interested in China
organisation. The North American division of this organisation
began functioning in 1979. The objective of this organisation
was to generalise the experience of the missionary movement
in China and, on the basis of that study, work out a new
56
approach to China for the Christian organisations. Former
missionaries attended a number of meetings sponsored by the
Catholics of Europe Interested in China to consider, in partic­
ular, the idea of a positive attitude to Chinese reali­
ties. They urged a more profound study of China and of the
socio-political views current in Chinese society and in the
East as a whole.
After 15 years of inactivity, the Young Men’s Christian
Association re-opened its doors. On September 21, 1980,
after a long interval, the Christians of Shanghai gathered
for a jubilee service to mark the 30th anniversary of the found­
ing of the local Protestant Church. The Catholics resumed
services in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Chengdu.
The change of the attitude of the Chinese authorities
to religion encouraged Western Christians to look for ways
of establishing contacts between the Chinese Christian Church
and the Christian Church of other countries. It was felt that
much could be done in this direction by Chinese emigres
living in Southeast Asia and in Hong Kong. With the forma­
tion of a large Christian community in Hong Kong were
linked the hopes for the creation of a channel through
which to influence Chinese Christians in the mainland.
The absence of foreign missionaries has become a major
hallmark of the reviving Christian movement in China. The
fact that the clergy has begun to speak of the way for the
independent development of the Church in China under­
scores the wish of the authorities and the clergy to restrict
the ideological and cultural influence of the USA in China.
 CHAPTER THREE

44ASIA FIRST”

The “China Lobby”

With the victory of the anti-Hitler coalition and the growth
of the Soviet Union's prestige among the liberated nations of
Europe and Asia, it would seem that the ideas of peace and
justice had triumphed throughout the world. The San Fran­
cisco Conference instituted the United Nations Organisation
with the purpose of maintaining and consolidating peace in the
postwar world. However, the prospects for a peaceful postwar
settlement and the attainment of full independence and political
sovereignty by all peoples did not have the understanding
of certain segments of American opinion. Doubts tortured
those quarters that fearfully watched the spread of libera­
tion movements in the world and the growth of democratic
sentiments in the USA itself.
Proponents of priority attention to Asia, lobbying for Chiang
Kai-shek, became more active in the US Congress. These were
spokesmen of the “Asia First” group, which sought to in­
fluence the government in order to involve the USA more
intimately in Asia, above all on the side of Chiang Kai-shek
in China. In the opinion of Donald M. Nelson, who headed
the US government’s war production board, US business­
men had to see China as an industrial domain of the USA that
was no less or may be even more important than the American
West in the early twentieth century.
The material interests of the American monopolies prompt­
ed the activities of the “China Lobby” in the USA.
The developments linked to the redistribution of wealth, to
the growth or diminution of the role of individual monop­
oly groups, which, among other things, reflected the structur-

58
al changes in the US industry that had expanded on the yeast
of military spending, inevitably led to the appearance on the
American political scene of new forces that gave greater or
renewed special attention to the Pacific basin. In the US
Congress the opposition, consisting mainly of proponents of
priority attention by the USA to the Pacific, became more
strident as the national liberation movement widened in Asia
and new monopoly associations interested in Far Eastern
affairs grew stronger. The influence wielded by this group
acquired weight with the rapid economic development of
the West coast states and the burgeoning of the new monopoly
associations.
The Second World War brought the Rockefellers a net
profit of over two billion dollars. In part this came from the
growth of oil consumption in industry, used both as a fuel
and in the production of armaments-related chemicals. Most
of this family’s investments were, as before, in Latin America,
the Middle East, and Asia. The Rockefellers wanted China
turned into their second most important domain after Latin
America. The loss by the USA of its dominant role in China
would be a devastating blow at the Rockefeller empire. The
owners of Standard Oil were not prepared to reconcile them­
selves with this. Their interests coincided with those of the
Bank of America, which was closely associated with the Ex­
port-Import Bank in funding American projects in China.
The swift economic growth of the West coast states reinforced
the new finance-monopoly groups that had a large stake
in Asia’s, chiefly China’s, problems. Steel mills and also
militarily important industries such as aircraft- and ship­
building sprang up in these states. Wartime conditions were
used with considerable benefit by one of the strongest finan­
cial groups in the USA, that of California. During the war this
group’s main financial institution, the Bank of America, ac­
quired the muscle to compete with leading New York banks.
The traditional interests of these monopolies in the Far East
became the invisible springs that largely determined the increa­
sed support that the Republican majority in Congress gave to the
opposing, Europe-oriented group.
When among the conservative Democrats and Republicans
united under the “Asia First’’ slogan the question arose of
59
a leader of the opposition to the Europe orientation, the can­
didates most frequently mentioned were Senator William
Knowland and General Douglas MacArthur.
In 1945 Earl Warren, Governor of California, rendered
Knowland, then 37, an inestimable service by helping him to be­
come a member of the US Senate. True, a large role was
played in Knowland’s career by his father, who made exten­
sive use of his newspaper, Oakland Tribune, to this end.
From the beginning of his political career the young Senator
demonstrated that he was an adherent of the most reactionary
ways of implementing domestic and foreign policies.
General MacArthur played the role of spokesman of the
annexionist groups. MacArthur’s appointment to the post of
Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in the Pacific was
regarded in the USA as a considerable success of the Asia-
oriented group.
MacArthur exemplified the shift to the right in postwar US
foreign policy: he was credited with the steps taken by the
US administration to revive the Japanese monopolies as soon
as possible, and suppress the democratic forces and national
liberation movements in Japan, China, Indochina, Korea, and
other Asian countries. He assiduously enforced the policy of the
US Command in Japan—renunciation of cooperation with the
Soviet Union and also with other countries that fought in
the war in the Pacific. In the Senate Armed Services and
Foreign Affairs committees this determination displayed by
MacArthur met with vigorous approval. Proponents of the
“Asia First” policy acclaimed the general, calling him a nation­
al hero who had won glory in the “struggle against commu­
nism”.
The Knowland and the MacArthur groups vehemently criti­
cised the US government for giving priority attention to
Europe, opposed the sending of US land forces to European
countries, and found acceptable the notion that in Europe
there should be total reliance on a revitalised West German
army. The European policy programme was countered with
a programme providing for massive aid to Chiang Kai-shek,
the accelerated remilitarisation of Japan, and the formation,
of a powerful strike alliance in the Far East.
The proponents of increasing US influence in the Pacific
60
 were not squeamish about what they did if it helped to put
pressure on the government. The institution of lobbyism was
particularly effective. Witnesses of the activities of the “China
Lobby” noted that these were unprecedented in terms of imper­
tinent interference in governmental affairs and in shaping
public opinion in the USA. The “China Lobby” consisted of,
among others, businessmen seeking to retrieve their privi­
leges in China, political brokers dreaming of a rapid career,
adventurers, and professional anti-communists.
For all practical purposes, the “China Lobby” came into
being in 1940. In the spring of that year Song, a brother of
Chiang Kai-shek’s wife, arrived in Washington and stayed
there until 1943, attending courses at Harvard and Columbia
universities. Upon returning to China he was made Finance
Minister and then Foreign Affairs Minister of the Kuomintang
government. In 1944 his assets in the USA were estimated
at 47 million dollars. He was extremely active during his stay
in the USA, skilfully making influential friends, who included
Harry Hopkins, Henry Morgenthau, Henry Luce (owner of
Time, Life, and other publications), the newspaper magnate
Roy Howard, and the newspaper columnist Joseph Alsop.
Henry Luce began to show an economic interest in Chinese
affairs. He owned large packets of shares in some of the
biggest US monopoly corporations that had infiltrated the econ­
omy of Taiwan (Westinghouse Electric, American Express,
Reynolds). American sugar companies, in which Luce capital
played a large role after the war, controlled 60 per cent of
the sugar industry on Taiwan, while industrial concerns took
over the mining of minerals on the island. During the Second
World War this newspaper magnate had founded a powerful
organisation, United China Relief, with the objective of muster­
ing the utmost support for Chiang Kai-shek. People familiar
with Henry Luce’s economic interests did not see as accidental
his decision to become the patron and head of the China
Institute in America.
Congressman Walter H. Judd (Minnesota), who was a leading
“China lobbyist” known for his missionary activities in China,
addressed the House of Representatives on March 15, 1945.
“Mr. Churchill and Mr. Roosevelt,” he said, speaking angrily,
“made the basic decision right after Pearl Harbor to hold
61
defensively in the Pacific while disposing of Germany and
Italy in Europe. So we poured 98 per cent of our supplies
into Europe and less than 2 per cent into East Asia, and
less than 10 per cent of that went to the Chinese. Up until
a few months ago, when we finally began to consider the
Chinese armies of sufficient importance to make an all-out effort
to be of assistance to them, they had only two-tenths of
1 per cent of all the supplies that we sent abroad to our ar­
mies.” 1 The debate grew acute and was over not only the
China problem as such but also and rather over the choice
of the ways and means of pursuing the USA’s foreign policy.
The “China Lobby” directed its criticism at Secretary of
State Dean Acheson, who resisted its pressure. It charged
General Marshall with having tried to get an agreement
between the Kuomintang and the Communists, attributed to him
the decision to cut off 500 million dollars’ worth of aid to Chiang
Kai-shek, in 1947, and demanded the dismissal from the State
Department of experts who were speaking of the actual situa­
tion in China. From New York, Washington, Chicago, and San
Francisco the China Central News Agency circulated informa­
tion slanted in favour of the Kuomintang and their friends
in the USA. According to Senator Wayne Morse, this agency,
which was controlled exclusively by the Kuomintang, spent
654 million dollars to shape US public opinion in the period
1946-1949.
It was in this period of doubt and feverish quests for
acceptable ways of implementing the China policy that passions
flared up also over the liberal Institute of Pacific Relations.
In March 1947 Alfred Kohlberg advanced the idea of an in­
quiry into the activities of the I PR. This enterprising textile
dealer, who had offices in China, Japan, France, Britain,
and Switzerland, was extremely active in Chinese affairs.
At the turn of the century he had rushed about Far Eastern
countries in search of profits and established contacts with
Chinese textile manufacturers. In 1941 he became a director of
the American Bureau for Medical Aid to China and a member
of the I PR’s finance committee. He had pragmatic motiva-
tions for his interest in the I PR. His close contacts with the
1 Joseph Keeley, The China Lobby Man. The Story of Alfred Kohlberg,
Arlington House. New Rochelle. New York, 1969, pp. 37-38.

62
ruling circles in Chongqing induced him to keep a close eye on
everything that could be to the detriment of the Chiang
Kai-shek clique and weaken its position in the confrontation
with the CPC. Moreover, where possible he tried to direct
developments into the channel desired by his Kuomintang
friends. When an article by T. A. Bisson entitled “China’s
Part in a Coalition War’’ appeared in the Far Eastern Sur­
vey, a magazine published by the IPR, Kohlberg suddenly
began taking an interest in the institute’s publications, especially
in articles written by T. A. Bisson. The latter had given
a picture of the development of two Chinas. One burdened
with feudal survivals, oppressed and disinherited; the other—
a democratic nation. According to Bisson, the term communism
was not applicable for assessment of the revolutionary move­
ment in China; he believed that a more apt term would be
bourgeois democracy adapted to the specific agrarian relations
prevailing in China.
In 1943 Kohlberg went to China and tried to collect mater­
ial for arguments that would cast doubt on the many charges
that were being made against the Chiang Kai-shek regime.
Upon his arrival in China Kohlberg struck up a close acquain­
tance with General Claire L. Chennault, head of the
Flying Tigers, and General Thomas S. Arms, head of the infan­
try training school at Stilwell’s headquarters. He got a lot of sig­
nificant information from them. The theory that the CPC had
a special identity and that there were New Dealers in the
communist movement was presented in Kohlberg’s reports to
the State Department as insinuations by the IPR. He
stopped at nothing. The IPR, which was widely known in
the world academic community, was called “Red” and a centre
of the world “subversive activities of the Communists’’. In
March 1947 IPR members received a letter signed by leading
personalities of the institute who qualified Kohlberg’s charges
as “inaccurate and irresponsible”.
The situation was not conducive for the Kuomintang lob­
by, for the conservative circles in the USA that instituted liti­
gation against the IPR and regarded the persons accused by
them as symbolising a “defeatist” policy in Asia.
The Bank of China hired the services of David E. Charney,
a leading expert on social relations. This highly paid agent
had been involved in the political in-fighting in the USA and
had helped the forces that were most in line with the interests
of the “China Lobby” win the upper hand.
Among the 17 collective agents registered in the USA and
paid by the Kuomintang there were several prominent US
corporations operating in the sphere of monopoly business and
in the sphere of ideology. One of them, Allied Syndicate,
Inc., a New York public relations firm, received from the
Bank of China a net income of 10,000 dollars and fees amount­
ing to 50,000 dollars. Universal Trading Corporation, whose aim
was to promote US-Chinese trade, had assets in 1949 total­
ling 21,674,751 dollars. Well-known American industrialists,
bankers, and academics took part in the activities of the
“China Lobby”.
The political clamour over the problem of “Europe or
Asia” reached its climax in 1947. The proclamation of the
Truman doctrine and the President’s request for congressional
approval of 400 million dollars for military and economic aid to
Greece and Turkey prodded the Republican leaders into a reap­
praisal of US policy toward China. The bellicose opposition
in №e House of Representatives used this occasion for an at­
tempt to prove that there was no sense in maintaining con­
tacts with the CPC and in the USA’s efforts to form a coali­
tion government in China. The Truman administration, which
gave the impression that it was ready to accept a compromise
and reconcile the warring sides in China, was accused by Judd
of trying to help the “communist minority to topple the lawful
government”. Secretary of State Acheson endeavoured to per­
suade die opposition that the Chinese government was viable
and that “it was not on the verge of collapse”. The idea of
a class alliance of the USA’s ruling elite with imperialist Europe
eclipsed the China problem for the USA, albeit for a time.
The “China Lobby” very forcefully demonstrated in Con­
gress that it was prepared and had the potential to jeopardize
the government’s programme of aid to Europe in the event
the government made no concessions. The rejection of the
Chiang Kai-shek aid bills by the House of Representatives
was regarded by experienced American politicians as a triumph
of the proponents of the Europe orientation. Members of the
“China Lobby” bided their time, waiting for an opportunity.
64
This opportunity finally came. Congressman James P. Richards
(a Democrat of South Carolina) submitted an amendment
to the bill on military aid to the NATO powers. The amendment
envisaged halving the administration’s aid programme of
1,100 million dollars and was passed by a majority vote.
Knowland, Styles Bridges, and other senators charged that the
administration was responsible for the confiscation of American
property in China.
Cases of some circles in the Republican Party stating their
understanding and support for the “China Lobby” grew fre­
quent. These circles championed the interests of US monopo­
lies that were less closely linked to European capital, were wait­
ing for new opportunities to enforce the Open Door prin­
ciple, and were prepared to show greater determination in the
struggle against traditional Western colonialism.

Americans in Indochina
and Chiang Kai-shek’s Machinations

In Pentagon documents published in 1971 US policy rela­

tive to Vietnam in the period from 1940 to 1950 is assessed
as profound incomprehension (Roosevelt had no intention of
returning the Indochina colonies to France, and after his death
US policy towards the countries of Indochina was at a cross­
roads) . Although this thesis was widely commented upon in the
American press in the early 1970s, it had a long history.
Some American historians had earlier also attributed the specif­
ics of American policy towards Indochina during the Second
World War and Washington’s subsequent miscalculations in
Asia to Roosevelt’s striving to remove French influence from
that part of the world. Senator Joseph McCarthy, who won
notoriety as the stage-manager of the “witchhunt” in the
USA, accused the deceased President of betraying the interests
of the USA and its West European allies and of harbour­
ing the “seditious” idea of a postwar trusteeship in Indochina.
In the wake of the Senator some ultra-reactionary publicists
attempted to prove that Roosevelt had “betrayed” the peoples
of Southeast Asia, China, and Europe.
State Department documents and the memoirs of US states­
men and military leaders published in the 1960s brought to
5-0768 65
light the story of the intense struggle between imperialist states
for Indochina. As in earlier publications, in these Roosevelt
is depicted as categorically opposed to French influence in
Indochina, as acting against the recommendations of his foreign
affairs department. For example, in one of these documents
the State Department recommended the employment—in mili­
tary operations or in the administration of Indochina—of Fren­
chmen who knew the country and its problems. Here, a very sig­
nificant reservation was made, namely, that the employment of
Frenchmen should only help to carry out military operations but
not influence the final decision of Indochina's postwar status.
US political leaders made desperate attempts to prevent any
French political actions in Indochina. The story of the USA's
struggle for Indochina was used in support of the claim
about the USA being “anti-colonialist”.
In the face of the Allied victory over world imperial­
ism’s most aggressive forces and of the growing anti-colonial­
ist feeling in the world Washington could not openly proclaim
aggressive plans relative to any former colony, including
Indochina.
The lofty vision of aiding backward peoples, of helping
them to achieve national independence was used to win public
support for postwar trusteeship over Indochina and over some
other Asian countries. Trusteeship became the curtain from
behind which US imperialism was preparing to expand
American economic and political influence in Asia. American
“anti-colonialism” proved to be—as was seen with the utmost
clarity during the rapid spread of the national liberation move­
ment in the East—in total conflict with the concepts of
the class unity among imperialist states aimed against libera­
tion revolutions. As did many other Western academics, Hans J.
Morgenthau, for example, critically reassessed US policy rela­
tive to the colonial possessions of Britain, France, Holland,
and Portugal. Some American analysts are of the view that
the “anti-colonialist” motive in US foreign policy, which mani­
fested itself with particular clarity during the Second World
War and the early postwar years in relation to Indochina,
prevented unity against the “communist threat”.1 “We have
1 Louis J. Halle, American Foreign Policy. Theory and Reality, George
Allen & Unwin LuL, London, 1960, p. 298.

66
no more interests here [in Indochina]../' said General Jean
de Lattre de Tassigny (French High Commissioner in Indochina
during the early postwar years.—V.V.) addressing the USA.
“And the propaganda you Americans make that we are still
colonialists is doing us tremendous harm."1
The Kuomintang ideologues made no secret of the Chiang
Kai-shek regime’s intentions relative to Indochina. The Kuomin­
tang clique was against the restoration of the conditions
that obtained in Indochina under French rule. It was impressed
by the policy pursued by Washington in the Philippines and
it saw this policy as a model for the entire Pacific. The regime
in Chongqing believed that China would under all circum­
stances be a participant in the colonial administration of
Indochina.
For influential circles of the French bourgeoisie the news
that the USA and Britain intended to institutionalise Indo­
china’s partition along the 16th parallel was tantamount to
the explosion of a time-bomb. What disturbed these circles
most was that without seeking France’s opinion, the USA and
Britain had decided to partition Indochina into two roughly
equal parts. The North would be occupied by Kuomintang
troops, and the South by the British.
The USA sought to influence the political situation in
Indochina through its Kuomintang agents. Well-informed about
Chiang Kai-shek’s plans with regard to Indochina US politi­
cal leaders were fully determined to enlist Chinese national­
ism into their service in this case as well. Washington encoour-
aged the Kuomintang to find a mainstay among Vietnamese
nationalistic organisations.12
In a telegram to Paris dated August 12, 1945, Jean
Sainteny, who led a secret French mission to Indochina,
noted: “In fact the Chinese are preparing to take Tonkin and to
this end are multiplying their intrigues to prevent intervention
by Alessandri’s units and our commandos... I repeat: the Chinese,
1 Robert Shaplen, The Lost Revolution, Harper & Row Publishers,
New York, 1965, p. 80.
2 A Vietnamese nationalistic organisation, the Vietnamese Revolutionary
League (Dong Minh hoi), was founded in Liyewu Zhou, China, in October
1942. Like the Кuomintang-sponsored “Provisional Government of Korea”,
this organisation received monthly cash subsidies of 100,000 Chinese dollars
from Chiang Kai-shek.
67
supported by some influential American personalities, are
trying to take Indochina from us. As a result, we French,
poorly armed and numbering only 2,500, are compelled to face
three Japanese and 20 Chinese divisions and to contend with
constant resistance from some high-ranking American and
Chinese officials.”
American intelligence agents besieged the French mission
on all sides, intercepting its correspondence and obstructing
movement for the French in the country. When Chinese
troops arrived in the north, the French there were disarmed.
In a conversation with the French General Alessandri,
the American General Gallagher and the Chinese General
Wang informed the former that since the question of returning
Indochina to France was being discussed by the Council of Five
in London, and also in Paris between the French and the
Kuomintang, they could not assume the responsibility of trans­
porting the French delegates to Hanoi. Gallagher added that
there could be no question of a French protectorate in
Indochina.
Judging from the reminiscences of eye-witnesses, the activi­
ties of American and Kuomintang troops turned Vietnam into
a concentration camp for the French.' For French citizens
the situation in Indochina deteriorated sharply when Kuomin­
tang military units appeared in the north of the country.
French High Commissioner Jean Sainteny tried to attribute
the behaviour of the American representatives in Indochina
in those'years to “incomprehension, errors”, etc. According to
him, the Americans did not understand the problems related
not only to the whole of Indochina but also to the whole
of the Far East. Meanwhile in Hanoi the US representatives,
he wrote, “played beyond measure, perhaps involuntarily,
into the hands of Annamite nationalism”. “In the eyes of the
Americans,” Sainteny noted, “we were mad and incorrigibly
stubborn when it came to restoring the colonial past, against
which they [the Americans.—V.V.] were opposed in the name
of an infantile anti-colonialism, which had blinded almost all of
them.” 1
Unlike the Americans, the British demonstrated an inten-
1 Jean Sainteny, Histoire dune paix manquee. Indochine 1945-1947,
Amiot Dumont, Paris, 1953, pp. 50-51, 124, 125.
68
tion to assist colonialist France, deciding upon vigorous steps1
in support of France in Indochina. On September 6, 1945
a force of 750 British troops landed in Saigon, and a battalion
of French infantry arrived together with them. The British
commanding officer informed representatives of the revolution­
ary authority formed in the south of the DRV that the responsi­
bility for disarming the Japanese army lay with the British and
the French. The British released and armed 1,400 French
prisoners-of-war. On September 23, 1945, aided by the Japa­
nese, the French and the British made an attempt to take
into custody the Administrative Committee of South Vietnam
that had been formed in the course of the revolution of
August 1945.1 France and the Chiang Kai-shek clique signed
an agreement in Chongqing on February 28, 1946, in which
the French made some concessions: they agreed to grant cer­
tain privileges to Chinese residing in Indochina, mark out a spec­
ial zone for China in the port of Haiphong, grant tariff-free
transit across Indochina for goods of Chinese origin or being
transported to China, give China the most-favoured-nation
status in Indochina, sell to China before the stipulated date a sec­
tor of the Yunnan Railway running across Indochina, and
renounce the French concession in Shanghai. In return the
Chinese agreed that their troops in North Vietnam would be
replaced by French units by the spring of 1946. The Kuomin-
tang regime did all in its power to drag out honouring this
agreement. The Chinese command planned to withdraw from
Indochina only after the opium harvest was brought in and
the rice and livestock were requisitioned. In this situation
the revolutionary forces in Indochina found themselves under
double pressure: from the colonialists and from nationalist
organisations linked to the Kuomintang.12
1 Somewhat later, in December 1946, the French colonialists made another
attempt to arrest the DRV government, which they had recognised,
and this triggered a general armed uprising against them.
2 When the Kuomintang troops occupied the northern part of Indochina,
bourgeois-nationalist organisations stepped up their activities. These organi­
sations, notably Dong Minh hoi, Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang, and Dai Viet,
used the support of the Kuomintang to form a nationalist bloc headed by
Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang, which had the greatest confidence of the
Kuomintang. The nationalist bloc tried to use its influence to subvert the
elections in the country, and after the DRV government was formed to remove
the republic’s leadership.

69
 The deteriorating situation in which the Kuomintang armies
found themselves during the civil war in China eroded the
US government’s course towards using Chinese nationalism
in its interests in Indochina. On January 6, 1946 the over­
whelming majority of the Vietnamese population voted for the
Viet Minh candidates to the country’s National Assembly.
With Ho Chi Minh at its head, the government of the Democratic
Republic of Vietnam pursued a flexible policy, taking the
actual situation in the country into account and making skilful
use of the inter-imperialist contradictions. The agreement with
France gave the revolutionary forces a respite, enabling them
to free Vietnam from the further presence of marauding
Kuomintang troops and contributing to a speedy rout of the
bourgeois-nationalist groups opposed to the DRV.
In its official diplomacy in Indochina the USA sought to
pose as a champion of the liberation of colonial peoples,
as a staunch defender of the Vietnamese people’s independence.
Washington began to look for new ways of asserting its
influence in this region and when France, in its attempts to
restore the colonialist regime in Indochina, appealed to the
former emperor Bao Dai, veteran US diplomats acted as inter­
mediaries. William C. Bullitt, emissary of the US monopolies and
former US Ambassador to France (1936-1941), made much
headway in this direction: he met and talked with French
officials in Indochina and with ministers in Paris. He was
interested in everything: the economic potential, the economic
situation, and information on candidates for leading political
office.1 Bullitt met with Bao Dai in Hong Kong in the autumn
of 1947 and in Geneva in September 1948. This veteran
American politician did everything in his power to persuade
the former emperor to champion Vietnam’s status of “inde­
pendence”. Well aware that the French needed him, Bao Dai
dragged out the talks, feeling US support and endeavouring to
drive a hard bargain. Finally, in March 1949, French Presi­
dent Auriol and Bao Dai arrived at a common view. Bao
1 Tbe French High Commissioner Emile Bollert telegraphed to Paris:
“Although this is a private visit, Mr. Bullitt is showing an unusually keen
interest in economic matters, and in the two talks I have had with him he
questioned me closely about the industrial and trade situation in Indochina
in the past and at present."
70
 Dai accepted the formula that together with the colony of
Cochin China Vietnam would be “independent” within the
framework of a French Union. Adopting the title of head of
state, the former emperor had to sign a protocol guarantee­
ing French interests, particularly the special “rights of France
in defence” and foreign policy.
Having permitted France to take over the command heights
in South Vietnam, the USA did not relinquish the idea of con­
trolling Indochina. It looked closely for a social bulwark,
a foundation on which it would erect the edifice of US
colonialism in Indochina. The Diem family attracted Washing­
ton’s attention. Linked by family ties, the Diem brothers be­
longed to a mandarin family that had always held high
office at the imperial court. They were not regarded as being
wealthy, but they had always benefited enormously by admin­
istrative office; the Diems managed to be appointed to the
most lucrative offices at the imperial court and later in the
French colonial administration.1
Ngo Dinh Diem desperately wanted power. He negotiated
with the French, the Japanese, and the Americans, doggedly
trying to outstrip others in answering the question of who
would come out on top. At first, he faithfully served the
Japanese, who skilfully protected him against the humiliat­
ed French. But in 1945, when the Japanese wanted to give him
the post of prime minister during the rule of Bao
Dai, he turned down the “honour”. Had this happened a year
or two earlier, he would have considered it wise to accept
the title, but now with the days of the Japanese empire
numbered, this zealous votary of the Catholic Church wanted
to have nothing more to do with the “Co-Prosperity Sphere”.
When the Viet Minh army entered Hanoi, Ngo Dinh Diem
was in hiding in a monastery. But he was soon remembered.
The Americans, who were giving Bao Dai special attention,

[ Prior to the Second World War Ngo Dinh Diem, the most prominent
member of this family, held administrative office for many years. In 1933
he was internal affairs minister in the Bao Dai government. By the time war
broke out Ngo Dinh Diem had on his conscience innumerable crimes
against the country’s patriotic forces. He enjoyed the support and confidence
of the Japanese colonialists. His friends noted his amazing ability to emerge
scot-free from the dirtiest of affairs.
71
had not forgotten Ngo Dinh Diem either. When the US emissary
Bullitt visited Bao Dai in Hong Kong, Ngo Dinh Diem was
invited to join the two men for “consultations on the future
composition of the government”.
There was nothing that could crush the people’s aspiration
for freedom. Artificially maintained by the Kuomintang, the
reactionary groups in Indochina and in Korea were regarded
with contempt by the people.
Lenin’s description of the bourgeoisie of oppressed nations
is entirely applicable to these conciliatory groups: “The
bourgeoisie of the oppressed nations persistently utilise the
slogans of national liberation to deceive the workers; in their
internal policy they use these slogans for reactionary agree­
ments with the bourgeoisie of the dominant nation ... in their
foreign policy they strive to come to terms with one of
the rival imperialist powers for the sake of implementing
their predatory plans.” 1
These groups were opposed by the revolutionary forces.
A large role was played in the liberation of China, Korea, and
Indochina by the national liberation movement of the Chinese
people, the selfless struggle of the Korean guerillas in North­
eastern China, and the partisan movement in Indochina. With in­
ternationalism as the baas of its unity, the movement against
the colonialists attracted growing numbers of people. Unlike
the conciliatory groups, the revolutionary movement had direct
links to the national liberation democratic movement and to
the revolutionary and patriotic forces of different countries.
The Communists, who shed their blood in the heavy fighting
against the enemies of their people, had the support of the
working people, while the conciliatory groups in most instan­
ces, on account of their deals with the colonialists, isolated
themselves from the masses, from the struggle for national lib­
eration.

The Kuomintang clique’s favourite tactic was to blackmail

its American patrons; it had tested this tactic time and againV
.

V. I. Lenin, “The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-

Determination”, Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 148.

72
during the war and in most cases it had justified itself.
When the clique wanted more American aid, it claimed that
“China was being threatened” by the Soviet Union, declaring
that “Russia would dominate China” if the necessary US
aid was not forthcoming. When the Europe orientation group
finally gained the upper hand in the US Congress and it became
obvious to the Kuomintang that it would be difficult to count
on getting the desired amount of aid from the USA, Chiang
Kai-shek offered absurd arguments that could have a response
only from the most adventurist quarters in the USA. He spoke
of the possibility of the Kuomintang receiving assistance from
the Soviet Union.
His policies cast doubt on the expediency of US aid to Kuo­
mintang China—the prospect of paying too high a price for leav­
ing China empty-handed did not, of course, suit the American
business community. The Americans were dealing with a tho­
roughly corrupt, double-dealing, and hypocritical regime. Ar­
dent champions of the ideals of American democracy, who
were not burdened by links to the Kuomintang dictator, spoke
openly of the need to replace the Chiang Kai-shek adminis­
tration. Many of them pointed to the unbridled corruption,
to the predominance enjoyed by a venal bureaucracy. The
Kuomintang tried to save the face of the regime, to show
Washington that this was a viable regime. To this end they
made attempts to curb profiteering, to eradicate the black mar­
ket. In August 1948 Chiang Kai-shek’s son, Jiang Jingguo, who
was then only making his first steps as a politician, was
assigned to enforce law and order in Shanghai. He had
the support of the mayor, but he was hamstrung by the head of
the local underworld—the secret gangster Green society. Jiang
Jingguo underestimated the Shanghai gangsters; the influence
of the Greens extended even to Chiang Kai-shek.
The activities of Chiang Kai-shek’s wife, Song Meiling (Jiang
Jingguo’s stepmother), and of her sister, who married the banker
H.H. Kung, were willy-nilly often directed towards helping
the underworld syndicates that controlled the black market.
While of the three sisters only Sun Yatsen’s widow Song
Quingling won the admiration of the working people as head of
the Institute of Philanthropy, the two others became deeply
involved in the shady affairs of their husbands.
73
 In Shanghai the activity of Jiang Jingguo’s agents ended
with their discovery of a storehouse of forbidden goods. It
turned out that these goods were owned by the Yangtze
Development Corporation, which was controlled by the Banker
Rung. Jiang Jingguo decided to arrest the banker's son,
David Rung, but Madame Chiang took a plane to Shanghai to
cool the ardour of her stepson. Rung left for the USA and
thus avoided a scandal. Chiang Rai-shek’s son did not reign
long in Shanghai. His mission came to an end on November
1, 1948. He had only slightly disturbed the hive of profiteers,
corrupt bureaucrats, and racketeers.
An important development that reinforced in Washington
the opponents of US aid to the Ruomintang was Chiang
Rai-shek’s ruthless suppression of the Taiwan separatists in
1947. American politicians found themselves face to face
with an unpleasant paradox: the life of many advocates of
the ideals of American democracy, all of them graduates of US
institutions of higher learning, was in danger. They had been
incarcerated in Ruomintang prisons and had to leave China in
order to find a safe haven.
The history of these events is noteworthy.
Immediately after Tokyo capitulated, pro-Japanese elements
among the ruling Formosan elite raised the question of the
“independence” of Taiwan. But Ruomintang forces soon flood­
ed Taiwan following their defeat on the mainland. “The
dogs have gone, but pigs have come to replace them,” said the
inhabitants of Taiwan about this unexpected change of admin­
istration. The rising that took place under the slogan of “Formo­
sa for Formosans” was directed against the newcomers, and it
was joined by pro-American leaders of the local separatists,
among whom the Liao brothers—Thomas and Joshua—were
extremely popular. The former, an alumnus of Ohio State Un­
iversity and holder of a Ph. D. degree, had an American wife.
The latter, regarded as a theoretician of the Taiwan separatists,
had come to Taiwan from the USA in 1946. Involved in the
rising of 1947, he was thrown into a Ruomintang prison, and
upon his release, in 1948, left for Hong Rong.
The Chiang Rai-shek forces drowned the rising in blood—
more than 10,000 persons were imprisoned. Many of the fugitive
Taiwan separatists failed to find asylum in Hong Rong and
74
settled in Japan. Their status in Japan proved to be much more
complex than they had expected. MacArthur preferred to deal
with Chiang Kai-shek. Zheng Qun, a former prime minister
of the Chiang Kai-shek regime, called upon him in August
1948. In his talks with MacArthur and with many officials of the
Japanese government Zheng Qun sought an agreement on future
Japanese-Taiwanese relations “with the purpose of promoting
economic coordination and collective security in Asia”. Without
cooperation with China and the whole of Asia, the Japanese
press noted at the time, Japan would be unable to carry out
its programme of rehabilitation even if it was supplied with
food and raw materials from the USA.
In December 1949 the Taiwanese emigres in Japan sent
MacArthur a message requesting him to use Allied troops
for the immediate occupation of Taiwan and, under internation­
al control, conduct preparations for a plebiscite on the island.
This message was shelved at the headquarters of the occupation
forces.
Being informed of the situation on the mainland, the US
Embassy was increasingly inclined to recognise that Chiang Kai-
shek’s defeat was inevitable. The Generalissimo’s hopes that the
US presidential elections in 1948 would be won by Thomas
Dewey, the Republican candidate, were misplaced. Dewey’s
promises of all-out support for Chiang Kai-shek no longer had
any significance, while the money contributed by the Kuomin-
tang to the Republican candidate’s election fund proved to have
gone down the drain.
The questions constantly discussed by the Generalissimo with
his supporters were: What was to be done? How to make the
Kuomintang continue look credible? Whom to send to Washing­
ton to “enlighten” intractable American political leaders about
the situation in China and make them loosen the purse-strings in
favour of the Kuomintang? One candidate after another was
considered. The choice finally fell on Song Meiling, Chiang Kai-
shek’s wife. “I shall make another try,” she promised. In Nan­
king they hoped that the US government would invite Madame
Chiang as its guest. How great then must have been their disap­
pointment when US Secretary of State Marshall made it known
that he would be “pleased” to receive Chiang Kai-shek’s wife as
a “personal friend”.
75
 When Madame Chiang arrived in Washington, there were
other surprises waiting for her. “Nobody is interested in us,” she
wrote in her first anxious message home. Indeed, official Wa­
shington, now gazing at the world through its European window,
was not prepared to waste any time on the Kuomintang envoy,
although she had mobilised her entire arsenal of political in­
trigues, using all her energy and her own money and that of her
friends to breathe new life into the pro-Chinese lobby. Madame
Chiang took up her residence near New York, in a small colony
of extremely wealthy Chinese families; the house of her brother,
head of a Chinese bank and one of the richest men in the world,
was turned into the headquarters of the “China Lobby”. This
“Lobby” concentrated its efforts on whitewashing Chiang Kai-
-shek, on explaining his fall as being due entirely to errors in US
policy, to “betrayal” by the US government.
On two occasions Madame Chiang was received by the
Secretary of State and on one managed to get the ear of Presi­
dent Truman. It seemed that the President listened to her atten­
tively. She explained that she had come to the USA to request
support for her husband “against the Communists”. Further, she
asked for American leadership of the military efforts in the civil
war, for General MacArthur’s appointment to the command of
the Kuomintang armed forces. MacArthur had at the time just
announced the formation of the Syngman Rhee government in
South Korea and said that the barrier partitioning Korea had to
be “pulled down”. Chiang Kai-shek felt he had to have the
support of this “idol” of the US ultra.
The more active the Chiang lobby became, the more authori­
tative grew the voice of the realistically-minded political leaders.
In order to show his colleagues that it was useless to help Chi­
ang Kai-shek, Senator Mike Mansfield read the following
excerpt from the US. News & World Report in the House of
Representatives: ‘The effort to find out what really happened to
the $4,350,000,000 of American taxpayers money given to
China since 1941 is leading investigators to great personal
fortunes amassed by a few Chinese... They are fortunes
comparable to those made by Americans in the period of this
country’s industrial growth.1 It was not all that hard to find out
1 Felix Greene, A Curtain of Ignorance, Jonathan Cape, London, 1968,
p. 54.

76
 how such large fortunes were made by the Kuomintang elite:
the manufactured goods and military hardware received from
the USA as aid were resold in China at profiteer prices and
enriched many leading members of Chiang Kai-shek’s clique.
Hundreds of millions of dollars in gold and foreign currency
disappeared into a bottomless barrel through Hong Kong and
Portuguese Macao. Large sums went out of the country through
government channels, finding their way to banks in Zurich,
Buenos Aires, New York, and San Francisco, where China’s
wealthiest families had piled up enormous fortunes. Even ac­
cording to the very modest statistics of the US State Department,
during the war Chiang Kai-shek received from the USA 645
million dollars in loans and 825,700,000 dollars in equipment.
The Kuomintang returned a portion of this aid to the USA to
finance the “China Lobby”, which, in its turn, was demanding an
increase in American aid to Chiang Kai-shek. The US taxpayers
were thus made the victims of a huge swindle.
By the beginning of 1949 the People’s Liberation Army of
China had completed the defeat of the Chiang Kai-shek divisions
that had a total complement of 520,000 effectives. On January
31 the PLA marched into Beijing. The Chiang Kai-shek units
that had not been smashed, including air and naval units, hastily
left the mainland. These were commanded by generals known
for their loyalty to the Generalissimo. US warships helped to
form a bridge for the fleeing Chiang Kai-shek forces. The trans­
portation costs were part of the 338 million dollars for economic
restoration and the 125 million dollars for the purchase of
military equipment endorsed by the US Congress on April 2,
1948. After December 1948 the Chiang Kai-shek clique trans­
ported to Taiwan China’s gold reserves, silver bars, foreign
currency, and national art treasures.
Subsequent developments showed that following its total
collapse on the mainland, the Chiang Kai-shek regime acquired
a new asylum on Taiwan. The Generalissimo and his allies in the
USA were hoping to turn the island into an unsinkable aircraft-
carrier of the US Seventh Fleet, continue the civil war, and
return the Kuomintang to the mainland.
CHAPTER FOUR

ON THE ROAD
OF CONFRONTATION

In the early 1970s, when the USA was actively looking for
mutual understanding with Beijing, Western political leaders and
then official circles began paying special attention to the diplo­
matic history of the eve of the war in Korea. What occurred at
the time? What started the many years of American-Chinese
confrontation, the long period of reciprocal hostility and suspi­
cion between Washington and Beijing? Retired diplomats and a
large cohort of historians and journalists analysed the USA’s
political setbacks in China just before the war in Korea.
They recalled US diplomatic activity aimed at building
a bridge to the leadership of the Communist Party of China
after the Second World War and getting the Chinese Com­
munists to split away from the Soviet Union. During the cold war
period this line in the USA’s China policy was sharply attacked
by the Republican right wing, which blamed Secretary of State
Dean Acheson for many of the failures in China.
In January 1973, in a report headed ’T he United States and
Communist China in 1949-1950”, the US Senate Committee on
Foreign Relations reminded people of the USA’s stand towards
China in those years. According to the report’s authors, the fact
of its publication was linked to the pending recognition of the
PRC by the USA. This is what explains the largely well-
wishing—from the angle of the USA’s new China policy—
interpretation of the US attitude towards China at the time. As
the report stated, the Truman administration refrained from
recognising the PRC in 1949 exclusively for tactical considera­
tions. “It is also a well-recognized criterion,” the report declared,
citing an Acheson report (October 1949), “that a government
78
 which seeks recognition is willing to state that it will carry out the
international obligations created by treaty and international
agreements of the predecessor government.” The US Senate
reminded the FRC leaders that they should take the experience
of the past into account and be more tractable if they wanted
recognition.
The prehistory of the war in Korea, the diplomatic struggle
preceding the US aggression in that country presents a complex
and contradictory picture of deliberate actions by cold war pro­
ponents, intrigues by American diplomacy in China, and efforts
by the Syngman Rhee and Kuomintang reactionaries.
In 1949 and in early 1950 nobody, it seemed, caused such
considerable anxiety among the ruling politicians on Taiwan and
in South Korea as did US Secretary of State Dean Acheson
(who replaced Marshall in this office). The cautious approach
taken by US diplomacy—for which the responsibility was borne
by Acheson—to Chinese problems aroused serious apprehen­
sions among the Chiang Kai-shek followers and among people
of their ilk in Seoul. Some Taiwan and South Korean politicians,
known for their unsurpassed anti-communism and their still
greater ignorance, wasted no time in labelling Acheson a “Com­
munist”. Others, although they did not believe this absurdity,
supported the charge, counting on Acheson’s removal during the
next campaign of investigation into “un-American activities”.
The anti-communist strategists of the McCarthy period were
ready to accept any fantasy for a fact.
The uninformed observer was indeed surprised by Acheson’s
behaviour. On April 14, 1949, in reply to an inquiry from the Se­
nate Committee on Foreign Relations regarding a loan to Chiang
Kai-shek, Acheson expressed doubt that this aid would in any
way influence the course of events in China. Since 1945, the
Secretary of State explained, the USA had invested two billion
dollars in China but this had not restrained the “communist
movement”. Many officials in the USA agreed with Acheson
that the Chiang Kai-shek regime was helpless, that it was unable,
even with massive desire and support from without, to withstand
the revolutionary forces in China. The bill on aid to the
Kuomintang met with resistance in the US Congress and was
ultimately defeated.
After a prolonged debate most American political leaders

79
admitted that the USA had suffered a political Waterloo in
China, an admission that false pride had earlier prevented the
proponents of an “American age” from making. The firm stand
of the Soviet Union, the general anti-colonialist feeling that was
gaining strength in the world, and the anti-colonialist propagan­
da conducted in the USA compelled experienced political
leaders in Washington to renounce the use of military force
against the Chinese revolution. But how was the adverse impact
of the American defeat in China on the USA’s positions in Asia
to be offset?
“The deteriorating situation in China,” said Cho Byong Ok,
Syngman Rhee’s personal representative in the USA, sounding
the alarm, “is creating a world tragedy, which is most strongly
affecting us. Much is being said in the press about the possibility
of the communist regime (in the PRC.—V.V.) being recognised
by the United Kingdom, India, and other countries of the British
Commonwealth... I hope that the American people awakens and
understands the actual situation.” 1 The voice of the South
Korean politicians could hardly have any visible impact on the
diplomatic game that was started in London and then in
Washington. The Kuomintang lobby realised that it needed
stronger arguments if it were to gain anything. It was then that
the so-called domino theory, the theory of a revolution starting a
chain reaction, was bom.
How were the USA’s allies to be prevented, if necessary, and
whatever the means, from recognising the PRC? The State
Department concentrated its efforts in that direction. Secretary
of State Dean Acheson brought diplomatic pressure to bear on
Britain and France to ensure their non-recognition of the PRC.
It was hard for the South Korean leaders to answer questions
from newsmen about the possibility of Britain and USA recog­
nising the new government in China. “Britain and the USA,”
they declared in reply,” are focussing more attention on the
economic rather than the ideological aspect, and for that reason
they may recognise the communist government. But relative to
the Chinese Communists the Korean republic will not maintain
the same attitude that in this case will be adopted by the USA and
Britain.”
i The Facts Speak Out, Pyongyang, 1953 (in Russian).

80
 On July 11, 1949 the South Korean Ambassador to the USA
Chang Myun was received by Acheson to whom he relayed
Seoul’s plan for reinforcing its US allies. He noted, in particular,
that South Korea was waiting for the moment when the USA
would at last undertake the “decisive role in support of a Pacific
pact or a similar alliance of Asian countries for the protection of
their common security”. Acheson, according to Chang Myun,
noted that the USA had no possibility of officially participating in
a Pacific anti-communist pact. The mission of the Philippine
representative Carlos Romulo to the State Department on the
same issue ended in similar failure. Like Chang Myun, he in­
formed his government of the State Department’s restraint and
of the caution of most Asian diplomats. In Seoul the US China
policy now evoked not only perplexity but undisguised dissatis­
faction.
Meanwhile, the Seoul camarilla’s suspicions were aroused
by Chiang Kai-shek’s flight, the beginning of the process of re­
cognising the PRC and the intrigues of US diplomacy. The
fate of the Kuomintang seriously worried Syngman Rhee and
he deliberately aggravated the situation in the country, whip­
ping up anti-communism and anti-Sovietism for this purpose.
His personal representative in the USA Cho Byong Ok tried
all doors, telling all who would listen that the South Korean
army was hopelessly weak, with most of the troops having
nothing to fight with except their fists. Statements of this sort,
which were lies pure and simple, conformed to the interests
of the anti-Soviet sections of American society, who regarded
support for the Syngman Rhee regime as central to the opposi­
tion to the Soviet policy of uniting Korea on a democratic
basis.
The setbacks and ineffectiveness of US aid in China
prompted the State Department to back up the prestige of the
South Korean regime, which was one of the main recipients of
US aid in the Far East. On June 2, 1949 W. Walton
Butterworth, who headed the Office of Far Eastern Affairs at
the State Department, summoned the Seoul Ambassador
Chang Myun and told him of the State Department’s
apprehensions. These were linked to the government’s in­
stability (resolutions of no confidence in the government were
being submitted in the National Assembly), the corruption in
6-0768 81
Seoul, and the dissemination by South Korean leaders of false
information about the state of their armed forces. Butterworth
bluntly spoke of the damage that was being inflicted on
US-South Korean relations by false information about the
quantity of armaments that the USA had transferred to the
South Korean army. However, the principal aims pursued
by the US cold war warriors and the South Korean
reactionaries coincided.
The Seoul government used various means to pressure the
US Congress. Anti-Soviet and anti-communist propaganda
was accompanied by undisguised provocations at the 38th
parallel. In the period from January to September 1949 there
were 432 attacks along the land frontier and innumerable
incursions into the territory of the Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea by sea and by air. This placed enormous
hardships on the population of the areas adjoining the 38th
parallel in North Korea, the gambles of the Syngman Rhee
military causing numerous casualties. Many ranking US
military made no secret of the fact that the South Korean
government was provoking frontier incidents in order to
obtain US assistance. “Anti-communism has always been
much more flimsy than the thatched roof of a Korean hut,’’
some quick-thinking US congressmen vainly reminded Seoul.
Feeling that he had the support of the cold war proponents
and the local reactionaries, Syngman Rhee used the bogey of
anti-communism whenever possible.
The advocates of resolute action gathered in Tokyo, where
affairs were in the hands of Douglas MacArthur, a leader of
the “Asia First’’ group in the US Congress. Their aim was to
halt the crisis of the Chiang Kai-shek and South Korean
regimes. At the close of October 1949 head of the Seoul
mission in Japan introduced the South Korean Defence
Minister Shin Sung Mo to William J. Sebald, diplomatic
adviser at MacArthur’s headquarters. Shin Sung Mo gave
the assurance that Seoul was strong enough to launch an
attack and seize Pyongyang within a few days. Brigadier
General William L. Roberts, head of the US military mission
to South Korea, who had been in Tokyo together with the
Syngman Rhee minister, shared the latter’s confidence.
Losing all sense of proportion, Roberts spoke of the South
82
Korean army as “My army”, “My troops”. He kept repeating
that if it was called upon to do so the Seoul army could
overrun North Korea.
On October 7, 1949 Syngman Rhee gave an interview to
Joseph Johnston, the then Vice President of the United Press. On
the next day the interview was carried by Seoul newspapers with
the ominous headline: “Pyongyang May Be Taken in Three
Days”. “The North Koreans asked me,” declared Syngman
Rhee, “to appeal by radio to loyal Koreans in the North to
depose the communist regime and they are expecting us to join
them. I am firmly convinced that we can take Pyongyang in
three days. It is much easier to defend our homeland, Korea,
along the frontier with Manchuria than along the 38th parallel.
What reasons, despite this, restrain me from acting? I am doing
so because the United Nations and the USA are drawing
attention to the possibility that this sort of action could develop
into a third world war. That explains our patience and our
expectation of the moment when the problem of communism
is resolved in parallel with other problems.” 1 What should
have been the expectations of the people of South Korea in
the New Year of 1950? Syngman Rhee decided to answer
this question himself. “We must remember however,” he
said didactically, “that in the New Year, in accordance with the
changed international situation, it is our duty to unify Southern
and Northern Korea by our own strength.”2
The year 1950 came. On January 5 Truman declared that the
USA had no desire to obtain special rights or privileges, or to
establish military bases on Formosa. “The United States govern­
ment,” he promised, “will not pursue a course which leads to
involvement in the civil conflict in China.” Truman’s statement
triggered yet another wave of anxiety among the Republicans.
In the US Congress there were voices urging the occupation of
Taiwan. In the view of William Knowland, MacArthur was the
only person who could “coordinate” US policy in the Far East
and “bring order” to that explosive region. Knowland’s views
gave Taipei and Seoul little consolation. “I shuddered,” Syng-

1 The Facts Speak Out.

* Wilfred G. Burchett, Again Korea, International Publishers, New
York, 1968, p. 125.

83
man Rhee told correspondents on January 7, “when I learned
that the government of Britain had recognised the PRC...
Communism,” he said, “should not be encouraged in Asia.” 1
After Britain’s recognition of the PRC was announced there
followed news that was no less alarming for Seoul.
Confusion reigned in South Korea’s National Assembly in the
morning of January 13, 1950. The place was filled with agitated
deputies, all shouting: “Acheson! Achesonl”. For Seoul the state­
ment of the US Secretary of State of the previous day about the
US “defensive perimeter” was like a bolt out of the blue. Speak­
ing at the National Press Club on January 12, 1950, Acheson
said, in part, that the US “defensive perimeter runs along the
Aleutians to Japan and then goes to the Ryukyus...” and “from
the Ryukyus to the Philippine Islands.” The South Korean MPs
were thrown into disarray. They reread Acheson’s statement
over and over again and kept asking in surprise why South
Korea and Taiwan were not included in the US “defensive pe­
rimeter”.
Of course, the Secretary of State did not confine himself to
excluding Taiwan and South Korea from the US “defensive
perimeter”. The main thing in the Acheson speech was its anti-
Soviet keynote. Acheson attacked the Soviet Union, drawing his
arguments from the “Asia First” arsenal, although the speech
was designed to give a boost to the Europe orientation of US
foreign policy. He alleged that the Soviet Union was not
pursuing a mission of liberation: its purpose was to establish
“Russian dominance” in China, Manchuria, and elsewhere. He
misrepresented Soviet policy and tried to put forth US policy in
a favourable light. The USA, he declared, held that it was the
right of “every nation, of every people, and of every individual
to develop in their own way, making their own mistakes,
reaching their own triumphs but acting under their own
responsibility.”12 The lofty mission of Asian nationalism, Acheson
stated, was to fight foreign interference and poverty, and in this
there had always been parallelism between American interests
and those of the Asian countries; the USA, he said, had always
been opposed to China being controlled by a foreign power. The
1 Chosun Ilbo%January 9, 1950.
2 China and US Far East Policy. 1945-1967, a publication of Congres­
sional Quarterly Service, Washington, 1967, p. 259.

84
Soviet Union, he alleged, countered Asian nationalism.
This was a clear and deliberate attempt to smear the interna­
tionalist alliance between the Soviet and Chinese peoples. There
was no accident about this. As early as May 1949 the Korean
emigre press had drawn attention to the promise made by the
leaders of the CPC to protect all foreigners pursuing their
“normal professions” in China and to their desire to establish,
following the proclamation of the new state, diplomatic relations
with foreign countries. Although in promises of this sort there
seemed to be nothing that could give comfort to imperialist polit­
ical leaders, the British leaders and the “realists” in the USA
supporting them were prepared to have faith in the possibility
that tendencies favourable for the West would develop among
the CPC leaders, and that the internationalist links between the
Soviet Union and the Chinese revolutionaries could be eroded.
This was one of the reasons that the USA omitted mentioning
Taiwan and South Korea in its “defensive perimeter”. More­
over, this same circumstance motivated the State Department
when it rejected the solicitations of Chiang Kai-shek and
Syngman Rhee for formation of a Pacific pact.
Acheson’s line was a blow to Chiang Kai-shek. Panic gripped
Taiwan in May 1950. Gold was hastily shipped from Taiwan to
Hong Kong. In the course of May the Kuomintang people
transferred at least 50 million Hong Kong dollars to that
British colony. According to the Hong Kong travel agency many
of these people left for South America (quite a few went to
Brazil) via Hong Kong. The USA hurriedly evacuated its citi­
zens from Taiwan. The PRC leadership’s declared deter­
mination to liberate Taiwan, and the support that this got from
the diplomatic intrigues of Britain and the USA, generated
hysteria not only on Taiwan (matters reached a point where the
President of the Philippines Elpidio Quirino, an ally of the USA,
declared that his country would not be seriously threatened if
Taiwan passed to the PRC).
Syngman Rhee and his supporters only further accentuated
the failure of Washington’s diplomatic game in China: they were
merely temporarily calmed by the agreement for joint defence
and mutual assistance signed between the USA and Seoul on
January 26, 1950. The foreign policy linked to Acheson’s name
did not justify itself.
85
 Internationalism predominated in the national liberation mo­
vement of China. The PRC leaders declared their unqualified
solidarity with the Soviet Union and its foreign policy. On
February 14, 1950 the USSR and the PRC signed the Treaty of
Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance and some other
agreements. This triumph of internationalism in the CPC lead­
ership was dispiriting for the British “appeasers” of the
Chinese revolution and American followers. The bourgeois
press was anxiously reporting that Soviet experts were
going to China and that the Soviet-Chinese Friendship Soci­
ety had nearly 32 million members. In the USA the
jingoist elements felt that their hour had come. In February
1950 McCarthy addressed a long tirade to the Senate, charging
that there was “communist” activity in the State department.
McCarthy aimed his main and most venomous attacks against the
Far Eastern experts who, in his view, “had given China to the
Communists”. The anti-communist hysteria in the USA put new
heart in Syngman Rhee and his supporters.
At the elections in May 1950 the Syngman Rhee party won 48
seats in the National Assembly; the other 120 seats were won by
other parties. In other words, despite the repressions less than
20 per cent of the seats went to Syngman Rhee’s henchmen. This
time Syngman Rhee did not follow the inquiry procedures that
he had learned in Washington. He simply used the prerogative of
the strong, imprisoning another 13 deputies of the South Korean
National Assembly without any explanation. It seemed that he
had decided to break the will of his compatriots, charging the
imprisoned deputies with, among other things, petitioning the
UN, making public cases of corruption among the authorities
and, lastly, opposing any South Korean invasion of the Demo­
cratic People’s Republic of Korea. He threw caution to the
winds when he felt anybody in the US Senate had offended him
again. He was furious upon learning that Senator Connally (of
Texas) had replied in the negative to the question whether
Korea was an essential part of the US defence strategy. “Senator
Connally,” he declared publicly, “must have forgotten that the
United States has committed herself and cannot pull out of the
Korea situation with honor.”1
1 I.F. Stone, The Hidden History of the Korean War, Monthly Review
Press, New York, 1952, p. 12.

86
 The South Korean reactionaries placed great hopes in a visit
that John Foster Dulles was to make to Korea in June 1950. A
leading Republican in the Truman Democratic administration,
Dulles had initially given every support publicly to the Acheson
line in the USA’s China policy. Even despite pressure from the
Kuomintang lobby he felt it was possible to extend diplomatic
recognition to the PRC government. But strong links to the
conservative wing of the Republican Party had, especially in
the heyday of McCarthyism, the most direct impact on deter­
mining Dulles’ political stance. During the Second World War
Dulles worried about the Soviet Union’s enhanced role in inter­
national affairs; it irked him that American political leaders,
analysts, and writers paid tribute to the Soviet Union’s strug­
gle against nazism, hailing the victories on the Soviet-German
front. Dulles’ biographers cite his speech of March 18, 1943,
calling it the speech about the “Six Pillars of Peace’’.
Already then Dulles had publicly articulated the anxiety
of the American reactionaries over the future settlement of
Far Eastern problems; he urged “caution” relative to the
Soviet Union, called attention to the “unresolved conflict” in
China, and did not conceal his alarm that Japan might
be weakened.
On June 19, 1950, he addressed the National Assembly of
South Korea. “The eyes of the free world are upon you.
Compromise with communism would be to take the road
leading to disaster.” This was unquestionably a tribute to the
adventurist policy of Syngman Rhee, who had brushed away
all the reasonable proposals of the DPRK for a peaceful
reunification of the country. Dulles assured his listeners of the
“readiness of the USA to give all necessary moral and material
support to South Korea”, which was fighting against com­
munism. Dulles kept the promise he gave in Washington
to Chang Myun. “If we cannot defend democracy in a cold
war,” Syngman Rhee said pompously, “we shall win in a hot
war.” Soon afterwards it was learned that Seoul had
rejected a proposal from the Presidium of the Supreme
People’s Assembly of the DPRK for uniting the Supreme
People’s Assembly of the DPRK and the National Assembly of
South Korea into a single legislative body and thereby
achieving the country’s peaceful unification.
87
 Dulles' first act upon arriving in South Korea was to go
straight to the 38th parallel, which General Roberts had long
ago called a “front”; he posed for a photographer, standing
beside an armoured train at a distance of one or two miles from
the frontier, poring over a map lying on the parapet of a
trench. Intervening in everything, even purely military mat­
ters, he went into the details of troop location, the firing
lines, etc. After Dulles’ visit to the 38th parallel the Seoul
press quoted him as addressing the South Korean army: “No
adversary, not even the strongest, can resist you... The time is
not far off when you will be able to display your prowess.”1
Dulles assured his South Korean friends that they had the
solidarity of Washington in their struggle against Pyongyang.
For the bellicose South Korean politicians and military
leaders statements of this kind meant far more than words of
consolation.
Talks with MacArthur were scheduled. At these talks, in
the presence of the US War Secretary Louis Johnson and the
head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Omar Bradley, Dulles discussed
the military situation in the Far East with MacArthur. By that
time the US army units based in Japan were preparing for
landing operations, the warships of the US Seventh Fleet were
on combat alert, and air strength was being built up at bases in
Japan. The Syngman Rhee devotees were doing everything
to aggravate the situation. In the morning of June 25, 1950 the
world learned with alarm that hostilities had broken out in
Korea. On that day Dulles, who had arrived in Tokyo by air,
hurried to see MacArthur in the company of State Department
adviser William J. Sebald. MacArthur spoke in his usual
manner, stressing that he knew more about military affairs
than his visitors: he said he was confident that the South
Korean army would quickly mobilise the needed reserves and
stated that “powerful US forces” had to take part in the
operations. This was no declaration. Dulles knew that acting
under orders from MacArthur heavily armed US landing craft
were already on their way to South Korean shores, and that
these vessels had the covering support of planes from US
airfields in Japan.

1 Wilfred G. Burchett, op. cit., p. 127.

88
 From the outset of the war in Korea President Truman was
worried that the PRC might become involved and took various
steps to localise the conflict. The US command had decided on
bombing targets in North Korea before US land forces joined in
the hostilities in Korea in 1950. Long before the Chinese
volunteers crossed the Yalu River US pilots were instructed to
avoid bombing power stations and other installations important
to China and thereby avoid actions that could influence the PRC
into joining in the Korean war. The foreign policy steps made by
the US government took into account the need for a cautious
approach to the Taiwan problem, to Chiang Kai-shek's partic­
ipation in the conflict, for declarations of hopes that outstand­
ing issues with the PRC would be settled. In domestic policy
Truman calculated chiefly on pressuring the US Congress
opposition, which reflected the thinking of extremist elements
interested in extending the conflict. General Mac Arthur was
their idol.
As soon as war broke out MacArthur insisted on bringing
Chiang Kai-shek troops into the Korean adventure.
In 1950 the population of Taiwan numbered eight million
people. Among American military experts there was no con­
sensus about the number of bayonets available to Chiang
Kai-shek's army on Taiwan or about its potential. Some
American military men in Tokyo and Washington ventured to
assume that Chiang Kai-shek had nearly 50,000 effectives. But
with their usual hypocrisy professional propagandists depict­
ed the situation on Taiwan in a more favourable light. “U.S.
military men," one report stated, “believe that a Red invasion
can be turned back by the U.S. Seventh Fleet together with the
Nationalist Army of about 500,000 men."1 It suited the pro­
ponents of extending the conflict in the Far East to inflate
the myth about the potentialities of the Chiang Kai-shek
army for making a large contribution to the common “struggle
against the forces of communism". They ran a smear campaign
against US political leaders, charging them with helplessness,
attributing to them the setbacks in the Korean war, explaining
that these setbacks were due largely to the latter's reluctance to
use the Taiwan ally, who they claimed was thirsting for action.
1 George H. Kerr, Formosa Betrayed, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston,
1965, p. 403.

89
 On June 29, 1950, two days after Truman announced the
“quarantine” of Taiwan, Chiang Kai-shek declared that he
would send up to 30,000 troops to Korea. In a memorandum to
Washington, the Taiwan overlord wrote that his soldiers were
prepared to fight on the USA’s side in Korea and requested
that 20 C-46 planes be sent to Taipei to airlift these troops.
At first the impression was that the US military leaders were
prepared to accept Taipei’s offer and even recommended
permission by the Secretary of War to the Kuomintang thugs
to mine the coastal waters and attack PRC troops. However,
upon weighing the pros and cons, the government finally
rejected the idea of drawing Kuomintang troops into the war in
Korea—Chiang Kai-shek’s offer was not accepted by Washing­
ton: the risk of escalating the conflict was much too great.
MacArthur was sincerely disappointed, he demanded, with
growing insistence, an extension of the Korean conflict and more
active support for Taiwan than that rendered by the State
Department, and was adamant on the point of his opponents
enlisting Chiang Kai-shek into total involvement in the USA’s
aggressive actions in the Far East. He felt that Chiang Kai-shek
merited US aid if only because he had been defeated and fled
from the mainland as an anti-communist. The State Department,
he held, had to help him to fight communism. Chiang Kai-shek
praised the efforts of the American military and their repre­
sentative in the Far East Douglas MacArthur. “Our people
and armed forces,” he declared, “have pledged fidelity to
General MacArthur, lauding his firm leadership in the common
struggle against totalitarianism in Asia.” Chiang Kai-shek
announced the formation of the foundations of a “Sino-US al­
liance”, calling MacArthur a “comrade-in-arms”.
In most cases MacArthur rejected diplomatic and political
conventionalities, depending more on weapons. The initial
successes of the better-armed US forces over the army of the
DPRK reinforced MacArthur in his belief that he was acting
correctly. The defenders of Pyongyang fought heroically. This
was acknowledged by MacArthur himself. But the forces were
unequal. The following questions formed the basis of the
general’s telegrams to Washington: Why am I not allowed to
develop the offensive to the North? Why am I not permitted to
bomb the power station on the Yalu River and the bridge
90
across the Yalu? Why am I not permitted to cut the enemy’s
supply lines? These questions were constantly on the general’s
lips.
In a message to foreign war veterans MacArthur urged con­
verting the Pacific into an American lake. His “Asian progra­
mme” envisaged, in particular, turning Taiwan into a base for
US bombers and thus providing supremacy over all Asian ports,
from Vladivostok to Singapore, and the moving of the US
strategic frontier from the USA itself to beyond the Pacific.
He saw the “defeatists” and “appeasers” as overly naive when
they expressed apprehensions about the possibility of aggressive
actions intensifying anti-colonialist feeling in Asia and alienating
continental Asia from the USA. “Those who speak thus
[advocates of a more moderate policy.—V.V.] do not
understand the Orient,” MacArthur said building a theoretical
basis for his arguments. “They do not grasp that it is in
the pattern of the Oriental psychology to respect and to follow
aggressive, resolute and dynamic leadership, to quickly turn
from a leadership characterised by timidity or vacillation; and
they underestimate the Oriental mentality.” 1
The Navy Secretary Francis Matthews soon stated his
solidarity with MacArthur. Speaking in Boston, he urged
beginning a war of aggression as a preventive measure against
any nation that did not accept American diktat. This was
serious. The elections to the US Congress were drawing near.
Not very much time remained until November. Two years
previously the Democratic Party and its candidate Harry S.
Truman were victorious: Dewey, Dulles and other Republican
rivals of Truman were unable to win voters with peace slogans
as their opponent did. It was later found that the peace
declarations were no more than a screen for the nation’s
continued militarisation.
In the White House they were aware that the attitude
adopted by MacArthur and Matthews was fuelling suspicion of
the USA among the ruling circles of European states. The Euro­
pean bourgeoisie’s growing disaffection was underscored
by the US press itself, which thereby acted in favour of the
proponents of the Europe orientation in US policy. In the West
1 David Rees, Korea: The Limited War, Macmillan & Co. Lid., London,
1964, p. 75.

91
there was growing apprehension about there being a very real
danger of a political split between Europe and the USA, a split
that could lead to the disintegration of the Atlantic community.
In this context the alarm was sounded that Western Europe
might dissociate itself from America’s actions, in other words,
that it “may remain neutral”. In reply to the call for troops to
reinforce MacArthur, the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf re­
plied that the Dutch were not mercenaries to fight for the interest
of others and to answer for American blunders. The reproaches
in the American press about the return of Dutch troops
to the Netherlands from Indonesia at a time when Mac­
Arthur needed them evoked more vocal protests than ever
before. Indeed, the days of mercenary armies had passed.
The Dutch could not be forced to go to Korea to fill
the breach in the American lines.
While it interfered grossly in the internal affairs of the
Korean people, Washington felt it had to draw a line beyond
which—from the standpoint of American interests—it would
be inexpedient to go. The Washington administration—Averell
Harriman tried to drum its stand into MacArthur’s head—
wanted to refrain from ill-considered actions and try and
localise the conflict In Washington they took into consideration
the Soviet Union’s military strength and firm policy, and
the enhanced political activity of the People’s Republic of
China, which was trying to use political means to halt the
aggression by the USA and its allies in Korea.
The PRC government welcomed the efforts of the Soviet
Union and neutral countries that were condemning the aggres­
sion in Korea and speaking up in defence of the PRC’s
rights. The Soviet Union called on an end to hostilities and the
withdrawal of foreign troops from Korea. It staunchly urged
the PRC’s admission to the United Nations and the participa­
tion of the PRC and the DPRK in the Security Council’s
discussion of the Korean issue. A PRC Foreign Ministry
statement in September 1950 noted the efforts of the Soviet
Union and India to obtain a positive decision on the question
of the PRC’s admission to the United Nations. “The Chinese
people know," the statement said, “that these steps [the US
opposition to the PRC’s admission to the UN.—V.V.] are
a covert part of the USA’s big war and aggressive actions
92
 against China... The Chinese people are convinced that all of the
USA’s secret designs will come to grief.”
Intoxicated by initial victories, MacArthur gave the impres­
sion that he was totally ignoring the precepts of the US
administration. His friends and the Kuomintang lobby in
Washington were stirring up public opinion and calling for
an extension of the war in the Far East. MacArthur was
publicly asked (especially by the Republicans) whether a second
front could be opened on the continent by the Chiang
Kai-shek forces. The general replied in the affirmative. He
remembered, of course, the explosion of indignation set off
in government circles by his independent decision to begin
negotiations with Chiang Kai-shek as early as July. In August
US aircraft made their first raid over PRC territory. The
PRC demanded that the UN censure the US aggression and
waste no time taking steps to compel US troops to pull out
of Taiwan and other Chinese territories. MacArthur was some­
what restrained by the measures taken by the US President.
On October 9 Truman approved a directive to MacArthur: “In
any case you will obtain authorization from Washington prior
to taking any military action against objectives in Chinese
territory.” 1
In the meantime, the threat to the PRC’s security was
mounting. Interventionist troops under MacArthur were draw­
ing closer to the PRC’s frontiers. The USA persevered in its
policy of avoiding a direct collision with China. Truman an­
nounced that the US Seventh Fleet would be recalled as soon as
the Korean conflict ended and that the USA would turn the
problem of Taiwan over to the United Nations.
The PRC was determined to halt any further spread of the
US aggression. Using diplomatic and public relations channels,
the Chinese leaders informed the USA and world public
opinion that it was prepared to be directly involved in the
armed struggle of the Korean people. The first intimation
that China intended to enter the Korean war was given on
September 25 in a conversation between General Nieh as repre­
sentative of the PRC and the Indian Ambassador К. M. Pani-
kkar. In reply the Indian Ambassador mentioned possible
1 Cited from Robert McClintock, The Meaning of Limited War, Houghton
Mifflin Company, Boston, 1967, p. 43.

93
actions by the USA: the destruction of China's industrial regions
by bombardment from the sea and air. However, the PRC
leaders did not discount even the possibility of defeat in
Korea. In this event they counted on prolonged resistance
at strongpoints in mainland China. In Beijing they even took
into account the possibility that the USA might use the atom
bomb in Korea. This is what motivated General Nieh, when he
replied to Panikkar’s question: “We have calculated all that.
They Ithe Americans] may even drop atom bombs on us.
What then? They may kill a few million people... After
all, China lives on the farms. What can atom bombs do there?” 1
The government of the PRC declared on October 10, 1950
that it “cannot remain indifferent to the situation resulting
from the invasion of Korea by the USA and its allies, from
the threat of the war spreading”. From the Indian Ambassador
in Beijing the world learned that the PRC might enter the war
if the US troops continued advancing in North Korea. Zhou
Enlai made it plain to the Indian Ambassador Panikkar that
if the Americans crossed the 38th parallel, China would
have no alternative to entering the Korean war.
Of course, this statement gave a boost to those forces
in the USA who were opposed to an extension of the conflict,
who were urging a policy of moderation. On October 12 Mac-
Arthur found two telegrams on his desk: one from Averell
Harriman, and the other from General Marshall. The first paid
tribute to MacArthur’s courage in transcending difficulties
and expressed good wishes; the second, written in a dry lan­
guage, contained the information that the President wanted
to talk to MacArthur. This talk took place on Wake Island and
was reminiscent more of an international conference; gathered
there were representatives from political and military depart­
ments. Many problems were considered. Truman needed assur­
ances, and these were forthcoming. MacArthur declared that
he was prepared to apologise if his message to the war veterans
organisation had caused embarrassment. Truman said that
he considered the incident closed.
MacArthur ignored the PRC’s warnings and urged Truman to
believe him that the war was coming to a close, that China
1 К. M. Panikkar, in Two Chinas, Memoirs of a Diplomat, George Allen &
Unwin Ltd., London, 1955, p. 108.

94
would not intervene and that soon, by January 1951, it would
be possible to transfer one of the divisions from Korea to
Europe and transport the Eighth Army to Japan.
Shortly before this meeting ended it became obvious that
MacArthur’s assertion as to an early victory and military
successes was premature. The general was asked what he thought
of the newly-received intelligence reports that China was
preparing to enter the war. MacArthur evaded a direct reply,
but said that the latest intelligence reports were unquestion­
ably evidence in favour of decisive measures consistent with
his plan.
At this conference with Truman MacArthur remained true
to his mode of behaviour: he reacted sensitively to criticism
of his plans for implementing the USA’s Far Eastern policy
and regarded himself as the leading authority on Eastern affairs.
In conversations with his associates he did not hide his
dissatisfaction over the conference on Wake Island. Washington,
he said, had fallen so low that in his eyes it was sliding
into the Franklin Roosevelt position in foreign policy. As for
Truman, he was outraged by the general’s attempt to hold
himself on an equal footing with the President. It was his
firm belief that policy-making should be in the hands of
official political leaders rather than of generals and admirals.
MacArthur proved to be wrong in assuming that the PRC
would not enter the Korean war. In the course of several
weeks, especially at the beginning of October 1950, shortly
before MacArthur’s offensive across the 38th parallel, Beijing
radio kept warning that “the Chinese people will not be
unresponsive if their Korean neighbours are attacked”. By
October 24 three armies of Chinese volunteers had crossed the
Yalu River, and these were followed by another seven armies.
For the US command this entry of Chinese volunteers into the
war was not unexpected, for it had intelligence data on the
numerical strength of the Chinese troops in Manchuria. In July
1950 the strength of the Chinese units in Manchuria was
estimated by American experts at 116,000 effectives, towards the
close of August—at 250,000 effectives, in September and
October reports were received of massive movements of Chinese
forces in that region, while in mid-November 1950 the
strength of the Chinese volunteers in Manchuria and Korea
95
 added up to 850,000 bayonets. On November 1 the Chinese
volunteers engaged the aggressors.
Fearing that the new situation in the theatre of hostilities
would reinforce the “peace” sentiments in Washington, Mac-
Arthur sought to warn the Joint Chiefs of Staff against
drawing hasty conclusions. He used all the forces at his disposal
in his next offensive.
A powerful counter-offensive by the Korean people’s army
and the Chinese volunteers crushed the entire eastern
flank of the troops that on MacArthur’s orders began an
offensive in the closing decade of November. American and
South Korean units retreated in disorder. The situation in
Korea threw the State Department into dejection. MacArthur’s
prestige plummeted visibly among the USA’s European allies
and in Washington itself. The British and American press
charged that MacArthur’s actions had brought Chinese units
into the hostilities, that MacArthur’s course might bring on
another war. In-fighting broke out in the US Congress around
the debate over MacArthur’s stand. The whole affair became
a scandal. Many Senators demanded an inquiry into why
Mac Arthur had infused US troops with hope at a time when
an offensive was being planned against them in Korea. What
were the limits to MacArthur’s boasts? newsmen asked.
Despite the growing opposition, MacArthur stuck to his
guns. In a letter to the Joint Chiefs of Staff he set out his
programme for further action, demanding: “ 1) Blockade the
coast of China; 2) destroy through naval gunfire and air bom­
bardment China’s industrial capacity to wage war; 3) secure
reinforcements from the Nationalist garrison on Formosa to
strengthen our position in Korea if we decide to continue
the fight for that peninsula; and 4) release existing restrictions
upon the Formosan garrison for diversionary action, possibly
leading to counter-invasion against vulnerable areas of the
Chinese mainland.” As the world learned subsequently, Mac­
Arthur had another, personal plan for a “victorious end to
the war”: this was, first, to drop between 30 and 50 atom
bombs on territory north of the Yalu River—as MacArthur saw
it, this would create a belt of radioactive cobalt that would
make Korea’s northern frontiers secure for the USA; second,
to use Chiang Kai-shek troops supported by two US Marine
96
divisions.1
MacArthur did not confine himself to a correspondence
with Washington; he felt he was justified in acting as he
saw fit in the obtaining situation. He ordered the bombardment
of the bridges across the Yalu. His programme evoked fierce
debates in Washington. Tempers flared as MacArthur made
increasing demands and raved about using atom bombs in
the Korean war. Realistically-thinking statesmen in the USA
looked on with apprehension at the activities of the Republican
right wing and its hero MacArthur. At the root of these
apprehension was the motivation to prevent the situation
from erupting into a world conflagration to which the MacAr­
thur programme of “determined actions” could lead.
The bombing of the bridges across the Yalu affected the
interests of the PRC, while the employment of Chiang Kai-shek
troops could complicate the USA’s relations with its allies.
A blockade of the Chinese coast would in fact have been
a blockade of the Soviet Union, from where China received
most of her imports. The USA’s European allies’ commercial
interests likewise were to be taken into account.
On April 11, 1951 MacArthur learned that he had been
relieved of his command and got a relevant statement: “With
deep regret I have concluded that General of the Army Douglas
MacArthur is unable to give his wholehearted support to the
policies of the United States Government and of the United
Nations in matters pertaining to his official duties. In view of the
specific responsibilities imposed upon me by the Constitution of
the United States and the added responsibility which has been
entrusted to me by the United Nations, I have decided that I must
make a change of command in the Far East. I have, therefore,
relieved General MacArthur of his commands and have desig­
nated Lt. Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway as his successor... It is
fundamental, however, that military commanders,” the Presi­
dent said for the edification of others, “must be governed by the
policies and directives issued to them in the manner provided
by our laws and Constitution. In time of crisis, this consideration
is particularly compelling.”12 MacArthur’s fate was sealed.
1 Newsweek, April 20, 1964, p. 15.
2 The Truman-MasArthur Controversy, edited by Richard Lowitt, Rand
McNally & Company, Chicago, 1967, pp. 45-46.

7-0768 97
CHAPTER FIVE

THE DULLES POLICY

AND ITS REASSESSMENT

The Republicans won the presidency in the 1952 elections

and the first act of the Eisenhower administration was to
nominate John Foster Dulles as Secretary of State. By that
time the latter had become well known for his friendly links
to the Rockefeller family. The influence of the Morgans was
predominant up until 1952 when the Republicans came to power
in Washington. Ail the postwar Secretaries of State—Edward
Stettinius, James F. Byrnes, Dean Acheson, George Marshall—
were either friends of the Morgan family or closely linked
to traditional European policy (the Marshall Plan, for exam­
ple), which had brought the Morgans unheard-of dividends.
Upon assuming the office of Secretary of State in the
new, Eisenhower administration, Dulles became widely known
as the Rockefeller man (head of a law firm representing the
Rockefeller interests, and then of the Rockefeller Foundation,
and so on). Outstanding talent for political intrigues was a
hallmark of the Dulles family. Small wonder that during the
Second World War the younger brother, Allen, was entrusted
to conduct separate negotiations with nazi emissaries in Switzer­
land, while John, who had visited Seoul shortly before the
outbreak of the Korean war, was able to show that Democrats
and Republicans were united in enforcing Far Eastern policy.
John Foster Dulles was keenly interested in Far Eastern
problems; along with Truman and Eisenhower he headed
the “China group” in US governmental circles. This group
made the concrete elaboration of foreign policy programmes
contingent upon the settlement of what it felt was the main issue,
namely, the strengthening of the USA’s positions in China.
98
 Dulles’ views were shared also by MacArthur. Upon his
retirement in the 1950s, the latter made quite a few attempts
to contribute to the Republican ideologico-political arsenal. He
went so far as to offer an interpretation of Marxist theory.
“Karl Marx,” he wrote, “shunned the use of violence and
sought the voluntary acceptance of the principle of communal
ownership of the sources and means of production... The
element of force was injected by the Bolsheviks after the
close of the First World War. Then was combined the theory
of Karl Marx with the principle of Nihilism.”1 Out of this,
the general concluded, communism was born (?!). An ignorant
interpretation of Marxism, entirely in keeping with MacAr-
thur’s line of thinking. But what led one of the staunchest
architects of the “positions of strength” policy into this sort
of exercises in “theory”? Obviously not in order to denounce
the experience of the working class of Russia who had to use
violence against those who refused to renounce voluntarily
their “right” to live at the expense of others. Nor to question
the inevitability of the victory of the system in which the means
of production are owned by society as a whole. And, of course,
not in order to identify—as many of his fellow Republicans
aspired to do—the general and the particular in the theory
and practice of the Russian Bolsheviks and the Chinese
Communists. It was his purpose, as he put it himself, to
“stop the advance of Socialism in this country [the USA]”.
Subsequently, Reagan’s advisers would draw from the luggage
of the right-wing Republicans these selfsame charges against
their rivals in the political in-fight, charges that were so popular
among them during the days of MacArthur and Dulles. “Let the
rich grow richer, and the poor become poorer”—has been
and remains the slogan of US conservatism, which reacts
with hostility to the increase of taxes on the monopolies, to
governmental control of business, and to governmental interven­
tion in the “private affairs” of industrialists.
It took many decades to build up the arsenal of ideas
and political intrigues now being used by the Republican Presi­
dent Ronald Reagan in his China policy. In their confrontation
Douglas MacArthur, A Soldier Speaks. Public Papers and Speeches
of General of the Army, Frederick A. Praeger Publishers, New York, 1965,
p. 295.

99
with the American liberals, the diehard right-wing Republicans
had long ago formulated the ideologico-political credo under
which Reagan is acting as the US President. Many prominent
members of the Democratic Party won eminence by their
efforts to enlist the services of talented builders capable of
working creatively in order to heal a society that they felt
was not a terminally sick society. Inspiring the Republicans,
American conservatism used the cult of war-profit wealth to
counter the liberal hope of “transforming’' capitalism with the
state exercising a beneficial influence. This cult could not be
reconciled to governmental intervention in the “private affairs”
of industrialists, to the curtailment of the privileges and
rights enjoyed by the states, or to federal taxes; it inspired
hard-line thinking threatening humanity with tragic conse­
quences by bringing adventurist pressure to bear on socialist
countries.
General MacArthur had, in his time, in fact recruited
military men to intervene in the affairs of the state. This
tradition was guarded and fostered by the Eisenhower-Dulles
administration, an indication of which was the appointment
of Admiral Arthur W. Radford to head the Joint Chiefs of
Staff.
Admiral Radford’s career was closely linked to the US
Pacific policy (participation in the hostilities in the Pacific
in 1944-1945; commander-in-chief of the US Pacific Fleet
in 1949; head of the Philippines-Taiwan strategic area in 1952).
He was associated with the MacArthur group. He did not
conceal that the aim of the USA’s Asia policy was to convert
South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Indochina into “beach­
heads against communism”. A Reuter correspondent noted that
Admiral Radford’s appointment was linked to the US govern­
ment’s plans to resolve Far Eastern problems in the immediate
future. Radford was regarded as a militant advocate of an
aggressive policy. He was, in particular, rabidly in favour
of US military intervention in Indochina and publicly urged
the “destruction” of the PRC.
US Vice President Richard M. Nixon favoured a hard-line
course in the Far East, using the “domino” theory—that of the
chain reaction of revolutions—to support his arguments. “If
Indochina falls,” he declared in December 1953, “Thailand
100
is put in an almost impossible position. The same is true of
Malaya with its rubber and tin. The same is true of Indonesia.
If, this whole part of Southeast Asia goes under Communist
domination or Communist influence, Japan, who trades and
must trade with this area in order to exist, must inevitably
be oriented towards the Communist regime.”1 The theory
of the “falling dorpino” was thus brought into being.
In 1953 the USA drew close to a military conflict with
China. President Eisenhower instructed the US Seventh Fleet
not to obstruct an attack by Chiang Kai-shek on mainland
China. The general impression was that MacArthur’s ideas were
about to be translated into a gamble that could spark another
world war. The US administration was deliberately exacerbating
the situation in the Far East.
In January 1954 Eisenhower proclaimed his “massive retalia­
tion” doctrine, while Dulles explained what it meant. At the
close of 1952 Eisenhower and Dulles had gone on a tour
of Korea. Upon returning to the USA they insistently upheld
the MacArthur idea that the Korean war might be extended,
publicly declaring that if the armistice terms were rejected
the USA would strike at China not only on the Korean front
but in any place of its own choosing. This laid the foundations
of a new doctrine. The speech of the Secretary of State
before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on
January 12, 1954 started a wide-ranging debate over the
“massive retaliation” doctrine. “The way to deter aggression,”
Dulles exhorted his countrymen, “is for the free community
to be willing and able to respond vigorously at places and
with means of its own choosing.” In announcing a new US poli­
cy, Dulles swept away all the restrictions implicit in the
American experience in Korea, and urged reliance on “massive
retaliation” from the standpoint of the choice of the target
and from the standpoint of the means for making this strike.
Moreover he emphasised that in the event hostilities broke
out in Korea they would not be confined to Korean territory.
Only six months had elapsed since the armistice was signed
in Korea, but Dulles was urging the renunciation of the

1 Cited from Gabriel Kolko, The Roots of American Foreign PiUicy.

An Analysis of Power and Purpose, Beacon Press, Boston, 1969, pp. 99-100.

101
military-political concepts developed in the USA during the
Korean adventure. These concepts took into consideration the
increased Soviet military and political capability (fear of
retaliatory sanctions) and the attitude of the Western bloc
allies who were pursuing their own economic and political
interests. Dulles attempted to put his doctrine into effect
with a clumsy suggestion that in the colonialist war in Indochina
the French use atom bombs to save the garrison at Dien
Bien Phu. Neither in theory nor in practice did the Dulles
doctrine win the number of proponents needed for its imple­
mentation. The prospect of turning any local conflict into
a flashpoint that could start a world war frightened the
USA’s NATO allies, while the bellicose statements of the
US Secretary of State drew growing criticism of the adminis­
tration’s policy in the USA itself (Chester Bowles, Adlai
Stevenson, and others).
Opposition to the “massive retaliation” idea compelled the
Secretary of State to somewhat back down and try to “explain”
the new doctrine. He attempted to disperse the apprehensions
that the USA would not shrink from unleashing a nuclear
war. Endeavouring to play down the impression, he said he
did not mean “turning every local war into world war. It does
not mean that if there is a Communistic attack somewhere
in Asia, atom or hydrogen bombs will necessarily be dropped
on the great industries of China or Russia”.1 Despite these
reassurances, the Eisenhower administration persevered with
a hard-line foreign policy that led to the militarisation of
the economy and an unbridled arms race.
The new Republican slogan of “rolling back” or “liberation”
was designed to supplant the “containment of communism”
doctrine of the early postwar years. The proponents of “rolling
back communism” urged mobilising all the means of influencing
socialist countries: military, political, ideological, and economic.
At the beginning of the 1950s, while focussing attention
particularly on NATO, American political leaders steered
a course towards the formation of military-political alliances
in Asia. It was Dulles’ design to form military-political alliances

1 Cited from Tristram Coffin, Senator Fulbright. Portrait of a Public

Philosopher, E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., New York, 1966, p. 120.

102
in the Pacific on a bilateral (with Japan, Taiwan, South
Korea, and other countries) and on a multilateral foundation
(ANZUS, SEATO). The needed theoretical concepts, based
on anti-communism, had been worked out by that time.
In the view of W. W. Rostow, a leading American academic
who headed the planning of American foreign policy for a long
time, the USA had, while pursuing its policy of forming
blocs, first, to build up the “military strength of Free Asia”,
and, second, to “eliminate the ideological threat of Communist
victory in Asia”.1 He suggested forming anti-communist al­
liances in Asia for precisely these purposes. Dulles relied
exclusively on the idea of military superiority, on “massive
retaliation”. Given this attitude, the relations between states
were squeezed into the pattern of the rivalry between armed
forces confronting each other. In looking for a casus belli
in any revolutionary movement, the makers of this straightfor­
ward scheme did not see the dramatic changes that had taken
place on the international scene. Underestimation—sometimes
total disregard—of external factors was what led to setbacks,
particularly to senseless attempts to involve neutral states in
military-political blocs (“any show of neutralism,” they
declared, “is amoral” ).
Despite Dulles’ calculations, neutralism gained strength. In
Asia the development of international relations in favour
of the socialist community was determined to a large extent
by the foreign policy of the People’s Republic of China,
which abided by the principles of internationalism in its
relations with the Soviet Union and the other socialist coun­
tries, and by the principles of friendship and cooperation
with its Asian neighbours. Another factor complicating the sit­
uation in Asia for the USA was that in matters relating to
foreign policy its West European allies sought, more insistently
than before, to follow a path that was largely in keeping
with their own interests. With the isolation of the PRC as
their target, the USA’s political actions in the Far East did
not always command support from European allies. Britain,
for example, and following in her wake the other members

1 W.W. Rostow, An American Policy in Asia, The Technology Press

of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,
New York, 1955, p. 6.
103
of the British Commonwealth displayed a considerable interest
in trade with the PRC. Of course, this eroded the US policy
of isolating China.
The quest for prescriptions against what Dulles saw as
a dangerous “social disease”—neutralism—yielded no tangible
results. The USA encountered serious obstacles for its Asian
policy. Together with the People’s Republic of China India
sponsored the Bandung Conference of Asian and African
Nations in April 1955. At that conference the representatives
of 31 Asian and African nations worked out the basic principles
of peace and cooperation among states: respect for sovereignty
and territorial integrity, non-interference in internal affairs,
and recognition of the equality of all races and nations,
big and small. The Bandung Declaration was hailed not only
by the peoples of Asian and African countries but also by all
other states and peoples sincerely striving for peace and freedom.
Warm approval for the Bandung decisions was signalled by
the Soviet Union and all the other socialist states.
The Afro-Asian solidarity movement, which gathered momen­
tum after Bandung, became a powerful barrier to the imperialist
policy of forming blocs. The concerted actions by India and
China in this movement enhanced the prestige of the People’s
Republic of China and helped to mobilise the forces
of national liberation on a common platform of anti-colonial­
ism. The anti-colonialist struggle fused with the movement
for disarmament directed into the general channel of struggle
against the USA (protests in India, Japan, and other countries).
Bandung spelled out the isolation of the US-backed regimes
on Taiwan and in South Korea and intensified anti-US feeling
in neutral states looking for and finding a bulwark in the
policies pursued by the socialist community countries. The
USA, which had labelled neutralism “amoral”, found its
Asian policy in crisis.
Hardly had the 1954 Geneva Conference of the foreign
ministers of the great powers on a political settlement in
Korea and Indochina ended than the Dulles-inspired diplomacy
stepped up its efforts to escalate the cold war. A tense
situation had developed by that time in the area of the Taiwan
Strait (the dispute over the islands of Quemoy and Ma-tsu).
Supported by Admiral Radford, head of the Joint Chiefs of
104
Staff, Dulles demanded US intervention in any conflict with
China, even if another civil war was started by Chiang
Kai-shek. Pressure from the Chiang Kai-shek lobby, from the
“Asia First” group, grew visibly in the US Congress. In January
1955 the US Congress passed a resolution authorising the
President to use armed force to defend Taiwan and the
Chinese coastal islands where Chiang Kai-shek troops were
entrenched. The USA thus found itself on the brink of being
drawn into a conflict with the use of the nuclear weapons at its
disposal. The situation in the Far East deteriorated.
Meanwhile, the ruling circles of European capitalist countries
openly declared their apprehensions that the USA and its
European allies might be involved in a mire of conflicts
in the Far East at the expense of a lessening of attention
for European affairs. Dulles’ main argument against these
apprehensions was that no weakness must be displayed in the
Far East so as not to encourage the enemy in other parts
of the world.
Moderate Democrats concerned about the USA’s global in­
terests and guided by the common class positions of cooperation
of the West European and American monopolists were deeply
disturbed by Dulles’ activities. They regarded US interference
in China’s internal affairs as “criminal folly”, for the risk-laden
actions over Taiwan could, in their view, lead to a general
war in Asia, in which the USA would find itself single-handed.
The extremists contended that for the USA it was not important
to reinforce its allied relations. Counter-arguments were offered
by the opposition group. The most significant of these in the
assessment of a possible exacerbation of the situation in the
Taiwan Strait was seen in the risk of losing allies. Were allies
crucial to the USA? Proponents of an affirmative reply referred
to the need, “in the interests of the nation’s own security”,
to maintain military bases on the territory of allied nations,
to obtain from the latter vital raw and other materials and,
lastly, to constantly feel their moral support.
US interests, linked to the necessity of countering centrifugal
tendencies in the capitalist world and pursuing a more accept­
able—from the standpoint of these selfsame interests—policy
towards the Soviet Union, fostered the growth of a trend
among the USA’s rulers to reconsider relations with China. In
105
this tense period liberal opinion in the Democratic Party
was clearly articulated by Senator Fulbright. When William
Knowland insisted that Chiang Kai-shek had to be returned
to the mainland, Senator Fulbright, speaking in Arkansas,
declared: “If the leaders of Red China seem willing to abide
by minimum standards of civilized conduct, we ought to find
the basis for negotiations.” He felt it was his duty to add:
“I do not belong to the Knowland war party.” 1
In the period of the Eisenhower-Dulles administration,
Fulbright’s programme on the question of US-Chinese rela­
tions took into consideration the need for negotiations with
Beijing (particularly on the question of the release of 11 US
pilots held in China) without any preconditions. He presumed
there would be serious difficulties in settling the “China prob­
lem”, but censured the attempts of his colleagues to ignore
the new leadership in China and the new methods of diplomacy
in relations with Beijing. The Senator believed that some form of
settlement could be reached with Beijing. Probably, to avoid the
rebuke that he was championing a lost cause, Fulbright added
that he would oppose convening a conference with the parti­
cipation of China that would be “used by the Communists for
propaganda purposes’.’
Knowland, who personified the “Asia First” group in the
US Congress, caused the Senator from Arkansas much more
than merely annoyance. Knowland’s statement that victory by
communism would be the result of peaceful coexistence and
nuclear irreparability went beyond the usual “Europe or
Asia” polemic. Senator Fulbright had serious forebodings about
the assumption that the USA was unable to find peaceful solu­
tions to complex international problems. He felt that if prefe­
rence were given to military strength the USA would lose the
goodwill of India and other nations and this would lead to de­
feat in the cold war.
However, although Eisenhower heeded moderate opinion,
he continued his “hard line” in his Asian policy. On April 20,
1955 he asked Congress to approve an increase, in aid to
nations belonging to alliances sponsored by the USA. This
request was granted. In the 1950s US military and economic
i Tristram Coffin, op. cit., p. 121.

106
aid to Far Eastern nations exceeded US military and economic
aid in Europe several times over.
For Fulbright criticism of the experience of the “China
policy” by the hardliners meant also that it was vital to
resolve many current problems of US Far Eastern policy.
During a period of a relative thaw in 1956 Beijing sug­
gested an exchange of journalists between China and the
USA. Dulles was adamant in rejecting this offer. Towards
the close of 1957, when Dulles gave in, it was too late: China's
leadership had adopted a hard stand. Contrary to what Dulles
was preaching, Fulbright urged a reconsideration of US policy
towards China. As early as during the first postwar years he had
dissociated himself from the “Asia First” group headed by
Knowland, and from the Chiang Kai-shek lobby that was hoping
to bring Chiang Kai-shek back to the mainland. Fulbright de­
pended on the think tanks of research centres and of various
socio-political organisations. Moreover, he had the support of
veteran diplomats.
Arthur H. Dean, formerly head of the US delegation at the
negotiations on a local settlement in Korea and who was known
for his clashes in the past with the Taiwan lobbyist Alfred
Kohlberg, found himself in the focus of attention in 1954. He
had once been asked a loaded question that could only draw
a negative reply: “You want to deal with communist China?”
Dean rejected this formulation of the question but said he believed
that if there was any possibility, apart from military means,
of driving a wedge between the PRC and the USSR that pos­
sibility ought to be studied by Washington. If there was such
a chance it had to be used. This premise rested on the belief that
the leaders of the Communist Party of China were more inter­
ested in consolidating their power in China than in actions on
the international scene.
In the mid-1950s the formula “curbing China without iso­
lating it” underwent discussion, first in academic circles. In
1956 Senate commissions began openly to urge a re-defining
of US policy towards China (William Langer, Wayne Morse,
Hubert Humphrey). At a conference on the Far East at Colum­
bia University, a major report was presented by the Sinologist
A. Doak Barnett on the subject “The United States and
Communist China”. Speaking of the reasons for the victory of
107
the Communist Party of China, Barnett acknowledged that the
successes of the Chinese Communists were largely due to their
skilful appeal to the Chinese people's nationalist sentiment dur­
ing the war with Japan and in the postwar period. The fusion
of revolutionary communism with nationalism, he noted,
was motivated by tactical considerations, but to an even larger
extent it expressed the confidence of the Communists that
China would win respect, international prestige, and the status
of a world power.1 The closing report at the conference recom­
mended, in particular, the lifting of the restrictions on travel
by American media correspondents and academics to China
and on the import of the most significant publications from the
PRC. Regarding the question of recognising the PRC, speakers
at the conference advanced mainly two viewpoints: the first
was the assertion that a positive settlement of the issue would
demoralise the USA's Asian allies and help to reinforce the
regime in China; the second, on the contrary, was the hope that
it would be possible to establish “useful contacts” and thereby
remove divergences in the “free world”. Despite the differences
that surfaced during the debate on these pressing issues, the
US academics spoke openly, for the first time following the
long period of McCarthyism, in favour of a reconsideration of
the USA's policy towards the PRC.
The inclination to doubt the foreign policy pursued by
the USA at the time would subsequently be attributed to
Eisenhower. The President asked whether it would not be the
best policy to try to pull China away from Russia rather
than drive the Chinese even deeper into*an alliance unfriendly
to the United States.* 2 However, even if they existed, doubts
of this kind could not have any substantial influence on the
practical implementation of policy. The government’s official at­
titude to China was based on its uncompromising stand relative
to socialist countries. Official propaganda acted on the inven­
tion that world communism was a threat, and the belief that
China was part of the “world communist underground” was
cultivated in the USA.
The United States and the Far East, The American Assembly Graduate
School of Business, Columbia University, New York, 1956.
2 Forrest Davis and Robert A. Hunter, The Red China Lobby, Fleet
Publishing Corporation, New York, 1963, p. 252.

108
 The US ruling circles regarded any change in US policy
towards China as an undesirable departure from basic foreign
policy principles. Arthur Dean's theory had been nipped in the
bud: it fell to pieces upon hitting the wall propped up by person­
alities like Dulles, Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern
Affairs Walter S. Robertson, and the Senate GOF leader Wil­
liam Knowland. The arguments of Fulbright, Dean, and other
proponents of a new look at the China policy came into con­
flict with the official line of giving priority to instruments of
military and political pressure.
The Dulles policy towards China was structured in accord­
ance with Washington’s ideological orientation on military
superiority and on its guideline of “massive retaliation”. In this
approach the confrontation between the different social systems
on the world scene was squeezed into the pattern of rivalry
between opposing military forces. Dulles’ line of reasoning rela­
tive to problems of the USA’s China policy was based largely
on the belief that Sino-American contradictions in Asia were one
of the principal hindrances to US recognition of the PRC.
“We waited sixteen years before recognizing the Soviets!”
he exclaimed. It was his opinion that this recognition was a mis­
calculation stemming from ignorance of the situation. This, he
argued, should be a lesson. “We cannot recognize the Chinese
Communists,” he told the US public, “until they give up their
objective of driving the United States from the Western Pacif­
ic. We cannot have a hostile nation controlling the Western
Pacific... The Chinese Communists are talking in the same vein
as the pre-war Japanese with their co-prosperity sphere.” 1
The Eisenhower Republican administration adopted the slo­
gans of “rolling back” and “liberation”. Dulles decided to
use these slogans in order to head a crusade against the social­
ist countries with the use of military, political, ideological,
and economic levers. The stereotypes developed in the period
of the Dulles diplomacy could not get on with the principles
of peaceful coexistence with the socialist world and with adapta­
tion to the new realities for foreign policy in the world. The
Dulles policy remained immutable, although, so it seemed, the
1 Andrew H. Berding, Dulles on Diplomacy, D. Van Nostrand Company,
Inc., Princeton, New Jersey, 1965, p. 57.

109
voice of the opposition increasingly resembled the notes of the
horns that, according to legend, caused the walls of unas­
sailable Jericho to crumble.

The Taiwan lobby in the USA spread its activities. At the

close of the 1950s the Kuomintang clique began to pay more
attention to propaganda—-to its newspapers and information
agencies in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and Washing­
ton. Acting on behalf of Chiang Kai-shek, the organisations,
foundations, and societies that in one way or another supported
the administration's anti-China policy attacked academic and
other institutions urging a revision of the relations with China.
By the 1950s the Kuomintang lobby had accumulated consid­
erable experience of influencing the USA's China policy. Dur­
ing the McCarthy period it contributed to the harassment of
leading American Sinologists. The most fervid supporters of
Chiang Kai-shek, for example, John McCormack, Walter H.
Judd, William J. Knowland, Robert Taft, Joseph McCarthy,
N.J. Smith, Styles Bridges, and Arthur H. Wandenberg,
struck at some State Department personnel, charging them
with betraying US interests in China. They expended a large
effort to expel O. Edmund Clubb, John Davis, John Carter
Vincent, John Stewart Service, and other veteran diplomats
from the diplomatic service.
One of the most authoritative pro-Chiang Kai-shek organi­
sations in the USA, the Committee of One Million (it had more
than a million members), declared in its programme documents
that it would counter every movement that could reinforce the
strength and prestige of “Communist China to the detriment
of the national security and integrity of the USA”. The banner
of anti-communism gave the committee the assistance, over
a long period, of highly conservative organisations such as the
American Legion, the American Federation of Labor, Veterans
of Foreign Wars, and the United States Chamber of Commerce.
The committee’s members were distressed by the talk that the
PRC would possibly be admitted to the United Nations, that
there might be an easing of the embargo on the sale of strategic
goods to mainland China, and that the USA might reconsider
its China policy. The Kuomintang clique was seriously disturbed
no
by the arguments of the liberals that the Chiang Kai-shek
army was aging and that a gulf lay between Chinese and the na­
tives of Taiwan. At the turn of the 1960s the growing role of the
neutral states on the international scene influenced the align­
ment of strength in the United Nations. This confronted Tai­
wan with the threat of isolation. Matters reached a point where
Senator John F. Kennedy publicly declared that if he became
President he would be prepared to sacrifice Quemoy.
...In October 1957 the US columnist C.L. Sulzberger called
on Chiang Kai-shek and his wife. Sulzberger was a little
dubious about how he would be received for he did not know
whether Chiang Kai-shek was informed of the fact that
he had written advocating US recognition of the PRC. He
recorded his talk with Chiang Kai-shek. The questions were put
by the American journalist.
Question: Had Beijing tried to get Chiang Kai-shek to agree
to some kind of peace talks and coalition government during
the “ 100 Flowers” campaign the previous winter?
Answer: Yes. The Communists hadn’t contacted him directly
but had sought to win over his high-level officials.
Question: Why, since he advocated limited war as the only
way of liberating China, hadn’t he taken off?
Answer: You know the answer. It is the United States.
Question: Would he have to consult the US before, for
example, landing a battalion on the mainland?
Answer: Yes, if circumstances demanded it, but he would
keep the US advised of everything.
Question: What did Chiang consider as an alternative to
coexistence except war?
Answer: Nothing. The present situation was one of “nei­
ther war nor peace”.
Chiang Kai-shek then leaned forward ... and said: “Now
let’s speak plainly and without hesitation. What do you think?
Will the American people support me in a limited war?”
Sulzberger replied: “Frankly, I do not think so. Until
1945, that would have been possible. But since the atomic age
began most people don’t care to risk a nuclear war which
would destroy civilization. They don’t think war can be limit­
ed.”
“I am afraid you are exactly right,” Chiang said to Sulzber-
lii
ger’s surprise. “That is an accurate statement of the American
view.” 1
This conversation between Sulzberger and Chiang Kai-shek
vividly illustrated the impact of the perceptible changes in
international relations on the USA’s China policy. The change
of the military-political balance of strength in the world in
favour of socialism dramatically undermined the practical
significance of the Dulles foreign policy postulates. Twelve
days before the above conversation took place a Soviet rocket
had placed the first-ever satellite in orbit around the Earth.
As well as having a nuclear arsenal the Soviet Union thereby
made it clear that it had the necessary means of delivering
these weapons to a target. Although a fervent proponent of
resolute action, Chiang Kai-shek had to follow Washington in
acknowledging existing realities. The risk of a global con­
flict, that would signify universal annihilation, prevented poli­
ticians from ill-considered actions, cooling the ardour of inde­
fatigable adventurists. Even Taipei’s best friends in the USA
began to realise that Chiang Kai-shek would be well-advised to
abandon his absurd hope of becoming China’s ruler and live
out his days in peace on Taiwan.
Of course, views of this kind drove the Chiang Kai-shek
lobby into a rage. Chiang Kai-shek’s agents tagged the label
of Communist “duffers” and “scamps” to their opponents in
American political circles.
The Committee of One Million feverishly collected signa­
tures of Congressmen under “Statements on China” demanding
undeviating implementation of the policy of non-recognition
of the PRC by the USA. In 1961 statements of this kind
bore the signatures of 351 Congressmen—55 Senators and
296 members of the House of Representatives (171 Demo­
crats and 180 Republicans). Each new statement was comple­
mented with new appeals: against the USA pursuing a “two
Chinas” policy, against trade with the PRC, and so on. The com­
mittee disrupted the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
hearings of the Conlon Report (1959), which recommended a
more flexible approach to China within the terms of the

1 C.L. Sulzberger, The Last of the Giants, The MacMillan Company,

New York, 1970, pp. 426-27.

112
 USA's commitments to Taiwan and its other allies in Asia.
The Senate Committee showed an interest in the report, but
pressure from the right, chiefly from the Committee of One Mil­
lion, halted the document's movement.
A meeting protesting against the PRC’s admission to UN
membership was sponsored by the Committee of One Mil­
lion in September 1961 in New York. The motivation for this
was the administration's consent to the inclusion of the question
of the PRC’s admission to the UN on the agenda of the
then upcoming session of the UN General Assembly. Messages
of approbation were sent to the meeting by former US presi­
dents Hoover and Eisenhower, the politicians Barry Goldwater
and Richard M. Nixon, Admiral Arthur W. Radford, and
others.
Solidarity with the “China Lobby” was expressed at the time
by the American China Policy Association, that was set up in
1945 and headed by Alfred Kohlberg, a millionaire import-ex-
port merchant, and William Loeb, publisher of the Man­
chester Union-Leader. Also identified with the “China Lobby”
was the so-called China Emergency Committee headed by Fre­
derick C. McKee, a Pittsburgh industrialist. McKee was known
not only as a manufacturer of funeral accessories but also as a
rabid anti-communist. Walter H. Judd, a former missionary in
China and member of the House of Representatives since
1943, initiated the founding of these two organisations and
served both as an adviser. This hater of the Chinese people
headed the Chinese refugees assistance fund. He accused
Dean Acheson of treachery on the allegation that the latter
had, in his opinion, “written off China”. Addressing a meeting
of the Committee of One Million, he thundered that if
China were admitted to United Nations membership, the Com­
mittee of One Million would at once launch a national cam­
paign to compel the USA to resign from the UN.
Hamilton Wright was regarded as one of Taipei’s chief
spokesmen in the USA. A member of the “China Lobby” and
head of the Hamilton Wright Organisation, Inc., he launched
a vigorous propaganda campaign to win support for Chiang Kai-
shek. Representatives of the Hamilton Wright Organisation
toured many countries, arranging exhibits, brainwashing editors
and journalists, pushing films (for example, “Taiwan—Show
8-0768 113
Window of Asia”) and television programmes in European,
Middle Eastern, Southeast Asian, and South American coun­
tries. Of course, attention was focussed chiefly on influencing
public opinion in the USA itself, on brainwashing the American
elector. Articles sponsored by Wright's enterprising aides ap­
peared in 900 newspapers. This intense propaganda campaign
was motivated by the ob&ssion to “influence US policy”.
Senator Fulbright published Hamilton Wright’s correspon­
dence with Sampson Shen, director of the Kuomintang news
agency. In his letters Wright put heavy stress on the dangers
awaiting the Chiang Kai-shek coterie on the international
scene. His advice for transcending these dangers was that there
should be a redoubling of the counter-propaganda effort,
especially during election campaigns in the USA. His program­
me for 1960 envisaged a wide propaganda drive in Latin
American states. “These countries [of Latin America],” he
wrote to Shen, “have 21 votes in the United Nations and
have voted consistently against the admission of Red China
to the U.N. This must not change.” 1 Wright visited Turkey,
Iran, southern Africa, Italy, and other countries to elucidate
possibilities for influencing public opinion more effectively. For
Southeast Asian countries he recommended not only tested
means such as bribing the press but also support for religious
trends—as a “convenient way to the heart of the people”.
Wright reminded his clients of the large sums that had been
paid for a campaign in favour of Taiwan and demanded
money from them. “Money,” he wrote in one of his letters,
“is the grease for the wheels of a propaganda campaign.”
TTie contracts that were signed provided for expenditures
amounting to 300,000 dollars annually. The difficulties encoun­
tered by the Chiang Kai-shek clique and the conservative sen­
timents in U S political circles played into the hands of resource­
ful businessmen. Senator Fulbright noted that American
newspapers accepted articles prepared by a paid foreign agent,
approved them, and published them as objective news stories.
Wright specified: “That is done every day of the week.”
The bribing of “useful” people was common practice for
1 Activities of Nondiplomatic Representatives of Foreign Principals in
the U.S. Hearings Before the Comminee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate,
88th Congress, 1st Session, U.S. G.P.O., Washington, 1963, p. 693.

14
>
the Wright group. “ Last year/1 Wright frankly informed the
Senate Committee, “Ambassador George Yeh said to me:
‘Ham, I think your organization should develop a man who
can become an authority on China. One who knows us, our way
of life, our problems, a man who can write with complete
understanding/ ” Wright proudly declared that they had devel­
oped such a man. The American press began writing of Donald
Frifield as of a leading authority on Chinese problems. To ca­
mouflage the purely propaganda activities of this “authori­
ty”, articles signed by him were prepared for the press on
other subjects (Japan, the Philippines, Korea). For this fraud
Frifield was paid a monthly fee of 1,333.33 dollars. Hamilton
Wright’s Taiwan agent received an annual fee of 20,000 dol­
lars.1
The hearings on the activities of foreign lobbyists before
the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations mirrored the
new currents in the US China policy. The US ruling circles were
looking for new ways and means of putting their China
policy into effect. The old “China lobbyists” were sacrificed
to this quest. The number of Taiwan agents registered offi­
cially with the US Department of Justice decreased. The Chiang
Kai-shek clique could only rely mainly on three organisations:
the Kuomintang branch, the information service, and the Cen­
tral News Agency. In Congress, in the Pentagon, in the business
world and among academics those who were perseveringly
championing the interests of the regime in Taipei did not, of
course, lay down their arms in the 1960s and 1970s, but, unlike
in the past, their possibilities had diminished visibly.
In the mid-1960s, amid the fanfare of dazzling debates and
vociferous conclaves, whose sponsors were zestfully weighing
the dividends to be drawn from the shifts in Chinese politics
while continuing to demonstrate fidelity to Taipei and the
former stereotypes, the spotlight was held by Walter H. Judd.
But already then he began to feel the weakness of his posture.
The ranks of Chiang Kai-shek’s supporters were thinning. Se­
nator Joseph McCarthy and generals Claire L. Chennault and
Patrick J. Hurley were gone. The diplomats William C. Bullitt
and Walter S. Robertson, and Senators William Knowland and

1 Ibid., pp. 789-801.

115
Jenner had left the scene long ago. The head of the “China
Lobby" Albert Kohlberg had also quitted this world. Obscurity
had claimed the energetic activities of the publisher of Time
magazine Henry R. Luce, while his wife, Clare Boothe Luce,
who had likewise been an ardent supporter of Chiang Kai-shek,
acknowledged the need for a new approach to the China policy,
an acknowledgement that was tantamount to public repentance.
The publication of the names of Congressmen supporting the
lobbyist opposition to China’s admission to the UN ceased in
1961.
In the mid-1960s Beijing’s anti-Americanism enabled Judd to
attack fellow-Congressmen who were urging a reconsideration
of the China policy and hoping for an opportunity in some
way to influence the character and essence of the government
in China. Judd’s principal argument was that the character
of the government determined foreign policy and, on that basis,
he stuck to his contention that Americans were labour­
ing under a dangerous delusion. He and those associated with
him underscored the international character of the communist
movement (“All Communists agree on the question of a world
revolution") and depicted the Communist Party of China as an
inalienable element of that movement
Judd juggled with historical documents. Speaking in March
1966 before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in the
capacity of an authority on Far Eastern problems, he at­
tempted to misrepresent US-Chinese relations of the past in
order to validate US Far Eastern policy of the Dulles days.
He claimed that by authorising the US special envoy Patrick
J; Hurley to visit the liberated areas of China in 1944 the
USA had granted an “official status to the communist insur­
rection" and thereby “undermined the morale" of the American
ally, the Kuomintang. Judd offered the conclusion that the
talks with the National Front for the Liberation of South Viet­
nam, suggested by some Congressmen, would “demoralise"
the Saigon government just as “Chongqing’s prestige" was erod­
ed in 1944-1946 by the USA’s negotiations with the Chinese
Communists.
Judd vehemently disputed the suggestion that President
Nixon should support Beijing’s admission to the UN. He opposed
the view, generally accepted in Washington in the early
16
1970s, that Soviet-Chinese relations would not improve. He
saw these relations not as rivalry between two states but as a
clash between two currents in the world communist move­
ment. As seen by Judd, the divergences with the Soviet
Union were over not what to do but, above all, how things
were to be done (“The divergences concern only the quest for
ways to overwhelm us [the USAJ”). He lost no opportunity to
use the “export of revolution” bogey to intimidate American
opinion.
The Nixon visit to Beijing and the interest displayed by the
Chinese side to promote relations with the USA generated
discord in the pro-Taiwan community in the USA and, it
seemed, definitively shook the stand held by Judd and his asso­
ciates. Astute columnists drew attention to a highly significant
fact when Nixon lifted the 21-year embargo on trade with
China: there was no vocal reaction to this action. Many
felt that whatever negative response there was in Congress
it came from individuals and reflected only a shadow of
the general opposition to contacts with Beijing organised
in the 1950s by the “China Lobby”. This shadow was Judd.
The admission of the PRC to the UN further unsettled the
“China Lobby”.
The Committee of One Million died a natural death in 1970.
Walter Judd undertook the burden of rallying the shaken
cohort of lobbyists. In February 1972 the press named him as
the founder of the new Committee for a Free China to replace
the Committee of One Million. It was asserted that the new
lobbyists were not out to torpedo Nixon’s visit to the PRC,
that all they wanted was to announce their presence. The
Committee intended to study the UN’s role in order to weigh
its benefit and harm to the USA. Judd defined his attitude as
follows: The UN is now a different organisation, and it may
not prove to be as useful as it once was. The lobbyists opposing
Washington’s new approach to the problems of its China
policy portrayed the Beijing leaders as “smiling tigers”
waiting to receive “Taiwan on a silver platter”.

117
 New Frontiers”

The “new frontiers” policy required flexibility in the

approach to complex international problems. By the 1960s
the US State Department was jettisoning, albeit reluctantly
(the load it inherited proved to be much too heavy), the Dul­
les foreign policy recipes. The new President resolutely took
the helm of the American ship into his hands and needed new
pilots free of the prejudices of Dulles day.
In 1960 the question of a policy towards China was among
the central issues in the presidential election campaign.
Senator John F. Kennedy spelled out the changes that would
be introduced in the USA’s Asian policy—chiefly in regard
to China—if he were elected to the White House. One of these
changes, it was stated, would be the rescinding of the US
commitment to defend the offshore islands of Quemoy and
Ma-tsu, to which the Kuomintang was clinging tenaciously.
Chester Bowles captured the limelight as foreign policy ad­
viser to the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate Kenne­
dy. The programme drawn up and announced by Bowles
recommended: first, abstaining from any actions sustaining
the myth that the Chiang Kai-shek goyernment represented
the whole of China or would return to7the mainland; second,
encouraging the neutralisation of the islands offshore of Chi­
na; third, persuading the Taipei government to adopt the role
of an “independent Formosan republic”. Adlai Stevenson,
mentioned, as Bowles was, as a candidate for the post of
Secretary of State in a Democratic administration, suggested
a more radical programme. State Department aides used
protocols of the Sino-US meetings in Warsaw to prove
documentally that in the light of Beijing’s negative posture
the bold Democratic programme was unrealistic.
Bowles wanted to get an intimate understanding of the
essence of world developments, setting aside the premise that
the world opposing the USA was “violently hostile”. He
censured the foreign policy extremists who regarded any
debate as a quest for one simple answer, as a confrontation
solely between two sides, one of which was right and the other
wrong. In his memoirs Chester Bowles, who played an
incomparably more important role in the American hierarchy
118
than the diplomats who styled themselves as old China hands,
charges State Department officials with idealising the history
of the relations between the USA and the FRC. He debunks
the assertion that it was traditional American policy to
prevent interference in China’s internal affairs (the Open
Door policy). The British, French, and Americans forced the
Manchu emperors to sign unequal treaties that gave the three
powers the right to, among other privileges, collect taxes and
establish special courts in China.1
One of Kennedy’s first requests to his adviser, Chester
Bowles, regarding the USA’s China policy, took into account
the need to bring into line the administration’s new ap­
proach to foreign affairs and the attitudes of Chiang Kai-shek’s
supporters. Through Zhou Enlai Beijing articulated its hopes
that the Kennedy administration would change the USA’s
China policy. Would the American government, as distinct
from the line pursued by Eisenhower, make a small concession
as a first step? Would the new President take the initiative
on himself? Would the USA pull its armed forces out of
Taiwan and the Taiwan Strait? Beijing asked.
Unlike their predecessors of the 1940s, the US political
leaders of the 1960s had to deal not with a group of persons
claiming to be the ruling party, but with the CPC leadership
that was at the helm of power in China. Therefore, in their
quest for ways and means of influencing the Chinese leader­
ship they sought to make an in-depth analysis of the most
pressing problems confronting the country led by the Com­
munist Party of China. The government in Washington close­
ly studied China’s food problem. Kennedy announced publicly
that if the CPC leaders desired to receive food from the USA
the administration would be prepared to consider this ques­
tion.
Bowles, who in 1962 studied China’s food problem, shared
his considerations with the President. He noted that reliance
on the nation’s own resources would not enable the Beijing
government to solve the food problem, which not only threa­
tened the people with further privation but could destabilise

1 Chester Bowles, Promises to Keep. My Years in Public Life, 1941-1969,

Harper & Row Publishers, New York, 1971, p. 393.
119
China politically. He saw three options for the Chinese gov­
ernment: first, to do nothing, on the assumption that one
more famine “would not change the course of history”; sec­
ond, purchase grain from capitalist food-exporting countries
such as Australia, Canada, and the United States; third, by
overt or covert means to seek control of the food surplus areas
of Southeast Asia, in other words, take action that would
involve the risk of war. Bowles’ analysis led to the suggestion
to play on China’s food problem, thereby influencing Beijing
and compelling it to pursue in Asia a foreign policy acceptable
to the USA.
Without changing imperialism’s basic strategic aims in any
way, the “new frontiers” ideologues called for the development
of means that would foster Western influence in Asia; they
viewed the USA’s Asia policy not from the standpoint of
particular interests of monopoly capital but through the prism of
the interests of the forces of imperialism in their global
confrontation with the forces of socialism and the revolutionary
movement in Asia. Aid on favourable terms, charity, gratuitous
loans and many other seeming paradoxes of the imperialist
“new frontiers” policy were, where possible, fitted into the
framework of a humanitarian concept of assistance. Bowles
took a rational-egoist attitude to problems of this sort without
fearing the charge of hypocrisy. His recommendations on
selling food to China on favourable terms harmonised with the
architectonics of the “new frontiers” policy and were accepted
by Kennedy. Preparations were started to provide China with
wheat free of charge or on favourable terms. Even an
intermediary was selected—the Prime Minister of Burma U Nu.
But flie US design was derailed by the Chinese government’s
stand—an intensification of anti-Americanism—and U Nu’s fall
from power. Opponents of direct contacts with Beijing suggested
waiting until the “dust had settled”.1
In a conversation with Edgar Snow in 1960 Zhou Enlai drew
the former’s attention to an article by Chester Bowles in the
April 1960 issue of the journal Foreign Affairs under the
heading of “The ‘China Problem’ Reconsidered”. “This article,”
Zhou Enlai declared, “aroused not only protests from the

1 Chester Bowles, op. cit., pp. 402-03.

120
 Chinese people on the mainland but also condemnation among
the Chinese population on Taiwan.” In the article Bowles had
suggested that the USA should aim at creating an indepen­
dent “Chinese-Formosan state”. Bowles himself admit­
ted that there evidently would be objections to his suggestion
in mainland China as well as from the Kuomintang and the
Chinese living on Taiwan. It would hence come to nothing,
but in terms of a normalisation of Sino-US relations it would
only “tie the knot tight”. Bowles’ suggestion, Snow said, was
a ballon d'essai. Zhou Enlai insisted that it could only be called
a ballon d'essai if such an approach were rejected because of a
failed sounding, but if it was maintained, despite the failed
sounding, it would signify tying the knot tight.
The two sides got down to looking for an acceptable com­
promise. According to information about the Warsaw talks lea­
ked to the press, the USA assured Beijing in 1962 that it would
not back Chiang Kai-shek’s intention to attack China. Indeed,
Chiang Kai-shek stopped talking about invading the mainland.
The Chinese leadership decided to pull its troops back from the
coastal regions. Then there followed a eries of “serious
warnings” about the actions of Chiang Kai-shek and his patrons.
These were the first steps towards mutual understanding of the
sides on the Taiwan issue, and in the early 1970s they led to the
formation of “liaison groups” in Washington and Beijing,
thereby bringing the USA close to accepting the concept of
“two Chinas”. The Kennedy administration was to a large
extent tied down by the activities of pro-Taiwan elements in
the USA.
US political leaders searched for ways to a mutual under­
standing with Beijing that would be more acceptable to Amer­
ican interests. At the beginning of the 1960s the “new frontiers”
policy, one of whose directions was the quest for ways of
normalising relations with the PRC, encountered resistance in
the USA itself. The opposition drew its strength from the
disaffection over the outcome of the Caribbean crisis and the
signing of the partial test-ban treaty. In large measure Beijing’s
attitude to India and the events in the Taiwan Strait fettered
any initiative by American political leaders relative to China.

121
Movement to End Isolation

The open discussion of problems of US-Chinese relations in

the USA in the 1960s was unquestionably propagandist in es­
sence because any practical steps by the administration towards
improving relations with China required public support,
especially during election battles.
What was the opinion of the participants in this debate, of the
authors of innumerable works on China and on problems of
American-Chinese relations? Most American experts, in a fairly
rare consensus on this matter, accentuated the need to reconsider
these relations (the prevalent idea was basically “to contain
China without isolating it”). The concrete suggestions by
participants in the debate at hearings before Senate committees
and in many articles and books boiled down mainly to the
following: the USA should seek to normalise relations with the
PRC, mute its resistance to the PRC’s admission to the UN
(they felt that US security would be better served if the PRC
became a member of the UN), state its readiness for talks on es­
tablishing official relations (without prejudicing relations with
Taiwan), and declare that it would be prepared to accredit
newsmen, academics, and other specialists from China. A memo­
randum containing similar suggestions was signed by acade­
mics in Canada, Ceylon, France, India, and Japan.
The hearings of experts before the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee were followed by a hearing of Chinese affairs before
the US Joint Economic Committee (April 1966). In the
recommendations of the latter committee, which also heard
evidence from leading American academics, it was noted that
the embargo on US trade with China was hurting American
interests rather than proving to be an effective instrument of
intimidation. Committee members arrived at the conclusion that
US interests would benefit if the PRC promoted trade and credit
relations with capitalist countries. Such recommendations were
offered, in particular, by one of the most highly regarded
authorities on China in the USA, A. Doak Barnett.
Fairbank, Barnett, Morgenthau, and some other academics
recommended dropping the primitive, as they put it, attitude to
Asian problems and the world communist movement. Fairbank
vigorously backed Barnett; in support of his assumptions Fair-
122
bank, even more emphatically than Barnett, underscored Chi­
nese traditions and the specifics of Chinese society, which was
burdened with feudal and religious survivals. Taking into
account the views expressed by academics in hearings before
the Committee on Foreign Relations, Senator William Fulbright
recalled a passage from Fairbanks book The United States and
China. “The Chinese society,” Fairbank wrote in this work,
“is very different from our own. We cannot hope to succeed
in our policy toward China unless we take account of this
difference. Consequently, one of our worst enemies is wishful
thinking, subjectivism and sentiment. Another is plain ignorance.
We court disaster if we let our patriotic defensive measures
against Russian expansion, or a purely doctrinaire anti-com­
munism, dictate our China policy. Our policy must take full
account of China’s own process of social change. We cannot
remake Chinese society in our own image. We have to go part
way in the process of Sino-Western adjustment.” 1
At the time Fairbank wrote these lines many American
political pundits were looking for a new social bulwark in China
and declaring that they would go so far as to sacrifice Chiang
Kai-shek if they found it. It will be recalled that proponents of
thinking of this kind were subsequently labelled traitors by the
McCarthyists. McCarthyism fizzled out, while the liberal Ful­
bright counselled that it would not be a bad idea to draw a lesson
from the McCarthyists’ short-sightedness, which bordered upon
plain ignorance. Little wonder that in his book The Arrogance
of Power Fulbright devoted a whole chapter to the history of
China and the Chinese revolution. He focussed on the
“consequences” of Western relations with China, the Chinese
revolution, the theory and practice of Chinese foreign policy,
and US-Chinese relations. He attributed the growth of Chinese
nationalism, which gained strength in the struggle with external
enemies, chiefly Western imperialists, to the great disparity
between China’s “fierce ancient pride” (Celestial Empire,
Middle Kingdom) and the humiliations poured down on it by the
West. Fulbright unequivocally acknowledges that China was
pillaged by Western powers, which were joined by Japan in the
1 US Policy with Respect to Mainland China, Hearings Before the
Committee on Foreign Relations, 89th Congress, 2d 3ession, March 1966,
U.S. G.P.O., Washington, 1966, pp. 177-78.

123
closing decade of the nineteenth century. Also, he had to
admit, albeit very cautiously, the USA’s participation in the
struggle, especially indisputable facts such as the role played
by the USA in crushing the Yihetuan Uprising. Fulbright
depicts the Open Door policy, proclaimed by the USA relative
to China at the close of the last century, as a noble move to
preserve China’s territorial integrity and persuade the Chinese
that the USA was the only great power they could regard as
their friend and, possibly, defender. This was a misrepresenta­
tion of history.
The pundits who urged an end to the policy of isolating
China drew upon pronouncements of officials of the Chinese
government when they spoke in an encouraging vein. A French
emissary visiting Beijing was told that in the final count the
Americans were no more than an adversary, but that they were
an esteemed adversary. Statements of this kind gave many
American political leaders grounds for assuming that China
would look for a way out of the difficulties hindering an
improvement of its relations with the USA.
Another viewpoint, insisting on an uncompromising stand
relative to China and a victorious consummation of the ag­
gression in Vietnam, was articulated in academic circles per­
haps to a lesser degree than the first but it still strongly
influenced die planning of American policy in the Far East
and in Southeast Asia and, as before, had the approval of the
barons of the military-industrial complex. At the hearings
before the Committee on Foreign Relations Barnett, Fairbank,
Morgenthau, and others, but chiefly Fulbright, were attacked
by Walter H. Judd, the Chiang Kai-shek lobbyist and member
of the House of Representatives, David N. Rowe, professor
of political science at Yale University (bom in Nanking,
studied at Princeton, and the Asia Fund representative on
Taiwan from 1954 to 1956), and Harold C. Hinton, professor
of international affairs at the George Washington University.
Judd and his associates had wide recourse to the tested
terminology of Western propaganda used in different variants
to prove the “ruthless violence of the Communists”, the latter’s
aspiration to crush freedom and people’s identities, and their
persevering drive to export revolution. The history of the
world communist movement knows of many instances of
124
imperialism’s apologists seeking to smear communist ideals
with references to individual uncharacteristic cases of ad­
venturism in the communist movement, to the demagogy of the
“ultra-revolutionaries”, the rhetoric of dogmatists, and so forth.
Of course, they sometimes achieved their goal, misleading
decent people, who had been unable to work out the com­
plexities of the ongoing revolutionary processes for themselves.
Although this trend among American experts was not so
widely mirrored in literature as the first, it visibly affected
thinking in the government and was in keeping with the
traditions of the bipolar age. This is shown strikingly by the
official attitude to an eminent academic, who urged renouncing
old myths and acquiring a realistic understanding of develop­
ments. Hans J. Morgenthau, director of the Centre for Study
of American Foreign and Military Policy, professor of politi­
cal science and modern history at the University of Chicago,
former consultant to the US State Department, and author of
many books, suddenly found himself in disfavour. In the sum­
mer of 1965 he was relieved of his position and at once came
under the surveillance of the FBI. A White House aide was
given the special assignment of keeping a close watch on
Morgenthau’s pronouncements. In response Morgenthau
declared that to line up support for its policies the government
was having recourse to defamation, intimidation and, most
frequently, coercion.
What had Morgenthau done? He had spoken against dog­
matic attacks on communism, against what he felt was a
doctrinaire approach to developments in Asia. “The identifica­
tion of Asian with Chinese Communism,” he wrote in his last
book, “is similarly the result of the crusading opposition to
Communism as a political philosophy and a way of life.
Such identification is justified in philosophy and ethics, but has
no place in foreign policy.” 1
The attitude adopted by Judd and his associates, Morgenthau
noted, was counter-productive; he wrote that “the basic direction
of her [China’s] policies is determined primarily by her
traditional national interests”.12 He was certain that Chiang

1 Hans J. Morgenthau, Vietnam and the United States, Public Affairs

Press, Washington, 1965, p. 55.
2 Ibid.

125
 Kai-shek would never return to the mainland, and it was his
belief that the Kuomintang government was kept from sinking
only by the presence of the US Seventh Fleet in the Taiwan
Strait. This proved to be enough for an academic well-known
in the USA to fall into disgrace.
In pursuing a policy of “containing” China without isolating
it, the USA counted, of course, on normalising relations with
it and, given favourable circumstances, drawing it into the orbit
of the capitalist world. “Our stance toward Mainland China,”
Walt W. Rostow, Special Assistant to the President for National
Security Affairs, wrote in early 1969, “has been that we looked
forward to the day when they decided that they wanted to move
toward reconciliation with their neighbors in Asia and, if they
wished it, with us. We have done nothing hostile toward
Mainland China. We have resisted its aggressive actions in
various parts of the world. But we have made it clear that
there is an alternative relationship available to Asia, to the
world and to us—when the Chinese leadership decides that
it wants that.” 1
On January 27, 1969, at his first News Conference, Nixon
declared that he saw “no immediate prospect of any change”
in US policy as long as China did not show a readiness to
“respond”. Nixon’s tour of Asia added fuel to Beijing’s cri­
ticism of the USA. Although the USA had lifted some restric­
tions on trade with and travel to China, many American
experts doubted the expediency of US-Chinese meetings that,
at ambassadorial level in Warsaw, continued the contacts
started in Geneva in the 1950s. A conference on Chinese
policies opened on January 24, 1969 at the privately funded
Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions in Santa Bar­
bara, California. The 80 participants included senators Edward
Kennedy, William Fulbright, John Sherman Cooper, Mark
O. Hatfield, and Alan Cranston.
Fulbright and Kennedy cautiously criticised the activities
of the Chiang Kai-shek government on Taiwan and in the
United Nations. “We,” William Fulbright said, “should move
to reduce further our direct military involvement in the Taiwan
area. I also think that we should announce that as soon as

1 The New York Times, January 5, 1969.

126
events in Vietnam permit we will begin removing the limited
military facilities we have on Taiwan and also turn over to
the Nationalist Chinese the responsibility for patrolling the
Taiwan Strait.”
What was the motivation for this statement? Possibly, Ful-
bright had in mind the Chinese note of November 1968 pro­
posing February 20, 1969 as the date for a resumption of the
negotiations in Warsaw and calling on the United States to
“dismantle all its military installations on Taiwan”. The Senator
pointed out that in the note there was no specific reference
to any Chinese determination to liberate Taiwan and that this
generated the hope that the PRC would adopt a more flexible
policy. As regards the Chinese on Taiwan, they could not, he
said, continue to justify their role in the world on the
obviously fictitious argument that they represented the 800 mil­
lion people of mainland China.
The status of Taiwan remained the central issue in US-
Chinese relations. Most of the participants in the conference
leaned towards the “two Chinas” policy. For instance, Edwin
O. Reischauer, former US Ambassador to Japan and one of the
leading proponents of the capitalist world building bridges
to China directly and indirectly, through the USA’s allies,
offered the view that at the close of the 1960s Japan, as a
country of the “free world”, had more influence on China
than previously and that the political effect of trade between
the two could only flow one way, and that was toward China;
he conceded that in the 1950s, when the socialist countries
accounted for two-thirds of China’s trade and influenced its
development there may have been some reason for fears of the
influence that China, as a member of the socialist community,
might have had over Japan. But now 70 per cent of China’s
trade was with capitalist countries, most of whom were allies
of the USA. Reischauer said that in his view China’s trade
with industrialised capitalist countries, notably with Japan,
was a “window on the world” and that it was in the USA’s
long-term interests that this window should be as wide as
possible.1

1 Mainland China in the World Economy. Hearings Before the Joint

Economic Committee, Congress of the United States, 90th Congress, 1st
Session, April 1967, U.S. G.P.O., Washington, 1967, pp. 5-6.

127
 This problem attracted attention also because the embargo
that the USA had imposed on trade with China was preventing
leading powers of the capitalist world from influencing China.
Indeed, the USA had used economic levers to pressure the
monopolies in allied nations, especially where the key positions
were in American hands (for instance, Japan and Britain)
to isolate China economically. In this context, West European
and Japanese monopolies often acted to prevent an expansion
of the American share in their production sphere and opposed
the use of American equipment and raw materials, fearing
that this might be detrimental to trade with China. It was
assumed by academics that implementation of the American
foreign policy doctrine of containment without isolation would,
first, open the window on China much wider not only for the
USA but also for its main allies and, second, make American
goods more competitive in the markets of third countries
trading with China.
The passions that flared up over the USA’s China policy
fused with the political struggle on the domestic scene. The
press named Edward Kennedy as a possible rival to Nixon
at the 1972 elections. He had already been proclaimed the
head of the new “China Lobby” in the USA. Edward Kennedy
became the political banner-bearer of the National Committee
on United States-China Relations funded by the Ford and
Rockefeller foundations. Fulbright and his closest associates on
Capitol Hill were seen as Edward Kennedy’s allies. This alli­
ance relied not only on the Ford and Rockefeller foundations
but also on support from intellectuals of the National Com­
mittee on United States-China Relations—professors A. Doak
Barnett (Columbia University), Edwin O. Reischauer and John
K. Fairbank (Harvard University), Whiting and Ekstein (Uni­
versity of Michigan), and many other members of the intellec­
tual community. At the close of March 1972 some leading
China experts invited Edward Kennedy to a banquet attended
by 1,000 persons, to whom, with television cameras focussed
on him, he repeated the arguments of the “China policy”
critics. His work as head of the “new China Lobby” was not
in vain. Through its Secretary of State the Republican Nixon
administration officially dropped the view that the Taiwan rulers
were the true rulers of China and embarked upon the “two
128
 Chinas’’ policy. Nixon and his Secretary of State recognised
the senselessness of some of the foreign policy actions initiated
by John Foster Dulles. They recalled that Dulles had rejected
Beijing’s offer to accept American correspondents in 1956, and
Beijing was paying in kind. They noted that the Dulles-inspired
arguments about a “Chinese threat’’, against wliich the SEATO
wall was built, were no more than a myth. Government officials
did not confine themselves to declarations in favour of a change
of relations with China. American tourists were permitted to
bring back to the USA purchases from China to the sum of
100 dollars. To some extent this was to help China obtain
convertible currency. Individual groups of Congressmen and
journalists were permitted to visit China. The government lifted
restrictions on trade with China by foreign subsidiaries of
American firms. Lastly, the contacts at ambassadorial level
were resumed in Warsaw, and the numerical strength of the
US military presence on Taiwan began to be reduced. The
Dulles political guidelines thus underwent a significant reas­
sessment.

9-0768
CHAPTER SIX

TURN TOWARDS PARTNERSHIP

Ping-Pong Diplomacy

Mao Zedong received Edgar Snow on December 10, 1970,

and a question asked by the American columnist was whether
rightists like Nixon would be permitted to come to China.
Mao replied that Nixon would be welcomed because “at present
the problems between China and the USA would have to be
solved with Nixon”. Mao added that he would be happy to talk
with Nixon, whether he came as a tourist or as President.
The report on Snow’s conversation with Mao under the heading
‘The American Friend” appeared in the streets of Chinese
towns. What struck the eye in this report was Mao’s statement:
“The Chinese people is the friend of the peoples of the whole
world, including the American people.”
Intrusive journalists once compelled Henry Kissinger, the
President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs, to state his
opinion about Snow’s efforts during the preparations for his
[Kissinger’s] first visit to the PRC. Kissinger clearly belittled
Snow’s role, saying that the latter had only given a general
picture of what was by that time already known to the admin­
istration in Washington. Indeed, it is hard for a politician
to share laurels with a journalist, even with one who was
widely known by that time. Although Kissinger spoke coldly of
Snow’s efforts, they were part of the American preparations
for a visit to China first by the US President’s adviser and
then by Nixon himself. Of course, as the President’s personal
aide Kissinger was much better informed than the American
journalist. While Snow was in Beijing, Kissinger closely followed
the voting in the UN on China’s admission and the views
in different countries about the further presence in the UN of
130
Taiwanese delegates, who were unlawfully occupying the place
of China’s representatives.
The Americans worked hard on what to them was the most
acceptable formula of a double representation in the UN—of
the PRC and Taiwan. It did not prove to be very hard to pro­
duce a formula of double representation. A much harder
problem was to get the world community to accept it. Even the
USA’s allies began to question the expediency of the double
representation formula for China in the UN. The Japanese
Foreign Ministry conveyed its doubts to the US Embassy in
Tokyo, and on January 22, 1971 Prime Minister Eisaku Sato
told the opening session of the Diet that Japan wanted closer
bilateral relations with the PRC and suggested opening contacts
with China on a government-to-government level. The Ameri­
cans were informed that feeling in favour of Beijing was growing
in the UN Secretariat and there was no longer anything they
could do to dampen that feeling.
In the spring of 1971 the Chinese leadership took a step
to facilitate the initiatives of the Nixon administration. An
American ping-pong team that was playing in the world
championship in Nagoya, Japan, was invited to visit the PRC.
This was not merely a visit by a sports delegation. It was the
first time in 20 years that Americans were official guests in
China’s capital. Every consideration was shown to the visitors:
they were given the freedom of the city—they wandered about
the streets, took photographs, and bought “Mao jackets” and
Mao badges. The team was received by Prime Minister Zhou
Enlai.
“My request to you,” he declared, “is that upon your
return to the USA you convey greetings to the American
people from the Chinese people. In the past there have been
many contacts between China and the USA. They have been
in suspension for a long time, but now, after you accepted
our invitation to visit China, a new page has been opened in
the relations between the Chinese and American peoples.”
Zhou’s words got a response in the USA. What was opened
was not merely a “new page” but, as US Secretary of State
William P. Rogers noted, a “new chapter” in US-Chinese rela­
tions. The White House responded with concrete acts. On
April 14 Nixon announced that the USA was prepared to issue
131
visas to persons or groups in China wishing to visit the USA;
American currency restrictions would be eased; the government
would lift the restrictions on American oil companies supplying
fuel to ships or aircraft going to or from China, with
the exception of Chinese-owned or Chinese-chartered ships
or aircraft going to or from the Democratic Republic of
Vietnam, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or Cuba;
henceforth American ships and aircraft would be permitted to
carry Chinese freight between non-Chinese ports, while Ameri­
can-owned vessels flying a foreign flag would be permitted
to enter Chinese ports; a list would be issued of non-strategic
goods that could be exported to China, and there would be
a list of goods that could be imported from China after that
list was analysed and approved. Nixon subsequently recalled
that China and the USA found themselves dancing a delicate
minuet, during which mutual confidence rose dramatically and
mutual intentions grew more specific. Ping-pong diplomacy
reached its highest point.
Kissinger became absorbed in the secret negotiations with
the Chinese leaders. His practical actions were propped by the
theoretical quests of leading members of the “realistic” school
of American foreign policy. The predecessors of this policy left
as their heritage to Kissinger an approach that regarded every
nation, regardless of its social system, as a source of action
with its own specific needs, aspirations, aims, laws, and claims.
This view of international relations was known as “tradition­
alist”. The “traditionalists” saw international relations as a sum
of diplomatic and military measures undertaken by a state to
satisfy its ambitions. “Egoism” in foreign policy constituted
the philosophico-ethical foundation of the proponents of “polit­
ical realism”. As a specific school of bourgeois thought,
“political realism” had acquired shape by the beginning of the
twentieth century. Kissinger assimilated the ideas of such pillars
of this trend as Alfred T. Mahan, Reinhold Niebuhr, Nicholas
Spykman and, later, the most 'outstanding spokesman of this
school Hans J. Morgenthau. These pillars regarded the struggle
for power, geopolitical factors, as the foundation of interna­
tional relations, and attributed the basic reasons of crisis situa­
tions in the world to human psychics (clearly, a social-
Darwinist concept), to aggressiveness allegedly innate in the
132
 human being. Morgenthau wrote that policies, both domestic
and external, were a struggle for power modified only by the
various conditions under which this struggle proceeds on the
domestic and international scenes. Harmony between “national
interests’’ and the strength ensuring them comprise the ex­
pediency advocated by the “political realists’’. This approach
did not rule out sober political thinking and decisions dic­
tated by the intelligence of an experienced statesman.
Kissinger’s visit to the PRC as the President’s representative
took place in July 1971. Travelling from Saigon via Thailand
„and India, he arrived in Islamabad on July 8. Pakistani
President Yahya Khan took a spirited part in facilitating
Kissinger’s secret trip. At a lunch in honour of the American
guest, he spoke only of Kissinger’s indisposition, saying that he
had to take some treatment and rest at his (Yahya Khan’s)
residence in the mountains. This was the information dispensed
to correspondents. In the morning of July 9 Kissinger boarded
a Boeing-707 of the Pakistan Air Lines. Yahya Khan’s personal
pilot was at the controls. On board were Chinese navigators
and four officials from China.
At the military aerodrome in Beijing Kissinger was wel­
comed by Marshal Ye Jianying, PRC Foreign Ministry represen­
tative Huang Hua (who was Ambassador to Canada at the
time), and some other persons. Both these senior Chinese
officials had been involved in negotiations with the Americans
as early as the 1940s. Secret negotiations were held in China’s
capital from July 9 to 11. Discussions were mainly about the
upcoming visit to China by President Richard M. Nixon.
Kissinger’s talks with Premier Zhou Enlai were longer, as the
American guest himself conceded, than with any political leader
other than, perhaps, Anwar Sadat of Egypt. Subsequently,
recalling these negotiations, Kissinger would write that at the
time he had no illusions about the social system represented
by Zhou Enlai and had no intention of concealing his negative
attitude to it. The principal objective of this meeting of
representatives of states with different social systems was,
in his opinion, the striving of the sides to use the prevailing
world balance of strength in their own interests.
The pragmatic approach taken by Kissinger, as by other
orchestrators of the USA’s China policy, sprang from the con-
133
 cept of a “triangular” as well as of any other “multipolar”
diplomacy and was linked chiefly with the aspiration to find
the most acceptable (for Washington) >^ays of influencing the
“interaction of many independent” fields of power with the
use of the Chinese side as an instrument, as it were, for
pressuring the socialist world, notably the Soviet Union as
the leading force of that world. The turn in the USA’s China
policy was explained from this angle by President Nixon too.
The changes in the world, particularly in the communist world,
he noted, required a broader American approach to internation­
al problems. In that the international environment of the
USA had become “multipolar”, and American diplomacy had
to adjust itself accordingly did the American President see one
of the principal motivations of his visit to China.
At the talks with Kissinger Zhou Enlai suggested the spring
of 1972 as the time for a visit by the US President. This
was accepted by Kissinger. Zhou Enlai said that the organisa­
tional aspects of the visit would be handled by Huang Hua.
The draft communique that Huang Hua put on the table
suggested that Nixon ask Beijing to send him an invitation
and that the purpose of the visit would be to discuss the Taiwan
issue as a first step towards normalisation. The Americans
rejected both suggestions. They felt it was humiliating to
appear in China as a supplicant and they were not willing to
put the Taiwan affairs into the foreground at once. The sides
ultimately agreed on the general tenor of the statement on
the upcoming visit of the US President to the PRC. The
Xinhua News Agency officially announced that on behalf of the
government Zhou Enlai had invited the US President to visit
China at any time he felt was acceptable up to May 1972.
The President accepted this invitation “with pleasure”.
That Nixon would visit China was announced at the height
of the UN debates on the China problem.
President Nixon spoke in categorical terms. He made it
clear that it was his intention to normalise relations with
the PRC but he would not do this at the expense of Taiwan.
This statement was made principally to neutralise opposition
in the USA itself, but it could not reinforce the Taipei regime.
The idea of China having a “double representation” in the
UN, advanced by the US administration in April 1971, got
134
a hostile reception both in Beijing and in Taipei. Neither
side accepted the “two Chinas” formula. Two resolutions—
one on the “double representation” of China in the UN and the
other requiring the restoration to China of its lawful seat
in that organisation to be regarded as an important question
under Article 18 of the Charter, stipulating a two-thirds
vote—were drafted on US initiative. American diplomats
seemingly did everything in their power. The US Ambassador
to the UN met with the heads of more than a hundred foreign
missions. The State Department courted ambassadors. A few
days before the decisive voting George Bush, the US Ambassa­
dor to the UN, assured the President that Taiwan would retain
its seat in the UN.
American diplomacy stepped up its manoeuvres. Beginning
with the 5th and up to the 26th session of the UN General
Assembly the USA unchangeably headed a group of countries
that opposed a just settlement of the China problem. The force
of inertia also operated in this context. Washington’s anti-
China diplomacy conflicted with the positive tendencies in
international relations of those days, when the principles
of peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems
were winning universal recognition. Meanwhile, the fruit of
the preparatory work for the Nixon visit to China were
ripening. In this situation administration aides displayed an
astounding inconsistency: on the one hand, they insisted,
with a doggedness meriting better application, on a settlement
of the China problem in the UN on the basis of the “two
Chinas” formula and, on the other, they vitalised the dialogue
with the Chinese government, which was flatly rejecting this
formula.
The draft resolution introduced by a group of socialist
and developing countries contained provisions on the recogni­
tion of the PRC representatives as the sole legitimate spokesmen
of China in the UN, on the PRC’s membership of the
Security Council, and on the deprivation of the Chiang Kai-shek
clique of all rights to the seat held by it in the UN and in all
the agencies affiliated to it. The Soviet Union and the other
socialist countries showed that their stand on the China
question was consistent and firm. A resolution passed by the
UN General Assembly on October 25, 1971 recognised the

135
 PRC representatives as the sole legitimate representatives of
China in the UN and demanded the expulsion of Taipei
representatives from that organisation. The resolution got the
votes of 76 nations (with 35 nays and 17 abstentions).
The General Assembly resolution on the China question
caused a storm in political circles in Washington. Leaders
of the Republicans, and of the Democrats for that matter,
urged the administration to cut back its financial assistance
to the UN. American politicians who failed to assess the
situation soberly resented the anti-American demonstration
in the UN—34 countries that were getting aid from the USA
had voted against the American draft resolutions. Even many
of the USA’s friends, having previously been informed of the
US-Chinese contacts, felt that they were being duped and
resisted American pressure.
A particularly violent uproar was raised at the time by
conservative Republicans. Senator Barry Goldwater, known
for his hawkish stand in the debate on the US aggression in
Vietnam, demanded the USA’s resignation from the UN.
Ronald Reagan, then Governor of the State of California, sent
a telegram declaring his solidarity with Chiang Kai-shek and
charging the UN with having descended to the staging of a mock
trial. At the time Reagan hardly expected that some twelve
years later he would, as President of the USA, be considering
visiting the 'PRC ruled by the government that he was attack­
ing with his habitual callousness.
On October 26, 1971, the administration showed that the
bridges had been burned. At a news conference Secretary of
State Rogers declared that he could only express satisfaction
over the PRC’s admission to the UN; talks with Beijing on
concrete matters relating to the visit to China by the US
President were being completed at the time. In parallel curtsies
were dropped in the direction of Taipei. The justification
offered to Chiang Kai-shek boiled down to the following:
the US government was exerting the most energetic efforts
to achieve its aim by all possible means in keeping with
considerations of principle. Washington attached significance
to maintaining the principle that, within the realm of possibility,
no member should be expelled by a simple majority vote. In this
context, it was specially stressed that Japan, Australia,
136
 New Zealand, Colombia, and some other countries co-authored
the American resolution. The Secretary of State expressed his
regret that Taiwan was expelled from the UN. The architects
of Washington's new China policy endeavoured to display
sympathy and compassion when they had to enter into contact
with representatives of regimes that were dependent entirely
on American strength. The latter were overtly and covertly
declaring their doubt about the credibility of American com­
mitments.
The positive outcome of the China question in the UN and
the US-Chinese contacts in that organisation helped to create
the conditions for the development of broader relations between
the USA and China.

H ie Invitation to Nixon and the Political

In-Fighting in Beijing

The exacerbation of the political in-fighting in China in

1971 was linked to the steep shift in the Chinese leader­
ship's tactics in foreign policy highlighted by a sharp vitalisation
of diplomatic activity to achieve unchanged objectives by new
means. A working conference of the CPC leadership that was
turned into a plenary meeting of the CPC Central Committee
was convened in the summer of 1970 on Mao Zedong's
initiative in the holiday resort town of Lushan, Jiangxi Province.
On August 23 Lin Biao addressed the plenary meeting, suggest­
ing the preservation of the office of Chairman of the PRC
in the new Constitution, although earlier Mao had opposed
a similar suggestion and refused to assume that office. Some
Chinese leaders proposed Lin Biao for that post. This was
enough. Lin Biao was accused of “grasping for power much
too eagerly”. The participants in the plenary meeting learned
for the first time of China’s secret talks with Washington.
The thesis that it was necessary to “unite with the USA”
against the Soviet Union in effect voided the keynote of
Lin Biao's report to the Ninth CPC Congress (“struggle against
US imperialism and Soviet revisionism”). Probably apprehen­
sive of being made a scapegoat, Lin Biao expressed doubt
about such a sharp twist in policy. His position was further
137
jeopardized, and this is what ultimately led to the events of
September 1971,' which culminated so dismally for the deputy
Chairman. In December 1980 it was announced in Beijing
that beginning in the spring of 1971 Lin Biao had been
masterminding plans for an attempt on Mao Zedong's life.
The Chinese press gave the details—the plot was led by Lin
Biao’s son, Lin Liguo, who was a high-ranking officer in the
Chinese Air Force headquarters.
The American researcher Thomas W. Robinson published
a survey of Lin Biao’s political and military career. Unques­
tionably written before the events of September 1971, this
survey offers some interesting conclusions that help to un­
derstand subsequent developments. Lin became a member of
Mao’s immediate entourage in 1930. Lin’s successful career
was interrupted by divergences with Mao, but the latter’s
suspicions about Lin were shortlived. In his early writings,
Lin attributed a service role to the political factor, regarding
it as one of the elements needed for a military victory.
He centred his attention on guerilla warfare, and this was
subsequently reflected in the thesis “Long Live the Victory of
the People’s War”. He divided the world rigorously into
enemies and friends, with no one between (the “enemy is hated
and despised”). The circumstance that this survey of Lin’s
biography was written for Project Rand can hardly be consid­
ered accidental. In the USA they obviously realised that,
during the latter years, Lin had considerably reinforced his
position in the armed forces and in the country and had, as a
result, activated his opponents. The American leaders undoubt­
edly wanted to know how strong Lin’s position was. For them
this was particularly important on the eve of the President’s
visit to Beijing.
The political in-fighting in Beijing in 1971 differed markedly
from the debate in the Chinese leadership in the mid-1960s,
when a group of influential military men urged cooperation
with the USSR in order to ensure the conditions for building
up a modern, combat-efficient army. The course towards
normalising relations with the capitalist West, notably with the1
1 Thomas W. Robinson, A Politico-Military Biography of Lin Biao.
Part I, 1907-1949. A Report Prepared for United States Air Force Project
Rand, Santa Monica, California, 1971, pp. VI-V1I, 63, 69, 74-75.

138
USA, and the setbacks in the application of this doctrine aimed
at spreading China’s influence among developing nations, the
countries of Indochina in particular, objectively undermined
Lin Biao’s position.
Edward E. Rice1, a former US diplomat, noted that “the
decision to invite President Nixon had been made against the
opposition of a group headed by Lin Biao’’. Rice believed that
Mao Zedong had not changed his basic attitude towards the
USA; he had only come to regard “the United States as an enemy
which had dropped to secondary place, behind the Soviet
Union’’. In this context Rice drew upon a historical analogy.
In 1937, explaining the changed relationship between the Com­
munist Party of China and the Kuomintang, Mao observed that
the contradiction between China and Japan had become the
principal one, and China’s internal contradictions had dropped
into secondary and subordinate place. But the changed relation­
ship with the Kuomintang, Rice pointed out, did not prevent
Mao from pursuing basic aims in internal politics. Similarly,
the former diplomat concluded, “achieving a different relation­
ship with the United States might alter the way in which Com­
munist China pursued its external aims, but not those aims
themselves”.12 In the given case it was recognised that in foreign
policy tactics might change but not the strategic aims.
The group led by Zhou Enlai undoubtedly pinned consi­
derable hopes on a normalisation of relations with the USA
and endeavoured to ensure the success of the Nixon visit, feeling
that this would, to a large extent, as was most probably believed
in Beijing, justify the expediency of removing adversaries of a
sharp turn towards the USA in the Chinese leadership. China’s
leaders prepared to receive the US President in a situation
marked by the emergence of a new balance of strength in Beijing
resulting from the defeat of Lin Biao and his supporters and
by a certain weakening of the role of the military in the nation’s
1 Edward E. Rice was an American Foreign Service officer for more
than 30 years (first coming to China in 1935). He served in the US State
Department and was Consul-General in Hong Kong (1964-1967). After his
retirement he was a research associate in the Center for Chinese Studies at the
University of California, Berkeley.
2 Edward E. Rice, Mao's Way, University of California Press, Berkeley,
1972, pp. 491, 492.

139
leadership. The proponents of rapprochement with the USA in
China sought to create auspicious conditions for the meeting in
Beijing from the standpoint of both internal politics (justification
of the sharp turn towards the USA) and foreign policy (impact
on the attitude of the USA’s allies), and to ensure a strong hand
at the talks. These objectives explained Beijing’s restrained reac­
tion to the resumption of the US bombing of the Democratic
Republic of Vietnam.

The Shanghai Communique

The first-ever visit of a US President to China began on Feb­

ruary 21, 1972. At 9 a. m. US President Richard M. Nixon ar­
rived in Shanghai. He was welcomed by Qiao Guanhua, then a
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, who was seen by American
observers to be the key figure in the Foreign Ministry. After
taking Chinese pilots on board, the aircraft soon took off and
at 11.30 a. m. landed at Beijing’s airport. The first official meet­
ing took place. In armchairs placed in a circle the guests and
hosts sat face to face. In front of the President were Premier
Zhou Enlai and his wife, Deng Yingchao, Marshal Ye Jianying,
the acting Foreign Minister Ji Pengfei, his deputy Qiao Guan­
hua, and other officials.
After lunch it became known that Mao would like to see the
President.
According to Kissinger’s reminiscences, Mao evaded dis­
cussing with the President specific questions of bilateral rela­
tions. “Those questions are not questions to be discussed in my
place. They should be discussed with the Premier. I discuss the
philosophical questions.” 1 During the visit Nixon met with Mao
Zedong and had talks with Zhou Enlai. Secretary of State Ro­
gers had talks with Ji Pengfei. The American guests visited
Guangzhou and Shanghai. A joint communique was signed in
Shanghai.
The Nixon-Mao meeting, as the entire process of the activa­
tion of the US-Chinese dialogue in the early 1970s, was not

1 Henry Kissinger, White House Years, Little, Brown and Company,

Boston, 1979, p. 1060.

140
 viewed as unusual by many influential political and civic circles
around the world, for by that time peaceful coexistence and
cooperation between countries with different social systems were
seen as natural, reflecting the normal evolution of international
relations. It was then that the Nixon administration was conduc­
ting an active dialogue on a wide range of questions related
to the development of Soviet-US relations, and negotiations
were under way on a cessation of the war in Vietnam.
For more than two decades the Soviet Union had urged the
USA and other capitalist powers to establish normal diplomatic
relations with the People’s Republic of China. The question
being asked by Soviet opinion, as well as by public opinion in
many other countries, was: Were not steps being made towards
a Sino-US rapprochement to the detriment of the interests of
third nations, to the detriment of the interests of world peace?
The suspicions of public opinion in the Soviet Union and other
countries were aroused by, for example, the circumstance that
the Sino-US rapprochement began soon after the Ninth Con­
gress of the CPC, when tension surfaced in SovietrChinese
relations.
In connection with the reports that the US President had been
invited to visit Beijing, the newspaper Pravda wrote: “The cause
of peace and world security can only be served by actions that
reinforce the position of socialism and the forces of freedom and
national liberation. The long-term interests of the peoples, in­
cluding the peoples of the PRC and the USA, require decisions
that strengthen peace and international security. As regards
foreign political combinations directed against other states, they
will ultimately and inescapably boomerang against their init­
iators.” 1
As early as ten years after the Nixon visit to Beijing some of
the closely-guarded secrets of the first US-Chinese summit were
divulged, and these only bore out that there was justification for
the suspicions of the early 1970s about the rapidity and timing
of the Washington-Beijing rapprochement.
During the preparations for the Shanghai meeting the Ameri­
cans saw what “philosophical” problems of Sino-US relations
interested Mao Zedong. On one of his trips to Beijing Kissinger
noted to the Chinese leaders that the relations between the USA
1 Pravda, July 27, 1971.

141
 and China were on a “sound basis”. Kissinger asserted that a
major argument in favour of this was that neither side asked
anything of the other. Mao did not leave this statement of the
US President’s adviser without attention. “If neither side had
anything to ask from the other,” he queried, “why would you
be coming to Peking? If neither side had anything to ask, then
why ... would we want to receive you and the President?” What
was Mao’s principal “request” and how was it depicted by Kis­
singer? Mao indicated his displeasure with “American ineffect­
ualness in resisting” the Soviet Union. He compared the US to
“swallows in the face of a storm”. “This world is not tranquil,”
the guests replied, matching their hosts’ style, “and a storm—the
wind and rain—are coming. And at the approach of the wind
and rain the swallows are busy...”
Most probably, the talk about “swallows in the face of a
storm” reflected one of the significant directions of Mao’s “philo­
sophical thinking”. Kissinger observed in his memoirs that for
the Chinese leaders the Soviet Union was the cardinal problem.
The Sino-US summit focussed not on individual questions of
bilateral relations but on problems of a “geopolitical nature”.
At the talks the Americans did not need too much time to ascer­
tain what basically interested their Chinese partners. The objec­
tive imperative for promoting state-to-state relations between
China and the USA was seen by influential top leaders from
among Mao Zedong’s intimate associates through the prism of
their own, subjectivist vision of the world. There was at the time
a consuming interest on the part of Beijing to increased tension
in Soviet-US relations. Kissinger conceded that implementation
of a scenario of this sort should produce conditions more con­
ducive for the Chinese leadership’s foreign political ventures and
give Beijing a stronger hand in its diplomatic bargaining with
Washington.
An outcome of the attempts to show commonality of strategic
aims was that in the Shanghai communique there was not a word
about the USA and the PRC having two different social systems
or about the PRC being a socialist country. The Nixon adminis­
tration even actually went along with the political style of its
negotiation partners (Nixon’s statement about the striving of
the USA and the PRC to “create a new world order”, and so on).
It was no accident that the principle of peaceful coexistence and
142
the equality of countries with different social systems was sup­
planted in the Shanghai communique with the obviously egalita­
rian thesis that “all nations, big or small, should be equal”.
Moreover, the communique ignored pressing issues such as the
struggle against Israeli aggression, the efforts to ban nuclear
weapons and achieve disarmament, the need to eradicate the
last centres of colonialism, and so on.
The agreement, recorded in the communique, to counter
“hegemony” by any country in Asia was evidently seen by the
Chinese side as being directed against the Soviet Union (opposi­
tion to the efforts “by any other country or group of countries”
to establish “hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region” and to the
collusion of any major country with another against other coun-*
tries, or of major countries to divide up the world into spheres
of interest). Although in the communique the Chinese side
recorded its attitude to “hegemonism”, the term itself was first
suggested by the American side. Kissinger recalled: Beijing
would have liked to see open hostility between Washington and
Moscow, linking at the time its calculations to this and thereby
reinforcing its position in the negotiations with the USA. Natu­
rally, the Americans engaged in a balancing act: while negotiat­
ing in Beijing, they sought to take the realities of the nuclear age
into account and in this context endeavoured to neutralise their
Shanghai communique partner’s displeasure by the deepening
of the Soviet-US dialogue. Kissinger informed the Chinese of the
contemplated agreements with the Soviet Union, seeking to
avoid any implication that a US-Soviet condominium was being
set up. “What we could not do,” Kissinger wrote, “was to give
Peking a veto over our relationship with Moscow.” 1
Kissinger’s reminiscences might give the impression that the
sides worked out their basic stand on the Taiwan issue in the
course of the preparations for and during the Nixon visit to
Beijing. However, other sources lead to the conclusion that the
Shanghai communique was preceded by a much longer process
of mutual sounding, by painstaking efforts on the part of the
Americans and the Chinese to work out their attitudes, especially
on so delicate an issue as Taiwan.
In 1960, when the journal Look sent Edgar Snow to China as
1 Henry Kissinger, op. cit., p. 1076.

143
 its correspondent, the Chinese leaders quite unequivocally stated
their posture on Taiwan. Zhou Enlai cited evidence to show to
Snow that the USA was to blame for the tension in Sino-Ameri­
can relations. In particular, Zhou Enlai recalled that in the initial
postwar years the USA (Truman administration) recognised
that Taiwan was China’s internal problem and promised not to
interfere in China’s internal affairs. With the outbreak of the
Korean war, Zhou Enlai said, the USA steered towards aggres­
sion against China, sending its Seventh Fleet to the Taiwan
Strait and placing Taiwan under military control; Chinese
volunteers joined in the hostilities several months after the USA
had deployed its forces in the Taiwan Strait and American
troops had crossed the 38th parallel and were approaching the
Yalu River. Snow noted that the Chinese leaders had long been
demanding an end to the American military presence on Taiwan
as the main condition for an improvement of relations with the
USA. “Taiwan,” Mao Zedong told him in 1960, “is China’s
affair. We will insist on this.” Zhou Enlai spelled this out to
Snow in 1960 and 1965, saying: “Taiwan is China’s internal
affair” (and must be settled by the Chinese themselves).1
According to information obtained by the Japanese press,
the Taiwan issue was discussed by Zhou Enlai and Henry Kissin­
ger in June 1971. Kissinger, the newspaper Tokyo Shimbun
reported, insisted that international commitments did not permit
the USA to neglect Taiwan, but he said that the USA desired
to help the PRC to take its place in the UN Security Council.
Zhou Enlai contested this, observing that Chiang Kai-shek was
also against this move, declaring that there was one China. He
did not overlook Kissinger’s desire to hear that China would not
liberate Taiwan by force. In response to this promise the USA
showed a willingness to pull all American armed forces out of
Taiwan and the Taiwan Strait. Zhou Enlai made it clear that
first the USA was to withdraw from Taiwan and declared that
the Taiwan issue was China’s internal affair. If the USA an­
nounced its agreement to end its military presence on Taiwan,
China, Zhou Enlai said, would declare that it would liberate the
island by peaceful means.

1 Edgar Snow, The Long Revolution, Random House, New York, 1972,
p. 11.

144
 As if in reply to this Chinese offer of a quest for peaceful
unification of Taiwan with the mainland, Washington steadily
stepped up its propaganda ploy that “Chinese problems are
resolved solely by the Chinese themselves”. The American lead­
ers, especially in view of the approaching first-ever visit by a US
President to Beijing, sought to prepare the ground for a univer­
sal recognition of the Taiwan question’s purely “Chinese charac­
ter”. This was undoubtedly a move designed to ease the impact
of the deadlock over Taiwan on Washington’s manoeuvres in
its relations with Beijing and in its Far Eastern policy as a whole.
When preparations for signing the 1972 Shanghai communi­
que were under way the Chinese leaders repeatedly reaffirmed
their stand. Zhou Enlai told his American guest John S. Service
that the USA could not have two embassies in one country.
Service had a conversation with Zhou Enlai on the day the UN
announced the PRC’s admission to membership. Service asked
the Premier if he ever planned to go to New York now that
China had been admitted to the United Nations. “Never, never,”
Zhou responded at once. “As long as a Taiwan ambassador
is in Washington, you will never see me in the United States.” 1
To Americans visiting the PRC during the preparations for the
US President’s visit to Beijing, Zhou Enlai usually noted (for
instance, in a conversation with two US professors—Arthur
W. Galston of Yale University and Ethan R. Signer of the Mas­
sachusetts Institute of Technology) that there was a point on
which he and Chiang Kai-shek were of one mind—that the
“two Chinas” policy was unrealistic. This was Beijing’s point of
departure for its stand on a key foreign policy aim—the expul­
sion of the Taiwan representative from the United Nations.
On February 24, 1972, while Nixon was viewing the Great
Wall of China, Kissinger and Qiao Guanhua animatedly discus­
sed the Taiwan issue. As the Americans and Chinese expected,
this became the central issue in the discussions over the Shanghai
communique. When Kissinger made his preparatory visits to
China, the sides had agreed that each would state its own stand
on this ticklish problem. Beijing declared that the PRC govern­
ment was the only lawful government of China, that Taiwan
was a province of China, and that the future of Taiwan was

1 The New York Times, February 8, 1972.

10-0768 145
China’s internal affair. Kissinger did not object to the thesis
that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait recognised
one China and that Taiwan was a province of China. In princip­
le, the USA did not dispute this. For their part, the Chinese
agreed not to mention their attitude to the “US-Taiwan security
treaty”, but nonetheless noted that American armed forces had
to be withdrawn from Taiwan.
When the text of the Shanghai communique was scrutinised,
the Chinese wanted the US to state that a peaceful solution of
the Taiwan question was their “hope”. The American side
insisted on affirming it as “an American interest”. Beijing
demanded the total withdrawal of US armed forces from Tai­
wan, but the Americans were willing to go no further than to
describe US withdrawal as an “objective”.
It took nearly 20 hours to iron out the difficulties over the
text of the communique. On February 24 Qiao asked Kissinger
to reaffirm the US intention of a total withdrawal of all its forces.
A compromise was expected from the orchestrator of the ping-
pong diplomacy. The Americans made an attempt to link the
problem of a total withdrawal of armed forces to the easing of
tensions in the region (in other words, to Vietnam). This propo­
sal aroused Qiao’s interest, but he let it be understood that he
was not prepared to accept it. Eighteen hours remained to the
end of the talks. The Americans stuck to their position: the war
in Southeast Asia was indeed a factor behind the US military
presence in the Far East. Progress began to be made when Zhou
Enlai joined in the talks between the diplomats. His presence at
these talks underscored a major circumstance—the Premier had
assumed the responsibility for the needed compromise.
Zhou Enlai was aware, of course, that the Taiwan issue could
not be settled during the Nixon visit to China. If too much pres­
sure were put on the USA in this matter it would call in question
the main purpose of the talks—the establishment of Sino-US
cooperation and even strategic partnership. Kissinger believed
that his meeting with Qiao would consummate the debates over
the draft communique. Qiao did indeed accept the American
wording about recognising Taiwan as part of and not a province
of the PRC. Moreover, the Americans succeeded in linking
their “ultimate objective”—the “withdrawal of all US forces”
to an easing of tensions in the region. As before, both sides passed
146
over in silence the USA’s military commitments to Taiwan.
But difficulties erupted again when it seemed that all the acute
discussions had ended. This time the hindrance was the stand of
the State Department. Secretary of State Rogers stated his opini­
on of the draft communique to the President—he felt it was not
satisfactory. State Department experts introduced up to 15
amendments. Nixon worried. He knew the problems harassing
him—he was apprehensive of criticism from the right, of the
reaction from conservatives, despite the fact that he had always
belonged to that wing. It seemed to him that the amendments
to the draft communique were the trigger that could cause
serious complications for his administration. A day before the
communique was to be promulgated Kissinger had to return to
the negotiating table with Qiao. The latter was at a loss: how
could they turn to the document once again when agreement
had been received from the President and the text had been
approved by the Political Bureau? Nevertheless, the desire to
achieve a compromise prevailed.
When a Chinese army band welcomed the US President with
an American march, US bombers were intensifying their attacks
on Cambodia and Vietnam. Beijing, at the time, gave its backing
to the demands being made by the revolutionary forces of Viet­
nam, Laos, and Cambodia, but it said nothing of the role the
Democratic Republic of Vietnam was playing in reaching a
settlement in Indochina and did not criticise the plan for the
“phased withdrawal” of US armed forces from the region.
The sides were unable to work out a common stand on the
problems of Japan and Korea. The USA underscored the role of
its Japanese ally as a growing basic factor of stability in the Far
East, while Beijing insisted on Japan’s neutralisation. The USA
made clear its intention to continue maintaining relations with
Seoul, while China sided with the Democratic People’s Republic
of Korea on the question of Korea’s reunification.
In the Shanghai communique the Chinese side reaffirmed its
position: “The Taiwan question is the crucial question obstruc­
ting the normalization of relations between China and the United
States”, “the liberation of Taiwan is China’s internal affair”,
and “all US forces and military installations must be withdrawn
from Taiwan”. The Chinese government firmly opposed the
creation of “one China, one Taiwan”, or “one China, two
147
governments”, “two Chinas”, and “independent Taiwan”, or
formulations proclaiming that “the status of Taiwan remains
to be determined”.
In the communique the American side did not state which
government it recognised, confining itself to the acknowledge­
ment that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait main­
tained there was but one China and that Taiwan was a part of
China. Actually, both sides reaffirmed that Taiwan should not
be the cause of military confrontation: the Americans did not
conceal their interest in a peaceful settlement and affirmed that
the ultimate objective was the withdrawal of all US forces and
military installations from Taiwan. As for the Chinese, they did
not make the immediate withdrawal of the Americans from
Taiwan the prior condition for promoting relations with the
USA. Although the USA reiterated its alliance with Japan and
South Korea, it did not confirm in the communique US com­
mitments under its military agreement of 1954 with the Chiang
Kai-shek government. In a departure from their previous stand,
the Chinese did not demand that the USA break off its relations
with the government in Taipei.
The Shanghai communique was in all respects an amorphous
document. The wishes recorded in it were not mandatory.
Nevertheless, the 40 hours spent by Zhou Enlai in Nixon’s com­
pany were not unproductive. In principle, the two statesmen
charted the way towards the full normalisation of relations,
agreed their positions in the confrontation with the Soviet
Union, primarily in Asia (the Chinese approved, for all practical
purposes, the US military presence in the Asia-Pacific region),
and blunted the Taiwan issue. The subsequent establishment
of liaison missions in Beijing and Washington paved the way for
the establishment of diplomatic relations in the near future. As
Nixon himself acknowledged, he achieved one of the paramount
aims of his visit to China, namely, the continuation of the “two
Chinas” policy. Nevertheless, the Taiwan problem continued to
play a significant role in American-Chinese relations (see
Chapter Seven).
Upon returning from China, Nixon addressed the American
people from Andrews Air Base. He reminded the Senators and
Congressmen who came to meet him of his achievements at his
talks in Beijing and, at the same time, made it clear that he had
148
not renounced any commitments given to other countries. The
first thing that Henry Kissinger did upon entering his office
following his return from China was to telephone leading
conservatives, Governor Ronald Reagan of California and
Senator Barry Goldwater. Both promised their support on the
condition that the commitments to Taiwan were honoured.
Reagan joked in Hollywood style—the Nixon visit had been a
great television “pilot** and ought to be made into a series.1
The results of the Nixon visit were approved by both houses
of the US Congress. A bipartisan China policy took shape
in the USA.

The Position of the Gang of Four

In view of a definite strengthening of the positions held by sup­
porters of Jiang Qing (Chiang Ching)—the promotion, in par­
ticular, of Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao, and Yao Wenyu-
an, the so-called Gang of Four, to leading posts in the Commu­
nist Party of China—Beijing’s American policy was coming
under growing criticism from the “radicals” who felt that the
rapprochement with Washington had not produced the expected
results. This criticism played the role of an important instrument
in the political struggle in China itself. The Gang of Four took
advantage of being close to Mao Zedong, of having the possi­
bility of using the media controlled by it to “explain” the instruc­
tions of the “leader”. Jiang Qing adopted the posture of interpre­
ter of the ideas of the CC Chairman. Addressing officials of the
Chinese Foreign Ministry, she said: “Because he [Mao Zedong]
is so busy I am, in fulfilment of my duty as a Communist, bring­
ing his verbal instructions to your notice.”12 The mechanism of
foreign policy’s reverse impact on the in-fighting in China func­
tioned quite efficiently where the promotion of Sino-American
relations was concerned.
At the close of 1975 Professor Harry Harding of Stanford
University came to the conclusion that while in 1969-1974 Mao
favoured Sino-US detente, he now obviously had his doubts
about it and this surfaced at his talks with US Secretary of State
1 Henry Kissinger op. cit., p. 1093.
2 Zhongniang ribao, May 28, 1975.

149
 Henry Kissinger. This change in Mao’s attitude, Harding wrote,
could now become an ill omen for Sino-US relations. Harding
and other American analysts had justification for their appre­
hensions. In order to strengthen its position in the Communist
Party of China the Gang of Four tried to blame the “pragma­
tists” for foreign policy miscalculations. Of course, this did not
mean that Jiang opposed Mao. Biographers of Mao’s wife note
that all basic decisions—for instance, on the Hundred Flowers
Campaign, the Great Leap Forward, the organisation of com­
munes, the Cultural Revolution, and so on—were taken by Mao
after “serious discussion and consideration with Jiang”. More,
the leader of the Gang of Four spoke publicly of the first-ever
visit to China by a US President as of the “greatest” coup in
modern history. During the Nixon visit Mao’s wife preferred to
hold public attention most of the time. In the mid-1970s the
Gang of Four acted in the name of Mao and tried to compensate
for the weakness of their position in the party apparatus and
the army with propaganda campaigns, with pride of place at­
tached to the so-called struggle for the “purity” of the revolut­
ionary line and the drive against China’s “Westernisation”.
Sino-US rapprochement led to some growth of trade and
economic relations between China and the USA, to purchases
of American equipment, and to a study of American expertise
(for instance, in agriculture, medicine, and other areas). This
circumstance objectively contributed to the creation of condit­
ions conducive for the development of left tendencies in policy,
for fostering xenophobic sentiments and hatred for everything
foreign (“all that is best is in China”), and for using stereotypes
of the mass consciousness to attack the “moderates”. The journal
Hongqi cautioned that “China’s total Westernisation was imper­
missible”, and people were exhorted to “keep an eye on all
the espionage intrigues” of US imperialism, to prevent “spies
in the party from entering into criminal contact with US impe­
rialism”, and so on. The “radicals” used historical “arguments”.
For example, in August 1974 Hongqi printed an article headed
“It Is Treachery to Revere Confucius, Read Canons, and Wor­
ship Things Foreign”.1The US press drew attention to the publi­
cation in Shanghai in 1974 of a pamphlet entitled “The Revolu­
tionary Anti-Imperialist and Anti-Feudal Exploits During the
1 Hongqi, No. 8, 1974.

150
 Yihetuan Uprising Will Always Be a Bright Light in China’s
Life”. The purpose of the parallels drawn with the past by the
“radicals” was to prove that the way of rapprochement with
imperialist states, notably with the USA, was not the sole and
necessary way for China.
The stand of the Gang of Four was stated quite explicitly in
the “replies” of the Hongqi Publishing House to questions by
readers about the 10th Congress of the Communist Party of
China. The “bourgeois elements” in the CPC, it was noted, might
enter into a “spy conspiracy” with US imperialism. “Already
now some people are trying to restore capitalism, utilising the
policy of temporary compromise with US imperialism pursued
by our country. For their part, the imperialists are extolling this
category of people, boosting their reputation, and making agents
of them within our country.” In the propaganda media control­
led by the Gang of Four (for example, the journal Hongqi) the
“temporary compromise with US imperialism” was set off
against the “conspiracy between Soviet revisionism and the
USA”.1
A curious document—a speech by Jiang Qing to senior offi­
cials of China’s Foreign Ministry in mid-March 1975—circulat­
ed in the foreign press in the middle of 1975. Mao’s wife focus­
sed attention on the contradictions between the PRC and the
USA. Many quarters doubted the authenticity of the Jiang Qing
speech published in Hong Kong in 1975. However, that this
speech was delivered by Jiang is borne out by its content, which
dovetails with the propaganda activities of the Gang of Four.
The differences between the rival factions did not relate to the
choice of foreign policy strategic aims—they were focussed on
the formation of tactics and on the assessments of foreign policy
experience, in this case the experience of promoting relations
with the USA since the signing of the Shanghai communique.
Indicative in this respect were the impressions gained by
G.M. Choudhury, former general director of the Pakistani
Foreign Ministry, who visited the PRC in 1976 at the invitation
of the Chinese leadership. The officials whom the former Pakis­
tani diplomat spoke to warned that the USA would have difficul­
ties in its relations with Beijing if the USA tried to use China as
a “bargaining chip” in its relations with the USSR. Nixon,
1 Zhonghua yuebao, No. 708, 1974.

151
 Choudhury was told, had clearly seen the “dangers” coming
from the Soviet Union. In Beijing's view, with Nixon’s departure
from office, US foreign policy initiatives seemed to move from
the US President to the US Secretary of State Kissinger, and
the latter had gone back on past assurances on matters concern­
ing Sino-US relations.1Of course, the slowdown of the develop­
ment of Sino-US relations could hardly be attributed to the
attitude of individual US statesmen, although their views and
personal decisions were significant. The main reasons for the
inhibition of the Sino-US rapprochement in the mid-1970s must
be seen in the development of the international situation and in
the aggravation of the political in-fighting in China itself.
The “radical” Gang of Four was particularly annoyed by
the refusal of industrialised capitalist states, chiefly the USA,
to make unilateral compromises to China. Diplomatic relations
with the USA were not formalised, the Taiwan issue remained
unresolved, and no trade transactions benefiting China were
signed with capitalist countries. Another circumstance that the
“radicals” evidently took into account was that Sino-US rap­
prochement was detrimental to China's cooperation with its
closest allies, whose policy was founded on the leftist ideology
and the concept of “struggle on two fronts”. Even those who had
supported them for a long time had to dissociate themselves from
Beijing's guidelines. Judging by the Albanian press, there was a
negative response to Beijing’s foreign policy line in Tirana (“one
cannot ally oneself with one imperialism against the other”).
In fact, the Seventh Congress of the Albanian Party of Labour
in November 1976 denounced the “three worlds” doctrine,
which put the USA and the Soviet Union in one “world”, the
developed capitalist countries in another, and the developing
nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America in yet another. In
the report to the congress it was stated that this division of the
world “obscures the class character” of the various political
forces and was aimed at causing “ideological discord and under­
mining the struggle of the progressive forces”. The rapid Sino-
US rapprochement eroded Beijing’s prestige in the developing
nations and among left-wing movements in the capitalist
countries. Beijing’s political actions on the international scene
1 Orbis. A Journal of World Affairs, Vol. 20, No. 3, Fall 1976,
pp. 606-07.

152
 distinctly showed the peoples fighting for national and social
liberation the true significance of the theoretical postulates of
China's top leaders and the untenability of their assessments
of the situation in the world (particularly, the “three worlds
theory").
In her address to senior officials of the PRC’s Foreign Min­
istry, Jiang Qing declared in response to the displeasure shown
by some of Beijing’s allies over China’s steep turn towards the
USA: “We shall never conspire with superpowers for the sake
of mercenary interests. We do not deceive friends and do not
seek to achieve our aims at their expense.’’ Roxane Witke of
Columbia University, an enterprising journalist, managed to get
Huang Hua to arrange an interview with Jiang Qing for her.
With the exacerbation of the political in-fighting in China,
Witke’s actions appeared as direct American interference in the
PRC’s internal affairs. Willy-nilly, this interview with the leader
of the Gang of Four signified publicity for the architect of the
“cultural revolution”.
Witke’s book. Comrade Chiang Ch’ing (1977), contains refe­
rences to Jiang’s (Chiang’s) speech of March 1975, which was
circulated among Taipei sources and touched on the PRC’s rela­
tions with the external world. In this speech Jiang stressed that
China had to “follow Chairman Mao’s correct line”. “Our
foreign policy must concentrate on black friends, small friends,
poor friends. They will be grateful to us. We may have no white
friends, great friends, rich friends; but we are not isolated.” 1
Jiang’s contradictory stand on the question of relations with
foreign countries, notably with the USA, showed clearly in her
attitude to intellectual contacts with the West. In the interview
with Roxane Witke, Jiang explained, for example, how “cul­
tural exchange” complemented international relations in the
“superstructural sphere”. Cultural exchanges, she declared,
were much riskier than the usual trade material. For, Witke
wrote in this connection, “imported ‘bourgeois’ culture might
stimulate [for the Chinese] a dangerous thirst for variety in
China’s guarded proletarian realm”.2
Until the beginning of the 1960s there was a certain measure
1 Roxane Witke, Comrade Chiang Ch'ing, Little, Brown and Company,
Boston, 1977, p. 467.
- Ibid., p. 456.

153
 of freedom in China’s cultural intercourse with foreign coun­
tries. For all practical purposes, the “cultural revolution” put an
end to this intercourse. It erected an insuperable barrier to
contact with foreign culture, giving only a limited number of
Chinese intellectuals the opportunity to travel abroad.
The examples cited by Witke indicated not only the adherence
of the Chinese to the preservation of their own distinctive cul­
ture, an adherence that was no less strong than in imperial times,
but also the interest of the Chinese elite in the cultural values
of the external world, perhaps chiefly of the capitalist countries.
Limited access to foreign films was reserved only for the public
at large. Works regarded as “unhealthy for the people” were
restricted to private showing among leading personalities, who,
Jiang Qing among them, considered them for “reference”, which
meant that they learned from them mainly as “negative exam­
ples”.1 “Bourgeois democratic films,” Jiang Qing declared, “are
to be reserved for private showing. If the people could view them
they would criticise them bitterly on political grounds.”12 Jiang
Qing’s personal library of foreign films contained almost the
entire collection of films starring Greta Garbo, for whom Mao’s
wife had a special admiration/
The world press gave wide coverage to visits to the PRC by
the Italian film producer Michelangelo Antonioni and the Phila­
delphia Symphony Orchestra. Antonioni was hosted by the heads
of China’s radio and television networks. At this time the mass
media were controlled by Jiang Qing. Antonioni’s documentary
about China brought the Italian film-maker under violent attack
from the Chinese press but was received with understanding in
other countries. The Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra on its
invitation to China gave four concerts in Beijing and two in
Shanghai for leading cadres but not for the masses. Jiang Qing
made a special request for Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, the
Pastorale. At the close of the tour Jiang presented the conductor,
Eugene Ormandy, with a set of valuable books from her private
collection. But these “musical evenings” soon fell into oblivion.
There followed a campaign of violent criticism of “bourgeois”
music, a campaign that was part and parcel of the drive against
everything “foreign”. Even Roxane Witke, known for her per-
1 R. Witke, Comrade Chiang Ch'irtg, p. 440.
2 Ibid.

154
sonal liking for Jiang Qing and her friends, had to note the ex­
tremes of the “cultural revolution”. “Marx, we know,” she wro­
te, “adored Shakespeare and Balzac, and Lenin loved Pushkin,
Chernyshevsky, and Beethoven. But in the spring of 1974
Peking's leaders linked classical music to the rise of capita­
lism...” 1
The advocates of closer relations with the USA in the Chinese
leadership sought to neutralise the attacks of the left-radical
opposition. The Americans visiting the PRC in the summer of
1974 noted that Zhou Enlai’s illness was physical rather than
diplomatic. But even in hospital Zhou used his influence to
repulse the attacks of the opposition headed by the Gang of Four.
Adversaries of the Gang of Four caustically criticised Beethoven,
this being an attack, albeit veiled, against Jiang Qing. When
Jiang Qing’s supporters initiated a denunciation of Confucius as
a “revisionist”, who welcomed the advice of foreigners, their
rivals linked these assaults on Confucius to criticism of Lin Biao,
thereby in fact neutralising the attacks of their opponents.
Information seeped into the Western press to the effect that even
during Mao's lifetime Jiang Qing was denounced for “contacts”
with foreign powers.
It may be presumed that the “radical” section of the PRC
leadership could and evidently did speak of the undesirable
effect of China’s rapprochement with the West, chiefly in the
zone of the developing nations. These arguments acquired
considerable weight in view of the growing impact of the devel­
oping nations on the world situation, especially through such
effective means as the oil embargo against the leading capitalist
powers, including the USA. The activation of the China policy
among the developing nations suited also the proponents of
rapprochement with the USA, especially as they wanted to put
pressure on the USA, with the reminder that if necessary China
could reorient its foreign policy.
What were the signs of a slowdown in the development of the
relations between the PRC and the USA? First, the changed
quantitative and qualitative character of the contacts on govern­
mental level. At the close of July 1973 it became known that
Kissinger had postponed his planned visit to China. It was most

Ibid., p. 459.

155
 likely that the Chinese leadership did not wish to receive the US
Secretary of State at a time when preparations were under way
for the 10th Congress of the CPC and the political situation
in China was growing tense. By Chinese standards, Kissinger got
a very cool reception in Beijing in November 1974. There was
a rise of anti-US propaganda in the Chinese press and more
anti-US statements were made in the United Nations—a deve­
lopment that could be assessed as China’s dissatisfaction over the
stand adopted by Washington, as not only veiled criticism from
the left but also-as an attempt to bring some pressure to bear on
the USA as a partner in an ongoing dialogue. The talks conduc­
ted by Kissinger in November were evidently a disappointment
for the Chinese leaders, who were expecting new initiatives from
Washington. Nor were changes stimulated in Sino-US relations
by the visit to the PRC by US President Gerald Ford in 1975.
Second, there was a sharp decline of the qualitative level of
scientific and cultural exchanges. While in the first ten weeks
of 1973 the Xinhua News Agency published 30 articles on offi­
cial meetings of US delegations in China, in the first ten weeks
of 1974 the Chinese published only three such articles.1 Re­
fusing to be put on a lead by Beijing, the Americans showed a
definite firmness. Washington cancelled its invitation to a Chi­
nese ensemble, which had a song entitled “We Shall Liberate
Taiwan” in its repertoire. In May 1975 the US press quoted
Canadian sources as reporting the expulsion of a Chinese
diplomat—the third secretary and press attache of the PRC
Embassy Guo Jinan—from Canada at the request of the USA.
The charge against the diplomat was that he received industrial
secrets and military information gathered in the USA and
brought it to the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa, from where it was
transmitted to China.
Third, there was some slowing down of trade and economic
relations. Beijing scrapped a contract, signed with the American
company Cook and Industries, on the sale of grain to China in
the period from February to September 1975.2 In trade the
1 The New York Times, March 22, 1974.
■ China cancelled or postponed a number of import transactions—on the
purchase of steel and fertiliser in Japan. The number of contracts on the
purchase of fully equipped factories in the West dropped from 23 in 1973
to 17 in 1974 and to 12 in 1975.

156
 increasingly inhibiting factors were China's poor export poten­
tiality and a large deficit in its trade with the USA and other
capitalist countries.
Beijing's reluctance to solicit long-term credits from the USA
was due largely to political reasons. In the first half of the 1970s
China made active use solely of short-and middle-term credits
from capitalist firms. China's leaders preferred to call these
transactions “payment by instalments".
The growth of the external debt bared serious contradictions
between the declared policy of “reliance on own resources"
and the practice of the PRC’s economic relations with countries
of the capitalist world, chiefly the USA. With the political strug­
gle in China reaching crisis proportions for the Beijing leader­
ship, the Chinese would hardly have approved American invest­
ments, although it would have been quite realistic to expect
major concessions in another area, for instance, a modification
of the stand relative to credits from the West.
Fourth, the PRC’s attitude relative to Taiwan hardened. The
Chinese drew special attention to the unresolved state of the
Taiwan problem. In talks with foreign visitors Zhou Enlai
complained that the USA was evading its commitments under the
1972 Shanghai communique, chiefly its promise ultimately to
withdraw all its armed forces from Taiwan. In the three years
following the signing of the Shanghai communique the USA
reduced the numerical strength of its troops on Taiwan from
8,500 to 5,000, in other words, by only 3,500. Meanwhile, the
USA took a number of steps to assure Taipei that it would not be
abandoned. Beijing showed its displeasure also over Washing­
ton’s refusal to reduce the level of diplomatic relations with
Taiwan (the appointment of a leading career diplomat Leonard
Unger as the new US Ambassador in Taipei), and the opening
of new Taiwanese consulates in Portland, Oregon, and in
Kansas City.
A meeting of representatives of urban public opinion and
representatives of “compatriots" on Taiwan was held in Beijing
in February 1974 on the 27th anniversary of an uprising on the
island (the uprising of the local population against the Chiang
Kai-shek clique put to flight from the mainland by the People’s
Liberation Army of China). In fact, this meeting was an undis­
guised demonstration of the Chinese leadership’s determination

157
to establish control over Taiwan. Judging by articles in the
Chinese press, elements in Beijing were openly speaking of the
possibility of using armed force to liberate Taiwan (‘The
Taiwan Strait is no longer a barrier to the liberation of Taiwan”,
‘The choice of the means for liberating Taiwan is a matter to be
decided by China”). The Gang of Four was insistent and impa­
tient in the question of Taiwan, demanding the earliest and most
resolute measures to reunite Taiwan with the mainland by,
among other means, armed force. After the Gang of Four was
arrested, it was evidently not fortuitous that the periodical press
carried articles reporting that the ‘‘left-radical” group had
intended to seize control (chiefly in the military sphere) of
Fujian Province as a springboard for an invasion of Taiwan.1
In 1977 the foreign press printed a report delivered on August
24, 1976 by Geng Biao, CPC Central Committee member and
head of the Foreign Relations Department of the CPC Central
Committee. This report repeated seemingly known tenets enun­
ciated in the explanations of the CPC leadership regarding the
invitation to Richard Nixon to visit Beijing in 1972. However,
the significance of this report was enhanced on account of the
exacerbation of the political struggle in Beijing during this
period. “When we feel that the time has come,” Geng Biao
declared, “we shall tell Uncle Sam: Be good enough to pack up
and go.”12
Leaving aside doubts about the authenticity of the published
report, the postulates enumerated by Geng Biao fitted snugly
into the conception of the left-radical opposition regarding the
necessity of fighting on “two fronts” and the possibility of a
“temporary compromise” with the USA in order to strike at the
main enemy. The Geng Biao report was rather an explanation
that was needed most by the CPC leadership to offset the dis­
affection provoked by the Gang of Four over the development
of Sino-US relations.
With Zhou Enlai’s death the “radicals” no longer needed
compromises with the successors of Zhou-Deng over the policy
towards the USA. As the position of the Gang of Four grew
1 ‘Trends in Peiping’s Foreign Trade”, Issues & Studies. A Journal of
China Studies and International Affairs, Vol. XII, No. 6, June 1976, (Taipei),
pp. 37-78.
2 Wenti yu yanjiu, January 1976, (Taipei).

158
stronger following Zhou’s death, the Chinese leadership grew
increasingly impatient about getting compromises from the USA
as quickly as possible. It was evidently not accidental that in an
editorial on August 9, 1976 The New York Times expressed
regret about this: Zhou Enlai had shelved the Taiwan issue in
1971-1972 to open the way for rapprochement with the United
States.1
With the change in the alignment of forces in the Chinese
leadership, especially after Deng Xiaoping was removed from
power, the Taiwan problem was given prominence again. The
US Senate Minority leader Hugh Scott (Republican, Pennsyl­
vania) declared on August 2, after returning from a two-week
visit to the PRC in July 1976, that “the radicals (who) have
grabbed the party machinery in China insist that the United
States set an early timetable for fully normalizing relations
with Peking and breaking ties with Taiwan”.1 2 The slogan that
the “liberation of Taiwan is China’s internal affair" began to be
propagated more vigorously than before in the summer of 1976,
and some American analysts believed it implied that China want­
ed a military solution of the Taiwan problem. In Beijing Senator
Scott tried to learn whether the Chinese leadership precluded
the “use of force” to liberate Taiwan but did not get a coherent
reply.3
Many quarters in the West noted that China had become
inclined to think that there was no way for uniting China and

1 The New York Times, August 9, 1976.

Addressing a group of American academics in August 1972, Zhou Enlai
surprised his guests with his very restrained and, at the same time, flexible
stand on the Taiwan problem. He defined the “liberation" of Taiwan as the
continuation of the “liberation of the mainland", noted that the Taiwan
problem was a matter of great complexity, and “one should not be too
impatient". Muting the slogan of “liberation of Taiwan by force", he said
that the island’s peaceful liberation might take quite some time (Taiwan’s
Future?y edited by Dr. Yung-Hwan Jo, Arizona State University, Temple,
1974, pp. 66-67; Newsweek, January 8, 1973, p. 14).
2 The Washington Posty August 3, 1976.
* “The only answer 1 can tell you about," Scott told journalists, “is that
they said this [the liberation of Taiwan] is internal—an internal affair.”
“Some Americans," The Washington Post analyst added, “have been told at
least unofficially that when Peking says in its new, sterner line that Taiwan
is ‘an internal affair’ for China alone to decide, it means that Taiwan must
be ‘liberated by force’.’’

159
Taiwan other than by force. The Chinese thus used the Taiwan
issue as a major instrument for bringing pressure to bear on
Washington: they intimated that they might back out from the
tacit commitment, given during the Nixon visit to Beijing, that
they would refrain from using force in the Taiwan Strait.
Fifth, the Chinese reacted more morbidly than before to any
activities by Tibetan emigres in the USA. On October 14, 1975,
a week before Secretary of State Henry Kissinger arrived in
Beijing to work out the final arrangements for a visit by Presi­
dent Gerald Ford to the PRC, the Chinese press printed a state­
ment by the PRC’s Foreign Ministry charging the USA with
“undisguised interference in the PRC’s internal affairs and a
flagrant violation of the Shanghai communique”. These charges
were linked chiefly to the problem of Tibet, but indirectly they
concerned Taiwan as well. A Tibet Affairs Office was officially
registered in the USA and in 1964 it began operating in New
York. This was one of the pretexts. The other was the scheduled
tour of the United States in the autumn of 1975 by a Tibetan
song and dance troupe, whose members had received entry
visas from the State Department. The Department of State
rejected the Chinese protest, but on October 8 the China liaison
office repeated its demand that all “Tibetan” activities be stopped
forthwith on American territory.
The developments following the death of Mao Zedong showed
the weakness of the political base of Jiang Qing’s entourage.
The latter were unable, despite the capital made out of support
of the Red Guard (Hongweibing) organisations, to consolidate
their positions and acquire a solid base in the organisational
structures of the party and the state.
The clashes over foreign policy, including the question of
relations with the USA, brought to light the immediate inten­
tions of individual groups and, to a certain extent, the serious
contradictions between the objective need for society’s moderni­
sation (a need that in view of China’s isolation from the so­
cialist countries was pushing it towards links with imperialism)
and the extremely sensitive xenophobia that had taken deep root
in Chinese society. In the spring of 1976 Deng Xiaoping was
accused of seeking “to sell China’s natural resources” in order
to obtain up-to-date equipment from Japan and the West. But
within only a month of Mao Zedong’s death the Gang of Four,
160
 which headed the attacks on Deng Xiaoping, was subjected to
the same attacks (“deal with the West”, “conspiracy with a
foreign power”, and so on) that were levelled at Zhou Enlai’s
associate, who was removed from power in 1976.
US political and military agencies closely followed the de­
velopments in the PRC. American interest in the power struggle
in Beijing was fuelled by the debates over foreign policy in con­
nection with the 1976 presidential elections. In the Democratic
Party’s election platform, charted by a team led by a well-known
American Far Eastern expert, Robert Scalapino, it was stated
that the future course of the relations between the USA and
China depended largely on two factors: first, the solidity of US
commitments and, second, Soviet-Chinese relations. American
experts were of the opinion that if the USA displayed weakness
and irresolution, if it showed an inability or reluctance to honour
its pledges, this would add weight to the arguments of those in
China who were urging an improvement of relations with the
USSR. Uncertainty about the outcome of the power struggle in
the PRC in the spring of 1976 stimulated arguments in US
academic and political circles about the choice of the means to
prevent any major change in Soviet-Chinese relations. The US
press frankly stated its anxiety over the destiny of Sino-US
relations in the event the “radicals” won stronger positions in the
Chinese leadership.1
What had to be done to prevent the USA from losing an
important lever of its “multipolar” diplomacy? How to preserve
at least some results of the White House’s new “China” policy?
Political leaders, academics, and newspaper analysts sought
answers to these and other questions. The American press car­
ried articles suggesting immediate US concessions (up to the
breaking off of diplomatic relations with Taipei), offering hypo­
thetical plans for setting up an anti-Soviet Washington-Beijing-
Tokyo “triangle”, and discussing the organisation of Sino-US
military cooperation (sale of military hardware, exchanges of
intelligence collected by means of satellites, electronic listening
installations, and so forth). There was a particularly lively
debate over possible military cooperation between the PRC and

1 U S. News World Report, April 19, 1976, Vol. LXXI, No. 16,
p. 36.

11-0768 161
the USA. Some political leaders, including the Commerce
Secretary Elliot L. Richardson and the Governor of California
Ronald Reagan, expressed interest, though in varying degree,
in the sale of US-made armaments to Beijing. The USA, wrote
the newspaper The Christian Science Monitor, ought to extend
military assistance to China to discourage Chinese-Soviet recon­
ciliation.
However, individual American experts drew attention to some
uncertainty at the time of the Chinese stand on the question of
military cooperation with the USA.
Influential circles in the USA believed that by showing initia­
tive in modernising the PRC’s military capability they would
strengthen the position of those Chinese leaders, especially of
military men, interested in promoting relations with the USA.
The Gerald Ford Republican administration manoeuvred
around acute problems linked to US relations with the PRC.
Henry Kissinger, despite objections from the Defense Depart­
ment, recommended rising no obstacles to the sale of the Cyber-
172 computer to China. Commenting, The Washington Post
wrote that the State Department’s striving to show support for
the new leaders in Beijing would, it was believed, probably help
to acquire approval for the sale of a computer to China.1
Of course, the White House deliberately chose the time for
its decision (October 1976) to approve the sale to the PRC of
equipment usable for military purposes when the odious Gang
of Four was removed from China’s political scene. Despite this
step by the Ford administration—it could signify the start of
Chinese purchases of US equipment designed for military pur­
poses—the debate of this issue in American academic and politi­
cal circles did not come to an end. Thoughtful political leaders
urged keeping in mind Soviet-US relations, the destinies of
detente, or at least compliance with the principle of “equidista­
nce” (relative to the USSR and to the PRC). In the theses for
the election platform the Democratic Party’s group of consul­
tants emphatically recommended that the future president should
not, when adopting decisions on Sino-US relations, dismiss the
principle of “interaction and equidistance”. They presumed that
however much armament was sold to China it would not result
i The Washington Post, August 3, 1976.

162
in any tangible strengthening of its defence capability against
the USSR. Instead, they declared, this could entirely change
the character of the relations with the USSR, and return the
USA to the cold war on a larger scale than ever. The conse­
quences of such a step would be exceedingly grave in Asia: it
would threaten the military-political balance in the region and
affect the interests of many countries. Realistically-thinking pol­
itical personalities in the USA understood that attempts to foster
a complication of Soviet-Chinese relations through ill-conside­
red actions would seriously threaten detente and the national
interests of the USA itself.
In the mid-1970s the predominance of positive tendencies in
international relations and the assertion of the principles of
peaceful coexistence of countries with different social systems
significantly narrowed the opportunities for the West’s foreign
policy manoeuvrings around China. As interpreted by Kissinger,
the US stand was that the USA and China had a common in­
terest in preventing the Soviet Union from upsetting the global
balance of power. However, he noted, the USA had no vested
interest in permanent hostility with Moscow unless the latter
challenged the international equilibrium. As nuclear super­
powers, the USA and the USSR had an obligation to reduce the
threat of nuclear confrontation. On account of internal political
considerations, Beijing would no doubt have preferred overt
hostility between Moscow and Washington. What the USA could
not do was to give Beijing a veto over its relationship with
Moscow any more than it could give Moscow a veto over its
relations with China. The operation of the mechanism of detente
voided the calculations that the imperialist powers, the USA in
the first place, would be more receptive of a policy of precipita­
ting a “great chaos” in the world.

Gerald Ford Versus Ronald Reagan

The setbacks in implementing the Nixon doctrine, the fur­

ther consolidation of socialism's positions in Europe and Asia,
and Gerald Ford’s efforts to make his own mark on foreign
affairs and thereby dissociate himself from his ill-starred prede­
cessor led the government in Washington to attempts to redefine
163
some of the foreign policy guidelines laid down under
Nixon. These attempts were clearly reflected in Ford’s
Pacific doctrine. The proclamation of this doctrine in terms of
time and basic content was linked closely to President Ford’s
visit to the PRC.
In inviting Ford, the Chinese leaders wanted to show
that practice had affirmed the expediency of the course
towards rapprochement with the USA and the long-term
character of their foreign policy objectives, which presupposed
closer relations with Washington. However, Beijing regarded
the Ford visit more as a tactic designed to neutralise the successes
of the Soviet Union’s policy in Europe and the international
political significance of the Helsinki Conference. Beijing
attentively followed the internal situation in the USA on the
eve of the 1976 presidential elections and could plainly see that
in the focus of the election struggle were the basic problems of
detente and Soviet-US relations. In the election battles the
American voters were impressed by the energy displayed by
Ford’s rival for the presidency—the Republican candidate
Ronald Reagan.
Reagan’s term of office as Governor of California had ended
at the beginning of 1975 and he became a radio and newspaper
analyst. Nearly 200 radio stations broadcast his daily five-minute
commentary and over 200 newspapers carried his syndicated
column. He clung to his hope of one day taking over the White
House as President. He decided to enter the presidential race for
the first time in 1968, but dropped out in favour of Richard
Nixon. But now, in 1976, he used against his rival a most potent
weapon—his long experience of public relations, which more
often than not found expression in his support for the most
conservative ideas.
Reagan enunciated the calls of the conservative opposition,
whiqh, referring to the revolutionary changes in the world
(Angola, Indochina), had vitalised its efforts to erode peaceful
coexistence of states with different social systems and increase
its pressure on the US administration in order to induce it to
reconsider its attitude to detente. In this context, Reagan’s
posture on the question of detente was well-defined. “We are
blind to reality,” he said fanning fear on his radio programme,
“if we refuse to recognize that detente’s usefulness to the Soviets
164
is only as a cover for their traditional and basic strategy for
aggression.” 1
With the right wing of his party bringing strong pressure
to bear upon him. Ford had to manoeuvre. He responded to his
rival's challenge, but in effect adapted himself to Reagan's
propagandist style. The attempts to assert himself in the role
of the initiator of a harder line towards the Soviet Union crys­
tallised mainly in the “peace through strength” slogan and
renunciation of the detente terminology. With pressure from
Reagan and his supporters the Republican Party platform was
extended to include “morality” in foreign policy and “abandon­
ment of illusions” about any possible change in the character
of the political system in the USSR.
President Ford’s speeches began to reflect the hard line of
his rivals in his own party. In his efforts to strengthen his
position among the conservatives in the Republican Party,
Ford went too far in the wake of Reagan, losing sight of the fact
that the majority of the American voters wanted a policy in
the spirit of the principles of peaceful coexistence. The battle
that Reagan and other politicians among the Republicans and
the Democrats intended to fight against detente could not at
the time lead to victory at the elections. The polls taken at
the time showed that the policy of detente and the Helsinki
accords had the support of 70 per cent of the American
electorate. In this situation Ronald Reagan in the Republican
Party and Henry Jackson and George Wallace in the Democrat­
ic Party depicted their stand as merely a wish to “introduce
amendments” into the detente policy on the allegation that this
policy was benefiting only the Soviet Union.
Reagan's hard-core anti-communism influenced Ford’s posi­
tion relative to China.
In the 1970s the debates in the USA over problems related to
China were, in terms of their content and bearing on a wide
range of issues concerning world and regional Asian policy,
a continuation of the serious collisions and sharp arguments
of 1968-1970 in the American political and academic commu­
nities, in other words, of the period preceding President
Nixon’s visit to the PRC. The political battles of 1968-1970 were

1 The New Republic, February 28, 1976, p. 23.

165
fought in a situation marked by the struggle in the USA
around acute problems of foreign policy, including the China
policy, which involved wider socio-political circles than before.
Official Washington encountered a spread of the anti-war
movement in the country, a growth of disaffection among its
closest allies, who were worried by the haste with which the
Americans were implementing a policy of “small steps” towards
the PRC, and differences in the ruling camp, particularly in
connection with the crisis of US military policy in Southeast
Asia.
In the debates of 1968-1970 there were, generally speaking,
basically two approaches to problems linked to US-Chinese re­
lations. The first approach (expounded by A. Doak Barnett,
A. Whiting, Alexander Eckstein, Morton Halperin, and other
leading American Sinologists) took into account the immutable
and overriding impact of nationalistic factors on the PRC’s
foreign policy and envisaged essentially chronic tension in
Soviet-Chinese relations and the need for the USA to do all in
its power to perpetuate this tension. The second approach
(most strikingly reflected in the stand of the conservative
majority in the House of Representatives at the time) was
based on the premise that the aims and ideological foundations
of the USSR and the PRC coincide (ideology of communism—
“Communists on either side of the bamboo curtain. China
abides by the same philosophy as the Soviet Union relative
to the attainment of world supremacy by communism”). The
divergences in Soviet-Chinese relations are transient, and this
presupposes a possible reconciliation of the sides, especially if
there is a weakening of the positions of Mao’s supporters in the
PRC leadership. While the exponents of the first approach
urged a revitalisation of the small steps by the USA towards
rapprochement with Beijing, the champions of the second
approach wanted a harder line relative to the PRC and an
intensification of anti-Chinese activity by the USA along
China’s periphery.
The first Nixon administration sought—especially in the pre­
election period—to manoeuvre between the partisans of differ­
ent viewpoints on relations with Beijing and on questions
of the USA’s Asia policy. Washington avoided extreme decisions
and tried to improve relations with China’s leadership, a policy
166
that was strikingly seen in the drawing up and signing of
the 1972 Shanghai communique.
By the mid-1970s, after the USA had suffered significant
setbacks on the world scene and Washington lost the political
initiative in deciding the most pressing international problems,
considerable strength had been acquired by right-wing forces
united in the many-faceted front of adversaries of detente.
In this situation the US ruling circles sharply vitalised their
quest for what to them would be the most suitable way
and means of reinforcing Washington’s shaken positions in the
world.
The dialectics of capitalism’s world strategy are growing
increasingly visible in US foreign policy: the more monopoly
capitalism’s political positions are shaken, the more subtle
become the actions taken by socialism’s adversaries to split
and undermine the anti-imperialist front. In this context, the
China factor acquired special importance to the US rulers,
and this is what largely determined the sharpness of the debate
of issues of the China policy of the mid-1970s.
The arguments in the American political and academic
communities over problems related to China at the close of the
1970s were stimulated by Washington’s apprehensions in con­
nection with the death of Mao and Zhou and by the election
debates in the USA itself.
As in previous cases, the debates in the USA in the latter
half of the 1970s mirrored a diversity of views, assessments,
and recommendations. But, as distinct from the end of the
1960s, in these years the debates were free of clashes of
diametrically opposed opinions approving or rejecting the ex­
pediency of cooperating with the Chinese leadership. The vast
majority of those involved in these debates believed, judging
from all the evidence, that in the interests of the West it
would be useful to interact with Beijing in the spirit of the
“balance of strength” concept.
The traditions of conservative Republicans continued to
influence American politics. The proponents of a harder ap­
proach to assessments of Chinese reality coalesced with the
stereotypes of the Dulles policy of the 1950s. They abided by
foreign policy guidelines that gave priority to military deci­
sions, to a military-political opposition (with the employ-
167
 ment of, among other things, military-political blocs) to
the interests of socialism on the international scene. Hence the
rejection, at the initial stage of US-Chinese rapprochement,
of incentives, of a quest for a compromise over Taiwan.
In many ways Reagan’s stance on the China problem took
into account China's affiliation to the “anti-world” standing
in confrontation, according to the notions of the conservatives,
with the USA and the “free democracies” as a whole.
Ronald Reagan, Henry Jackson, and George Wallace regard­
ed the relations with Beijing chiefly from the angle of confronta­
tion with the USSR. As the US press noted, Reagan saw the
Beijing leadership as the USA’s natural ally in the decisive
confrontation with the Russians, and he depicted the US-Chinese
rapprochement as an alliance motivated by common interests.1
Beijing sought to exercise a direct influence on the presidential
elections in the USA, but it, in fact, favoured Gerald Ford’s
opponents. However, the main barriers to understanding be­
tween Beijing and the right-wing Republicans were linked to
the latter’s reluctance to make concessions to China on Taiwan.
The same circumstance was a hindrance to Washington’s
China policy.

President Ford Visits die PRC

President Gerald Ford visited the PRC on December 1-5,

1975 at the invitation of the Chinese government. He had talks
with top Chinese leaders and met with Mao Zedong.
In agreeing to a summit in Beijing, the Washington govern­
ment took into consideration, above all, the uncertainty of the
political situation in the PRC on account of the possibility
that there would be changes in the Chinese leadership. Conser­
vative circles in the USA were very disturbed by the success
of the Soviet foreign policy course towards detente in Europe,
the efficacy of the Soviet foreign policy initiatives, and the
growth of the Soviet Union’s prestige in Europe. These circles,
approving the US President’s visit to China, tried to thwart
the possibility of a growth of the Soviet Union’s influence
1 The New Republic, February 28, 1976, p. 23.

168
 in Asia in the event the detente process spread to that region
and to this end they tried to rely on Beijing. Appreciating
the significance of the China factor for the political situation
in the USA, the Ford administration sought to neutralise the
negative impact of a certain decline, at the time, in Sino-US
relations on the 1976 presidential elections.
Despite pressure from the conservative opposition, the Amer­
ican leaders endeavoured to pursue a policy of “equidistance”
relative to the USSR and the PRC. Upon returning from
his China visit. Ford publicly reasserted that it was his ad­
ministration’s policy to consolidate detente. He said: “We have
to recognize there are deep ideological differences between
the United States and the Soviet Union. We have to recognize
they are a superpower militarily and industrially just as we are.
And when you have two superpowers that have such great
influence, it is in the best interests of those two countries to work
together to ease tensions, to avoid confrontation where possible,
to improve relations on a worldwide basis. And for us to
abandon this working relationship and to go back to a cold
war, in my opinion, would be very unwise for (us) in the
United States and the world as a whole.”1
The problem of Taiwan was considered at the talks, but it
did not get the same attention it received at previous summits.
In the Shanghai communique of 1972 the Taiwan problem was
described as an important issue obstructing the normalisation of
relations between the USA and the PRC; during the Ford visit
to the PRC the significance of this issue in the entire range of
Sino-US relations was somewhat diminished. “The Chinese
know,” The Washington Post wrote, “that Mr. Ford is not
able to do anything, even if he wants to, to change the
American position toward Taiwan while he is facing a challenge
from Ronald Reagan in the presidential primaries.”2
However, the Chinese tried to push events in a direction
that would encourage the Washington administration to take
some steps to enervate the US-Taiwanese alliance and shorten
the road to the establishment of full diplomatic relations between
China and the USA.
1 The Department of State Bulletin. Vol. LXXIV. No 1909. January
26, 1976, p. 102.
1 The Washington Post, December 5, 1975.

169
 The Ford administration found itself facing a complex situ­
ation: the opposition on the right was demanding a further
rapprochement with China on an anti-Soviet basis and was
sharply opposed to any concessions concerning Taiwan. In this
respect Ford’s rival, Ronald Reagan, significantly fettered
the initiative of the government. “Unfortunately,” wrote former
US Under Secretary of State Thomas L. Hughes, “Ronald
Reagan never followed his friend Richard Nixon to Peking.
Had he done so, he might have picked up the Peking telephone
directory, which is said to carry among its emergency listings
one that reads: ‘Dial 00 for policy’... If Mr. Reagan had
dialed 00 he would have heard some compatible excerpts
of Mao’s thoughts recited over the phone... ‘Who are our
enemies? Who are our friends? This is a question of the
first importance. The basic reason why all previous revolu­
tionary struggles in China achieved so little was their failure
to unite with real friends in order to attack real enemies’.”
Hughes felt that had Reagan heard this recital it might
have induced him to contribute to the US China policy instead
of complicating it.1
At the talks with Ford, the Chinese intimated that they
would like Washington to resolve the Taiwan question along
the lines of the “Japanese formula” (rupture of diplomatic
relations while maintaining economic, scientific, and cultural
relations). The Americans reiterated that they were interested
in resolving this problem peacefully, at a time most suitable
for the USA. In particular, Henry Kissinger declared that time
was needed for this process to mature and for the relevant
situation to take shape.12 On the Taiwan issue the Washington
government adopted a wait-and-see attitude, which in large
measure took into account the uncertain political situation in
the PRC, the upcoming presidential elections in the USA,
and the rapid rate at which Taiwan was building up its military
and economic potentialities. Officials on Taiwan argued that
the American role in bolstering the island’s security through
a mutual defence treaty made the “Japanese formula” totally
inapplicable for the United States.3
1 The New Republic, February 28, 1976, p. 23.
2 The New York Times, December 7, 1975, p. 24.
3 Ibid.

170
 The talks in Beijing also covered the problem of Korea. The
Chinese were out to neutralise the negative impact of Sino-US
contradictions in the Korean peninsula on the further develop­
ment of relations between Beijing and Washington. The sides
recorded that they had divergences on the problem of Korea.
The exchange of views on international problems and on
Sino-US relations showed that the sides were eager to continue
the dialogue and maintain Sino-US relations at the existing
level. A high assessment was given of the talks, which were
described as “substantive”, “constructive”, “useful”, and
“frank”. It was obvious to the Americans that despite its anti-
imperialist rhetoric Beijing regarded its relations with Washing­
ton as extremely convenient and necessary in the light of its
geopolitical strategy of those years. However, despite the
official stamp of approval by Beijing and Washington, the Ford
talks, as could have been expected, did not yield any effective,
significant results. No joint document was issued, the sides con­
fining themselves to reiterating the 1972 Shanghai communique.
Many analysts saw the absence of a joint statement at the com­
pletion of the talks as indicating a certain stalemate in Sino-US
relations.
CHAPTER SEVEN

US FAR EASTERN COMMITMENTS:

TEST OF CREDIBILITY

The “Japanese Formula”

In the US Congress the opposition to the USA’s China policy

utilised the most acute foreign policy issues to which Wash­
ington was particularly sensitive. The initiators of US-Chinese
rapprochement were asked whether it was worth promoting
relations with China at the expense of the interests of the
USA’s allies. What values would remain, Nixon’s adversaries
asked, if Japan awakened one morning to find that the USA
had recognised Beijing and had ignored informing Japan
about it? Questions of this sort seemed to hit the target—
Japan learned of the US President’s decision to visit Beijing
only ten minutes before this decision was announced to the
world.
In Tokyo they had hardly recovered from the economic
blows struck at them—the Washington government had taken
steps to “save” the dollar and did this at the expense of its
allies. Japan responded morbidly to the aggravation of the
contradictions in the US-Japanese alliance, especially as Wash­
ington was making moves to improve relations with the PRC.
The sudden announcement that the US President would visit
the PRC exposed the total falsity of the claims that Japanese
Prime Minister Sato’s consultations with the Washington
government on the China policy were “secret and confidential”.
As early as October 1970 Sato and Nixon had agreed to consult
each other on China, and three weeks before the Nixon visit
to the PRC was announced the US Ambassador to Japan had
sincerely, it seemed, assured Sato that the USA would take
no steps towards recognising China without first consulting
with Japan.
172
 The fact that there were no prior consultations between
Washington and Tokyo about the Nixon visit may have been
due to China’s intentions to keep the preparations for this visit
secret. For its part, the USA wanted secrecy for its preliminary
diplomatic negotiations with Beijing in order to ensure “mutual
confidence’’ in its relations with the PRC. Professor Edwin O.
Reischauer of Harvard University, the former diplomat George
Ball, and other US experts saw Nixon’s “initiative”, the
“pomposity” of his visit to the PRC as hurting the USA’s rela­
tions with Japan. In Ball’s opinion, Japan saw Washington’s
China action as a “bolt out of the blue”; it demonstrated
that while the USA was not hostile towards Japan it was, in any
case, indifferent to its interests. The turn in the China policy
was made without coordination with Japan, without taking its
possible reaction into account. Moreover, the US press also
acknowledged that the President’s visit to Beijing might have
negative consequences in terms of the interests of the Japanese-
US alliance. The USA demonstrated that relative to Beijing it
could pursue a policy it saw as beneficial without agreeing its
steps with Tokyo. The promotion of direct Sino-US contacts
virtually nullified the mediation role that Tokyo sought to play
in the dialogue between Beijing and Washington.
The mistrust with which they followed in Tokyo the Sino-
US summit appeared to be justified. Washington’s initial at­
tempts to create the impression that all was well in the US-
Japanese alliance (that the Nixon visit to Beijing contained no
surprises for Japan) fell short of the desired results. A series of
diplomatic contacts followed. The Japanese Ambassador in the
USA Nobuhiko Ushiba had meetings with Rogers and Kissinger.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs
Marshall Green visited Japan. In the State Department they
realised that they had to flatter their ally, and at first glance
US diplomatic activity yielded some results. The Nixon ad­
ministration’s foreign policy guidelines could not, of course,
ignore the enhanced role of Asian states, notably of Japan’s
economic influence, in international affairs.
The “Vietnamisation” policy became a major manifestation
of the Nixon doctrine in Southeast Asia. The architects of this
policy looked for a way out of the Vietnam war with the least
political losses and material expense. The ruling circles of the
173
Asian countries allied to the USA, notably Japan, Taiwan,
South Korea, and Thailand, watched closely for the outcome
of the “Vietnamisation" experiment and of Washington’s at­
tempts to prod a doomed regime towards <(self-salvation”.
The victory of the heroic Vietnamese people, who relied on
assistance from the forces of socialism and progress, showed
the futility of the West’s attempts to preserve its positions
in Asia by both diplomatic intrigues or military-political opera­
tions aimed at buttressing the corrupt Saigon regime. The
experience of Indochina compelled the ruling circles of Asian
countries that had relied on US military strength to look for
new guarantees of their existence, a development that had, of
course, to bring about a certain weakening of the USA’s posi­
tions in Asia. Thailand, the Philippines, and some other of these
states saw these guarantees in the normalisation of relations
with socialist countries, with the PRC.
But as the Sino-US dialogue was carried on, the problem of
Taiwan acquired growing urgency for Japan. A special Japanese
emissary went to Taipei in September 1972 and a tense at­
mosphere reigned at his meetings with Taiwanese leaders.
Taiwan’s Vice President Yan Jiagan declared flatly that the
relations between Tokyo and Taipei were based on the “ 1952
peace treaty’’. Taipei warned the Japanese emissary that if the
Tokyo government unilaterally annulled this treaty, Taiwan
would return to a state of war with Japan.
Japanese Prime Minister Kakuej Tanaka visited Beijing in
September 1972, with the result that diplomatic relations were
established between the PRC and Japan. Japan announced
that the Japanese-Taiwanese treaty of 1952 was null and void
and that diplomatic relations between Tokyo and Taipei were
henceforth to be regarded as having been broken off. This
was an obvious concession to Beijing by Tokyo. Japanese
political leaders tried to depict this diplomatic recognition of
Beijing as their foreign policy triumph of world significance.
Prime Minister Tanaka and Foreign Minister Masayoshi Ohira
declared in the Diet in October 1972 that with the normalisa­
tion of relations with China Japanese diplomacy had begun to
function globally, and as Japanese national strength grew Japan
would be playing a steadily bigger role in the “world communi­
ty’’. The appearance of the “Japanese formula’’ for the solution
174
of the Taiwan problem (rupture of diplomatic relations while
preserving other links to Taipei) gave Washington an incentive
to look for an acceptable way out of the Taiwan impasse.
The peace treaty between Japan and the Taiwan regime was
signed at the harsh time of the US aggression in Korea. The
story of the signing of this treaty is extremely noteworthy in
the light of the great significance that the Japanese ruling
circles attached to their relations with the PRC as soon as the
latter was proclaimed, and in the light of the US influence on
the shaping of Tokyo’s foreign policy.
In assessing the restructuring of state-to-state relations in
the Far East in the 1970s, in the centre of which were the
changes in US-Chinese and Japanese-Chinese relations, one has
to turn to the sources of the formation of the US-Japanese
alliance, whose influence on Tokyo’s China policy had been
decisive since the early 1950s. Washington was, at the time,
oriented on Chiang Kai-shek and rejected any recommenda­
tions—including those offered by Britain—that did not fit into
its Far Eastern strategy. American diplomats noted Britain’s
influence on the attitude of the Japanese. In the long run the
British backed down under pressure from Washington in
exchange for an American promise to support Britain in its
conflict with Iran, where the property of an Anglo-Iranian
company had been nationalised in 1951, and in protect­
ing British colonial interests in Egypt. The compromise
implied that Japan would renounce control over Taiwan and
its agreement that neither the PRC nor Taiwan would be
permitted to participate in a peace treaty with Japan. In the
Japanese Foreign Ministry they did not conceal their apprehen­
sions that the signing of a treaty with Taiwan would foster anti-
Japanese feeling in the PRC. The British advised their Japanese
colleagues to follow London’s example and recognise the PRC.
On December 11, 1951, Senator John J. Sparkman of Alaba­
ma, who arrived in Tokyo together with John Foster Dulles, de­
clared in answer to a question put by correspondents: “If Japan
should open relations with the Peiping government, such action
would raise a very considerable roadblock in the Senate.”1There
1 William J. Sebald with Russell Brines, With MacArthur in Japan.
A Personal History of the Occupation The Cresset Press, London, 1967,
p. 285.

175
 were considerable repercussions in various circles of Japanese
society to this statement, which slightly raised the curtain on
one of the key aims of this visit by US politicians to Japan. In
meetings with Japanese statesmen Dulles stressed that for the
USA the China problem was very important. The American
emissaries expected firm assurances that Japanese foreign
policy be patterned on that of the USA, in other words, that
Japan would help to isolate the PRC from the industrialised
capitalist countries and support the regime on Taiwan. Dulles
suggested what he considered was a digestible formula for the
conclusion of a treaty between Japan and Taiwan—official
relations would be established only with territories that were
under de facto Chiang Kai-shek control.
The world subsequently learned the details of the US-Japan­
ese dialogue on the China problem in the period of the prepa­
rations for and signing of the San Francisco treaty. On De­
cember 18, 1951 Dulles handed Prime Minister Yoshida a
memorandum in which it was emphasised that Japan would sign
a treaty with Taiwan on the normalisation of relations in
accordance with the principles enunciated in the San Francisco
peace treaty. The treaty would cover all territories “controlled”
by Taiwan and all territories that might come under its
control in the future. In other words, with the USA directing
it, Tokyo officially backed the idea of returning Chiang Kai-
shek to the mainland. On January 16, 1952 the records relating
to this memorandum were published on behalf of the American
and Japanese governments. In a letter to Dulles the Japanese
government noted that it had no intention of signing a treaty
with the PRC. This decision was backed up with two arguments
that sounded very convincing at the time to the proponents
of a US-Japanese alliance: first, the signing of the Soviet-
Chinese Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance
in 1950 and, second, Beijing’s support for the Japanese Commu­
nist Party. Upon abandoning the thought of improving relations
with the PRC, Japan steered towards a normalisation of rela­
tions with Taipei. The talks between Tokyo and Taipei com­
menced in February 1952 and proceeded under the constant
supervision of William J. Sebald, representative of the US
occupation authorities in Japan, who was briefed about the
apprehensions in Washington and tried to prevent the Japanese
176
from displaying excessive initiative.
The government of Shigeru Yoshida sought to sign a treaty
with the Taipei regime without calling it the government of
China in order to leave a loophole for political manoeuvring
with Beijing. Chiang Kai-shek, on the contrary, insisted that in
the treaty his side should be depicted as representing the
whole of China. The sides indulged in debates that lasted
ten days. Japan wanted to confine the operation of the treaty to
areas controlled by Nationalist China or all territories that
would come under that government's jurisdiction. Taiwan
demanded changing the conjunction “or" to “and”, and this
brought the talks to the brink of a breakdown. Acting on
Sebald’s advice, Yoshida instructed his representative in Taipei,
where the talks were proceeding, to be more tractable in his
conversations with the Taipei leaders. Both sides finally accept­
ed the word “or” with the reservation that in the “agreement
protocol” “or” could also be interpreted as “and”. The treaty
was signed on April 28, 1952 and came into force on August 5,
1952.'
Among the PRC leaders there was a sharply negative response
at the time to the talks and the conclusion of the Japanese-
Taiwanese treaty. Any peace treaty signed by Japan without
the participation of the government of the PRC, Zhou Enlai
declared, was “illegal and invalid”. In Beijing the “Yoshida
letter” was seen as a “ploy of the US imperialists” designed
to link the “reactionary government” of Japan to the Kuomint-
ang remnants on Taiwan and thereby threaten the PRC and
pave the way for “another war of aggression” in the Far
East. The press of the PRC recalled the Chinese people’s
heavy losses during the Japanese aggression against China.
The PRC government was at the time closely following the
militarist sentiments in Japan. The signing of the US-Japanese
security treaty was evidence of a revitalisation of military and
political counteraction against socialism and the PRC as a
component of the socialist system by the leading powers of the
capitalist world.
Following Nixon’s visit to Beijing conservative Republicans
alleged that the US government was ignoring the interests of its1

1 William J. Sebald, Russel Brines, op. ciL, p. 287.

177
12-0768
allies. This chorus of criticism was joined by liberal Democrats.
Passions flamed up with the growth of the dimensions of the
Watergate scandal. The bugging of the Democratic Party’s
headquarters by the President’s associates led to Nixon’s im­
peachment and to a new tide of criticism of his foreign policy,
including the Chinese orientation of this policy. Nixon’s adver­
saries kept drawing attention to his “tactless” diplomacy that
allegedly brought about a deterioration of the USA’s relations
with Japan.
Upon taking over the presidential chair from Nixon, Gerald
Ford tried to respond to the basic criticisms from the opposi­
tion. With his first steps he tried to show that his policy would
be more thoughtful and effective precisely in areas where
foreign policy had been most heavily criticised. The programme
announced by Ford during his tour of Asian countries, including
China, stressed the need to sustain the confidence of its allies in
US commitments and proclaimed that to this end the Washington
administration intended to reinforce various forms of its mili­
tary presence in Asia.
In particular, Ford declared that i(equal partnership” with
Japan had to be promoted. The significance of these guidelines
should evidently be considered in the light of the US administra­
tion’s aim to neutralise the exacerbation of Japanese-US
relations as a result of a number of actions carried out by the
USA under the Nixon administration. Prior to the Shanghai
communique all the contradictions between Japan and China
were part, as it were, of the contradictions between China
and the Japanese-US alliance. The Japanese were unquestion­
ably apprehensive that this pattern of state-to-state relations
would be shaken with serious adverse consequences to Japan.
This largely explained the morbid reaction in Japan to Nixon’s
visit to China, which, in effect, stimulated the establishment
of diplomatic relations between the PRC and Japan. In assessing
Ford’s visit to Beijing, Kissinger spoke of the “similarity” of
the stand of the PRC and the USA towards Japan.
The American analysts Halliday and McCormack note that
Japan began to play the role of the “USA’s counter-revolution­
ary ally” in East and Southeast Asia, and that one of Japan’s
policy objectives in this region had become the isolation of
Asian countries from the socialist states. Towards the beginning
178
of the 1970s Japan had moved into second place among capi­
talist countries for the volume of “aid” extended to developing
nations, becoming the principal source of “aid” for the Taiwan
regime, Singapore, Burma, and the Philippines, and the second
biggest source of “aid” for South Korea and Malaysia, and the
third main source for Thailand and Laos.
Basically, Japanese policy was oriented on Washington.
This was widely acknowledged in Japan itself. The interests of
the US-Japanese alliance were the priority factor in the forma­
tion of Tokyo’s foreign policy, of its policy in the Asia-
Pacific region. The most explosive element from the stand­
point of the development of the political situation in that
region was the Carter administration’s attempt to encourage
Japan to take a more active part in trilateral US-Chinese-
Japanese cooperation. Carter’s decision to meet with Hua Guo-
feng, then Chairman of the CPC Central Committee, on Japa­
nese soil, illustrated his administration’s intention to stress the
significance of US-Japanese-Chinese relations in the period of
particularly high tension in relations with the Soviet Union.1
This circumstance certainly contributed to the inflaming of anti-
Soviet sentiment in Japan. It was probably a deliberate action
on the part of some Japanese press media enunciating the
official viewpoint to one extent or another to publicise the
considerations in favour of a possible “trans-Pacific coalition”
consisting of the USA, Japan, and China, although they were
careful to emphasise that an anti-Soviet coalition would not
serve Tokyo’s interests.
Japan played a part in causing the situation in the Asia-
Pacific region to deteriorate. One can speak of “parallel” of
coinciding lines of the USA, the PRC, and Japan in Southeast
Asia aimed at preventing the consolidation of the changes that
had taken place in Indochina. Visits by Japanese statesmen to
Asian countries showed that Japan was among the first of the
capitalist countries to support the Pol Pot regime. The attitude
articulated by the Japanese Foreign Minister Ito during his tour
of Southeast Asia in 1980 contained elements of the concept of
a “united front” against the USSR and the Socialist Republic
of Vietnam.

1 International Herald Tribune, July 11, 1980.

179
 The makers of Japanese foreign policy took into considera­
tion what they saw as positive aspects of the improving relations
between Chfna and the USA. These were linked chiefly to
Japanese foreign policy priorities, in other words, the interests
of the US-Japanese alliance in the first place. In Tokyo they
were aware that the modifications in Sino-US relations had led
to a change in the Chinese stand relative to the US-Japanese
alliance and to problems connected with Japan's arms build-up.
They expected that improved Sino-US relations would reduce
Beijing’s potentialities in Southeast Asia, in other words, that
this would help to maintain the status quo in that part of the
world.
At the turn of the 1980s there were clear signs that Japan,
as the USA was doing, was renouncing the principle of
“equidistance” from the USSR and the PRC. The expansion
of Sino-Japanese relations was accompanied by a revitalisation
of political contacts and a significant extension of the issues
being discussed. At official and semi-official meetings represen­
tatives of the two countries dealt with military-political prob­
lems, particularly those affecting the Asia-Pacific region. For
the first time there was a semi-official meeting of senior members
of the defence establishments of the two countries. Prime
Minister Masayoshi Ohira’s visit to China in December 1979
and the visit by Hua Guofeng to Japan in May 1980 in fact
paved the way for regular summit meetings, this being evidence
of the priority given by the leadership of the two countries
to the promotion of political relations with each other. The
decision to hold annual working meetings at Foreign Ministry
level should likewise be regarded in this light.
In early 1982 Yasuhiro Nakasone became Japan’s Prime
Minister at the age of 64. During a period of two years
he made his mark in foreign policy. It seemed that at the time
no problem demanded preferential attention from the Japanese:
the Japanese economy was on the upgrade and society was in
a state of relative political tranquillity. It was forecast that
Nakasone would win the next elections. One of the main
arguments in his favour was that he had the support of former
Prime Minister Kakuej Tanaka, who, despite his conviction
in 1983 for bribery, remained the leader of a group of 118 depu­
ties of the Liberal Democratic Party (of a total of 392) and
180
his opinion carried considerable weight when party leaders were
elected.
The world press began to link Nakasone to Japan’s foreign
policy successes in the 1980s. Close observers noted that
Japanese leaders preferred to remain silent or simply dosed at
previous meetings of heads and prominent representatives of
the principal capitalist powers. They only livened up when the
time came to repulse importunate attacks of their Western
counterparts worried about Japanese economic expansion. Now
the situation had changed. At the 1983 conference of the
heads of government of leading capitalist powers in Williams­
burg the Japanese Prime Minister was brilliantly eloquent and
holier than the Pope. In fact, wrote the newspaper Tokyo
Shimbun, Nakasone outdid Reagan and on many counts directed
the debates into the channel of a hard attitude to the East.
He tried to consolidate this line in talks with Helmut Kohl,
Ronald Reagan, and Hu Yaobang. He vigorously championed
a positions of strength policy and outpaced his Western col­
leagues in his support for the stationing of Euromissiles,
depicting the Soviet Union as responsible for all the difficulties
on the international scene. It seemed that only recently,
in 1971, as Director-General of the Defence Agency, Nakasone
had spoken of the need for combining the efforts of the
USSR, the USA, China, and Japan in order to maintain peace in
Asia and the Pacific. Now, as Prime Minister, he was the first
Japanese statesman of that rank to sign a “political statement
on security issues” and thereby demonstrate, to judge even from
the Japanese press, that he was a hawk of international di­
mensions.
The Japanese Prime Minister’s actions mirrored the new
trends in Tokyo’s foreign policy. Earlier Japan had given US
foreign policy “rear support”. Under the umbrella of that
policy the Japanese monopolies sought to reinforce their posi­
tions in the Asia-Pacific region and in the world at large.
In the eyes of Japan’s rulers the USA was a reliable guarantor
of the capitalist system, and this belief largely determined the
Japanese approach to its allied commitments. In the 1970s, the
USA’s role as dependable guarantor of the capitalist system was
somewhat shaken, especially among its allies. A reassessment
was taking place both in the USA and Japan of the role that
181
 Washington’s main Far Eastern ally should play in the world.
Japan undertook a large share of the responsibility for the
destinies of the capitalist world. The Blue Book on questions
of diplomacy for January 1983 to March 1984 stated: “positive”
diplomacy must be conducted in keeping with the circumstance
that Japan is a member of the “community of free democratic
nations and a state of the Asia-Pacific region”.
The desire not to “trail along behind” the USA influenced
Japanese diplomacy’s China orientation as well. In Tokyo they
undoubtedly realised the significance of relations with China in
terms of Japanese foreign policy interests. By the early 1980s
China had become one of the world’s ten economic leaders
(in 6th place according to the GNP), in military capability
it was behind only the USSR and the USA, and had shown
that it wielded political influence in various parts of the world.
Nakasone’s advisers were undoubtedly aware that Japan’s
and China’s involvement in world problems—detente, disar­
mament, nuclear weapons, and so forth—was somewhat easing
the tensions between the two countries. These were the direc­
tions in which the Japanese leaders aimed to find compensa­
tion for the negative impact on relations with China of
Japanese-Chinese contradictions in the Asia-Pacific region.
For the USA the revitalisation of Japan’s China policy was
by no means free of complexities. On the one hand, Tokyo’s
policy seemed to fit into the pattern of Washington’s global
policy. But, on the other hand, American political leaders were
seriously worried by the prospect of a rapprochement between
Japan and China. This anxiety was mirrored by the American
press. The USA, it wrote, could hardly compete with Nakasone,
who had offered China an impressive loan at 6-7 per cent
interest, 1-2 per cent below the usual interest rate in Japan.
In preparing Reagan for his visit to China, his advisers
expected the Chinese to ask what economic aid the USA was
prepared to extend. The reply they suggested should be: None.
The substantiation for this reply was that the US government
expected that such aid would be extended by the private sector.
The USA had no government agency that could offer interna­
tional loans at a reduced interest rate.
Thus, Japan gave China loans and trade. The Americans
could offer chiefly trade.
182
 The political bonds of the US-Japanese alliance fettered
mainly the activities of Japanese businessmen in China. The
Americans did not scruple, when necessary, to remind Japan of
its allied commitments in order to restrict these activities. When
Japanese businessmen started talks on sales to China of high-
technology electronic equipment, in Washington they were
reminded of the COCOM restrictions. The Pentagon was
opposed to the sale to China of the Hitachi M-180 computer
system. It asserted that this system could be used to compute
the trajectory of an intercontinental ballistic missile and US
territory too might be within the range of the latter. The Japan­
ese had reason to question whether their allies were not
using political levers to pressure competitors in the Chinese
market?
Of course, the Japanese closely watched the Americans cir­
cumventing political barriers in their commercial dealings with
China. After the US Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger
visited China in the autumn of 1983 reports reached Japan of
a possible US export of armaments and military equipment to
China. In some quarters in the USA there was talk even of a
special list being drawn up of goods to be exported to China
envisaging a relaxation of COCOM restrictions on the export
of high-technology equipment and armaments to that country.
The Japanese business world worried that the USA was intend­
ing to circumvent the COCOM restrictions which it was assi­
duously imposing on its allies. Japan and other allied nations
put this question to Washington. The reply was that the US
government was not planning a special provision to exclude Chi­
na from the list of countries covered by the COCOM restrictions.
Answering questions from newspaper correspondents on April
18, 1984 the US Secretary of State George Shultz bluntly
declared that the question of sales of high technology was
of major significance and that US policy in this respect was
linked to the policy of the USA’s European allies and Japan.
In the meantime, Japanese businessmen continued their offen­
sive: the loan promised to China by Nakasone would be
used to finance two programmes, which the USA found exceed­
ingly disturbing: the building of new automatic telephone
exchanges in Beijing, Guangzhou, and Tianjing, and of a hydro-
power station close to the frontier of China and Vietnam.
183
The Americans were bitterly disappointed for by that time they
had spent nearly 600,000 dollars exploring the possibilities for
building that station.
American experts who thought in global terms rubbed their
hand: Japan had undertaken a much bigger concern than
previously for the destiny of the capitalist world. Moreover,
they hoped that an expansion of Japanese-Chinese trade would
in some measure blunt the contradictions in this sphere in the
US-Japanese alliance. Leading American analysts close to
Reagan’s views gave wide publicity to the thesis that despite
the difficulties in the relations between them the Soviet Union
and China were potential adversaries of the USA. Here the
objective was to mobilise the military efforts of the USA and
Japan. Gaston J. Sigur, one of Reagan’s advisers, believed that
the USA would obtain congenial agreements at talks with the
USSR and China with the minimum risk to its own security
interests. This line presupposed the consolidation of efforts
within the US-Japanese alliance.

Taiwan: Adjustment to a New Situation

For his expulsion from the United Nations Organisation

Chiang Kai-shek blamed his US patron. He linked all his
misfortunes of the time to the US President’s decision to visit
Beijing. This decision, he said, was basic for an answer to the
question: Who should represent China in the UN? The Taiwa­
nese press attacked the US rapprochement with China. After
the Nixon visit to Beijing, passions flamed up with renewed
force in Taipei. The exchange rate fell in the Taipei stock
exchange, and the Taiwan regime feared for its future. The
press openly castigated the USA for its promise to Beijing
that US troops would ultimately be pulled out of the island
and also for the statement that Taiwan was part of China. A cut­
back of US armed forces and equipment on Taiwan, it said,
had to be decided upon between the Nationalist Chinese and
the US government in accordance with their mutual interests
and the interests of their security, and President Nixon had no
right to make unilateral statements of this kind.
The Taiwan problem neither was nor could be resolved
184
during Nixon’s visit to the PRC, but it was no longer seen
as an insuperable obstacle to the promotion of bilateral relations
between the USA and China. The wording of the Shanghai
communique, inserted by insistence of the Chinese, showed that
Beijing’s stand on this question had at the time evolutionised
much less visibly than that of the USA.
In their statements on the Taiwan problem in the 1970s,
US spokesmen drew upon the long experience of the USA’s
allied relations with the Kuomintang regime. While signing the
Mutual Defense Treaty with Taipei in 1954, the USA already
then showed some flexibility. The military-political commit­
ments defined in the treaty concerned not only Taiwan but also
the Pescadore Islands. The treaty stated that an armed attack
in the West Pacific Area directed against the territories of
either of the Parties “would be dangerous to its own peace and
safety” (Article V). However, the USA’s commitments to
Taiwan, as to its other Asian allies, made no provision
whatever for an automatic involvement of US armed forces in
a conflict over Taiwan. In the event of a conflict, the treaty
said, each side “would act to meet the common danger in
accordance with its constitutional processes”.
On December 10, 1954 US Secretary of State Dulles and
the Taiwanese Foreign Minister exchanged notes stating the
argeement between the two countries that the use of force
from territory controlled by Chiang Kai-shek (i.e., from
Taiwan and the Pescadores.—VУ .) “will be a matter of joint
agreement”, except in cases of an emergency character.1
This reservation was a constant reminder to the Chiang Kai-
shek regime of its limitations, in the absence of US assistance,
for a landing on the mainland. The USA obtained the right to
a more flexible interpretation of its commitments under the
1954 treaty. Further, the provision that the military presence
on Taiwan and the Pescadores would not, without mutual
consent, be reduced to the extent that would significantly
weaken the defence capability of these territories was un­
questionably designed to limit the USA’s actions if it still
1 United States Relations with the People's Republic of China.
Hearings Before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate,
926 Congress, 1st Session, June 24, 25, 28, 29 and July 20, 1971, U.S.
G.P.O., Washington, 1972, p. 397

185
felt bound by this treaty.1 The Shanghai communique did
not affect the US-Taiwanese Mutual Defense Treaty. American
political leaders continued to abide by their commitments
to Taiwan.
In spite of the US-Taiwanese treaty, Beijing and Washington
went on formulating their stand on the Taiwan issue in a
manner to avoid obstructing the development of bilateral
relations. The decision to exchange liaison groups between
the PRC and the USA (February 1973) in fact signified
recognition of the “two Chinas” principle by the sides: there
were diplomats from Taiwan and from the PRC in Washington.
After the exchange of liaison groups, the two sides did not
stop their dialogue on the Taiwan problem while negotiating
many other controversial issues of an international character.
The USA used this problem also for pressuring Beijing into
conceding more favourable terms at talks on other matters,
particularly on the Indochina crisis. The US declared, for
instance, that it would gradually cut back the numerical
strength of its armed presence and dismantle its military
installations on Taiwan as tension eased in that region. The
internal political struggle in China likewise influenced Beijing’s
stand on Taiwan.
In the framework of the Shanghai communique, the USA
had, of course, to abandon some of its guidelines for ensuring
the Taiwan regime with support. It had earlier used Taipei for
an active military presence in Asia and the Pacific: until the
close of the 1960s over 10,000 US troops were stationed on
Taiwan, and ships of the US Seventh Fleet were on constant
patrol in the Taiwan Strait. The USA began to reconsider
this situation, keeping only a symbolic military presence on
Taiwan. The main thing lay in something else — the USA did
not repudiate its commitments under US-Taiwanese Treaty,
which provided Taipei with its sole real military-strategic
guarantees.
1 A special resolution (Formosa Resolution) passed by the US Congress
on January 29, 1955 authorised the US President to employ American armed
forces “for the specific purpose of securing and protecting Formosa and the
Pescadores against armed attack". The debates in Congress over the
destiny of this resolution were particularly sharp in view of Washington's
"new China policy". In 1971 the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
recommended the annulment of this resolution. Ibid., p. 398.

186
 All of the USA’s actions linked to the preparations for and
signing of the Shanghai communique showed that Washington
was by no means planning to sacrifice Taiwan for transient
benefits of dubious value in terms of its global interests. After
the UN General Assembly voted to expel Taiwan, Washington
publicly demonstrated its solidarity with Taipei. Upon instruc­
tions from his government, the US Ambassador Walter
P. McConaughy met with Chiang Kai-shek, and in a joint
communique with the Taipei Foreign Ministry called this UN
decision “neither just nor realistic”. Quoting authoritative
circles in the USA McConaughy stated that the decision would
not undercut US commitments to Taiwan.1 Henry Kissinger
and State Department officials later explained that the language
in the communique did not mean that the USA intended to
discontinue its obligation “to defend Taiwan and the Pescado­
res” under the 1954 treaty.12 Nixon himself, upon his return
from the PRC, spoke openly of his government’s intention
to honour its pledges to Taiwan.
In the early 1970s the USA in some cases reinforced rather
than relaxed its attention to Taiwan. It extended all-sided eco­
nomic and military assistance to the Chiang Kai-shek regime:
1,500 million dollars in economic aid from 1951 to 1965
and 3,000 million dollars in military aid from 1949 to 1970.
In fiscal 1974 total US aid to Taiwan under the programme
of military aid dropped somewhat compared with fiscal 1973.
But this did not signify that the USA had lost interest in
reinforcing its ally’s military capability. During this period
there was a significant increase in credit supplies of US
armaments and military equipment to Taiwan.3

1 Free China Review, Vol. XXI, No. 11, November 1971, p. 11.
2 China and the Question of Taiwan. Documents and Analysis, edited
by Hungdah Chiu, Praeger Publishers, New York, 1973, p. 83
* The Pentagon and experts Linked to military planning on Taiwan
stressed that in the programmes for military construction for the latter
half of the 1970s priority had to be given to enlarging the Taiwanese
air force and navy. The programme for long-term US aid provided for the
building of a Northrop Corporation jet aircraft assembly plant at Taizhong.
The US credits for this project amounted to 150-200 million dollars for the
period up to 1978 inclusively. In the period from 1972 to 1974 the USA sold
Chiang Kai-shek 17 warships (15 destroyers and two submarines). Taiwan
bought five support and auxiliary vessels.

187
 Hardly had Nixon added up the results of his visit to
Beijing than leading American monopolies signed big contracts
with Taiwan. Acting through the Overseas Private Investment
Corporation, the US government gave American investors
on Taiwan iron-clad guarantees. The National Distillers and
Chemical Corporation of the USA funded an expansion of
production at its Gaoxiongshi polyethylene plant (at a cost
of 10 million dollars). Big contracts were signed with Taiwanese
industrialists by Ford Motors, Westinghouse Electric, and
Amico-Chemical Corporation (a Standard Oil subsidiary),
Union Carbide, and other monopolies. Leading Canadian
and American banks, Chase Manhattan in particular, finance
the activities of these corporations. In the 1970s, the regime
on Taiwan gave every encouragement to foreign investments
on the island (by 1975 they had added up to 1,300 million
dollars). One-third of these investments came from the USA,
17 per cent from Japan, and 28 per cent from overseas
Chinese.1 Various industrial equipment (including nuclear
reactors) and food products began arriving on the island in
larger quantities than formerly. As in previous years, the USA
was Taiwan's biggest partner in foreign trade.12 As distinct from
Sino-US trade, US-Taiwanese trade in the first half of the
1970s remained more stable, larger in volume, and balanced.
In the early 1970s the USA had no intention of lowering the
level of its diplomatic representation on Taiwan. In 1974 a new
career diplomat, Leonard Unger, was sent to the island,
and new Taiwanese consulates were opened in two US states —
Oregon and Portland. Altogether, five new Taiwanese consu­
lates were opened in the USA during the three years after
the Shanghai communique was signed. In Washington the
administration remained deaf to the warnings issued from
time to time by China that it would use force to take the island.
The US administration evidently counted on the assurances
that it got in Beijing at secret talks. Quoting a “senior American
official”, the American press reported after Kissinger's talks

1 Business Week, December 15, 1975, pp. 40, 44.

2 Taiwan's trade with other countries at this time totalled: 2,250,000 dol­
lars with Japan; 1,163,000 dollars with Southeast Asian countries (exports—
712 million; imports—451 million dollars); 1,042,000 dollars with European
countries (exports—576 million; imports—466 million dollars).

188
in Beijing in November 1974 that the Chinese were not
bringing strong pressure to bear on the Taiwan question and
that in this situation the USA saw no necessity for urgent
adjustments relative to Taiwan. In the opinion of many
American analysts, time became the main condition for solving
the Taiwan problem. In the Senate debate shortly before
the Nixon visit to the PRC many speakers (John K. Fairbank,
A. Doak Barnett, Patsy T. Mink, and others) believed Taiwan
could maintain its autonomy. Barnett felt it would either be an
independent state recognised by Beijing or it would become
part of China on terms acceptable to the Taiwanese, or it
would be united with the mainland as an autonomous entity.
It was suggested (Patsy T. Mink) that the issue should be
turned over for settlement to the UN Trusteeship Council.
The makers of US Far Eastern policy saw Taiwan’s strategic
value as a link in the “defensive” chain of Pacific islands
between the USA and its Asian partners in the Northeast, South,
and Southeast Pacific. Moreover, in Washington they took into
account the circumstance that a rupture with Taiwan could
complicate the USA’s relations with its allies in the Asia-
Pacific region, destabilise the military-political situation, and
undermine the region’s balance of strength that was congenial
to the USA. On the diplomatic level Taiwan lost ground signi­
ficantly. As of March 1972 diplomatic relations with Taipei
were sustained by 53 countries, including the Vatican. In
January 1974 there were only 38 such countries.
Until the death of Chiang Kai-shek the “liberation” of
mainland China was seen as Taiwan’s priority objective. The
pragmatic programme of Chiang Kai-shek and his son. Premier
Jiang Jingguo, was aimed at increasing Taiwan’s industrial
and economic potential, expanding trade, energetically at­
tracting foreign capital, and promoting tourism. In per capita
terms, Taiwan’s income level was the second highest in Asia
after Japan, exceeding the per capita income level of the PRC
four times.1
Chiang Kai-shek intractably rejected the suggestions that the
Taiwan problem should be resolved by the Chinese themselves

1 Far Eastern Economic Review, Vol. 83, No. 5, February 4, 1974,

pp. 44-46.

189
and by peaceful means. He declared that the only contacts
between Taiwan and the enemy were contacts of blood and
the sword.1 But this was no more than rhetoric. Actually,
the regime vitalised its efforts to “Taiwanise” the island,
while Beijing, as distinct from the past, abstained from sharply
criticising Taipei's actions.
The measures instituted by Premier Jiang Jingguo were
designed to consolidate the regime’s social base on the island.
In 1972 he co-opted into his cabinet another three representa­
tives of the island’s indigenous population; this gave its represen­
tatives one-third of the ministerial posts. Of the 89 newly-
elected deputies in the legislative yuan, following the 1972
elections, 79 “represented” the island’s indigenous population.
This changed only the external form and not the essence of
the regime itself.
The changes in Taiwan’s foreign policy tactics became
self-evident: gradual abandonment of the practice of imme­
diately breaking off diplomatic relations with countries that
recognised Beijing and a striving to preserve existing diplomatic
links and even establish new ones; focussing efforts on economic
development, attracting as much foreign capital as possible,
encouraging tourism, and so on; undisguised hostility for
socialism gave way to a differentiated approach to socialist
countries.
The establishment of diplomatic relations between Washing­
ton and Beijing caused an outburst of indignation on Taiwan
and in the USA itself. Taipei poured abuse on President Carter
after he spoke on this question on January 1, 1979. He was
called “traitor”, “venal”, and much else by the Taiwanese
press. In its note the Taipei regime used language customarily
regarded as obscene. In Taipei there was growing doubt
whether they could count upon the USA as an ally.
Paradoxically, the marked advance in the relations between
China and the USA objectively fostered an acceleration of
Taiwan’s economic development and enhanced the role of
Taiwan’s economic potential in capitalist world relations. The
rupture of relations with Taiwan by the USA compelled
Taiwanese businessmen to display considerable resourceful-
i China Post, January 1, 1972.

190
ness, to employ new and more flexible tactics in order to
survive. On Taiwan “survival” became a synonym of “prosper­
ity”. In 1980 alone the volume of US-Taiwanese trade
amounted to 11,400 million dollars, up by 55 per cent over
1977. Taiwan became a major US trade partner. Meanwhile,
US trade with China grew from 1,100 million dollars in 1978
to 4,800 million dollars in 1980.
This revitalisation of Taiwan’s foreign trade policy following
the breaking off of diplomatic relations with the USA led to a
growth of Taiwan’s commercial links to European capitalist
countries. Beginning in 1980 there was a revitalisation of
financial transactions handled by leading European banks such
as Societe Generate, Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas, the
European-Asian Bank of the FRG, and the Hollandsche
Bank Unie, and also by British, French, Greek, and Spanish
trade offices.
In 1980 Taiwan’s trade with Western Europe totalled 4,900
million dollars, up by 900 million dollars over 1979. However,
Japan’s share of Taiwan’s imports fell from 45 per cent to 27
per cent within a period of ten years. This diminution was due
largely to Taipei’s resentment of Tokyo’s China policy.1
Washington sought to preserve its entire range of relations
with Taiwan. The most glaring changes were, perhaps, seen in
the renaming of the former embassy offices into the American
Taiwan institute and the Taiwan coordination council for North
American affairs.
After the changes that took place in Beijing with Mao
Zedong’s death, the Chinese leaders continued looking for a
way out of the Taiwan impasse. This involved a quest for a
“reunification” formula acceptable to the Taipei leaders, but
judging by Chinese pronouncements this evidently did not
exclude some other option, including the use of military
pressure. This is borne out, in particular, by the aggravation
of differences between China and the USA over Taiwan on
the eve and after the Reagan administration came to power.
At the turn of the 1980s Beijing undertook yet another
“peace” offensive on the Taiwan issue.
In an interview given to the Xinhua News Agency on the

1 The New York Times, June 9, 1981.

191
eve of the 32nd anniversary of the proclamation of the PRC
the Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National
People’s Congress Ye Jianying spelled out his government’s
stand on “Taiwan’s return to the homeland”. The Chinese
proposals provided for talks between the Communist Party
of China and the Kuomintang on the basis of Taiwan being
recognised as part of the PRC. Beijing urged Taipei to contacts
between Chinese on both sides of the strait, and offered that
“after reunification” Taiwan would enjoy autonomy, have its
own armed forces, preserve its socio-economic system, and
have “representatives of its various circles” take up leadership
posts in the country’s political institutions, and so on.1
In starting their “peace offensive” on the problem of
“reunification”, the Chinese leaders took into account the
increasingly more complex position of the senior generation
of Kuomintang leaders. The latter found themselves between
the hammer and the anvil, so to speak: on the one hand,
Beijing's “peace offensive” and nostalgia of the people who
had fled from the mainland, and, on the other, pressure from
the indigenous Taiwanese, who held fairly strong positions
in Taipei and whose representatives were in authoritative
posts in the leadership of Taiwan’s armed forces. Separatist
tendencies on Taiwan and among Taiwanese emigres,
allegiance to which began to be shown by influential leaders
from among the new generation of local Taiwanese, naturally
eroded the foreign policy concepts of the Kuomintang old
guard.
Taiwan began to be spoken of as a “two-faced Janus”.
Nevertheless, Beijing’s “peace offensive” got a hostile reception
in Taipei, where it was seen as a “continuation of their united
front propaganda”. In the view of the Taipei government
the only way to bring about “unification” was for Beijing to
abandon the “communist system”.1 2
The Chinese leaders tried various ways of reaching closer
accord with Washington on the Taiwan problem. In June 1980
the Chinese press reported that the PRC had commercial
relations with Taiwan via Hong Kong. According to statistics

1 The Japan Times , October 1, 1981.

2 Ibid.

192
given by the Xinhua News Agency (which cited Taiwanese
and Hong Kong sources), in 1979 Taiwan’s exports to the PRC
via Hong Kong totalled 21,300,000 dollars, while PRC exports
to Taiwan (also via Hong Kong) amounted to 57,800,000
dollars. The Chinese government’s decision to lift customs
tariffs on goods from Taiwan signalled its desire for an activa­
tion of links to the Taipei regime. Trade between the PRC
and Taiwan in 1980, according to figures published in the
American press, amounted to 200 million dollars.
In the 1980 presidential race in the USA Ronald Reagan
spoke in favour of raising the level of Washington’s relations
with Taipei and criticised the Democrats for ignoring the
interests of the USA’s allies, of Taiwan in the first place.
This stand of the Republican candidate was rebuffed in Beijing
with the result that Reagan toned down his statements on
matters related to the China policy in order to neutralise
the negative reaction of the Chinese and forestall any complica­
tion of his position as presidential candidate. After Reagan
was elected the Chinese leaders began to depict the new
President as a “pragmatist, adaptable and flexible”. The
American press drew attention to Beijing’s description of the
US President as “a tough opponent of the Soviet Union”.1
In the view of the Chinese leaders the hardening of the
anti-Soviet aspect of the Reagan administration’s foreign
policy could not compensate for the White House’s refusal
to make concessions to Beijing on the Taiwan problem.
In Beijing they were particularly disconcerted by the
circumstance that the Taipei regime was refusing to negotiate,
while influential quarters in the USA regarded Taiwan as a
“zone of their predominance”, forgetting what was written on
this score in the joint Sino-US communique on the establish­
ment of diplomatic relations. Was not, they asked, the USA
creating a tense situation there by arming the Taipei regime
under such circumstances? Was this not an attempt to counter
the efforts “in the struggle against hegemonism and in defence
of peace” in the Far East and the Pacific? Was this not a factor
undermining the development of US-Chinese strategic rela­
tions?2
1 The New York Times, December 4, 1980.
■ Renmin ribao, May 14, 1981; June 12, 1981.

13-0768 193
 The White House saw the success of its China policy largely
in the progress of the concept of “balanced arms sales” to
Beijing and Taipei. One of the aims of the visits to Beijing
by Reagan’s emissaries — Gerald Ford, Alexander Haig, and
Holdridge — was to learn the reaction of the Chinese leaders
to a possible sale to Taiwan of new types of armaments,
including the latest FX jet fighter aircraft.1 Just before Haig’s
visit to Beijing, the Chinese leaders had quite negatively
responded to Washington’s attempts to conduct a “balanced”
policy in the sale of armaments. “Some officials of the American
administration,” stated a Xinhua commentary, “have of late
noted on several occasions that there was a need to assess
China’s strategic position and role and intimated a desire to
promote strategic relations with China in areas presently
devoid of links botween the two nations. This good intention
of the USA was regarded with favour by Chinese public
opinion. However, the development of strategic relations be­
tween the two countries requires a cessation of the contacts
with Taiwan ranging beyond non-governmental relations.”
The Chinese sharply denounced the plans that were being
discussed in the USA for selling the latest types of armaments
to Taiwan.
John Chang, head of the Taipei Foreign Ministry’s Depart­
ment for Relations with the USA, publicly spoke of the dual
feeling that members of the Taipei regime had for President
Reagan. Of course, Reagan showed himself as a friend of
Taiwan, but his visit to Beijing, according to Chang, reinforced
the relations between the USA and China to the detriment of
Taiwan. Chang drew attention to questions of the relations
between the USA and the PRC that directly affected Taiwan’s
interests. These questions were, as before, linked chiefly to
the sale to China of civilian technology that could be used
for military purposes; and to cooperation in the nuclear sphere.
There was, of course, other, sharper criticism. In 1983 James
Shen, former Taiwanese Ambassador in Washington, published
a book under the title: The US. and Free China. How the US.
Sold Out Its Ally.
Feeling physically worn out the President of Taiwan Jiang
Jingguo decided to turn power over to senior Kuomintang
1 The New York Times, March 24, 1981.

194
members who were born on the mainland. Foreign observers
noted that the new leaders could open the door for an improve­
ment of relations with Beijing. But any hints that Taipei was
willing to begin a dialogue with Beijing irritated the admi­
nistration in Washington. The Americans compelled the
Kuomintang leaders to abandon any intention of turning
power over to successors who could find a compromise with
Beijing; at the same time, they began flirting with members
of the Taipei regime inclined to accept the “two Chinas”
concept. The Americans courted “opposition” elements in
Taipei in an effort to persuade them to work for the overthrow
of Jiang Jingguo and for Taiwan’s “self-determination”.
Beijing did not ignore this activity on the part of the USA,
noting that it showed Washington’s intention to perpetuate
Taiwan’s separation from the mainland and turn in into an
“unsinkable aircraft-carrier”.
A moderation or hardening of the stand on Taiwan by
Beijing and Washington was influenced by factors reflecting
the political tactics employed by the sides at a given stretch
of time. However, there was no hard foundation for an
assertion that in the long term Beijing always saw the island’s
reunification with the mainland as the inevitable outcome
of its policies. China’s stand on Hong Kong, Macao, and
Singapore (three-fourths of whose population are Chinese)
encourages some American experts to think in terms of making
Taiwan “the Singapore of East Asia”.1
American policy was aimed at preserving the status quo in
this part of Asia. The USA stepped up its efforts to use Taiwan
as a lever for bringing a socio-economic and political influence
to bear on the situation in China. However, Washington was
never certain that China would pursue, relative to Taiwan,
a policy congenial to American interests and those of the USA’s
allies. Even optimistic members of the US administration
could not compellingly inspire their compatriots with the
hope of an early consummation of the long dispute over
Taiwan.
1 United States— Soviet Union—China: The Great Power Triangle.
Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Future Foreign Policy Research and
Development of the Committee on International Relations, House of Repre­
sentatives, 94th Congress, U.S. G.P.O., Washington, 1976, p. 270.

195
CHAPTER EIGHT

BALANCING IN A TENSE SITUATION

Washington Abandons the Equidistance Policy

In the 1970s Americans awoke to the realisation that dramatic

changes had taken place in the alignment of strength on the
world scene, including the capitalist world. Leading members
of the brain trust in Washington pondered ways of preventing
the American share of the capitalist world’s output from
diminishing and of safeguarding US interests against pressure
from West European and Japanese capital. However, the
shrinking of the USA’s share of the capitalist world’s output
did not erode, at least for the 1980s, its position as the main
guarantor of the capitalist system. The Democratic Carter
administration that came to power in 1977 continued the line
of its predecessors in feverishly looking for foreign political
levers that could help Washington most effectively carry out
its role of leader of the forces opposed to socialism. Western
strategists believed that the Chinese factor was becoming
the lever that could neutralise socialism’s impact in different
areas of world development, particularly in view of the con­
frontation between the two social systems.
James Carter, as many Democratic presidents before him,
was highly sensitive to attacks from the right. With criticism
levelled at him practically from the moment he entered the
White House, Carter’s popularity rating kept falling catastro­
phically in 1977-1978. The opposition attributed the decline
of the USA’s influence in various regions of the world to the
new president. The administration sought, to win prestige
through foreign policy manoeuvres in, among others, the
Chinese direction. Carter’s advisers tried to weave the human
rights question into the fabric of US foreign policy, hoping
196
to use this question to bring pressure to bear on the Soviet
Union. While recognising that detente between the USA
and the USSR was the “key element of world peace”, Carter
challenged the Soviet Union to recognise that the USA was
playing a messianic role in the modern world and accept
American views or encounter confrontation in various areas
of foreign policy. In aiming their arrows at the Soviet Union,
the president’s men ignored the voices from the right — some
of which at times grew quite loud — demanding measures
against “human rights violations” in China as well. The admi­
nistration kept an eye on the diverse viewpoints on the China
problem being offered in academic and political circles in
the USA and sought to take them into consideration, albeit
with extreme caution, in its practical activities.
In the spring of 1978 the author of these lines visited the
USA and learned at first hand of the views of American
academics studying Washington’s Asia-Pacific policies, its
China policy in particular. The “minimalists” were nurturing
the idea of a phased military withdrawal from the Asia-Pacific
region. They linked the need for a withdrawal of armed forces,
while preserving strategic commitments to Japan, to the growth
of Asian nationalism, with which, they felt, Washington had
to be on good terms.
The proponents of another concept, while accepting the
thesis that the USA had to cut back its military commitments,
thought in terms of a consolidation of strategic partnership
consisting of the USA, Japan, and China. They saw this
partnership as based on economic, political, and even military
“mutual understanding”. In turn, “mutual understanding”
would, it was felt, lead to a further deepening of US-Chinese
relations (with the partner getting, among other things,
“military aid”), the prodding of Japan into assuming more
effective military obligations, the containment of any expansion
of Japan’s relations with the USSR, and the encouragement
of relations with the PRC, including close economic coopera­
tion. Exponents of this concept urged the USA, Japan, and
China to draw as many small Asian states as possible into a
“united front” strategy.
Those favouring yet another version of the Far Eastern
policy held that at the negotiating table the USA could not
197
ignore the factor of strength (including its military presence
in the region). As distinct from the idea advanced by the
“minimalists”, their concept of “balancing” emphasised the
need for maintaining an armed presence in the region. In
support of this argument they referred to China’s positive
attitude to the American military presence in the Asia-Pacific
region. This presence, they contended, was needed to maintain
the existing “balance of strength” and thereby keep the
situation stable. It was important, they said, to avoid “excessive”
US involvement in conflict situations and limit US military
commitments there. In keeping with this school of thought,
the possibility of a de facto alliance between the PRC and
the USA directed against the USSR was disputed. The “united
front” concept, it was said, might evoke a sharply negative
Soviet reaction, impede the conclusion of a Soviet-US agree­
ment on nuclear weapons control and could make disarmament
altogether impossible, which would in fact signify a return
to the cold war.
Among the adversaries of an unlimited improvement of
relations with China there were conservative and liberal
academics and political leaders. While the conservative wing
in academic circles (for instance, William R. Kintner — whose
book A Matter of Two Chinas is characteristic in this respect —
and Harold C. Hinton) justified their reserve relative to a
Sino-US rapprochement with the contention that such
rapprochement would mean assistance to a possible future
adversary of the USA, liberal politologists (Allen S. Whiting
and others) were opposed to anti-Sovietism as a basis for
rapprochement. The advocates of drawing China into an anti­
socialist front strategy (such as Donald S. Zagoria, Michael
Pillsbury, Robert Oxnam, and Michel Oksenberg) were
supported by senior aides of the Carter administration. The
chorus of opposition to a “united front” strategy was voci­
ferously joined by Congressman Lester Wolff and by George
F. Kennan, Robert A. Scalapino, and other influential
political and academic personalities.
While denying preference to any of the above viewpoints,
the Carter administration tried to pursue a balanced policy
that would contain elements of diverse conceptual attitudes.
By 1978 the administration had been drawn to the idea of a
198
“balanced” China policy (enunciated by A. Doak Barnett,
Jerome A. Cohen, and others). The idea of “balanced non­
interference” in Soviet-Chinese relations on security issues
was associated with the US Secretary of State Cyrus Vance.
However, the predominant influence on the Carter administra­
tion’s Asia-Pacific policy was exercised by supporters of the
foreign policy advocated by Zbigniew Brzezinski, insisting
on the elaboration and use of various “levers of pressure”
on the Soviet Union (a growing military-strategic potential,
close coordination among countries of the capitalist world,
and active utilisation of the China factor within, among other
things, the “united front” concept). Fulfilment of the USA’s
strategic plans in this region was to be ensured also by
“maximum mobility”, including an ability for a rapid deploy­
ment in that region of large contingents of US troops.
The principal objective of Brzezinski’s visit to Beijing in
May 1978 was, as Brzezinski himself conceded, to underscore
the long-term, strategic nature of the USA’s relations with
China. Unlike the talks during Vance’s visit to the PRC in 1977,
Brzezinski’s talks in Beijing focussed mainly not on bilateral
relations but on recording that the USA and the PRC had
“common interests” in the world and on working out a joint
foreign policy platform. After this visit the administration
in Washington approved the sale to China of West European
high-tech equipment that could be used for both military
and civilian purposes.
The sides made a special effort to produce an acceptable
formula for establishing diplomatic relations. The US proposals
boiled down to the following:
1. The Japanese formula (an Ambassador in Beijing, and a
liaison group on Taiwan).
2. Replacement of the “mutual security” treaty with a
unilateral declaration by Washington of its support for the
regime in Taipei.
3. Retention by the USA or private American firms of the
right to sell armaments to Taiwan after the island became a
province of the PRC.
4. Conversion of Taiwan into a sort of Hong Kong.
5. A public statement by Beijing that it would not use
force against Taiwan.
199
 In the joint communique, issued in Beijing and Washington
on December 16, 1978, the PRC and the USA announced the
establishment of diplomatic relations. Washington recognised
the government of the PRC as the sole legitimate government
of China but reserved the right to have cultural, commercial,
4md other unofficial relations with the “people of Taiwan”.
The USA's treaty with Taiwan contained a provision stating
that the official alliance between Washington and Taipei could
be annulled one year after notification of this was made by
one of the signatories. Such notice was given by the USA on
December 23, 1978. In the joint communique they recorded
different attitudes to the Taiwan problem. The American
government recognised China’s stand (that there is only one
China, and that Taiwan is a part of China), but did not say
anything to indicate that this was also the US stand. At news
conferences held after the communique was signed, Carter
and Hua Guofeng also noted that differences remained on
the Taiwan problem (the US would continue to maintain
relations with the “people of Taiwan” while the Chinese
declared that the “people of Taiwan were their compatriots”;
the USA would sell defensive armaments to Taiwan even
after the US-Taiwan “security” treaty was annulled, while
the PRC was categorically opposed to this).
The US-Chinese communique on the establishment of
diplomatic relations caught political observers in different
countries by surprise. Many of them expected this to take place
after the USA signed SALT-II1 with the USSR. This had
been indicated by the logic of the Nixon-Kissinger diplomacy,
which provided for an “equidistance” in the manoeuvring
between China and the Soviet Union. However, in stepping
up its efforts to improve relations with the PRC, the Carter
administration acted in unison with its generals. The military-
industrial complex lobby lauded Carter for adopting and
putting into effect a new military programme that provided for,
among other things, the development and deployment of new
types of nuclear-missile weapons — the highly accurate,
mobile M-X intercontinental missile, strategic air-based cruise

1 The Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty was signed in Vienna in June

1979.—Ed.

200
missiles, new Trident nuclear-powered ballistic missile sub­
marines, land-based cruise missiles and medium-range Pershing
Us designated for deployment in Western Europe, and so on.
The Carter administration’s statements in support of SALT-II
were thus nullified not only by official statements about the
USA’s intention to continue modernising its military potential
but also by practical steps to build up armaments.
Naturally, an offshoot of the approach of presidential
elections was a hardening of the administration’s policy towards
the Soviet Union. The administration steered a course that
aggravated the situation in various parts of the world, notably
in the Middle and the Far East and in the Persian Gulf. There
was a marked slowing down of the disarmament process,
chiefly in its main sector — the Soviet-US talks on limiting
strategic armaments. After cutting the SALT process short,
the USA proceeded to undermine the military-strategic parity
in the USSR-USA-China “triangle”. Leslie Gelb and Richard
Ullman, US authorities on politico-strategic problems, noted,
evidently not without reason, that SALT-II was condemned to
defeat in the US Senate long before the events in Afghanistan.
The Carter administration’s foreign policy course clearly
signalled its intention to break with the “equidistance” line.
This course encountered strong resistance from the pro-Taipei
forces, whom Carter, like his predecessors, was unable to
appease. Senator Barry Goldwater and 24 other members of
the conservative wing in the Senate Med a suit with Federal
Judge Oliver Gasch, stating that President Carter had denied
them their right as Senators to influence the administration’s
decisions, especially over the annulment of the treaty with
Taiwan. The blazing passions over the decision to establish
diplomatic relations with the PRC soon died down. The opposi­
tion got substantial proof that the Washington administration
would not leave Taiwan to the whims of fate.
The USA took into account Taiwan’s ability at the time to
repulse an external military threat and also the fact that the
Americans had the possibility, even after the treaty with Taiwan
was cancelled, to sell it armaments for the maintenance of the
Kuomintang regime on the island. Hardly had the ink dried on
the document formalising the establishment of diplomatic
relations between the PRC and the USA than US information
201
agencies, quoting Pentagon officials, reported that the Washing­
ton administration had adopted a long-term (1979-1983)
programme of armaments sales to Taiwan. These sales,
amounting to 625 million dollars, were to include F-5E jet
fighter aircraft, Sidewinder, Hawk, and Maverick missiles,
tanks, artillery, aircraft bombs, torpedoes, and some other
types of military hardware. China's readiness to agree to the
sale of American armaments to Taiwan upon the expiry of
the US-Taiwan mutual defence treaty, it was stressed in the
American press, was the most significant concession made
by Beijing.
China counted on providing its Armed Forces with the
entire spectrum of strength and means for the conduct of
modem warfare without becoming dependent on the West
in military and industrial terms chiefly by restructuring its
economy and eliminating the weaknesses hampering its
development. While concentrating on promoting agriculture
and small-scale industry, China took steps to modernise and
enlarge its heavy industry as the basis for creating its own
systems of armaments. The content of a talk between Nomura
Kiichi Saeki, president of a Japanese research centre, and Wu
Xiuquan, Chief of the Chinese General Staff, in October 1980
was made available to Japanese analysts. China was declared
as being in a position to modernise its Armed Forces only
after it had modernised its non-military spheres — industry,
agriculture, science, and technology. This was where national
and international corporations could, regardless of the stand
of their governments, extend tangible assistance to China.
Sales of high-tech industrial plant to China depended on
the international situation and on the overall orientation of
Washington’s foreign policy. Upon coming to power the Reagan
administration’s stand on military cooperation with China was
cautious. Reagan was aware, and made no secret of it, that one
fine day the armaments that the USA sold to China might be
used against the USA itself. However, in Washington they saw
the promotion of military links primarily as a strong foreign
policy bargaining chip.
Visible changes, notably in bilateral links, took place with
the establishment of US-Chinese diplomatic relations on
January 1, 1979: the prospect opened for visits by Chinese
202
leaders to the USA and for organising air and sea communica­
tion between the two countries, and more conducive conditions
were created for promoting US-Chinese trade, economic,
scientific, technological, cultural, and other contacts. Moreover,
it became more likely that China would use the expansion of
US-Chinese contacts to build up its scientific and technological
potential, the lack of which was (and is) the main bottleneck
on the road to the formation of a modern military-industrial
capacity.
In embarking upon the risk-laden renunciation of its “bal­
anced” policy towards the USSR and China, the USA proceeded
from the premise that a militarily powerful China would be a
factor benefiting the American geopolitical strategy and that
the sale of military hardware and licences for the manufacture
of American armaments in China would not tilt the world
balance of strength to the detriment of the USA.
While believing that there were common “American-Chinese
strategic interests” in the confrontation with the USSR and
showing an interest in strengthening China’s military potential,
US political and academic circles were inclined to regard
cooperation with China rather as a means of bringing political
pressure to bear upon the Soviet Union. Advocates of this
attitude saw military links with China as a substantial lever for
reducing the likelihood of an improvement of Soviet-Chinese
relations.
Following the defeat of the Gang of Four there was a miti­
gation of the Chinese stand on the question of accepting West­
ern offers of technology that could be used for military purposes.
China agreed to government-to-government level negotia­
tions with the USA on scientific and technological issues.
The USA sold China computer technology (the Cyber-172
computer) widely recognised by experts as applicable for
military purposes. Washington insisted on harsh terms. With
inspection of the use of the Cyber-172 computer as the
pretext, the Americans would have virtual access to China’s
computer centres.
Far from objecting, the Americans approved sales of arma­
ments and technology to China by their NATO allies, France
and Britain. Brzezinski intimated that the USA would encourage
its European allies to sell weaponry to Beijing, true, with the
203
reservation that this would be defensive weaponry. Michael
Pillsbury, a Reagan team member known as a protagonist of
broader Western military contacts with China, published an
article headed 44A Japanese Card” in which he advocated such
contacts, including the exchange of visits, invitation of Chinese
military personnel to observe joint American-Japanese military
exercises as well as limited participation of Chinese ships in
such exercises.1
Influential quarters in the USA counted on the initiatives
to establish military cooperation becoming a means of reinforc­
ing the position of Chinese leaders, particularly of military
personalities, who had shown an interest in an expansion of
relations with the USA. The Ford administration, which
sanctioned the sale of the Cyber-172 computer to China,
encountered opposition from adversaries of this deal who
contended that this type of computer could be used for
further programmes of nuclear armament. “A State Depart­
ment desire to show a symbol of receptivity to the new leaders
in Peking,” The Washington Post wrote, “... is reportedly
likely to help produce approval of the computer sale.”12 Some
modifications of the computers designated in the USA for
sale to China were banned by the Carter administration for
export to the USSR in July 1978.
The decision of the White House to sell the PRC technology
that could be used for purely military purposes was aimed at
securing more confidential relations with China’s new leader­
ship. It was, perhaps, not accidental that this decision coincided
in time (October 1976) with the removal of the Gang of
Four from the political scene.
The White House gave more attention to military contacts
with China following visits to that country by the US Defense
Secretary Harold Brown in January 1980 and the Under
Secretary of Defense William J. Perry in September of the
same year. It announced its intention of permitting American
companies to sell military-transport aircraft, anti-aircraft radar
systems, trucks, transport helicopters, communications equip­
ment, computers, and other items to China. American firms

1 Foreign Policy, No. 33. Winter 1978-1979. pp. 25. 26.

2 The Washington Post, October 21. 1976.

204
were given permission to build factories in China for the
manufacture of US-designed helicopters and computers. In the
autumn of 1980 400 licences for the export to China of
various military-oriented equipment and technology were
approved. The impression was created that the sides were
actively promoting military cooperation. However, there proved
to be formidable obstacles to such cooperation, caused by
objective factors, chiefly China’s economic, scientific, and
technological backwardness and the clash of US and Chinese
interests in bilateral relations. Progress was fettered by the
Taiwan problem and also the doubts among influential circles
in the USA about the durability of the edge obtained by
Washington in the distribution of forces in the USSR-USA-
China “triangle”.
In China’s programme for modernising its industry account
was taken of the possibility of cooperating with international
military-industrial monopolies, including those linked to Ame­
rican business. Much publicity was given in the 1970s to a deal
with the British Rolls Royce Corporation. Under this deal the
Chinese purchased not only a large number of Spei jet aircraft
engines but also the licence for manufacturing them in China.
Stanley Hooker, technical director of Rolls Royce, was elected
honorary professor of Beijing University. The British Rolls
Royce acted in close cooperation with the American Pratt
& Whitney Company — manufacturer of Boeing-707 engines —
which had earlier sold 40 of these engines to China.
Equipment manufactured by Daedalus Enterprises, including
infrared and television devices, permits identifying seemingly
very insignificant deviations in the geological structure for
the forecasting of earthquakes. But the same devices are fully
applicable for military purposes — to detect underground
facilities from high-flying aircraft. The Washington govern­
ment’s motivation for selling this equipment to China was that
the Chinese radio-electronic industry had no facilities for
adapting it for military uses. It seemed that by giving Beijing
access to “grey zone” technology and equipment (i.e., equip­
ment of dual designation — for civilian and military uses),
the USA was aiming to build up a wide-ranging system of
multifarious contacts giving it a certain measure of control
over China’s scientific and technological potential.
205
 The USA's rulers were eager to see China as a long-term
counter-balance to Soviet influence, but they could not ignore
the possibility that with the growth of its military and economic
potential China could be a tangible threat to the West’s regional
and global foreign policy and commercial interests. On
October 16, 1980 China exploded another of its nuclear
devices in the atmosphere. This explosion gave rise to serious
apprehensions in the USA, because ecologists believed it could
cause considerable damage on American territory. The press
prepared people for the worst — it was expected that in the
USA radiation would reach a higher level than after the
Chinese nuclear test in 1978. The 1980 explosion was ten times
as powerful as the test in 1978. There was alarm world-wide.
In Washington they linked this test to the changes in the general
strategic situation. They now felt that the Soviet Union was
not the only serious threat to the USA. The new Chinese
missiles, which could reach the USA, introduced substantial
corrections into strategic thinking.
Lester L. Wolff, Chairman of the Congressional Sub­
committee on Asian and Pacific Affairs, noted that the USA
favoured a strong and modernising China in the next ten
years but could it not happen that a strong China might find
it had interests that differed from those seen by the USA today?

Reagan’s China Policy

Ronald Reagan’s election to the presidency signified that

a stronger influence was being exercised on American policy
by the powerful US West coast financial and industrial groups.
The USA’s “Californisation” brought significant structural
changes to the American economy. In addition to ships and
trains, California began to produce computers, wide-fuselage
aircraft, fighter planes, intercontinental missiles, new types
of bomber aircraft, neutron weapons, and the entire space
arsenal for the twenty-first century. It specialised increasingly
in the manufacture of strategic instruments of war. By 1983
the California factories of the military-industrial complex had
been awarded up to 23 per cent of the Pentagon contracts.
By that year there were in the state some 8,550 of the Pentagon’s
206
major contractors. These included Lockheed, Hewlett-Packard,
Rockwell, and Northrop. This was where the Bank of America
flourished — during the Second World War this Bank acquired
the strength to compete on an equal footing with the biggest
New York banks. The philosophy of the Californian business­
man and politician absorbed mythical notions about the first
settlers on the Pacific coast (“Only the strong settled here,
there was no place for the weak”). The proponents of this
philosophy had an aversion for the philanthropic idea of
helping the weak. They were, above all, worshippers of the
cult of personal benefit and cultivated among their compatriots
an unbridled passion for wealth (“Self-assertion instead of
compassion”).
The strengthening of the positions held by California-based
transnational corporations of all kinds, banks, and insurance
companies led to the predominance of the ideology of unlimited
free enterprise. The most rabid proponents of this ideology
entered the White House together with Reagan.
Ronald Reagan assimilated his predecessors’ spirit of
messianism, a rather distinctive characteristic of American
statesmen. As early as at the beginning of his political career,
when he was at the centre of the trade union intrigues and
political scandals of the “witch-hunt” years in the corridors of
Hollywood, he adopted the pose of a disinterested advocate of
Christian morals and the banner-bearer of patriotism. If God
had put a sick humanity in the hands of America, he reasoned,
the cure for the uncertain ego with the aid of political therapy
of the ultra-right school could also be a cure for the whole of
mankind. But was Reagan, as Governor of California, able to
halt the growth of crime, alcoholism, and drug-addiction in
his home state? Had he given a better lot to people of ethnic
minorities inhabiting the Pacific coast? The temptation to play
the role of a spiritual mentor to humanity was not abandoned by
Reagan when he became President. The education of Americans
in a spirit of hatred for socialist countries (“empire of evil”)
became a central objective of his administration.
Naturally, the consolidation of the position of ultra-right
Republicans influenced the formation of Washington’s China
policy, which it regarded as a major area of its international
activities. The Reagan entourage’s sense of messianic pre-
207
destination stimulated the administration’s efforts to prevent
China from developing cooperation — an unhappy prospect
for the right — with socialist countries. The Reagan administra­
tion drew upon the experience of the bipartisan policy that
got its start with the Nixon visit to Beijing in 1972. However,
Reagan’s China policy was also influenced by the tenacity of
traditional Republican prejudices about the opposite social
system, prejudices that persevered particularly among conser­
vative politicians partial to the Taiwan regime.
Carter’s attempts to put the “doctrine of anti-detente”
into effect raised the tension level world-wide, including the
Asia and Pacific region. The situation in this region was growing
particularly disturbing: the higher level of military-political
activity was felt keenly in precisely this region, the arms race
among the Asian states had approached a new, dangerous
degree, and flashpoints of crisis were being sustained and
fanned. The Reagan administration reaffirmed the continuity
of its handling and implementation of the USA’s Asia policy.
There was a vitalisation of the USA’s military and political
contacts with its Asian allies; Washington increased its pressure
on Japan to get it to make a larger contribution to the West’s
military-strategic efforts; and there was no diminution of the
links between Washington and Beijing despite the fact that
there was a pessimistic slant in Reagan’s pre-election assess­
ments of Sino-US relations.
The Reagan administration increased the proportion of
elements of force in US policy in the Asia and Pacific region.
This was no accidental whim on the part of the new President.
In the 1960s Reagan had with enviable steadfastness supported
the right-wing extremist Barry Goldwater who urged using
nuclear weapons against Vietnam, in the latter’s nomination
for the presidency. Although Reagan did not begin his term
of office as President with the advocacy of the use of the atomic
bomb against the “empire of evil”, there was a perceptible
growth of the role of the factor of military strength in his
policies. His administration began to establish closer military
and political cooperation with friendly nations: the USA
completed negotiations and signed a new agreement with the
Philippines on the status of US military bases; military aid was
increased significantly, to Thailand in the first place; more
208
military-technical contacts were established with Southeast
Asian states oriented towards the capitalist world; the US
Seventh Fleet became more active; the level of the US military
presence likewise increased sharply.
The contours of Reagan’s basic foreign policy guidelines
were clearly marked out in the protracted political battles
long before he entered the White House. He charged his ill-
starred predecessor James Carter with the temptation to
withdraw from “global responsibility”. “To many,” he wrote,
“the Carter administration’s declared intention to withdraw
troops from South Korea appears to be evidence that U.S.
policy-makers are giving in to that temptation.”1
In what way could the USA preserve its “global responsi­
bility” and make a dramatic gain in the confrontation with the
Soviet Union? Even before Reagan became President he
believed that a sure way to this objective was to place the
accent on a decisive build-up of armaments, on attaining
military superiority over the Soviet Union. In accordance with
the new President’s basic military and political guidelines
the USA had to have the capability to use force more effectively
wherever this was required by its global interests.
Reagan’s China policy harmonised with his pattern of US
“global responsibility”, which was linked largely to fidelity
to allied commitments. Although in Reagan’s conservative
worldview the experience of building the new society in China
was identified with “communism”, he gave his backing to
Nixon’s new China policy while remaining quite firm in
supporting the Taiwan regime. He declared that the Carter
administration’s bent upon evading commitments to Taiwan
exemplified its “temptation” to withdraw from “global responsi­
bility”.
Reagan’s consultants and advisers placed confrontation with
the Soviet Union at the top of the list of foreign policy
priorities. Advocates of coalitions of various kinds, who strongly
influenced the Carter administration, saw the USA’s foreign
policy priorities in the following order: relations in the triangle:
the USA—Western Europe — Japan, US relations with
developing countries, and relations with the Soviet Union.

1 Orbis. A Journal of World Affairs, Vol. 21, No. 3, Fall 1977, p. 518.

14-0768 209
 Reagan's election to the presidency strengthened the hand of
the advocates of top priority for the confrontation with the
so-called “Soviet threat" and for the mobilisation of Ameri­
can resources to meet this “threat". Sharp criticism of the USA's
allies grew more distinct among the US ruling circles. To some
extent, this reflected the exacerbation of the contradictions
between the leading capitalist powers. Popularity was acquired
by the “new continentalism" doctrine, whose proponents urged
a bigger US effort in the Western Hemisphere (the formation,
in particular, of a “North American Common Market")
in the face of what they saw as an external threat.
In a letter to Premier Zhao Ziyang to commemorate the
10th anniversary of the Shanghai communique, Reagan noted
what he felt were beneficial results of the ten-year development
of American-Chinese relations. “Our bilateral ties," he wrote,
“now encompass trade, banking, maritime affairs, civil aviation,
agriculture, educational and scientific exchange, technology
transfer, and many other fields. Well over one hundred
thousand Americans and Chinese now flow back and forth
between the two countries each year." He declared that it
was his hope to build “an even stronger bilateral and strategic
framework" for US-Chinese relations.
In the course of the ten years following the signing of the
Shanghai communique the two countries had indeed covered
considerable ground, compared with the past, towards mutual
rapprochement.
A major act designed to allay Beijing's apprehensions about
the destiny of its relations with the USA in connection with
Reagan's election to the White House was the visit to China at
the close of March 1981 by Gerald Ford as Reagan’s special
emissary. The fact that Ford was chosen as the US President’s
special emissary caused no particular surprise either in Beijing
or in Washington. Reagan’s rival for the Republican nomina­
tion in the 1976 presidential race, Ford was well-known to the
Chinese leaders, whom he had met at various levels. The
appropriate background for Ford's negotiations in Beijing had
been prepared by the Chinese Ambassador in the USA, who
in his talks with Americans focussed attention on “global
strategic issues".1 Ford went to China, as he himself said,
1 The Times of India, March 30, 1981.

210
to reassure its leaders that President Reagan wanted to continue
improving Chinese-American relations. He conveyed an oral
message from Reagan to Deng Xiaoping and a letter to Prime
Minister Zhao Ziyang.1
Following the 12th Congress of the CPC US Vice President
George Bush and the Secretary of State George P. Shultz met
with the PRC’s Foreign Minister Huang Hua (November 1982),
while the Chinese Finance Minister Wang Bingqian met with
Bush, Shultz, and the US Secretary of the Treasury Donald
Regan (December 1982). These meetings were followed by a
series of visits by US government officials to prepare for
Reagan’s visit to China.
After diplomatic relations were established between the
PRC and the USA, the two countries signed a series of agree­
ments that largely determined the volume of trade between
them for the closing years of the 1970s and the early 1980s.
In January 1980 the US Congress ratified a three-year Sino-US
trade agreement under which the sides accorded to each other
the status of most-favoured nation in trade. This resulted in a
significant lowering of US tariffs on imports from China (on the
average from 24 to 5.5 per cent). The operation of this trade
agreement ended in December 1982. The USA and China made
progress in other areas of trade and economic relations (for
instance, they signed agreements on scientific and technical
cooperation, and on cooperation in high energy physics; letters
were exchanged on cooperation in education, agriculture, and
space exploration). Much of the US equipment purchased by
China was dual-purpose (computers, transport facilities, and
other items whose export to other socialist countries was limited).
China’s economic and military development following the
death of Mao was seen as extremely favourable to the USA by
Henry S. Reuss, Chairman of the US Congressional Joint
Economic Committee. This was also the view of John P. Hardt,
Deputy Director of the US Congressional Research Service Staff
and chief expert on the economy of socialist countries. American
experts noted, in particular, that the difficulties the PRC
was experiencing were creating opportunities for making it eco­
nomically more dependent on the USA and that it was in the lat­
ter’s interest to sign a broad-ranging long-term economic agree-
The New York Times, March 24, 1981.

211
ment with the PRC on extensive cooperation in developing
China’s steel industry, transport, power industry, and agri­
culture. Such an agreement, it was noted, “could assure the
United States an equal or privileged position in the China mar­
ket for years to come”. American analysts believed that the
steps taken by Reagan in relations with China would allow the
Washington administration to respond flexibly to major policy
changes in Beijing.1
Aggravating its relations with the Soviet Union, the Reagan
administration had to take Beijing’s attitude into consideration
for the Chinese were making attempts to depict the Soviet
initiatives to safeguard peace and curb the arms race as designed
to “erode the position” of the West and undermine NATO
“unity”.
At that time China’s approach to disarmament was only be­
ginning to crystallize. Naturally enough, the negative ef­
fects of the “cultural revolution” were still felt in this area
of foreign relations. The comprehensive disarmament pro­
gramme that the PRC submitted to the Disarmament Committee
in 1979 applied to only the USSR and the USA. It left aside
any and all specific commitments of other powers, the PRC
included, concerning limitation of arms, notably nuclear arms.
But factors working in favour of a realistic approach to war and
peace had already begun to gradually gather force in China.
After visiting China in May-June 1982, Howard H. Baker,
a leading member of the Republican wing in the US Senate,
noted in his report that the Chinese went out of their way
to show that they and the Americans had a “common and paral­
lel interest” by maintaining bilateral relations at the
appropriate level and strengthening them. Baker noted that
they referred to Afghanistan, Kampuchea, and Vietnam. The
conservatives doubted that there was any likelihood of a
change in the Chinese attitude to the USSR even if there was
a downgrading of the level of US-Chinese relations.
As was expected, the charting of the Reagan administration’s
China policy was influenced by the US Vice President George
Bush. His name was closely associated with the USA’s new
1 China Under the Four Modernizations. Part J, Selected Papers Sub­
mitted to the Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States,
August 13, 1982, U S. G.P.O., Washington, 1982, p. 17.

212
China policy. The most noteworthy landmark of his career
as the US representative in the United Nations Organisation
at the very outset of the 1970s was his implementation of
Nixon’s China policy. This was precisely when Taiwan was
expelled from the UN. Soon afterwards Bush headed the US
liaison mission in Beijing. Ford recalled Bush from China
in 1975 and appointed him as head of the CIA, which post
he held until January 1977, when the Ford administration’s
term of office expired.
Bush next appeared in Houston, Texas, as a member of the
board of several Texas banking and industrial corporations,
and also a member of a trilateral commission. His unflagging
interest in oil, including Chinese oil, dates back to the early
1950s when he became one of the founders of the Zapata
Petroleum Corporation. He soon headed the Zapata Offshore
Company, which specialised in seabed boring for oil. As pres­
ident of the company and chairman of its board, he expand­
ed the business energetically. His company gradually evolved
into a transnational corporation with multimillion assets
and operations in various parts of the world.
Bush’s political career was from the beginning linked to the
petroleum business. He made his first important political
steps in 1959 from his headquarters in Houston, which American
businessmen call the “petroleum capital of the world”.
George Bush did much to promote understanding between
US petroleum business and China. He visited China in the
autumn of 1977, offering the services of American oil companies
mainly to survey for oil. His personal interest in links to China
naturally influenced his activities in politics.
With Reagan’s election to the presidency the situation
became more favourable for a vitalisation of radical conser­
vatives, who began to air publicly their doubts about there
being conducive prospects for the development of relations
with China. American newspapers printed material designed
to show that the Soviet and Chinese leaders had identical
strategic aims. The American public was acquainted with a
“memorandum on a new plan for world revolution”, supposedly
written by Mao Zedong and allegedly taken to Moscow in 1953
by Zhou Enlai. “Some people in the USA,” Renmin ribao noted,
“are trying to portray China in the image of the Soviet
213
Union.” In this commentary, Renmin ribao declared that the
Americans had no reasons for suspecting the Chinese of having
views drawing the PRC close to the Soviet Union.
Criticism of Reagan took into account influential voices
in the US academic community opposing the use of Taiwan as
“small change” in the relations with China. The fact that
all the elements of the US policy in East Asia were closely
interrelated was shown by Gaston J. Sigur, Director of the
Institute for Sino-Soviet Studies and Professor of Interna­
tional Affairs at George Washington University. For instance,
he was categorically opposed to a rupture of relations with
Taiwan, arguing that this “would tend to destabilize the
area and seriously disturb U.S. relations with our allies and
adversaries alike”. In their assessments of the Taiwan problem
spokesmen of this school of American socio-political thinking,
which was extremely close to the views of Ronald Reagan,
proceeded from what they saw as their basic theoretical
premise, namely, that the Soviet Union and China were,
despite the tension in the relations between them, “potential
adversaries” of the USA. The Soviet Union and China, Sigur
contended, would interpret a weakening of relations between the
USA and Taiwan as evidence of a weakening of US political
and military influence in the Asia and Pacific region.1
Spokesmen of academic circles, supporting Reagan’s con­
cept in the main, regarded balancing between the USSR and
China as the most rational policy for the United States while
maintaining a strong US military presence in the region.
They believed that in its Asian policy the USA should, first,
pursue the aim of preserving the status quo and, second,
back this up with military strength and alliances. This, Sigur
insisted, would allow “both the United States and Japan
to negotiate with the U.S.S.R. and the People’s Republic
of China from a maximum position of strength. We can seek
advantageous agreements with the major Communist States with
the least amount of danger to our security interests.”2

1 United States—Soviet Union—China: The Great Power Triangle,

Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Future Foreign Policy Research
and Development of the Committee on International Relations, House of
Representatives, 94th Congress, pp. 260, 261.
* Ibid., p. 262.
214
 The Reagan policy was based on the premise that the
PRC had a larger interest than the USA in promoting US-Chi-
nese relations. Reagan administration aides based their calcula­
tion, as also party associates did at the time the Shanghai
communique was drawn up, on the belief that further conces­
sions could be obtained primarily on the Taiwan problem.
The Reagan administration endeavoured to word its Chi­
na policy so as, on the one hand, to maintain strategic
relations with China and, on the other, to carry out the prom­
ises given by Reagan during his election campaign to abide
by the US-Taiwan Relations Act.
In the summer of 1981 US-Chinese relations were subjected
to, perhaps, their first serious test since diplomatic relations
were established. A sharp dispute erupted over the sale of new
types of weapons to Taiwan.
A joint Sino-US communique, drawn up after long argument,
was published on August 17, 1982. It stated that the USA
would seek to gradually reduce its sales of arms to Taiwan,
leading over a period of time to a final halt. Arms sales to
Taiwan, the USA promised, would not exceed, either in quali­
tative or in quantitative terms, the level of those supplied
since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the
USA and China in 1979. This communique was only a symbolic
document called upon to note that Washington would pursue
a “one China” policy.
The Chinese protested chiefly the Reagan administration’s
decision to sell new types of fighter-aircraft to Taiwan.
In Beijing it was intimated unequivocally that if this decision
were implemented the “level of diplomatic relations would
fall”.
In Washington they looked for a way out of this deadlock.
Finally, a new decision was taken—that Taiwan’s defence
requirements called for continued production of the F-5E
aircraft jointly with the USA and that the sale of spare parts
for military hardware would not be cut off.
Neither Reagan’s message to Beijing with assurances of
his adherence to the “one China” policy (April 1982), nor the
visits to China by senior American officials moved the Chinese.
They refused to accept anything less than a cessation of arms
sales to Taiwan. Following a visit to China in May-June 1982,
215
 the Republican majority leader in the Senate Howard Baker
admitted that in the opinion of the Chinese the “hindrances”
in US-Chinese relations were a violation of China’s sovereignty
and, obviously, a repudiation of the fact that “there is one
China and that Taiwan is an inalienable part of it”. The Chinese
maintained that the American assurances that Washington
was steadfastly pursuing a “one China” policy were no more
than declarations, and that these were at odds with actions.
In Beijing the Americans were told that they had to repeal
the US-Taiwan Relations Act or, as a first step, modify it.
Senator Baker tried to pacify his interlocuters with the
assurance that this act was being applied strictly in keeping
with the 1972 Shanghai communique. But the Chinese would
not budge, saying that “a gloom hangs over our relations as
long as the act is in operation”. Baker asserted that the act
was working quite effectively in the context of settling
unofficial relations with Taiwan and he did not see any sense
in getting Congress to modify it.
In spite of everything the Chinese made major concessions.
This was also acknowledged in Beijing—China agreed to
regard the American arms sales to Taiwan as a left-over from
the past.
Nevertheless, the Chinese repeatedly invoked the communi­
que of August 17, 1982, demanding US compliance with its
terms. In mid-March 1983 the PRC Foreign Ministry declared
that American arms sales to Taiwan were greatly in excess of
the level stipulated in the communique. The US administration
confined itself to reasserting its stand—it would continue
selling arms to Taiwan and the price would take inflation
into account, against which Beijing objected.
In the actual business of implementing his China policy
Reagan demonstrates his conservatism. On occasion he reaf­
firms his administration’s intention to comply with the US-
Taiwan Relations Act (passed by the US Congress in 1979),
which, according to him, prescribes helping Taiwan to maintain
its military strength. This is also the spirit in which the Reagan
administration sees the US stand relative to the US-Chinese
joint communique of August 17, 1982. Reagan’s fellow
conservatives are expecting a more visible tilt by the President
towards Taiwan. Barry Gold water is clinging to his former
216
position, demanding a consolidation of the USA's relations
with Taiwan and continued American arms sales to the island.
When the passions generated by the euphoria over the
signing of the Shanghai communique subsided, the time came
for sober assessments of past experience.
Analysts noted how modestly the anniversary of the
Shanghai meeting was marked. In a letter to Reagan Premier
Zhao Ziyang reminded the Americans in rather dry language
that US-Chinese relations would continue to develop if both
governments complied with the principles jointly spelled out
by them in the Shanghai communique. This was a transparent
hint—in Beijing they had long been saying that the Washing­
ton administration was looking for ways of evading the com­
mitments, particularly on the Taiwan problem, it had under­
taken in Shanghai and in connection with the establishment
of diplomatic relations. It had grown increasingly obvious
that the structure of the US-Chinese relations had by no
means removed the contradictions between the two countries.
Confronted by modifications in the PRC’s foreign policy
and by the changes in the international situation as a whole,
Reagan administration aides began to try and work out their
own approach to problems of the China policy. Speaking on
March 5, 1983 Secretary of State George Shultz summarised
his 12-day tour of Far Eastern and Southeast Asian nations.
Judging by what he said, Washington was reassessing China’s
role in international affairs. Shultz departed from the Kissinger
line, which at the time the Shanghai communique was signed
accentuated the significance of the strategic triangle (USA-
USSR-China) to American policy. Shultz ignored the course
urged by his predecessor in the Carter administration Zbigniew
Brzezinski. The latter wanted China to be drawn into a serious
strategic dialogue about the state of Sino-Soviet-US relations.
Alexander Haig, the first Secretary of State in the Reagan
administration, was reputedly an advocate of a strategic
partnership within the framework of US-Japanese-Chinese
relations. By sending Haig to China in June 1981, the USA
demonstrated that it was in favour of a “strategic partnership
with China’’. Shultz, who replaced Haig as Secretary of State,
took a different tack—when he spoke of China he avoided
the word “strategic” and sought to depict the PRC as being
217
no more than a regional power. On April 15, 1983, during a
visit to Singapore, the US Assistant Secretary of State for
East Asian and Pacific Affairs Paul Wolfowitz said that the
USA was not belittling China’s global role, but felt that there
evidently had been a tendency to see China more as a global
rather than a regional power. In other words, by regarding
China as a regional power the Reagan administration is
endeavouring to so pattern its China policy as to give its
junior partner in the US-Chinese dialogue the function of
a military and political counter-balance to the Soviet Union
in the Far East, of diverting to itself a section of the Soviet
Armed Forces. Ray Cline, former Deputy Director of the CIA
and a leading associate of the Georgetown University Center
for Strategic and International Studies in Washington
(incidentally, with views close to those of conservative Republi­
cans), was blunter than official government spokesmen. He
warned against counting on China, saying that this “strategic
mistake” could disturb significant links with an element of the
“geostrategic chain” of friendly countries along the line from
Japan and South Korea through Taiwan and the Philippines
to Australia and New Zealand. Thinking along these lines
totally rejected the concept of interaction between the USA
and China in a “united front”, a concept that indeed did not
enjoy, as it used to under Carter, any particular popularity
among the senior aides of the Reagan administration.
Implementation of the above-mentioned programme was
impeded by objective contradictions between China and the
capitalist West. Even the American press, in assessing the
role of “muscle and thinking” in shaping US foreign policy,
noted that the line towards an anti-Soviet “alliance” would
tie US policy to Chinese interests, and that this went far
beyond the bounds of sense or necessity. In China and in
Western capitalist countries there are influential forces that
see the parallelism of current foreign policy courses as transient
and coming into conflict with the long-term objectives of the
nations involved.
Beijing’s place and role in the modern system of inter­
national relations, in solving cardinal international problems
are in the end determined not by current changes on the
international scene, however dramatic they may be, but by
218
the operation of long-term tendencies in the development of
the domestic situation in China and on the international scene.
The influence exercised by China’s foreign policy on world
politics, on the struggle for detente, is limited by the country’s
actual potentialities, particularly in its economic and military-
political spheres.
Factors such as the backwardness of the Chinese economy
and the correspondingly low profile of China’s participation
in the international division of labour check the realisation
of China’s potentialities (its huge army of cheap labour and
its raw material and energy resources) in the development of
international economic relations. The plan for modernising
the Chinese economy with American financial assistance proved
to be not as attractive as it was first thought to be. The Chinese
leaders are trying to limit the undesirable effects of the
incursion of foreign capital into China. Beijing has adopted a
fairly cautious approach to attracting foreign capital, instituting
steps to limit foreign investment by means of taxation and
territorial restrictions (free trade zones). In Beijing they were
apprehensive lest any further deepening of relations with
the West would make China increasingly more dependent
(financially, technologically) on the leading powers of the
capitalist world, which, in turn, would diminish China’s op­
portunities to pursue an independent line in the world. Since
1979-1980 the Chinese leaders have turned down large heavy
industry deals with the West, in the talks on which considerable
progress had been made in the latter half of the 1970s.
The difficulties encountered in promoting US-Chinese
trade and economic relations are due to a number of closely
interrelated factors. First, the absence of the needed currency
reserves and the fact that the export base is quite undeveloped.
The need to ensure political stability is linked to measures
aimed at raising the population’s living standard, and this
diverts a substantial proportion of export resources (apart
from raw materials, China’s exports are mainly foodstuffs,
textiles, and light industry manufactured goods). It seemed
that the practice of exchanging Chinese raw materials and fuel
resources for up-to-date equipment and technologies was
stimulating an expansion of trade and economic relations
between China and the USA. In the early and mid-1970s.
219
for instance, China’s petroleum output rose at an annual rate
of 20 per cent. But China did not become a major oil exporter,
for at the brink of the 1980s its output stabilised at a level of
about 100 million tons—and this against the background of
growing domestic oil consumption. Textiles are one of the most
important items of China’s export (high quality, relatively
low cost). However, the growth of Chinese textile exports to
the American market sparked anxiety in the powerful American
protectionist lobby.
Second, the West found that in China’s economy the
conditions were unfavourable for using modern equipment
and technologies. Serious shortcomings in economic manage­
ment, the lack of the needed trained personnel, the pressure
from unskilled labour, and so on, became major factors limiting
the use of Western equipment and technologies. At the Wuhan
steel mill, for instance, the Chinese, as they themselves
acknowledged, were unable to operate 500 million dollars
worth of imported sophisticated equipment.1
Third, massive imports of foreign consumer goods restrict
consumer demand and this inhibits the development of China’s
own consumer goods industries.
In its trade and economic relations with the USA China
obviously encountered basically the same difficulties as are
encountered in similar relations between capitalist and de­
veloping nations.
American experts see serious potential contradictions in
the development of US-Chinese relations. They make no
secret of their apprehensions that "China’s nationalism” might
lead it into a kind of “competitive chauvinism”.*2 Indicative
in this respect is the talk about the twenty-first century being
the “century of the Chinese”. This, said Zhao Haosheng,
a Chinese-American scholar, is the view of many people,
who note China’s huge population and mental potential. If it
concentrates all its energy on the four modernisations, Zhao
Haosheng noted, it is bound to succeed. The successful imple­
mentation of the four modernisations would mark the begin-
ning of the Chinese age.3
' The China Business Review, Vol. 8, No. 2, March-April 1981, pp. 21-24.
2 John K. Fairbank, China bound. A Fifty-Year Memoir, Harper & Row
Publishers, New York, 1982, p. 457.
3 Zhongguo qinnianbao, June 9, 1979.

220
 China’s invasion by foreign capital and the accompanying
influence of Western lifestyles and morals, which come into
conflict with Chinese traditionalist stereotypes of thinking,
encounter relapses into left-radicalism, and the political unrest
that this might generate would in some ways be reminiscent
of the anti-Western protests during the “cultural revolution”.
The Open Door policy has objectively brought with it
phenomena such as imitating everything foreign, a fad for
foreign goods and hence the burgeoning of smuggling. With
the benefits of “reforms come political dissidence, youth
rebellion, crime, labor strikes, official corruption, defections,
and slavish pursuit of Western lifestyles”.1 In a society that,
as the Chinese leaders themselves acknowledge, experienced
a “crisis of confidence” when the Gang of Four was van­
quished, phenomena such as these were a serious social threat
to the foundations of the state. The rise of the level of anti-
American propaganda in Beijing was the reaction to these
phenomena. The American press, of course, did not accidentally
draw attention to talks given for young people by prominent
scholars, in which they spoke of the United States of America.
In replying to the question of how the USA achieved its
economic successes, they in many cases identified the real
sources of the growth of the USA’s wealth, i.e., the exploitation
of immigrant workers, of ethnic minorities, particularly Blacks
and Chinese, and the exploitation of weaker countries.
The contradictory character of the impact of the Open
Door policy on Chinese society is admitted by the Chinese
leaders themselves. Hu Yaobang, General Secretary of the
CPC Central Committee, exhorted his fellow countrymen to
adopt a “dual attitude to everything foreign”—“to take only
what is good for people and reject what is corrupt and
backward”. The line pursued by China’s leaders is aimed at
assimilating and developing Western scientific breakthroughs,
advanced equipment and technology, and rational management
methods in keeping with the specifics and situation in China.
The natidn’s economic backwardness and traditional stereo­
types in Beijing’s foreign policy came into collision with all-
sided cooperation with imperialist powers, including the USA.

The Washington Post, April 26, 1984.

CHAPTER NINE

LEFTIST LIBERALISM
AND RIGHT-WING ANTI-COMMUNISM

To a very large extent the struggle over Mao’s ideological

legacy reflected the struggle of the various forces over the
means of implementing foreign policy, including the relations
between China and the USA.

Leftist Traditions in US Sinology

Back in the 1930s and 1940s the Americans who visited

Yanan looked for and found in the areas controlled by the CPC
illustrations of the viability of the ideas of the American
revolution, of the Jeffersonian exhortations calling for liberty,
equality, and fraternity. Some American observers saw in
the CPC’s victories a panacea for the sufferings and poverty
of the Chinese people. Americans got a vision of China of
the wartime and postwar years from the many books and
articles written by Edgar Snow, Anna Louise Strong, Owen
Lattimore, Philip J. Jaffe (pen-name—Philips), T.A. Bisson,
and others, who gave a more or less positive portrayal of
the CPC.
Religious upbringing and a growth of petty-bourgeois
criticism of imperialism strongly influenced American left-
wing radicals of the 1920s- 1930s. The “social credo of the
Church”, drawn up by Methodist theologians in 1908, was an
attempt to accommodate the principles and ideals of the social
Evangelism of the early twentieth century to the practical
work of the American Protestant Church in the heyday of
the anti-monopoly, labour, socialist movement. Many young
222
people from religious families in the USA adopted as their
own the utopian demand, included in the “credo”, for an end
to the contradictions generated by private property (social
inequality reduced to the extreme) without the abolition of
the source of these contradictions. They spoke eloquently
about the sanctity of human rights and compliance with
juctice in social relations in accordance with the “Christian
conscience”.
A religious upbringing left a deep imprint on Anna Louise
Strong, whose life was linked indivisibly to the Chinese
revolution. She came from a patrician family headed by a
prominent clerical proudly calling himself a “one-hundred-
per-cent American”. Adherence to the ideals of American
petty-bourgeois democrats, who rebelled against the suppres­
sion of the rights of the small businessman by the capitalist
giants, an inclination to protest in defence of academic free­
doms, and personal participation in philanthropic activity
among the destitute determined Anna Louise Strong's choice
of ideological and political allegiances.
Her formative years as a public personality saw turbulent
political passions reach what seemed to be their highest pitch.
William M. Brown, Bishop of Arkansas, who in 1920 published
a book entitled Communism and Christianism, joined the
Communist Party of the USA in 1925 and became a devoted
champion of the working class. This was a time when in the
USA many religious ideologues were saying that Christianity
and socialism had a common aim, although, more often than
not, the “socialism” they had in mind did not range beyond
the framework of narrow petty-bourgeois notions. Their main
concepts for building a new, ideal society, envisaged harmony
between workers and employers, a harmony that was to be
achieved through a cooperative movement “for democratic
control in industry” under capitalism.
Like many other young people of those years, Anna Louise
Strong became active in the working-class movement under
the influence of the struggle that was unfolding in the USA
against unemployment, poverty, exploitation of female and
child labour, unjust wages, and other wrongs. She made her
mark among people infected by the petty-bourgeois ideas of
the leftists, among thinking intellectuals. She sympathised with
223
the revolutionary struggle of other peoples, but even at the
height of her creative work she hardly rose above the con­
scientious objectivity of a bourgeois journalist.
The ideological guidelines of the left-radical school in
American Sinology took shape over a period of many years
and appeared when militant American liberalism met with the
utopian and egalitarian ideas propounded by many leaders of
the CPC not only as the anti-feudal, anti-imperialist revo­
lution in China made headway but also after the PRC was
proclaimed.
The ideas of the Taiping movement (notably, the slogan:
“Let all people be poor, but let them be equal” ) sank deep
roots in the mind of the peasant held in the vise of want and
dreaming of an idyllic society of people welded together by
a spirit of self-sacrifice in the name of the earliest possible
establishment of social justice on the planet. Marxists assessed
phenomena of this kind in the light of the actual historical
situation. In characterising the risings of the German peasants
in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Frederick Engels
wrote: “Already here, with the first precursor of the movement,
we find the asceticism typical of all medieval uprisings tinged
with religion and, in modern times, of the early stages of every
proletarian movement. This ascetic austerity of morals, this
demand to forsake all joys of life and all entertainments,
opposes the ruling classes with the principle of Spartan equality,
on the one hand, and is, on the other, a necessary stage of
transition without which the lowest stratum of society can
never set itself in motion. In order to develop its revolutionary
energy, to become conscious of its own hostile attitude towards
all other elements of society, to concentrate itself as a class,
it must begin by stripping itself of everything that could
reconcile it with the existing social system; it must renounce
the few pleasures that make its wretched existence in the least
tolerable for the moment, and of which even the severest
oppression could not deprive it.” 1 Under some historical
conditions the “plebeian-proletarian asceticism” that Engels
wrote about was of progressive significance. Enlarging upon

1 Frederick Engels, "The Peasant War in Germany”, in Karl Marx,

Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 10, 1978, pp. 428-29.

224
this theme, Engels noted that “this plebeian-proletarian
asceticism gradually sheds its revolutionary nature when the
development of modern productive forces infinitely multiplies
the luxuries, thus rendering Spartan equality superfluous”.1
The Chinese peasant's egalitarian ideals, which acquired
a certain progressive significance during the struggle against
feudalism, were what served as the foundation of the essen­
tially anti-scientific concepts of egalitarian, primitive com­
munism. Such is the dialectics of revolution. “That which
Russia has recently embarked upon” (the building of social­
ism.— K.K.), Sun Yatsen said, “is in fact not pure communism.
Nor is Marxism true communism. True communism is the
communism of Proudhon, the communism of Bakunin.” The
contradictory character, the inconsistency of Sun Yatsen’s
worldview sprang mainly from the social conditions in which
his philosophical and socio-economic views took shape.
-The quests of the sixteenth-century Utopian Socialist
Thomas More, mirrored in his Utopia, gave an impetus to the
further development of socialist thought. The fathers of utopian
socialism built up their concepts of the future society on the
basis of the ideological material at their disposal. Together
with elements of the Catholic doctrine (charity, generosity,
magnanimity, solicitude for one’s brethren in Christ), early
Christianity’s ideals of “universal equality and fraternity”
strongly influenced the evolution of the basically highly moral
ideas of building a society which was just but far removed from
real life. The American academic Russell Ames writes that
the significance of Thomas More’s legacy is chiefly that he was
the precursor of Diderot, Jefferson, and Sun Yatsen.1 2 Sun
Yatsen had a purpose for drawing upon Confucian notions
of a society directly embodying the age-old hope of the
Chinese that the principles of social justice, of “great harmony”
(datong), would triumph in his country. It was this outstanding
Chinese philosopher who pointed out the link of his social
ideas with the datong principles. This is what largely deter­
mined the utopian nature of Sun Yatsen’s ideas for restructuring
society.
1 Ibid., p. 429.
2 Russell Ames, Citizen Thomas More and His Utopia, Princeton Univer­
sity Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1949, p. 6.

15-0768 225
 In the mind of the twentieth-century American intellectual
brought up on examples from the history of his own country
the ideas of “Sinicised socialism” were associated, more often
than not, with the practice of sectarian communes, in which
intellectual life was governed by religious canons, with the
experience of the Utopian Socialist Robert Owen in the USA,
with the slogans of the Fourierist movement that acquired a
broad dimension on the American continent in the mid­
nineteenth century. In this context the American publications
offering an assessment of the activities of the CPC contain
analogies with the populist movement in American history,
the mass actions of the small farmers against the big capitalists.
The Americans contributed to the development of utopian
socialism. The French enlighteners, who were keenly aware
of the sordid times of domination by feudal reaction, hoped to
see revolution consummated by the building of a realm of
reason and everlasting justice on the debris of feudal-absolutist
monarchies. The Americans who believed it was possible
to build a society of universal economic and political equality
in the USA were bitterly disappointed when they came face
to face with stern reality—the concentration of capital
ruthlessly suppressed the principles of free competition (for
the small fry the prospect of being swallowed by the sharks
was becoming ever more real) and the rights of the individual,
that were advocated most zealously by the bourgeoisie during
the epoch of initial accumulation of capital. In the course of
the nineteenth century Henry Tucker, Edward Ballamy,
and many other spokesmen of the left wing of American
socio-political thought were active in disseminating the idea
of building a society on the principles of cooperation, mutual
assistance, and even national property. This was a sort of
response by progressive American intellectuals brought up
in the spirit of romanticism to the vises of the bourgeoisie
that was reinforcing its position. Ideas of this kind, often
tinged by religion, attracted Americans protesting against
big capital.
It was only the Marxists, recognising that new relations
of production would inevitably form as a result of the growth
of the productive forces and that under certain historical
conditions socialist utopian ideas were progressive, who showed
226
that the notions about capitalism being a “reasonable social
system” were totally illusory. Characterising this society,
Engels wrote: “Cash payment became more and more ... the
sole nexus between man and man [in capitalist society—
К.К.]. The number of crimes increased from year to year.
Formerly, the feudal vices had openly stalked about in broad
daylight; though not eradicated, they were now at any rate
thrust into the background. In their stead, the bourgeois vices,
hitherto practised in secret, began to blossom all the more
luxuriantly. Trade became to a greater and greater extent
cheating. The ‘fraternity’ of the revolutionary motto was
realised in the chicanery and rivalries of the battle of competi­
tion. Oppression by force was replaced by corruption; the
sword, as the first social lever, by gold.”1
Why did the American publications, chiefly of the 1930s-
1940s, giving assessments of the activities of the CPC, contain
references to the populist movement in American history,
a movement in which the authors of these publications saw a
kind of analogue of the activities of the Chinese revolutionaries?
The ideologues of populism drew their followers and sympa­
thisers among small and middle proprietors of town and country­
side and among members of the working class. The populists
were motivated by the idea of building a strong, centralised
power—a government that could, on the basis of “just
legislation”, ensure society’s welfare and guarantee “freedom”
of ownership, above all against encroachment by the powerful
capitalist associations.
American liberals, particularly left-wing radicals, leaned
on the populist worldview, linking to it an ideal of building
society that was fantastic for their day and under the socio­
political conditions prevailing in their country—the building
of a conflict-free society based on the principles of justice
and generosity. They usually defined populism as a movement
based on the following principle: virtue is sustained by the
ordinary people and traditions taken shape in their midst
are its embodiment. The populist movement ended in collapse
(in the USA the populist party ceased to exist towards the
1 Frederick Engels, “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific”, in Karl Marx
and Frederick Engels, Selected Works in three volumes, Vol. Three, Progress
Publishers, Moscow, 1977, p. 118.

227
 beginning of the twentieth century). However, the notions that
it cultivated about a humane and just society, in which goods
are distributed sensibly and man is perfected morally, were
not erased from the memory of generations. On the contrary,
they resurfaced with renewed vigour, getting an additional
stimulus in critical times of the sharpest socio-political
upheavals in the USA and other countries.
When the first government-to-government contacts were
established between the USA and the People’s Republic of
China in the early 1970s, Edward Friedman urged working out
a new approach to China: “A formal, idealized, and incorrect
understanding of how the American system works leads us time
and again to ascribe ideological blinders to opponents because
we are blind to the institutional and ideological irrationalities
of our own system... Failing to recognize this reality, Americans
see the responses of others as provocations. The result can be
another major war with China.” 1 Thus, Friedman saw the
reluctance of Americans to understand the irrationalities of
their own institutional and ideological system as one of the
principal reasons for the setbacks of the USA’s China policy.
Naturally, the views of the left-radical wing in American
Sinology were adopted by the political circles and organisa­
tions in the USA that urged a reconsideration of their country’s
China policy. Political personalities, notably of the Democratic
Party, have often drawn upon the ideas of academic dissidents,
whose views so closely adjoined Mao’s notions about building
the new China. Even after Mao’s death American academics
continued, essentially speaking, to laud the theory and practice
of “Chinese populism”. “Chinese Populism and the Legacy
of Mao Tse-tung”,2 a work by James R. Townsend (professor
of Political Science and East Asian Studies at the University
of Washington, Seattle), is typical in this respect. Glorification
of the behaviour norms, culture, and lifestyle of the elite—
the scholars, so typical of China, is counterposed, Townsend
writes, with the “populist” ethic, which extols the morals of

1 America’s Asia. Dissenting Essays on Asian-American Relations, edited

by Edward Friedman & Mark Selden, Pantheon Books, New York, 1971,
p. 209.
1 Asian Survey. A Monthly Review of Contemporary Asian Affairs,
Vol. XVII, No. II, November 1977, pp. 1003-15.

228
the workers and peasants, claims superiority for labour by
hand over labour by brain, and so on. Townsend attributes
to Mao Zedong invaluable services in spreading populist ideas
in China (his main theoretical contribution being the “mass
line").1

American Apologists of the “Chinese” Road

of Revolution

American friends of China, especially those who visited

Beijing at the initial stage of the normalisation of Sino-US
relations, extolled the “Chinese” road of revolution, paid
tribute to the keen “prevision” of Mao, who saw the peasants
as the main force behind revolutionary changes, and attri­
buted all the successes of the Chinese Communists exclusively
to the “genius” of Mao as a revolutionary strategist. Chester
Ronning, a Canadian diplomat, wrote of Mao’s “unorthodox”
revolutionary approach. Seymour Topping extolled Mao’s
decision to break, as he put it, with the Leninist concept that
the revolution had to be headed by the urban proletariat with
the peasants playing the role of allies. An undisguised apology
of the special “Chinese” road of revolution is seen clearly
in Ruth Sidel’s book, in which the Chinese revolution is
depicted as an unusual kind of socialist revolution and
everything accomplished by it is attributed to the exceptional
merits of the leadership.
American politology and propaganda went out of their way
to justify and often make much of the leftist vision of the
peasantry’s role as the main force of revolution, of the
“peasant party’s” role as leader. “Mao Tse-tung’s influence
and activities in his home province of Hunan,” Chester Ron­
ning asserts for instance, “had blossomed into an organisation
of some two million peasants.” After 1927, he says, the Chinese
Communists eventually realised where the real problems
lay—in “China’s villages”. Although the CPC Central Com­
mittee, he notes, continued to keep in touch with the Comintern,
its ties were gradually cut off when Zhou Enlai finally

Ibid., p. 1006.

229
joined Mao. “Mao Tse-tung became the real leader/*
American Sinologists, notably of the liberal-critical school,
took pains to spread the notion that the Chinese revolution
developed separately from and independently of the world
revolutionary process. Anti-communist conservatives, who
stepped into positions of immense power in the USA in the
1940s-1950s* wanted people to believe that what was taking
place in China was the “handiwork of Moscow’*. The liberal
wing of US Sinology, on the contrary, lauded China’s road
of development as being independent of the socialist revolu­
tion in Russia.
Some American left-radical Sinologists acclaimed Sun
Yatsen’s utopian hopes of “forestalling” capitalism. These
hopes were criticised by Lenin. Edward Friedman’s book is
indicative in this respect. It is an attempt to show that Sun
Yatsen’s most important act was his decision not to wait for
the sun’s warmth to bring spring nearer and for the conditions
for revolution to ripen. The keynote is that from the outset
of the Chinese revolution Sun Yatsen’s party did not accept
Lenin’s scientific views on revolution. It is known that Sun
Yatsen favoured egalitarian, primitive communism, examples
of which he found in China’s history, over the social system
that was being established in Soviet Russia. Friedman’s book
is quite patently an attempt to accentuate aspects of Sun
Yatsen’s worldview that were criticised by Marxists-Leninists.
Ibis approach to assessments of egalitarian communism could
help to justify the theoretical speculations over the concept
of a “special” communism, to show that the appearance of
Mao’s thoughts was a natural historical development None­
theless, in an article published when the “cultural revolution”
was petering out Friedman acknowledges the declarative
character of the egalitarian ideas of Mao’s supporters. Friedman
writes that the egalitarian and revolutionary ideas advocated
by the Chinese leaders were unfeasible. The declarations of
a number of the CPC’s theoreticians, especially during the
“cultural revolution”, calling for “universal equality” were,
in fact, totally at variance with their actions.
Some American Sinologists arbitrarily interpret Lenin’s
views, and when they depict the role and significance of
revolutionary organisations they ignore entirely the character
230
of the given revolution. It is not at all accidental that in the
foreword to Friedman’s book Benjamin I. Schwartz ac­
centuates the thesis that Sun Yatsen’s idea of a vanguard
party of professional revolutionaries became the fundamental
and inalienable component of the “Maoist revolution”. Sun
Yatsen’s idea, “unencumbered”, as Schwartz put it, by
preconceptions concerning the necessary role of the industrial
proletariat may have been more suggestive of future actualities
than the Marxist-Leninist conception.1 Enlarging upon this,
Friedman devoted a whole chapter to the peasant rising led by
Bai Lang, a native of Henan Province. Breaking out soon after
the Xinhai revolution, its slogan was “Down with the rich,
help the poor!” Since this peasant movement was directed
against landowner oppression and the Yuan Shikai feudal-
bureaucratic dictatorship, this social orientation closely linked
it to the general revolutionary movement of the Chinese people
and in large measure determined the progressive features of
this movement.
When referring to the history of the Bai Lang rising, the
American authors pursued the objective of casting doubt on
the Marxist view of the role and place of the peasantry in
the Chinese revolution. The rural areas, Schwartz writes,
which ultimately provided the mass base for revolution, were
not simply the realm of the “man with the hoe”.12 Ignored
here are the character of the revolution, the role of its allies,
the predominant forces of the revolutionary movement. In this
sense are not their words indicative when they assert that
Lenin “identifies reaction with an allegedly culturally backward
countryside”?3
In A Critique of the Gotha Programme, Karl Marx categor­
ically rejected the view that in relation to the working class
all the other classes are only a reactionary force. Rebuffing
the leadership of the German Social-Democrats, he quoted
the Manifesto of the Communist Party, which stated that the
middle strata become revolutionary to the extent they are faced
with having to join the ranks of the proletariat. Marxists,

1 Edward Friedman, Backward Toward Revolution. The Chinese Revolu­

tionary Party, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1977, p. X.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid., p. 224
231
 being at the sources of the organised communist and working-
class movement, had in mind the anti-feudal potentials of the
peasantry. These potentials came to the fore in the national
liberation movements. Lenin enlarged upon this approach to
the revolutionary role of the peasants. Marxists-Leninists
demonstrated the viability of the idea that the democratic
and proletarian revolutions complement each other, proved
that there had to be an alliance of the working class and the
peasantry at the bourgeois-democratic and socialist stages
of the revolutionary process, in the period of transition from
capitalism to socialism, defined and continue to define the
forms of this alliance under the specific conditions of revolution­
ary processes of a global and regional nature. They have
always justifiably regarded the peasants, especially the poorest
section of the peasants, as a major ally of the proletariat
in the socialist revolution. In the anti-feudal, anti-imperialist
revolution in China the peasant, to quote Lenin, was the “chief
representative, or the chief social bulwark, of this Asian
bourgeoisie that is still capable of supporting a historically
progressive cause.” 1
In writing of Sun Yatsen’s worldview, work, and day,
Friedman endeavours to avoid the primitivism that is so typical
of his predecessors in the world of bourgeois science. He does
not portray the Chinese revolutionary as a staunch advocate
of the ideals of bourgeois democracy, as a meek pupil of
foreign missionaries, or an assiduous accomplice of some
imperialist power or other. He sees his aim in something else.
Obviously, he is set on making people believe that the Chinese
revolution was offbeat, that the theory and practice of the
leaders of that revolution were in conflict with scientific
communism.
The postulate, in high favour in Western historiography,
that the revolutionary movement in China was a movement
isolated from the Great October Revolution is congenial to
those who would question the soundness of Lenin’s observation
about the international significance of the Great October
Socialist Revolution in Russia. Many features of the revolution

1 V.I. Lenin, “Democracy and Narodism in China”, Collected Works,

Vol. 18, 1973, p. 165.

232
in Russia (dictatorship of the proletariat, the alliance between
the working class and the peasantry, the leading and guiding
role of the Communist Party in the struggle for the dictatorship
of the proletariat and in the building of socialism) are,
Lenin wrote, “not local, or peculiarly national, or Russian
alone, but international.” 1 Friedman entirely ignores the Great
October Socialist Revolution (even the index to his book has
no reference to it) which changed China’s standing inter­
nationally and accelerated its social and political renewal.
Friedman argues that a new revolutionary generation began
to form in China under the impact of Japan’s harsh policy,
particularly the Japanese invasion of Shandong Province
in 1914, and the humiliating for China terms of the Versailles
Treaty, with the October Revolution playing no role at all.12
Sun Yatsen, to whom Friedman devotes a larger part of his
book, wrote warmly to Lenin, following the establishment of
Soviet power: “The Kuomintang expresses its profound esteem
for the hard and stirring struggle by members of your country’s
revolutionary party and is reinforced in its hope that the revo­
lutionary parties of China and Russia will join forces and
carry on a joint struggle.”3
The news of the Soviet government’s first Leninist foreign
policy decrees permeated with the spirit of fraternity and
friendship with the peoples of oppressed countries, fostered
the growth of the Chinese people’s anti-imperialist struggle
and a visible upsurge of patriotic feeling in China, that led to
the rise of the anti-imperialist, anti-feudal movement known
as the May Fourth movement of 1919. The humiliation poured
on China by the terms of the Versailles Treaty—these are
mentioned in the book—may be regarded as the spark that
ignited the May Fourth movement (the student demonstration
in protest of these terms) rather than a key factor leading,
if one is to believe Friedman, to the formation of a new,
young revolutionary generation.4

1 V.I. Lenin, “ ‘Left-Wing’ Communism—an Infantile Disorder”, Col­

lected Works, Vol. 31, 1977, p. 21.
2 Edward Friedman, op. cit., p. 210.
3 Cited from M.S. Kapitsa, Soviet-Chinese Relations, Moscow, 1958,
p. 22 (In Russian).
4 Edward Friedman, op. cit., p. 210.

233
 The May Fourth movement was largely anti-imperialist
and anti-American. However, the main cause of the unrest
was the radicalisation of feeling in Chinese society, especially
among patriotic intellectuals and young people, precipitated
by the growth of national consciousness and the spread
in China of the ideals of the Great October Socialist Revolu­
tion. Marxism and the triumph of the revolution in Russia
captured the imagination and hearts of a large section of the
Chinese intelligentsia and youth. Marxist literature began to
attract a steadily growing audience and more partisans, pro­
viding the inspiration for opposition to imperialism. It was not
accidental that among the leaders of the May Fourth movement
there were those who were to found the Communist Party
of China.
The May Fourth movement was a turning-point in the
development of the Chinese revolution, the first response of
the Chinese people to the Great October Revolution. Its hall­
marks were anti-imperialism and the participation of the
working class. This movement confronted the Chinese revo­
lutionaries with the question of allies against imperialism.
The attitude to the then young Soviet republic and to the
experience of the Bolsheviks was becoming the criterion of the
sober-mindedness of the Chinese revolutionaries, a line visibly
demarcating the social forces.
In November 1923 Sun Yatsen announced the reorganisation
of the Kuomintang and, with this, demonstrated his firm deter­
mination to rely on the masses and to study and draw upon
the heroic experience of revolutionary Russia. Sun Yatsen,
wrote S.L. Tikhvinsky (Soviet researcher of his works), “saw
that imperialism was the principal enemy of all strata and
groups of the Chinese people, and he called upon the nation
to unite and fight this enemy in close and unbreakable
alliance with the Soviet Union, the world's first state that
broke the chain of imperialist exploitation”.1 It is common
knowledge that at the request of the Sun Yatsen government
the Soviet Union helped massively to form the armed forces
of revolutionary China.

1 Sun Yatsen, Selected Works, Introduction by S.L. Tikhvinsky, Moscow,

1969, p. 33 (Russian translation).

234
 The revolutionary democrat Sun Yatsen stressed the epochal
significance of the Great October Revolution. In a message to
the Soviet leadership he wrote: “You are heading a union
of free republics. This union of free republics is the true legacy
that the immortal Lenin left to the world of oppressed peoples.
Drawing upon this legacy the peoples languishing under the
tyranny of imperialism will win their freedom, their liberation
from the system that has always fed on slavery, wars, and self-
interest.” 1
Despite being inconsistent, Sun Yatsen’s social stand reflected
the rise in China of new forces that were progressive in their
day. Marxist-Leninists have always thought highly of his work.
Lenin described him as a revolutionary democrat endowed
with nobility and heroism.1 2
The distinctive features of the Chinese revolution, no matter
how significant they were, did not obstruct the spread in China
of the ideals of the Great October Revolution. The finest people
in the revolutionary-democratic movement in China unfailingly
addressed the legacy of the socialist revolution in Russia,
and one can hardly consider as credible the claim that the
revolutionary process in China was isolated from the October
Revolution. The interaction of the revolutions in Russia and
China was marked by contradiction and multiformity. The
breaching of the imperialist world system in its weakest link —
in Russia—heralded the downfall of colonialism in its classical
forms. Although the USA was not a classical colonial power,
it sided with European and Japanese colonialists time and again
against the national liberation movement, including the libera­
tion movement of the Chinese people. The collapse of the
colonial system, China’s liberation from the yoke of Japanese
militarism, and the failure of foreign capital to enslave that
country after the Second World War were by no means the
result of any “miscalculation” on the part of individual US
statesmen, which, as is often alleged in non-Marxist American
historiography, led to the “loss” of China by the USA.
This was the outcome of the natural development of the world
revolutionary process.
1 Sun Yatsen, Selected Works, Vol. 2, Beijing, 1956, p. 922 (in Chinese).
2 V.I. Lenin, “Democracy and Narodism in China”, Collected Works,
Vol. 18, p. 165.

235
The US Left-Radicals of the 1970s

In Beijing considerable interest was shown in the acti­

vities of American students of Asia known for their left-
radical views. The “new Lefts” united around the Committee
of Concerned Asian Scholars formed in 1968. Members of this
committee visited Beijing in 1972. It is not surprising that
some American academics acknowledge that formerly the
political battles in the USA over China problems were fought
mainly between the “conservatives” and the “liberals”. In
the 1970s both these groups came under heavy attack from
the left-radical wing of academics and students, who wanted
the Asian scholars to take a more militant stand on foreign
policy issues (criticism of the USA’s China policy, of the
US aggression in Vietnam, and so on).
The contradictory views articulated by academics belonging
to or agreeing with the CCAS reflected the wide spectrum
of social forces involved in protests in the USA. In protesting
against the aggression in Vietnam and against the US-Japanese
military-political alliance, the left-radical academics idealised,
and in fact offered an apologia of the “Chinese form of
socialism” of the period of the “cultural revolution” and
thereby objectively if not deliberately contributed to spreading
the anti-humane ideology of great-power chauvinism that was
hostile to peace.
The views of the CCAS members were formed in the complex
and extremely contradictory atmosphere of the political
struggle in the USA at the close of the 1960s. Passions were
running high in the country. Economic difficulties were com­
pounded by the bitter consequences of the war in Vietnam.
Scholars from the CCAS critically assessed the USA’s Asian,
chiefly China, policy. From the outset they focussed mainly
on China problems. In their evaluations of China and Mao’s
thought its members were variously motivated: some lauded
egalitarianism, seeing it as a form of social protest against
the injustices in their own society, others sought to vindicate
Mao’s social experiments and make a case in favour of early
and far-reaching changes in Sino-US relations, and still others
adopted a frankly romantic approach to Mao’s personality
and revolutionary past. CCAS member Richard M. Pfeffer
236
 wrote, for instance, that the “Maoist form of socialism has
been effective" (“in furthering China’s modernisation", a mes­
sage “likely to be increasingly communicated to the people
in other developing societies, and perhaps even to the American
people").1
In 1972 a CCAS delegation toured rural areas in China.
One group studied the administrative apparatus, and the
other went to one of the communes. The delegates worked
in the fields together with the peasants, and took their
recreation with and talked to them. It seems that being
informed of the CCAS representatives’ views, the Chinese
authorities suggested that they study the Yanan experience.
In the case of some CCAS members, their romantic per­
ception and propagation of egalitarian ideas were a sort
of social protest, while the lack of any possibility of going
deep into the actual motivations of the Chinese leaders
led them into accepting and recording—in their works—
various myths about the character and development of the
Chinese revolution.
Many American scholars gravitating to the “new Left"
were quite rapturous about the “cultural revolution".
Talks and seminars with representatives of revolutionary
committees and teachers and students of institutions of
higher learning were arranged for a delegation from Penn­
sylvania State University in February 1974. The delega­
tion also visited some rural areas. A member of the dele­
gation Jan S. Prybyla, Professor of Economics, published
two reports about this trip to the PRC. His assessment
of the course pursued by the Chinese leaders was, on the
whole, favourable (“a gigantic exercise in the levelling
of thought, attitudes, aspirations, manners, expression and
dress"). While noting the decline in, for instance, education,
he felt that “given China’s present level of development and
the course charted for the economy by the current leadership,
the educational revolution makes sense". Prybyla’s impressions
were tinged with romance, which was a hallmark of CCAS
spokesmen. China, he wrote, had “lots to offer as a counter-

1 Richard Pfeffer, ‘‘Understanding China”, Eastern Horizon, Vol. XI,

No. 4, 1972, (Hong Kong), p. 50.

237
balance to the trinkets-and-tinsel life that has been built in other
parts of the world”.1
The academics belonging to the CCAS propagated a roman­
tic perception of the CPC’s experience, highlighting China’s
contribution to giving effect to “genuinely socialist ideas”.
They saw barracks communism as almost the only way to build
an “anti-bureaucratic”, “anti-elitist” society. This is exemplified
by a collection of essays under the general heading America's
Asia published in the USA.1 2

American Pragmatism and Revolutionary Traditions

At the height of the internal struggle in China over the Mao

ideological legacy at the close of the 1970s the philosopher
Feng Youlan3 came under heavy attack. He was charged with
attempting to use his researches to vindicate the “fascist
dictatorship” of the Gang of Four. His critics found in his studies
of neo-Confucianism what they described as erroneous postu­
lates that were, according to the Chinese press, evoked by the
philosophy of pragmatism. As seen by critics, these postulates
were, first, that “truth is absolute and everlasting”, independent
of the human consciousness, and “uncognisable by us” and,
second, that “the content of truth as commonly understood is
dependent upon us”, and this determines the relativity and
changeability of truth (“truth consists of tenets that are
consonant with our requirements and useful to us”) .4 As a result
of these charges Feng Youlan was depicted as a student of the
“subjective-idealistic philosophy of pragmatism”, which he
adopted, in particular, in the USA from the American adherent
of pragmatism John Dewey.
The debate among Chinese social scientists at the close of
the 1970s on the subject of “practice—the criterion of truth”
1 Jan S. Prybyla. “Notes on Chinese Higher Education: 1974’*, The
China Quarterly. An International Journal for the Study of China, No. 62,
June 1975, p. 294; idem, “China’s Political Economy: A Traveller’s Report*’,
Current History, Vol. 67, No. 397, September 1974, (Philadelphia), p. 111.
2 America's Asia..., op. cit.
3 Wang Yongjiang, Chen Qiwei, “Zai ping Liang Xiao mou chuwen”
(‘O nce Again About an Adviser Named Liang Xiao”), Zhexue, No. 3,
1978, (Beijing).
4 Ibid., pp. 23-24.

238
triggered criticism of the “pragmatic theory of truth”, with
John Dewey and Hu Shi named among the proponents of this
theory.
The theoretical concepts of the American idealist philosopher
John Dewey (1859-1952) acquired some currency among
Chinese liberals during the revolutionary upturn in the early
years of the twentieth century. John Dewey was a proponent
of the philosophy of American pragmatism. In opposition to
Karl Marx’s monistic theory Dewey offered a “pluralistic the­
ory”, according to which social developments were seen as the
interaction of the components of human nature, on the one
hand, and cultural conditions, on the other. Dewey’s philo­
sophical views rejected the possibility of consciously trans­
forming society and asserted absolute scepticism relative to
historical cognition.
In an atmosphere of acute social tension in China, of the
ideological and political clashes precipitated by the October
Revolution in Russia, the pragmatic ideas enunciated by Dewey
won a following in China.
Dewey’s name became known in China largely through the
work of Hu Shi or Hu Shizhi (1891-1962), who was one of his
pupils. The latter won a reputation in and outside China with
his works on philosophy, sociology, history, literary criticism,
pedagogics, and linguistics. After receiving the degree of Ph.D.
at Columbia University Hu Shi returned to China, where he
showed that he was a worthy pupil of Dewey. He was impressed
by the relativistic approach to assessing the historical past, by
the approach that reduced the science of history to a simple
description of historical events.
Pragmatism became a tested means in the arsenal of the
staunchest champions of the interests of monopoly capital.
Naturally enough, soon after the October Revolution in Russia
the philosophy of American pragmatism was translated into
practical actions by the opponents of the Marxist-Leninist
worldview in China. It was not for nothing that the Independent
Political Action League headed by John Dewey was in the
vanguard of the anti-Soviet forces. Dewey’s negation of the
objectivity of cause-effect links led away from the need to study
the laws governing historical development and pushed his
followers in China onto the road of voluntarism, of spreading
239
illusions and vain hopes among the Chinese working people.
The popularisation of John Dewey’s ideas in China was no
accident. After the socialist revolution in Russia American
political leaders redoubled their efforts to mobilise ideological
and political means of countering social upheavals. American
liberalism enhanced the ideology of reformism, whose mission
was seen as saving the capitalist world system which had
received its first serious blow. The activities of John Dewey’s
followers, who were preaching harmony between classes,
blended with President Woodrow Wilson’s efforts to create a
world liberal-capitalist order. Wilson was not prepared to see
capitalism’s setbacks. He gathered around himself like-minded
people who urged the powerful representatives of capital to
sacrifice their personal interests for the common cause of
preserving the socio-economic system they cherished. Wilson
spoke of his hope of building a new world order, whose
foundation was to be laid on the ruins left behind by the First
World War. Wilson’s messianic projects were aimed at “en­
lightening” the Old World with the end objective of establishing
American dominance in the world. The American bourgeoisie,
which had grown strong by now, was prepared to inscribe
Wilson’s Fourteen Points on the banners of the new crusaders
who intended to march against the ideals generated by the Great
October Revolution. American liberals regarded Wilsonianism
as a panacea for revolutionary changes in the world. “Lenin’s
desire to transform the [first world] war into a world revolu­
tion", that would, one of these liberals—N. Gordon Levin—
wrote, generate chaos, came into conflict after 1917 with the
Wilsonian approach to world problems. Wilsonianism and
Leninism, he asserted, are “two opposed methods of moving
the world from an imperialist past to a progressive future”.'
During the turbulent political events of 1919, when the USA
sought an antidote to the ideals of the October Revolution,
John Dewey arrived in China, where he read lectures propaga­
ting his philosophical and socio-political views. His efforts in
China did not, at the time, yield the expected results. Some
American academics admitted that, in fact, nothing came of the1

1 N. Gordon Levin, Woodrow Wilson and World Politics, op. cit.,

pp. 6-7.

240
attempts of the liberals to counter the May Fourth movement
with ideas borrowed from Dewey. The latter dropped the
principle of individualism in the sense it was understood by his
predecessors—spokesmen of classical liberalism. He tried to
shoulder a burden that was unmovable—to reconcile the
traditional ideas of American individualism to the precepts
of bourgeois reformism. Planned collectivism under public
control was the American philosopher’s appeal for social
reforms that would remove the contradictions between the
individual and society. Dewey’s pragmatism began to acquire
growing topicality in US socio-political life in the closing
years of the nineteenth and the early twentieth century
when monopoly and later state-monopoly tendencies became
increasingly distinguishable in capitalism’s development. The
philosophical studies produced by Dewey were tailored to
persuade American and foreign academics of the possibility
of adapting capitalist society’s sociopolitical institutions to the
requirements of reality.
Naturally, Dewey’s philosophical views left their imprint on
China’s ideological life, just as there were repercussions of the
vitalisation, after the May Fourth movement, of the debate on
the values of bourgeois democracy and humanism, on bourgeois
ideas of the epoch of imperialism. However, advanced as a
counter-balance to scientific socialism the concepts of the
American pragmatists about universal harmony between classes,
the possibility of perfecting society with the aid of liberal
reforms, and so on, were not accepted by most of the revolu­
tionary youth of China. In this stormy time the October
Revolution powerfully stimulated the spread of Marxism in
China, and leading Chinese revolutionaries staunchly parried the
attacks on Marxism by its adversaries, including adherents of
the school of American pragmatism—Hu Shi and his supporters.
The decline of liberalism in China, in the wake of the May
Fourth movement, inevitably led to the conclusion that in the
Chinese revolution the forces siding with the October Revolution
and showing profound understanding for its ideals were growing
stronger. Indeed, thoughtful young revolutionaries saw as
unacceptable the world’s division, as suggested by the liberals,
into “constitutional” and “unconstitutional” states; they were
increasingly attracted by arguments urging struggle against
Г 16-0768 241
oppression and against foreign domination. Sun Yatsen’s stand
as a revolutionary-democrat came into conflict with American
liberal theories, with the pragmatism of John Dewey who
preached social harmony. Although it was inconsistent, the
social orientation of Sun Yatsen’s stand mirrored the growth of
new, progressive forces in China.

The political struggle in China inevitably generated bitter

debates over the heritage of American pragmatism and its
influence on Chinese political reality. The Chinese press began
to print articles drawing attention to the ideological kinship
of the Gang of Four and American pragmatism. In the Foreword
to A Concise History of Chinese Philosophy Ren Jiyu, who
edited this book, asks the question: “Marxism or pragmatism?” 1
In answering it he depicts the Gang of Four as fervent
proponents of pragmatism and adversaries of Marxism. Evi­
dence in support of this is shown in the slogans of the “cultural
revolution”: “The ancient in the service of contemporaneity”
(although words to this effect have been current for 2,000
years). According to Ren Jiyu, this means “the ancient in the
service of self-interests”. He quotes Hu Shi who maintained
that what is useful is true. “Properly speaking,” Ren Jiyu writes,
again quoting Hu Shi, “truths have been created by people,
they have been created for people so that people could use them.
And since they are extremely useful, they are given an attractive
name—truths.” In criticising the “methodology” of Hu Shi
(“assume boldly, prove cautiously”), Ren Jiyu stresses that it
is wrong first to assume that a subjective need has arisen to
assert some premise and then to begin seeking evidence in
order to evince a “proof”. He castigates the Gang of Four for
using history, in keeping with the “methodology of pragmatism”,
for allegorical attacks on Prime Minister Zhou Enlai, for
seeking out “Confucians” in history, for comparing historical
personalities with the Chinese Premier, medieval judges with the
Minister for Public Security, and so on.
However, this sort of criticism of the Gang’s pragmatism can
hardly be considered scientifically substantiated. First, because
1 Ren Jiyu, “A Critique of Allegorical Historiography, Restoration of
the True Make-Up of the History of Philosophy”, Zhexue yanjiu, No. 3,
1978, (Beijing), pp. 28-37.

242
Zhou’s supporters had themselves used examples from history.
Second, and this is perhaps the most important point, their
political philosophy reflected what was, essentially speaking,
a purely pragmatic approach to issues of domestic and foreign
policies. Lastly, Chinese propaganda of the period of the trial
of the Gang of Four often used examples from history
(as it did in the day of Mao), naming ancient emperors and
hinting at mistakes made by the latter (while implying Mao)
and similarly employing allegories to attack Mao Zedong’s
supporters.
Beginning with the close of the nineteenth century, when
in the face of aggression by capitalist powers Chinese bourgeois
nationalism demonstrated that it was prepared to use all means,
including vulgar-sociological theories, to achieve the cherish­
ed goal of rejuvenating a great China, social-Darwinism
won a growing body of support among the Chinese intellectual
elite. Chinese reformers undertook what for those days seemed
to be an inconceivable task: they tried to pull down the
pillars of the capitulationist policy of the Manchu emperor
and the group of feudals and compradores advising him. They
felt that one of the most effective ways of countering the
“foreign devils” was to unite the population of China on the
basis of its racial oneness. This belief was reinforced by the
theory, borrowed from the West, that the struggle of nations
and races for their existence is a natural-historical phenomenon.
The idea of racial oneness began to play a major role
in the arsenal of bourgeois nationalists urging China’s
capitalist development but hoping to rid their country of
foreign domination. Newspapers began to print the appeals of
the nationalist-reformers to Manchus and Hans to unite in
order to turn China into the most powerful state in the
world. The protagonists of the social-Darwinist concept of
racial struggle went further, preaching pan-Asian oneness in
opposition to the “white race”. The infectious influence of
racism spread to members of the revolutionary wing of the
opposition. This disease in its most virulent form was in­
herited by the reactionary wing of the Kuomintang.
The idea of racial oneness, so widely proclaimed by the
nationalist-reformers, was adopted by the Chiang Kai-shek
clique. In a book entitled China's Destiny, Chiang Kai-shek
243
wrote that Chinese, Manchus, Mongols, and Tibetans were
people of one race with the legendary emperor Huangdi
(Huang Ti) as their progenitor. During the civil war in
China the Kuomintang sought in racism the means of countering
the Soviet Union and the national liberation movement. Log­
ically enough, Chiang Kai-shek’s racial ideas were warmly
embraced in Japan by the “co-prosperity sphere” proponents.
Japanese evaluations of Chiang Kai-shek’s book noted that
the Kuomintang’s chief theoretician repeated the Japanese
theory of a “Greater East Asia” and that Chiang Kai-shek’s
ideas coincided with the pan-Asia concept. The bellicose
Japanese press smugly pointed out that Chiang Kai-shek was
“after all, an East Asian by nature”, that his book was
steeped in the “East Asian spirit”.
The ideas of racial oneness, which inflamed Chinese bourgeois
nationalism in the period of aggression by capitalist states, began
to play a militant role in the inter-imperialist struggle in
Asia. Little wonder that in the racist concepts of the Chinese
nationalists Japanese militarism saw not a venom dangerous to
itself but a key instrument that could incite anti-Western
feeling in the colonial domains of the leading European
capitalist powers and erect an ideological barrier to American
expansion.
In his writings Hu Shi, as a follower of Dewey, used
social-Darwinism as a counter-balance to the Marxist under­
standing of society, an understanding that regarded concrete
conditions of material life as the cardinal factor of social
development. According to Hu Shi, the determining, element
in the dialectics of social development was “social intuition”
rather than the concrete conditions of society’s material life.
The purpose of ideas of this sort was to cultivate egoism
and violence (attainment of personal success, of the end
goal, regardless of the means used).
In one form or another social-Darwinist ideas were reflected
in socio-political thought in China at the start of the 1980s,
when the Chinese mass media began to campaign for free
competition. Leading publications controlled by the CPC printed
articles that to all appearances might have come from the
seemingly forgotten pens of outspoken Chinese vulgarisers
of Darwin’s theory of evolution, of Chinese proponents of the
244
school of social-Darwinism. Can free competition and socialism
be reconciled? If so, how? The answers in the Chinese
press were not distinguished for subtlety. The phenomenon
of competition is implicit in the living world generally and
“is to be observed everywhere”, the Chinese theoreticians
wrote. “In a forest trees that manage to push their crowns to
the sunlight grow faster and become taller than other trees. At a
chicken farm there appear stronger chicks that push the
others away from the feeding-rack.” However, one can hardly
agree that the philosophy of American pragmatism and the
social-Darwinist concepts, found in the political doctrines of the
Chinese nationalists of the past, are compatible with Chinese
traditions, with the intellectual values of the Chinese people.
The custodians of Dewey’s ideological heritage in China
saw before their eyes the image of the country that raised
the banner of “predestination”, which could be seen as
the product of the work done in the early years of the
twentieth century by presidents William H. Taft and Woodrow
Wilson, who fired political messianist-reformers with the in­
spiration to “save the world” in the interests of the USA.
President Wilson spoke of his hope of building a new order,
the foundation for which was to be laid in another world war,
while the American philosopher John Dewey tried to inspire
his followers with the confidence that the postulates of
Jeffersonian democracy were everlasting and invincible. As
a diligent pupil and admirer of John Dewey, Hu Shi looked
upon the USA as though it were the symbol of unsurpassed
morals, an inexhaustible source of inspiration.
How was the backwardness of his own country to be ex­
plained? In his reply to this question Hu Shi referred to
the burdensome spiritual legacy of feudal society, the Con-
fucian traditions, and the stereotypes of thought that were
fashioned in the course of centuries. Arguments of the
same sort have been offered by many leading members of the
academic elite in the USA itself, who likewise proceeded from
the derivative assessments of the vices of their society.
William J. Fulbright spoke of the special Southern way of
thinking, long-standing traditions, the psychological heritage
of the distant past, and so on, in an effort to explain the
tragedy of racist America. Neither the American heirs of
245
Dewey, nor the Chinese followers of his pupil Hu Shi considered
that society’s vices could be uprooted by conscious social
revolutionary transformations. Hu Shi saw poverty, disease,
ignorance, and corruption as the principal enemies of Chi­
nese society.
American society, alas, gave no example of a rapid and
painless deliverance from the social ulcers, from the
innumerable vices that have their source in capitalism. The
economic crisis of the early 1930s dispersed the touted illusions
about the American way of life; the dogmas cemented by
the ideological heritage of the days of Warren Harding, Calvin
Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover fell apart before people’s
very eyes. Finding itself in the epicentre of the crisis that
hit the capitalist world, the USA parted with its unquestioning
belief in the “non-susceptibility” of the American way
of life to the ulcers implicit in contradiction-torn European
capitalism or in socio-economically backward countries of the
colonial outskirts.
However, brought up on the classical canons of American
pragmatism, Hu Shi did not lose his faith in the values of
American democracy. But what was the prime cause of corrup­
tion, violence, and racism in that “fortress of freedom and
justice”, as the USA was depicted by the protagonists of Pax
Americana? The American liberals ascribed these phenomena to
the “weakness and vulnerability of the human psyche”. Society
progressed, they said, with the gradual transformation of the
“human soul”.
Many centuries before the American revolution, the an­
cient predecessors of the Chinese philosophers of the twentieth
century tried to answer the question: What is to be called
the “perfection” of the human being? In this context, the
Soviet scientist. Academician N.I. Konrad, cited the ancient
treatise Daxue (Great Science): Man gets to know “things”, i.e.,
the entire external world; in this process he creates knowledge;
knowledge makes his thought identical with truth; the truth
of thought predicates “correctness of heart”, i.e., of emotions;
through all this is man’s personality perfected; when man’s
personality, when he himself is perfect, then there is order in the
family, and when there is order in the family the state is
properly administered; when the state is properly administered
246
there is peace in the Under-Heaven.1 Konrad draws attention to
the fact that throughout his history man has been relentlessly
pursued by the thought that the individual has to be perfected,
that society’s wellbeing depends on the level of the individual’s
perfection. In this context, the Chinese exponents of the
philosophy of American pragmatism drew also upon the le­
gacy left by Chinese thinkers of ancient times. Hu Shi
believed that by perfecting the individual Chinese society
would be able to vanquish its “principal enemies’’—poverty,
disease, ignorance, corruption, disorder.

Crisis of Confidence in the “American Experience”

In the course of the many years since the Second World

War the American people have time and again been able to see
that appeals for a transformation of the “human soul” do
not stay the hand of assassins: they shot and killed the
fighter for civil rights Martin Luther King, and statesmen
and political leaders, for instance, the Kennedy brothers.
American liberalism tried to ascribe the assassination of
President John F. Kennedy solely to the extraordinary tenac­
ity of typically American traditions, the Puritan way of
thinking, the legendary heritage of the period of the migration
of American settlers. While the adherents of American prag­
matism in China attributed all of their country’s calamities
to the tenacity of the intellectual heritage of feudal times,
the American liberals saw the prime source of their society’s
tragedy, the uncontrollable spread of violence as one of
its most striking manifestations, in the “romantic cult” of the
period of colonisation. In 1963, when an assassin’s bullet
struck down John F. Kennedy, Senator Fulbright told his fellow
countrymen that atonement for this murder could be an
intensification in American society of the movement against
violence and extremism. When John Kennedy was fired at
and outraged American liberals called for “atonement” for his
murder, John Hinckeley was timidly learning to walk in a
well-to-do American family. Hardly anybody could suspect

N.I. Konrad, West and East, Moscow, 1972, p. 473 (in Russian).

247
that the Republican President Ronald Reagan would be almost
at death’s door only because Hinckeley would want this
some 20 years later. Killers are not born, they are brought
up by society. The death of President Kennedy unleashed
a rising tide of anger among the American people against
violence and extremism and induced the government to make
fainthearted attempts to bring down the crime rate. However,
the deep-lying social causes remained.
The American philosopher Barrows Dunham analysed, as he
put it himself, “a much more cautious” approach to the pos­
sibility of changing human nature regardless of whether or
not the social problems confronting society are solved. He
generalised the most sharply defined theses of twentieth-
century American liberals. Do we wish to extend the right of
suffrage to the millions denied that right? The advocates of
segregation answer this question in the negative. These millions
should first get an education. Do we want to remove the
many discriminations against Jews and Blacks? The answer
is that this cannot be done without first reshaping people’s
views. Are we seeking a fundamental upgrading of society’s
nature? The same answer is offered, namely, that this is unat­
tainable without first changing human nature. “It may appear,”
Dunham writes, “that the views in this last category assume
the possibility of changing human nature. That appearance,
however, is illusory, for the change which is assumed is
completely divorced from the social milieu in which alone
change can occur. It therefore becomes an abstract concep­
tion, floating agreeably in the minds of its possessors.” 1
Progressive Chinese intellectuals showed understanding for
Hu Shi’s criticism of traditional and essentially reactionary
social notions that were hindering China’s intellectual and
social renewal. But they could not accept him, a nihilist who
was dismissing the cultural heritage of a great people, the
values that fostered patriotism and undauntedly defied the
expansionist aims of the imperialist powers. Members of the
enlightened Chinese elite were sooner prepared to follow
He Lin, a spokesman of Chinese socio-political thinking of

1 Barrows Dunham, Man Against M yth, Little, Brown and Co., Boston,
1974, p. 34.

248
the 1930s-1940s, who advanced the idea of a synthesis of
Chinese and Western cultures. He Lin postulated that it was
possible to create a new Chinese culture exclusively by
preserving and developing the nation’s cultural values in which
the main role was played by Confucianism. The synthesis
that He Lin had in mind was not a mechanical borrowing
of the world’s cultural achievements but an interpretation of
Western cultural values in a manner permitting their “Sini-
cisation”.
He Lin’s ideas became popular at a time of the Great
Depression when Americans, having previously believed that
their social system was infallible and unique, felt themselves
cheated out of their finest hopes. The Democratic Party’s
presidential candidate Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared he
would save the “American miracle” by reforms. His New
Deal, hailed by proponents of stricter state regulation of the
capitalist economy, was seen by many people in the world
as the greatest triumph of the etatist conception that envisages
an extension of the state’s management not only of the economy
but also of society’s affairs. Roosevelt’s efforts to foster state
regulation impressed the advocates of a “Confucianist type
of democracy”. He Lin felt that Roosevelt’s New Deal was
a concrete embodiment of the Confucianist type of democracy
(he called Roosevelt “a great political leader of the Confucianist
pattern”). The raptures of Hu Shi, He Lin, and other Chinese
philosophers over what they believed were unsurpassed values
of American democracy nourished the illusions that the USA
had a messianic predestination.
Reagan is not the first nor will he be the last President
of the USA to extol the spirit of free enterprise and laud
the free market mechanism as a panacea for all the social
problems in the world community. During his visit to Beijing
the US President did not remind the Chinese that other notions
about “American democracy” were also current in the USA.
Long before Reagan became President, leading members of the
“political realism” school had themselves dispersed the illusions
that the experience of American democracy was universal.
As early as in the 1960s Hans J. Morgenthau, for instance,
drew his fellow countrymen’s attention to the contradiction
that having stood for freedom and fought fascism in the
17-0768 249
Second World War, the USA was in recent years appearing
to the outside world “to be indifferent to the cause of free­
dom”. What could America offer to the world? Morgenthau
asked. Equality in freedom, a happy life for all under a govern­
ment governing with the consent of the governed?1 No, these
achievements of American history had been discredited in the
eyes of other nations. Writing of the causes, Morgenthau abided
by the traditions of “political realism”—it was all the fault of
miscalculations in US foreign policy, the quest for military
alliances and aspiration to maintain the political status quo
throughout the world. It was not the social system itself but
only miscalculations, Morgenthau asserts, that brought about
the collapse of “the traditional image of the United States
as the last best hope of freedom”. The picture of a po­
werful and wealthy nation seeking to increase its power and
wealth with the help and at the expense of other nations
destroyed the belief that the American experience was peer­
less.12

The Chinese leaders set out to achieve what was evidently

unachievable: to obtain from the West the technology needed
for China’s modernisation and prevent Chinese society from
coming under foreign ideological influence. uIn the social
sciences,” said Huang Kecheng, permanent secretary of the
Central Discipline Inspection Commission, “we should under
no circumstances imitate capitalism... Had we made fewer mis­
takes the situation would have been even better. We should
not embellish all things Western. American newspapers report
that in 1979 the operations of the mafia in the USA involved
150 billion dollars and yielded a net profit of 50 billion dollars,
which is second only to the profits of the oil industry. Where
did the mafia’s profits come from? From drug-trafficking,
gambling, and other dirty business. If in our country we begin
to imitate this, to what will it lead us? Is this what they call
civilisation and happiness?”3 Similar exhortations were to be

1 Hans J. Morgenthau, Truth and Power. Essays of a Decade, 1960-70,

Praeger Publishers, New York, 1970, pp. 316, 317.
2 Ibid., p. 317.
3 Renmin ribao, April 11, 1981.

250
heard at various conferences. It was urged that learning from
the West should not be turned into “veneration of things
foreign”, that young people should be safeguarded against
the pernicious influence of Western culture, which in the early
1980s began to be felt tangibly, especially on the country’s
Pacific coast.
The Americans endeavoured to use the new climate of
the relations between China and the USA following Mao’s
death to push their ideological influence into China, but in
many cases forgot how painfully Chinese nationalism accepts
Western ideological values. American correspondents who
worked in China in the 1940s and then settled there after
US-Chinese relations were normalised noted that the Chinese
had no interest in American culture.
The new Open Door policy gave the Chinese the op­
portunity to view shoddy American films and television pro­
grammes, and this enabled them to form an opinion about
the values of American society. In the early 1980s Chinese
newspapers began publishing more articles on the problem
of combating “cultural pollution”. The eradication of this
“pollution” became an element of the basic task of putting
the party in order, set by the 1983 plenary meeting of the CPC
Central Committee. “Cultural pollution”, the Chinese press
wrote, has two aspects: the first is in culture—the appearance
of substandard works, and the second is the appearance of
works “that come into conflict with approved guidelines”.
If it is to maintain the spirit of socialist ideals, China cannot
in fact accept the “consumer society” philosophy vigorously
preached in the West. What can “mass culture” give China?
At the outset of the present decade this question acquired
special urgency among enlightened Chinese. What sentiments
would consumerism generate? Would it orient people towards
the all-sided development of the individual, towards assimilation
of the cultural wealth built up by humankind? Is it within
capitalism’s power to ensure equal rights to education, jobs,
and dwellings, equal old-age social security, the individual’s
participation in public life, and other benefits?
A policy of encouraging egoism, self-interest, and profit
at the expense of other people, in other words, everything
that fosters capital’s mad pursuit of profits, cannot coexist
251
peacefully with the tendency to safeguard the Chinese people’s
finest revolutionary traditions, the rich heritage of China’s
ancient culture.

Quest in the USA to Justify the

“Cultural Revolution”

The time came when the Chinese leaders themselves called

the regime established by the initiators of the “cultural revolu­
tion” a dictatorship “of an utterly rotten and most gruesome
fascism with an admixture of feudalism”. “In 1957,” Ye Jianying
said, “when an attack by a handful of bourgeois right-wingers
had to be repulsed, a mistake was made in that the magnitude
of this struggle was amplified” 1 with the result that millions of
people found themselves in prison or in “labour camps”.
A hostile howl in the West was the response to the declaration
of the Chinese leaders that the PRC would be a socialist
democracy. The Western press called the Chinese leadership
tyrannical; anti-communist propagandists vied with each other
in their arguments about the dangers of a “communist dictator­
ship” to the Chinese people, and the American press frequently
featured caricatures of Mao Zedong personifying a cult of brute
force and unbridled arbitrary rule. At that time only a few
Western political leaders urged circumspection and Mao's ac­
ceptance. Anti-communist criticism of the building of the
foundations of a socialist democracy in China focussed on
features of socialist administration entirely alien to the social
system in imperialist states. Could they in the West composedly
accept the declarations that in new China democratic centralism
would be the underlying principle and method of administering
the socialist society and state? They could not accept these
declarations composedly because, this principle envisages real
conditions for building a democratic society and implies leader­
ship of socialist construction by the working class headed by
a Marxist-Leninist party and utilisation of the state by different
strata of society as an instrument of socialist construction in the
interests of the entire nation. Could the ideologues of the

1 Hongqi, No. 5, 1978, (Beijing), pp. 29-37.

252
“free world” look with equanimity upon China becoming an
antipode of the capitalist state? This would enable the work­
ing people to exercise authority, reinforce the socialist forms
of economic management, and rapidly, in terms of historical
time, build a developed socialist social system. The assessments
of the anti-communists about state construction in the FRC
changed with the changes in the political course of the Beijing
leadership.
It is a fact that in the early 1970s the Chinese press was
silent for a long time about the shameful hongweibing past,
while Western academics and newspaper analysts continued
their efforts to vindicate the use of force, the senseless violence
of the “cultural revolution” period, and the doings of its
initiators. Speaking of the assessments of the “cultural revolu­
tion” as a whole by Western non-Marxist historiography, note
must be made, above all, of the steep switch from criticism
and condemnation (1966-1969) to recognition of the “objective
necessity” for these events in China, to eulogistic comment
about the “lofty” intentions of the stage-managers of political
“disturbances”, and, lastly, to glorification of Mao as a champion
of justice against “bureaucratisation” and “revisionism”. The
assault on the rights of the working people, the shocking
flaunting of the individual’s elementary rights in the PRC did
not evoke, as it once did, a sharply negative reaction from
bourgeois propaganda. This was due to one and the same
reason—the turn in the policy towards China. A special US1A
study prepared for the US President in connection with his
then impending visit to Beijing in 1972 characterised the
“cultural revolution” in the following terms: This was a great
movement to purge the party, halt the spread of revisionism,
inspire young people, and return the country to the road of
revolution. The “cultural revolution” permitted bourgeois
science and propaganda to be indulgent towards the orchestra-
tors of arbitrary rule and violence in China. Anti-communist
propaganda, which had earlier undisguisedly denounced the
suppression of “freedom of the individual” in China and backed
up its denunciations with references to the values of bourgeois
democracy, now spoke a different language, displaying a “new
approach” to China.
Many Western propagandists were unquestionably aware that
253
the organised suppression of the individual in China would
not be condoned by bourgeois liberalism preoccupied as it was
with promoting the ideals of bourgeois democracy in the world.
Criticism of Chiang Kai-shek's totalitarian regime by some
American Sinologists in the 1940s found understanding and
support among liberal Americans. For instance, the wartime
American diplomats and liberal journalists who in the 1940s
depicted Mao’s followers almost as adherents of the ideals
of American democracy, sternly indicted Chiang Kai-shek,
charging him with being bent upon building a militarist state;
they wrote that the Chongqing dictator, who regarded himself
as the heir of the ancient Chinese emperor Qin Shihuang,
was flouting elementary human rights in his own country.
When the American publicist Edgar Snow wrote of the
“cultural revolution” he paid tribute to the exponents of
the USA’s China policy, who saw the attitude of the makers
of this “revolution” as a major prop for their foreign poli­
cy manoeuvring. At a time when China had been turned into
a “huge barracks” in which violence reigned, Edgar Snow
took a different tack—he wrote accolades to the sowers of
terror for their efforts to reshape the party and the state.
One of Mao’s objectives, Snow noted, was to simplify the
administrative structure and abolish duplication. The Chinese
press subsequently reported what this simplification of the
administrative structure cost the Chinese people—100 million
people were repressed and persecuted; a huge number of per­
sons, regardless of their social, party, and professional affiliation,
of their religious convictions, were subjected to unheard-of
harassment and humiliations.
Edgar Snow had once asked: What happened to the senior
party and government officials who lost their jobs as a result
of the “cultural revolution”? “They were sent,” he reported
quoting Zhou Enlai, “to rural centres known as ‘May 7 schools’.
After they had been tempered by labour, some would be
appointed to new posts ... they would be sent (or had already
been sent) to reinforce the leadership in various population
centres.” 1 Snow depicted this policy as a determination to be
“self-reliant” on a nation-wide and local scale in the produc-

Epoca, Vol. LXXXII, No. 1064-65, February 28, 1971, (Milan), p. 23.

254
tion of foodstuffs and in industrialisation. It was then that
Snow reported that in China they were drawing up a new
Constitution enshrining the “new forms”, created by the people
during the “cultural revolution”, for carrying out a socialist
revolution: the right of freedom of opinion, the right of free­
dom of appealing to the masses, of holding wide discussions,
and writing wall newspapers. This sort of information in
Snow’s writings gave people the impression that positive pro­
cesses were developing in China, that the Gang of Four had the
interests of the Chinese people at heart and was creating the
conditions to permit democracy to flourish in the country.
Had Snow given a true picture of the situation in China, he
would have been called not a “friend of the Chinese people”,
as Chinese propaganda referred to him at the time, but an enemy
of the Chinese nation.
After Mao’s death voices glorifying the personality cult of the
“cultural revolution” years could still be heard in the USA.
One of the Carter administration’s advisers on Chinese affairs,
Michel Oksenberg, was known for his inclination to extol
Mao and his political credo. The Chinese leaders defined the
regime set up during the “cultural revolution” years as feudal-
fascist, but Oksenberg insisted that Mao’s goal was related to
a “search for national security, prosperity, and socialism”.
The Chinese leaders spoke of a hundred million people per­
secuted and tormented, but the Carter administration’s former
adviser wrote that the “cultural revolution” left a “more
unified, wealthier, stronger, and more equitable society”.1
In extolling the orchestrators of the “cultural revolution”,
the ideologues of anti-communism pursued various but closely
interrelated aims. One of these was to discredit Marxism-Le­
ninism and the practice of socialist construction.
American Sinologists welcomed, as could be expected, the
post-Mao steps taken by the Chinese leadership to facilitate
foreign investment and introduce elements of “market social­
ism”. More, they blamed scientific socialism for China’s econom­
ic difficulties. They stressed (as though offering Beijing advice)
that the only way to modernise China most effectively was

1 Michel Oksenberg, “Mao’s Policy Commitments, 1921-1976”, Problems

of Communism, Vol. XXV, No. 6, November-December 1976, p. 22.

255
 to renounce “Marxist socialism”.
During Mao’s lifetime the USA cherished the nationalism
of the Chinese leaders to prevent any changes for the better
in Soviet-Chinese relations. It was believed that laudation of
the “Chinese way” would serve the West as a significant
ideological and political means of countering the Soviet Union
and the theory on society’s socialist restructuring. After Mao’s
death, when the tragic consequences of the dictatorship of
the “cultural revolution” years came to light, leading Sinologists
in the USA tried to turn a blind eye to the adventurism of the
“revolution’s” initiators, in particular that of the Gang of
Four, and focus attention on the advantages that would
allegedly come not with socialist but with unhindered capital­
ist development.
In the USA they found much consolation in the fact
that for most Chinese analysts criticism of the role and influence
of the survivals of feudalism began to acquire more topicality
than criticism of the foundations of capitalism. A debate
commenced in the Chinese press on the essence of the socio­
political system and the character of socio-political relations
in the PRC. According to a new concept that had appeared
in the work of Chinese theoreticians, the transition from capi­
talism to communism is not a single process but one consisting
of several stages. In keeping with this concept the PRC was
defined as a “socialist state of the dictatorship of the proletariat”,
in which socialist society had not yet been built and the country
had not reached in its development the stage of developed
socialism. Most of the proponents of this concept saw survivals
of capitalism and feudalism exercising a significant influence
at the stage of “undeveloped socialism” in China. In works
published in China after Mao’s death it is noted that in
ideology feudal traditions are more widespread than those of
capitalism. Hence the advocacy of a more vigorous drive against
survivals of feudalism in China.
Cooperation with the national bourgeoisie and international
capital, the creation of conditions conducive for private enter­
prise with the use, albeit limited, of wage labour, and other
innovations in economic policy inevitably evoked resistance in
various spheres of Chinese society. The purpose of the “drive
against feudal survivals” was precisely to neutralise such
256
resistance. Protagonists of innovations asserted that Lin Biao
was responsible for the appearance of “feudal tendencies”, but
the opposition to the new line, on the contrary, contended
that here it was a case of the appearance of “capitalist”
tendencies. This was noted, in particular, in an article by
Chong Zhenting in Lishi yanjiu, stating that Lin Biao and
the Gang of Four tried to “restore capitalism in China”.1
The Marxists-Leninists have always spoken against the
attempts to present the military-bureaucratic regime in China of
the “cultural revolution” years as a boon for the Chinese
people. True democracy is possible only with the establishment
of socialist relations of production, and being a stage of
society’s development these relations are the most crucial
prerequisite of democracy. It is not the fault but the misfortune
of the Chinese people that they had to experience ail the
hardships poured down upon them by the “cultural revolu­
tion”, which the ideologues of anti-communism acclaimed as
the greatest boon they ever had.

Lishi yanjiu, No. 7, 1978, (Beijing).

CONCLUSION

For centuries on end China’s greatest minds looked for a way

to build a society of justice and wellbeing. This search was
reflected by the birth of utopias, one of which was spelled
out in works of the democrat Sun Yatsen. Many eminent
representatives of Chinese socio-political thought regarded so­
cialism as the panacea for the suffering, hunger, and poverty
of the Chinese people, but there were not many among them
who studied the experience of the working class of Russia
and had a clear vision of the essence and way of China’s
socialist transformation. The USA found socialist ideals winning
a following in China immediately after the October Revolution
in Russia and countered this with the Wilsonian antidote to
revolution. The ideology of American pragmatism, which the
theoreticians of the “American age” tried so hard to impose
upon China soon after the October Revolution, did not find
fertile socio-political soil for itself in China.
The “personal gain” motivation, the pursuit of accumula­
tion and profit was recognised by Western socio-political
thinking as the mainspring and pivot of the philosophy of
capitalist enterprise so zealously preached by Adam Smith,
Thomas Malthus, Alfred Marshall, and other proponents and
champions of capitalism. Benjamin Shujung Cheng, Associate
Professor of Economics at Southern University, Hong Kong,
justifiably asks how far the values of Confucian culture are
compatible with the philosophy of capitalist accumulation, the
institution of gain, the spirit of acquisition. Cheng offers the view
that the Confucian ideal placed ethics and virtue above econom-
258
ic gain.1 The value orientations in Confucian China influenced
the behaviour of the powerful bureaucracy held in the grip
of customs and traditions, and to some extent fettered the
development of commercial activity stimulated mainly by bare
calculation and profit. These traditions influenced also the lead­
ers of the revolutionary movements in twentieth-century China.
More than 60 years after the commencement of the es­
sentially anti-imperialist movement of May 4, 1919, which
erupted in China soon after the Great October Revolution,
there was a revival in the USA of the hope of promoting
“free enterprise” in China and bringing Chinese society into
the capitalist world system. “According to post-Darwinian
philosophers,” Sun Yatsen wrote, “the chief motive force of
humanity’s evolution is mutual assistance rather than struggle
as is to be observed in the animal world. The inclination to be
bellicose is a residue of the animal instinct in the human being
and the quicker it is uprooted the better.”12 Aware of the danger
of any manifestations of the “animal instinct” in either domestic
or foreign policy, Sun Yatsen urged moral perfection of the
nation, mutual understanding and cooperation among different
peoples.
The experience of US-Chinese relations of the 1970s showed
influential circles in the USA the untenability of the former
calculations that the dialogue with China could be a means
of global manipulation. It became clear that the West had been
much too sanguine about its economic and political links to
China. In Washington they found that while the Chinese
leaders displayed solidarity with the West on major internation­
al issues they were motivated not by American but, in the
first place, by China’s interests.
In evaluating China’s actual stance in the present alignment
of strength on the international scene one has, of course, to
take into account its geopolitical position, the size of its territory
and population, and the fact that its Armed Forces are large
and have nuclear weapons. In terms of quantity the PRC has
1 Benjamin Shujung Cheng, “Confucianism and the Backwardness of
China’s Economy: A Study of Human Self-Interest and Profit-Seeking
Motive in Relation to Economic Development”, Asian Profile, Vol. 7, No. 6,
December 1979, (Hong Kong), pp. 507-15.
2 Sun Yatsen, Selected Works, Moscow, 1964, p. 317 (Russian translation).

259
the third largest arsenal of nuclear weapon vehicles after the
USSR and the USA, but in qualitative terms in the 1980s
this arsenal has fallen perceptibly behind that of the USSR,
the USA, France, and Britain. Nevertheless for the USA and
for NATO as a whole China's military-strategic role is important
to the extent it is able to erode the Soviet Union's military-
political position. It is precisely this latter circumstance that
determines to a considerable extent the PRC’s political role
in the world as a factor that can either help to maintain
or downgrade international security.
The notions and concepts about national security that have
taken shape in the USA and China are antipodal.
Realistically-thinking members of the ruling circles in the
USA are mindful of the price the American people and the
whole world would have to pay for miscalculations on the
part of political leaders who bank on nuclear superiority.
As long ago as in the 1950s, during the sharp political debates
in the USA over the then ongoing military confrontation with
China, a leading American liberal Fulbright warned against
ill-considered actions. “Our objective,” he said, “is to minimize
the loss of American lives and the expenditure of treasure.
The loss of life going on today is so sad and terrible, it is proper
to consider that a mistake might result in ten times greater loss
in the near future.”
The history of the political struggles in the USA after the
Second World War knows of cases of seemingly diehard conser­
vatives opening their eyes. It was not easy, for example, for
General Douglas MacArthur, weighted down as he was by his
long experience of military battles and by the glory of being
the idol of the American ultras, to admit that disputes could not
be settled by military force. The general, who had urged
bombing China and had not ruled out the possibility of using
nuclear weapons in the Korean war, realised, albeit towards
the end of his life, how dangerous it was to play with fire in
world politics.
“Within the span of my own life,” he said, “I have witnessed
much of this evolution. At the turn of the century, when I joined
the Army, the target was one enemy casualty at the end of a rifle,
a pistol, a bayonet, a sword. Then came the machine-gun
designed to kill by the dozen. After that, the heavy artillery
260
raining death upon the hundreds. Then the aerial bomb to
strike by the thousands—followed by the atom explosion to
reach the hundreds of thousands... But this very triumph of
scientific annihilation—this very success of invention—has
destroyed the possibility of war being a medium for the
practical settlement of international differences.”
The rapid spread of nuclear armaments and their numerical
and qualitative growth objectively should introduce substantial
changes in each nuclear power’s conceptions of national secu­
rity. In the nuclear age no country can ensure its own secu­
rity if it undermines general security or gives no thought to
preserving world peace.
Recognition of the danger of nuclear proliferation which
was taking the world to the brink of a global nuclear war
motivated the conclusion of the important Soviet-US agree­
ments on disarmament in the 1960s and 1970s. These agreements
helped to diminish the threat of nuclear war and ease the
dangerous influence of nuclear tests on the environment.
Nevertheless, as soon as it was installed in the White House
the Reagan administration signalled that it was prepared to bury
in oblivion the positive experience of the Soviet-US dialogue
on disarmament problems. Its drive to change the military-
strategic situation in the world in its favour was often motivated
in Washington by the security interests of the USA and its
allies. But the whipping up of the arms race has not in any
way furthered the security interests of the USA, its allies, or
the world community as a whole. The arms race has placed
a heavy burden on nations, diverting manpower and material
resources from economic development and becoming a serious
obstacle to the efforts to put an end to backwardness and
surmount difficulties in social development.
In 1978 China’s attitude to problems of disarmament began
to undergo some change. Chinese spokesmen made it clear that
they wanted to sit down at the disarmament negotiating table
(China has been represented on the UN Disarmament Commis­
sion since the close of 1979 and on the Geneva Disarmament
Committee since 1980) and showed a certain measure of
flexibility at discussions of pressing problems of war and peace.
Just as the Soviet Union, China has stated its non-first use of
nuclear weapons and has supported the idea of nuclear-free
261
zones in various regions of the world. However, by the early
1980s Beijing did not subscribe to key international treaties
and agreements in this area of world politics (the 1963
Moscow Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the At­
mosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water, the 1968 Treaty
on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the Treaty
on the Prohibition of the Emplacement of Nuclear and Other
Mass Destruction Weapons on the Sea-Bed and the Ocean
Floor, to name a few). It is quite obvious that the prestige of
international agreements limiting the arms race would have
grown had they had the PRC’s signature.
With the twentieth century coming to a close the security
of the peoples of our planet is uncompromisingly dependent
on the extent to which the nuclear-missile powers, chiefly the
USSR and the USA, but also the PRC, are involved in the
disarmament process, on the extent to which they are able to
work out a common stand on the problem of preventing a
nuclear war. The West’s conservative philosophy and sociology,
aimed at nuclear suicide, are being counterposed by a reasonable
quest for a way out of the nuclear deadlock.
The American missionaries, who spoke with pride of having
“opened China” at the close of the nineteenth century, relied
on the military and economic strength of American capital,
which was spreading its influence in the world. But this
strength did not save the Americans from defeat on the main­
land. China elected to follow its own road of development.
Realistically thinking political leaders and academics in the
USA are urging their fellow countrymen to abandon the at­
tempts to use military force in the nuclear age to impose upon
other nations their political values and way of thinking, to reject
unequivocally the calls of the new self-styled prophets for
self-destruction. John K. Fairbank, a veteran academic with
the experience of half a century of study, exhorted his fellow
countrymen to think seriously of how to stop preparing
soldiers to use their deathly weapons and begin studying China
in earnest.1 One may or may not agree with his view about
the interaction of two civilisations—the Chinese and the
American—but it is indisputable that in the harsh reality of the
nuclear age there is no more important task than to consolidate
1 John K. Fairbank, C h in a b o u n d p. 458.
262
international security. The fulfilment of this task will be facili­
tated not by an arms race but by a search for ways to
mutual understanding.
The Soviet Union’s fundamental stand on questions related
to Soviet-Chinese relations has been stated in the resolutions
of congresses of the CFSU. In these as in many other party and
governmental documents the Soviet people’s hope is expressed
that the estrangement in the relations between the USSR and
China will be superseded by confidence, mutual understanding,
non-interference in each other’s affairs, and mutually bene­
ficial cooperation. In the Soviet Union it has been noted with
gratification that at the outset of the 1980s there have been
changes for the better in the bilateral relations between
the USSR and the PRC. In particular, the situation on the
Soviet-Chinese frontier has grown calmer, a new approach has
been adopted towards the question of navigation along frontier
sections of rivers, and an understanding has been reached that
across-border trade would be resumed. After a long interval
there has been a resumption of Soviet-Chinese consultations
on problems of state-to-state relations. The CPSU leadership
and the Soviet government have time and again declared that
the USSR is prepared for a political dialogue with China on
basic issues of world development, notably on questions related
to strengthening peace and international security; they have
pointed out that an improvement of Soviet-Chinese relations
could contribute to reinforcing peace in Asia and the rest of
the world. The Soviet Union is prepared to do and is doing
everything in its power to improve these relations. This
objective can be attained only through the efforts of both the
interested sides.
The 27th Congress of the CPSU has reaffirmed the wish of
the Soviet Communists, of all Soviet people, to have better
relations with the People’s Republic of China, our great
neighbour. “The Chinese Communists,” says the CC CPSU
Political Report to the Congress, “called the victory of the USSR
and the forces of progress in the Second World War a prologue
to the triumph of the people’s revolution in China. In turn, the
formation of People’s China helped to reinforce socialism’s
positions in the world and frustrate many of imperialism’s
designs and actions in the difficult postwar years. In thinking
263
of the future, it may be said that the potentialities for
cooperation between the USSR and China are enormous. They
are great because such cooperation is in line with the interests
of both countries; because what is dearest to our peoples—
socialism and peace—is indivisible.” 1
Underlying Soviet policy in the Asia and Pacific region
is the striving to enshrine in law the principle renouncing the
use of force in international relations, halt the escalation
of the arms race, ensure enduring peace and security, and turn
Asia into a continent of confidence and cooperation, which
would be an inestimable contribution to the efforts to prevent
a nuclear world war.

1 Mikhail Gorbachev, Political Report of the CPSU Central Committee to

the 27th Party Congress, Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, Moscow,
1986, p. 82.
In this book V. B. Vorontsov, D. Sc.
(Hist.), offers a history-oriented
analysis of the policies pursued by
the USA and China in the Pacific,
the contradictions between them,
and their tactics relative to third
nations in the period from the 1960s
to the eatly 1980s. The reader is
led up to the conclusions to be
drawn from the historical lessons
learned by the governments of
the USA and China in the process
of their attempts to form a
military-political alliance.