Progress Publishers
Moscow
[1]Translated from the Russian~
Designed by Vadim Shtanko
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Compiled by G. V. Vasilyev, M. V. Kapasov, R. A. Mirovitskaya, V. S. Myasnikov, Y. S. Semyonov
__COPYRIGHT__ © nojiHTHsaar, 1979One of the most typical features of world imperialism, with its aggressive and expansionist drives, is and has always been the pursuit of hegemony on an international scale. The reactionary essence of imperialism shows itself in the urge to dominate other countries and peoples, to interfere, both covertly and openly, in their internal affairs, to dictate terms, to establish spheres of influence, and to ``teach them lessons" by main force.
In recent years, the Peking leadership, too, has begun to apply precisely these methods in its foreign policy, as it embarks on a political, economic and military alliance with imperialism. The United States sees China as its junior in this partnership, a cat's-paw of American policy---while Peking has its own hegemonistic plans, which do not necessarily coincide with American interests. Strange and unnatural as the Washington-Peking axis might appear, it represents a serious threat to peace in Asia, and indeed in the world as a whole. The alliance of two such aggressive and adventurist states is an ominous combination.
One of the defining features of Chinese hegemonism is territorial claims on neighbouring states. This book---a collection of documents, essays by leading Sinologists and articles by Soviet and foreign journalists---is a study of Chinese expansionism based on a factual analysis of the aggressive actions and intentions of the Peking leadership.
It is no exaggeration to say that not one of China's neighbours feels safe within its own boundaries against the menace of Chinese militarism and expansionism. Peking's hypocritical assurances that China is and will remain innocent of any hegemonistic intentions no longer fool anyone: the policy and practice of the Peking leadership in recent years have been too vivid a contradiction of this disclaimer.
5It is common knowledge that in 1959 Mao Zedong said: ``Our goal is the whole wide world . .. where we will create a mighty state" and that in 1965 he presented China with the task of ``absolutely getting hold of Southeast Asia" in the near future. And today, far from disavowing these and similar statements, Peking uses them as a guide. Politics, propaganda and armed force combine to further Maoist foreign policy doctrines, in a range of ploys which extends from historical fabrications and the publication of maps showing the ``lost Chinese lands" to armed provocation and outright aggression against neighbouring states.
Mao's global expansionism is ``theoretical''. Yet, for all the attempted whitewashing, the assiduous manoeuvering, it is patently clear that the current ``modernisation'' of Maoism merely throws the old Sinocentric, Great-Han chauvinistic, hegemonistic motivations into even sharper relief. The doctrine of Chinese supremacy is explicitly stated in the Chinese press; note, for example, the slogan: ``The 21st century is China's century.'' The younger generation, on whom the future of the country hinges, are expected to read and take note....
In practical terms, Chinese hegemonism reveals itself in Peking's attempts to dictate its terms to other countries, to act as their mentor, to take on a superpower role with the right to apply armed force, to teach sovereign states and peoples ``a lesson" and, finally, to lay claim to land to which it has no right.
Expansionist appetites- in Peking are 'unbounded. The `` register" of territorial claims, on the Soviet Union, India, Mongolia, Vietnam, Burma, Japan, and numerous other Asian states ( including island. possessions and stretches of water) comprises a segment of the earth's surface which is actually larger than China itself.
Articles, books, student handbooks and maps published in Peking back up the falsehood of the ``lost Chinese lands''. During the PRC 30th anniversary celebrations, a large exhibition in the Peking Museum of the Chinese Revolution actually began with a section dedicated to the ``alienated territories" of China. China. A General Survey, a text published in French and English in Peking during October 1979, gave a detailed list of ``lost lands"---vast territories which fall within the boundaries of the Soviet Union, India, Mongolia, Vietnam, and other countries. 6 The Indian Express remarked, quite rightly, that the book provided yet more proof that the old expansionist designs of GreatHan chauvinism enjoy the full approval of the Chinese leadership today.
Chinese propagandists do not even balk at falsifying the history of their own country in an attempt to give their claims some credence. Everything is turned upside down: for instance, zealous attempts undertaken to ``prove'' that the Mongols are part of the ``great Chinese family of nations" lead inevitably to the absurd conclusion that Genghis Khan, the Mongol conqueror of China, was actually Chinese. And this rewriting of history is nothing new: almost 50 years ago, in 1934, the great Chinese writer Lu Xin was moved to debunk these historical fabrications. Contrary to some claims, he stated, ``during our so-called Golden Age China was conquered by the Mongols and the Chinese were turned into slaves''. Similarly, the Manchu conquest and the 300-year Manchu occupation of the imperial throne is reassessed in China today as the perfectly normal and acceptable ascendency of one of China's minor nationalities.
The reason for all this falsification is not far to seek: all the lands which once belonged to the Mongols, Manchus, and other of China's masters thus become part of China's territorial inheritance---the temporarily ``lost lands''.
Chinese hegemonism is bellicose in the extreme. The ``four modernisations" are intended to gear China up for war: the foremost ``modernisation'' is the modernisation of the army. Time and again Peking calls the Chinese people to ``ready themselves" for a war which will be ``large-scale and even nuclear''.
The PRC was formed 30 years ago. Yet the Peking leadership continues to maintain that certain sectors of the frontier are still in question, and to use this as an excuse for extending their empty claims, making belligerently provocative moves descending to outright aggression on neighbouring territories. This book gives many concrete examples: suffice it here to mention the territorial claims on Burma and other neighbour states in the late fifties, the invasion of India in October 1962, the military training and armaments made available to separatist groups with bases within China itself and abroad, the deliberately staged incidents on the Soviet-Chinese border during 1969, the landing of 7 Chinese troops on the Vietnamese islands in the South China Sea, the threatened annexation of the Senkaku islands and the use of overseas Chinese to exert political and economic pressure on the governments of sovereign states. This list could, of course, be extended.
The Chinese attack on the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in February 1979 outraged world public opinion. Peking's continued threats to teach Vietnam a ``second lesson" have been duly noted, as have the political, economic and military pressure on Laos and Kampuchea, the attempts to interfere in their internal affairs, to sow dissension between the states of Asia and to set the ASEAN nations against those states of Indochina which have sustained vast human and material loss in the defence of their freedom and independence---in some cases as a direct result of Peking's machinations.
Peking's hegemonistic policy, designed to maintain tension in Southeast Asia, runs patently counter to the interests of the nations in the area, vitiates their efforts to establish friendly relations and promote co-operation.
The Soviet Union condemns hegemonism, territorial claims and expansion, no matter what their source. In full awareness of their danger, the USSR proposed that the question of the inadmissibility of hegemonism in international relations be brought before the 34th UN General Assembly in 1979 as an important and urgent issue, since hegemonistic tendencies have grown stronger of late in the policies of the USA and China. The Soviet proposal was broadly supported by other UN members.
These facts---and others in the pages which follow---prove beyond question that modern Chinese hegemonism and expansionism sap the very foundations of peace---which is why Peking's present policy is unacceptable to progressive public opinion. This book will undoubtedly be of interest to all those who follow current affairs on the international scene.
Yu. Semenov
[8] __ALPHA_LVL1__ I __ALPHA_LVL2__ REALITY AND FALSEHOODThe Soviet Union has always maintained a principled attitude to its relations with China motivated by a sincere desire to normalise and develop these relations. The principles laid down at the 24th and 25th congresses of the CPSU, on the basis of which Soviet-Chinese relations could be improved in accord with the vital interests of both nations, and to the benefit of peace and socialism, have been backed up by the Soviet Union's specific and realistic proposals.
This is attested to by the appeal sent by the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet on 24 February 1978 to the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress.
To ensure that the desire expressed by both sides to found their relations on the principles of peaceful coexistence is recorded in a major international document, the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet proposed that the two countries make a joint statement concerning the principles of mutual relations between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the People's Republic of China. The Soviet Union believes that the normalisation of these relations would move ahead if a joint statement were made that both sides intend to build their relations on the basis of peaceful coexistence, firmly adhering to the principles of equality, mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, noninterference in each other's domestic affairs, and non-use of force.
Unfortunately, on this occasion, too, Peking adopted a negative stance. Moreover, this rejection of our proposal served as a signal for a new wave in the anti-Soviet campaign in China which has continued unceasingly for many years.
One cannot fail to note one of the propositions, repeated in speeches and statements by Chinese officials, as well as by Peking's propaganda. This is the reference to an alleged mutual 9 understanding on the normalisation of relations between the two countries reached during a meeting of the heads of government of the USSR and China on 11 September 1969 in Peking.
The Chinese version of this mutual understanding was repeated once again at the session of the National People's Congress which ended in early March; in a note issued by China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and published in Peking on 26 March 1978 in answer to the appeal by the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet to the NPC Standing Committee; and in Renminribao articles on 13 and 26 March.
The essential [meaning of this version (as it appears in ,the above-mentioned note of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) is that talks on border issues should be preceded by the Soviet Union's fulfilling certain preliminary conditions: recognition of the existence of so-called disputed areas on Soviet territory adjacent to the frontier, the removal of troops from these areas, and an agreement on # status quo along the border. In addition, Peking demands that Soviet troops be pulled out of the Mongolian People's Republic and withdrawn along the entire length of the Soviet-Chinese border.
This version has been eagerly picked up by certain circles in the West. It is even asserted that in the course of the meeting, a document, perhaps even a treaty, was signed.
This story could not be farther from the truth. Resorting to obvious distortions and deliberately misinforming the world public, Peking decided to take advantage of the fact that no documents were adopted at the meeting, not a declaration, announcement, nor joint minutes, with the exception of a short press release, the agreed text of which was unilaterally changed by Peking. It is no mere chance, however, that Peking is concealing the fact that the viewpoints of both sides were documented, but only after the meeting, in letters exchanged by the two sides.
How does the Chinese side interpret the questions that were discussed at the above-mentioned meeting and in subsequent official correspondence? What are the questions?
10One group is those questions on which the sides expressed either identical or similar viewpoints.
Agreement was reached on the need to undertake certain steps to normalise Soviet-Chinese relations (to restore relations at the ambassadorial level, to expand trade between the two countries, and so on). The sides also agreed that the border settlement was an important part of normalising inter-state relations. They resolved not to allow military conflicts to flare up along the border and to settle outstanding issues through negotiations.
Acting in accord with the actual agreement, the Soviet side adopted some measures about which it informed Peking in its letter of 26 September 1969. These measures include:~
---the intention to maintain normal relations between Soviet and Chinese border troops and preserve the border status quo;~
---observe a procedure whereby all border questions shall be considered during consultations in a spirit of good will and restraint, in order to ensure a good-neighbourly atmosphere and exclude the use of main force along the border;~
---in view of the traditional friendly relations between the peoples of the USSR and China, to take into account the interests of the population in the border areas of both countries in economic activities, proceeding from good will and reciprocity;~
---not to conduct propaganda against the other side along the border, including use of loudspeakers.
In its turn, Peking stated in written form that the Chinese side had also undertaken certain measures.
Thus, both sides expressed mutual interest in normalising interstate relations and the border situation. It is here that the two sides achieved mutual understanding, which was a major result of the meeting. Some time later, the sides exchanged ambassadors and took measures to expand trade.
It should be pointed out here, however, that neither during the meeting nor in the ensuing exchange of letters was the achievement of positive results made contingent upon the fulfilment of any preliminary conditions. In any case, the Soviet Union advanced no such conditions and took upon itself no obligations contradicting its own interests.
The Soviet Union's standpoint is that an agreement should be reached excluding conflicts on the border, holding Soviet-Chinese 11 talks on the border settlement and the main principles for future constructive talks. One of these principles is recognition of existing frontiers.
As to the concrete and extremely special issues involved in the border settlement, they are to be considered by delegations appointed by the governments of the two countries.
The sides agreed that both delegations should proceed from the following basic principles in holding talks: settlement of border questions should be based on existing Russo-Chinese treaty documents; the sides have no territorial claims to one another.
But in the course of the meeting, there were questions on which the sides immediately diverged. There was no agreement or common opinion either during the meeting or in the correspondence with respect to the issue of ``disputed areas'', disengagement of military personnel, or the procedure for conducting economic activities.
__FIX__ Above-average number of missing paragraph breaks (two paragraphs merged into one).It was the Chinese Premier who advanced the idea of `` disputed areas" and attempted to impose it upon the Soviet side. When asked what he had in mind by ``disputed areas'', he finally answered: when we begin border talks, you will see; we will present our maps to you.
Peking's letter of 18 September 1969 pointed out that the question of the Chinese-Soviet border should be settled by means of peace talks, and before its settlement, each side should take temporary measures to normalise the situation on the border and avoid armed Iconflict. These measures are set out within the letter in the form of five points. In particular, it proposes the recognition of the existence of ``disputed areas'', disengagement of the armed forces in them, and also determination of the procedure for conducting economic activities in them. The letter concludes: ``If the above measures are confirmed in a letter from the head of the Soviet government, they will become an agreement between the two governments.''
Thus, in this letter the Chinese side acknowledged the lack of agreement on certain questions, including the issue of `` disputed areas''. Perhaps the Soviet side subsequently changed its stance and agreed to Peking's proposals? Not at all; no such agreement was expressed in the reply from the Soviet side on 26 September 1969 or in any of our subsequent letters or 12 documents. It is not by chance that the second letter from the Chinese side of 6 October 1969 again urges agreement on the above questions, including the ``disputed areas''.
Now Peking presents as an element of mutual understanding its unilateral demands that Soviet troops stationed along the border be moved away, as well as pulled out of the Mongolian People's Republic. The truth, however, is that the subject was not considered either during the meeting or in the subsequent correspondence between the two sides.
This is the true situation. But even now Peking continues stubbornly to reiterate the story it invented about a ``mutual understanding'', simultaneously accusing the Soviet Union of backing down and violating this understanding.
Let us attempt to discern the meaning the Peking leadership attaches to the concept of ``disputed areas" and how and where it arose.
First of all, it should be noted that before 1960, China made no statements concerning any territorial claims on the Soviet Union, except for the expansionist encroachments upon Soviet territory by Chiang Kai-shek's followers. Moreover, China and the USSR both acknowledged on many occasions that the territorial integrity of the two sides was respected and was fixed by treaties, the validity of which no one disputed. In the joint declaration of the Soviet and Chinese governments of 12 October 1954 and other documents, it is pointed out that co-operation between the two countries is based on principles of equality and mutual respect for state sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The Soviet Union has reiterated many times over that there is no territorial problem between it and the People's Republic of China, nor has there been any. This problem appeared when, after breaking off friendly relations with the USSR, the leadership of China adopted a nationalistic great-power stand. It was then that Peking undertook attempts to change the line of the Soviet-Chinese border, and not just on paper.
In 1964 on Soviet initiative, Soviet-Chinese consultations were held to specify where the borderline passes through certain 13 sections. During the consultations, the delegations exchanged topographical maps. At this point, it was discovered that a number of parts of Soviet territory were shown as belonging to China on the Chinese maps. The borderline at these points is marked arbitrarily deep into Soviet territory, behind the line which has been guarded by Soviet border guards since the Soviet state was founded. These parts of Soviet territory were claimed to be ``disputed areas" by the Chinese side.
It is important to note here that the borderline marked on Chinese maps in the allegedly ``disputed areas" has no legal justification and does not coincide with the line specified in the Russo-Chinese treaties. It is no wonder that Peking refuses to back up its borderline by a consideration of the treaties which are the sole legal basis for the existing border. Moreover, Peking has stated that the Soviet Union should first acknowledge the existence of ``disputed areas" on its own territory, and only then would it be presented with the evidence. In seeking a recognition of the ``disputed areas'', Peking hopes to overthrow the basis of the existing border as set down in treaty and law.
Peking's intentions are quite simple: by including the existence of ``disputed areas" in an interim bilateral agreement, which, in its opinion, must come before discussions of the border question, the Soviet side would, whether it liked it or not, recognise de facto that the Maoist claims were valid. This would also provide the basis for presenting new territorial claims on the USSR.
Judging by the facts, Peking hopes that recognition of `` disputed areas" by the Soviet side would enable it to:
---question the validity of existing Russo-Chinese treaties which set down the present Soviet-Chinese border;
---consider that in fact there is no definite, continuous borderline between the USSR and China recorded in treaties;
---lay claim to large parts of Soviet territoiy before the question of the border has even been discussed;
---count on the unilateral withdrawal of Soviet armed forces from the ``disputed areas" which would, in effect, expose several thousand kilometres of the border; as a result the Soviet population would be undefended, while the Chinese troops would remain in their previous positions, and the Chinese authorities would have the opportunity to ``assimilate'' these areas.
14In November 1974, Leonid Brezhnev pointed out in Ulan Bator that: ``Peking, in fact, puts forward, as a preliminary condition, nothing less than the demand for withdrawal of the Soviet frontier guards from a number of areas of our territory, which the Chinese leaders have now decided to lay claim to, calling them 'disputed areas' ... it is absolutely clear that this position is totally unacceptable, and we reject it.
``As for the Soviet Union, we do not lay down any preliminary conditions for the normalisation of relations with China. We have for long offered the Chinese side enter into businesslike and concrete negotiations. We do not lay claims to any alien territories, and for us there are no 'disputed areas' in this sense."^^1^^
The very fact that the border between the two countries was, in its time, called ``the border of friendship" is further evidence that the so-called border issue was invented in China with ill intentions. This issue actually has never existed, nor does it. The Chinese leaders themselves acknowledged this in the past. In April 1960, no other than the Chinese Premier, when asked, whether or not there were undefined sections of the frontier between the USSR and China, said at a press conference in the capital of Nepal: ``There are some negligible divergences on the maps. It will be very easy to settle them peacefully.''
Of course, no one insists that the Soviet Union and China have no need to specify certain sections of the borderline laid down in Russo-Chinese treaties. That is why the Soviet side proposed to Peking that these questions be discussed in 1964 and 1969.
It is not difficult to do this: it will suffice to take the RussoChinese treaties and carry out the necessary specifications based on them.
The approach of the Chinese side to the border settlement is completely different. From the first day of the talks, it has _-_-_
~^^1^^ L. I. Brezhnev, Following Lenin's Course, Speeches and Articles (1972--1975), Moscow, 1975, p. 535.
15 undertaken steps to avoid dealing with the main question of the talks---specifying certain sections of the boundary---and with equal stubbornness insisted that first an agreement be signed on so-called ``temporary measures'', the main purpose of which is once again to force the Soviet Union to recognise the ``disputed areas''.The Chinese side represents the signing of an agreement on the status quo on the border as an important element of the ``mutual understanding" and puts it forward as a binding condition for further talks on the border issue. However, as the Chinese government itself stated on 7 October 1969 this proposal goes beyond the framework of the agreement reached by the two heads of government and was submitted ``in addition''.
Showing its good will and motivated by the sincere desire for progress at the talks, the Soviet side did not object to an agreement on status quo and on 11 February 1970 introduced a draft agreement to that effect. It contained no preliminary conditions and, given even minimal good will, could serve as the basis for working out mutually acceptable solutions. Subsequently, the Soviet side proposed several draft agreements which took into account all of Peking's rational suggestions. In addition, we submitted many important constructive proposals at different stages in the talks and did everything we could to achieve progress. However, the Chinese delegation rejected all the constructive Soviet initiatives for no reason at all.
The Soviet side favours the status quo, meaning the retention of the present boundary set down in Russo-Chinese treaties, without disputing the need for certain alterations. But the Chinese side links the status quo with the acknowledgement of ``disputed areas" and, the changing of the historically shaped border. Of course, the Soviet Union cannot agree to such an interpretation of the status quo.
For more than eight years now, the representatives of China have proposed one scheme: it is impossible to consider the exact borderline without an agreement on the status quo, while the agreement on the status quo cannot be signed without recognising the ``disputed areas''.
All of Peking's actions show that it is not looking to settle the border questions, but wishes to inflate them for its own 16 anti-Soviet, chauvinistic ends. There is no other explanation for the loud provocative campaign carried out over a period of years by Peking to back up its claims to Soviet lands.
Peking has raised a. constant cry that China is the victim, that the Soviet Union intends to ruin China, that it is impossible to achieve progress at the talks while under threat. Would it not be more exact to say that the deliberate dragging out of the solution of the border questions helps the Chinese authorities to concoct myths concerning the ``Soviet threat''?
If Peking is truly concerned about China's security, why have Chinese leaders refused to sign a special treaty on non-use of force, a draft of which was presented to the Chinese side on 15 January 1971, as well as a non-aggression treaty we proposed in 1973? Perhaps the Chinese leadership believes that the antiSoviet propaganda being fanned daily in China is Peking's contribution to favourable conditions for talks and improving interstate relations between the USSR and China? Or perhaps, in its opinion, the language of ultimatums with respect to neighbouring states contributes to such conditions? It is precisely this language which Peking is attempting to introduce into inter-state relations, demanding, for instance, that Soviet troops be moved away from the border or that military units be withdrawn from the MPR, where they are stationed at the request of the Mongolian government. But the rhetoric of ultimatums has never led to true normalisation.
To stand on two boats is not the most convenient of positions, as the Chinese say. To pretend that one wants to develop relations on the basis of the principles of peaceful coexistence and even to strengthen friendship between nations, while at the same time urging, all the dark forces of reaction and imperialism to unite in the struggle against the Soviet Union, and to lay territorial claims to the nation with which one professes to seek friendship means that one is occupying a position of duplicity, and moreover, provocation.
__*_*_*__If Peking really wants to improve relations between the USSR and the People's Republic of China and to complete the talks on the border question on a realistic basis, there is every __PRINTERS_P_17_COMMENT__ 2---2499 17 opportunity for so doing. The PRC's leadership is well aware of the many important Soviet initiatives fully conforming to the vital interests of the Soviet and Chinese peoples and aimed at achieving positive changes in the relations between the Soviet Union and China.
On 2 November 1977 Leonid Brezhnev said: ``There is no point in trying to guess how Soviet-Chinese relations will shape up in the future. I would merely like to say that our repeated proposals to normalise them still hold good.''
The interests of both nations require sincere and real manifestations of good will and a desire for improving mutual relations. It is true that quite a few complex problems have arisen in the relations between the USSR and China in nearly two decades, but this only confirms the need for constructive exchanges of opinion. The Soviet Union has stated on many occasions that there are no questions between the USSR and China which could not be solved with good will.
It is now up to the Chinese side.
Pravda, 1 April 1978
[18] __ALPHA_LVL2__ CONTRARY TO THE HISTORICALI.~Alexandrov
__NOTE__ Author(s)'s name(s) appear above chapter title.In recent months, Peking has noticeably stepped up propaganda hostile to the Soviet Union, propaganda which gives a false picture of Soviet foreign policy, misrepresents the relations of the USSR with the countries of the socialist community, and distorts the nature of the Soviet peace initiatives aimed at detente and security. Renminribao and other newspapers harp on the thesis that ``China is being threatened from the north and the south''.
Quite a different picture will emerge if we turn to the facts. In the last two decades China has undertaken military ventures, both open and covert, against nearly all her neighbours, supporting anti-government ``movements'' in India, Indonesia, Burma, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines. There were also the Sino-Indian conflict of 1962, the pressure on the Mongolian People's Republic, the seizure of the Paracel Islands and provocations around the Senkaku Islands. There have been attempts on the part of the Chinese to colonise Kampuchea between 1975 and 1978, and the policy of genocide conducted there with the direct participation of Peking's ``advisers''. Neither should we forget the outrageous attack on the Socialist Republic of Vietnam by 500,000 Chinese troops. The failure of this aggression does not seem to have cooled the hotheads in Peking. They continue to talk about giving a ``second lesson" to Vietnam, and to Laos as well.
This is the actual situation. It is not by chance that Peking is constantly referring to the myth of a Soviet military threat, for this fabrication is necessary for the justification of China's militarisation, to explain its exorbitant military expenditures at home, and to conceal the Great-Han nature of Peking's foreign policy doctrines. During the years of the ``great leap forward" 19 and ``cultural revolution'', the country experienced a series of cataclysms. Peking neglected social and economic development programmes and personnel training, but these cataclysms did not affect military preparations which have gained momentum from year to year.
The Chinese press repeats constantly that the USSR ``attempts to subordinate China to the Soviet policy of hegemony in every possible way''. Propaganda attacks against the Soviet Union's foreign policy have proved unable to cast any doubts on its underlying principles. The Soviet Union has never intended to attack or subordinate anyone. It has no desire to teach anyone else how to live, or to interfere in any other way in the domestic affairs of other countries. It has no territorial or economic claims on China. On the contrary, the USSR proposes co-operation and good-neighbourly relations based on the principles of equality, mutual respect and non-use of force or threat of force. In accord with the will of its people, the Soviet Union has always firmly defended its right to prevent interference into its internal affairs, encroachments on its security or that of its allies and friends.
In developing its defence capacity, the USSR only does what is absolutely necessary to provide for its own security and the peaceful building of a new society. Leonid Brezhnev said: ``We do not seek military superiority. It has never been our intention to threaten any state or group of states. Our strategic doctrine is of a purely defensive orientation.''
This is an equitable policy which is not at all hegemonistic, as certain people in Peking would like us to believe. Hegemony is the direct opposite of the ideal brought into the world by the October Revolution and which remains the basis for the Soviet Union's Leninist foreign policy.
Peking's assertion that China is being threatened by the Soviet troops in the MPR completely contradicts reality. These troops are in fraternal Mongolia at the request of the Mongolian government, which request was formalised in a bilateral Soviet-- Mongolian treaty, and is in keeping with the UN Charter. These troops threaten no state, but are there to defend the independence and territorial integrity of the MPR. The question of Soviet troops in Mongolia concerns only two parties, the Soviet Union and the 20 MPR. It is patently obvious, reads a note the government of the MPR sent to the government of the People's Republic of China on 12 April 1978, that were the Chinese leadership permanently to abandon its policy of annexation with respect to the MPR and to adopt a path of good-neighbourly relations and co-operation with the MPR and the Soviet Union, there would no longer be any need for Soviet troops to remain in Mongolia.
In November 1978, a Treaty on Friendship and Co-operation was signed between the USSR and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The enemies of socialist Vietnam, all those who seek to aggravate tensions in Southeast Asia and split the socialist community have been forced to put up with the reality of this important document, which serves the interests of the fraternal socialist nations and strengthens their international positions.
The Soviet-Vietnamese treaty provides for friendship and cooperation; it is not directed against any state. Nevertheless, this document provoked unconcealed annoyance in Peking. A propaganda campaign was launched in China, which has not ceased even up to the present, to falsify the meaning and spirit of this document and to assert that the treaty ``threatens the security of China's southern border''. These are inventions, pure and simple. Having lived through a long, extremely difficult war against imperialism the SRV requires peaceful conditions as does no other country. Great efforts are still needed to heal the wounds of war, to restore and to build, so that a peaceful existence can be resumed there. Vietnam never threatened China, its northern neighbour. As for China, it conducted a cruel aggression against the Vietnamese people, to whom it intended to ``give a lesson''. Is this not a manifestation of true hegemonism, the trampling of international law.
Hegemony is the desire to dominate other countries and peoples. It is a policy of territorial claims, expansion and aggression, and the establishment of spheres of influence.
Peking claims the role of leader with respect to the developing countries, while it actually seeks to dominate them.
Peking says it has ``historical rights" to millions of square kilometres of land and sea which are the property of practically all neighbouring states. Reference books, textbooks, pamphlets, 21 and magazines published in China, as well as ``historical'' maps, show that Peking's claims extend to the Soviet Amur region, the Maritime Territory, Sakhalin Island, part of Kazakhstan and Central Asia, the Mongolian People's Republic, and part of Vietnam. Peking lays claim to large territories in India and other countries, and to nearly all the islands in the East China and South China seas.
This is hegemony in action.
More than 20,000,000 people of Chinese ethnic origin live in the countries of Asia. In a number of states, the Chinese bourgeoisie occupy key positions in finances, trade, etc. Peking also seeks to place those people in the service of its hegemony, using them in attempts to influence governmental policies in various Asian countries.
The tragedy of Kampuchea is clear evidence of China's hegemonism. The people of this country were destined for genocide so that this country could become a base for China's expansion into Southeast Asia. More than 3,000,000 people fell victim to this horror, before a popular uprising put an end to the Pol Pot-Maoist nightmare; of the 4,000,000 Kampucheans who remained alive, 3,000,000 had also been in danger.
Having adopted the Great-Han, chauvinist ideas of Mao Zedong, the Chinese leadership chose a path of open hostility to the Soviet Union and world socialism, thereby drawing closer and closer to the most reactionary imperialist circles.
In view of the tremendous danger of hegemony, the Soviet Union submitted a proposal to be included as an important and urgent issue in the agenda of the 34th session of the UN General Assembly---Inadmissibility of the Policy of Hegemonism in International Relations. This policy is increasingly manifesting itself in our day. The Soviet Union suggested that the policy of hegemonism in any form be condemned as incompatible with the UN Charter, peace-keeping, and international security. Recently the UN Political Committee approved the proposal by an overwhelming majority.
The USSR always has been and will be a powerful obstacle in the way of hegemony, whatever the source of such aspirations.
The Soviet Union has undertaken quite a few initiatives to 22 improve relations with the PRC. Our country is in favour of better relations with China. This was clearly stated by Leonid Brezhnev at the 25th CPSU Congress: ``In our relations with China, as with other countries, we adhere firmly to the principles of equality, respect of sovereignty and territorial integrity, non-interference in each other's internal affairs, and non-use of force. In short, we are prepared to normalise relations with China in accordance with the principles of peaceful coexistence.''
Unfortunately, Peking is pursuing a different line. In April 1979, the Chinese government said that it did not intend to renew the Treaty on Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance between the USSR and the PRC, which will thus be terminated in April 1980. In light of the statements the Chinese government made along with this announcement, this action can only be regarded as hostile.
Rejecting such negative practices, the Soviet Union still favours normalising relations with the PRC. As a result of the USSR's constructive efforts, both sides agreed to hold talks at the government delegation level in Moscow, to be continued subsequently !in Peking at a date to be fixed later. In the course of negotiations, the Soviet delegation submitted a draft Declaration on Principles of Relations Between the USSR and PRC and argued in support of its stance. Any sensible person understands that inter-state relations require a definite legal basis of principles put down in a document and observed by both sides in solving problems and further developing their relations. That is why the Soviet side has stated clearly that the central issue in efforts aimed at normalising Soviet-Chinese relations should be the elaboration of principles for relations between the two countries.
In the practice of relations between states, the principles of peaceful coexistence include, above all, the equality of both sides, respect for each other's independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, non-interference in each other's internal affairs, non-use of force or the threat of force, and mutual benefit. Both sides should renounce any claims to special rights or hegemony in Asia or in world affairs. At the same time, they should reject anyone else's claims to special rights or hegemony. The USSR and the PRC should do everything possible to prevent 23 situations causing a dangerous aggravation of relations between them.
All the above principles fully conform to generally accepted standards of international law and the UN Charter. There are no preliminary conditions or demands. Neither of the sides is placed on an unequal footing. These principles are not aimed against third states; on the contrary, their full realisation would contribute to peace and international security in Asia and the whole world.
Such is the clear position of the USSR on the question of Soviet-Chinese relations.
The Soviet Union conducts an honest and open policy. In the face of Peking's hegemony-seeking, it demonstrates firm allegiance to its own peace policy, resolutely rejects provocative inventions on the part of the Chinese leaders, and shows concern for the defence of the interests of the Soviet people, their friends, peace, and international security.
Pravda, 8 December 1979
[24] __ALPHA_LVL2__ SOME ASPECTS IN THE HISTORY OFO. Borisov
__NOTE__ Author(s)'s name(s) appear above chapter title.Friendly, good-neighbourly relations between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China were largely due to the absence of mutual territorial claims and border disputes. In the Treaty on Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance signed four months after the PRC was formed, the Soviet Union and the PRC solemnly declared that they would build their relations on the basis of principles of ``mutual respect for state sovereignty and territorial integrity".^^1^^
During the first ten years of the PRC existence, the SovietChinese border was a friendly one. The border population of both countries had broad relations, carried on lively trade, participated in cultural exchanges, solved economic problems jointly, helped each other, and fought natural disasters together. Soviet authorities allowed the Chinese population to mow hay, procure firewood, to fish, and engage in other economic activities in some areas across the border. Comradely relations were established between the border guards of the two states, and any problems were invariably settled in a climate of mutual understanding and courtesy.
The leaders of the Communist Party of China and the PRC never mentioned any territorial disputes between China and the Soviet Union and never questioned the lawful and just demarcation of the Chinese-Soviet border. On the contrary, the CPC leaders repeated time and again that following the October _-_-_
^^1^^ «O)l!CTCK()-KllTHiiCK]l(> OTMOLI10IIIISI 1917--1957. CfioplllIK T0n», Moscow, 1959, p. 220. On 3 April 1979, the PRC's c;overnment stated that it did not intend to renew the treaty. Thereby, it took upon itself the entire responsibility for terminating the treaty. See Statement by the Government of the USSR on 4 April 1979 (Pravda, 5 April 1979).
25 Revolution, the Soviet state had based its relations with China on equality and respect for the sovereign rights of the Chinese people. At the 7th CPC Congress in 1945, Mao Zedong noted that ``the Soviet Union was the first to reject unjust treaties and concluded new, fair treaties with China''. Mao Zedong said the same thing on 16 December 1949 during a visit to Moscow.^^2^^The Soviet-Chinese border as it presently exists was established many generations ago and runs along natural frontiers. It was juridically fixed in a number of treaties which remain in force today.
The first references to ``unsettled territorial and border questions" between China and the Soviet Union were made in the PRC in 1957. They originated among the right-wing bourgeois elements which had come out into the open against the Communist Party. Though repulsing rightist forays, the CPC leadership left the question of territorial claims against the USSR without notice. As subsequent events showed, this was done deliberately: in November 1978, these right-wing bourgeois elements were officially rehabilitated.
Nationalists in the CPC launched an open attack against the Soviet Union in the late 1950s and early 1960s, aggravating the situation on the Sino-Soviet border by putting forth territorial claims. All this was used to fan nationalistic, anti-Soviet sentiment in the PRC.
In the summer of 1960, the PRC staged a border incident in the Buz-Aigyr area. Chinese cattle breeders deliberately crossed the Soviet border. Despite orders from Soviet frontier guards, the Chinese citizens refused to return to China. They remained even after winter had set in. Of course, Soviet authorities had to supply them with the basic necessities. The border guards asked them why they refused to return to China even when there was nothing for the cattle to eat. The chairman of the people's commune who was with the group admitted that they had crossed the border on direct instructions from the Chinese administration and were afraid to return without permission.^^3^^
_-_-_~^^2^^ See Pravda, 30 March 1969.
^^3^^ See «JleHHHCKaH nOJIHTHKa CCCP B OTHOUieHHH KHT3H», MOSCOW, 1968, p. 186.
26In subsequent years, violations of the Soviet-Chinese border by the PRC became systematic, several thousand being registered in 1961--1962. Only restraint on the part of the Soviet border guards prevented these cases from developing into major incidents.
The Maoists attempted to justify their territorial claims to the Soviet Union and other neighbouring countries by blatantly distorting world history in a nationalistic vein. It was not by chance that at the time nationalism became the banner of Chinese social science. Widely known historical facts and the role of historical figures were reconsidered from the standpoint of nationalism and hegemonism. Emperors and conquerors were praised. In October 1961, at a scientific conference to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1911 Chinese bourgeois revolution, it was stated: ``One should not label those who seek expansion as aggressors and those who fall into decay and are on the verge of perishing, as victims of aggression worthy of sympathy.'' Justifying Chinese expansion in the past, one of the contributors asserted: ``In those times, expanding nations and states were on the rise, while the nations and states which had fallen into decay and ruin were dying. That which is dying does not merit sympathy, while that which conforms to laws of social progress merits respect.''
In February 1962, the Peking journal Minzu tuanjie published an article, ``On Sinkiang's Historical Links with China''. The article maintained that in the past, China's ``Western area" extended far beyond the territory of present-day Sinkiang and, `` according to reliable sources, this Western area was divided first into 36, and later into 50-odd principalities including presentday Sinkiang, Kashmir, the northern border section of Afghanistan, and parts of the Soviet Union---Kokand, the Kazakh Republic, Northwestern Khorezm, and the northern parts of the Black Sea---as well as of present-day Iran".^^4^^
Chinese historians adhering to great-power positions began profusely to praise Genghis Khan's activities, saying he played a progressive role in Chinese history,^^5^^ as well as the history ``of _-_-_
~^^4^^ Minzu tuanjie, No. 2, 1962.
~^^5^^ Renminribao, 10 August 1961.
27 40 other states".^^6^^ The predatory campaigns of Genghis Khan and his successors were depicted as beneficial for the conquered peoples. In an article on the 800th anniversary of Genghis Khan's birth, Lishi yanjiu asserted that Genghis Khan's campaigns opened up ``a big world in which the peoples he conquered could live and act; the conquered peoples saw a higher culture from which they could learn".^^7^^These appraisals are fundamentally in contradiction with the conclusions of Marxist-Leninist scholarship. President of the Mongolian People's Republic's Academy of Sciences Shirendyb has written: ``Marxist scholars regard the wars of Genghis Khan and his successors against other countries and peoples as aggressive, predatory, and reactionary. Any attempt to reconsider the Marxist appraisal of the campaigns of invaders and exploiters--- khans and noyons (feudal nobility---O. B.)---is a complete rejection of the fundamental principles of historical materialism and plays into the hands of aggressors, imperialists, revenge-seekers, and chauvinists."^^8^^
The leadership of the GPC used the mass-scale migration of Sinkiang's inhabitants into the USSR in the spring of 1962 to aggravate relations with the Soviet Union.
The migration was no chance occurrence. It was due to serious errors in CPG domestic policy, the sad material plight of the people, and wrong accents in the nationalities policy.^^9^^ However, the leadership of the GPC attempted to shift the responsibility for the migration on the USSR. Chinese officials gave contradictory explanations for the incident. Thus, at first the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs of the PRC called it ``an accident'', while subsequent Foreign Ministry notes referred to it as a ``subversive action by the Soviet authorities''.
It was not just the natives of Sinkiang who fell victim to the anti-socialist nationalities policies of the CPC leadership. Ethnic groups of Kazakh, Uigur, and Russian origin were also victimised. Decrees of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR _-_-_
~^^6^^ Lishi yanjiu, No. 4, 1964.
~^^7^^ Lishi yanjiu, No. 4, 1964.
~^^8^^ «MaoH3M rjiasaMH KOMMyimcron*, Moscow, 1969, p. 90.
~^^9^^ See T. PaxuMoe. Hau.HOna.nH3M H IUOBHHHSM---ocuona iicvuiTHKH Mao Uaa-Ayna, Moscow, 1968.
28 adopted on 10 November 1945 and 20 January 1946 granted about 120,000 of these people Soviet citizenship and papers were issued for them to live abroad. A large number, however, did not for various reasons get relevant papers, though under Soviet law they had not lost their Soviet citizenship.The attitude oi the Chinese authorities to Soviet citizens in Sinkiang after the formation of the PRC was favourable on the whole. But the situation changed drastically when anti-Soviet trends surfaced in the country. Soviet citizens residing in Sinkiang were discriminated against in property settlements and legal and other issues. They were fired en masse from their jobs, and persecuted in other ways. Chinese officials were frankly rude and arbitrary in dealing with Soviet citizens, rejecting their most basic requests. In early 1962, local authorities in Sinkiang almost completely ceased issuing permits for Soviet citizens wanting to return to their homeland.
Driven by despair, these people began crossing the border from Sinkiang in large numbers. Between 22 April and early June 1962, as many as 67,000 made unauthorised crossings into the USSR.
The Chinese side attempted to accuse the Soviet authorities of ``accepting trespassers''. In light of this, on 29 April 1962, the Soviet government sent the government of the PRC a memorandum rejecting the unfounded accusations against the USSR and pointed out that the border had been breached from the Chinese side before the very eyes of Chinese authorities, who should have taken relevant measures to prevent this mass crossing.
Despite obvious facts, the Chinese leadership continued to put forth new, trumped-up accusations against the Soviet Union. A PRC Foreign Ministry memorandum of 30 August 1962 stated that, in particular, the Soviet side had ``prepared and directed the mass exodus'', that Sinkiang was threatened ``by the serious subversive activities of the Soviet Union'', and so forth.
On 19 September 1962, the Soviet government sent the PRC Foreign Ministry a note in which it set forth its position on the mass exodus of Sinkiang's inhabitants, and also rejected the slander being heaped upon our state by the Chinese side. For a long time, the PRC government did not answer the note, and only came out with an answer on 18 July 1963, during the 29 Soviet-Chinese bilateral meeting, at which they asserted that Soviet officials in Sinkiang were allegedly conducting ``subversive activities against the PRC''. It blamed the Soviet Union for the mass exodus from Sinkiang, and for the bloody events in the city of Kuldja in the spring of 1962 during which the Chinese authorities organised a massacre of non-Han nationalities. The Chinese statement reiterated the demand that all refugees from China be sent back by force, while reaffirming the Chinese government's refusal to send spokesmen and explain the situation to the refugees.
The provocative inventions of the Chinese side were convincingly exposed in the 31 October 1963 note from the Soviet government. The Soviet government reaffirmed its readiness to settle all issues in a spirit of friendship and mutual co-- operation, including questions having to do with the mass exodus of inhabitants from Sinkiang.
As a result, the Chinese authorities were themselves forced to take into account the desire of Soviet citizens and emigrants from Russia to repatriate. In September 1962, the PRC Foreign Ministry submitted a request to the Soviet government to simplify formalities for those wanting to return to the USSR. Taking this request into account, the Soviet authorities introduced temporary visa-free entry into the USSR for Soviet citizens and members of their families residing in China. More than 46,000 people left Sinkiang for the USSR between 15 October 1962, and 1 May 1963. This was further evidence that the Chinese assertion that certain Soviet activities were aimed at ``inducing inhabitants of Sinkiang to go to the USSR" was a mere invention.
In 1963--1964, violations of the Soviet-Chinese border on the part of the PRC became more and more frequent. In 1963 alone, there were more than 4,000 such violations, and the number of civilians and military personnel taking part in them exceeded 100,000.
As a rule, the Chinese violators refused to comply with the lawful demands of Soviet border guards to leave Soviet territory. PRC authorities not only failed to take measures to prevent such incidents, but on the contrary, encouraged local residents to cross the border and settle in Soviet territory. PRC officials 30 avoided meetings with Soviet border authorities to settle the conflicts.
Violations of the border by Chinese citizens were committed with the knowledge of and even on the direct instructions of PRC authorities. This is attested to by the following fact. In 1963, written instructions from the People's Committee of Heilungjiang Province were found on a trespasser who had been detained. The instructions read: ``When our fishermen go fishing on the disputed islands in the Amur and Ussuri rivers, Soviet border guards often demand that they leave these islands. We suggest that fishing on the disputed islands be continued, and that the Soviet border guards be told that these islands belong to China, and that it is not the Chinese who have violated the border, but the Soviets. . . . On no account should our fishermen be recalled from these islands. We suppose that in view of the friendly relations between our states, the Soviet side will not forcibly expel our fishermen from the islands."^^10^^
Chinese military personnel and civilians were unfriendly, obviously hostile, to the Soviet border guards. On 3 May 1964, for example, 40 Chinese trespassers with two tractors crossed the state border near the settlement of Bakhty and began to plough a section of Soviet territory. When our border guards ordered them to leave Soviet territory, the trespassers resisted fiercely, pushing the guards away, charging them on tractors, and the like.
On 13 June, a group of Chinese citizens consisting of 60 people in 26 boats intruded upon Soviet waters on the Amur River. When a Soviet patrol boat came up, the trespassers began to wave sticks and oars, threatening the boat's crew and attempting to throw them into the water.
The Chinese authorities stoked up tension along the border by concentrating military and ``labour army" units and building large paramilitary state farms. From early 1964, regular militia units were set up along the border to maintain the ``state of emergency" in the border villages.
Local residents were divided into groups headed by public security officers. A 200-kilometre-wide area adjacent to the border _-_-_
~^^10^^ Pravda, 22 September 1963.
31 was declared closed. All persons suspected of sympathising with the USSR or having relatives in the Soviet Union were deported from this area deep into Chinese territory.The Chinese authorities conducted a vicious anti-Soviet propaganda campaign among the population of the border areas, spreading slander about the Soviet Union's preparing for war against the PRC, about the ``unlawful seizure" of Chinese territory by the Soviet state, and insisting that the border with the USSR was the ``frontline of China's defence''.
The Soviet government invariably held the opinion that there were no territorial problems between the USSR and China, that the Soviet-Chinese border was firmly fixed by treaty and that reconsidering this border was impossible. At the same time, the government of the USSR repeatedly suggested holding consultations to finalise some points of the border line to eliminate any cause of misunderstandings. The first such proposal had been made in 1960, with the Chinese side stubbornly refusing to consider it.
In November 1963, the leadership of the PRC finally agreed .to the Soviet proposal to hold a meeting on the border question. But even the answer given by the Chinese side reflected its 'desire to evade the issues raised by the Soviet Union and to take advantage of the meeting not to settle the issue, but rather to aggravate the border question. A PRC Foreign Ministry note of 19 November 1963 pointed out that there were ``many questions demanding discussion" along the entire length of the Soviet-Chinese border. The Chinese side rejected the proposal that a joint release on the coming meeting be published on the pretext that ``it will be difficult to agree a text''.
The Soviet-Chinese meeting began on 25 February 1964 in Peking.
The delegation of the USSR submitted constructive proposals which would have enabled the specification of the Soviet-Chinese border in the disputed sections. Successful settlement of this issue would have been a major contribution to friendly relations between our two nations and states.
However, the Chinese leaders would not abandon their territorial claims. An article, ``On the Statement by the Communist Party of the USA'', was published in Renminribao on 8 March 32 1963, in which the border treaties concluded a long time ago between China and Russia were referred to as ``unequal'' treaties. On 10 July 1964, in a talk with a Japanese delegation, Mao Zedong said: ``About 100 years ago, the land to the east of Lake Baikal became Russian territory, and since then Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, Kamchatka, and other places have become the territory of the Soviet Union. We still have not presented the bill for this.'' Chinese officials threatened ``to think of other ways of settling the territorial issue" and stated that they intended ``to restore their historical rights''.
On 22 August 1964, Soviet-Chinese border consultations were broken off. It was agreed in principle to continue them in Moscow on 15 October 1964. However, despite repeated reminders from the Soviet side, the PRC refused to continue consultations for many years.
In late November 1964, the Chinese leadership once again began to ``heat up" the border issue and propagandise their territorial claims to the USSR. On 26 November, Deputy Premier of the PRC Lu Dini, speaking at a national minorities amateur art show, referred to ``imperialism's attempts" to take the Northeast, Inner Mongolia, Sinkiang, Tibet, and Taiwan from China and emphasised that these areas were ``the frontline in the struggle against imperialism, Chiang Kai-shek bands, the reactionaries, and modern revisionism''. On 6 December, during the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Kyzyl-Hsu Kirghiz autonomous area (Sinkiang Province), the chairman of the Committee for the Affairs of Nationalities of the National People's Congress called for ``the defeat of the subversive and disruptive activities conducted by imperialists, reactionaries, and modern revisionists''. On 28 December, the Chinese press reported that the chairman of the People's Committee of the Sinkiang-Uigur autonomous district gave deputies of the NPC ``details on the struggle by all the nationalities of Sinkiang against the subversive and disruptive activities from abroad'', including the ``North''. In mid-January 1965, Anna Louise Strong's book, Letters from China (in English), was sold in the PRC. The author quoted the PRC's Foreign Minister Chen Yi in particular as saying in a talk with foreign delegations on 1 August 1964 that the USSR might seize Sinkiang, the northeast (Manchuria) and __PRINTERS_P_33_COMMENT__ 3---2499 33 occupy Peking. On 17 January 1965, the same Chen Yi in a talk with a Japanese parliament member, mentioned above, said once again that ``the Soviet Union had seized some 1,500,000 square kilometres of China's territory'', thus showing the CPC had returned to the position taken by Mao Zedong in his wellknown interview with a group of Japanese Socialists on 10 July 1964.
Peking stepped up its incendiary activities on the ChineseSoviet border with the aim of straining relations between the USSR and the PRC. In late March, attempts to arbitrarily seize Soviet land became more frequent. Chinese civilians and military personnel began to blatantly violate the border. If between 1 October 1964 and 1 April 1965, about 150 Chinese citizens including military personnel violated the border 36 times, in only 15 days of April 1965, Soviet territory was violated 12 times by over 500 Chinese citizens and military personnel.
Encroachments on the territory of the USSR grew increasingly defiant. Thus, for example, on 11 April 1965, about 200 Chinese civilians protected by the military began to plough Soviet land with 8 tractors. Encountering a picket of Soviet border guards, one of the Chinese officers ordered the soldiers to break through; they resorted to violence and insulting actions in the process.
In order to justify its anti-Soviet policy, the Peking, leaders tried to create the impression both within China and abroad that the Soviet Union was pursuing an unfriendly policy in relation to the PRC, that an ``anti-Chinese campaign" was being conducted in our country, and the like. In order to support this provocative fabrication, the Maoists distorted and falsified the facts, at points lying brazenly. Peking immediately interpreted the visits of Western statesmen to Moscow as ``the Soviet Union's collusion with imperialism to fight China'', and any mention of China in the Soviet press was regarded as an attack on the ``great Chinese people''.
However, the slanderous inventions of Peking's leaders were powerless to distort the Soviet Union's clear-cut policy with respect to China. This policy was reaffirmed at the Plenary Meeting of the CPSU Central Committee in September 1965. First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Leonid Brezhnev clearly stated in his speech on 29 September that the USSR 34 would ``consistently continue to search for ways to settle the disagreements, to strengthen friendship and co-operation between the Soviet and Chinese peoples, between our parties and countries".^^11^^
The Peking leaders did not respond positively to this statement, but even tried to place new obstacles in the way of normalising Soviet-Chinese relations. Their anti-Soviet, divisive platform was described frankly in an editorial published on 11 November 1965 in the periodical Hongqi and the newspaper Guangmingribao.
During the course of the ``cultural revolution'', the Maoist leadership constantly organised anti-Soviet provocations, attempting to cover up the anti-socialist nature of the political coup by Mao's group with noisy propaganda.
The stepping up of disruptive activities by the Peking leaders was also reflected in more frequent and large-scale violations of the Chinese-Soviet border. In 1967, the number of violations increased by more than 100 per cent as compared with the previous year reaching more than 2,000. It is to be noted that border violations were particularly frequent in those periods when antiSoviet hysteria was increased in China: January-February, August-September, and December. In August-September, for instance, groups of 13--20 Chinese attempted to land on the Soviet Island of Kultuk in the Amur River more than 30 times. Chinese actions near Kirkinsky Island in December 1967 were candidly hostile. During that month, groups of Chinese---both military personnel and civilians---landed on the island several times a day.
In 1967, the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs filed nine separate complaints with the PRC about these border violations. All the violations without exception were planned beforehand, and conformed to a single pattern. Here is an example. In early February 1967, a lorry packed with the Chinese drove across the ice onto a Soviet island in the Ussuri River. Soviet border guards demanded that the intruders leave Soviet territory. But the Chinese, many of whom were drunk, attempted to fight with the guards using sticks and iron rods. In half an hour, new groups _-_-_
~^^11^^ JI. H. Epeacnee. JleHHHCKHM Kypcoin. PeiH H cratbH, Vol. 1, Moscow, 1970, p. 227.
35 of people in uniforms under their sheepskin coats who had hidden on the Chinese bank began to move. The Chinese cursed at the Soviet border guards, attempting to drive them back using rods, axes, and staffs so the Chinese could move deep into Soviet territory. At the same time, they beat up one of their own, placed him on a stretcher, and a photographer who ``happened'' to be among the raiders snapped this ``victim'' of Soviet ``brutality''. On the same day, representatives of the Chinese border authorities lodged a protest with Soviet border guards against the beating of ``a Chinese fisherman on Chinese territory''.During the fishing season, Chinese fishing teams took along ``self-defence groups" with the direct intention of organising clashes with Soviet border guards. Those who violated the border and were driven off Soviet territory were welcomed as heroes by local Chinese authorities, and anti-Soviet meetings and demonstrations were held on these occasions. Attempts were also made to conduct anti-Soviet propaganda in Russian over loudspeakers mounted on military boats. On 19 October, the Soviet Embassy in Peking made an oral protest to the Foreign Ministry of the PRC concerning the mass-scale provocative actions by Chinese authorities along the river borders. On 26 October, the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent a note of protest on the same question to the Chinese Embassy in Moscow.
Border violations by the PRC reflected the latter's desire to unleash full-scale border conflicts: this was stated openly in the speeches of Chinese officials. In February 1967, in speaking about prospects for Chinese-Soviet relations, Minister of Foreign Affairs Chen Yi said: ``Relations may be broken off, and there may be war.'' On 26 March 1967, in a speech to members of bourgeois-democratic parties, Zhou Enlai frankly said that in addition to full-scale wars, ``there were border wars'', and that ``the border war between China and the USSR would begin sooner than the war against the USA''.
Constantly escalating the anti-Soviet campaign, Peking's leaders precipitated an armed clash on the Ussuri River on Damansky Island at the Soviet-Chinese border.
On the night of 1 March, a specially trained Chinese military unit, numbering about 300, violated the Soviet border and moved onto Damansky Island. On the morning of 2 March, the unit 36 was joined by another group of 30 armed soldiers. Reserves and weapons including anti-tank guns, mortars, and large-calibre machine guns had been deployed beforehand on the Chinese side.
When the Soviet border guards approached the intruders with the aim of protesting and demanding that the trespassers leave Soviet territory as they had done on many occasions, the intruders opened fire without warning and shot down the Soviet soldiers. At the same time, another group of Soviet border guards was fired on from ambushes on the island and the Chinese side of the river.
Assuming combat positions, the Soviet border guards and reserves from a nearby border post courageously repulsed the sudden attack and drove the intruders from Soviet territory.
The armed attack by the PRC on Damansky Island had been carefully prepared. It was found that on the site of the clash the fleeing Chinese had abandoned small arms and other weapons, field telephones, communications lines leading onto the territory of the PRC, mine stabilizers, grenades, and so on. As a result of the criminal raid organised by the Chinese authorities, 31 Soviet border guards were killed and 14 were wounded.
On 2 March 1969, the Soviet government sent the PRC government a note resolutely protesting armed intrusion into Soviet territory and demanded an immediate inquiry and the strictest punishment of those responsible for organising the clash. The government of the USSR insisted that ``urgent measures be adopted to rule out any violations of the Soviet-Chinese border''. At the same time, the note pointed out that the Soviet government was motivated by a feeling of friendship in relations with the Chinese nation and would continue to follow this line.^^12^^
The Chinese authorities did not heed these proposals. On the contrary, they continued to exacerbate the situation. Beginning on 3 March 1969, specially trained groups once again organised a siege of the Soviet Embassy in Peking. A vicious anti-Soviet campaign was launched in China, in the course of which territorial claims were made again on the USSR and the climate of chauvinism and military psychosis was whipped up by all possible means.
_-_-_~^^12^^ See Pravda, 4 March 1969.
37Meanwhile, Chinese authorities were preparing a new armed border provocation which was carried out on 14 and 15 March 1969.
On 14 March, an armed group of Chinese soldiers undertook a new attempt to move onto Darnansky Island. On the following day, a large Chinese force supported from the bank by artillery and mortar fire, attacked the border guards defending the island. The raiders were driven away from the island.
In a declaration on 15 March 1969, the Soviet government sternly condemned this new Chinese provocation. It was pointed out that ``if the lawful rights of the USSR were infringed upon, if further attempts to violate the Soviet border were undertaken, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and all its nationalities would resolutely defend their country and would inflict a crushing blow upon the intruders".^^13^^
The armed clash on the Soviet-Chinese border was undoubtedly intended to be a multifaceted action. It was used to fan sentiments of nationalism and chauvinism in the PRC, which would hopefully enable it to hit its adversaries.
It was not by chance that the armed conflict on the SovietChinese border was organised at a point when preparations for the 9th CPC Congress were in their final stages. By building upon the anti-Soviet hysteria and chauvinist frenzy, the Maoists hoped to create a climate enabling them to impose their antiSoviet, great-power plans on the congress and to make this the official foreign policy of the PRC.
The anti-Soviet frenzy in China and attempts to take advantage of armed conflicts on the Soviet-Chinese border in order to discredit the Soviet Union internationally were used by the Maoists in their subversive activities against the socialist community and the communist movement. One of the immediate aims of Peking's leaders was to prevent the holding of the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, preparations for which were nearly completed.
At the same time, armed provocations by Chinese authorities on the border with the Soviet Union were conducive to Peking's unprincipled advances to the imperialist states. In organising _-_-_
~^^13^^ Pravda, 16 March 1969.
38 criminal actions along the Soviet-Chinese border, the ruling group in Peking was playing up to the extreme imperialist reactionaries in the hope of winning their support.The provocation on Damansky Island was an important part of the Maoist efforts radically to re-orient the PRC's foreign and domestic policies and, in effect, to turn China into a force openly hostile to the socialist countries.
The armed clashes provoked the anger and indignation of the entire Soviet people, who sternly condemned them. Mass meetings at which participants pilloried the intruders and expressed their readiness to repulse any attack were held throughout the Soviet Union. Hero of Socialist Labour, Chairman of the Zhdanov Collective Farm in the Aravan district of Kirghizia Toichi Kochubayev wrote to Pravda: ``The blood shed by the Soviet border guards on Damansky Island heaps eternal shame upon the heads of the Chinese intruders. We collective farmers all agree that we won't allow anyone to violate the borders of our country. We admire the courage and firmness of the defenders of our country's borders. We lower our heads in tribute to the heroes who died at the hands of the Chinese criminals. Our grateful reply to their military feat will be hard work in the fields and higher yields. The members of our farm have resolved to double the grain crop, and to grow not less than 40 centners of cotton per hectare, thereby making a worthy contribution to the strength of the Soviet state."^^14^^
Working people in Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, the German Democratic Republic, and other socialist countries declared their solidarity with the Soviet people.
The Bulgarian newspaper Zemedelsko Zname wrote: ``The Bulgarian people and the public at large brand these acts of provocation of the Peking leaders with contempt and profound indignation."^^15^^
The Chinese provocations were to the advantage of international imperialism and caused profound concern among Communists and progressive forces throughout the world. MarxistLeninist Communist and Workers' parties and progressive public _-_-_
~^^14^^ Pravda, 20 March 1969.
~^^15^^ Pravda, 10 March 1969.
39 opinion throughout the world condemned the Chinese actions. The 29th Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Peru unanimously censured the Peking leaders.^^16^^ A Plenary Meeting of the Communist Party of Israel adopted a resolution that the attack by the Chinese on the Soviet border post on Damansky Island was a result of Peking's nationalistic, anti-Soviet policies.^^17^^At a conference of the Copenhagen organisation of the Communist Party of Denmark, party Chairman Knud Jespersen said that the armed Chinese provocation on the Ussuri River benefitted only the enemies of the communist movement. He remarked that the provocation had the aim of establishing new relations between China and West Germany and the USA.^^18^^
The newspaper of the Communist Party of Canada, the Canadian Tribune, described the clashes on the Soviet-Chinese frontier as a logical outcome of Maoism's reckless great-power policies. It was not by chance, the newspaper pointed out, that these acts coincided with similar acts by West German reactionary forces in West Berlin and with greater tension in the Middle East. This was all part of a plan which had been worked out beforehand with the aim of creating a new flashpoint in the East as the background for the coming party congress in China. Maoism had intentionally fanned the flames of anti-Sovietism in order to suppress criticism of the catastrophic results of the `` proletarian cultural revolution".^^19^^
Repulsing the Chinese attacks, the Soviet Union did not go back on its aim of normalising relations with the PRC, including the settlement of the border questions. The Soviet government's statement of 29 March 1969^^20^^ showed that the Chinese leadership's attempts to support their territorial claims with historical references, as well as to prove the ``unequal nature" of the treaties which had established the existing border were groundless.
In attempting to ``back up" their territorial claims to the Soviet Union, Peking leaders even declared themselves heirs to _-_-_
~^^16^^ See Pravda, 11 March 1969.
~^^17^^ See Pravda, 20 March 1969.
~^^18^^ See Pravda, 20 March 1969.
~^^19^^ See Pravda, 26 March 1969.
~^^20^^ See Pravda, 30 March 1969.
40 Genghis Khan, naming him among the emperors of China. Chauvinist falsifications of that sort were ridiculed by Lu Xin. In 1934 he wrote: ``At the age of 20, I heard that `our' Golden Age occurred when `our' Genghis Khan conquered Europe. Only when I reached the age of 25 did I learn that in `our' so-called Golden Age, we were conquered by the Mongols and became slaves. Last August I leafed through three books on Mongolian history to check some facts and only then realised that Genghis Khan first invaded Hungary and Austria. He was not yet our khan. The Russians were subjected earlier than we were, so they should have been the ones to say: 'When our Genghis Khan conquered China, it was our Golden Age.'~"It is fitting to recall another statement made by this brilliant Chinese writer, revolutionary and internationalist, which, though addressed to the imperialists, sounds like a direct accusation of those who masterminded the Damansky Island border clashes. In a 1932 article called ``We Will No Longer Be Deceived" Lu Xin wrote: ``We are against attacking the Soviet Union. We seek to destroy the dark forces attacking it, regardless of the sweet words they say and the screen of justice they hide behind. This, and only this, is our road in life!''
In attempting to give a semblance of truth to their assertions that the treaties which established the border beween China and Russia were unjust, the Chinese leaders resort to misquoting the founders of Marxism-Leninism and refer even to Lenin. But it is well known that the first head of the Soviet state said nothing of the border treaties with China being unequal or needing revision. Lenin stood on the principle that ``We reject all clauses on plunder and violence, but we shall welcome all clauses containing provisions for good-neighbourly relations and all economic agreements; we cannot reject these."^^21^^
We are well aware of Lenin's words: ``Though Vladivostok is a long way off, it is after all one of our own towns.. .. The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic now stretches from here to there."^^22^^ During the years 1918--1922, the Soviet people under the leadership of the Communist Party headed by Lenin _-_-_
~^^21^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 26, p. 255.
~^^22^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 437.
41 liberated their Far Eastern lands from foreign interventionists, who had attempted to seize the Maritime area, Khabarovsk Territory, and Eastern Siberia, with great effort and many sacrifices. Later, Japanese militarists and their lackeys frequently tried to test the strength of the Soviet border. After occupying Manchuria, they tried to capture islands belonging to the Soviet Union on the Amur and Ussuri rivers, but were thrown back. Their adventure on Lake Khasan and at Khalkhin-Gol ended in the same way: the aggressors suffered a crushing defeat.After the PRC was founded, the Chinese government repeatedly reaffirmed its obligation to respect the state sovereignty and territorial integrity of the USSR. This obligation was set down in the Treaty on Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance between the USSR and the PRC signed in February 1950. Article 5 provides for ``mutual respect for state sovereignty and territorial integrity''. The same obligation is contained in the joint declaration of the Soviet and Chinese governments on 12 October 1954,^^23^^ and the joint Soviet-Chinese declaration of 18 January 1957.^^24^^
As noted above, in the early 1950s, at the request of the Chinese government, the Soviet Union presented the PRC with a complete set of topographical maps showing the border according to the Russo-Chinese treaties. At the time, the Chinese authorities made no comments on the border as designated by the map, and in practice, this border was observed.
After the Soviet-Chinese Treaty on Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance was signed, the two sides engaged in joint study and use of the Amur and Ussuri rivers. The population of the two countries maintained friendly relations, developing trade, cultural, and other contacts. In 1951, a Soviet-Chinese agreement governing navigation and navigation aids on the Amur, Ussuri, Argun, and Sungachi rivers and Lake Khanka, was signed, and in 1956, another agreement was concluded on joint studies and the comprehensive use of the water resources in the Amur basin by the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China.
_-_-_~^^23^^ See Izvestia, 12 October 1954.
~^^24^^ See Izvestia, 19 January 1957.
42Soviet and Chinese border guards co-operated in a friendly manner, settled any outstanding questions in a businesslike and good-neighbourly fashion. There were no conflicts or misunderstandings along the border.
Such was the situation until the CPC leadership then in power began aggravating Soviet-Chinese relations. As is stated above, beginning in 1960, violations of the Soviet border by the PRC became more frequent and took on an increasingly glaring and provocative nature. It is not surprising that the Chinese leaders opposed the very principle of peaceful settlement of border disputes, making harsh attacks on the proposal advanced by the Soviet Union in December 1963 to sign an international agreement renouncing the use of force in settling territorial disputes and border questions. It is also revealing that the Chinese leaders resented efforts by the Soviet Union and other countries aimed at peaceful settlement of the 1965 armed conflict between India and Pakistan. The Tashkent Declaration which put an end to this conflict was slandered in Peking. The Chinese leaders refused to pay any attention to India's proposals that the Indo-Chinese border question be settled.
In sharp contrast to this, the government of the USSR sought to settle the incidents on the Soviet-Chinese border by means of bilateral consultations as soon as the first incidents occurred.
In a declaration on 29 March, the Soviet government once again favoured resuming the consultations on the border questions which were begun in Peking in 1964. Motivated by an unflinching desire to achieve lasting peace and security, to maintain friendship and co-operation with the Chinese people, the government of the USSR stressed the need for urgent practical measures to normalise the situation on the Soviet-Chinese border. It called on the government of the PRC to refrain from border actions which could lead to complications and to settle possible differences in a calm atmosphere.
The Soviet government's declaration was welcomed by all those who were interested in normalising Soviet-Chinese relations on a reasonable and just basis. This standpoint was fully expressed in a declaration by the People's Republic of Bulgaria on 2 April 1969 which read: ``The USSR's declaration on 29 March of this year correctly and precisely shows the world public 43 the historical truth about the Soviet-Chinese border and the development of relations between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. .. . The government of the People's Republic of Bulgaria unconditionally supports the declaration of the government of the USSR and its sincere efforts aimed at creating a normal situation on the Chinese-Soviet border, at achieving lasting peace and security, and at sustaining relations of friendship and co-operation between the Soviet and Chinese peoples, as well as its proposal to resume the consultations begun in 1964 in Peking between Soviet and Chinese officials in the very near future."^^25^^
On 11 April 1969, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR sent the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC a note proposing that consultations between government representatives of the USSR and the PRC be resumed, in Moscow on 15 April 1969, or at any other time in the near future convenient to the Chinese side.^^26^^
On 26 April 1969, with the aim of normalising the situation on the river borders and securing normal conditions for navigation, the Soviet Union suggested that a regular meeting of the navigation commission founded in accordance with the 1951 government agreement on navigation on the river borders be convened in May 1969.
The Soviet Union's desire to normalise the situation on the Soviet-Chinese border was confirmed by the speeches of Soviet leaders. CPSU Central Committee General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, in a speech in Red Square on 1 May 1969, stressed that the Soviet Union favoured settlement of outstanding issues by means of negotiation.^^27^^ A report delivered by CPSU Central Committee Secretary I. V. Kapitonov at a meeting in Kremlin on 22 April 1969 pointed out the need for practical measures to normalise the situation on the Soviet-Chinese border and reiterated the Soviet government's call to the government of the PRC to refrain from actions leading to complications and to solve differences, should they arise, in a calm setting by means of _-_-_
~^^25^^ Pravda, 3 April 1969.
~^^26^^ See Pravda, 12 April 1969.
~^^27^^ See Pravda, 2 May 1969.
44 negotiation. ``We expect a reply to this proposal from the Chinese government,'' the report concluded.^^28^^In their reply to the Soviet Foreign Ministry note of 11 April 1969, the Chinese side stated on 14 April 1969 that Soviet proposals concerning the settlement of the border situation ``were being examined''. However, the Chinese authorities' border activities, as well as their general political course, became increasingly hostile.
Armed forays on the Soviet-Chinese border were a kind of preparation for the 9th CPC Congress held 1-24 April 1969 in Peking. The congress was convened in a setting of internal political crisis and growing factional strife within the Maoist camp. To draw the attention of the Chinese people away from the failure of its domestic and foreign policies, the ruling group of the CPC decided to hold the congress on the crest of a wave of chauvinist anti-Soviet frenzy.
The 9th Congress involved a complicated internal struggle, but on the whole, the Maoists managed to impose their line.
The report of the CPC Central Committee stated that the Chinese leaders sought to ``settle territorial questions through diplomatic channels" and, ``until they were settled, to retain the existing situation on the border and to avoid conflicts''. But in actual fact, both during and after the congress, the Chinese side constantly violated the Soviet border.
In late April 1969, a large group of Chinese moved onto the Soviet Island of Kultuk on the Amur River and attempted to engage in farm work, with military units providing cover. In light of this, the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent a note of resolute protest to the PRC on 25 April. On 2 May 1969, over 300 Chinese military personnel, armed with machine guns and mortars, violated the state border of the USSR in the west. The provocative nature of this action was vividly reflected by the fact that the Chinese authorities tried to cover up the actions of the intruders with peaceful Chinese---shepherds---and their flocks of sheep. On 14 May, a large group of Chinese citizens landed on a Soviet island near the city of Blagoveshchensk. When Soviet _-_-_
~^^28^^ Pravda, 23 April 1969.
45 border guards demanded that the intruders leave Soviet territory, they were attacked by the latter with axes and iron rods. As a result of resolute action on the part of the border guards, the intruders were driven off the island.In the first half of May 1969 alone, Soviet border officials lodged more than 20 protests against glaring violations of the Soviet border.
After two months of procrastination, on 24 May 1969, the Chinese government answered the Soviet government's declaration of 29 March. The answer clearly showed that its authors had no intention of solving the outstanding issues, but on the contrary, intended further to aggravate Soviet-Chinese relations. The reply repeated the absurd demand that the Soviet Union acknowledge the ``unequal nature" of the treaties which established the border line between the USSR and the PRC and attempted to support the Chinese leaders' claims to historically Soviet lands. The PRC did not formally reject the idea of negotiations, but they were made contingent on a number of obviously unacceptable conditions. At the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties (June 1969) Leonid Brezhnev said of the Chinese answer that ``the statement of the PRC Government can in no way be described as constructive either in content or spirit. The wordy document is full of historical falsifications, distortions of the facts of modern times and of rude, hostile attacks against the Soviet Union. It renews groundless territorial claims on the Soviet Union, which we categorically reject."^^29^^
The 24 May declaration of the government of the PRC reaffirmed the resolutions of the 9th CPC Congress which were hostile to the Soviet Communist Party and the USSR and attempted to justify those actions of the Peking leaders which were aimed at aggravating Soviet-Chinese inter-governmental relations. Adopting a prosecutorial tone, inadmissible between two sovereign states, the Chinese government tried to pose judge of Soviet domestic and foreign policies. The Soviet Union was officially classified as a state hostile to China. In this way, the Peking leadership sought to justify its expansionist intentions in relation to the Soviet Union, and to present anti-Sovietism as a _-_-_
~^^29^^ L. I. Brezhnev, Following Lenin's Course, Moscow, 1972, p. 184.
46 struggle against ``social-imperialism'', while at the same time covering up its own apostasy and degeneration.The Chinese government's 24 May declaration served as a signal for the stepping up of the anti-Soviet frenzy in the PRC. Anti-Soviet propaganda became increasingly militant, and it was openly stated that war between China and the Soviet Union was inevitable. On 6 June 1969, for example, the Guangmingribao newspaper published an article containing a call ``to prepare to wage both conventional and nuclear war against Soviet revisionism''. In the first five months of 1969, Renminribao alone published 653 anti-Soviet items, more than during the entire year of 1968.
Provocative anti-Soviet statements in the Chinese press were interspersed with ``predictions'' that a new world war was in the offing. On May 14 1969, the Zefangribao newspaper wrote that 22 years had passed between the two world wars, while 23 years had already passed since the Second World War, and that now one ``could already smell gunpowder in the air''. The paper maintained: ``The question of a world war is in effect the question of the proletarian revolution and humanity's prospects.'' On 25 May 1969, Renminribao urged the world proletariat not to fear a new world war, ``because in this war it could only lose its chains and gain the whole world''.
The Peking leaders' course of fighting the socialist community and the world communist movement, and their divisive anti-Soviet activities were sternly condemned at the Moscow Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties in June 1969.
The armed provocations of the Chinese authorities along the Soviet-Chinese border aroused the profound indignation of Meeting participants. The head of the delegation from the Socialist Unity Party of Germany and the First Secretary of the Party Central Committee Walter Ulbricht said: ``These acts of armed aggression mean direct support for US global strategy and the expansionist policy of West German imperialism."^^30^^
On 13 June 1969, the Soviet government issued a new declaration in which it answered the 24 May document of the PRC, _-_-_
~^^30^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow 1969, Prague, 1969, p. 230.
47 once again setting forth its positive programme for settling the border questions.^^31^^ Reaffirming the proposal to resume consultations between Soviet and Chinese officials concerning certain sections of the boundary line on the basis of existing treaties, the Soviet side suggested that the two sides ``determine those sections of the border where there were no differences; as to those sections where there are differences that an understanding be reached as to the boundary by means of mutual consultations on the basis of existing treaties; in determining the boundary in sections where natural changes have taken place, to take into account existing treaties, the economic interests of the local population, and to make mutual concessions; and to affix the agreement in documents signed by the two countries''.The Soviet government proposed that the consultations, which had been held in Peking and broken off in 1964, be resumed in Moscow within the next two or three months.
The Soviet government's declaration pointed out: ``The USSR's policy in respect to the Chinese people was and is the same: it is based on long-term considerations. We remember that the fundamental interests of the Soviet and Chinese peoples coincide. The Soviet Union is in favour of good-neighbourly and friendly relations with China, and of removing any obstacles that might complicate relations between our two states."^^32^^
In early July 1969, a Session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR considered the question of the international situation and the Soviet Union's foreign policy. In a report at the session, USSR Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrei Gromyko focussed attention on Soviet-Chinese relations.
At the Session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR it was once again stated that the Soviet state's policy in respect to China had been and was based on the need to restore and develop friendship between the USSR and the PRC and that the Soviet Union was ready to conduct talks with the Chinese leadership on a broad range of questions of mutual concern without any preliminary conditions.^^33^^
_-_-_~^^31^^ See Pravda, 14 June 1969.
~^^32^^ Ibid.
~^^33^^ See Pravda, 11 July 1969.
48But the Peking leaders continued stubbornly to ignore the proposals of the Soviet side which were aimed at normalising relations between the two countries. Moreover, on 8 July 1969, they undertook another action to aggravate tensions on the SovietChinese border. On that day, Chinese authorities organised an armed attack against Soviet rivermen on Goldinsky Island.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR lodged a resolute protest regarding this new provocation and demanded that the PRC punish those who were responsible for it, and also adopt measures to prevent similar actions from occurring. The note stressed that ``with the aim of protecting its lawful rights, the Soviet Union has been forced to take additional measures against the Chinese authorities' actions which violate the state border of the USSR and threaten the lives and security of Soviet citizens".^^34^^
In late July 1969, the Soviet government took the initiative in proposing the organisation of a Soviet-Chinese bilateral meeting to discuss basic problems in relations between the USSR and the PRC and exchange opinions on ways of decreasing border tensions between the two countries, with questions of trade, economic, scientific, technical, and cultural co-operation to be placed on the agenda as well. The PRC's State Council evaded a reply.
Meanwhile, Maoist provocations continued on the ChineseSoviet border. From June to mid-August 1969, there were 488 deliberate violations of the Soviet border and armed incidents were staged by the PRC with the participation of a total of 2,500 of its citizens.^^35^^
A particular place in border provocations by Peking is taken by the armed incident of 13 August 1969, near the town of Zhalanashkol (Semipalatinsk Region). This was the largest Maoist action since 2 March 1969, and an action upon which Peking placed high hopes and associated with long-term plans.
The Peking leaders obviously intended to take revenge for the defeat of all previous raids on Soviet territory. But these illusory intentions were thwarted, for the Maoists suffered a crushing defeat at Zhalanashkol; here they felt fully the stern _-_-_
~^^34^^ Pravda, 9 July 1969.
~^^35^^ See Pravda, 11 September 1969.
49 retribution for their attempts to violate the territorial integrity of the Soviet state. Extremists in the ruling elite of Peking sought to have China adopt a position of irreconcilable hostility against the Soviet Union and continued efforts aimed at aggravating relations with the USSR, resorting to direct armed provocations along the border.On Soviet initiative, a meeting was organised between Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Alexei Kosygin and Premier of the PRC's State Council Zhou Enlai. The meeting was held in Peking on 11 September 1969, as Kosygin was returning from the funeral of Ho Chi Minh in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
Certain questions of Soviet-Chinese relations were discussed during the meeting. The exchange of opinions was continued in an official correspondence. An important result of the meeting was resumption of border talks in October 1969 in Peking. A Soviet government delegation headed by First Deputy Foreign Minister Kuznetsov arrived in Peking on 19 October 1969, to conduct the talks.
By the time the talks began, both sides had carried out a number of measures to try to normalise the situation on the border according to the agreement reached by the heads of government on 11 September 1969. Soviet border troops were instructed:~
to continue to maintain normal relations between Soviet and Chinese border troops and authorities and to maintain the status quo on the frontier;~
to observe the procedure of considering all border questions by means of consultations in a good-neighbourly fashion, with courtesy in order to maintain a good-neighbourly situation on the border and to preclude the use of armed force;~
in view of the traditional relations of friendship between the peoples of the USSR and China, to take into account the economic interests of the population in the border areas of both countries in a spirit of good will and reciprocal concessions;~
not to conduct propaganda against the other side along the border, including use of loudspeakers.
The Soviet government officially notified the PRC's government ot all these measures. The Chinese side reported that it had adopted similar measures.
50The Soviet Union attached immense importance to the talks on the border issues with the PRC. At a meeting of SovietCzechoslovak friendship on 27 October 1969, Leonid Brezhnev pointed out:
``The Central Committee of the CPSU and the Soviet government hope that a positive, realistic approach will prevail at these talks.
``There is no lack of good will on the part of the Soviet Union. We are for settling border and other questions between the USSR and the PRC on a firm and just basis, in the spirit of equality, mutual respect, and due accord for the interests of both countries. If the Chinese side also shows good will, this will undoubtedly become possible."^^36^^
The Soviet side did everything possible to create a climate favourable to a successful outcome for the talks: the press ceased critical comments on policies of the CPC; measures were adopted to normalise the situation as far as possible along the SovietChinese border and to settle emerging questions in a spirit of good will by means of consultations.
The Chinese side acted in a different manner. Not long before the talks, On 7 and 8 October, the government of the PRC published documents reiterating the former groundless assertions that the Russo-Chinese treaties which determined the present boundary between the USSR and the PRC were unequal, attempting to shift responsibility for deterioration of the situation along the Soviet-Chinese border to the Soviet Union, printing crude slander against the Party and country, and pointing out that ``there are irreconcilable, fundamental differences between China and the Soviet Union" and that ``the struggle between them would last for a long time".^^37^^
The anti-Soviet propaganda campaign was stepped up in China with the beginning of the talks. During the days when the delegations got down to work, state shops began selling antiSoviet booklets in Chinese, Russian, and other languages which contained vile attacks against the Soviet Union, setting forth China's territorial claims to it, intentionally distorting the _-_-_
~^^36^^ Pravda, 28 October 1969.
~^^37^^ Renminribao, 7 and 8 October 1969.
51 history of the Soviet-Chinese border, and provocatively asserting that the USSR was hatching plans to seize Chinese territory, etc.Chinese cinemas resumed the showing of ``documentaries'' fanning hatred for the Soviet people. Shop windows displayed anti-Soviet photographs; parks and other public places were the sites of anti-Soviet exhibitions with slogans calling for ``heads to be cracked, blood to be drawn, and Soviet people to be buried''. Similar slogans were popularised in the official Chinese press.^^38^^
In autumn of 1969, China launched a campaign of `` preparation for war''. This campaign, constantly fired by provocative warnings against the danger of the Soviet Union attacking the PRC, involved virtually the entire population and all political and economic activities throughout the country. Preparation for war was declared to be the ``basic purpose of economic development in China".^^39^^ Mass transfer of industrial enterprises into the depth of the country was started; food and medicine were stockpiled. In case of a ``siege'', the population in cities and rural areas was forcibly mobilised to build defenceworks, bomb shelters, and trenches. Drills simulating enemy air raids were constantly being held.
Creating a situation of military psychosis in the country, the Maoists sought to prevent any lessening of anti-Soviet sentiments in connection with the talks between the USSR and the PRC on border questions, to dispel the Chinese people's hopes for normalisation of relations between the two countries, to suppress rising political strife within the country, to unite broad sections of the population by means of the alleged Soviet threat, to justify economic difficulties, and to provide a pretext for the further growth of military production. In the final count, all this served to strengthen the military-bureaucratic dictatorship in China.
The spirit of open militarism popularised by Maoist propaganda, the Peking leaders' attempt to militarise practically the entire population, and a frenzied hate campaign against other nations provoked the indignation of the progressive world public.
In 1970, the campaign of ``preparation for war" took on a _-_-_
~^^38^^ Renminribao, 13 December 1969.
~^^39^^Hongqi, No. 10, 1969.
52 larger scope. In order to justify the military preparations. Peking launched the story that the PRC was subject to military pressure from the Soviet Union. Chinese propaganda spread provocative fabrications about the Soviet Union's preparations to attack the People's Republic of China and the staging of major military actions in the USSR. The situation on the Soviet-Chinese border was deliberately distorted; it was asserted that Soviet troops were being concentrated there, and so on.On 14 March 1970, a TASS statement which put a decisive end to all attempts to cast a shadow on Soviet policies with respect to China was published in the Soviet Union. It declared: ``Such inventions are totally ungrounded. By these means anticommunist propaganda is seeking to hinder the Soviet-Chinese talks currently underway in Peking, and to contribute to higher tensions between the USSR and the PRC. Soviet armed forces are carrying on their daily activities and improving their skills within the framework of normal plans and programmes, strengthening the Soviet state's defensive capacity over its entire territory."^^40^^ The TASS statement made a point of saying that the desire to normalise Soviet-Chinese relations, to develop co-- operation, to restore and strengthen friendship between the two nations was always the policy of the USSR.
But the Chinese leaders continued to distort the Soviet Union's foreign policy and to make the USSR out as a force hostile to the PRC. The ``war preparation'' campaign, the cultivation of a militaristic spirit in China, and the anti-Soviet provocative propaganda continued at the same rate in the PRC. Cries of the Soviet threat were obviously provocative in nature and were needed for the perfidious aims of the Peking leaders. In their attempt to influence the USSR, they were resorting to military blackmail, and putting pressure on the Soviet Union at the talks on border questions.
But this attempt was stillborn. The Soviet Union's stand was clearly stated by General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Leonid Brezhnev in a speech on 14 April 1970, on the occasion of the presenting of the Order of Lenin to the Kharkov Region. Referring to the Soviet-Chinese talks on the _-_-_
~^^40^^ Pravda, 14 March 1970.
53 border question, Brezhnev said: ``The Soviet Union adheres to a firm and unambiguous position at these talks. We believe it necessary to attain an agreement which would turn the SovietChinese border into a border of good-neighbourly relations and not hostility.``Without abandoning our lawful principles and positions, while defending the interests of the Soviet homeland and the inviolability of its borders, we will do everything we can to normalise relations with the People's Republic of China. Of course, everyone knows quite well that this does not depend on us alone.
``We are certain that the long-term interests of the Soviet and Chinese peoples not only are not contradictory, but coincide. At the same time, we cannot help seeing that a situation is being artificially created around the talks in China which can hardly contribute to their success. Indeed, who would claim that the fanning of anti-Soviet military psychosis and calls upon China's population to prepare themselves for 'war and hunger' could possibly help the successful outcome of the talks? If this is being done to exert pressure on the Soviet Union, we can say right away that these efforts are wasted. Our people's nerves are strong, something it is high time the organisers of the military frenzy in China found out. In the final analysis, the PRC is hardly less interested in settling the border question than is the Soviet Union which has everything it needs to defend the interests of the Soviet people, the builders of communism."^^41^^
Reaffirming its fundamental stand, the Soviet Union has on many occasions proposed that both sides assume firm, permanent obligations excluding an attack by either side. This question first arose in 1969 when preparations for the border talks were underway in accordance with the agreement reached between the heads of state of the USSR and the PRC on 11 September. In view of the Chinese side's statement that it was worried about the intentions of the Soviet side, the Soviet Union suggested at the time that the USSR and China take upon themselves not to attack one another. In connection with the importance of this question, the Soviet government initiated the proposal to state this condition outside the framework of the border _-_-_
~^^41^^ Pravda, 15 April 1970.
54 settlement, not as a point in the agreement on ``temporary measures" to preserve the status quo on the border, as the Chinese side suggested, but in a special inter-governmental summit document. In September 1969, the Soviet side announced that it was ready to propose the draft of such a document.In July 1970, the Soviet side proposed that talks be held in order to draw up a draft inter-governmental agreement on mutual non-aggression by armed forces including nuclear weapons, prohibition of war propaganda and preparations for war against each other. The Chinese government evaded an answer to this Soviet initiative, at the same time continuing to spread fabrications that the ``talks were being held under military threat" by the USSR.
On 15 January 1971, the Soviet government initiated a proposal immediately to conclude an agreement between the two countries not to use force or threat of force in any form, including conventional, missile, and nuclear weapons. A draft agreement was sent to the Chinese government. It said: ``The sides agree not to use force in any form in their relations or in settling outstanding issues, and not to threaten use of force. They agree to solve all their conflicts by exclusively peaceful means, by negotiating and consulting with each other; the sides shall not use armed force against one another or any weapons including: a) conventional, b) missiles, c) nuclear arms.''
The Chinese side refused to sign a separate agreement on non-use of force and suggested that the relevant points be included in the text of an interim agreement. Meeting Peking half way, the Soviet side agreed. The wording of the corresponding provision in the agreement was also agreed upon. Questions could have finally been settled, but Peking unexpectedly threw a new obstacle in the way of progress. Peking linked its proposal to the Soviet adoption of the concept of ``disputed areas'', i.e., advanced a preliminary condition acceptable to no sovereign state.
The invariable course of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union which is aimed at normalising and developing relations with China was vividly reflected in the resolutions of the 24th Congress of the CPSU held in late March and early April 1971.
The Chinese leadership continued to try to disguise its reluctance to develop normal inter-governmental relations with the 55 USSR by falsifications with respect to the Soviet Union, accusing it of being unfriendly to the PRC.
At the same time, Chinese propaganda tried to persuade the world public that Peking was in favour of improving relations with the USSR. The border talks were widely used for this purpose. Despite the agreement that the two sides would not divulge any information during the course of the talks, this was one of the chief subjects of interviews given by Chinese leaders to foreign, mainly western, officials, concerning relations with the USSR. Chinese leaders represented the behaviour of the Chinese side as aimed at achieving mutual understanding while the Soviet Union's position was pictured as allegedly preparing for war against China and creating tension on the Soviet-Chinese border. For example, on 9 May 1971, Zhou Enlai said that the talks were being conducted ``according to our plan" and Peking ``was calling for detente and would not allow polemics on ideological questions to influence the relations between the two countries''. It is noteworthy that none of these statements was printed in the Chinese press.
At home, in order to prevent peaceful ideas from arising among the Chinese people, the CPC leaders linked the subject of the talks between China and the USSR directly to the question of preparation for war.
The Soviet Union's policy with respect to the PRC was reaffirmed in a speech by General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Leonid Brezhnev at the 15th Soviet Trade Union Congress on 20 March 1972. This course involved consistent defence of Marxist-Leninist principles, the unity of the world communist movement, and interests of the socialist homeland.^^42^^ In answer to a statement by Chinese officials that relations between the USSR and the PRC should be based on the principles of peaceful coexistence, Leonid Brezhnev said: ``Well, if in Peking it is not regarded as possible to go any further than that in relations with a socialist country, we are ready to build SovietChinese relations on this basis today."^^43^^ He pointed out that the Soviet Union was not only proclaiming that it was ready to do _-_-_
~^^42^^ L. I. Brezhnev, Following Lenin's Course, Moscow, 1975, p. 33.
~^^43^^ Ibid.
56 so, but also adopting quite concrete and constructive proposals on non-aggression, settlement of border questions, and improving relations on a mutually beneficial basis.^^44^^Hindering any possible development of relations with the Soviet government, the PRC leadership was at the same time expanding and extending the ideological, propagandistic, and political struggle against it. The anti-Soviet campaign in the PRC became even more mass-scale and more aggressive. If in 1973, the two central newspapers, Renminribao and Guangmingribao, as well as Hongqi magazine, published more than 900 anti-- Soviet items (nearly twice as many as in 1972), in 1974 their number increased to more than 1,700. There was a large increase in the number of different periodicals and other literature explaining and propagating the Chinese leadership's anti-Soviet line.
Practically all aspects of the USSR's domestic and foreign policies were slandered. Urged on by the leadership of the CPC, Chinese propaganda attempted to call the Soviet Union the dirtiest of names and to attribute to it all the pestilences and vices of capitalist society. The first socialist country in the world was called a ``superpower'', a ``social-imperialist'', ``the largest international oppressor and exploiter'', and so on in China.
The Chinese population was persuaded that any means were good in the struggle against the Soviet Union, which was represented as being hostile in terms of class to the PRC's society, a social enemy of the Chinese nation.
In this campaign of falsehoods and slander, particular emphasis was placed upon the so-called territorial problem, with the help of which Peking leaders sought to kindle hatred for the Soviet Union among the Chinese population and to provide new fuel for the fire of Chinese chauvinism, which had become an important factor in all of the PRC's policies. From time to time, making false statements to the effect that it had no territorial claims on the Soviet Union and was ready to carry out the border settlement on the basis of the treaties which the Chinese side had called unequal, in practice Peking systematically reaffirmed its claims to Soviet land in numerous pseudo-- scientific publications on geography, history, archeology, and _-_-_
~^^44^^ Ibid.
57 ethnography and by the mass media, attempting to provide a `` historical base" for its great-power, hegemonistic expansionist aims.The peculiar method by which Chinese propaganda dealt with border issues became increasingly apparent. At first, Peking ``historians'' would provide ``scientific proof" that some part of the Soviet Union ``historically belonged" to China, then, juggling the facts, they would depict this territory as being seized by tsarist Russia. Hoping for sympathy from other countries, they falsified the circumstances of the signing of Russo-Chinese treaties, and then affirmed that Russia had ``annexed'' more than 1.5 million square kilometres of Chinese territory. And finally, they would draw a direct parallel between the policies of tsarist Russia and those of the Soviet Union, concluding that the USSR was the ``national enemy" of the Chinese people.
In addition, Chinese propaganda continued to spread slanderous fabrications on the ``aggressive nature" and ``expansionist plans" of the Soviet Union. Rumours that the USSR was threatening the PRC were constantly spread, intimidating the Chinese population with the danger of a ``sudden Soviet attack" aimed at turning the PRC into ``a Soviet colony''. The Chinese media systematically stressed the need to ``maintain vigilance" in light of the Soviet ``threat'', and urged that the northern border be turned into ``an invincible wall".^^45^^
Mass meetings were held in the border areas of the PRC to fan hatred for the USSR and the Soviet people. The subject of ``national vengeance" was present not only in scholarly works and propaganda, and at mass meetings, but also in fiction and even picture books for children. Thus, one such book published in Tianjing under the title Fire at the Tiger reduces the whole of the Yihe tuan uprising to the rebels sinking a Russian ship in the port of Dagu and killing its crew. As reported in Renminribao in July 1974, since 1969, lessons in the schools in such diverse subjects as political education, history, geography, and even Chinese and arithmetic were conducted on the basis of a special programme drawn up according to ``the events on Damansky Island".^^46^^
_-_-_~^^45^^ Renminribao, 1 and 2 November 1974; Guangmingribao, 1 and 14 November 1974; Hongqi, No. 10, 1974.
~^^46^^ Renminribao, 25 July 1974.
58The CPC leaders took advantage of the campaign criticising Lin Biao and Confucius launched in early 1974 to further antiSovietism. Chinese propaganda suggested that the Soviet Union supported Lin Biao and even Confucius, using this as a pretext for new slanderous attacks against the Soviet people and their leaders.
A major obstacle in the way of the successful development of Soviet-Chinese relations was Peking's attitude towards talks on the border settlement. October 1978 marked the ninth year since the beginning of the talks, but due to obstacles set up by the Chinese side, the participants had not even got to the main question of where the border was to be located. Peking still insisted that before this question could be considered, and that was the reason the talks had been started in the first place, it was necessary to sign an interim status quo agreement. Chinese officials said that there was no possibility of discussing the question of where the border would be located without this agreement.
This thesis was artificially created by the Chinese side. As was already mentioned, both sides had carried out the pre-agreed upon measures necessary to start the talks which was why the talks had become possible.
Nevertheless, in order to make progress during the talks, the Soviet side agreed to elaborate and adopt an interim status quo agreement, thus avoiding armed conflicts and settling border questions by means of discussions.
It could therefore be expected that things would move on successfully, but in actuality, this did not occur. The Chinese side made additional demands which created new difficulties, precluding progress at the talks.
At first glance, the Chinese scheme seemed logical and reasonable: there are disputed areas in which Chinese and Soviet troops are located and which lead or may lead to tension; in order to prevent this, the troops should be disengaged.
In point of fact, everything was quite different. The very basis of the Chinese scheme was groundless, i.e., in terms of the question of disputed areas. What were these areas? At the 1964 consultations on the border questions the two sides exchanged maps, and it turned out that on the Chinese maps, many sections of Soviet territory were shown as belonging to China and 59 the boundary was drawn arbitrarily. Along a large section of the border, the line was drawn deep inside Soviet territory, far beyond the line established in the Russo-Chinese treaties which Soviet border guards have been patrolling since the inception of the Soviet state.
The territory on the Chinese maps located between the currently existing treaty-backed line and the groundless line drawn by the Chinese side, is referred to by Peking as the disputed areas. The PRC's officials directly stated that they regard these areas as their own, calling them disputed only as a concession to the Soviet side. Thus, they wanted the Soviet side to recognise large parts of its territory as disputed even before the question of the boundary was considered, and this without any documents, on the sole basis of an arbitrary line on some Chinese maps.
After it was learned what the Chinese meant by disputed areas, i.e., Soviet territories inhabited by Soviet people, which are naturally defended by Soviet armed forces, the true meaning of the Chinese proposal that the armed forces of the Chinese and Soviet side disengage, withdraw, and not enter the disputed areas becomes clear. It is obvious that since this concerns Soviet territory alone, no Chinese troops are located there. Thus, only the armed forces of the Soviet Union could withdraw from the disputed areas, which is just what Peking intended. It sought a preliminary agreement from the USSR, as a pre-condition for beginning any discussion of border questions, the unilateral transfer of a number of sections of the existing treaty-backed boundary into the depth of Soviet territory, so the Soviet Union would have to withdraw its armed forces, including border guards, along large section of the border, while the Chinese armed forces would remain in place.
An appraisal of the Chinese notion of disputed areas is found in a speech by General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Leonid Brezhnev at a meeting in Ulan Bator on 26 November 1974. Referring to the Chinese viewpoint, Brezhnev remarked:
``Peking, in fact, puts forward, as a preliminary condition, nothing less than the demand for withdrawal of the Soviet frontier guards from a number of areas of our territory, which the Chinese leaders have now decided to lay claim to, calling them ` 60 disputed areas'. And Peking declares outright that it will only agree to negotiations on border questions after its demands concerning these 'disputed areas' are satisfied.
``Comrades, it is absolutely clear that this position is totally unacceptable, and we reject it.
``As for the Soviet Union, we do not lay down any preliminary conditions for the normalisation of relations with China. We have for long offered the Chinese side to enter into businesslike and concrete negotiations. We do not lay claim to any alien territories, and for us there are no 'disputed areas' in this sense."^^47^^
The fact that the PRC leadership deliberately refused to contribute to the success of the talks on the border settlement was also seen in the following: after the negotiations began, the Soviet side repeatedly suggested an agreement on the eastern part of the frontier and that its line pass along the fairway of the border rivers. Moreover, it expressed its readiness to elaborate with due account for the 1964 consultations a draft agreement on the eastern part to take the interests of both sides into consideration, drawing the new boundary line along the fairway of navigable rivers and down the middle of unnavigable rivers. The Soviet Union submitted a detailed draft of such an agreement, but the Chinese leadership refused even to discuss the Soviet proposal.
Peking continued to resort to the false idea of a ``Soviet threat" to justify its demands for concluding an interim agreement. At the same time, the Chinese leaders deliberately put obstacles to the settlement of a problem they had invented themselves. Rejecting the Soviet initiative to agree to non-aggression, non-use of force or the threat of force, they proposed that a point on mutual nonaggression and non-use of force be included in the agreement on temporary measures, the Chinese draft of which was unacceptable to the Soviet side, as Peking knew only too well. Such a proposal was set forth, in particular, in a telegramme from the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and PRC State Council to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and the Council of Ministers of the USSR on the occasion of the 57th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution.
As to the Soviet Union, it consistently adheres to a position _-_-_
~^^47^^ L. I. Brezhnev, Following Lenin's Course, Moscow, 1975, p. 535.
61 equally in line with the interests of both sides. Soviet proposals to conclude an agreement with the PRC on non-aggression and non-use of weapons of any kind against each other including conventional, missile, and nuclear, were reaffirmed in Leonid Brezhnev's speech at the meeting in Ulan Bator and in a telegramme from the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and the Council of Ministers of the USSR to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and the State Council of the PRC on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the proclamation of the PRC. However, these proposals did not meet with a businesslike response in Peking.Hindering success in the border talks, Peking continued artificially to maintain tension along the Soviet border. Chinese civilians and military personnel attempted to intrude into Soviet territory in the so-called disputed areas and to graze cattle there; there were more frequent cases of Chinese seizure of Soviet navigation signs and using them on border rivers, and so on. More than 1,250 border violations by the Chinese were registered in 1974.
The PRC's hostile line to the USSR was enhanced on the international scene. The Chinese leaders undertook more active attempts to link up with the most reactionary imperialist forces on the basis of anti-Sovietism and to involve the developing countries in their anti-Soviet policies. The numerous speeches and interviews by PRC leaders invariably contained provocative calls for a joint struggle against the ``hegemony of the superpowers'', and it was particularly stressed that this mainly concerned the Soviet Union.
In a session of the National People's Congress in 1975, Zhou Enlai tried to lay the blame for the deterioration of SovietChinese relations and for the fact that the bilateral talks on the border question had still not yielded any results on the USSR. He crudely distorted the facts, insisting that the Soviet side had violated the mutual understanding reached by the heads of both states in September 1969 and had refused to sign the status quo accord on the frontier, on non-use of force against each other, and a mutual non-aggression agreement. These specious accusations and continuing demands to accept the Chinese idea of disputed areas showed that the CPC leadership was still 62 hindering the normalisation of Soviet-Chinese relations by advancing preliminary conditions obviously unacceptable to the Soviet side.
The adoption of the new PRC Constitution in 1975 was attended by an escalation of anti-Sovietism in foreign and domestic policies. Following the session of the National People's Congress, the anti-Soviet propaganda was stepped up, with attacks redoubling against the domestic and foreign policies of the CPSU and the Soviet government. The CPC leaders resorted more actively to anti-Sovietism as one of their chief means. The Peking press published slanderous articles on the domestic political and economic situation of the USSR. It was persistently repeated that the Soviet Union had allegedly restored capitalism at home, that the Soviet Union had turned into a ``social-imperialist state'', that the dictatorship of the proletariat had been ``abolished'' in the USSR, and so on. Peking stubbornly spoke of the existence of the ``threat of subversive activities and aggression on the part of imperialism and social-imperialism" and urged constant alertness to repulse this ``threat''.
The calls to ``prepare for war" in which the Soviet Union was named China's main potential enemy were buttressed with `` arguments" that a new world war was inevitable, with hints that this war was necessary, and that a preventive war against the USSR was justifiable. Such is the implication of the statement published in the pages of Renminribao on 29 January 1975 that ``war was inevitable while imperialism and social-imperialism existed'', and ``we must ... completely dispel the smoke screen of `peace' set up by Soviet revisionism, social-imperialism ... and be ready at any moment to destroy an unjust counter-revolutionary war by means of a just revolutionary war" because ``victorious results can be defended only by war''. A 9 May 1975 article insisted that ``social-imperialism can be destroyed''.
Chinese propaganda took up the specious thesis which had been voiced by Zhou Enlai at the National People's Congress session that the USSR was organising ``encirclement and blockade" and carrying on ``aggression and subversive activities" against the PRC. The Chinese press began to print spurious reports about Soviet experts in China. The latter were described as ``agents of social-imperialism" who had carried on secret 63 subversive activities during the first ten years of the PRG's existence.^^48^^
The fact that the Chinese leaders set down their anti-Sovietism in the constitution marked a new, higher level in their hostile policies against the USSR, which was even more dangerous for socialism and universal peace. CPC leaders had formerly sought to make this course long-term and irrevocable, but now it became not only party doctrine but also law. If, at the 9th and 10th congresses of the CPG, anti-Sovietism was proclaimed a most important, policy-making and daily task of the Communist Party of China, at the session of the National People's Congress it was elevated to the rank of state policy. This showed that the Chinese leaders did not intend to stop at ideological confrontation with the USSR, but proceeded from the prospect of fighting it in all spheres, regarding this as their strategic task.
At the Soviet-Chinese talks on the settlement of border questions, the Chinese side continued to adopt a position which hindered all progress. Moreover, during the round of talks held in February-May 1975, Chinese officials made glaring anti-Soviet statements obviously intended to aggravate the situation at the talks.
Peking continued to set up artificial obstacles to block the implementing of the 1951 Soviet-Chinese agreement on navigation on the border rivers in the Amur basin. On the eve of the 20th conference of the Mixed Navigation Commission, the Chinese magazine Dili zhishi published an article containing unfair claims to Soviet islands, declaring them to be ``China's sacred territory'', allegedly ``unlawfully occupied" by the Soviet Union. The article unequivocally stated that ``complete and rational settlement of the Soviet-Chinese border question" would depend directly on the willingness of the Soviet side to accept Chinese demands, i.e., their unfounded claims to these islands. PRC authorities continued to install their navigation signs on Soviet islands in the border rivers of the Amur basin.
_-_-_~^^48^^ For further details concerning the influence of the CPC's 10th Congress and the session of the National People's Congress on the PRC's domestic and foreign policies, see O. M. PoMCmeHKO. AHTHcouHa;iHCTHHecKaH cymHOCTb MaonsMa, Moscow, 1976.
64In autumn 1976 following Mao Zedong's death, the Soviet Union carried out a number of measures demonstrating its sincere desire to improve relations with the PRC. A Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the CPSU was held in October 1976. The speech at the meeting by General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Leonid Brezhnev contained a clear description of the Soviet Union's principled approach to developing inter-governmental relations between the two countries. Brezhnev said:
``As for the Soviet Union, it has consistently pursued a course of trying to improve relations with China. ... I would like to underline that, in our opinion, there are no issues in relations between the USSR and the PRC that could not be resolved in the spirit of good-neighbourliness. We will continue working towards this goal. The matter will depend on what stand will be taken by the other side."^^49^^
The Soviet side has reaffirmed its earlier initiatives on many occasions: the proposal concerning an agreement on non-use of force submitted in 1971 with provisions that neither side ever use armed force against the other, including conventional, missile, and nuclear weapons, and the 1973 proposal to sign a non-- aggression agreement. The Soviet side once again expressed its readiness to expand trade between the two countries on a mutually beneficial basis, to resume trade across the border, restore relations between friendship societies, co-operation between academies of sciences, and contacts in the field of medical care. The Soviet side reiterated that the USSR's standpoint in respect to other states, including the PRC, was clear and consistent: the Soviet Union firmly adhered to principles of equality, respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, non-interference in each other's domestic affairs, and non-use of force. Based on this, the USSR favoured normalisation and improvement of relations with China. But, of course, this process is a reciprocal one.
An important step demonstrating to both the new Peking leadership and world public that the Soviet Union desires to _-_-_
~^^49^^ L. I. Brezhnev, Speech at the Plenary Meeting of the Central Com' mittee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on October 25, 1976, Moscow, 1976, p. 36.
5---2499
65 establish good-neighbourly relations with the PRC, was the Soviet decision to cease publication of critical articles on China in the Soviet press which went into effect in September 1976.How did the new Peking leadership respond to the Soviet Union's positive efforts aimed at improving relations with the PRC? From the very first months the new leadership was in power, it became apparent that it was stuck in the old rut and did not intend to abandon anti-Sovietism. Moreover, the new Chinese leaders made it a point to show their allegiance to the former policy, using any pretext to demonstrate their hostility to the Soviet Union.^^50^^
The appeal of the Central Committee of the CPC, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the PRC's State Council and the Military Council of the Central Committee of the CPC to the whole party, to the armed forces and the whole country on the occasion of Mao Zedong's death contained glaring anti-Soviet attacks. It is to Mao's credit, the appeal maintained, that he ``launched the great struggle in the international communist movement, criticism of modern revisionism'', the centre of which was supposed to be the CPSU. The appeal also expressed its intentions to ``unite all forces on the international scene which can be united to complete the struggle against social-imperialism".^^51^^ Thus, Mao's heirs did not cease the attempts to label the Soviet Union in order to justify their policy of confrontation.
Hostile accusations against the USSR were repeated in Hua Guofeng's speech at the funeral ceremony on 18 September 1976 in Peking. He slandered the Soviet Union claiming the USSR armed provocations against China were underway; Mao's ideas were proclaimed ``a mighty ideological weapon in the struggle against social-imperialism'', and he pledged that China ``would continue resolutely to implement Mao Zedong's line in foreign policy and fight against the hegemony of the two superpowers".^^52^^
_-_-_~^^50^^ See 0. Bopucoe. Flo saesmeHHofl KOJiee.---Kommunist , No. 9, 1977.
~^^51^^ Renminribao, 9 September 1976.
~^^52^^ Renminribao, 25 October 1976.
66On 5 October the PRC's Foreign Minister set forth an extensive anti-Soviet programme in the area of international affairs to the 31st session of the UN General Assembly.
These anti-Soviet declarations could be explained to some extent by the fact that they were being imposed by the group of leaders most closely associated with Mao while he was alive and who adhered to extreme Maoist positions. But the removal of Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao, Jiang Qing, and Yao Wenyuan showed that this was not the case. The call to ``wage the struggle against modern revisionism till the end'', the centre of this revisionism allegedly being the Soviet Union, appeared in the first policy-making article following the deposing of the ``group of four" in three national Chinese periodicals published on 10 October 1976.
A meeting was held on 24 October in Peking to mark Hua Guofeng's accession to the posts of CPC Central Committee Chairman and Military Council chairman, and the Soviet Union was attacked at this meeting.^^53^^
The new Chinese leaders did not even refrain from anti-Soviet insinuations in the Statement of the leading bodies of the PRC on 2 November 1976, in which they expressed their gratitude for the condolences offered on Mao Zedong's death.^^54^^
Seeking to justify their hostile response to numerous Soviet initiatives, Peking undertook a clumsy manoeuvre. It began to spread the story that Moscow had advanced its positive proposals insincerely with the aim of confusing the new Chinese leadership and dislodging it from its positions. At the same time, apparently realising the weakness of this story, CPC leaders once again resorted to their favourite line, complaining of the ``Soviet threat''. In November 1976, Chinese officials had a series of talks with foreign representatives and made several official statements in the spirit of these two propositions.
__NOTE__ Error in original; in next paragraph, superscript is "56" but should be "55".In a 2 November interview with French correspondents, Deputy Premier Li Xiannian said: ``Improvement of Sino-Soviet relations is not to be expected tomorrow or the day after."^^55^^
_-_-_~^^53^^ Renminribao, 25 October 1976.
~^^54^^ Renminribao, 3 November 1976.
~^^55^^ Le Figaro, 3 November 1976.
__PRINTERS_P_67_COMMENT__ 5* 67On 28 February 1977, head of the Soviet delegation to the border talks, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR Ilyichev returned to Moscow from Peking. The talks had still yielded no positive results due to the unco-operativeness of the Chinese side. Peking rejected all the Soviet proposals practically without discussion. It was simply stated that the time had not come yet for their realisation. In answer to the Soviet suggestion to stop all polemics and create an atmosphere of good will, the Chinese side stated flatly: ``arguments regarding matters of principle'', (meaning, in effect, vile anti-Soviet propaganda and interference in the USSR's domestic affairs) will inevitably continue and will go on for ``10,000 years" until the CPSU publicly acknowledges that its policies were ``incorrect'' and provides guarantees that it will not repeat its ``mistakes'' in the future. Of course, these claims were rebuffed in a worthy manner.
Seeking to gain the sympathy of certain international circles, Peking has strongly publicised its irreconcilable stance with respect to the USSR. Deputy Foreign Minister of the PRC Yu Zhan stated in a talk with a Mainichi correspondent on 5 February 1977, that in order to ``improve Sino-Soviet relations, it will be necessary for the Soviet Union to change its entire . . . policy. . . . The border settlement is not the only thing. We have other claims against the USSR.''
An exceptionally important initiative was undertaken by the Soviet Union in early 1978. According to the readiness to normalise relations with China along the principles of peaceful coexistence expressed by the 25th Congress of the CPSU, the Soviet government had already suggested that an agreement on non-use of force and a non-aggression treaty be concluded between the USSR and the PRC, but the Chinese side undermined these initiatives.
On 24 February 1978, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR published an appeal to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress. This document contained new proposals by the Soviet Union aimed at improving relations between the two countries.
The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR suggested that the countries issue a joint statement on principles 68 governing relations between the two countries. It is believed in the Soviet Union, said the appeal, that a joint statement to the effect that both sides intend to build their relations on the basis of peaceful coexistence, firmly adhering to prinicples of equality, mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, noninterference in each other's affairs, and non-use of force could move the normalisation of our relations forward.
We propose, the Soviet appeal pointed out, if the idea of such a document is acceptable to the Chinese side, to hold a meeting of representatives from the two sides at a sufficiently high level, so as to agree to a mutually acceptable text as soon as possible.
The Soviet Union, says the appeal, is ready to receive representatives from the PRC. If the Chinese side deems it necessary for Soviet representatives to go to Peking for the purpose, we will agree to that as well. The Soviet Union, for its part, is ready to consider proposals of the PRC aimed at normalising SovietChinese relations.
This important document clearly expressed the Soviet Union's desire to normalise relations with China along the lines of peaceful coexistence, with due accord for mutual interests, and without any preliminary conditions.
However, on 9 March 1978, the Chinese leadership rudely rejected the Soviet initiative, calling the Supreme Soviet's appeal a ``hollow statement''. Peking reiterated its former, patently unacceptable demands to the Soviet Union.
The refusal of the PRC leadership to make a real step in the direction of normalising Soviet-Chinese relations obviously showed that the entire responsibility for their present state lies exclusively on the Chinese side. It reaffirms that declarations by Peking's present leaders that they are prepared to improve relations with socialist countries are nothing more than a manoeuvre intended to cover up their expansionist plans, their continued building of hatred for the USSR and the socialist community.
The last session of the National People's Congress merely repeated the platform of the llth Congress of the CPC and stamped it with the authority of state power. One of the main undertakings at the session was adoption of a new, revised constitution 69 which contains many assumptions from the 1975 constitution while including a number of definitions from the 1954 constitution.
The new constitution is distinguished by the fact that Maoism is proclaimed as the state ideology; loyalty to the ideas of Mao Zedong is still stipulated, as well as the duty and obligation to ``hold high and resolutely to defend the great banner of Chairman Mao Zedong''. In other words, Maoism has been laid down as the party and state ideological and political platform by the resolutions of the Congress of the CPC and the session of the National People's Congress.
This document professes a foreign-policy course based on the pseudo-revolutionary Maoist theory of ``three worlds''. Though the Peking leadership was forced to take into account the sharp world criticism of their 1975 constitution, which regarded it as a manifesto of militarism, and to play down some of the obviously provocative statements on ``preparation for war'', on the whole, their course has remained the same---great-power, war-mongering, and hostile to the forces of peace and socialism. This document is a serious threat to all nations.
It was reiterated at the session that the blame for the deterioration of relations between the two countries rests with the Soviet Union, while Peking will continue to wage a struggle against the USSR ``on matters of principle''. In Hua Guofeng's words, it is not Peking but the USSR, which ``must prove in practice" its readiness to improve inter-governmental relations. The following unprecedented demands of one sovereign state on another were voiced from the tribune of the session: the Soviet side, in accordance with the mutual understanding reached by the heads of state of China and the USSR in 1969, must conclude a status quo agreement concerning the border and then hold talks with the aim of settling the border question; it must withdraw its troops from areas adjacent to the border.
The mutual understanding of the heads of state referred to by Peking in its interpretation means that the USSR must accept the Chinese notion of disputed areas even before the beginning of talks; in other words, the USSR must agree that large areas of Soviet territory totalling several dozen thousand square kilometres be handed over to China. According to Peking, the USSR 70 must withdraw its military personnel from these areas unilaterally, leave off guarding its own border and leave the Soviet population defenceless against Chinese forays.
If the Chinese leaders sincerely wanted to improve relations between the USSR and the PRC and complete talks on the border question on a realistic basis, there is every possibility of doing so, as Pravda wrote on 1 April 1978. The PRC leadership is well aware of many important Soviet initiatives which conform to the vital interests of both the Soviet and Chinese peoples and are aimed at positive changes in relations between the Soviet Union and China. On 2 November 1977, Leonid Brezhnev said: ``There is no point in trying to guess how Soviet-Chinese relations will shape up in the future. I would merely like to say that our repeated proposals for their normalisation still hold.''
A sincere and true expression of good will and the desire to improve relations is required in the interests of both our nations. In nearly two decades of relations between the USSR and China, it is only natural that quite a few complicated problems have piled up, but this simply reaffirms the need for a constructive exchange of opinion. The Soviet Union has stated on many occasions that there are no questions between the USSR and China that could not be settled by good will.
__*_*_*__1 October 1979 was the 30th anniversary of the proclaiming of the People's Republic of China. Drawing conclusions from the history of Soviet-Chinese relations, the world progressive public emphasised the international factors in the victory of the Chinese people, above all the part played by the Soviet Union, including defeat of Japanese militarism by the Soviet army, and its valiant contribution to the Manchurian revolutionary base, which became the political centre of the Chinese revolution. The assistance given by the USSR and other socialist countries played an important role in the socialist development of the PRC during the first ten years of the young republic's existence.
The revolution in China strengthened the forces of socialism, peace, and national liberation, delivering a powerful blow against 71 imperialism and international reaction, and creating more favourable conditions for an upsurge in the national liberation struggle in the countries of Asia and Africa. Chinese communistinternationalists contributed greatly to socialism and the international revolutionary movement during the period when China marched alongside the other socialist countries.
At the same time, in considering the PRC's history, one must note the harm which has been and is still being done by the antisocialist course of Mao Zedong and his followers, which is contrary to the interests of the Chinese people. The PRC has reached its 30th anniversary with many unsolved problems at home, as well as the difficult Maoist legacy of zigzags, mistakes, and setbacks in foreign policy. The great-power nature of Peking's policies, attempts by the Chinese leaders to worsen the international situation, and their tendency to ally themselves to world imperialism---all this constitutes a serious threat to socialism, peace, and security for all nations.
The Soviet Union always proceeds from the assumption that there are no objective reasons for alienation between the two nations, to say nothing of hostility and confrontation. Constantly and consistently opposing the policy of hegemony and the subordination of one state by another, the Soviet Union considers it to be important that the USSR and the PRC agree not to recognise anyone's claims to special privileges or hegemony in international affairs and develop relations with each other on the basis of peaceful coexistence.
Proceeding from the course leading to normalisation and improvement of relations with China, the Soviet delegation submitted a draft declaration on principles of relations between the USSR and the PRC during talks that were held in autumn 1979 at the government delegation level. These principles are fully in accord with international law and the UN Charter and are not aimed against third states. Moreover, such a document would contribute to peace and international security in Asia and the whole world.
The results of the Soviet-Chinese talks depend exclusively on the expressed desire of the Chinese side to achieve positive changes being realised in its practical approach to the problem of bilateral relations.
72During the first round of Soviet-Chinese talks on normalisation of government relations (from 23 September to 10 December 1979) the sides agreed in principle that the talks would be continued in Peking at a time to be settled through diplomatic channels.
In January 1980, a spokesman for the press department of the PRC's Foreign Ministry said in an interview to Western journalists and a Xinhua correspondent that ``holding of the second round of Chinese-Soviet talks was inexpedient at the present time''.
The substance and the form of this statement contradict both the letter and spirit of previous official statements that China was ready to hold talks on normalisation of relations with the USSR. It is obvious that the Chinese side's departure from its viewpoint, a development frequently observed in the past, does not serve the interests of normalisation of Soviet-Chinese relations and will not benefit even China itself. It should be pointed out that the Chinese leadership has followed the lead of the US Administration which has taken a dangerous turn of escalating tension at the beginning of the 1980s.
The Soviet Union's policy with respect to China is clear and consistent. It is set down quite plainly in the documents of the 24th and 25th congresses of the CPSU and in speeches by Soviet leaders.
Answering a question put by a Time magazine correspondent, Leonid Brezhnev said: ``As to the Soviet Union's relations with the PRC, we have no claims to that country, territorial or otherwise, and see no objective obstacle to restoring not just good, but friendly relations, of course, if the PRC's standpoint becomes more reasonable and peaceful.''
A telegramme sent by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and Council of Ministers of the USSR to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and the State Council of the PRC on the occasion of its 30th anniversary stressed that ``the Soviet Union has always attached major importance to relations with its neighbour, the PRC, and consistently seeks to improve them, and has many times submitted practical proposals to that effect. The proper basis for the development of governmental Soviet-Chinese relations are the principles of peaceful 73 coexistence, including the principles of equality, mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, non-interference in each other's domestic affairs, and non-use of force. The Soviet Union will follow this course in the future as well, for good-neighbourly relations between the two countries are in the vital interests, and meet the wishes, of the Soviet and Chinese nations, and are in the interests of peace and security in Asia and the world''. This is the political course being pursued by the Soviet Union today.
The paper presented at a scientific conference at the Institute of Far Eastern Studies, USSR Academy of Sciences ( November 1978)
[74] __ALPHA_LVL2__ DECLARATION OF THE SOVIETOn 17 February, China's armed forces invaded the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Peking's aggression against socialist Vietnam is a direct result of the policy of blackmail and pressure followed by the Chinese authorities for a number of years with respect to Southeast Asia, and Vietnam in particular. The Peking leaders openly stated that they wanted to ``punish'' Vietnam, which was pursuing an independent policy, and not only refused to contribute to Chinese expansion in Southeast Asia, but even became a serious obstacle in the way of Peking's hegemony.
The Chinese elite refused to tolerate the fact that the people of Kampuchea have overthrown the bloody regime of Pol Pot and restored friendly relations with neighbouring Vietnam. Taking advantage of this as a pretext for aggression is a road which leads the aggressor to an ignominous and shameful end, as history shows.
China's attack against Vietnam once more shows the irresponsibility of Peking's attitude towards the destinies of the world and the criminal ease with which the Chinese leadership resorts to arms.
The intrusion of Chinese troops into Vietnam, which only recently repelled foreign aggression, cannot leave a single honest person and sovereign state in the world indifferent. These aggressive actions contradicting the UN principles and international law, exposed the true nature of Peking's hegemonistic policies in Southeast Asia. Any acquiescence to such a policy is acquiescence to violence and diktat, acquiescence to the Chinese leadership's attempts to involve the world in a war. The aggression against the SRV has also shown the true worth of Chinese leaders' speeches on defending the interests of small and middlesized states on behalf of whom Peking attempts to speak.
75The heroic Vietnamese people who have fallen victim to yet another aggression are capable of defending themselves on this occasion as well, particularly because they have reliable friends. The Soviet Union will fulfill its obligations under the Treaty on Friendship and Co-operation between the USSR and the SRV.
Policy-makers in Peking should stop before it is too late. As all other nations, the Chinese nation needs peace not war. Responsibility for the consequences of the continuation of Peking's aggression against the SRV will rest fully with China's present leadership.
The Soviet Union resolutely demands an end to the aggression and immediate withdrawal of Chinese troops from the territory of the SRV.
Hands off socialist Vietnam!
Pravda, 19 February 1979
[76] __ALPHA_LVL2__ PEKING SEEKS HEGEMONY INM. Kapasov
__NOTE__ Author(s)'s name(s) appear above chapter title.``The first hint that something was amiss was provided by the Rangoon newspapers---though not in their news pages. By regarding the obituary columns, readers were able to deduce that army officers were being killed 'somewhere on the front' in increasing numbers.'' That was how Asiaweek began its article, ``The War Gets Hotter''.
No, it was not a war correspondent's feature dating to the anti-Japanese war in the Pacific.
The article in the April 1978 issue of Asiaweek describes the undeclared war which Peking has been waging for several years now against some of its neighbours, in this case sovereign Burma, which as will be known, was among the first to recognise the People's Republic of China and which for more than 15 years now has been implementing at home a programme of progressive social and economic reforms.
At the time of the 1 October 1949 giant rally outside the former Imperial Palace in Peking, held to mark the solemn proclamation of the new People's China, many had associated with this historical fact hopes of coming change for the better not only inside China, but also in that country's foreign policy, believing Peking would abandon the aggressive predatory course pursued by all former reactionary rulers, from -the Chinese emperors to the Kuomintang reactionaries. However, but a few years were to pass for China's neighbours to again experience the expansionism of the hegemony-craving Maoists, who betrayed socialist ideals and gradually led the country astray onto the traditional path of Great-Han chauvinism.
The first armed border clash, in the Burman princedom of Wa, took place already in 1955. Later, Peking declared as ``disputed'' areas various sectors virtually along China's entire 77 border. The engineering of border clashes by the Peking authorities became part and parcel of Peking policy. At the same time, the Maoists employed crude pressure and intimidation, unprecedented in international practices, and high-handedly intervened in the internal affairs of other countries, especially in Southeast Asia. In keeping with old China's imperial policy, Mao Zedong put forward a programme to conquer Southeast Asia. In 1965, he stressed China's need to ``absolutely get hold of Southeast Asia" for the reason that it ``is very rich and has much mineral wealth''. This same point of Peking's ``rights'' to the countries and seas south of China was put forward with reference ``to historical factors" by Zhou Enlai in a 1973 conversation with the American scholar Owen Lattimore. A look at some of the maps published in the PRC discloses among territories which China has supposedly ``lost'' states such as Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, to mention but several, as well as nearly all the island territories in the Southern seas. All this has been shored up by statements like: ``The Chinese people are morally prepared to dedicate all their energies to regain the lost territories, which once belonged to China."^^1^^
Many China watchers, including bourgeois scholars, note in this connection the sad fact that Peking, which has always sought to dominate in this part of the world, remains a constant source of danger to its neighbours. Fear of China, in the view of J. Wanandi, one of the chiefs of the Jakarta Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Indonesia, is evoked both by the leverage it employs in influencing political situation in the area, including the large number of Chinese emigrants, and by its having always regarded Southeast Asia as its sphere of influence.^^2^^
Small wonder that in the Southeast Asian countries Mao Zedong's death engendered a spate of diverse surmises and illusions that the new Chinese leadership would modify its foreign policy, adhere to the universally accepted norms of international _-_-_
~^^1^^ Jenmin jihpao, 5 November 1966.
^^2^^ J. Wanandi, ``Politico-Security Dimensions of Southeast Asia'', Asian Survey, Vol. 17, Berkeley, 1977, p. 775.
78 relations, terminate encroachments on the sovereignty of independent states, and discontinue the traditionally hypocritical Maoist policy, when one hand makes friendly gestures to one or another state and the other commits acts of terrorism against its government. The West even began to talk of a ``de-Maoisation'' in China. However, a little later, it became plain once again that there was nothing to warrant such assertions. In a factual evaluation of the certain changes now occurring in China, one must necessarily note that they do not at all imply any change in the ultimate goals and policies of Mao Zedong, that they do not at all indicate any ``de-Maoisation''. Modification of Maoist practices is seen merely as an attempt either to shed superannuated, insolvent elements, or to put into the shadow some of the odious guidelines, especially in international affairs, and impart to Maoism a ``purity'' in order to ensure the long term in the implementation of the Maoist doctrine, in order to make it more effective and broaden its social foundations. On the one hand, a more intensive effort is made to disguise Maoism as MarxismLeninism, including attempts to present the armed terrorism of pro-Peking groups in Southeast Asia as ``revolutionary struggle'', and on the other, to link Maoist nationalist guidelines still closer to the age-old traditions of Great-Han chauvinism. We are thus witnessing Maoism's more precise identification as social-- chauvinism, an ideology which disguises chauvinistic aims behind socialist slogans and Marxist phraseology, an ideology that actively exploits socialism's prestige in the mentality of the Chinese masses. The currently enunciated ``four modernisations" slogan is a striking case in point, as it preserves without change the Maoist guidelines that economic development serves not to satisfy popular material and intellectual requirements, but above all to build up the military capability that would enable China to become a militarist superpower, without which it would be impossible to realise great-power chauvinistic designs.Precisely for this reason China expedites the stockpiling of every type of weapon, including nuclear arms, opposes detente, and engineers international conflicts. Hence, the particular danger of its escalated militarisation. China presumptuously lays claim, rather continues to lay claim, to the territories of other countries. It looks upon another world war as desirable, and 79 conducts a policy that would tend to let such a war loose. Far from having changed---as is illustrated by the Chinese leadership's current practices---Peking's great-power expansionist designs, especially with respect to Southeast Asia, are, on the contrary, arousing growing alarm in different countries. Mao's chauvinistic platform, which is expressed in these designs, has become even more aggressive, inducing many, especially in neighbouring countries, to give deep thought to the question of what one may expect from Mao's heirs' avowals of fidelity to his ``revolutionary foreign policy'', and what may lie in store for the countries of Southeast Asia, where Peking seeks hegemony.
According to the French Courrier de politique etrangere, Peking's rulers are intimating that ``Chinese interests will shortly gravitate to Southeast Asia''. As far as one can guess, these so to say ``constant interests" do not bode well for the countries there, which is well illustrated by Peking's active diplomacy over recent months against the background of still more vigorous Maoist expansionism. The series of visits that Chinese leaders have been making to the countries of Southeast Asia and some other states have been attended by a spate of assurances of ``traditional friendship" plus sundry pronouncements having everything except what is of vital interest to the many governments hosting the Chinese visitors, to wit: does Peking plan to abandon its claims to the territories of other countries, as well as its crude interference in their internal affairs, its arming of antigovernment forces, its smuggling of armed groups into other states, its hostile broadcasts, and other incitement of the local population to rebel against their governments? In place of answers; there again came Peking's already familiar hypocrisy, its ``double-entry book-keeping'', or as China's neighbours also put it, ``two-faced egoistic line''.
Fidelity to the ``Mao line" is graphically illustrated by Peking's attitude to Burma, an attitude that has been most hostile from the outset, although it was masked under hypocritical ``friendliness''. The very first move the PRC 80 government took over the Sino-Burmese frontier issue already showed that its frontier policy was by no means based on principles which motivate socialist states in resolving border and territorial questions. China's ``cartographic aggression" against Burma, by which we mean the publication in that country of maps laying territorial claims to Burma---and to other neighbours, for that matter ---and especially the PRC subsequent moves in frontier issues, have manifestly demonstrated that the Maoists, having jettisoned the principle of self-determination of nations in domestic policies, have also renounced this principle in international affairs. The Maoist leadership bases its frontier policy on the great-power principle of the historical dependence of China's neighbours on China, and on the need to ``rectify'' the historical ``injustices'' and to return to China all territories ``lost'' over the past hundred years. Initial Sino-Burmese talks revealed that the Chinese wholly and fully proceed from claims and arguments developed by Qing diplomacy. The aforementioned Wa Princedom incident, along with the earlier ``cartographic aggression'', have displayed with sufficient clarity that Peking also extensively borrows from Kuomintang tactics. The very course of the talks and the way in which China argued its territorial claims to Burma, claims that were reiterated right up to the finalised settlement of 1960--1961, warrant the conclusion that in the Sino-Burmese frontier question China, and Britain (in her time), took an identical colonialist attitude towards the Burmese, Shan, and Kachin territories, the sole difference being that whereas Britain openly acted as the colonialist conqueror, Peking sought to avail itself of the fruits of Britain's colonial policy of conquest, and annex territories of which the Chinese ownership was highly doubtful.
As for the settlement reached, or rather the surprising rapidity with which the final stage of the talks was consummated, this is by no means an indication of good will on Peking's part. The explanation should rather be sought in the international plight in which China found itself after the Taiwan crisis it had provoked in 1958 and as the result of its mounting confrontation with Indonesia and India. A speedy settlement based on the principles of peaceful coexistence could bolster up, and did in some degree shore up, Peking's tottering international prestige. However, the time-serving tactics which the Maoist leadership __PRINTERS_P_81_COMMENT__ 6---2499 81 adhered to in this matter did not make for a calm and goodneighbourly atmosphere. Abortive Maoist attempts to dictate to the Burmese government, which seeks to consolidate its independence and sovereignty, again aggravated the situation in border areas in Burma, which was far from evidence of unresolved border issues, but the selfsame interference, though under another ``shingle'', in Burma's affairs by China's newfangled emperors, interference that continues, well illustrating the extremely dangerous nature of the Peking leadership's adventurism.
Thus, early in 1978, Deng Xiaoping, the Deputy Premier of the PRC State Council, visited Burma. While he was lavish with wordy assurances of the ``warmest sentiments of fraternal friendship and good-neighbourly feelings" towards Burma, Peking's agents were completing preparations to mount new sorties on the Sino-Burmese border. No wonder the Chinese leader turned a deaf ear to Burma's anxieties, a point made both during and after the visit by the Burmese press, as to the ``just war" being waged against the pro-Peking rebels, as to the need ``for the attainment of national unity . . . and the advancement of the national economy'', as to the ``planned struggle" against sovereign Burma, in which China itself is involved.^^3^^ Heavy fighting between Burmese government troops and Chinese-armed rebels, it was noted in the press, ``occurred ... in early February 1977 at precisely the time Teng Ying-chao, Vice-Chairman of China's National People's Congress, made a goodwill visit to Burma. As if to demonstrate that a good deal more than coincidence was involved, the latest round of battles erupted last February 1; only the day before, Chinese Vice-Premier Teng Hsiao-ping had left Rangoon after holding talks with President U Ne Win."^^4^^ Accordingly, the Chinese stance was described as ``disgustingly hypocritical''. It was reported that at a mass rally, the pro-Peking terrorists were accused of ``heinous acts" and ``wanton destruction'', especially in the neighbourhood of the Mong Yaung District near the Chinese border. ``After last month's bloody encounters in the northeast, (March is meant.---M.K.) what had once seem a _-_-_
~^^3^^ Asiaweek, No. 15, 21 April 1978.
~^^4^^ Ibid.
82 promising dialogue with Peking was looking uncomfortably like a waste of time."^^5^^The Times of India noted in this connection that China had armed the rebels with rifles, machine guns, and mortars, had provided financial and medical assistance, and had allowed them to use Chinese territory as a base for operations. Reportedly, units going into action now have more Chinese military advisers, while people's militia units from the Chinese Province of Yunnan have been involved in the fighting. It should be noted that military preparations are energetically continued in Yunnan border areas, and that more intensively armed, besides regulars, are the so-called people's militia, in accordance with the principle that ``each family is an outpost" and ``each individual, a sentinel''. Yunnan Chinese are called upon to ``learn the art of warfare and prepare themselves for military action''. In training camps in this Chinese province, anti-governmental forces undergo a special course of training before infiltrating Burma. These forces have already mounted large long-term operations, directly officered by the Commander of the Kunming Military Area. Chinese ``adviser teams" are constantly attached to rebel formations. There is even a headquarters of the joint military command to coordinate the military operations throughout Burma of the diverse rebel detachments. Roads have been specially built between the Chinese hinterland and Burma to bring up military equipment. A specially created agency in China deals with financial aid to the Burmese anti-government forces.^^6^^
A wealth of other facts illustrates Peking's gross interference in Burma's affairs. Chinese authorities high-handedly utilise Burmese territory to smuggle into India rebels from the Naga and Mizo tribes. The PRC seeks to make their problems a source of tension among Burma, India, and Bangladesh, thereby to worsen relations between these three countries. With overweening arrogance, the Peking chauvinists have even gone to the length of demanding that they be entitled to examine the project for a Burman-Indian frontier agreement. ``The impression is,'' a Burmese journalist noted, ``that we supposedly must not do anything _-_-_
~^^5^^ Ibid.
~^^6^^ Pravda, 5 June 1978.
__PRINTERS_P_83_COMMENT__ 6* 83 without the preliminary sanction of the Chinese. But this is obvious encroachment upon the sovereignty of Burma!''Truth to tell, we are faced with manifest, brazen encroachment on Burma's independence and sovereignty, with a bid to push it off the road of independent development, and prevent its people from building a new life in conditions of political stability and national unity. Reflected in all this are the invariably hegemonic cravings of the Maoist social-chauvinists, whose purpose is, in the words of Mao Zedong, to ``take hold of Southeast Asia''. Peking's special anti-Burmese efforts derive from the role that this country plays in Maoist designs as one of the arms of the ``pincers'' with which Peking strategists seek subsequently to ``clamp'' all of Southeast Asia, subvert in short order the political setup in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Bangladesh, establish pro-Peking puppet regimes in these countries, and thus reach the shores of the Malacca and Singapore straits, which Mao Zedong believed would take from eight to fifteen years to accomplish. Which country is to be the second arm of the `` pincers"? As far as one can see, in tackling this ``dilemma'', the Maoist manipulators are assiduous and cynical, though they have still less chance of success. What they want to do is to ``remove'' the main obstacle to their hegemony in this area, in short, subjugate the people of Vietnam, deprive them of their independence.
The current glaring facts of China's unfriendliness towards the Socialist Republic of Vietnam will not be correctly understood if we overlook the central point, the fact that the heroic people of this country won out in the harrowing 30-year war, repulsed the armed aggression of US imperialism, upheld, at the sacrifice of its finest sons, its national freedom and independence, and set up one united socialist state, which now has to face up to high-handed, rude pressure from the Chinese leadership. The substance of this pressure, its so to speak motive force, is that socialist Vietnam's policy of peace, a policy that seeks to cement the socialist community and promote equal co-operation with all countries, deprives Peking of all hope of turning 84 Vietnam into a pawn in its effort to implement its hegemonic designs in Southeast Asia.
Revealed against the background of current events in all its stark ugliness is the policy that the Peking leadership has been conducting vis-a-vis the people of Vietnam and the peoples of Indochina generally in recent years, especially during their stalwart struggle against imperialist occupation.
Suffice it to recall that from the very outset of US imperialism's anti-Vietnamese aggression, the Chinese leadership doublecrossed the people of Vietnam. The great-power substance of Peking's stance was distinctly displayed in China's refusal to cooperate with the socialist countries in taking measures to ensure Vietnam's security and its subsequent refusal to organise assistance to the people of Vietnam in the just war of liberation. If not for Peking's treachery, the war in Indochina would have ended much sooner, with far less bloodshed and destruction. The sundry obstacles that the Chinese authorities placed in the way of the transportation via China of military freights from the socialist countries to Vietnam cannot be viewed otherwise than as abetment of the aggressor. In the final stage of the war in Indochina, Peking sent armed forces to capture a group of islands in the South China Sea, which Vietnam regards as its own territory.
The world heaved a deep sigh of relief when the gunfire died away in Indochina. Tangible prospects had now opened for extending detente to this part of the world, and for setting afoot peaceful international co-operation in the interests of the peoples there, of their security and welfare.
As it embarked upon the restoration of its war-ravaged economy, the SRV took a number of major foreign policy moves to establish normal relations with Thailand and other member states of ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations). As the upshot of talks, Thailand and Vietnam agreed to exchange embassies and resume air communications. The visits that an SRV delegation led by Foreign Minister Nguen Duy Trinh^^*^^ paid to Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines were keynoted by a spirit of good will. To judge by press comment, the meetings that _-_-_
^^*^^ In February 1980 Nguyen Co Thach was appointed Foreign Minister of the SRV.---Ed.
85 the leaders of these three last-named countries had with the SRV delegation opened up prospects for the fruitful promotion of their political and economic links with Vietnam. As socialist Vietnam's international prestige mounted, along with credence in its policies, the tissue of lies that Peking had fabricated, as for instance, Vietnam's ``mini-hegemonism'', the presence of Soviet military bases in the SRV, and the like, collapsed like a house of cards. It soon became plain that with all these falsehoods and with their rabid anti-Sovietism, the Maoist leaders had sought among other things to divert the public eye in Southeast Asia from Peking's true expansionism, to exploit the smokescreen of falsehood and slander to disguise the very real threat that Peking's craving for hegemony represented to other states.The Peking leadership's actions against Vietnam gathered momentum. While continuing efforts to set Thailand and other ASEAN states against the SRV and to implement the Maoist principle of ``striking piecemeal'', the Chinese leadership instigated the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary clique to hostile action against the people of Vietnam. As the Indian newspaper, Patriot, has observed these doings of the Peking leadership directly stem from China's hegemonistic policies vis-a-vis Southeast Asia.
Precisely this policy is responsible for Peking's preconceived actions over the supposed ``plight'' of the ethnic Chinese in Vietnam, and for the broad anti-Vietnamese propaganda campaign, which continues to gather momentum.
As was earlier reported, on 1 May 1978, the Chinese authorities openly claimed that a drive had been started to ``persecute and ostracise" ethnic Chinese in Vietnam. This followed upon the SRV government's lawful nationalisation of large privately owned industrial and commercial enterprises in the South, more specifically in Ho Chi Minh City, owned mostly by Chinese bourgeoisie, living in the Ho Chi Minh suburb of Cholon. These gentry, who had so faithfully rendered moral and material support to the puppet Thieu regime, could not brook a popular triumph initiating fundamental social and economic reforms in the interests of the broadest working masses. Applying economic leverage, they sought to disrupt the economy and undermine people's power. The SRV government's decision with respect to the big bourgeoisie irked Peking, which had taken up the cudgels for 86 the exploiters and had demanded exclusive rights for them. It was not without Peking's interference that discontent fermented among ethnic Chinese resident in different parts of Vietnam, whom Peking agents induced by means of pressure and intimidation to quit work at enterprises, schools, mines, and ports, though these Chinese nationals had enjoyed all the rights of citizens of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
More than once, the Vietnamese government offered to discuss with the Chinese the question of ethnic Chinese in a spirit of friendship, in a way that would not strain relations between the two countries, that would not undermine the friendly ties between the two peoples. However, Peking which has declined to negotiate apparently needs the issue to interfere in Vietnam's internal affairs and to impede its advancement.
The Chinese set about creating difficulties at the various projects under construction in Vietnam, delaying supplies of the necessary blueprints, machinery, and other equipment, or, at best, supplying only part of the equipment needed. All this adversely affected the construction and commissioning of necessary projects, and impeded economic advancement.
Then, on 12 May the PRC government decided to call off further deliveries to Vietnam, declaring that the resources thus released would be used to provide jobs for ethnic Chinese whom Vietnam had supposedly ``expelled''. Peking stepped up pressure by withdrawing most of its technical experts, delaying the fulfilment of commercial contracts, and unilaterally abrogating several agreements which the two governments had signed.
The Chinese leadership has taken moves bearing upon the interests of several countries. Thus, it has forbidden or restricted transit shipment from Europe via China of equipment and materials that Vietnam needs.
The Chinese government unwarrantedly decided to shut the Vietnamese Consulates-General in Kunming, Nanning and Kwangchow, and ordered their staffs to leave China. The aim of this serious move was to further exacerbate relations between the two countries. At the same time the Chinese authorities increased tensions on the border with Vietnam, and were fanning anti-Vietnamese actions among ethnic Chinese in the SRV.
87The world public and news media in many countries note that the Chinese leadership uses emigrants to further its own political designs and interests whenever it thinks that expedient. The Southeast Asian peoples have adequate relevant proof provided by the cases of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Burma. China watchers also say that Peking's policy serves to further, in practice, its aims of achieving hegemony and forcing the developing countries to obey Peking, for which purpose it employs every leverage, including Chinese emigrants, especially the Chinese bourgeoisie. From every housetop China's representatives cry that China is a developing country of the so-called Third World, a ruse devised to dupe the public of the developing countries. The anti-Vietnamese provocations only demonstrate once again that China's policy is one of expansionism, whose aim is to subjugate all of Southeast Asia.^^7^^
With their ugly actions against Vietnam, the Chinese leaders count on complicating its efforts in peacetime construction, its successful advance. However, this policy is foredoomed. ``The people of Vietnam,'' says the SRV government note to the PRC government, ``covered a thorny difficult road before it won its present glorious victory. Carrying on high the standard of national independence and socialism, unswervingly adhering to a course of independent development and international solidarity, developing the spirit of self-reliance, and receiving aid from friends the world over, the people of Vietnam will without doubt uphold and successfully build a peaceful, independent, and united socialist Vietnam, and will make a worthy contribution to the people's movement for peace, national independence, democracy, and social progress''.
The Vietnamese newspaper Quan Doi Nhan Dan meted out a fitting rebuff to the overweening chauvinists when in editorial comment published on 6 June under the heading, ``All-- Conquering Justice'', it accused Peking of designs to hamstring the traditional friendship between the peoples of Vietnam and China. ``For are such actions as falsification and the slandering of Vietnam,'' the paper asked, ``or the unilateral decision to send ships to Vietnam without its preliminary permission, undertaken to _-_-_
~^^7^^ See Pravda, 22 June 1978.
88 strengthen bilateral friendship? No, these are but a series of moves whose purpose is to place difficulties in the way of socialist construction in Vietnam and undermine the friendship between the peoples of the two countries. We have still further indication of this, namely, the recent fact of two competent Chinese officials arrogantly contending that 'Vietnam is a hanger-on of the Soviet Union'. This is yet another move in the escalation of base calumny. It shows that with respect to Vietnam the Chinese authorities are adhering to the traditions of great-power chauvinism. Or this is the position taken by the kind of person who makes friends with flattering toadies, and kowtowing vassals be it a fascist in Latin America, a colonialist mercenary in Africa, or a friendship-bartering rascal in Southeast Asia. These actions by the Chinese completely conflict with the aspirations of the peoples of Vietnam and China, and cut across hopes entertained worldwide. They run counter to the principles underlying relationships between the socialist countries, and do not conform to the universally accepted international norms of relations between states.''Peking's provocative policy with respect to socialist Vietnam has been duly rebuffed by the USSR and other socialist countries, by the communist and working-class movement, by all progressives in the world. ``Today, when the people of Vietnam are compelled to face up to gross, undisguised external pressure and to attacks and intimidation,'' says a message of greetings from the leaders of the CPSU and Soviet government to the SRV leadership upon the second anniversary of the republic's foundation, ``we again assure fraternal Vietnam of our resolute support in its effort to build a socialist society, improve life for its people, protect its inalienable sovereign rights and consolidate the international positions of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, that sturdy outpost of socialism in Southeast Asia. The Soviet Union has always supported Vietnam, and will always do so.
On 3 November 1978 the Soviet Union and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam signed a Treaty of Friendship and Co-- operation. In the event of one of the signatories becoming a target of attack or threat of attack, says its Article 6, the USSR and SRV will immediately begin consultations for the purpose of eliminating the danger and taking requisite effective measures to 89 safeguard peace and the security of their countries.^^8^^ ``It is safe to predict,'' said L. I. Brezhnev, ``that it (the Treaty.---Ed.) will not be to the liking of those who are displeased with the friendship of the USSR and Vietnam, those who have set their sights on stoking up tension and on dividing the socialist states.
``But the Treaty is now a political reality. And they will have to reckon with it whether they like it or not."^^9^^
Vietnam's rebuff to the armed provocations of the Pol Pot regime, coupled with the worldwide outcry against the bloody crimes of the Kampuchean Maoists, speeded the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary clique to its downfull. National patriotic forces launched a determined struggle against the criminal regime, and in December 1978 formed the Kampuchea United Front for National Salvation. The Pol Pot-Ieng Sary regime collapsed in January 1979.
The new government brought back to the towns people who had been driven out to villages or put into camps, established democratic administrative organs, and normalised life in the country. Kampuchea announced that it would follow an independent, anti-imperialist, non-aligned foreign policy. It became a people's republic.
The Soviet Union welcomed the victory of the revolutionary patriotic forces in Kampuchea, who had put an end to the black days of tiranny and suffering under the reactionary dictators. In a telegramme to Heng Samrin, Chairman of the People's Revolutionary Council and the UFNS Central Committee, Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin stressed that the Soviet Union would ``continue to develop and strengthen the traditional friendly relations and co-operation of our two countries, and assist the Kampuchean people in building a peaceful, independent, democratic, non-aligned Kampuchea following the road to socialism''.^^10^^
The Chinese rulers, who had lost a proving ground for their Maoist ideas, reacted quite differently. They issued instructions for the Pol Pot people to start a ``guerrilla war'', and promised _-_-_
~^^8^^ See Pravda, 1 November 1978.
~^^9^^ Ibid.
~^^10^^ Pravda, 10 January 1979.
90 them arms. Backed by China, the former chiefs complained to the UN Security Council that their regime had fallen due to the intervention of Vietnam, not a popular uprising. But the China-sponsored draft resolution backed by the Western powers was not passed thanks to the firm stand of the Soviet Union, which vetoed it.In his reply to the Soviet leaders, Heng Samrin wrote that ``the firm expression of support on the part of the Soviet Union has redoubled the confidence of the Kampuchean people, who are now devoting all their strength to restoring their ravaged country and building a peaceful, independent, democratic, neutral, non-aligned Kampuchea advancing to socialism and contributing to lasting peace and stability in Southeast Asia, and to peace, national independence, democracy, and social progress all over the world."^^11^^
The brigand methods the Maoist social-chauvinists employ against Vietnam^^12^^ have aroused in Southeast Asian countries a response directly contrary to what Peking had thought to achieve.
Thus, the Malaysian newspaper New Straits Times noted that though the quarrel between the socialist countries might suit Washington's books, it does not accord with the interests of the Southeast Asian nations who are ``tired of war and rumours about war".^^13^^ The news media have also indicated the coincidence between Peking's stepped-up offensive against Vietnam and Brzezinski's visit to China. The reminder is served in this connection that China's armed seizure of the Southern seas islands _-_-_
~^^11^^ Pravda, 28 January 1979.
~^^12^^ In February-March 1979 China committed an armed aggression against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The SRV repulsed the invader. Peking's venture cost it tens of thousands of lives and a large amount of weaponry. The moral damage it incurred from its inglorious aggression is immeasurable. Instead of ``punishing'' Vietnam, China had punished itself.
The Soviet Union demanded an end to the invasion and the immediate withdrawal of Chinese troops from SRV territory. Socialist Vietnam received all-round assistance in repulsing the aggression.
~^^13^^ New Straits Times, 30 May 1978.
91 was also coordinated with the Americans, which is why the recent statement from Peking and Washington as to ``common strategic interests between the USA and the PRG" could not but evoke anxiety in the Southeast Asia countries, who wonder whether this alliance between American ``hawks'' and the Chinese ``dragon'' is not outright encouragement of the latter's aggressiveness, first of all against closer and weaker countries. After all, Peking has gone to the extent of laying claim even to the Sentmu Reefs, which are but 20 miles off the coast of the Malaysian state of Sarawak. China is already publishing maps depicting its territorial waters but five miles from the shores of Eastern Malaysia. Of course, against the background of Peking's global designs to ``vanquish the world" and ``take hold of" Southeast Asia as the first step, a few reefs are but a ``trifle'', yet in Malaysia, and in other states in the area for that matter, it is well realised that if these ostensibly ``trifling'' encroachments are not rebuffed, they will be followed, and are already being followed, in part, by bigger actions.Small wonder that Peking fears most a united front of its neighbours, moreover, any united front, even if not anti-Chinese, but merely indicating a desire of these countries to promote equal friendly and peaceful co-operation and to strengthen peace and the security of the peoples on this basis. This is precisely what does not tie in with Maoist designs to dictate to neighbours in a way that would imply unconditional obedience.
It is palpably manifest that in all its expansionist moves, Peking counts mainly on striking fear into the heart of its neighbours and on gradually forcing them to implicitly obey the Celestial Empire, to which end it does all in its power to hamper their normal mutual co-operation, to make them fail out, to complicate the political situation in keeping with Mao's notorious behest to ``strike blow after blow" and ``to necessarily destroy, if that can be done, or to make ready to destroy in the future if that cannot be done for the time being''. The Thai representative at the regional UNESCO courses had good reasons to declare, when addressing his Philippine and Indonesian colleagues: ``It is your good luck that you have a sea between you and China, but after it crushes all our countries, your turn will come.''
92Against the backdrop of Peking's subversive activities west and south of its borders, its recent appeal to the ASEAN states of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and the Philippines to form ``a united front" with China struck a highly demagogic, false note. The statesmen and news media of these countries scathingly condemned the hypocritical and provocatory scheme of the Chinese authorities. ``It is hard to qualify the Chinese offer as a reflection of kind intent,'' said the Indonesian Suara Karya, while the Singapore Straits Times bluntly stated: ``Our answer to Peking is: No!''
As will be remembered, ASEAN's creation in August 1967, at the height of China's ``cultural revolution'', represented in no small degree a reaction from the five Southeast Asian countries to the Peking leadership's attempt to overthrow their governments and thrust Maoism upon them. This body emerged as an organisation within which its members sought to pool efforts and evolve a united policy of resisting Chinese expansionism. When after ASEAN foundation, the Philippines Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs was asked whether the organisation's members were of one mind as to ``from what quarter or from which country intervention was most likely,'' he said: ``The question doesn't exist. It's China.''
Far from having changed its aggressive designs on the Southeast Asian countries, but on the contrary, having stepped up its efforts to implement these designs, Peking is now pretending to be ASEAN's ``friend'', even ``protector''. But since the inhabitants of the Southeast Asian countries have no desire to let the Maoists in through the door, the latter are trying to get in through the backwindow, more specially by staking on ethnic Chinese in an area where some 20 million of them reside. As was mentioned earlier, the Southeast Asian countries more frequently note, especially in view of China's provocations against the SRV, that Peking's encroachments on the sovereignty of the states in question through influencing ethnic Chinese resident there is impermissible from the angle of rudimental norms of international relations. Addressing the NPC's latest session Chinese leaders allotted to Chinese emigrants the role of a ``bridge'' in the relations of the Southeast Asian countries with the PRC, which has only served to heighten suspicions and alarm in these countries. At 93 a meeting in Peking with leaders of Chinese emigrant groups Deng Xiaoping said that ``the question of working among Chinese resident in other countries must be placed on the agenda and the most serious heed must be paid to a solution for this question".^^14^^ Besides involving emigrant money (total emigrant investment in the Southeast Asian countries, according to different sources, ranges anywhere between $10,000 million^^15^^ and $16,300 million^^16^^) in the ``four modernisations" programme, Peking still intends to use Chinese emigrants as a fifth column, appealing to them as ``compatriots'', ``members of one family'', and ``blood relations".^^17^^ Peking urges them with increasing vigour to take out citizenship papers in countries of residence. ``The PRC government's policy,'' Hua Guofeng told NPC session, ``is to support and encourage Chinese emigrants to voluntarily become subjects of countries of residence."^^18^^ Though this means they lose Chinese citizenship, they are reminded that their ``bonds of kinship with the Chinese people remain".^^19^^ Again extensively touted is Mao's utterance that ``90 per cent of the Chinese emigrants are patriots, our friends and comrades, while only a tiny minority are enemies."^^20^^
Generally speaking, the smouldering embers of nationalistic sentiments among the bulk of the Chinese emigrants would have long died out had they not been deliberately fanned by Peking. The present Chinese leadership's line is precisely to whip up Great-Han chauvinism among them in the guise of `` cementing patriotic sentiment'', and to plant its own agents in Chinese communities. The Indonesian newspaper Merdeka urges its government in this connection ``to steeply tighten control over the activities of Chinese'', and ``protect the country from infiltration by well-trained agents''. Another newspaper, Sinar Harapan, pointed out that the widespread infiltration of Indonesia by ethnic Chinese and the establishment in Hong Kong and _-_-_
~^^14^^ Jenmin jihpao, 3 January 1978.
~^^15^^ South China Morning Post, 21 June 1976.
~^^16^^ Time, 12 December 1977.
~^^17^^ Kwangming jihpao, 6 April 1978.
~^^18^^ Documents of Session of 5th PRC NPC, Peking, 1978, p. 123.
~^^19^^ Ibid.
~^^20^^ Jenmin jihpao, 4 January 1978.
94 elsewhere of ``special offices" to supply these persons with false Indonesian papers ``should be regarded as part of a pre-planned operation''. The glaring disdain for the sovereignty of other countries is illustrated by attempts to involve young Chinese living there in various underground anti-government organisations, like the ``League for the Study of the Thoughts of Mao Zedong'', which peddles the cult of violence, or by Peking's provocation through Chinese emigrants of sundry disorders akin to what has occurred of late in Vietnam. In their selfish interests, the Peking rulers are not averse to exploiting the bandit ``secret societies" of Chinese scattered around the Southeast Asian countries. But the main stake is on Chinese capitalists, who, in the words of Indonesian officials, ``are induced to wax rich by exploiting the local population and to remit their money to Peking''.Southeast Asia condemns the vile scheme to incite Chinese living in Vietnam to engage in anti-Vietnamese demonstrations not only because Peking has no right whatever to interfere in the affairs of other countries, but also because the entire Maoist position is false, victimising the Chinese emigrants by deceitfully embroiling them in Peking's ventures. At numerous rallies of ethnic Chinese, much has been said about the true state of affairs, about the inflammatory propaganda of instigators among ethnic Chinese resident in Vietnam.
``I was greatly surprised to hear Radio Peking broadcast fabrications about our 'tragic plight' in Vietnam,'' said Luong Ton Quang, an engineer at an enterprise in Hanoi. ``All my eight brothers and sisters, who live in various parts of united Vietnam, have experienced nothing of the sort. I, for one, was afforded the opportunity to obtain a higher education. I have gone all the way from ordinary worker at the Haiphong Machinery Plant to engineer and manager. I think that in China I would have scarcely been able to extricate myself from the slough of poverty in which large families languish there.
``Some of my friends and acquaintances,'' he added, ``have succumbed to provocatory calls to return to China. I might note in passing that even in this case the Vietnamese authorities did not place any obstacles in the way of their exit. The instigators promised the returnees happiness and affluence, and work in their trade and profession in China. However, now they write 95 letters full of bitterness, in which they note that these promises were only so many words. Many were deported to distant rural areas, to work the fields in the direst conditions, though they are educated specialists or highly skilled industrial workers.''
__*_*_*__The Maoists are fond of saying that theirs is a ``winding path'', and there one must agree. Where and against whom Chinese militarism may turn its sword at one or another stage will not depend on Westerners who today irresponsibly help to forge this sword. At any rate, today, as has been noted, the trend of Chinese expansionism is more or less clear. Under the guise of the spurious ``threat from the North" slogan, Peking is attempting to extend its influence in Southeast Asia and also in the Pacific, right down to Australia, with naturally all the consequences for those with their own interests in these parts of the world. In other words, to paraphrase a Peking aphorism, the Chinese leadership while ``creating pretenses in the North is preparing to strike in the South''. For it is precisely in this direction that Peking has used armed force. And it is precisely in this direction that are spearheaded and wherever possible, implemented, the territorial claims which the hegemony-craving Peking leaders put to neighbours and to Southern seas islands that other states in the area regard as their own. Thus it is precisely this way that come, via Hong Kong, thousands upon thousands of Chinese infiltrators.
The Indian Central News Service thus reveals the true designs which the hegemony-seeking Peking leadership has upon Southeast Asia: ``So far, China's military capability is insufficient for Peking to establish armed control over this area. However, the Maoists have far from abandoned the programme principles of their great-power policy. Peking strategists make no secret about their claims to 200-odd islands in the South China Sea, by seizing which they seek to straddle sea lanes of vital significance for many countries. .. . Maoist hankerings cut across the basic urge to reduce tensions in the world, more specifically in Asia.''
The deliberations of people who think in colonialist categories of ``spheres of influence" and who allot Southeast Asia to Peking 96 as a ``sphere'' unquestionably flatter the arrogant self-love of the Maoist social-chauvinists. From the point of strategy, the Peking leaders seek to establish undivided sway over this area, not simply amplify their influence there. That is what lies at the root. Quite right are people who, to take a case in point, regard Pe^ king's flirtation with Washington as a Maoist time-winning tactic, that seeks to use the Americans for its own purpose. China's ``system and ideology'', Wanandi emphasises, ``dictate a long range strategic opposition to the United States... . Regardless of US methods, the PRC will have its own strategy and dynamism, which are bound to affect Southeast Asia's interests."^^21^^
This is put far more plainly by the Maoists themselves, more specifically by Geng Biao, a member of the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau, head of the Central Committee's Department for International Relations, and Deputy Premier of the PRC State Council, who bluntly stated in a speech to Diplomatic Academy graduates: ``Let the USA defend us at the present moment.. .. When we find the time opportune, we shall tell Uncle Sam: 'Be so kind as to pack up and get out.'~" Mao Zedong bequeathed this selfsame approach when he said that with the United States ``it is nonetheless necessary to proceed with the struggle, to carry it on by force, capturing from it one position after another. However, this requires time''.
Whether the insensate designs of the new-fangled claimants to world hegemony will come true and whether the Maoists will be able to grab Southeast Asia and subsequently other portions of the continent will depend not only on Peking. The more speedily people realise the unpardonably false and lying nature of the Peking politicos, the less elbow room they give Peking to play on the disunity of states, the less of a chance the Maoists will have to act in a way imperilling peace and the security of the peoples.
Like maniacs, Mao's heirs, focussing their policy on the Maoist idea of world hegemony under the pretext of ``delivering mankind"---which nobody asks them to do---stop short of nothing in gearing all their actions to the realisation of this idea. With them incitement, fraud, political trickery, and armed _-_-_
~^^21^^ J. Wanandi, op. cit, pp. 775, 776.
__PRINTERS_P_97_COMMENT__ 7---2499 97 provocations have become the norm; they seek to ``train'' other peoples, the entire world, to tolerate such conduct and their arrogant disdain for what are termed norms of international law, of international relations, norms that exist for all and must be observed by all. Coupled with a chauvinistic preaching of war and Sinocentrism, the attempts made by the Chinese leaders to place themselves above these norms only serve to emphasise the growing danger inherent in Maoist policy.The words and actions of the Chinese leaders succeeding Mao Zedong demonstrate how correct and topical are the fundamental assessments of Maoism which the CPSU made at its 25th Congress: ``Peking's frantic attempts to torpedo detente, to obstruct disarmament, to breed suspicion and hostility between states, its efforts to provoke a world war and reap whatever advantages may accrue, present a great danger for all peace-- loving peoples. This policy conducted by Peking is deeply opposed to the interests of all peoples. We shall continue to repulse this incendiary policy, and to protect the interests of the Soviet state, the socialist community, and the world communist movement."^^22^^
To take an impassive view of Peking's reckless policy and wait for the danger to swell to pernicious proportions would be an inexcusable mistake. All who cherish peace and the freedom and independence of the peoples, all who wish to calmly go about their creative pursuits, must pool efforts to expose and cut short the highly perilous designs and actions of the Maoist and other warmongers playing up to Peking's hegemonic ambitions.
Far Eastern Affairs, No. 4, 1978, pp. 29--42.
_-_-_~^^22^^ Materials and Documents. XXVth Congress of the CPSU, Moscow. 1976, p. 14.
[98] __ALPHA_LVL2__ 20,000 KILOMETRES OFY. Dimov
__NOTE__ Author(s)'s name(s) appear above chapter title.China's land frontier cuts across snow-capped mountains, deserts and tropical jungles. All along this 20,000-kilometre frontier its neighbours are either socialist or developing countries---a favourable circumstance offering the People's Republic of China an opportunity to enjoy tranquility all along the line, to maintain good relations with its neighbours, and rule out the very possibility of border conflicts. And this indeed was by and large the case during the early years of the PRC. However, as antisocialist and great-power chauvinist tendencies grew more and more pronounced in Peking policy, the situation on the frontiers also changed.
In 1955, soon after the Bandung Conference, where Zhou Enlai gave assurances that Peking had no expansionist designs, Chinese army units ambushed a column of Burmese troops. In August 1959, Chinese soldiers attacked an Indian patrol in the Himalayas, the following year fell upon Nepalese border guards, in 1962 invaded India. And in 1969 Peking engineered bloody clashes on the Sino-Soviet frontier.
These are only the biggest acts of provocation. All told in the last ten years of Mao Zedong's rule, China provoked more incidents along its land frontier than the total number of border conflicts registered in the rest of the world in the same period.
About two years ago hopes appeared in some Asian countries that the new leadership in Peking would renounce the policy of constant pressure on neighbours and cease to whip up tension on its frontiers. But these hopes soon proved to be illusory. That Mao's successors have taken over his expansionist foreign-policy line, including the policy of frontier provocations, is abundantly evident if only from the reports coming in from China's neighbours all along the frontier from Afghanistan to Vietnam.
__PRINTERS_P_99_COMMENT__ 7* 99 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1980/PROCE270/20070517/199.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2007.05.17) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [*0-9]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_SEQUENCE__ continuousThe people's government in this country is becoming more and more firmly established from day to day. The progressive economic and social reforms that are being effected enjoy mass support among the population. The overthrown exploiting classes have no ground to stand on in the country. What, then, have they to pin their hopes on?
``The members of the opposition I have met here and also the Maoists,'' writes the Kabul correspondent of the French L' Aurore, ``are convinced that they will find moral and material support, especially on the part of China.'' The Peking leaders have not disappointed the expectations of the enemies of the Afghan revolution. Beginning with the initial months of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, Peking has been weaving conspiracies together with pro-imperialist quarters in some Middle East countries. Early in the year the British Daily Telegraph wrote: `` Peking ... is reported to have been smuggling arms to Afghan tribes inhabiting the villages along the border with China. The weapons include the sophisticated, lightweight Chinese burp guns and automatic repeaters, both of which are particularly useful in guerrilla warfare.. . . The next step is inevitably the training of small bands of tribesmen in Chinese camps. They will then be released back into Afghanistan as trained guerrillas.''
The Chinese authorities are turning the areas adjoining northwest India into a springboard for military action. The strategic Karakoram Highway, which was completed last year, gives China access to the port of Karachi in the Indian Ocean. But it runs through the Pakistani-controlled part of Kashmir which makes it a deliberate provocation, as has been repeatedly pointed out by government and public leaders of India and other Asian countries. This, however, does not deter Peking. In recent months the Chinese have begun work on a new strategic road and a military airfield in districts adjoining Kashmir.
Another seat of tension is being created by Peking on the northeastern sector of the Indo-Chinese border. News media of 100 many countries report a military build-up in Tibet. According to the British Daily Telegraph, in the period from August 1977 to April 1978 alone another 150,000 troops were moved into the area, bringing the total strength of the Chinese forces there to 350,000. Twelve air bases were built in Tibet in feverish haste.
The war preparations on the Indian frontier coincide with other hostile acts against that country. The Chinese intelligence service has notably stepped up its activity in areas adjoining India. In the second half of 1978 alone more than 100 spies and saboteurs were smuggled into India's northeastern districts to disrupt the area's economy and to fan separatist sentiment. Six Chinese agents detained in July 1978 in Manipur State admitted that they had been trained at a spy centre in Tibet described as a ``school for fighters of the liberation movement in neighbouring countries''.
Particularly close are Peking's ties with the Naga separatists operating in the Nagaland and Manipur states and the Arunachal Pradesh union territory, and also with Mizo anti-- government organisations in Mizoram and the Tripura and Manipur states. Terrorist bands are equipped with Chinese weapons and trained at sabotage centres in China. The series of murders in Assam which preceded Indian Foreign Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's visit to China was assessed by the Indian press as an attempt to set the stage for the conduct of the Indo-Chinese talks from positions of strength. Fears have been voiced in Delhi that China may make use of separatists to slice off substantial territory from India and some other Asian countries. It is not by chance that the Times of India recently recalled Mao Zedong's thesis that Tibet is ``China's palm'', and Ladakh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, and Nagaland its five fingers.
Indian leaders have time and again raised the question of the continued occupation of the 36,000 square kilometres of Indian territory in Ladakh which China seized by armed force in 1962. According to the Indian press, this question was once again brought up by Foreign Minister Vajpayee during his recent visit to Peking, but his talks there produced no results to speak of. Evidently Peking has decided to hold on to the Ladakh ``finger''.
Suspicious manipulations have been going on in recent months around the rest of the areas mentioned by Mao. The Peking 101 special services are not only giving more support to the Nagaland rebels, but have established contact also with the separatists in Sikkim. China apparently is not prepared to reconcile itself to the collapse of its expansionist plans in regard to this Himalayan area and the entry of Sikkim into India with state status.
Angered by the great-power policy of the Peking leaders, Indian public opinion is pressing for action to defend the interests of the country. ``India should deploy such forces against China as will deter it from border-nibbling tactics,'' the influential Indian Express observed the other day.
The Maoist extremists have again stepped up their activity in Nepal, where the pro-Peking gang leader Pushpa Lai died a few months ago. In December 1978, they brutally beat up the well-known Nepalese Communist M. M. Adhikari. The public is also disquieted by a mysterious three-metres high structure set up by the Chinese on the summit of Mt. Everest. The press does not exclude the possibility that it is a spying device and is pressing on the government to take China to task for violating Nepal's sovereignty over Everest.
Mao's successors are also reaching out to the small Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. Chinese troops have been moved up to its frontiers and behind-the-scenes manipulations are under way to disrupt Bhutan's traditional link with India, which, as is known, is responsible for the conduct of the kingdom's foreign relations.
For years now armed rebels have been waging an ``undeclared war" against Burma's progressive regime. Since the change of leadership in China, the flow of weapons, ammunition, and propaganda literature from that country to the insurgents has increased.
Peking relies here mainly on insurgent forces based near the Chinese frontier and operating in Burmese territory east of the Salween River. Latterly the insurgents have sought to create a bridgehead on the western bank of the river as well. The Times 102 of India observes that this would be a convenient springboard for operations in the Irrawaddy Valley in the very heart of a region inhabited by 75 per cent of Burma's population of 30 million. The Peking authorities also direct several separatist groups in the Kachin and Shan national areas adjoining China.
Observers agree that since the change in the leadership in Peking the ``diplomacy of smiles" has been stepped up. It is symptomatic, however, that the major rebel operations coincide in time with the Chinese leaders' foreign-policy moves vis-a-vis Burma. For instance, Deng Xiaoping's visit to Rangoon in January 1978 was followed by an unprecedented offensive by the proPeking forces in the area of Kunlong and Tangyan in which the rebel bands lost more than 800 men in dead alone. The same thing happened in November last year when immediately after a visit to Rangoon by Wu Xiuquan, Deputy Chief of the Chinese General Staff, the Burmese rebels mounted an offensive in the area of the Salween River.
Much concern is caused in Rangoon by the wholesale infiltration of Chinese agents. A report published by the Burmese government notes that in the first half of 1978 eleven Chinese citizens who had entered the country illegally, three of them functionaries of a pro-Peking organisation, were arrested in Lasho in the Shan national area. In the Kachin national area 3,000 Chinese were found to have entered Burma illegally. They had settled along the ancient caravan route leading from China through uninhabited areas of Burma on the frontier with India and Bangladesh. This route is used by the Chinese intelligence service to infiltrate agents to the Arakan national area in southern Burma. It is also used by Naga and Mizo rebels returning to India and Bangladesh after training in China.
LAOS
Tracing the Chinese provocations eastward we come to the frontier of the People's Democratic Republic of Laos.
People's government in this ancient land has struck deep root. The people are successfully coping with the difficulties involved in the implementation of deep-going social reforms. But these 103 difficulties would be far fewer were it not for the incessant subversive activity carried on by the remnants of domestic reactionaries supported from without. The Chinese special services are working hand in hand with Laotian reactionary emigre quarters and USA agents. Not long ago the Hong Kong press reported that Chinese intelligence chief had had secret talks with the former commander of the ``CIA secret army" in T,aos, General Vang Pao. The press reports saw a link between this meeting in Peking and the intensification of subversion against Laos in the northern provinces bordering on China.
Subversion against Laos is another area in which the US and China are pursuing parallel policies. According to the French Covrrler de politique etrangere, Zhigniew Brzezinski during his Peking visit offered his Chinese counterparts a sum of $40 million for financing separatist groups in Laos. ``The Chinese leaders accepted the American offer and sent their emissaries to Paris and Bangkok to establish contacts with Laotian emigre leaders,'' the publication said. ``Peking proposes to use these dollars to form and arm rebel groups recruited from among the Meo and kindred tribes.''
What the objects of these provocative machinations are is well known in Laos. The Vientiane Xieng Pasason, for instance, observed that they are aimed at disrupting the unity of the country's multinational population and driving a wedge between Laos and the fraternal socialist countries. ``The enemy is continuing his treacherous and hypocritical manoeuvres directed against the revolutionary movement of our people,'' the paper said. ``We must constantly strengthen our security and defences.''
__*_*_*__The attempts to erode frontier lines of neighbouring countries, the territorial claims presented to neighbours, the support given to forces opposed to lawful governments, border provocations and aggressive wars are all components of Peking's hegemonistic policy.
New Times, No. 9, 1979
[104] __ALPHA_LVL2__ THE CASE OF THE SENKAKUN. Borodin
The Senkaku Islands incident attracted world attention because it revealed a specific aspect of the Sino-Japanese contradictions.
The Senkakus are a small chain of rocky islands and reefs (in the East China Sea) occupying an area of 6.3 square kilometres. The islands' importance derives from the belief that their continental shelf is rich in oil. The discovery of indications of such deposits at the end of the 1960s ignited an argument over ownership of the Senkakus.
Japan bases its claim on the fact that the islands were discovered by a Japanese citizen in 1884, and since 1895 have been regarded as an integral part of Japanese territory.
The Chinese contend that the Senkakus formed part of the sea defence perimeter of China long before the Japanese `` discovered" them and were seized together with Taiwan by the Japanese during the Sino-Japanese War of 1894--1895. Therefore, notes Peking, when Japan accepted the conditions of the 1945 Potsdam Declaration and gave up its claim to Taiwan, it consequently relinquished all rights to the Senkaku Islands as well. At the beginning of 1972, the Chinese representative to the United Nations emphasised that ``the Chinese province of Taiwan and all islands adjacent to Taiwan, including the Senkakus, are part of the sacred territory of China''.
It will be recalled that following the normalisation of SinoJapanese relations in September 1972 the Chinese in pursuit of their overall political goals and in an attempt to conclude a treaty of ``peace and friendship" with Tokyo on terms suiting Peking, distinctly toned down their territorial claims. Moreover, in October 1974, Deng Xiaoping declared in so many words that ``to accelerate the conclusion of the treaty of peace and friendship, 105 China is willing to set aside the discussion of the Senkaku Islands problem''.
Still, the inner logic of events around the Senkakus led to an aggravation of the conflict between the contending parties.
In February 1978, the Chinese journal Geographical Knowledge published material which reaffirmed the Chinese position that the Senkakus were ``the sacred territory of the People's Republic of China in the province of Taiwan''. In March, the Japanese government responded by declaring in answer lo a parliamentary deputy's inquiry that the Senkaku Islands were in Japanese hands and there was no necessity whatsoever to discuss the question of their rightful ownership with anyone.
On April 12, a Chinese fishing flotilla consisting of more than 100 boats was spotted off the Islands in an area considered by the Japanese as within their territorial waters. The Chinese ignored the orders of a Japanese launch to leave the 12-mile zone. Instead they raised posters, reading ``This zone is in Chinese territorial waters''. The Japanese then dispatched patrol vessels and aircraft to the region. However, many of the Chinese fishing boats were indeed armed with machine-guns and their crews with submachine-guns. These arms were unambiguously pointed at the Japanese launches.
The Chinese actions raised a storm of protest in Japan. They were regarded as open encroachment on Japan's sovereignty and a clear illustration of the very hegemonism that the Chinese themselves had said could not be tolerated in East Asia. The Japanese government filed an official protest with the Chinese authorities. Prime Minister Fukuda, other Japanese government officials and leaders of the opposition parties, all condemned Chinese behaviour and reaffirmed support for the Japanese position on the Senkaku controversy. Hints were dropped of the possibility of a serious deterioration in Sino-Japanese relations.
Such a turn of events evidently did not suit the Peking leadership. Within a few days the Chinese issued a statement that the Senkaku incident was ``accidental'' in nature. Towards the end of April, the Chinese boats left the region of the islands.
However, the political disquietude engendered by the April events was not laid to rest with the departure of the Chinese ships. Japan continues to be puzzled as to the significance of the 106 Chinese actions. No one takes seriously the statements of Peking leaders concerning the Senkaku ``accident'', not even those who would like to believe China and see the matter closed. Declarations about the unpremeditated appearance of the poster-clad and machine-gun-armed fishing boats just don't square. A more plausible explanation is that China by its manoeuvres was attempting to pressure Tokyo into signing a treaty of friendship on Chinese terms, and failing that, to instigate a political crisis in Japan. The Chinese overestimated their chances. By their unceremonious provocations in the waters around the Senkakus, they saw carefully cultivated self-portrayal as a great friend of Japan go up in smoke. Peking once again has demonstrated that it is prepared to use any means, no matter how crude, including the threat and use of military force, to achieve its goals.
Mezhdunarodnaya Zhizn, No. 6, 1978, pp. 126--27.
[107] __ALPHA_LVL2__ CHINA'S BORDER POLICY ANDE. Stepanov
Conflicts and armed incidents erupted time and again at various points along China's land and maritime borders over the past twenty years.
Though the Maoists pretend that they ``invariably favour resolving the border question through diplomatic channels'', the ways of Peking diplomacy are far out of line with the universally accepted standards of international law. Border tensions and armed conflicts are, indeed, an important element of the present Peking leaders' border policy, and usually precede an official staking out of territorial claims to neighbouring countries and any discussion of border issues ``through diplomatic channels''. Suffice it to recall that the diplomatic discussions concerning China's borders with Burma, India, Nepal, and the Soviet Union came after and not before serious armed clashes had occurred on the frontier.
A study of the different border conflicts reveals a number of common features, shedding some light on Peking's border policy as a whole.
First, the conflicts erupted in areas or along the border of areas that had priorly been targets of China's ``cartographic aggression'', on which grounds the Maoists endeavoured to portray them as ``disputed areas".^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ The Chinese concept of ``disputed areas" was publicly defined in a PRO government statement of 7 October 1969, and the so-called PRC Foreign Ministry Document of 8 October 1969, where points ``at which the border line is differently designated on the maps of the two sides" are described as ``disputed areas" (Renminribao, 8 and 9 October 1969).
The Chinese have engaged in ``cartographic aggressions" for many years past. By their logic, the farther the border line is moved on Chinese maps, the greater is the territory of the ``disputed area''. (For details see E. K. KOCTUKOB. FIojiHTHiecKaH KapxorpacpHH Ha c^yx6e ue-- __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 109. 108
Second, all border conflicts followed the same tactical pattern. In Burma's Wa area, at Luongjiu and Mustang, at the Kongka Pass, on islands of the Ussuri and the South China Sea, and in the steppelands of Kazakhstan, Chinese soldiers ambushed and attacked border guards of the other country. This explains the heavier losses of the other side, which the Chinese government brings into play as proof that the latter had been the attacker.^^2^^
Peking's next moves, too, are largely the same: it denies all blame for the conflict, maintaining that the incident occurred on Chinese soil, that the Chinese side employed arms as a last resort in self-defence,^^3^^ and that the responsibility rested with the other side. Simultaneously, Peking describes the border as `` unestablished'', or ``unlawful'', complaining of the ``unequal'' nature of the pertinent border agreements, and demanding a ``final and thorough settlement" of the ``issue left over by history''. As a first step, the Chinese propose provisional measures normalising the border situation through a status quo agreement.
On the face of it, an offer to maintain the status quo at a point of conflict appears reasonable as a move preventing further armed clashes on the border, and paving the way to a swift and final settlement.
The Maoists count on the fact that the public at home and abroad is poorly informed of China's border problems and much less of the Maoist border policy and its aims, which are carefully _-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 108. HauHcmajiHSMa.---Problemy Dalnego Vostoka, No. 4, 1973; see also B. C. OAbeun. 3KcnaHCHOHH3M B norpaHHMHoft nojiHTHKe HeKHHa.---Problemy Dalnego Vostoka, No. 1, 1975.)
~^^2^^ Renminribao, 27 October 1959
~^^3^^ Chinese documents concerning border clashes invariably contain this stock phrase: ``In a situation that had become no longer bearable, our border guards were compelled to retaliate in self-defence" (see PRC Foreign Ministry statement of 26 October 1959 concerning the Kongka Pass incident in Renminribao, 27 October 1959; the PRC Foreign Ministry notes of 2 and 15 March 1969 concerning the Damansky Island events in Renminribao, 13 and 16 March 1969; the PRC Foreign Ministry note of 13 August 1969 concerning the incident at Zhalanashkol in Renminribao, 14 August 1969; the PRC Foreign Ministry statement of 20 January 1974 concerning the Paracel Islands conflict in Renminribao, 21 January 1974).
109 concealed behind a screen of peaceful rhetoric. Misguiding the public is certainly one of the objectives of Maoist diplomacy when it offers to maintain the status quo at the point of the border conflict.But the status quo proposal is not really intended to secure a peaceful settlement. It is rather an attempt to legalise the perfidious violation of a long-standing, time-honoured situation (i.e., a long-standing status quo) and thereby complicate a settlement.
Take the situation the Chinese insisted should be maintained on their border with Burma or India after the latter two countries had been drawn into a discussion of territorial problems.
Complications over the Sino-Burman border arose after Chinese troops ambushed and attacked a Burman military unit that was on a training march 40 miles (64 km) inside the border in Burma's Wa area on 20 November 1955.
Investigations by competent Burman authorities revealed that the Chinese soldiers had been on Burman soil since 1951. They stayed on after repelling Kuomintang gangs which had been raiding China's Yunnan Province from the Shan states of Burma. At that time, the Burman government had been unable alone to clear the country of the armed Kuomintang units that were a danger both to China and Burma.
The border at this point was defined in an Anglo-Chinese agreement of 1941 which, in effect, had been initiated by China. In the wake of the agreement, however, even before the year was out, the Chiang Kai-shek government gave to understand that it was not satisfied and wanted the settlement revised. On Chinese maps the border was shown as still ``unestablished'', and was drawn to suit the wishes of the Chinese side.^^4^^ Later, Zhou Enlai did not hesitate to falsify the facts, claiming that the border line had been ``unilateraly imposed" by Britain.^^5^^
After repelling the Kuomintang forays into Yunnan and wiping out Kuomintang bases in Burma near the Sino-Burman border, the Chinese troops stayed on in Burman territory in the vicinity _-_-_
~^^4^^ Provincial Atlas of the PRO, Shanghai, 1951, map No. 47; Provincial Atlas of the PRC, Shanghai, 1953, map No. 46.
~^^5^^ ``Collection of PRC Foreign Policy Documents, Issue 4, Peking, 1958, p. 343 (in Chinese).
110 of the Salween River. In other words, a piece of Burman territory that had for some time earlier been claimed by the Chinese and that Chinese maps designated as belonging to China, was controlled by Chinese troops.The posture of the Chinese side following press reports of the incident is graphic evidence of Peking's approach to agreements concluded in the past, above all of its obvious reluctance to abide by them.^^6^^
Peking's sole public response to the press report concerning the incident in the Wa area on 20 November 1955 (in The Nation, a Rangoon paper), and to the pertinent Burman government statement, was an editorial in the 4 August 1956 issue of Renminribao which, for all its inconclusiveness, gave a fair idea of Peking's basic standpoint.
The editorial made no mention of the armed clash involving Chinese soldiers. It branded the report in The Nation as ``a ruse" and said ``Chinese border units remain where they are''. Ultimately, it suggested that ``pending a formal demarcation, the two sides should strictly abide by the situation as it exists in the area''. And this guideline the Chinese side also followed at the official negotiations.
The presence of Chinese troops on Burman territory, which Peking was later compelled to admit, lifts the veil on the implications of the Chinese formula of ``abiding by the existing situation until a final settlement of the issue is reached''. For one thing, the situation that prevailed on the Sino-Burman border gave Peking control over territories to which it had earlier staked out a claim. This continued until Peking decided to initiate a settlement. Such effective and long control provided scope for _-_-_
~^^6^^ Article 55 of the General Programme of the People's Political Consultative Council of China instructs the PRC government ``to study the treaties and agreements concluded by the Kuomintang government with foreign states, and to recognise, annul, revise, or renew them depending on their content''. See Collection of PRC Foreign Policy Documents, Issue 1, Peking, 1957, p. 1.
But any renunciation of border agreements, unless done by mutual consent, is not considered lawful under international law. Such agreements remain in force even in the event of war between the neighbouring countries concerned.
111 manipulations strengthening China's position at the future negotiations.True, the Maoist designs were not all destined to succeed. Peking was forced to back down in face of the imminent breakdown of the talks with U Nu in the Chinese capital, fearing that failure to come to terms would reflect on China's international prestige. Peking admitted, in fact, that the ``previous line" held by its troops was on Burman territory, and withdrew them behind the border line it had earlier refused to recognise despite the pertinent international agreement of 18 June 1941.^^7^^
But the Maoists did succeed in having a number of points on Burman territory (which had for long been objects of Chinese claims) singled out as ``disputed areas''. The acquiescence of U Nu and the Burman government gave substance to Peking's pretensions. But physical control over these areas would have enabled it---apart from various ``references'' of a historical nature and arguments artificially created during the occupation---to exploit the time factor as well, and drag out a settlement until the other side was prepared for territorial concessions in order to have a contractually defined, that is, a tranquil, border.
The same aim was pursued by Peking when it offered ``to maintain the existing situation" in the Sino-Indian border dispute.
It will be recalled that apart from Chinese objections to the McMahon line demarcating the eastern sector of the Sino-Indian border, the dispute concerned the large but practically uninhabited region of Aksai-Chin along the Himalayan frontier.
Following a series of armed clashes between Chinese and Indian border patrols, the Chinese government suggested precluding further hostilities by ``as a temporary measure, maintaining the long existing situation".^^8^^ Since the exchange of messages between the prime ministers of the PRC and India revealed that the two sides held different views about the nature of this ``long existing situation'', the vaguely expressed Chinese proposal was later reworded. Zhou Enlai's letter to Jawaharlal Nehru dated 7 November 1959 contained the offer for both sides to withdraw their troops 20 km from ``the line of actual control''. _-_-_
~^^7^^ Collection of PRC Foreign Policy Documents, Issue 4, pp. 161--162.
~^^8^^ Renminribao, 27 October 1959.
112 Subsequently, the Chinese chose to take the situation as on 7 November 1959 as the status quo.^^9^^By that time China exercised effective military control over all or nearly all the region. India's acceptance of its proposal would, therefore, have given China legal grounds for holding the region until a settlement in the indefinite future. More, the Indian side would have had to withdraw its border posts still farther back from where they were stationed, that is, into territory that was undisputedly under Indian control.^^10^^
Peking was clearly determined to secure control over the object of its claims, and to create a kind of buffer zone or demilitarised area along the ``line of actual control as on 7 November 1959'', which was identified as reflecting the situation that existed at the outbreak of the conflict.
While agreeing in principle to the necessity for maintaining the status quo, the Indian government turned down the `` temporary measures" proposed by the PRC. In a letter to Zhou Enlai of 16 November 1959, Nehru called attention to the fact that the two countries were at odds over who controlled or, more bluntly, who owned the Aksai-Chin area. ``An agreement about the observance of the status quo,'' he wrote, ``would, therefore, _-_-_
~^^9^^ On the Sino-Indian Border Question, Issue 2, Peking, 1959, p. 2 (in Chinese).
~^^10^^ In his letter to Zhou Enlai of 16 November 1959, Jawaharlal Nehru pointed out that the government of India had permanently exercised jurisdiction over the Aksai-Chin area. ``The nature of this possession,'' Nehru wrote, ``has inevitably been different from that of an inhabited area. The area is uninhabited, mountainous territory of an altitude varying from 14,000 to 20,000 feet above sea-level, with the mountain peaks going up much higher. Because of this, and because we did not expect any kind of aggression across our frontier, we did not think it necessary to establish check-posts right on the international boundary. . . Certain police check-posts were established some distance from the boundary. . . .''
Referring to the Chinese proposal for withdrawing the troops of either side 20 km from ``the line of actual control'', Nehru said in the same letter that ``the Government of India had not posted any army personnel anywhere at or near the international border. Our border check-posts were manned by civil constabulary, equipped with light arms" (Ministry of External Affairs. Government of India. Notes, Memoranda, and Letters, Exchanged between the Governments of India and China. November 1959-March 1960, White Paper No. Ill, New Delhi, 1960, p. 48).
__PRINTERS_P_113_COMMENT__ 8---2499 113 be meaningless as the facts concerning the status quo are themselves disputed."^^11^^To prevent further armed clashes the Indian government made the following proposal:
``The Government of India should withdraw all personnel to the west of the line which the Chinese Government have shown as the international boundary in their 1956 maps which, so far as we are aware, are their latest maps. Similarly the Chinese Government should withdraw their personnel to the east of the international boundary which has been described by the Government of India in their earlier notes and correspondence^^12^^ and shown in their official maps. Since the two lines are separated by long distances, there should not be the slightest risk of border clashes between the forces on either side. The area is almost entirely uninhabited. It is thus not necessary to maintain administrative personnel in this area bounded by the two lines on the east and the west.^^13^^
A temporary measure of this sort did not suit the Chinese. It failed to give them what they wanted, namely, effective control over the region in question legally secured in an agreement on maintaining the existing or, more precisely, the resulting, situation.
Peking rejected Nehru's proposal on the pretext that it contradicted the status quo principle.
These two cases, in which Chinese diplomacy invoked `` maintenance of the existing situation'', permit us to single out the following points in the Maoist approach.
First, by offering to maintain an ``existing situation'', the Chinese side sought maintenance of a situation it had itself created. Second, maintenance of this situation ``legalised'' Chinese control for an indefinite time (until a final settlement) over an area claimed by China and occupied by Chinese troops. Third, agreement by the sides to abide by the ``existing'' (or rather the newly created) situation provided a legal basis for revising _-_-_
~^^11^^ White Paper No. Ill, p. 50.
~^^12^^ The reference is to Nehru's letter to Zhou Enlai of 26 September 1959, and to the note of the Indian Foreign Ministry of 4 November 1959 (see White Paper No. II, pp. 19--20, 34--52).
~^^13^^ White Paper No. III, p. 50.
114 the earlier existing situation, giving Peking scope for subsequent political manoeuvres.This diplomatic ploy, as we have seen, met with what was essentially an identical reaction of the Burman and Indian governments. While agreeing that maintenance of the status quo would prevent further armed clashes along the border, they were ready to abide by the long-standing situation, not the situation that had resulted from the Chinese occupation of the areas in question.
Later, the Maoists tried to give the term status quo a new connotation, using the same formula, ``maintaining the status quo'', not for contractual maintenance of an actually existing situation (be it even of their own making), but for creating a new ``existing situation" better suited to the aims of their policy.
This was the case with the ``question'' of the Sino-Soviet border.
The Chinese government's view of how to settle the SovietChinese border ``question'' was set out in a number of official Peking documents, notably the PRC Foreign Ministry Document of 8 October 1969. Here, Peking identified maintenance of the existing situation with a withdrawal of military personnel from areas it described as ``disputed'' and which were, clearly, on the Soviet side of the border.
To begin with, what exactly were the ``disputed areas" on the Soviet-Chinese border?
To explain the appearance of ``disputed areas'', the Maoists maintained that the Soviet side ``is trying to seize Chinese territory" and that ``Soviet border troops are moving their patrolled line into Chinese territory and building fortifications on Chinese territory'', and the like.^^14^^ As a result, said the Chinese government statement of 7 October 1969, ``numerous disputed areas" had sprung along the Soviet-Chinese border.^^15^^
But general statements of this sort with no facts to back them are irrelevant and hollow. The Maoists' purpose was merely to buttress their claim to a revision of Soviet-Chinese border agreements by all possible ``arguments'', and to discredit the Soviet Union by charging it with ``seizing'' foreign territory.
_-_-_~^^14^^ Renminribao, 25 May 1969.
~^^15^^ Renminribao, 8 October 1969.
__PRINTERS_P_115_COMMENT__ 8* 115Yet the Soviet-Chinese (historically, Russo-Chinese) border is juridically defined in a number of treaties whose originals are also in the possession of the Chinese government.^^16^^ That is an undeniable historical fact on the strength of which the Soviet government has made it quite clear that ``there is no territorial question between the Soviet Union and China. No violations of the existing situation on the border or ``seizures = __NOTE__ Error in original; this should be: `seizures of Chinese territory' of Chinese territory" have been committed by the Soviet side."^^17^^ This was reaffirmed by Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the CC CPSU, at the ceremony on the 50th anniversary of the Mongolian People's Republic and the Third Congress of the MPRP in Ulan Bator on 26 November 1974. He said: ``We lay no claim to any foreign territories, and for us there are in this sense no ` disputed areas'."^^18^^
The maps on which designations of the Soviet-Chinese border ``fail to coincide" are a ploy that has long been exploited by the Chinese. It is known as ``cartographic aggression''. Widely used by the Kuomintang in the past, it has been adopted by Maoist diplomacy as an unofficial expression of disagreement with contractual documents defining the borders of China and is invoked to stake out territorial claims to neighbouring countries.^^19^^
But under international law the designation of a border on any map has no decisive bearing on border disputes. What is ultimately important is not the line shown on a map published by a country, for it has no legal force, but how close the actual border line is to the border line described in pertinent contractual instruments.
As the Soviet government pointed out in its documents, Soviet border guards have patrolled one and the same line of the SovietChinese border for more than half a century.^^20^^ This line is identical to the one described in documents pertaining to the RussoChinese border, and drawn on Soviet maps. And if proof of this _-_-_
~^^16^^ See Pravda, 30 March 1969.
~^^17^^ Pravda, 14 June 1969.
~^^18^^ Pravda, 27 November 1974.
~^^19^^ For details see E. Jl. KOCTUKOB. nojiHTHqecKaa Kaprorpa^HH na BeJiHKOAepJKaBiioro HauHonaJiH3Ma.---Problemy Dalnego Vostoka, No. 4, 1973.
~^^20^^ See Pravda, 14 June 1969.
116 is needed, it is amply provided, among other things, by the fact that the Maoists have on no occasion been able to cite any concrete case in support of their charge of Soviet ``aggressive action" or of Soviet ``seizures'' of Chinese territory. And without such evidence, these charges are frivolous, if not to say deliberately untrue.Yet in the PRC Foreign Ministry Documents of 8 October 1969, the Chinese side distorted the question of how, as Peking saw it, the ``existing situation" related to the contractually established frontier. The Document endeavoured to create the impression that the two did not coincide, and that the guilt lay with the Soviet Union.
In February 1975, the Chinese-language Hong Kong newspaper Dagung bao, a mouthpiece of Peking, clarified the points that the above Document had merely implied. Commenting on the section dealing with Sino-Soviet relations in Zhou Enlai's report to the National People's Congress of the PRC (in January 1975), the paper noted that talks on the Soviet-Chinese border could not be started because ``the Soviet side denies the very existence of a territorial question between China and the Soviet Union, refuses to recognise the objective fact of any disputed areas along the Sino-Soviet border, and brazenly declares that all disputed areas are Soviet territory and that the border line as drawn by the Soviet Union (which, we might add, is defined in treaties that the PRC government, as it has given to understand, ``is = __NOTE__ `` and '' are correct here because they are within a note by "E.~S.". prepared to accept as a basis".^^21^^---E.~S.) is a law China is obliged to observe, for maintaining the status quo means maintaining the border designated by the Soviet Union."^^22^^
It would follow that China does not consider itself bound by the instruments defining the present Soviet-Chinese border, even after the assurances of the Chinese government that it is prepared ``to accept them as a basis''. More, the Dagung bao article intimates that the existing border line is neither lawful nor obligatory in China's eyes merely because ``objections'' have arisen to the contractual border documents that define it. The sort of ``maintenance of the status quo" suggested by Peking does _-_-_
~^^21^^ Renminribao, 25 May 1969.
~^^22^^ Dagung bao, 4 February 1975,
117 not, consequently, signify maintenance of the treaty-defined border but of the ``border line" drawn on Chinese maps.In sum, the status quo envisaged by the Maoist diplomacy is not the long-standing, securely established, and historically shaped actual situation enshrined in a number of contractual instruments. It has still to be created, and this at the expense of Soviet territory.
Peking's proposals of ``maintaining the status quo" (as a ``temporary measure'') thus have nothing in common with the similar-sounding term applied in international law. They are rather something from the sphere of Confucian tradition, which requires that the speculatively created model reflecting the ``existing situation" conceived by Maoist politicians in defiance of the facts should be embodied in practice.
The demand to maintain the status quo on the Soviet-Chinese border, as it is seen by the Chinese side, is in effect a demand to create and maintain a new ``existing situation" more suited to Peking's designs. In substance, it is a screen for the expansionist Maoist plans, based on Mao Zedong's notorious ``register'', which was illustrated by the map in Liu Peihua's book, A Brief History of Modern China.
Certainly, Peking is aware that the Soviet Union cannot recognise slices of Soviet territory to be ``disputed areas''. This was made absolutely clear in the Soviet government documents dated 29 March and 13 June 1969, and in Leonid Brezhnev's speech at the. Ulan Bator ceremony on 26 November 1974.
Consequently, the proposals to ``maintain the status quo" along the Soviet-Chinese border are not meant to facilitate an early settlement of all issues, but to fabricate a pretext for the Maoists to cut short any discussion of issues pertaining to the normalisation of Soviet-Chinese relations, and to obstruct a sensible settlement recognising the historical realities.
The Maoists erected this barrier to a settlement in order to exploit the resulting situation, one they have themselves created, and to fuel the anti-Soviet campaign in China. The present Peking leaders with their bullheaded anti-Sovietism are candidly reluctant to treat Soviet-Chinese relations on a realistic and constructive plane. Their behaviour is contrary to the peaceful intentions, the feelings of friendship, and the ``sincere desire" to 118 normalise China's relations with the Soviet Union, as professed in various official documents of the Chinese government and by the present leadership of the CPC.
It is therefore safe to say that proposals for ``maintaining the existing situation'', made in the wake of border incidents, are either a screen for Peking's intention to retain control for an indefinite time (``until a final settlement'') over some area obtained by means that are contrary to the provisions of modern international law, or an attempt to sharpen the confrontation, expand the zone of conflict, and erect a barrier to a settlement by setting clearly unacceptable preliminary conditions. The situation thus created by Peking's diplomacy is then used for the Maoists' political ends. In both cases, Peking does nothing to facilitate a settlement. Its attitude is clearly expansionist and defies the worldwide aspirations to detente, security, and peace.
The Maoist policy concerning islands in the South China Sea is especially clear evidence of the time-serving, expansionist nature of the proposals for ``maintaining the existing situation''. The armed seizure by Chinese troops of the Paracel Islands in January 1974 failed to create the ``existing situation" in consolidating which the Maoists would be prepared to abstain from armed conflicts, and to discuss the matter ``through diplomatic channels''. The principle they had themselves proclaimed as a basis for settling territorial issues is thus being totally side-stepped and ignored.
All the pertinent Chinese government documents stress, for one thing, that any action by any country in the region of the Spratly Islands, which are outside Chinese control, will be considered ``a breach of China's sovereignty and territorial integrity".^^23^^ The tenor and nature of these pronouncements show that, given the present status quo, the Maoists want no diplomatic negotiations to settle any outstanding issues and reserve the right to upset the existing situation by a new armed venture if and when they see fit.
Problemy Dalnego Vostoka, No, 3, 1976.
_-_-_~^^23^^ Renminribao, 14 June 1976,
[119] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ II __ALPHA_LVL2__ STATEMENT BY THE GOVERNMENTNhan Dan, Hanoi
__NOTE__ Here author is under LVL2 because of existence of LVL1.On 17 February China's rulers launched, without warning, an aggressive war against Vietnam.
Supported by the air force, their armour, artillery, and infantry attacked along the entire Sino-Vietnamese border. They have began an offensive against the towns of Lao Cai, Mong Cai, Dong Dang, Myongkhyong, deep within Vietnamese territory, captured border posts of Dinh Lap, Changdinh, Lokbinh, and Vanlong districts in the Lang Son Province, Chalin, Khakuang, Kuanghe districts in the Kaobang Province, Myongkhyong and Batsat in the Hoang Lien Son Province, Fongtho in the Laitiau Province, and Binhlieu in the Kuangninh Province. They have committed numerous grave crimes against the Vietnamese people, causing loss of life and property.
It is absolutely clear that after suffering setbacks in their hostile policy against Vietnam, Peking's rulers returned to the old path of Chinese feudal lords, imperialists and colonialists, and committed aggression against Vietnam, an independent and sovereign nation.
This aggression has fully exposed the expansionism, greatpower hegemonism and reactionary policy of China's rulers, and showed that their actions run counter to the interests of the Chinese people and seriously undermine the traditional friendship between the peoples of China and Vietnam.
China's rulers have come out against the entire socialist system, against the national liberation movement, and are undermining peace and stability in Southeast Asia and the world.
The aggressive war of China's rulers is a gross violation of the most elementary principles of international relations and 120 of the United Nations Charter, and it is a brazen challenge to all those who cherish peace and justice.
Over the past few years and especially recently, despite the growing provocations and threats from China's rulers,, the people and government of Vietnam displayed great patience seeking to uphold peace and friendship and searched for a negotiated settlement of every issue between the two countries. However, despite all these efforts, incursions continued and an aggressive war against Vietnam was launched. Faced with this aggression by the reactionary rulers of China, the army and the people of Vietnam have no choice but to exercise their right to just selfdefense and firmly rebuff the aggressor.
Following the behest of our beloved and respected President Ho Chi Minh---``There is no higher value than independence and freedom"---all our people and army, young and old, are again rallying to a resolute struggle to defend the independence, sovereignty, and sacred territorial integrity of their country.
The people and government of Vietnam urgently appeal to the Soviet Union, fraternal socialist countries, the countries that have won national independence, all non-aligned and friendly countries, all communist and workers' parties, all progressive people of the world, to strengthen their solidarity with Vietnam, to assist and defend Vietnam, and to demand that the Peking leaders cease forthwith their aggressive war against Vietnam and withdraw all their troops from Vietnamese territory.
The peoples of the fraternal countries of Vietnam, Laos, and Kampuchea fought side by side against imperialist aggressors and won. Now they are strengthening their solidarity to defeat the reactionary policy of China's rulers.
In the name of durable peace and friendship, the people of Vietnam call on the people and soldiers of China to resolutely oppose the aggressive war launched by China's rulers.
The people and government of Vietnam appeal to the United Nations and all democratic organisations to uphold peace and justice by resolutely condemning the aggressive war of the Peking leaders.
121The people of Vietnam are a steadfast, courageous, and proud nation that has won many victories over aggressors. They firmly believe that under the correct leadership of the Communist Party and government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, enjoying the powerful support of their brothers and friends throughout the world, they will undoubtedly thwart the aggressive war launched by the Chinese reactionaries, defend their independence and sovereignty, and make a worthy contribution to the cause of peace and stability in Southeast Asia and the world.
Pravda, 18 February 1979
[122] __ALPHA_LVL2__ VICTORY OF THE PEOPLE'S Ros Samay
~ ~ ~ General Secretary,
~ ~ ~ Central Committee of the Kampuchea United
~ ~ ~ Front for National Salvation~
The Kampuchea United Front for National Salvation (KUFNS) led our people to the history-making victory of 7 January 1979 which overthrew the anti-national regime of Pol Pot-Ieng Sary. The People's Revolutionary Council, the legitimate government of the People's Republic of Kampuchea born during the war of liberation, assumed full state power. The KUFNS Programme laid down the task of building a peaceful, independent, democratic, neutral, non-aligned, socialist-oriented Kampuchea.
The country has began implementing the KUFNS Programme. People's self-governing committees, local governmental bodies, are being elected in all provinces. A national militia and the first regular army units are being formed. Trade union, peasant, women's, youth and other public organisations involving the broad masses of people have begun to function. The Communist Party of Kampuchea is being restored, true to the principles of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism.
These great efforts are taking place ig a grave situation: we are still painfully aware of the terrible consequences of the criminal experiments of the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary clique in introducing ``barracks socialism" and genocide. In Our country only two doctors survived. We also have an acute shortage of technical personnel, scientists, teachers, and skilled workers. All enterprises and practically all the agricultural machinery have been wrecked. The pro-Peking ``builders of a new world" clique destroyed libraries, theaters, schools, colleges arid Universities. Public transport, communications, television, banking, markets, arid the entire system of monetary and commodity exchange---vitally important in any country---were ``abolished''.
123We have scored a significant success in the reopening of Pouthichentong Airport in the capital; of Kompong-Thom, our largest seaport; and of the western stretch of the railroad in our rice-cultivation area reaching from Sisophon to Battambang. Much is being done to facilitate the reopening of industrial enterprises and to restore agricultural production. In many rural areas, voluntary mutual aid groups are being established.
A special commission has begun investigating the crimes of the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary clique---traitors to the nation, revolution, and the principles of Marxism-Leninism. The facts we already know are of the grim period in our nation's history, from which we have but recently emerged. They have taught us lessons that are important both for us---a people sentenced to extermination by the Peking expansionists---and for other nations threatened by the Great-Han hegemonists who rule a country of almost 1,000 million people.
In April 1975, after the US aggressors in Indochina were defeated, the road for independent, peaceful, democratic, prosperous development was opened for Kampuchea. The country suffered greatly in the name of this cause, but the favourable opportunities were left unrealised because the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary clique and their Chinese supporters turned life in Kampuchea into a nationwide bloodbath. In the course of a few years, the gang of traitors and their Chinese masters murdered over three million innocent people.
Today it is absolutely clear that the introduction of the Maoist political model in Kampuchea---the first such experiment outside China---was but a ruthless genocide meant to prepare new ``living space" for Hoa people. Peking planned to turn Kampuchea into a bridgehead for aggressive expansionism in Southeast Asia---a rich region populated by almost 400 million people. According to the Peking strategists, the targets of expansion included Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Burma, other Southeast Asian countries, New Zealand, and Australia.
We were not alone in our amazement when in 1954 Chinese school textbooks designated many independent countries bordering on the PRC as territory ``historically belonging to China" which had been ``temporarily lost" as a result of ``imperialist and colonialist annexation''. The events that followed---especially the 124 developments on the Sino-Indian, Sino-Soviet, Sino-Vietnamese, and Sino-Laotian borders---proved that the ``cartographic expansion" was merely a prelude to unprovoked armed attacks, to the aggression by Maoist China against its neighbours aimed at expanding Chinese ``living space" at their expense. Mao Zedong's programme speech at a secret session of the Politbureau of the CPC Central Committee in August 1965 is a case in point. He openly stated in the speech that ``we absolutely must acquire Southeast Asia''. Kampuchea attracted Peking because of its strategic location in the Southeastern part of the continent and because of its southern seaports, so our country became the first proving ground of this cannibalistic plan.
Of course, no one denies that a vast country like China has its population problems, but Peking's current rulers plan to solve them by outward expansion and the annexation of foreign territories rather than by peaceful, constructive work.
What were the methods by which they pursued this policy in Kampuchea? Its direct agents were Maoist ``fifth columnists'', planted by Peking during the many years of the revolutionary liberation movement in our country. Tens of thousands of Chinese advisers monitored the activities of these traitors. The first thing the Maoist clique did to cover up the terrible genocide was totally to isolate Kampuchea from the outside world. All previously existing links to the world community were severed. The main blow was directed against the cities, the intelligentsia, the culture and beautiful traditions of our people.
Over three million people who lived in Phnom Penh and other cities were forcibly resettled in villages and driven into ``labour brigades" which were, in reality, concentration camps. Many people died along the way or later either of hunger or disease, and many were simply exterminated. The demagogic slogans of a ``socialist revolution" and ``full liquidation of classes and social holdovers from the past" were used to hide these monstrous crimes. The Pol Pot-Ieng Sary clique conducted this barbarous experiment mostly on urban working people, including the proletariat this clique purported to represent.
One can judge the extent of the genocidal plans by the ramblings of Pol Pot himself. Only a year ago he asserted that just one million Kampucheans would be enough to establish the ``new 125 order''. Pol Pot's henchmen openly planned to sacrifice two million Kampucheans in the fratricidal war against Vietnam launched on Peking's orders. It is a horrifying thought, but another five or six years of rule by the Peking puppets would have meant the almost total physical extermination of our people.
The Chinese expansionists have already started laying the basis for realising their sweeping plans in the whole of Southeast Asia as well. For many years now, the Chinese intelligence service has instigated and kept alive the ``small-scale war" hotbeds to destabilise Burma, Thailand, Malaysia and other countries in this region. Thousands of people die there at the hands of their own countrymen who are agents recruited, directed and supplied by Peking. The Chinese hegemonists raise new Pol Pots and leng Sarys among these people to be used as cat's-paws for Peking's future expansion. The strategists of Maoist China see another ``fifth column" in the more than 20 million Hoa people (ethnic Chinese) who live in the region.
In three and a half years, Kampuchea was turned into a base of armed provocations. Millions of Kampucheans were forcibly driven to build strategic highways and bridgeheads for aggression located near the borders. Peking hastily supplied us with military equipment for armed attacks against our neighbours, such equipment as we had never been given throughout the years of the war of liberation.
From the very first days, the brutal dictatorial regime ran into outbreaks of popular resistance which kept spreading. This led to truly popular uprisings and to the establishment on 2 December 1978 of the KUFNS. The United Front directed the decisive blow against the regime of these bloodthirsty dictators.
Apart from being the first country outside China to experience the introduction of the Maoist model of a political regime and the practice of genocide, Kampuchea became the country of the first anti-Maoist popular revolution.
Although the People's Republic of Kampuchea was proclaimed but a short time ago, it has contributed significantly to the strengthening of peace and security in the region. Kampuchea's borders are already at peace. Co-operation with fraternal socialist neighbours---Vietnam and Laos---is developing successfully. We have declared our readiness to establish good-neighbourly relations and 126 co-operation on the basis of peaceful coexistence with the countries of Southeast Asia and with all other countries. The Kampuchean-Vietnamese Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Co-- operation signed recently in Phnom Penh is an important factor strengthening our traditional fraternal ties of solidarity and mutual assistance, and in securing peace in the region.
The Peking expansionists recently launched a blatant aggression against the independent and sovereign Socialist Republic of Vietnam. One of the goals of this act of piracy was to support the remaining gangs of the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary puppet clique. Peking even tries to supply these gangs with arms. This criminal aggression and instigations have failed. The invaders from Peking were forced to back down in the face of the heroic resistance of the Vietnamese people and the militant solidarity of the peoples of Indochina, resolutely supported by the socialist community of nations and by all those working towards peace, democracy and progress. Peking announced withdrawal of its troops from Vietnamese territory, although in actual fact it is in no hurry to do so.
We will never forget the tragedy that befell Kampuchea. To stand aside and merely watch the developments, afraid to condemn the aggressor who in violation of international law is committing crimes on Vietnamese soil, staging provocations against Laos and trying to reanimate the regime of the pro-Peking murderers in our country, is a short-sighted policy which would have the gravest of consequences for its pursuers. This concerns, first and foremost, the countries of Southeast and South Asia which have already become the targets of China's great-power expansion.
In their peaceful effort to build socialist society the Kampuchean people rely on the militant solidarity of the peoples of Indochina, on the support of the fraternal socialist countries, and on the forces of progress and democracy throughout the world.
A delegation of the KUFNS has recently visited the country of the great Lenin for the first time to express its sincere gratitude to the CPSU, the Soviet government, and the entire fraternal Soviet people for the comprehensive support of the people of Kampuchea throughout our difficult struggle for freedom, independence and a bright future for our country. During our stay 127 in the USSR, a country which is a true friend to revolutionary forces all over the world, we once again saw the internationalist position of the CPSU, the Soviet government and the entire Soviet people. The ideas of the Great October Revolution had a powerful impact on the development of the revolutionary process in our country. Marxism-Leninism inspires us to this day. While implementing the comprehensive programme of building a new way of life, we will rely on the experience of the USSR and other socialist countries. The Kampuchean people are gratified that the solidarity and friendship between the USSR and Kampuchea have been restored forever, and that no one will be able to destroy our brotherhood and unity.
Pravda, 12 March 1979
[128] __ALPHA_LVL2__ STATEMENT BY THE GOVERNMENTSiang Pasason, Vientian~
In its Statement on the Chinese Threat to Laos, the government of the Lao People's Democratic Republic declares that Laos and China are neighbouring countries whose peoples maintained solidarity, friendship and mutual assistance, especially during the years of the struggle for national independence and against imperialism.
However, the relations between the two countries have seriously deteriorated in recent years, and especially after China launched its large-scale aggressive war against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, moved its regular troops up to the borders of Vietnam and Laos, organised a series of war games there, sent its spies into Laos to conduct subversive propaganda, intimidate the population, and sow discord among the multinational people of Laos. The Chinese side threatened the security and public order of Laos, engaged in anti-government activities, and grossly interfered in the internal affairs of the LPDR.
If China really wants to preserve and strengthen the solidarity of the two peoples, it must prove its intentions by practical steps: it must cease immediately the massing of troops on the Laotian border; put an end to all other acts that threaten the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Laos; and stop interfering into its internal affairs.
The government of the LPDR and the entire Laotian people, the Statement continues, highly appreciate the fact that the governments of the USSR, Vietnam and Mongolia issued statements resolutely condemning China's acts against Laos. The government of Laos, expressing its gratitude to the fraternal socialist countries and friendly nations of the world for their solidarity and powerful support of the Laotian people's struggle, appeals to all socialist countries, non-aligned states and peaceful nations to continue their support and assistance to Laos in building and defending the country.
In its Statement, the government of the LPDR has called on the Laotian people to rally round the People's Revolutionary Party.
Pravda, 8 March 1979
__PRINTERS_P_129_COMMENT__ 9---2499 129 __ALPHA_LVL2__ TOWARDS SOCIALISM BYPASSING Yumzhagiin Tsedenbal
First Secretary, MPRP Central Committee,
Chairman of the Presidium of the Great People's
Khural, Mongolian People's Republic~
International developments show that healthy, progressive trends in international life have to wage a stubborn struggle to overcome the resistance of those who oppose detente and think in terms of global confrontation.
Apart from reactionary imperialists, the frantic opponents of a better political climate in the world include the current Chinese leaders. Their foreign policy and tactics are increasingly discrediting themselves in the eyes of the peoples of the world, showing the Maoists to be enemies of peace, security and socialism.
Today, unbridled great-power chauvinism, racist expansionism, unscrupulousness, and outright betrayal of the interests of peace, socialism and the international proletariat are the essence of the policy and practical measures of the Maoist leaders in China.
Developments in China show that the internal political situation there remains extremely unstable. This year, the People's Republic of China reached its 25th anniversary with its major socio-economic problems still unsolved, with the basic socialist principles further distorted, and a power struggle continuing among its leaders.
Peking's foreign policy has been fully subordinated to the hegemonistic and chauvinistic designs of Mao and his closest associates. It has lost its anti-imperialist essence and is now openly anti-socialist and anti-popular.
We must stress that Maoist foreign policy is spearheaded above all against the Soviet Union. After the 10th CPC Congress, the anti-socialist struggle of the Chinese leaders entered a qualitatively new stage: they now present rabid anti-Sovietism and a head-on confrontation with world socialism as the principal direction of the ``anti-imperialist'' struggle. Today the Chinese 130 leadership regards the Soviet Union as an implacable enemy of the Chinese people, as ``enemy number one''. They maintain that nations of the world must fight in a common front against the USSR, and that there is no socialist community. This year, for example, in his speech at the Sixth Special Session of the UN General Assembly on Disarmament, Deng Xiaoping, head of the Chinese delegation, expressly stated that the ``socialist camp which existed for a time after World War II, has already ceased to exist''.
The new front of attacks against the socialist community started by the Chinese leaders, their attempts to undermine the efforts of the socialist and other countries striving for peace and greater international security, the unscrupulous alliance of the Maoists with the most reactionary forces on the basis of antiSovietism, greatly harm the interests of peace, democracy and social progress. Naturally, the reactionaries increasingly make use of the anti-Leninist, nationalist and chauvinistic policy of the Chinese leadership, its undisguised readiness to enter into political complicity with imperialism against the socialist countries and above all against the Soviet Union.
The Chinese leaders, for their part, would like to inflict the greatest possible damage on the Soviet Union, to malign and discredit its foreign policy at any cost, and to undermine its international prestige. This shapes the approach of Mao and his associates to all major international issues.
It also shows that the Chinese leaders are absolutely lacking in any sense of duty and responsibility, and are in gross violation of the interests of the peoples of the world, including the Chinese people.
Facts prove that the Chinese leadership, driven by hegemonism and egotism, stoops even to the lowest sorts of dealings with the imperialist, militarist and revenge-seeking interests in capitalist countries and even renders direct support to the most reactionary regimes.
The loathsome approach of China's leaders to the counterrevolutionary coup in Chile highlights the Maoists' open betrayal of the interests of peoples engaged in the struggle for liberation. Far from supporting the democratic and patriotic forces in Chile, China hastily extended diplomatic recognition to the fascist 131 military junta which has let loose an unheard-of reign of terror against the Chilean people for over a year now.
In an effort to compensate for the discrepancy between China's actual capabilities and its global claims, the Maoists try to take advantage of the contradictions and objective competition between the two world systems. As before, they strive to step up the arms race, and to fan the flames in hotbeds of war and confrontation. One of the Maoists' cherished dreams is to provoke a clash between the Soviet Union and the United States, step aside and ``sit on a mountain watching two tigers fight"---in other words, to use an armed conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States to establish their own global hegemony.
Although Peking is very pliable in its relations with Washington, serious contradictions remain between them, including their acute rivalry in Asia and the Pacific.
While expanding their ties with the West, the Maoist leaders are at the same time trying to gain the greatest possible advantage for increasing China's economic and military potential, and to use political collaboration with the leading capitalist countries in their struggle against the Soviet Union and for world hegemony.
The leaders in Peking are striving to prevent greater European stability and exert special effort to hamper detente in Europe. They openly support a stronger NATO---an aggressive bloc--- and the emergence of capitalist Western Europe as a powerful political, economic, and military alliance which, in Zhou Enlai's words, would be a ``restraining factor in the West" against the Soviet Union.
China's leaders stubbornly work against the strengthening of peace and stability in Asia, against the system of collective Asian security.
Pursuing their narrow nationalistic aims, they support the continued presence of US troops and military bases in Asia.
Of particular importance in the Chinese leaders' Asian policy is their striving to develop co-operation with Japan to suit their own ends, and to derive the greatest possible profit from economic contacts with that country. While the Maoists regard Japan as their rival in Asia, they are ready to align themselves with it in the name of their anti-Soviet great-power policy.
132China's leaders would like to turn their Japanese policy against the Soviet Union; they try to hamper the development of SovietJapanese relations. They actually support the US-Japan `` security act" saying that this agreement will help Japan withstand the alleged ``threat from the North''. More than that, the Peking rulers use the ``threat from the North" scare to try to convince Japan to join hands with China and ``prepare to face the North shoulder to shoulder''. In their attempts to forge an alliance with Japanese monopolies, the Maoists impudently support these monopolies' unlawful claims to the Kuriles, which are Soviet territory.
The Maoists continue to regard the Third World as their sphere of hegemony and as a tool in their great-power nationalist policy. To extend their sphere of influence to Third World countries, China's leaders have invented a new trick, maintaining that China is a developing country. They do everything they can to drive the developing countries away from their true and natural ally, the socialist community of nations, to direct their struggle not against imperialism and colonialism but against the Soviet Union and the socialist countries.
The Maoists' hegemonistic and expansionist designs are especially dangerous for the countries that border on China. One can well say that all Asian countries bordering on China feel, to varying degrees, the impact of the anti-popular, nationalist and chauvinist policy of the Chinese leadership.
Pursuing the old, reactionary imperial policy of turning neighbouring countries into vassals even today, the Peking leaders are aiming at the annexation of the neighbouring Asian countries and a vast part of the Soviet Far East in order to turn China into a Maoist super-empire capable of imposing its will on other countries.
China's rulers have always regarded the Far East, South and Southeast Asia as their major sphere of influence where, according to Mao Zedong, China ``exercised leadership for many centuries''. Recent developments have demonstrated that in their attempts to increase Chinese infiltration of these countries, the Maoists openly and grossly interfere in their internal affairs, violate their sovereignty, exert political and economic pressure, and often use armed threat.
133In recent years, and especially during the so-called cultural revolution, impetuous attacks, blackmail and threats were unleashed in Peking against many neighbouring countries and calls were issued for the overthrow of their legitimate governments. The Chinese leadership did their utmost to incite separatist trends in Asian countries, organised armed anti-government outbreaks, and attempted to weaken these countries both politically and economically.
The world is well aware of Peking's interference and subversion in Nepal, Burma, Indonesia, and many other Asian countries. In addition, the Chinese leadership continues its attempts at aggravating India's relations with her neighbours Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
China's leaders have repeatedly provoked territorial and border disputes with neighbouring countries, and they have often resorted to force in these disputes. This was the case, for example, in 1962 when Peking started an armed conflict with India over a Himalayan border dispute. It was the same in 1965 when Peking took advantage of the Indo-Pakistani conflict over Kashmir and again provoked extreme tension on the Indian border, trying to wreck the Tashkent Peace Conference of Indian and Pakistani leaders, held under Soviet mediation.
The armed clash in the Paracel Islands area openly provoked by Peking early this year again clearly showed that China would not stop at using force to assert its rights to the territories it claims.
By their anti-popular, expansionist acts, the Maoists have obviously destroyed their image as ``peacemakers'' and ``friends'' of the peoples of Asia themselves. These nations are beginning to realise that they have to guard against Peking's forays.
Aware that their attempts to establish hegemony over other nations encounter resolute resistance in many countries, the leaders of China are trying to turn this fact to their ``advantage'' in a different way---to convince the Chinese people that their country is surrounded by hostile anti-Chinese forces, to make them forget the friendship and respect towards the socialist countries, to imbue them with hatred and aggressiveness against neighbouring nations, and to fan the flames of nationalism and aggressive great-power chauvinism in China.
134The policy of the Chinese leadership towards the sovereign and independent Mongolian People's Republic is an integral part and typical expression of the openly expansionist and anti-- socialist Maoist course in foreign affairs. It should be stressed that the anti-Mongolian policy of the Chinese leaders is particularly cynical; it is full of intense hatred for the Mongolian people, for its free and independent development, and for its most cherished achievement---the unshakeable fraternal friendship with the Soviet Union. The policy and actions of the Chinese leadership towards the Mongolian People's Republic stem from great-power colonialist claims inherited from Chinese militarists and Chiang Kaishek's followers.
As early as 1936, Mao Zedong told US journalist Edgar Snow that in case of a victorious Chinese revolution the MPR would automatically be incorporated into the Chinese federation. Mao said he considered Burma, Indochina, Korea and Mongolia as ``illegally annexed" parts of China. Chiang Kaishek made an identical claim when he demanded that these sovereign nations be ``restored'' to China.
In 1945, when Mao and his closest associates were straining to obtain co-operation and assistance from the United States, Chinese spokesmen told US officials that they would like to incorporate Mongolia into China.
In their vicious and unrealistic plans to annex the MPR, Mao Zedong and his associates considered it permissible to decide on the future of Mongolian statehood behind the backs of our people and government. That this is so is borne out by the following facts.
In February 1949, when the People's Liberation Army of China was only beginning its southern drive from Manchuria, and when Peking was still in enemy hands, Mao Zedong, at that time quartered in the mountains near the Yangtze, asked what the Soviet leadership thought about the incorporation of Mongolia into China. Joseph Stalin replied that the leaders of the Soviet Union did not think the Mongolian People's Republic would give up its independence for autonomy within China, and that even if all the Mongolian regions were to unite into a single autonomous unit, the MPR would have the final say in the matter.
135Even after the People's Republic of China was formed and official diplomatic relations with Mongolia established, Mao Zedong and some people close to him did not abandon their plans to annex the MPR.
In 1954, when a Soviet delegation came to Peking to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the PRO, the Chinese leaders, with purely great-power high-handedness, suggested that they ``settle the question" of the MPR's joining China with the Soviet delegation. Treating this issue as if it were a mere trifle that could be ``settled'', Mao Zedong and his associates were practically insisting on the annexation of a socialist country, the MPR, although China knew perfectly well the unshakeable devotion of the Mongolian people to freedom and independence. At that time, the Soviet representatives refused to discuss this issue with the Chinese leaders, expressly stating that this question should be addressed directly to the Mongolian people and to the government of the MPR, and that the future of the Mongolian People's Republic was decided in Ulan Bator and not in Peking or Moscow.
After the 20th CPSU Congress in 1956, the Peking leaders even tried to use the criticism of Stalin's personality cult to pursue their selfish goal of annexing the MPR. They praised the Soviet leaders for criticising Stalin's personality cult and eliminating its consequences. Peking officials asserted that Stalin's refusal to hand Mongolia over to China was one such negative consequence. Hence their demand that this consequence also be eliminated. They openly stated that they equated Mongolia with Taiwan---as a territory that must be restored to China.
The Soviet leaders replied that the criticism affected only the errors in Stalin's actions and that his position regarding the MPR had been correct and was not subject to revision. They also stressed that Mongolia could not be equated with Taiwan, since Taiwan's population was Chinese, and Mongolia was a nation in its own right, an independent country that had not been part of China even under the old regime.
In July 1964, in his talk with a delegation of the Socialist Party of Japan, Mao Zedong again maintained that MPR must be incorporated into China. He slanderously claimed that the Soviet Union had ``enslaved'' Mongolia, turning it into a ``colony'' of the 136 USSR. Obviously, Mao ascribed to the Soviet Union---the most steadfast friend, ally and defender of the MPR---the role he himself had been striving for over the years.
The Mongolian people, who, together with their Soviet comrades, have gone through severe trials in their armed struggle for the freedom, independence, honour and dignity of their country, realise that this vicious Maoist slander is aimed at undermining the inexorable vitality of Mongolian-Soviet friendship.
The expansionist claims of Peking to the MPR can also be seen on maps. For example, the school textbook A Short History of Modern China which has been reprinted many times in the PRC, the 1972 World Atlas, and other Maoist geography manuals, represent the MPR as part of China and not as an independent state. Similar maps are still published in Taiwan. This means that today's Chinese leaders, like Chiang Kaishek's followers, refuse to recognise the independence of the Mongolian People's Republic, a country that has followed the road of freedom and independence for over 50 years now.
The growing strength and international prestige of the MPR have always been a thorn in the side of the Maoists, who are intent on incorporating the MPR into China. Significantly, up to 1961, when the MPR, together with the fraternal socialist and other peaceful countries, was struggling for its right to be represented at the United Nations, the government of the PRC never officially expressed its opinion regarding our membership in this international organisation. In 1961 the MPR joined the United Nations, which evoked the profound satisfaction of the allies and friends of the MPR. China's Maoist leadership remained stubbornly silent.
In their attempts to unite all Mongolians under the aegis of China, Maoist ideologues have, since the very inception of the PRC, tried to use the name of Genghis Khan. He has been hailed as a ``Chinese emperor" who restored the ``great multinational empire of China'', and this empire is represented as includ^ ing all the territories conquered by the Mongolians, up to the Mediterranean.
The Chinese leaders spent vast public sums to build, in 1956, a temple of worship of Genghis Khan, trying to fan nationalism among the Mongolians and the peoples that had been conquered by the Khan and his dynasty. But the chief aim the 137 Maoists pursued in extolling Genghis Khan was to justify their great-power chauvinist policy and territorial claims to other nations.
Current developments in China clearly show what would have happened to the Mongolians if the MPR had been incorporated into China as Mao wanted it. The fate of the national minorities living in the PRC provides a good example, including Inner Mongolia: most of its territory has been partitioned and divided among the Chinese provinces, and Inner Mongolians deprived of their most elementary rights: they are not even allowed to speak their language in the presence of Chinese people.
The autonomy of Inner Mongolia is therefore pure fiction, and the population is being forcibly assimilated and sinocised from all sides.
Bent on their Great-Han chauvinist course, the Maoists pursue a pernicious and inhuman policy towards the non-Chinese nationalities of the PRC. This policy deprives the national minorities of China of their rights and brings them untold misery and humiliation.
At the peak of the unbridled chauvinist campaign of slander that Peking launched against the CPSU, the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, and other Communist and Workers' parties, against the Soviet Union and the other fraternal socialist countries, the Chinese leaders tried to bring pressure to bear on the Party and government leadership of the Mongolian People's Republic, demanding that the libel circulated by the Chinese press be published and broadcast in Mongolia. This demand was resolutely rejected.
In the years of the notorious cultural revolution, especially in 1967, wild mobs besieged the Mongolian Embassy in Peking for days on Maoist orders. Thugs broke into the embassy grounds, brutally attacked embassy employees, and vandalised and burned diplomats' cars. The attackers called for violence against the leaders of the MPR and for the overthrow of its government.
Apart from political pressure on and flagrant ideological subversion of the MPR, China's leadership tries to inflict the greatest possible damage on our national economy, to weaken and 138 undermine our economic efforts, thereby provoking mass dissatisfaction with the policy of the Party and government of the MPR.
Starting in about 1960, the Maoists abruptly curtailed their economic ties with the Soviet Union and the other countries of the socialist community, including the Mongolian People's Republic. The current volume of Mongolian-Chinese trade has decreased more than sevenfold compared to the 1960 level. China's economic ties with the European socialist countries were reduced to a minimum, and since that time the considerable revenues in foreign exchange Mongolia earned for transit cargo shipments on the Transmongolian Railroad have virtually stopped. Consequently, Mongolia has to spend great amounts to maintain the railroad, due to the fact that since 1962 it has been used at only seven to eight per cent of its capacity.
The Mongolian people are particularly alarmed and concerned about the Chinese leaders' preparations for war which directly threaten the freedom and independence of Mongolia. This threat first emerged in the early 1960s when China massed its troops along the 4,700-kilometre-long Mongolian-Chinese border.
As early as 1956, in its noble efforts to strengthen friendship and co-operation with the PRC, our country disbanded its frontier guard and left only a few checkpoints on its frontiers. The MPR believed that its Chinese border, just as its boundary with the Soviet Union, was a border of peace and socialism.
However, the radical change in the situation on our eastern frontier, brought about by the hegemonist, nationalist and chauvinist policy of the Chinese leaders, forced the MPR to reinstate and strengthen its frontier guard and considerably to increase the Mongolian People's Army. This was done to withstand the incessant provocative hostile acts by the Chinese side. Naturally, this diverts enormous resources from the national economy and much manpower from material production.
Besides, the Peking leaders set up and strengthen military units for the express purpose of delivering strikes against vital centres in the Mongolian People's Republic. They build fortifications at the most important points along the border and strategic military roads and bridges, extend telephone and 139 telegraph lines to the border, and their regular troops conduct war games in the immediately adjoining areas.
To aggravate tensions on the Mongolian-Chinese border, the Maoists escalate their hostile and openly provocative acts against the MPR. For example, small groups of Chinese soldiers often violate the state border of the MPR to the depth of 15 to 20 kilometres. They kill rare animals and take the carcasses to China, cut down trees and start forest fires. Sometimes the Chinese drive animals infected with highly contagious diseases into Mongolian territory, and so on.
It should be noted that hostile, anti-Mongolian acts of China's Maoist leadership are aimed, in the final analysis, against the great socialist community, against its foremost mainstay, the Soviet Union. Mao and his associates see the strength of the first socialist country, the unity and cohesion of world revolutionary forces, as the greatest obstacle to their hegemonist and great-power chauvinist goals. Hence the open challenge by the Chinese leadership to the socialist community and to the international communist and workers' movement.
The current international struggle leads to greater polarisation and exposes the true aims of those who support or oppose peace and social progress among nations. This objective process increasingly highlights the essence and far-reaching goals of the policy and practical measures of the Chinese leadership, which has completely abandoned the principles of proletarian internationalism and joined imperialist reaction in its approach to vital international issues.
In its letter to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China of 12 June 1964 the Central Committee of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party gave a frank assessment of the Chinese leaders' actions and stressed that they could only be called an act of open betrayal of the proletarian revolution and the struggle against imperialism, of the interests of the socialist nations---above all, of the Chinese people themselves--- and a terrible crime against world proletariat and the international communist movement.
Addressing the CPC leaders, our Party warned that their reactionary anti-socialist course, if not abandoned, would not only delay th^ progress of the Chinese people towards socialism but, 140 under certain conditions, even seriously threaten their revolutionary gains. The letter of the MPRP Central Committee stated: ``The logic of these developments may leave China no way out except concessions to the imperialists.. . There is no guarantee that China's self-imposed isolation from the socialist community of nations, the abrupt curtailment of her economic and other ties with them, and the obvious course of the leaders of the CPC towards increasingly close relations with the imperialist countries, would not entail the danger of gradually abandoning socialist positions to the detriment of the essential interests of the Chinese people and of the common cause of world communism.'' This was a comradely, correct, and timely warning.
Today, ten years later, the situation is very grave. The policy of the Maoists who, it seemed at first, were only arguing ideological issues with the fraternal parties, has seriously distorted the basis of socialism in the PRC, split it off from the socialist countries and the international communist movement, and led it to open political struggle against its recent allies and defenders---the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries---and to close cooperation with reaction and imperialism. Irresponsible talk of Marxism-Leninism, of revolution and revolutionary spirit, of fighting imperialism; countless declarations of good foreign policy intentions can no longer disguise the Chinese leaders' true plans and actions, which are aimed against the socialist countries, the international communist and workers' movement, national liberation struggle, peace and universal security.
The anti-socialist and pro-imperialist policy of the Maoists encounters resolute condemnation from all those working for peace and progress, and resistance among the Chinese people themselves.
The Mongolian people, true to their internationalist duty, have always supported the Chinese people and their just struggle for freedom, national independence, and a new life. Our Party and the government of the MPR have consistently advocated normalising relations with the People's Republic of China and restoring friendship with the Chinese people. But we resolutely reject any claims and designs on the MPR and on its independent advancement along the socialist road.
141The Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party has always fought and will continue consistently to fight the essentially reactionary Maoist ideology, and will rebuff the Peking leaders' subversive actions against world socialism, peace and international security.
__*_*_*__Marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Mongolian People's Republic, our people are determined to increase their creative effort and complete socialist construction, to be true to the great cause of proletarian internationalism, to strengthen unshakeable Mongolian-Soviet friendship and our friendship and co-- operation with other socialist nations. This will ensure new victories in building full socialism in Mongolia.
Excerpt from an article in Problerny Dalnego Vostoka, No. 4, 1974
[142] __ALPHA_LVL2__ THE TRUTH ABOUTOpenly hostile acts by China's leaders against Vietnam reached their peak with the launching of the aggressive war of 17 February 1979. World public opinion, stunned, noticed the abrupt turn in China's policy towards Vietnam. In actual fact, this policy change should have been expected. It was a logical outcome of the strategy of chauvinist expansionism and greatpower hegemonism pursued by the Chinese leaders for the past three decades.
The unique example offered by the Chinese leadership is that the leaders of a country that claims to be revolutionary and socialist and constantly resorts to ultra-revolutionary rhetoric, pursue in fact a counter-revolutionary and extremely reactionary strategy.
No other group of leaders in the world has ever revised their strategy of alliances and turned their friends into enemies and vice versa as hastily as it was done in China.
The Soviet Union, extolled by the Chinese leaders as their greatest ally, has now been declared their most dangerous enemy.
US imperialism, once considered the most dangerous enemy ``whose essence will never change" is now proclaimed a reliable ally. The Chinese have entered into a conspiracy with the US and, without batting an eyelid, stated that China was the `` eastern NATO''. The people who used to describe the national liberation movement in Asia, Africa and Latin America as a ``revolutionary storm" against imperialism and maintained that the success of the international proletarian struggle depended, in the final analysis, on the revolutionary struggle of the peoples in these regions, have now joined forces with the imperialists in the hope of curbing and undermining the national 143 liberation movement. . . They shamelessly distort the genesis and nature of the current national liberation struggle, alleging that it is a result of the rivalry between the great powers for world hegemony, and not a popular revolutionary movement.
. . .China's leaders have significantly altered their strategy. Still, one factor remains unchanged: the strategic goal of rapidly turning China into a first-rate world power and implementing the great-power expansionist and hegemonist designs on other countries. At a plenary session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in 1956, Chairman Mao Zedong declared: ``China must turn into a topmost country as far as culture, technology and industry are concerned. It is inadmissible that China should not become the first power in the world over several decades.''
Later, in September 1959, Chairman Mao Zedong said at a session of the Central Committee Military Commission: ``We must conquer the world. Such is our goal.''
Right after the establishment of the People's Republic of China on 1 October 1949 the Peking rulers began hastily to implement their strategic plan. Although the Chinese economy remained backward, from the late 1950s they did all they could to create strategic nuclear forces. Today they are stepping up the ``modernisation'' of the armed forces, manufacturing and stockpiling nuclear weapons. In economic sphere, both the 1958 ``great leap forward" and the recently announced programme of ``four modernisations" pursue the same strategic expansionist and hegemonist goal.
__*_*_*__.. .Southeast Asia, the traditional target of Chinese expansionism over the centuries, is a region that the leaders of the PRC have long wanted to conquer.
...The Chinese Revolution and the Communist Party of China, a document of the CPC written by Chairman Mao Zedong and published in 1939, stated: ``Having defeated China, the imperialist powers occupied the territories of Chinese dependencies. Japan occupied Korea, Taiwan, the Ryukus, the 144 Pescadores and Port Arthur; Britain occupied Burma, Bhutan and Hong Kong; France occupied Annam.^^1^^"
Short History of China, a reference book published in Peking in 1954, included a map that designated several adjoining countries in Southeast Asia and the South China Sea area as Chinese territory.
Chairman Mao Zedong expressed the expansionist plans of the Chinese leadership in the most unambiguous manner in 1963, when he told a delegation of the Viet-Nam Workers' Party in Wuhan: ``I will be chairman of 500 million poor peasants, and my armies will move on Southeast Asia.''
At the same meeting, comparing Thailand and the Chinese province of Szechwan, Chairman Mao Zedong said that their territories were equal but that the population of Thailand was only half the population of Szechwan, and that Chinese settlers should be sent to Thailand. Mao Zedong maintained that in Laos, a large but sparsely populated country, China should act similarly.
Compared to other parts of the globe, Southeast Asia is a region where China has the most favourable objective conditions and many opportunities for implementing its expansionist and hegemonist policy.^^2^^ That is precisely why, over the past 30 years, the leaders of the People's Republic of China have engineered countless expansionist manoeuvres to create the necessary conditions for implementing their counter-revolutionary global strategy.
They are setting up strategic nuclear forces, consolidating their economic positions, and trying to use great-power military threats and promises of economic assistance to bring pressure to bear on the countries of this region, or to bribe them into becoming China's satellites. They have infringed on the territories of other countries, provoked border conflicts, used their agents or sent troops to try and weaken or subjugate the countries of the region. Stooping to outright barbarity, they used the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Vietnam.
~^^2^^ There are 20 million Hoa people (ethnic Chinese) in this area, the political parties are heavily dependent on the CPC, and Southeast Asia is connected with China by land routes.
__PRINTERS_P_145_COMMENT__ 10---2499 145 Pol Pot-Ieng Sary clique to impose genocide on Kampuchea. In the interests of their expansionist policy, they use their numerous levers in Southeast Asia, including the ``fifth column" made up of the Hoa people, the so-called Communist organisations that follow Peking's orders, and ethnic minorities who are partly Chinese.. . .The Chinese leaders take advantage of the contradictions among different countries in Southeast Asia; they try to pit the ASEAN countries against the three countries of Indochina, Malaysia against Indonesia, Burma against Thailand, and so on. Among other things, they tried to use the fact that, as regards the world revolutionary situation, Southeast Asia is one of the regions where the national liberation movement is advancing and colonialism and imperialism are rapidly losing ground for their own expansionist ends. When the French were defeated in Vietnam in 1954, China's leaders were still hoping to preserve the presence of France, a weakened colonial power, in South Vietnam, Laos and Kampuchea. Their aim was to prevent the United States, that led world imperialism, from creating a US bridgehead in Indochina, and the three countries of Indochina, from complete victory. When the Americans were weakened and defeated in this region, the same Chinese leaders wanted to preserve the US presence so they could create a Sino-US condominium to rule these countries and cut off the the spread of Soviet influence. The Chinese leaders planned that while the imperialists would check the revolution's advance, China would gradually fill the ``vacuum'' in Southeast Asia, and then expel their imperialist allies and establish complete control over the region. To disguise their underhanded designs, they invented the false slogan about cutting off Soviet influence.
. . .To weaken and take over Vietnam, the Chinese leaders do all they can to undermine the solidarity of the three countries of Indochina and to sow discord, especially between Laos and Kampuchea, on the one hand, and Vietnam, on the other. At the same time, they try to pit other Southeast Asian countries against Vietnam. They also malign and berate Vietnam in the hope of isolating it. The Peking rulers impudently claim `` sovereignty" over the Hoangsha Archipelago (the Paracel Islands) and the Chyongsha Archipelago (the Spratly Islands). In early 146 1974, with US approval, China attacked the Hoangsha Archipelago (the Paracel Islands) and occupied it---although it is part of Vietnamese territory---gradually to establish control over the Eastern (South China) Sea, Vietnam and all of Southeast Asia, and to exploit the rich natural resources of the Eastern Sea. ..
__*_*_*__Over the past 30 years the Chinese leaders have viewed Vietnam as one of their most important strategic targets, and used any means at their disposal to gain control over Vietnam. This meant that Vietnam had to be prevented from becoming a strong, independent, united and prosperous country, that it had to be turned into a Chinese dependency. Conversely, an independent, united, prosperous and strong Vietnam pursuing an independent and sovereign political course and a correct foreign policy, would be a serious obstacle to the global strategy of the Chinese leaders and, above all, to their expansionist policy in Southeast Asia. That explains the Chinese government's twofaced policy of both aiding and hampering the Vietnamese revolution. Each time Vietnam defeated the imperialists, the Chinese leaders started bargaining and making compromises with these very imperialists at the expense of Vietnam. This also explains their switching from covert opposition to open hostility towards, and then blatantly aggressive war against, Vietnam.
The Chinese leaders' policy aimed at subjugating Vietnam is fully in line with their overall policy towards the other countries of Southeast Asia and other neighbouring countries. China's leaders want to occupy part of Indian territory---which they did during the Sino-Indian war of 1962. They fear the prospect of India's emerging as a strong country, able to compete with them for the ``leading role" in Asia and Africa. They have not abandoned their hopes of annexing Mongolia, although they have officially recognised the Mongolian People's Republic as an independent state. They want to occupy part of Soviet territory: they hate to see the powerful Soviet Union as China's neighbour. They try to undermine the prestige of the Soviet Union, even to push the imperialist countries towards war with the Soviet __PRINTERS_P_147_COMMENT__ 10* 147 Union, to set the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America against it. China's leaders exert great efforts to organise an international anti-Soviet crusade by imperialism and reaction under the banner of ``resisting hegemonism'', following Mao Zedong's principle of ``sitting on top of a mountain watching two tigers fight each other''. Many West European politicians and journalists have noted that China is ready to ``fight the Soviet Union to the last West European'', just as it was ready to ``fight the United States to the last Vietnamese''.
No matter what its disguise, the current international strategy of China's leaders exposes their counter-revolutionary and extremely reactionary nature. They have shown their true colours as great-power hegemonists and bourgeois nationalists.
The current policy of China's rulers towards Vietnam, although well disguised, is the same that was pursued by the rulers of the Celestial Empire in ages past---a policy aimed at annexing Vietnam, subjugating its people, and turning the country into a vassal of China.
. . .All the actions of China's rulers, from the betrayal of Vietnam at the 1954 Geneva Conference and their attempts to use the war of resistance of the Vietnamese people against US aggressors, to the creation of the criminal Pol Pot-Ieng Sary regime, their armed invasion of Vietnam, and threats of aggression against Laos, have all stemmed from:~
one guiding idea---great-power chauvinism;~
one policy---national egoism;~
one strategic goal---great-power expansionism and hegemonism.
Specifically, they planned to conquer Vietnam and the whole Indochina to use it as a bridgehead for pushing further into Southeast Asia, gradually to implement their global strategy.
. . .No matter what path it follows, China, intoxicated with great-power chauvinism and ruled by individuals pursuing an expansionist and hegemonist policy, will threaten not only the national independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of each country of Indochina, Southeast and South Asia, and 148 peace and stability throughout the region, it will also threaten various interests of other countries, including those nations that, for the sake of pursuing short-lived advantages, have now joined the Chinese leaders in opposition to Vietnam, Laos and Kampuchea. The more realistic political and business figures in the West have recently warned their governments of the grave consequences that yet another internal political crisis in China might entail. But they have not mentioned other, even more serious international consequences, that are inherent in the expansionist policy of the Chinese leaders. ..
__*_*_*__. . .The old policy of deceit which Chinese emperors used to pursue according to the principle ``be friends with those who live far away and attack the neighbours'', together with many other wily tricks, can perhaps conceal the expansionism of China's rulers for a time. But sooner or later the peoples of Southeast Asia will see through it all. Peking's hostility towards Vietnam threatens the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity not only of Vietnam but of other countries in the region. Memories of the way Peking used its ``fifth column" of Hoa people to provoke political unrest and economic difficulties in many Southeast Asian countries even before it used the same tactics against Vietnam are still fresh.
It must be perfectly clear that while concentrating their efforts on harming Vietnam, China's rulers are grossly interfering in the internal affairs of many other Asian countries.
The true Chinese Communists and the Chinese people, systematically deceived by the Peking ruling clique over the past 30 years---since the establishment of the People's Republic of China---will see the light sooner or later and support the Vietnamese people in their just struggle.
The just struggle of the Vietnamese people against the expansionism and great-power hegemonism of the reactionaries among the rulers in Peking, and for independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, the struggle that contributes to peace and stability in Southeast Asia and the world, will require much time and effort, but will inevitably triumph.
149Today's Vietnam will not abandon its positions. It will advance despite the wily tricks of China's rulers, just as it advanced for 4,000 years despite the repeated invasions by Chinese emperors.
We are confident that the peoples of Vietnam and China will live in peace, friendship and co-operation, as our peoples want, and act in the interests of preserving peace in Southeast Asia and throughout the world.
Foreign Ministry, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, October 1979
[150] __ALPHA_LVL2__ FOREIGN PRESS REPORTS __ALPHA_LVL3__ PEKING'S EXPANSIONISM UNMASKEDNhan Dan, Hanoi~
The newspaper Nhan Dan has published a commentary that exposes China's true plans for Vietnam, Indochina and Southeast Asia, and refutes the attempts of Peking's propaganda to distort the policy of the Communist Party of Vietnam.
In their slanderous propaganda campaign, intended to disguise their own manoeuvres and crimes against Vietnam, the Chinese authorities use the old trick of charging Vietnam with striving for ``small-scale hegemony" in Indochina and Southeast Asia. They assert that ``one of the reasons behind the deterioration in relation between Vietnam and China is the fact that Vietnam requested Chinese consent to the creation of an Indochinese federation, but China refused''. They also maintain that the `` mistreatment of the ethnic Chinese in Vietnam is explained by Vietnam's intention to seal off Indochina and establish its domination there through an Indochinese federation''. China's leaders thought that repeating these allegations would make them sound convincing.
Those are old and familiar tactics of the Chinese authorities which they have long used in their own country. If they want to ``topple'' someone they invent a label for him, and they ascribe their own intentions to others. It is logical to ask who was always true to proletarian internationalism and fought side by side with the peoples of Laos and Kampuchea against the common enemy until complete victory throughout the decades of the revolutionary struggle by the three nations of Indochina for their independence and freedom; and who stood aside merely paying lip service to ``solidarity and support" but in actual fact continued underhanded dealings to split the three peoples of Indochina and make this or that side his ally.
The slogan of the Communist Party of Indochina, ``Turn Indochina into a zone of independence and proceed towards the 151 creation of an Indochinese federation" was advanced in 1930, based on the national right to self-determination. It was geared to the situation prevailing in the 1930s and the 1940s and to the interests of the struggle waged at that time by the peoples of Vietnam, Laos and Kampuchea. At its Second Congress in February 1951, the Communist Party of Indochina approved the initiative of Vietnamese Communists, supported by the Communists of Laos and Kampuchea, and disbanded. The Communist Party of Indochina had fully implemented its great historical mission, and the slogan of creating an ``Indochinese federation" was relegated to history.
After the complete liberation of Vietnam, our Party and government steadily followed their correct foreign policy, which involved genuine solidarity of Vietnam with Laos and Kampuchea. The Treaty on friendship and co-operation and the Treaty on the demarcation of the state boundaries between the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the Lao People's Democratic Republic signed on 18 July 1977 are a vivid example of internationalist socialist solidarity and a symbol of the new stage in the comprehensive development of the special relations between Vietnam and Laos.
As regards Kampuchea, although the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary clique launched from the very start, on Peking's orders, a border war accompanied by singularly brutal killings and lootings of the Vietnamese population, our Party and government have always advocated the search for a solution to the problem on the basis of mutual respect, independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity, and in this way to preserve the friendship between our two nations.
For almost half a century, the sacred solidarity of the Vietnamese people with the peoples of Laos and Kampuchea has always been a pure and noble cause.
Nhan Dan stresses that since 1954, Peking has been publishing maps of China that include the entire territories of Vietnam, Laos, Kampuchea, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, Korea, Mongolia, and parts of Japan, the USSR, and India. These maps are used to brainwash the people, especially the youth of China, to implant in them the ambitions schemes of great-power expansionism and hegemonism. 152 This clearly shows that these gentlemen have taken up the dream of world hegemony cherished by the emperors of ancient China.
The newspaper points to the Chinese authorities' plans to lead the struggle of the peoples of Indochina astray, to hamper the consolidation of their militant solidarity based on the independence and sovereignty of each of these countries, to turn them into Chinese satellites and, in China's bargaining with US imperialism, to make political capital of the blood shed by the peoples of Vietnam, Laos and Kampuchea. All this is being done to satisfy China's selfish national interests, interests which coincide with the interests of imperialism. But the Vietnamese people have refused to be drawn into the hegemonist orbit of the Chinese authorities. The people of Vietnam have remained true to their correct course of independence, sovereignty and international solidarity; and this helped them achieve complete victory in 1975. A peaceful, independt, united, socialist Vietnam is a serious obstacle in the way of China's expansionist and great-power designs on Indochina and Southeast Asia. That is precisely why the Chinese authorities pursue a hostile policy towards the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, why they used the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary clique to provoke war against the Vietnamese people and the problem of the Hoa people as a pawn in the political power play to create problems in Vietnam and to wreck Vietnamese-Chinese relations.
That is not all. It is the Chinese authorities who have used, and are still using, various tricks to exert pressure, provoke alientation and unrest, and undermine the solidarity and friendship between Vietnam and Laos.
The policy of the Peking authorities and their armed acts against the Vienamese people are aimed at realising China's hegemonist and expansionist plans in Indochina and the whole of Southeast Asia. This is the real reason behind the tensions and the steadily deteriorating relations between China and Vietnam.
Nhan Dan, 21 September 1978
153 __ALPHA_LVL3__ CHINESE EMPERORS REINCARNATEDNovosti Mongolii, Ulan Bator~
Only a short while ago, the world heard China advertise the ``eternal and unshakeable friendship between China and Vietnam'', declare that this friendship was a bond as organic as ``between lips and teeth'', and that China's aid to Vietnam in fighting the armed aggression by the United States was a ``proletarian internationalist duty of the Chinese people''. These declarations continued for as long as China's leaders hoped that Vietnam, exhausted by a drawn-out war, would not be able to pursue an independent policy and would blindly follow China as its satellite.
But under cover of these declarations intended for the broad public, Chunnanhai was drawing up and implementing quite different plans. As early as August 1965, at a session of the Politbureau of the CPC Central Committee, Mao Zedong said: ``We absolutely must get Southeast Asia, including South Vietnam, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, Singapore. .. . Southeast Asia is a very rich region, it has very many natural resources, and it is definitely worth the expense involved in gaining control of it. In future it will be very useful for the development of China's industry. That way we can return our investment.''
In its aims and methods, this course of the Peking leadership clearly took up the policy of the feudal rulers of the Middle Kingdom who had always considered the South Seas region (a traditional Chinese term for the countries of Southeast Asia) as a sphere of their domination, and who had tried to pursue their annexationist policy by ``using barbarians to suppress barbarians''.
But, despite Peking's calculations, the heroic Vietnamese people won a history-making victory, united their country, and became the first socialist country in Southeast Asia, with an idnependent and peaceful foreign policy.
Again, Peking turned to its tried and true tactics of pressure and blackmail. In July 1978, the government of the PRC unilaterally decided completely to cut off economic and technical 154 assistance to Vietnam and to recall all Chinese specialists working there.
Peking provoked tensions on the Sino-Vietnamese border: numerous skirmishes and violations of the airspace of the SRV by Chinese air force planes were reported. In their attempts to create economic problems within the country, Peking's agents in the Chinese community in Vietnam forced the ethnic Chinese to give up their jobs at enterprises, port facilities and educational establishments.
Vietnam was a touchstone for the new Chinese emperors' policy in Southeast Asia. Peking hopes that if it breaks Vietnam, China will be able to dominate all the other countries in the region and to realise its age-old dream of capturing their rich natural resources. In defending their right to independent development, the Vietnamese people are also safeguarding this right for other countries in Southeast Asia. That is why solidarity with Vietnam is as vitally important today as it was during the years of US aggression.
Observer in Novosti Mongolii, 19 September 1978
__ALPHA_LVL3__ WILD TERRITORIAL CLAIMSShin Nihon, Tokyo~
The state of relations between Vietnam and China is an object of worldwide attention. The current Sino-Vietnamese conflict is rooted in the traditional Chinese policy of territorial claims to neighbouring countries.
Since the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, border conflicts between China and its neighbours have never ceased. Today, China has territorial claims to practically every adjoining country: Burma, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, the Mongolian People's Republic, the Soviet Union, Japan, Vietnam, and other countries. The areas China claims are enormous.
Up to 1973, relations between China and Vietnam appreared sufficiently cordial. But even when Peking called Vietnam its 155 ``favourite younger brother" and China, Vietnam's ``great rear guard'', and declared that the bond between the two countries was unbreakable, China used Vietnam as a bargaining point in its talks with the United States. At that time, China even tried to capture part of her favourite younger brother's territory in the mountains of the Kaobang Province.
In 1973--1974, China advanced her claims on the South China Sea islands that belonged to Vietnam.
These islands were an object of particular attention because of their strategic location. Another reason was the recent reports of oil deposits in the continental shelf of that area, and also near the Paracel Islands, and off the coast of Indochina.
Today, China's territorial claims to Vietnam extend to the mainland as well, where rich deposits of bauxites and nonferrous and rare metals have been reported. Since 1976, China has become especially active on the Sino-Vietnamese border. In August 1976, the Chinese moved the demarcation line in the Vietnamese province of Langshon several kilometres into Vietnam. Peking declined to give a constructive answer to Vietnam's protest and explained it as ``unsanctioned action by local authorities''. But provocations in this area continue up to the present day.
The Vietnamese side has repeatedly tried to settle th^ border conflict with China through negotiation, but all these attempts have failed. In October 1977, the Deputy Foreign Minister of Vietnam who led the Vietnamese delegation at the Sino-- Vietnamese talks on the territorial question suggested to the Chinese side that the border between the two countries which existed at the time be recognised as official, but the Chinese demanded that the demarcation line be moved into Vietnam at 150 to 200 points.
China's territorial claims to Vietnam have recently intensified.
Reports from Hong Kong indicate that armour and heivy artillery were involved in the clashes along the Sino-Vietnamese border and that these were actually full-scale hostilities. It has also been reported that the troops stationed in the military districts located along the Sino-Vietnamese border have been put on combat alert.
156China's territorial claims to its neighbouring countries and its armed provocaitions against them contribute greatly to the destabilisation of the situation in Asia.
Za rubezhom, No. 44, 1978
__ALPHA_LVL3__ THE POSITION OF JAPANESE COMMUNISTSSpeaking on 2 February 1979 in the Chamber of Counsellors of the Japanese Parliament, Kenji Miyamoto, Chairman of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Japan, resolutely condemned the Chinese aggression against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, fully supported the measures taken by Vietnam to defend its borders, and hailed the victory of the Kampuchea United Front for National Salvation. Kenji Miyamoto criticised the plans for making Japan follow Peking's anti-Soviet and anti-Vietnamese strategy, and demanded that the Japanese government pursue an independent foreign policy consonant with the national interests.
To understand the current situation in Indochina, he said, one should take into account two factors: first, the border war between Kampuchea and Vietnam. The survey conducted on the spot by the Communist Party of Japan irrefutably showed that over two and a half years, Pol Pot's troops had committed 6,400 aggressive acts against Vietnam and had killed and wounded 8,300 Vietnamese citizens.
Second, the Kampuchean people were simultaneously fighting a civil war against the gruesome regime of Pol Pot, which had nothing in common with socialism. The fact that the Kampuchea United Front for National Salvation quickly established control over the entire country proves that Pol Pot's regime enjoyed absolutely no support from the Kampuchean people.
Now that the people of Kampuchea have overthrown the hateful regime, Kenji Miyamoto continued, the Peking leaders insist that Japan and China issue a joint statement and take joint action in Indochina under the ``peace and friendship treaty" between the two countries. When this treaty was being debated in parliament, the Communist Party of Japan 157 repeatedly drew the attention of the government to the dangerous consequences of this alliance and warned that China would impose its own distinctive interpretation of the ``hegemony'' clause on Japan. Government spokesmen, however, issued assurances that the treaty with China would not affect Japan's relations with third countries. Now time has come to prove that those were not just empty words. Otherwise, Kenji Miyamoto stressed, fears that the Japanese-Chinese treaty is actually a sort of military alliance would be borne out.
Pravda, 3 February 1979
__ALPHA_LVL3__ THE PEKING FORGERSUnen, Ulan Bator~
According to Unen, the policy of China's rulers is becoming increasingly hypocritical. It is based on territorial claims and designs to annex neighbouring countries. To justify their aggressive course, the Maoists resort to the distorting of ancient history. In recent years, the PRC has organised numerous exhibitions and published many copies of books and booklets which, in the final analysis, assert that China has suffered great territorial losses.
The newspaper, which is published by the Central Committee of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, goes on to say that this strategy of Peking is aimed at achieving world domination, including the incorporation ofi the Mongolian People's Republic into China. A Short History of the Aggression by Tsarist Russia in China by a certain Shi Da, published two years ago, is especially remarkable. The book falsifies historical facts to suit the greedy territorial claims of China's rulers to the Soviet Union and the MPR. The Maoists do not stop at denying the traditions of Mongolian national statehood, and malign the heroic record of the struggle by the Mongolian people for freedom and independence against foreign invaders.
Vnen stresses that in the early 20th century, Outer Mongolia became the centre of the all-Mongolian national liberation 158 movement. The first stage of this movement envisaged liberation from Manchurian domination, creation of an independent state, and establishment of control over the entire Mongolian population, which was administered at the time by the Qing dynasty. The next stage was resistance to the aggression by the militarist rulers of North China who tried to capture Inner Mongolia. Facts show that the allied troops of Outer and Inner Mongolia fought side by side and together drove the Chinese aggressors from the southern Mongolian regions. But Maoist historians ignore these facts.
The newspaper recalls that the revolutionary Soviet government rejected the great-power tsarist policy towards Mongolia and defended the right of the Mongolian people to independent statehood. The victory of the popular revolution in Mongolia created all the necessary conditions for shaping new relations between Mongolia and China on a class basis. The MPR did all it could to support the protracted just struggle of the Chinese people for their national independence and freedom. The Mongolian people hailed the victory of the popular revolution in China and the establishment of the PRC. Mongolia recognised the People's Republic and its government and hoped that the two countries would live in friendship and all-round co-operation for the benefit of both peoples. But the Chinese leaders pursued a two-faced policy. On the one hand, they pretended to support co-operation and respect sovereignty and independence; and on the other, planned to incorporate the MPR into the PRC.
This policy which ran counter to the principles of relations between socialist countries and to the interests of the Mongolian people collapsed.
The wise leadership and the farsighted policy of the Party and government of the MPR consolidated its positions and raised the prestige of People's Mongolia on the international scene. The Peking leaders did not like this and began to advance territorial claims and to undermine the fraternal friendship and comprehensive co-operation between the Mongolian and the Soviet peoples. Since the 1960s, China's leaders have tried to exert political and economic pressure on the MPR and to deny its experience of non-capitalist development.
159\"Unen explains Peking's anti-Soviet forays by the fact that the USSR---the bulwark of peace and socialism---opposes China's hegemonist designs.
By painstakingly playing up the so-called three worlds theory, Peking does all it can to undermine Mongolia's prestige among third world countries. The treaties between the MPR and the PRC on economic, scientific, technological and cultural co-- operation were brought about by the will of both peoples, by their concern for security in Asia and universal peace. But the Chinese side abandoned its obligations and started to advance territorial claims. This threatens peace and security in Asia and throughout the world.
\"Unen concludes that Mongolia has never been part ofi China. By falsifying history, Peking vainly tries to deceive the national minorities of the PRC who suffer from oppression and assimilation, and to invent a ``historical justification" for its territorial claims. All this exposes the hegemonist designs of the Maoists and their great-power and expansionist policy.
Pravda, 4 October 1978
__ALPHA_LVL3__ THE GREAT-POWER MAOIST COURSE\"Unen, Ulan Bator~
\"Unen notes that for many years China has pursued an expansionist course towards Mongolia. From the time the Mongolian People's Republic won its independence, China's militarists openly admitted their greedy plans to conquer and annex the vast territory of Mongolia.
As far back as 1936, Mao Zedong frankly told US journalist Edgar Snow that with a victorious Chinese revolution the MPR would automatically join the Chinese federation.
Later, in 1949, when China was itself fighting for national liberation and the young people's government was, as the phrase goes, not yet firmly standing on its own two feet, Mao Zedong attempted to incorporate the MPR into China. Ignoring the independence and sovereignty of a socialist country that had 160 existed long before the PRC was established, CPC leaders were planning to decide the future of Mongolia behind the backs of its people and government.
Even after official diplomatic relations were established, Peking was still eager to annex Mongolia. When a Soviet delegation visited Peking to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the PRC, the Chinese leaders suggested that they ``settle'' the question of incorporating the MPR into China. Treating the issue as if it were a mere trifle that could be ``settled'', Mao demanded that the MPR, which had never been part of China, join the PRC.
In 1964 Mao Zedong again raised the question of incorporating the MPR into China in his talk with a delegation of the Socialist Party ofi Japan. He slanderously claimed that the Soviet Union had turned Mongolia into its ``colony''. In the years that followed, Peking escalated its efforts of annexing the MPR and mounted a broad-based offensive to implement its hegemoaist designs.
These abortive attempts to annex the MPR drove the Chinese authorities to openly hostile acts against it. To fan anti-- Mongolia hysteria, China began provoking various incidents inside the MPR, using the ethnic Chinese who lived and worked -in Mongolia. Beginning in 1962, they held 26 strikes lasting up to 14 days, and provoked about 500 incidents and disturbances.
During the years of the notorious cultural revolution, the Maoists concentrated their anti-Mongolian attacks on the Mongolian embassy in Peking. Wild mobs besieged and vandalised the embassy grounds.
At the same time, Chinese soldiers and local civilians increasingly violated our state border. Chinese officers and men sometimes penetrated Mongolian territory to the depth of 15 to 20 kilometres, conducting intelligence surveys and firing upon cattle herds.
\"Unen emphasises that China's policy towards the MPR is based on the great-power expansionism of the Chinese rulers.
Pravda, 22 April 1978
__PRINTERS_P_162_COMMENT__ 11---2499 161 __ALPHA_LVL3__ AN ACT OF GREAT-POWER HEGEMONISMAkahata, Tokyo~
On 24 April Akahata published a statement by Ts. Hoshino, a high-ranking executive of the Committee on Diplomatic Affairs in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Japan. The statement condemned China's actions near the Senkaku Islands as a manifestation of Peking's great-power hegemonism.
According to Ts. Hoshino, ``the Senkakus incident is a flagrant violation by China of the sovereignty of Japan and of the five principles of peace formalised in the 1972 joint JapaneseChinese statement. By resorting to force, Peking is trying to impose its territorial claims on Japan and is committing hegemonist acts that threaten Japan's territorial integrity''.
The spokesman for the Communist Party of Japan went on to say that the ``large-scale invasion of the Senkakus area by Chinese fishing vessels, many of them armed and carrying posters containing territorial claims on these islands, cannot be described as `accidental'. It was clearly a planned and deliberate act. The Chinese fishing flottilla is still cruising in the area, and we cannot rule out a repetition of the incident''.
Ts. Hoshino stressed that ``it is perfectly clear that Chinese interference into Japanese internal affairs and its territorial claims are great-power acts stemming from China's deviation from the principles of scientific socialism''.
Pravda, 25 April 1978
__ALPHA_LVL3__ THE WAR GETS HOTTERAsiaweek, Rangoon~
The first hint that something was amiss was provided by the Rangoon newspapers though not in their news pages. By reading the obituary columns, readers were able to deduce that army officers were being killed ``somewhere on the front" in increasing numbers. It meant that government forces were once 162 again locked in fierce combat with rebel units. And by last week, it was evident that they had been engaged in the biggest military activity in more than a quarter-century ofi insurgency.
Though the obituaries (and, later, accounts of anti-rebel rallies in Shan State) appeared through February and March, not until two weeks ago did the government announce publicly what everyone had suspected. During that two-month period, officials said, the rebel forces had entered Kunlong and Tangyan in the Northeast Command area which borders China.
It took hand-to-hand fighting, artillery barrages and strafing by air force planes to dislodge the rebels. By official count, more than 800 rebels were killed; the government said it lost 135 men with a further 229 wounded and 124 missing.
What local and foreign observers alike found more startling than the extent of the conflict, however, was the timing and apparent motivation. Viewed in tandem with earlier incidents, the fighting was part of a calculated tussle involving China itself.
It had been plain.that all was not well in Burma's eastern frontier areas, and it was equally plain that the Chinese had something to do with it---by association, at least. Savage fighting occurred between government forces and rebels in early February 1977 at precisely the time Deng Yingchao, Vice-Chairman of China's National People's Congress, made a good-will visit to Burma. As if to demonstrate that a good deal more than coincidence was involved, the latest round of battles erupted last February 1; only the day before Chinese Vice-Premier Deng Xiaoping had left Rangoon after holding talks with President U Ne Win.
While the Administration has remained silent on the details of its increasingly frequent discussions with Chinese officials, it is known that Peking continues to employ its ``two-tier'' policy in relations with Rangoon.
Though it is anxious to maintain harmonious relations with the Ne Win government, says Peking, its own Communist Party has a duty to assist the ``fraternal'' BCP. Ne Win himself has made repeated jourenys to the Chinese capital, each time seeking firm assurance that China will stop helping the rebels; each time the Chinese leaders have smilingly explained two-tier position anew.
__PRINTERS_P_163_COMMENT__ 11* 163The rebels operate in various parts of Burma but it is in the northeast, in the Chinese border region, that they have been most troublesome. They have long roamed through large tracts east of the Salween; for more than a year, however, guerilla bands have been active west of Kunlong, on the other side of the river. Military sources in Rangoon said that after being dislodged from Kunlong and Tangyan, the rebels fled to the eastern bank of the Salween and retreated towards the frontier.
The latest round of fighting was a follow-up to a series of engagements that occurred all through October 1977. Then, two rebel brigades and six battalions totalling 1,500 men suddenly thrust into the area between Kunlong---the biggest and strategically most important town in the region---and neighbouring Ho-Pang. The action left hundreds dead on both sides (Asiaweek, 18 November), and convinced analysts that an assault of Kunlong itself was being planned.
There are solid ground for the belief that the Ne Win Administration, its patience sorely tested by what it understandably regards as the infuriatingly hypocritical stance of the Chinese, decided towards the end of 1977 to go on the offensive against the rebels both east and west of the Salween. In this connection, observers in Rangoon point to reports of anti-rebel ``man rallies" in various parts of Shan State in recent weeks.
Newspapers in the capital gave front-page treatment to one such rally held in Kengtung, a town in the heart of the Red Shoulder area, east of the Salween, that borders Thailand, Laos and China. The rebels were denounced for ``heinous acts" and ``wanton destruction"---notably in the Mong Yaung area, close to the Chinese border. Demonstrators accused the insurgents of having committed murder and various other crimes including sacrilegious acts (destroying Buddha images).
Moreover, the rebels were said to have kidnapped children from surrounding towns and villages and sold them ``to the other country''. The phrase generally is used by Burma's government-run media as a euphemism for China...
Even if the Ne Win government has indeed decided that direct military action is the better part of diplomacy, it has by no means dropped its attempts to win some meaningful responses from the Chinese...
164The Burmese government still believes, rightly or wrongly, that as state-to-state relations improve, Peking will gradually exercise more ``restraint'' in its support for the rebels. But if recent events are anything to go by, that belief has little basis in hard fact. After last month's bloody encounters in the northeast, what had once seemed a promising dialogue with Peking was looking uncomfortably like a waste of time.
Asiaweek, Vol. 4, No. 15, 21 April 1978
__ALPHA_LVL3__ INDIA: NO SUBMISSIONDelhi~
India has not resigned itself to the occupation of its territories by the PRC, Prime Minister Morarji Desai declared at a mass rally in Bombay. He stressed that the issue of restoring the many thousands of square kilometres captured by Chinese troops during their 1962 surprise invasion of India was still urgent and topical, no matter what the current state of international relations.
Pravda, 3 April 1979
__ALPHA_LVL3__ PEKING'S HOSTILE ACTSDelhi~
Ominous storm clouds of aggression and conflict, brought about by the co-operation between the imperialists and the Maoists, are also gathering on India's borders, says Secretary of the National Council of the Communist Party of India N. K. Krishnan, in an article entitled Betrayal of the National Liberation Movement. Against the background of this, the assurances by the Peking rulers that they want to establish ``friendly relations" with India sound at least strange. Significantly, Peking displays no willingness to discuss and settle the border problems between India and China. The fact remains that the Chinese continue to hold 36,000 165 square kilometres of Indian territory. Peking continues to train and arm the. Mizo and Naga rebels in India's northeastern border areas. India is faced with serious problems in connection with the recently opened Karakorum highway and Maoist military buildup in Tibet.
Pravda, 24 September 1978
__ALPHA_LVL3__ THE INDIAN POSITIONDelhi~
According to the statement in the Indian parliament by Samarendra Kundu, Minister of State in the Ministry of External Affairs, India recognises only the traditional border with the PRC. The Minister stressed that the Chinese occupation of several Indian areas since 1962 was unlawful, and that China was advancing baseless territorial claims to thousands of square kilometres of Indian territory.
Pravda, 21 April 1979
__ALPHA_LVL3__ SERIOUS CONCERNDelhi~
Speaking at an election campaign rally in the Rai Bareli district in Uttar Pradesh,. Prime. Minister Indira Gandhi declared that China is still holding large tracts of the territories of India, Bhutan, Nepal and Burma. ``This fact alone threatens our borders,'' stressed the Prime Minister.
Pravda, 23 February 1980
__ALPHA_LVL3__ CHANGES IN THE POLITICAL MAP OF ASIA:Merdeka, Jakarta~
A Bangkok newspaper has reported a conference of high-- ranking Chinese leaders in Peking which formulated the plan of using the Hoa people in China's foreign policy. The PRC plans 166 to instil the ideas of ``great-power chauvinism" and a sense of superiority towards other peoples, above all those living in Southeast Asia, in the Hoa people.
The Indonesian press has recently reported on the subversive activities of a Chinese underground organisation whose members (about 100, including Chinese military personnel) entered Indonesia with forged documents. We do not find this report surprising: it merely confirms the conclusion that the policy of the Mao Zedong era is not past history; it is alive and unchanged under the successors to the late Chinese leader.
Today the countries of the region are uneasily watching the PRC shape is policy toward the Hoa people in South and Southeast Asia. China's position on the issue of the Hoa people in Vietnam and its attitude to Vietnam itself in the light of this issue resemble the position taken by the PRC when President Sukarno's government started its specific economic policy toward the Chinese living in Indonesia.
China's rulers have long had their eyes on Vietnam, Laos, Kampuchea, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines. The first colonies of Chinese settlers appeared in Southeast Asia in the 13th century. Their numbers gradually increased, and the trend has finally resulted in Chinese domination of the economic life of the nations of the region. Observers and economists believe that the influence the Hoa people wield with the economies of Southeast Asia is so great that it would take them only a few days to wreak havoc in the economies of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines.
One should remember that the number of the Chinese living outside China today is 21 million, and that most of them live in Asia. It would be logical to suppose that Peking has long considered the possible political and economic advantages offered by the powerful positions held by the Hoa people in the economies of Asian countries. China understands perfectly well that the role of the overseas Chinese in the economic structure of politically independent countries spells out domination over the latter. The Hoa people themselves are increasingly turning to Peking for support in case of difficulties, and the PRC acts as their patron---for a price, of course.
167The current Peking leadership is paying more and more attention to the Hoa people, trying to use them as an instrument of pressure on the governments of Asian countries---in other words, to gain direct advantages for its global foreign policy which is aimed at domination and contains elements of expansionism. To this end, an organisational plan is being drawn up to unite the Hoa people in the countries where they hold influential positions. Actually, the idea of ``great-power chauvinism" emerged during the Chiang Kaishek era, but at that time it was neutralised by Japanese and western imperialism and could not be implanted in the ``overseas Chinese''. Today the PRC has all the necessary means for carrying out this policy.
The developments in Vietnam inevitably lead to the uneasy conclusion that the spread of Peking's influence and domination over South and Southeast Asia has emerged as one of its major foreign policy goals. The foreign press has recently reported on interference by the PRC in the internal affairs of a number of nations, on Peking's support of extremist anti-government elements in some countries, and on its economic machinations. The leaders of many Asian countries thought that the establishment of diplomatic relations with Peking would protect them from Chinese interference, but these hopes have failed. On the contrary, diplomatic relations have made it easier for Peking to turn its embassies into coordinating headquarters for its old policies. This no doubt explains why Indonesia is in no hurry to ``unfreeze'' its diplomatic relations with the PRC.
We have recently witnessed signs of Peking's greater influence on the internal affairs of Southeast Asian countries. Merdeka indicates that the PRC selected Kampuchea as its target, as it was ruled by a group of people indoctrinated in the spirit of ``Mao's thoughts''. The Maoist slogan of destroying urban culture and resettling people in villages was issued in this small country. The western press estimates that of the eight million Kampucheans, at least one million people were executed by the followers of Mao Zedong's ideas.^^1^^ What was China's reaction to this? Peking hailed and fully supported the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary regime, proclaiming the ``fraternal friendship" between the PRC _-_-_
~^^1^^ Over three million people by latest estimates.
168 and Kampuchea. One can easily deduce that China has a similar fate in mind for other Asian peoples.Mao Zedong once said that if ``half the people in the world" were destroyed, this would not ``matter at all'', that ``there is no cause for fear" if only one-third of the world population were to survive. The newspaper stresses that perhaps these words reveal true aims of Peking's drive to absorb neighbouring territories. This makes ``Mao's thoughts" resemble Hitler's doctrines.
We should also say a few words about the visit of Deng Xiaoping, Vice-Premier of China, to Nepal and Burma. These two countries have long been objects of special attention from Peking. China sees Nepal as a bridgehead for an advance into India, and in Burma it supports the pro-Maoist ``guerillas'' which are fighting against the Ne Win government.
By promoting its theory of Soviet ``encirclement'' of China, Peking is pursuing a long-range course of comprehensive militarisation. Today the PRC possesses the most numerous land forces, and its military delegations often visit western countries, to size up modern armaments, making plans to acquire the most sophisticated weapons. For the sake of building up its military might. China is ready to expend all its domestic resources, which have already been sapped by the ``cultural revolution''. Food and housing are sacrificed to prepare for self-defence. But there is no clear distinction between self-defence on the one hand, and expansionism and the policy of great-power hegemonism on the other.
We are concerned for the Chinese people who are forced to suffer in exchange for promises of foreign lands and riches.
In conclusion, we would like to stress that the Vietnamese experience points to the need for a profound study of the subversive activities of the pro-Peking Hoa people in Indonesia. Why has this problem still not received the attention it deserves? Why are we so often indifferent to the Chinese subjugation of our economy? Why do we stand idly by as they win the confidence of our leaders, and draw them into their cabal? Today there are signs that expose the aims of this activity; we cannot ignore the obvious link between the policy of the PRC and the presense of the Hoa people in our country.
169Developments in Asia make for a sense of foreboding about actions taken on the basis of chauvinism against the interests of our people and of other nations of Southeast Asia. We must offset these actions by stronger national resistance and greater vigilance. To preserve our independence, we must stand firmly on our own two feet, and not on foreign-made crutches.
Merdeka, 24 June 1978
__ALPHA_LVL3__ PEKING'S POLICY OF PROVOCATIONMerdeka, Jakarta~
High-ranking PRG officials have repeatedly proclaimed China's ``constructive position" toward the countries of Southeast Asia and its willingness to establish ``good-neighbourly relations" with them. According to Merdeka, Peking's increased diplomatic activity and its heightened interest in its southern neighbours is actually explained by the age-old Chinese schemes for acquiring the very rich natural resources of these countries. China sees Southeast Asia as a region traditionally within the Chinese sphere of influence. The Peking leaders maintain that about half of Asia is ``lost Chinese territories" that must be ``liberated''. Thus, the newspaper notes, China's tactics in Southeast Asia fully reflect Mao Zedong's dictum about the ``need to acquire Southeast Asia" with its resources. With a policy like this, how dare China's leaders accuse anyone of hegemonism, asks Merdeka.
Peking sees the Hoa people living abroad as an important tool in realising its designs, and recently it has been paying particular attention to these people. Most of the almost 23 million Hoa people abroad live in Southeast Asia, and in many countries of the region they command powerful economic positions. For example, in Indonesia the local Chinese control at least 80 per cent of all private capital, and in Malaysia they have practically monopolised rubber and tin production.
Merdeka stresses that the countries of Southeast Asia must learn their lesson from the provocations of the PRC against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. China tried to put pressure on 170 Vietnam's government, fanning the campaign to protect the allegedly oppressed Chinese living there. The newspaper notes that some day Peking might start treating the Hoa people in other countries of the region as pawns too.
In this way, says Merdeka, China's policy may become the chief source of increased tensions, undermining stability, and threatening peace and security in Southeast Asia. The newspaper adds that for the most part Peking's foreign policy is made up of territorial claims, interference in the internal affairs of other countries, and the use of force to settle disputes.
Izvestia, 25 July 1978
__ALPHA_LVL3__ PEKING'S ASIATIC GAMENovosti Mongolii, Ulan Bator~
__ALPHA_LVL4__ The Diplomacy of SmilesSubsequent developments proved that Chunnanhai (China) decided to turn its attention to Asian countries first. This region has been a traditional target of Chinese expansionism for many centuries. To this day, Peking considers most of the countries in Southeast Asia and parts of South and East Asia as its ``lost territories''. In addition, there are about 20 million people of Chinese origin in the countries that adjoin, or are located close to, China, and Peking tries to use them to bring pressure on these countries' governments. Apart from that, the leadership of the PRC considers the countries of this region as a vast market for its exports and a source of strategic raw materials necessary for the modernisation of China's economy and armed forces.
The first step in the ``Asian offensive" was Vice-Premier Deng Xiaoping's visit to Burma. At a banquet in Rangoon in late January, Deng Xiaoping called on Burma's leaders to strengthen friendship with China for the sake of the ``common struggle of the peoples of Asia against hegemonism''.
The countries of South Asia interpreted this and other statements as a sign of China's desire to make them follow its foreign policy course.
171The importance attached to the countries of South Asia in Chinese plans was borne out by the visit of the ``good-will delegation" led by Wang Bingnan, Chairman of the Chinese People's Society for Friendship with Foreign Countries to Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. In his talks with the leaders of the host nations, the Peking diplomat asserted China's desire to promote friendship and co-operation with them on the basis of a ``sincere and concerted common effort to unite the third world against hegemonism''.
In the second part of March, Vice-Premier Li Xiannian and Foreign Minister Huang Hua paid an official visit to Bangladesh. In their talks with the country's leaders, the Chinese representatives again spoke of the need for Bangladesh and other countries in South Asia to join the anti-Soviet ``front''.
Almost simultaneously with the series of trips to countries in South Asia, Peking stepped up its diplomatic activity in Southeast Asia. Before leaving for Bangladesh, Li Xiannian visited the Philippines. This was the first trip by a high-ranking Chinese official to an ASEAN member-country. During this visit, mention was also made of an ``international anti-hegemonist front''.
The press in Southeast Asia also regarded the visit of Thailand's Prime Minister Kriangsak Chomanan to Peking in late March and early April 1978 as another expression of China's ``diplomatic offensive" in Southeast Asia. In his address at the banquet, Vice-Premier Deng Xiaoping said that the PRC considered ASEAN as ``one of the regional organisations of the third world taking part in the struggle against hegemonism''. But the most conspicuous call on ASEAN countries to join the ``united front" came on 18 April 1978 when China's Foreign Minister Huang Hua declared: ``China and ASEAN membercountries must unite and support each other''.
__ALPHA_LVL4__ War by ProxyThe Peking leaders have not confined themselves to invitations to ``unite'' with China on an anti-Soviet basis. The `` diplomacy of smiles" has been accompanied by other types of pressure on Asian countries.
172A few weeks after Deng Xiaoping's visit to Rangoon, the Burmese rebels, supported and directed from Peking, launched an offensive against government positions near the towns of Kunlong and Tangyan. Over 800 rebels were killed, this alone showing the scale of the fighting. Observers believe that the pro-- Peking insurgents are trying to secure a new sphere of influence to the west of the Salween River. The rebels have already established their permanent presense in the area from the eastern bank to the Chinese border.
China has used a similar form of pressure against India where, since March 1978, the pro-Peking nationalist groups of Mizo and Naga tribesmen have stepped up their operations. According to the Indian weekly Blitz, Peking is now supplying the rebels with more weapons for subversion in the northeastern Indian states.
China is actively financing a certain group of people to provoke unrest in the Indian state of Sikkim, and the so-called Sikkim Independence Movement has obviously been organised by Peking's agents. Clearly, all these ventures as well as the vigorous military preparations in Tibet are designed to bring pressure to bear on India.
Neither have other Asian countries escaped the stick and the carrot policy. After Li Xiannian left Manila, the Maoist New People's Army escalated its operations. The Maoists burned several public buildings in the capital. In the north of Luzon and on Mindanao they attacked government officials and ambushed and fired upon army vehicles. Their terrorist acts seriously aggravated the parliamentary elections in the Philippines.
At the same time, China's leaders who plan to make Asian countries follow Peking's foreign policy, have decided to use the large and influential communities of the Hoa people to exert pressure on the governments of these countries. The property of the ethnic Chinese living in Southeast Asia is estimated at 50 to 60,000 million dollars. According to Blitz, in Indonesia, Malaysia and in the Philippines to a certain extent, it would take Chinese businessmen only a few days to plunge these countries into economic chaos. Peking has decided to use the economic clout of the overseas Chinese to its own advantage. In January 1978, a preparatory conference on the work among Chinese 173 emigres declared that they should be used to set up the ``Front of Struggle" and to exert pressure on the countries where they live.
__ALPHA_LVL4__ Unchanged GoalsAn analysis of Peking's true intentions shows that China wants to draw the countries of Asia into the mainstream of its greatpower, anti-Soviet policy, and to make them toe its line. Waving the flag of an ``anti-hegemonist front'', the Peking strategists are trying to set up a military and political alliance of the countries of Western, South and Southeast Asia, an alliance whose military, economic and manpower resources would aid China's expansionist policy. To implement these schemes, the Peking leadership uses a wide range of pressures: from promises of ``good-neighbourly relations and co-operation" to neighbouring countries to gross interference in internal affairs and incitement of armed anti-government groups; from promises of economic assistance to economic blackmail through the `` overseas Chinese''. The Senkaku incident of April 1978 shows that even developed countries like Japan are not exempt from blackmail.
The Chinese ``offensive'' in Asia proves that Peking's course has not met with a positive response there. For example, replying to the appeal for setting up a ``China-ASEAN'' alliance, the Indonesian Minister of Defence and Security General Maraden Panggabean has declared that his government rejects this idea because it runs counter to the ``independent and active foreign policy" of Indonesia. Commenting on this statement, Jakarta's influential Indonesia Times has stressed that for China the notions of international co-operation and peaceful relations are only a means to its own ends.
The government of India has indicated that better relations with Peking are impossible without the fulfilment of certain preconditions. Prime Minister Morarji Desai has repeatedly said that the foremost precondition is the restoration to India of the 15,000 square miles of Indian territory occupied by Chinese troops in 1962. A statement by MP Yadvendra Dutt also testifies to. India's guarded response to Chinese advances. During the debates 174 on Indian-Chinese relations, he recalled that China had already deceived India with its overtures of peace and friendship in the early 1950s. The spokesman of the ruling Janata Party warned that, ``We can no longer irresponsibly believe the sweet talk of the Chinese leadership.''
The crude pressure the Peking leaders put on Japan was highlighted by the Senkaku incident and had a sobering effect on Japanese political circles. Tokyo's influential Sankei Shimbun summed up the discussion of the Senkaku incident and called for a ``revision of the essential aspects of Japanese diplomacy toward China proceeding from Japan's long-term national interests''.
Still, despite the more than reserved reaction by the countries of Asia to the Chinese diplomatic ``offensive'', Peking continues to infiltrate the region. New visits are planned, official and unofficial contacts and negotiations held, and Chinese troops are massed on the southern borders. Peking is obviously planning to step up its pressure on the countries of Asia to make them follow its great-power policy. The new leaders are faithful to the behests of Mao Zedong who said, ``We must conquer the world. Our target is the entire world . . . where we will create a mighty power.''
Observer in Novosti Mongolii, 15 August 1978
[175] __ALPHA_LVL1__ III __ALPHA_LVL2__ GROUNDLESS TERRITORIAL CLAIMSM. Sladkovsky
__NOTE__ Author(s)'s name(s) appear above chapter title.It is historical fact that the ``border problem"---Maoist shorthand for territorial claims on neighbouring states---was not seen as an issue at all during the PRG's first decade, although this was a period when treaties and agreements were signed between China and its neighbours in every field of inter-state relations. And the reason for this is not far to seek: at that time the Chinese leadership was motivated by a desire for good-neighbour relations and close co-operation with adjacent countries. SovietChinese relations were defined by a Treaty on Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance signed in Moscow on 14 February 1950, which ramified into agreements on transit travel, navigation along the frontier rivers, etc. No problems whatever arose when these enactments came into force.
The Constitution of the PRC, endorsed by the National People's Congress on 20 September 1954, that is, after the chief Soviet-Chinese agreements had been signed, declared: ``China has already built an indestructible friendship with the great Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the People's Democracies".^^1^^ In September 1956, the Eighth Congress of the Communist Party of China discussed the results of the first five-year economic development plan and China's tasks for the future, and enjoined all Chinese Communists to ``continue to consolidate and strengthen our eternal, unbreakable fraternal friendship with the great Soviet Union and the People's Democracies".^^2^^ These declarations established the framework within which Soviet-Chinese _-_-_
~^^1^^ Amos J. Peaslee, Constitutions of Nations, The Hague, 1966, Vol. 2, p. 262.
~^^2^^ Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Vol. I (Documents), Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1956, p. 131.
176 relations flourished, which fact was acclaimed by both governments.The turning point came when the nationalist CPC leadership jettisoned the policy of co-operation with the socialist countries.
No diplomatic activity, no official talks heralded the transition. Well aware that the Chinese people---not to mention world opinion---would be nonplussed by such a sharp about-face, the Maoist leadership descended to provocation as a pretext for changing its stance vis-a-vis the Soviet Union and other neighbouring states. The Maoists stirred up ``disturbances'' and ``uncertainties'' in the border regions before publishing their great-power claims.
The Chinese frontier authorities, acting on express orders from Peking, staged a series of deliberate violations of the frontier with the USSR (and other countries) by forcing the local Chinese inhabitants to ``spontaneously'' cross the border and occupy grazing lands, etc. In 1962, the Chinese representatives at the llth session of the Mixed Soviet-Chinese Commission on Navigation along the frontier rivers of Amur, Ussuri, Argun, and Sungacha and on Lake Khanka declared that there were unsettled frontier problems, thereby in effect paralysing the commission. Meanwhile the catalogue of frontier violations grew, and isolated incidents escalated into large-scale clashes.^^3^^
Having laid the psychological groundwork by encouraging Great-Han chauvinism and anti-Soviet sentiments in China, Mao Zedong finally promulgated his ``register'' of territorial claims on the Soviet Union. In 1964 he told a delegation of Japanese Socialists that ``about a century ago the lands east of Baikal became Russian territory and since then Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, Kamchatka, and other areas have been within the compass of the Soviet Union. The bill for this register has not yet been delivered."^^4^^
Confidentially, Mao also referred to plans to seize neighbouring lands to the south. At a CC CPC Politbureau session in August 1965 he announced that ``we absolutely must get our hands on _-_-_
~^^3^^ Over 4,000 violations involving some 100,000 Chinese soldiers and civilians were recorded in 1963. See 0. B. Bopucoe, B. T. K.OJIOCKOB. CoBeicKO-KHTaflcKHe OTHoiueHHH, Moscow, 1977, p. 299.
~^^4^^ Pravda, 2 September 1964.
__PRINTERS_P_177_COMMENT__ 12---2499 177 Southeast Asia, including South Vietnam, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, and Singapore. We must pursue the principles of peaceful coexistence as regards Cambodia. . . Regions such as Southeast Asia are extremely rich and possess enough natural resources to render any outlay made on seizing them well worthwhile. [ Southeast Asia] will be invaluable to the future development of Chinese industry. Thus it will be possible to recoup all expenditure in full. After we have got our hands on Southeast Asia we will be able to expand our potential in the area; then our potential will counterbalance that of the Soviet-East European bloc. The wind from the East will beat down the wind from the West".^^5^^It goes without saying that Mao produced no lawful foundation for his claims---nor could he. He based them quite simply on the fact that the emperors of China had subscribed to this doctrine and impressed it on their subjects for countless ages. That, at least, was true: the imperial creed held that China was the centre of the world---zhong-guo---and that all other peoples and countries were vassals of the Middle Kingdom.
Official documents are eloquent evidence of this attitude. In 1408, for instance, the Ming emperor known by the imperial designation Chengzu wrote to Yoshimoti, whom he addressed as King of Japan, about the Japanese pirates who were harrassing the Chinese eastern coast, and ordered him ``to fulfil our injunction with veneration, without delay and with due result. This is enjoined upon you by your Emperor''.
And, though Yoshimoti disregarded these humiliating demands, the Manchu Qing dynasty which followed the Ming adopted the same Great-Han stance towards Japan until the Sino-Japanese War of 1894--1895, which ended in defeat for China. The emperors were equally arrogant towards Europe---notably towards England, which also fell into the catalogue of Chinese ``vassals''.^^6^^
This imperial arrogance was backed up by military campaigns against Korea, Mongolia, Vietnam, Burma, and Nepal, intended to bring them into vassal dependence on the Chinese _-_-_
~^^5^^ Quoted in Problemy Dalnego Vostoka, No. 4, 1973, p. 29.
~^^6^^ In 1793, George III sent Lord Macartney to China to congratulate Emperor Qiang Long on his 83rd birthday. The British gifts were received as vassal tribute and Macartney was ordered to kowtow as he approached the Emperor.
178 throne. And these past ``glories'' quicken expansionist appetites in Peking today and radically influence contemporary Chinese foreign policy.But no objective mind sets any store by the Maoist interpretation of historical fact. It is, after all, common knowledge that China had not only conquered other countries, but was also often itself conquered by others. Chinese dynasties ruled the Chinese empire for only two centuries of its last millennium: for the other 800 years it was controlled by neighbouring states. From 916 to 1254 Manchu-Tungus peoples were in control of northwestern China; from 1280 to 1367 the Mongol Yuan dynasty was sovereign over all China; and from 1644 to 1911 the Manchu Qing occupied the imperial throne.
What prompts the Maoist leadership to ``forget'' all this, to develop a ``historical logic" which leads to the absurd and selfdefeating conclusion that China as such does not exist? Zhou Enlai, speaking to the American journalist Edgar Snow in October 1960, produced a perfect refutation of this kind of argument: ``If everyone should begin settling scores that go back to the remote historical past, there would be chaos all over the world.'' In that case, he added, ``the United States would again have to come under the British state, because it gained its independence less than 200 years ago''.
Moreover, Peking is now putting forward claims over lands which were never under any type of Chinese control---where Chinese subjects, passing through, as it were, happened to leave written evidence of their presence (as, for example, on the lower reaches of the Amur). Following this line to its ``logical'' conclusion, China could lay claim to most of the world---- wherever the twenty million-plus overseas Chinese are settled.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ EARLY RUSSO-CHINESE RELATIONSScholars agree that the aboriginal inhabitants of Priamurye and the Maritime area were the Tungus Mo he tribes,^^7^^ whose _-_-_
~^^7^^ See «HcTOpHH CH6HpH», ed. Academician A. P. Okladnikov, Leningrad, 1968, Vol. I, pp. 307--20.
179 descendents created the mighty Kingdom of Bohai (694--926), which was destroyed by the Mongol Qidan, and the Empire of Jin (1126--1215), which fell when Genghis Khan invaded Manchuria.The Mongol invasions smashed the Manchu-Tungus tribal unions and scattered the tribes into the river valleys and forests. After the collapse of the Mongol empire and the accession of the Ming dynasty to the throne of China, the Chinese occupied southern Manchuria and established military outposts there. But they did not venture into Priamurye or the Maritime area.
The Ming sent small expeditions along the Sungari to the lower Amur, which left no traces of their visits except the Tyr monuments. The major task of these expeditions was to extract fur and other luxury items from the indigenous peoples.
The first Russian pioneers to reach the Amur and the Okhotsk coast found no Chinese settlements and no sign of a Chinese administrative presence. Nor were there any permanent links between the local Tungus tribes and the Empire.
In 1643 a group of Russian ``freemen'' under the command of Vasily Poyarkov left Yakutsk and sailed down the Lena and Aldan, crossing the Stanovoy range in 1644 and entering the Amur via the Zeya. There they found only Daur and Gilyak settlements which went about their business innocent of any Manchurian administrative control. And no Chinese mandarins were in evidence either; they had been driven from Manchuria some years previously.^^8^^ Poyarkov's expedition sailed down to the mouth of the Amur, and in 1645 launched out onto the Sea of Okhotsk. Shipwreck drove them back to shore, and they made their way back to Yakutsk by river and overland, arriving there on 12 July 1646. Thus Russia learned of a new river-route eastwards.
A second group of hunters led by a trapper named Yerofei Pavlbvich Khabarov left Yakutsk in 1649, proceeded up the _-_-_
~^^8^^ At the end of the 16th century the Manchu tribal unions had merged under the leadership of Nurhachu, who declared himself Khan of the Manchu Jin dynasty in 1616, and attacked China. In 1644 Peking fell, and the Manchu Qing dynasty seized the imperial throne.
180 Olyokma and Tungir, then crossed overland to the Amur. Leaving part of his group on the Amur, Khabarov returned to Yakutsk for reinforcements. He set out again in 1651 with some 400 men, founding the first Russian fortified settlement (later named Albazin) on the upper Amur and pressing on downriver to the confluence with the Zeya, where the fortified settlements of Aigun was built. In 1654 the foundations of Achansk (not far from modern Khabarovsk) were laid.Russian farming settlements sprang up around Albazin and the other townlets, and trappers' winter camps appeared in the Amur forests. News of the wealth of this land drew a flood of Russian settlers: the inhabitants of Siberia, who suffered from a chronic shortage of grain, were especially attracted by accounts of the high soil fertility. The number of Russian subjects in the area was swelled by the indigenous peoples---Buryats, Daurs and others---who accepted Russian citizenship because they were disturbed by the constant wars in Manchuria.
Meanwhile, events were moving quickly in neighbouring Manchuria and distant China: in the five or six years since it had seized the imperial throne, the Qing court had strengthened its position in China considerably and, flushed with success, had begun to look covetously to the north. In the spring of 1652, two thousand Manchu troops fell on Achansk, only to be driven off by Khabarov and his men. The arrival of Manchu reinforcements finally forced Khabarov to quit Achansk and make for Albazin.
As the Manchu forces advanced into the north-west of present-day Manchuria, the local Daurs and Mongols were transported en masse to the Nen River valley, far behind the Manchurian border. Among the victims of this enforced emigration was Gantimur,^^9^^ head of a large clan and owner of extensive territory around the upper Amur (the Shilka and Argun rivers). Gantimur and his clan, objecting to the rough treatment they were receiving, returned to their ancestral lands and in 1655 petitioned for the right to become Russian subjects and Christians. _-_-_
~^^9^^ When Gantimur became a Russian subject, he was granted the title of Prince. All his lands were returned to him, freed of all fiscal obligations (the payment of yasak, a tax in kind).
181 By 1667, his entire clan had returned from their Manchurian exile.This bolstering of Russia's position on their northern border worried the Manchus: in Gantimur they had lost the head of one of the largest Daur tribal unions, a potential Manchu proxy and bulwark on the upper Amur. The return of Gantimur featured in all Manchu-Russian talks for the next 15 years.^^10^^ Meanwhile the Manchus continued to muster their forces on the Amur right bank, pressing hard upon Albazin, Russia's stronghold on the Amur.
Despite certain administrative reforms,^^11^^ nothing concrete was done to bolster the unimpressive Russian military presence on the Amur. Having held out from 1685 to 1687, the heroic Albazin garrison (450 men with 2 cannon) succumbed to the onslaught of 15,000 Manchu soldiers, 100 field weapons and 50 siege guns, and abandoned Albazin. So unfavourable was Russia's position that her negotiator, Ambassador Golovin, had no choice but to cede the town by the Treaty of Nerchinsk (24 August 1689). No final frontier was established: the geographical data was too scanty and there were no maps of Priamurye.^^12^^ But the Treaty of Nerchinsk was a positive step in that it laid the foundations of peaceful relations and trade between Russia and China.^^13^^
_-_-_~^^10^^ The Qing Emperor Kangxi sent an envoy to Nerchinsk in 1669 with a demand for Gantimur's return. Again in 1676, N. G. Spafary, the Russian ambassador, faced---and rejected---the same demand. In 1682, Gantimur was called to Moscow, but died en route in the following year. His son Pavel was presented to Tsars Peter and Ivan and given a title. Pavel and his son Vasily were accorded the rank of Prince.
~^^11^^ In March 1653, Zinoviev, a Russian plenipotentiary, arrived from Moscow, and Priamurye officially was made part of Russia. The fortified settlement of Nerchinsk became the administrative centre of the area.
~^^12^^ The frontier was established ``from the upper reaches of that river and along the summits of those mountains"---but the mountains were not pinpointed on any map.
~^^13^^ Paragraph 5 stated: ``What kind of people soever there be with travel credentials from both sides for the friendship which herewith begins, for their dealings on both sides shall come and go to both sides at will and buy and sell what they wish" («C6opiiHK florOBOpOB PocCHH c KHT36M 1689--1881 rr.», St. Petersburg, 1889, pp. 1-6).
182 __ALPHA_LVL3__ COMMON RUSSO-CHINESE INTERESTS INBy the mid-19th century, Russia and China were facing common enemies---Britain and France---in the Far East.
Threat to Russia in the Far East. Russia's situation was particularly delicate: the external links of her Far Eastern possessions, being primarily maritime ( the overland link through Yakutsk was little used), were vulnerable to any superior sea power. And the Treaty of Nanking, which ended the first Opium War (1840-- 1842) between Britain and China, ``opened'' the major Chinese ports---Canton (Kuangchou), Shanghai, Ningfo, Amoy, and Fuzhou---to England, thereby further undermining Russia's position. From 1842 the British fleet ranged unchallenged across the Pacific and the maritime links between Russia's European ports and her Far Eastern territories---Kamchatka, the Okhotsk seaboard, and the Alaskan trading posts---operated under Britain's eyes.
At this point, the idea of using the Amur as a means of communication with the Far Eastern territories was raised again. The Amur's potential had long been neglected on the evidence of reports that Sakhalin was a peninsula and the river was not fully navigable---a fallacy which Nevelsky's expedition of 1849 finally laid to rest. The Crimean War, which ranged England and her ally, France, against Russia in 1853, stimulated Russian interest in the Amur, since it brought French and English ships to the Okhotsk seaboard. In 1854 a Russian flotilla was forced to take cover in the Amur estuary; and there, in the same year, Nikolayevsky, Russia's first naval stronghold in the area, was established. The garrison there, however, was too small to cope with a prolonged Anglo-French attack, and reinforcements from Eastern Siberia were urgently needed.
In April 1854, N. N. Muravyov, the Governor-General of Eastern Siberia, received official sanction to inform the Lifanyuan (the Chinese government department which dealt with `` dependent" territories) that Russian soldiers would shortly travel down the Amur to the Pacific. In the interests of both Russia and China, he explained, British ships must not be allowed access to the Amur.
183The Qing, being embroiled at that time with the anti-feudal peasant movement known as the Taiping rebellion, simply disregarded Muravyov's communication. But the situation of the Russian troops on the Okhotsk coast and Kamchatka had grown desperate and the Anglo-French threat to the Amur too real to be ignored. In May 1854, therefore, Muravyov warned the Chinese authorities on the right bank of the upper Amur that the Russian troops were about to embark. His opposite numbers offered no direct endorsement but said they would provision Russian contingents as they passed through.
Within the month the Argun was carrying the first of several expeditions down the Amur. Each time the local Chinese authorities were warned, and Muravyov reported that the administration of Sakhalyan-ula-khoton (Aigun), far from hindering their passage, actually provided them with provisions, horses, a guard--- and refused to take payment for this, on the grounds that trade across the Amur frontier was forbidden.
Thus reinforced, the Russian coastal garrisons were strong enough to prevent the Anglo-French fleet from squeezing the Russians from the assimilated territories of the Far East.
When the Crimean War was over, the Russian government hastened to enhance its position in the area, against an unchanged background of friendly relations with China. According to the dispatches of Archimandrite Pallady (Kafarov), head of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Peking, and of Muravyov, who was in constant contact with the Chinese administrators on the Amur right bank, the Chinese government welcomed the Russian activity on the Amur, understanding that it would secure the area against the incursions of Great Britain and other foreign powers. Russia therefore stepped up the assimilation of Priamurye: in the spring and summer of 1855 the settlements of Irkutskoye, Bogorodskoye, Mikhailovskoye, Novo-- Mikhailovskoye, and Voskresenskoye appeared on the Amur left bank. Cossack settlers founded the village of Suchi on the island of Suchi, facing the Mariinsk outpost. On 28 October (10 November) 1856 Alexander II approved the creation of a fortified line from the Ust-Strelochny watch-tower to the Mariinsk outpost.
China was in crisis during the mid-19th century. The policy 184 of isolationism, which had become the core of Chinese foreign policy under the Qing dynasty, had set China apart from the mainstream of international intercourse and put it at a gross disadvantage vis-a-vis those states which had already embarked on the stage of capitalist development.
With the Qing government concentrating its main effort on suppressing the peasant Taiping rebellion, China's defences against the invading British, French, and other western forces were weakened, and its policy of concessions and compromises enabled the western powers to capture vitally important cities.
At this time the West was particularly keen to gain access to Peking and the right to set up permanent diplomatic representations there. They began to lean heavily on the impotent Qing government.
Britain used an insignificant incident as the pretext for launching the second Opium War in 1856. In December 1857, the Anglo-French army had occupied Guangzhou, and Tianjin fell in May 1858. The Qing court was forced to sign several unequal treaties known collectively as the Tianjin Treaties.
This capitulation irritated even the higher echelons of Chinese officialdom---although their main concern was not the national interest but the damage' to imperial prestige: the Treaties had opened Peking to a diplomatic ``invasion''. Chinese exasperation with the situation was overtly expressed in 1859, when French and English envoys putting out of Tianjin on their way to Peking suddenly came under artillery bombardment. The Anglo-French forces retaliated in 1860 by reoccupying Tianjin and pushed inland towards Peking, thus launching the third Opium War.
The Qing government, heavily defeated, sued for peace and sought Russian mediation in its talks with the western powers.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ RUSSO-CHINESE RELATIONSThe situation in the Far East obviously favoured a further rapprochement between Russia and China. While England and the other western powers were forcibly imposing unequal terms of trade on China, establishing extraterritorial settlements in 185 Chinese ports, and so on, the Russian government was invariably pursuing its policy of good will and non-interference in Chinese affairs.
In 1857, Marx characterised Russo-Chinese relations as follows: ``The relations of Russia to the Chinese Empire are altogether peculiar. While the English and ourselves . . . are not allowed the privilege of a direct communication even with the Viceroy of Canton, the Russians enjoy the advantage of maintaining an Embassy at Peking (the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission.---M.S.)... Being excluded from the maritime trade with China, the Russians are free from any interest or involvement in past or pending disputes on that subject; and they also escape that antipathy with which from time immemorial the Chinese have regarded all foreigners approaching their country by sea . . . the Russians enjoy an inland and overland trade peculiar to themselves...."^^14^^
Despite Russo-Chinese amity, several problems were outstanding, giving rise to incidents and misunderstandings. Notably, this applied to the border issue, because the existing treaties were inadequate, that of Nerchinsk being based on most indefinite topographical data, and the Treaty of Kyakhta having demarcated the border only in the Trans-Baikal-Mongolia sector. And in addition, the unofficial Russo-Chinese trading links which had formed all along the frontier made the official recognition of only one trading point (Kyakhta)^^15^^ irrelevant. Finally, the official barter system at Kyakhta was a hurdle to the normal development of commerce there.
The Treaty of Aigun, The Crimean War had so altered the status quo in the Far East that the outstanding issues between Russia and China---the undemarcated sections of the frontier, navigation rules for the Amur and Ussuri, and Sino-Russian trade in those areas---could no longer remain unresolved.
In early 1857 it was agreed to send Admiral Putyatin to China--- with strict instructions not to interfere in Chinese internal affairs and to use only diplomatic means to achieve his ends.
_-_-_~^^14^^ Karl Marx, ``The Russian Trade with China'', New-York Daily Tribune, 7 April 18f)7, p. 4.
~^^15^^ Tsuruhaitu, the other point mentioned in the Kyakhta Treaty, had ceased to function by the 1750s.
186The following statement by E.P. Kovalevsky, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Asian Department, clearly illustrates the official Russian stance at this time: ``Our interests (in China.---M.S.) differ too much from those of other European powers. . . . The seizure of Peking by the Europeans and the seizure of Herat by the English would be equally felt by us and in neither case could we remain indifferent bystanders: the first eventuality would paralyse all our undertakings on the shores of the Great Ocean and the Amur, and the second would place all of Central Asia under English control.''
Putyatin, refused entry to Peking by the overland route, sailed down the Amur to Nikolayevsk and reached Tianjin by sea. There the Manchu authorities delayed official recognition of his mission, producing various excuses for their dilatoriness, including the fact that Tianjin was ``not actually a place where ambassadors are received''. The Lifanyuan then declared that the border issue should be resolved on the border, and that Putyatin had better go back there.
Even before Putyatin's arrival, Archimandrite Pallady had told Muravyov that Peking's evasiveness was due to Manchu fears that any concessions to Russia might prompt fresh demands from England or even motivate it to support the Taiping rebels against the government. It later became clear that certain Qing dignitaries supported the idea of rapprochement with Russia and the rapid resolution of the frontier issue, and the navigation and trade questions.^^16^^
It was soon obvious that an early agreement was out of the question, despite Putyatin's eagerness---which did not always accord with his instructions or his government's policy^^17^^---to hurry matters on. Having heard that Qing officials were prepared to make the journey to the Amur, the Russian government sanctioned the continuation of the talks there.
Late in 1857 the Lifanyuan received a reminder that it had _-_-_
~^^16^^ Among those named by Pallady as champions of rapprochement were Wen Qing, a member of the Military Council, Qi Ying, a relative of the Emperor, and Sang Shangyi, who had helped draw up the RussoChinese treaty of Kuldja in 1851.
~^^17^^ An emergency Ministerial meeting had rejected Putyatin's idea of joining forces with the western powers to pressure China.
187 not replied to the Russian proposal on co-operative defence measures and an announcement that Muravyov would be the Russian representative at the talks.^^18^^ On 10 May 1858 Muravyov met the Manchu plenipotentiary Yi Shan, commander of Heilongjiang, at Aigun (a town on the Amur right bank near the modern town of Heihe). On 16 May, after six days of hard bargaining, the Treaty of Aigun was signed. On China's suggestion, a statement was inserted in the preamble, emphasising that the Treaty had been signed ``by common consent, for the benefit of the greater and eternal mutual friendship of the two states and the good of their subjects".^^19^^The first clause of the Treaty defined the frontier as follows: ``The left bank of the Amur River . . . shall belong to the Russian state, while the right bank downriver up to the Ussuri River shall belong to the Daiqing state (China.---Trans).'' The territory ``from the Ussuri River down to the sea" was to remain ``in the common possession of the Daiqing and Russian states until a boundary between the two states shall be defined''. Further, only Chinese and Russian ships were to be allowed use of the Amur, Sungari, and Ussuri.^^20^^
The second clause of the Treaty removed the territorial limitations placed on Russo-Chinese trade by the Treaty of Kyakhta. ``For the mutual friendship of the subjects of both states, mutual trade is permitted to those subjects of both states who live along the Ussuri, Amur and Sungari rivers, and those in authority must mutually protect the trading people of the two states on both banks"^^21^^
So obviously equitable was the Aigun Treaty that the Qing Emperor without hesitation issued an edict on 2 June 1858 to endorse all ``that was discussed in the talks" and appealed to the _-_-_
~^^18^^ On 5 January 1858 (24 December 1857), Putyatin was informed that ``our interests are so different from those of the western powers that the rights and privileges which the latter might extract for themselves on the Chinese seas are not important enough for us to risk our benefits on the land frontier" (Quoted in «McTOpHH TOproiio-^KOiioMH' icCKHX OTiiouieiiHii napo^ou POCCHH c Kmat'M (AO 1917 r.)», p. 235).
~^^19^^ I'J «PycCKO-KHTaHCKHe OTIIOIUCUHH. 1689---1916», p. 29
~^^20^^ Ibid.
~^^21^^ Ibid., p. 30.
188 Russians to ``apply themselves to exhort the English and French to put an end to their unjust demands''. Alexander II rejoiced: ``We could not hope for better.''The Aigun Treaty was a milestone in Russo-Chinese relations; by defining the Amur frontier it stimulated further contact between the two great neighbours.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ THE RUSSO-CHINESE TREATIES OFRussian good will towards China could hardly fail to influence the more farsighted Chinese officials, though Qing foreign policy continued erratic and contradictory, due to pressure from the western powers and the instability of the regime.
Putyatin had reported that the Manchus were eager to enlist Russian support in their negotiations with England and France. Archimandrite Pallady testified that they looked to Putyatin to mitigate the English demands---indeed, they had a ``blind belief" in his ability to do so.^^22^^
The Qing agreed to western demands for a new series of treaties. Then, on 8 April 1858, the Emperor ordered that preferential treatment be accorded to Russia. Since the Russian government had disassociated itself from several western claims, including the demand for embassies in Peking, the Qing government hoped that a new Sino-Russian agreement might help to limit British encroachments. Russia was consequently the first country to sign a treaty with China on 1 June 1858, after the hostilities had ended.
The mutual desire to settle the frontier issue definitively is clearly reflected in the Tianjin (Tientsin) Treaty. Paragraph 9 states: ``The undefined sections of the f ion tiers between China and Russia shall without delay be studied in situ by persons accredited by both governments and the stipulations they make about the boundary line shall comprise a supplementary paragraph of the present treaty. In fixing the boundaries, a detailed description and maps ofi the adjacent areas shall be drawn up, _-_-_
~^^22^^ «HsBecTHH MHfl», bk. 2, St. Petersburg, 1912, p. 257.
189 which shall serve both governments for the future as incontestable documentation on the frontiers.''On the day he signed the Tianjin Treaty, Putyatin did not know that two weeks previously, on 16 May, a large segment of the frontier had been demarcated by the Aigun Treaty. Hence, the paragraph quoted above would refer only to the remaining sector around the Ussuri.
The Russo-Chinese Tianjin Treaty was in China's interests at that point: it did not even mention the extension of foreigners' rights to freedom of movement and trade in the Chinese interior or the establishment of foreign embassies in Peking---both points for which England and France were still pressing.
Putyatin announced that in addition the Russian government was willing to satisfy the Manchu request for arms and military instructors to create a new Chinese military machine capable of ``restraining the urge of other states to apply force''.
However, the Qing hope that this Treaty would inhibit England and France proved vain. The treaties which China subsequently signed with those two countries imposed heavy indemnities (4 million Hang to England, 2 million to France) and gave foreign traders freedom of movement throughout the country. British ships were to be allowed on the Yangtse, British goods were freed from internal tariffs and subjected instead to an export tariff increased by a mere 2.5 per cent, and finally, Britain was allowed to set up a permanent embassy in Peking and France a temporary representation.
This humiliation infuriated all sectors of Chinese society. The Qing government refused to ratify any of the Tianjin Treaties, including that signed with Russia. England and France began to make hurried preparations for another attack on China.
Major-General Ignatiev set out for China in March 1859, taking in his entourage training officers for the Chinese army. He had been commissioned to continue discussions on the points left undecided by the Putyatin mission: the demarcation of the frontier from the Ussuri to the sea, the revival of the caravan trade through Urga to Peking or to Kalgan (and the creation of a Russian trading facility there), and the establishment of Russian trading premises in Kashgar.
190Ignatiev's mission got off to a bad start. The Qing victory over an Anglo-French squadron near the Dagu forts had encouraged the government to believe that it could drive the foreigners away by main force. All current negotiations and existing agreements were annulled.
This faith in military solutions soon foundered. The Manchus, with the bulk of their forces tied up against the Taiping rebels, were not able to pre-empt another Anglo-French intervention (the third Opium War), so that by August 1860 the foreigners were in Tianjin and rapidly advancing on Peking, looting and destroying as they went. They even sacked and torched Yuanminyuan, the magnificent Qing summer residence on the outskirts of Peking. The Emperor Xiangfeng and his court fled to Rehe province, and Peking seemed to be beyond help.
Ignatiev, who had arrived in Shanghai ;n May 1860 and then moved to Tianjin, was meanwhile trying to dissuade the English and French from attacking Peking, forcing the transfer of the capital from Peking to Nanking, insisting on the establishment of permanent foreign embassies in the capital and so on. His overt stand against the atrocities of the interventionists and against British commercial expansionism distinguished him favourably from the western diplomats; it soon became clear to both the Chinese people and their rulers that he was the mouthpiece of a friendly country. Ignatiev also made adept use of the frictions that emerged as France began to chafe against her role of pawn in England's colonial game.
The Anglo-French forces were in the outskirts of Peking when Ignatiev arrived; he lodged with the religious mission in the capital. Qing officials asked for his mediation to end the hostilities, and he agreed. On 18 (6) October he received a letter from the Emperor's step-brother, Prince Gong, the imperial proxy, which promised that once peace was made, all business with Russia would be promptly concluded.
Ignatiev persuaded the British and French ambassadors not to proceed with the siege of Peking or the erection of a monument to allied soldiers killed in Tianjin, to cut down the entourages of envoys entering the Chinese capital in future and to modify certain other claims. Yet the allies stood firm on all other points contained in the annulled treaties and on the demands 191 made in the course of the third Opium War. On the night of 18 October, Ignatiev informed the English and French that the Chinese had discussed the conditions in his presence and agreed to them all; he extracted an allied promise to speed the withdrawal from Peking to Tianjin.
The grateful Chinese were quick to admit that had Ignatiev not been present, there is no doubt that ``the Europeans would not have missed the opportunity to sack the town''.
Now Ignatiev was able to get on with his own task. He had brought maps prepared by Muravyov which showed a possible demarcation of the frontier from Lake Khanka to the sea. Muravyov had also reported that the area between the Ussuri and the sea was inhabited only by fugitive Chinese; the sole permanent Chinese settlement was at the confluence of the Hunchunhe and the Tumen, some 45 versts from the sea, ``which proves that the Chinese government has accepted that these places are outside its domains''.
Ignatiev and the Manchu plenipotentiaries agreed that representatives must be sent to study the area between Khanka and the sea before final agreement on the frontier there could be reached. The Russian side withdrew its request for a consulate in Qiqihar and accepted that the single Chinese adult males living around the Ussuri should be allowed to remain there and continue answerable to the Chinese authorities.
On 2 November 1860 Ignatiev and Prince Gong (Yi Xin) signed a supplementary agreement later known as the Peking Treaty. Prior to the ceremony, which was held in the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Peking, they had received a copy of an imperial edict confirming that the Treaty had been drafted ``with due attention" and that ``all that is stipulated in [it should be] fulfilled''. The Treaty was then endorsed by the Russian Tsar and published in Peking on 20 December 1860 and in Russia four days later. Since both rulers had already expressed their approval, ratification procedures were waived.
The first paragraph of the Peking Treaty established the eastern sector of the Russo-Chinese frontier: ``From the confluence of the Shilka and Argun rivers, the frontier will run down the Amur River to the confluence of this latter river with the Ussuri River. The lands which lie on the left bank (northwards) of the 192 Amur River shall belong to the Russian state, while the lands on the right bank (southwards) to the estuary of the Ussuri River shall belong to the Chinese state. Thence, from the Ussuri estuary to Lake Khinkai (Khanka.---M.S.), the boundary line runs along the Ussuri and Sungacha rivers. The lands which lie on the eastern (right) bank ofi these rivers shall belong to the Russian state, while those on the western (left) bank shall belong to the Chinese state. Then the boundary line between the two states runs from the estuary of the Sungacha River, crosses Lake Khinkai, and proceeds to the Bailing He (River Tur), and from the estuary of this latter river along the mountain range to the issue of the Hubitu (Hubtu) River and thence along the mountains which lie between the Hunchunhe River and the sea to the Tumen. Here also the lands which lie to the east shall belong to the Russian state and those to the west, to the Chinese state.''
Paragraph 2 defined the western sector of the frontier, which was to follow ``the direction of the mountains, the flow of the large rivers and the lines of existing Chinese boundary markers from .. . the Shabin-dabaga beacon ... to the south-west to Lake Zaisang and thence to the mountains which lie to the south of Lake Issyk Kyi and are named Tianshannanlu and along those mountains to the domains of Kokand''.
Once this lengthy frontier had been settled, the question arose of increasing the number of trading posts---not only to further centralised trade but also to serve the commercial needs of the frontier populations. The Peking Treaty opened new trading posts all along the frontier. Paragraph 7 allowed Russian subjects on Chinese territory and Chinese subjects on Russian territory equal rights to ``engage in trading activities freely, without any constraint on the part of local officials''.
The arrangement whereby no customs duties were levied on goods exchanged at Kuldja and Chuguchak was extended in paragraph 4 of the Peking Treaty to the new frontier along the Amur and Ussuri to the Tumen. The Manchus agreed to open Peking to Russian merchants again: they would enter Mongolia via Kyakhta and be permitted to trade in Urga and Kalgan en route. Russia reciprocated by inviting Chinese merchants ``to set out and trade in Russia''.
__PRINTERS_P_193_COMMENT__ 13---2499 193``By way of experiment,'' paragraph 6 added, ``trade shall be allowed in Kashgar on the same basis as in Yili and Tarbagataj (Kuldja and Chuguchak.---M.S.).'' The Peking Treaty's provisions on overland trade resembled those of previous agreements in that they embodied the principles of mutual benefit, unlike the commercial treaties which China had concluded with the western powers. China hereby was accorded the right not only to trade on Russian soil but also to have ``consuls in the capitals and other towns of the Russian Empire''.
The Tianjin and Peking Treaties also heralded the birth of Sino-Russian maritime trade. In accordance with the most-- favoured-nation principle, Russia was to share all the advantages won by other foreign states. Yet, since the Russian navy was still under strength in the Far East and the Chinese navy was almost nonexistent, interest in the Tianjin and Peking Treaties continued to centre on overland commerce.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ THE SUPPLEMENTSThe frontier clauses of these two treaties had to hang fire until supplementary agreements were drawn up in accordance with maps produced by surveyors on the spot and commercial procedures were properly regulated.
Ignatiev had presented Gong with Russian maps of the frontier from the Ussuri to the sea when they met to conclude the Peking Treaty. Commissioners from both sides were now appointed to study the frontier, then exchange agreed maps and topographical descriptions and sign a demarcation protocol.
The Russian commissioners were Rear-Admiral Kazakevichev, military governor of the Maritime area, and Colonel Budogosky, senior quartermaster of the Eastern Siberian forces. Their Chinese counterparts were senior quartermaster Chun and Jing, military governor of Kirin province.
The Chinese commissioners later informed the Russians in writing that ``at the estuary of the Ussuri, the frontier is clearly 194 delimited" but the section from Khanka to the sea needed further research. In June 1861, therefore, the commissioners met on the Bailing He near Khanka, and on 16 June they signed a protocol on the exchange of signed and sealed maps in Russian and Manchurian with written descriptions. This protocol subsequently became a supplementary clause of the Peking Treaty and it was decided to place boundary posts between Khanka and the sea.
A similar undertaking on the Central Asian frontier, given legal form in the Chuguchak Protocol, was beset by more serious difficulties, partly because of the nomadic lifestyle of the Kazakhs and Kirghiz who lived in the area and partly because the Chinese boundary posts---which, according to the Peking Treaty, were pivotal to the demarcation procedures---roused considerable controversy. The Chinese authorities insisted that the frontier should run not only through the permanent (changzu) markers but also through the mobile (yishe) and temporary (tianche) Chinese markers (kuolun) which had been set up during occasional Chinese forays into Kazakh and Kirghiz lands.
Chinese plenipotentiaries arrived at the border in June 1861 and handed A. I. Dyugamel, the Governor-General of Western Siberia, a letter which asked him to send Russian commissioners to Chuguchak. The request was considered in St. Petersburg on 29 June, and Alexander II put his signature to the commissioners' instructions on 17 March 1862. ``First of all,'' they were told, ``you must use all endeavours to explain to the Chinese commissioners that in deciding the frontier issue, our government wishes solely to see the treaties followed to the letter.... Then you will proceed to interpret the second paragraph of the Peking Treaty to mean that the new frontier passes through the line of existing permanent Chinese check posts, which up to this time have constituted a frontier between the two states that has not been positively ratified but has been, as it were, a conditionally accepted border, and where there are no such check posts, then, according to the terrain, the frontier should run along the mountains and the large rivers.''
Official talks began in Chuguchak on 17 July 1862. The Russian side consisted of Colonel I. F. Bobkov, senior quartermaster in Omsk and chief negotiator, Captain A. F. Golubev, second in command, and K. V. Struve, an official from the Asian __PRINTERS_P_195_COMMENT__ 13* 195 Department.^^23^^ The Chinese commissioners were Ming Yi, the military administrator (jiangjiong) of Wuliasatui region, Ming Xu, the hebei of Tarbagataj region, and Habqixiang, an aide. The official meeting was also attended by Brigade Commander Bolgosu.
The fourth paragraph of the Chuguchak Protocol stipulated that in 1865 the temporary Chinese boundary markers should be moved ``to the Chinese side of the frontier within a month from the time of setting up the frontier marker in that place from which the post is to be moved''. The first frontier markers were to go up 240 days after the exchange of protocols, following the principles laid down in paragraph~6: ``Where the frontier passes along high mountains, there the summit shall be taken as the boundary line; and where it passes along large rivers, there the river-banks shall serve as the boundary line; and where the frontier crosses mountains and rivers, there new frontier markers shall be placed. In general, when markers are placed along the whole frontier, the direction of the current must be observed and the markers placed according to the geographical setting. If, for example, there is no pass through a range of mountains and it would consequently be difficult to place markers, then the frontier shall be based on the mountain ridge and the direction of the flowing waters. When placing the frontier markers in the valleys, 30 sazhen (20 Chinese sazhen) [some 64 metres.---Trans.} shall be left between.''
Dual copies of the Protocol in Russian and Manchurian and attached maps were signed and exchanged by Zakharov, Bobkov, Ming Yi, Xi Lei---the heb.ei-ambang of Tarbagataj---and Bolgosu on 25 September 1864. It had been drawn up in accordance with the general principles of the Peking Treaty and fixed the frontier on a stretch between Altai and Tian Shan.
The Chuguchak Protocol gave legal form to the status quo as it had shaped by the 1860s on the Russo-Chinese frontier between Altai and Tian Shan and served as a model in defining _-_-_
~^^23^^ A government meeting chaired by Alexander~II on 10 January 1862 had named Bobkov as chief negotiator and Struve as secretary. Bobkov later had I. I. Zakharov, the Kuldja Consul General, included in the party. The first session of the negotiations in Chuguchak was also attended by K. A. Skachkov.
196 other stretches of the Central Asian frontier. The Russo-Chinese Treaty of St. Petersburg (1881) improved on the Peking Treaty (1860) and the Chuguchak Protocol (1864) by further defining certain stretches of the frontier in accordance with geographical, economic and ethnic factors. In 1894 the frontier in the Pamirs was agreed and confirmed by an exchange of notes.Thus it was that during the second half of the 19th century the entire border between Russia and China was definitively settled.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ REAFFIRMATION OF THE FRONTIERFor over a century the boundary which once separated Russia and China and now runs between the Soviet Union and the PRC gave rise to no disputes whatsoever.
The Mao Zedong leadership, having set out on a ``special'' course designed to fold co-operation with the socialist countries, broadcast its territorial claims on neighbouring states, and specifically on the Soviet Union. In the absence of any legal justification for reviewing the Russo-Chinese frontier treaties, the Maoist leadership, with cavalier disregard for historical fact, announced that the treaties in question had been ``annulled'' by the Soviet government itself during Lenin's lifetime, on the grounds that they were ``unequal tsarist treaties''.
It is a fact that soon after its formation the Soviet government abrogated those treaties concluded between tsarist Russia and certain colonies and dependencies which allowed Russia to interfere in the internal affairs of those countries, and to impose, along with other imperialist states, obedient governments there. But in every case the treaties were clearly specified---and the case of China was no exception.
The most detailed exposition of the Soviet attitude to this issue is found in the Address of the government of the RSFSR to the Chinese people and the governments of South and North China (25 July 1919), which states: ``As soon as the Workers' and Peasants' Government had taken power into its hands in October 1917, it offered all the peoples of the world, in the name of the 197 Russian people, to conclude a durable and permanent peace.... The Soviet government also invited the Chinese government to enter into talks on the abrogation of the Treaty of 1896, the Peking Protocol of 1901, and all the agreements made with Japan from 1907 through 1916...."^^24^^ Later, when making concrete proposals, the Soviet government referred to this document, thereby affirming its continued validity.
Georgi Chicherin, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, enlarged on the treaty question at the Fifth All-Russia Congress of Soviets: ``We repudiated all secret treaties with which the ruling classes of the Eastern countries bound themselves, for their own benefit or under duress, to the tsarist government. . . . We informed the Chinese government that we were relinquishing tsarist gains in Manchuria.... We recalled all our security detachments from China. ... We agree to forgo the extraterritorial rights of our citizens in China, Mongolia, and Persia. We are prepared to waive all indemnities imposed under various pretexts on the peoples of China, Mongolia, and Persia by the former Russian government."^^25^^
This documentary evidence completely vitiates Maoist attempts to distort history. Lenin had provided an exhaustive definition of the Soviet government's position with regard to the ``tsarist treaties": ``The secret treaties must be published. The clauses dealing with annexations and indemnities must be annulled. There are various clauses, comrades---the predatory governments, you know, not only made agreements between themselves on plunder, but among them they also included economic agreements and various other clauses on good-neighbourly relations.. . . We reject all clauses on plunder and violence, but we shall welcome all clauses containing provisions for good-neighbourly relations and all economic agreements; we cannot reject these."^^26^^
Lenin's analysis makes clear why the Russo-Chinese frontier treaties were not among the ``tsarist agreements" abrogated by _-_-_
~^^24^^ «flOKyM6HTbI BHeillHeft nOJIHTHKH CCCP», Vol. II, p. 221.
~^^25^^ P. B. tfimepiiH. CrarbH H peiH no MewflyHapOflHbiM BonpocaM, Moscow, 1961, pp. 58, 59.
~^^26^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 26, p. 255.
198 the Soviet government. We might mention that the question of revising the frontiers, was not even raised when in 1924 the Soviet Ambassador, L. M. Karakhan, negotiated and signed what was for China the first equal treaty in modern times---the Agreement on the general principles for the settlement of questions between the USSR and the Chinese Republic. Indeed, the two sides agreed to verify the frontiers, thus confirming them as they stood.Numerous treaties and agreements were concluded between the Soviet Union and the PRC government---and still the Chinese side did not raise any queries about the frontier, although the discussions touched on all aspects of inter-governmental relations. The PRC leadership spoke highly of these Soviet-Chinese accords; during a governmental conference, Mao Zedong himself said: ``They have provided us with a reliable ally. They have eased our efforts towards internal progress and concerted opposition to imperialist aggression in order to preserve peace throughout the world."^^27^^
The Soviet-Chinese Treaty on Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance (14 February 1950) formed the basis of the rules for navigation on frontier lakes and rivers (the Agreement of 21 December 1957), the procedural principles of trade and seafaring (the Treaty of 23 April 1958), and other such documents.
The Soviet-Chinese frontier is 7,500 kilometres long; it is hardly surprising that occasional specific problems arise: a frontier marker might come into question, for instance, or the border line along a river which might have changed its channel or fairway. But an agreement exists whereby such cases may be discussed and the maps revised accordingly. Such discussions were held in Peking in 1964---and could have been fruitful if the Chinese side had genuinely wanted to reach agreement.
The Chinese leadership, true to its generally anti-Soviet stance, is using the ``territorial issue" as a political tool. It breaks off the frontier negotiations in an atmosphere of contrived jingoism, dusting off the old bugbear of ``Soviet aggression" and taking the opportunity to settle accounts with its internal opponents by branding them ``Soviet agents''.
_-_-_~^^27^^ Renminribao, 13 April 1950.
199 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1980/PROCE270/20070517/270.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2007.05.19) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [*0-9]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_SEQUENCE__ continuousThe ``Ussuri incident'', staged in the spring of 1969, was an important move in the Maoist leadership's anti-Soviet game. Its territorial claims to the Soviet Union, so reminiscent of revanchist demands issuing from West Germany and Japan, have given it the reputation of ``reliable ally" among US imperialist elements.
The present Peking leadership, headed by Hua Guofeng, deliberately deadlocked the frontier talks that began in 1969, thus striking a blow against international detente and dashing hopes that Asian security might be assured through collective endorsement of the principles of territorial integrity and non-- interference in the internal affairs of other nations.
There are no ``territorial problems" in Soviet-Chinese relations. Any objective observer with access to the evidence of history can see immediately that the PRC's territorial claims are nothing more than a means of whipping up Great-Han hysteria in China, of ``justifying'' the policy of enforced militarisation, of setting the scene for future acts of aggression. The Soviet Union's stance, on the other hand, was thus encapsulated by Leonid Brezhnev: ``There are no issues in relations between the USSR and the PRC that could not be resolved in the spirit of goodneighbourliness. We will continue working towards this goal. The matter will depend on what stand will be taken by the other side.''^^28^^
__ALPHA_LVL3__ TERRITORIAL CLAIMS:The past two decades have shown time and again that the PRC's policy towards neighbouring countries invariably involves expansionist ambitions.
India was one of the first countries with which the PRC broke faith. Sino-Indian relations were amicable for the first ten years _-_-_
~^^28^^ L. I. Brezhnev, Speech at the Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on October 25, 1976, Mocow, 1976, p. 36.
200 of the PRC's existence: all questions were dealt with in a peaceful, good-neighbourly spirit, and on 29 April 1954 Jawaharlal Nehru and Zhou Enlai signed an agreement which embodied the ``five principles of peaceful coexistence" (``puncha shila'')---the groundwork of Sino-Indian relations. During a visit to India in the summer of 1954, Zhou Enlai remarked in a radio interview that countless centuries of cultural and economic interchange between China and India had never been marred by conflict or animosity.Yet all this went by the board in 1958, when the PRC adopted the Maoist, Great-Han foreign policy. In the summer of that year, without a word ofi warning, Chinese soldiers were sent across the western sector of the frontier, into Ladakh district to seize the Khurnak fort. The Indian government also took anxious note of the highway which the Chinese were building through Aksai-chin---designated part of India on Indian maps--- and of various new Chinese maps that showed other parts of India as coming within the PRC. Angered by these unilateral actions, Nehru appealed directly to Zhou Enlai: he had never known, he wrote, that there was such a thing as a Sino-Indian frontier issue. He refused to consider that the large areas in question could belong to any country but India.
But neither these cautions nor meetings between Nehru and Zhou Enlai in 1960 had any noticeable result. Throughout I960 and during the summer of 1962 there were violent clashes on the Sino-Indian frontier, and China began to mass infantry, artillery and tank units and gear up its air force for a large-scale invasion. In October 1962 the Chinese pushed back the Indian frontier forces and struck deep into Indian territory.
Peking declared this a major victory, proof of the superiority of the People's Liberation Army and a foretaste of greater victories to come---in order, quite simply, to distract the Chinese people's attention from the parlous state of the Chinese economy (a legacy of the ``great leap forward''), to stoke up ``war fever" in China and to scare other neighbouring states.
Hostilities were finally halted through the intervention of six non-aligned states, who persuaded Peking to pull its forces 20 201 kilometres behind the occupied line, although the territory seized before 7 November 1959 remained in Chinese hands.^^29^^
In subsequent years, Peking's behaviour towards India---- goading Pakistan to go to war against India, demands made in 1965 that India dismantle its fortifications, infiltration ofi rebel groups into India, etc.---showed that Peking was ready to strike against India again when the time was ripe.
Because of this aggressive stance---and the fact that the frontier issue is still outstanding---Sino-Indian relations remain in the doldrums. On 22 February 1978, Prime Minister Morarji Desai told a mass meeting in Hyderabad that China still held some 15,000 square miles of Indian territory, which India intended to get back by peaceful means.^^30^^
The Vietnamese people have also felt the pressure of GreatHan expansionism. In the final stage of Vietnam's fight for reunification, the armed forces of the PRC took advantage of the withdrawal of the US Seventh Fleet from the South China Sea and the fact that the Democratic Republic of Vietnam had no naval presence there, to commit an aggression against Vietnam. On 19 January 1974, the Chinese Navy provoked a clash with a small unit of South Vietnamese frontier troops on Duncan island and seized the Paracel chain.
The next day, the Foreign Ministry in Peking justified its action and declared similar intentions with regard to the Spratly Islands. It is historical fact that these islands had been under French jurisdiction from the 1880s until 1939, when they were seized by Japan. History notwithstanding, they became Chinese ``property'' in 1974---and Southeast Asia heard the warning bells.
The situation in Vietnam changed radically when the puppet rulers of the South and their American masters were driven out. In April 1975 naval commanders of the Republic of South _-_-_
~^^29^^ A meeting of six non-aligned nations (Ceylon, Egypt, Ghana, Burma, Indonesia, and Cambodia) was convened at the initiative of the Prime Minister of Ceylon and appealed to China to settle ist border disputes with India by peaceful means and to withdraw its troops 20 km behind the occupied line as a first step. The withdrawal was made to the line occupied by 7 November 1959, but all other issues remained unresolved.
~^^30^^ See Pravda, 23 February 1978.
202 Vietnam (this was before the formation of the united Socialist Republic of Vietnam) accepted the surrender of the South Vietnamese puppet forces on the Spratly Islands, thus asserting Vietnamese sovereignty.The Indonesian newspaper, Sinar Harapan, saw the PRC claims to the Spratly group and the seizure of the Paracels as a clear forecast of Peking's future methods and intentions in Asia.^^31^^
Among the other examples of Maoist treachery, we would mention particularly the attitude to the Mongolian People's Republic and to the Mongols presently living on Chinese soil.
The MPR was the first state ever to bypass the capitalist stage of development and proceed directly to socialism, following Lenin's precepts.
In his fine study of the history of socialist Mongolia, Yu. Tsedenbal attributed the country's progress to the inexhaustible power of Marxism-Leninism, fraternal co-operation of the socialist countries, and fidelity to proletarian internationalism. ``The key factor behind the historic successes of the Mongolian people in building a new society,'' Tsedenbal wrote, ``is the constant development of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party on Marxist-Leninist principles, its extension and consolidation of international ties, and creative adoption of the unparallelled experience of the great Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the vanguard of the international communist movement, whose experience is of great international relevance.''^^32^^
The MPR is an example to the world, and has provided vital moral support for the Mongol population of the PRC---a national minority which Maoist policy had placed under threat of enforced total assimilation. And this explains Peking's hostility to socialist Mongolia and its incessant attacks on Mongolian sovereignty. In Tsedenbal's words, ``the Chinese leadership continues to pursue an annexationist policy towards the MPR. Our country is under constant political, economic, and ideological pressure from China".^^33^^
_-_-_~^^31^^ Sinar Harapan, 4 February 1974.
~^^32^^ fO. U.eden6aji. HcropHiecKHH nyrb pasBHTHH MOHPO^HH, Ulan Bator, 1976, p. 473.
~^^33^^ Ibid., p. 577.
203Mongolian sovereignty is evidently a thorn in the flesh of the Maoist leadership---yet all attempts to interfere in its internal affairs have met determined resistance on the part of the Mongolian government.
The numerous known instances of threats, duress, territorial encroachment against neighbouring states are but an illustration ot the general lines of PRC Great-Han foreign policy. And for as long as the heirs of Mao Zedong continue to rule China, such instances will continue to multiply and states which up to now have been left---for whatever reason---in peace will inevitably be involved.
The Maoist leadership is careful to disguise---with cavalier disregard for the truth---the nature of its Great-Han foreign policy, which endangers peace, even from the Chinese people, and not surprisingly, for throughout the history of China militarism and war have brought nothing but disaster and suffering for the people.
But let us conclude with Leonid Brezhnev's formulation of the Soviet Union's position: ``As for the Soviet Union, we do not lay down any preliminary conditions for the normalisation of relations with China. We have for long offered the Chinese side to enter into businesslike and concrete negotiations. We do not lay claim to any alien territories, and for us there are no ' disputed areas' in this sense.''^^34^^
From the collection «KHT3H.
OCHOBHbie npoSjlCMbl HCTOpHH, 3KOHOMHKH,
HeoorHH», Moscow, 1978, pp. 185--
223.
~^^34^^ L. I. Brezhnev, Following Lenin's Course, Moscow, 1975, p. 535.
[204] __ALPHA_LVL2__ GREAT-HAN HEGEMONISM AND THES. Tikhvinsky
The foreign policy acts of Peking's leadership in recent years as well as the articles and historical material published in the PRC after the 10th National Congress of the CPC, are a graphic demonstration of the fact that Wang Hongweng's assurances that China ``must under all circumstances adhere to the principle `never to lay claim to hegemony' or 'to be a superpower'~" (Report to the Congress on Revision of the Party Constitution) were nothing but a diversion, for the main goal of the Chinese leadership, world domination, remains unchanged.^^1^^
In 1974, the Maoist leaders launched a sweeping ideological campaign of criticism against Lin Biao and Confucius, with wide participation of Chinese historians. As part of the campaign the historians were to contrive ``historical justifications" for the _-_-_
~^^1^^ The 10th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, p. 61. The Chronology of the Major Events in the Strife of Two 'Policies in the CPC, Peking, 1969, a classified volume of the ``cultural revolution" period, admits that, as far back as 1955, the Maoists were already guided by the directive to turn China into a world political centre and, on this basis, to isolate the fraternal parties from the CPSU. Mao's speech of 12 November 1956 dedicated to the ``memory of Mister Sun Yatsen" contained statement to the effect that China ``must make a relatively big contribution to the cause of humanity''. The Chronology comments upon this in the following manner: ``Contemporary China, under the wise guidance of Chairman Mao, has become the centre of the world communist movement and, in the future, may make a still greater contribution to the cause of the world proletarian revolution" (p. 386). The same Chronology also carries a quote from a poem Mao wrote at the end of the 50s: `` Sunukun, the `Golden monkey', must lift its cudgel of a thousand-stone and swing it so, that Universe be quelled and cleansed of all its poltergeists and devils" (p. 525). The quote is interpreted as a directive for the world hegemony of China.
205 excesses of the ``cultural revolution" and for Mao's personality cult, to unearth and continually to furnish new ``facts'', propping up the Maoist theory of the messianic destiny of the Chinese nation.The Soviet press did a detailed analysis of the content 06 the historical attributes used in the ``Lin Biao-Confucius criticism" campaign,^^2^^ which vizually crossed out the previous ideological precept ``hou ching bao gu'', ``more of the new, less of the old" supposedly to implement the Maoist precept ``gu wei ching yung" ---``use the old to serve the new''.
The Chinese press of 1973--1976 was literally crammed with articles on the ancient and medieval history of China, extolling those emperors and statesmen who followed the legist philosophy and policy, while these articles rejected the philosophers and politicians who followed Confucius. These articles fully ignored the fact that Confucianism and legism were philosophical and politico-ideological schools, catering to the ruling feudal class, that the legists' contempt for the toiling masses and neglect of their just vital demands were at times even more brazen and cynical than those of the Confucianists. (Among other things the legists believed it necessary to dupe the people, renounced the spreading of enlightenment, and justified wars and violence.)
Mao Zedong needed all this commotion around the history of the internecine strife between the legists and the Confucianists not only to justify reprisals against his political adversaries,^^3^^ but also to revise all of Chinese history from the Great-Han standpoint in order to establish the new great-power interpretation of the history of China and the whole of the human race in the minds of the young people.
As far back as the beginning of the 60s, Chinese young people have been bred in the spirit of disdain for all things foreign, and _-_-_
~^^2^^ `` See P. B. BXTKUH. HeKoiopue Bonpocbi neropHH o6mecTBa H rypu KftTafl H KaMnaHHH «KPHTHKH KOH<PVUHH» B KHP.---Narody Azii i Afriki, No. 4, 1974; Jl. C. TJepeAOMoe. O ncuiHTHiecKoft KaMnaHHH «K`p'HTHKa» KoHefiyilHH H JlHHb Bflo».---Problemy Dalnego Vostoka, No. 3, 1974, and Mao, JierHCTbi H KOHCpyuHaHubi.---Voprosy wioriiYNo. 3, 1975.
~^^3^^ Lin Biao, whom Mao formally proclaimed his successor at the 9th Congress of the CPC in 1969, is now slighted as an ``orthodox Confucianist''.
206 above all for all things Soviet, in the spirit of an idealised reading of the expansionist policy of ancient and medieval China, of the ``classic nature" of everything Chinese. Moreover, for six years, beginning in 1966 Chinese young people were altogether deprived of education in history and had to draw knowledge of the history of China and the world solely from the works of the ``great helmsman'', the honweibing leaflets, and dajiebao.In the midst of the torrent of articles aptly and inaptly reviling Lin Biao and Confucius, and eulogising Qin Shihuang's domestic policy, justifying his extremely ruthless repression and terror, praising the followers of legism, etc., increasingly loud voices could be heard, starting in the spring of 1974, frankly praising the PRC's aggressive foreign policy, deliberately lauding the foreign policy of the selfsame Qin Shihuang and the Han Emperor Wudi. The idealisation of Chinese territorial expansion during the reign of these despots is overtly anti-Soviet and anti-- Mongolian. It is also antagonistic to the peoples of adjacent Vietnam and Korea, for in those years Chinese troops would seize and occupy the territories of bordering countries for long periods.
Hong Shidi's pamhplet, issued in 1972 and dedicated to Qin Shihuang, acclaimed his expansionist policy and proclaimed the empire he created to be a ``multinational united state, expressing the common aspirations of our motherland's varied nationalities during that remote period".^^4^^
In May of 1974, Renminribao began a campaign accusing the Confucianists of the western Han dynasty of trying to give in to China's northern neighbour, the Huns, drawing thereby a direct analogy between the ancient Confucianists and Lin Biao, who allegedly advocated capitulating to the Soviet Union.
The very appearance of such articles which draw crude, antihistorical parallels with contemporary times is, among other things, indicative of forces opposing the anti-Soviet Maoist foreign policy within the PRC. It is to these forces, not to the Confucianists of the third century B.C. that Renminribao refers in the following terms: ``The Confucianists attacked the 'war of resistance' to the Huns, calling it a repudiation of the principles _-_-_
~^^4^^ Hong Shidi, Qin Shihuang, Shanghai, 1972, p. 67.
207 of virtue, and a military solution to problems. They said that there were no basic reasons for confrontation and blamed everything on a few influential courtiers who were conditioning the emperor for war, asserting that it was inevitable. They clamoured that the war of resistance was disastrous to the state, that border territories were useless to us and a large army was an unbearable burden to the people. They proposed that the troops be recalled, and the border clash ended. They maintained that concord should reign between the two great powers and suggested that border defence structures be demolished and talks begun with the Huns on a mutually advantageous basis. Moreover, they desired to enter into a reactionary political alliance with the Huns aggressors.''^^5^^Guangmingribao, further ``modernising'' the history of ChinaHuns relations of the third century B.C., unambiguously made reference to the current USSR-PRC border talks when it wrote: ``The Gonfucianists called for good will towards the Huns and for a policy aimed at achieving a peaceful agreement. They proposed that military action be abandoned for an exchange of messages, wherein should be declared a repudiation of the use of force'', (Author's italics)^^6^^ while the legists ``resolutely spoke in favour of stepping up preparations for war, dealing a blow to the Huns, and 'abolishing war through war'.''^^7^^
At the same time, the PRC's press praises the actions undertaken against the Huns by Sang Huniang, a dignitary of the Han emperor Wudi. He declared that there could be ``no agreement whatever with these bitter enemies, but only defensive war until their defeat'', and ``called for obtaining deference from the Huns by war'', and said it was ``impossible to weaken the Huns until the things that weaken us from within are overcome".^^8^^
Another figure that earned profuse approbation from the Maoists was west Han dynasty strategist Chao Cuo, who, according to the Chinese papers, ``advocated repulsing the Huns and urged vigorous preparations for war'', ``storing up more grain, _-_-_
~^^5^^ Renminribao, 15 May 1974.
~^^6^^ Guangmingribao, 28 June 1974.
~^^7^^ Renminribao, 21 November 1974.
~^^8^^ Renminribao, 18 June, 8 October 1974; Guangmingribao, 28 June 1974.
208 educating and training soldiers for work in building and fortifying the borders'', ``and the resettlement of people to strengthening the northern frontiers''. He believed vigorous military preparations necessary in order to ``be rid of war through war'',^^9^^ and he was indeed a remarkable figure who forestalled Mao Zedong's ``newest'' directives by two millennia.A multitude of ghost-written articles appeared in the central press of the PRC which exalted Chao Cuo and his concepts and were signed by people lacking specialised training in history or sufficient general education, all of which points to the arranged nature of this glorification. Various features in the pertinent ``guideline'' publications of Chinese propaganda are commented upon in these articles ``application-wise''. Thus, the ``theoretic team" of company VI in a unit of the Peking garrison, in their article ``Set up Border Posts, Prepare for War and Repulse Invasion" elaborates on Chao Cuo's views and military ideas, stressing that these ideas ``also promote the further intensification of the preparations for war and the struggle against the undermining activities and aggression of imperialism and social imperialism".^^10^^
Of note, too, are the distinctly controversial viewpoints and evaluations in the articles on the struggle with the Huns, 3rd-2nd centuries B.C. Thus, Liang Xiao, who, in the columns of Hongqi, defends Han emperor Wudi's (reign 140--87 B.C.) policy, which was directed against the Huns, describes the wars with them as ``just wars against invaders'', who ``salivated copiously hankering after the western Han as if it were a choice cut of meat".^^11^^ While Tian Kai, in accordance with the great-power theory of the perennially ``multinational China'', maintains that the Huns are not external enemies at all, ``China is a multinational state" and ``the Huns were historically one of the nationalities of China".^^12^^
At the same time the PRC press' broad and persistent use of themes from ancient and medieval history in political struggle with adversaries cannot but arouse legitimate questions. Indeed, _-_-_
~^^9^^ Guangmingribao, 27 December 1974; Renminribao, 16 February 1975.
~^^10^^ Renminribao, 16 February 1975.
~^^11^^ Hongqi, No. 5, 1974, p. 16.
~^^12^^ Renminribao, 21 November 1974.
__PRINTERS_P_209_COMMENT__ 14---2499 209 how can one take serious, for example, Renminribao's calls for readers to study. materials of great antiquity (written in an archaic language beyond the reach of the contemporary reader) in order to be armed with legist tenets for use ``in the interests of today's class struggle'', or, for that matter, calls to study the experience of post-Qin Shinhuangdi history, in which representatives of the restoration of the slave-owning forces betrayed Qin Shihuangdi's legist line, turned Gonfucianist, and contributed to the downfall of the Qin dynasty.^^13^^ It seems the Maoists are in dire need of diverting the readers' attention, notably the young people, from the current economic and political problems in China, and are, among other things, forcing the science of history to serve this purpose. __*_*_*__The first issue ofi the Lishi Yanjiu historical studies journal appeared in the Peking book-stalls in the middle of December 1974.^^14^^ The revival of the main Chinese historical periodical after an interruption of almost eight years, owing to the grim events of the so-called cultural revolution, would have been a welcome event if the Maoists had not smeared its pages with a renewed dose of unrestrained anti-Sovietism and inveterate Great-Han hegemonism.
The journal carries three successive articles: ``Rebuff to the Slanderers" (Concerning Some Chinese-Soviet Border Issues), ``Explorers or Robber-Invaders of China?'', and ``Historical Proofs" (A Study of Yuninsi Temple Stela Inscriptions in Nurgan During the Ming Dynasty).^^15^^ Their authors attempt to distort the history of Russo-Chinese and Soviet-Chinese relations, historically ``to substantiate" the Maoists' absurd territorial claims to Soviet Far Eastern and Central Asian lands. All the three _-_-_
~^^13^^ See, for instance, Renminribao, 26 November, 2 December 1974.
~^^14^^ Characteristically the periodical was on the stalls about a week in advance of its formal release, which was 20 December 1974. See p. 2. It is also of interest that Issue No. 1 of a bimonthly should be put out in December, a fact which may be indicative of a long struggle about the publication.
~^^15^^ Hereafter all references to the journal are in the text.
210 articles are permeated with the spirit of Great-Han haughtiness and contempt for other nations, while the first contains the crudest possible abuse using terms from the notorious ``cultural revolution" and shaman conjurations directed at the Soviet Union.The author of ``Rebuff to the Slanderers" (Concerning Some Chinese-Soviet Border Issues) uses the pen-name Shi Yuxing (literally, ``Historian who renews the Universe''). As customary in present-day China, the article seems to be collectively written. It coincides in many ways with the well-known ``Document of the PRC MFA" of 8 October 1969, and, using historical material, elaborates the great-power, chauvinist theses formulated in the ``Document''.
Shi Yuxing begins the article by accusing Soviet scholars of justifying the ``seizure of Chinese territory in the Far East, in the Amur and Ussuri Basin, in Central Asia, and to the East and South of Lake Balkhash by tsarist Russia'', and also of allegedly ``shaping public opinion to cater to the Soviet Union's new territorial claims" to China and of ``fanning anti-China psychosis".^^16^^ After this preamble, Shi Yuxing goes on to expound fictitious ``historical proof" to the effect that the above territories belong to China. It is not our purpose to analyse in detail each theme of this biased article; we shall dwell only on the precepts testifying to the author's Great-Han, hegemonist concepts.
1. Shi Yuxing's main premise is that present-day China is entitled to the possession of all lands upon which the armed forces of the ancestors of the present-day Chinese ever set foot _-_-_
~^^16^^ In the footnote Shi Yuxing mentions the following works of Soviet scholars: L. Beskrovny, S. Tikhvinsky, V. Khvostov, ``On the History of the Shaping of the Russian-Chinese Border'', International Affairs, No. 7, 1972; M. C. Kanuiftz. FIofljiHHHbie AOKyMeHTbi, noflTBepK^aiomHe HCTHHy H3 HCTOPHH pyccKO-KHTaflcKHx OTHomeHHH.---Izvestia, 13 November 1972; «PyccKO-KHT3HCKHe OTHomeHHH B XVII B. MarepHajibi H AOKyMeHTbi», in two volumes, ed. S. L. Tikhvinsky, Vol. 2, 1686--1691, Moscow, 1972; A. JI. HapowutiKuu, M. H. CjiadKoecKuii H &p. MexayHapOAHbie OTHomeHHH Ha /JajibHeM BoctOKe, in two volumes, Moscow, 1973; JI. F. BecK.po8H.biu. K oueHKe pyccKo-KHtaflcKHx OTHomeHHH B XVII B.---Problemy Dalnego Vostoka, No. 1, 1974; A. JI. H apOHHUU,Kuu. O6 HCTOPHH BHemnefl nojiHTHKH POCCHH Ha /JajibiieM BociOKe.--- Voprosy istorii, No. 6, 1974.
__PRINTERS_P_211_COMMENT__ 14* 211 in the course of expansionist wars and raids during more than two millennia long history of slave-owning or feudal empires. The nations which lived in these territories at various historical periods and which were forced to be a part of the Han, Tang, Yuan (Mongol) or Qin (Manchu) empires are to be considered Chinese.This Great-Han, hegemonist approach is a far cry from Marxism-Leninism. It is a gross violation of the fundamental principle of the science of history, that of consistent observance of historicism in dealing with the various phenomena in the life of society. Acceptance of the premise put forth by this ``Renovator of the Universe" would imply that the Italian fascists had grounds to declare themselves the direct heirs of the ancient Roman empire and, on the strength of this, to claim Britain, France, Belgium, the FRG, Spain, Portugal, some Balkan states, independent African countries, and countries of the Near East. The Maoist rejection of the principle of historicism could lead to the absurdity of demanding the restoration of the former borders of the once mighty empires and satrapies of Darius, Alexander of Macedon, Genghis Khan, the Great Mogols, the Osmans, the Hapsburgs, or to designating the multitude of peoples, nations, nationalities and tribes that once lived within the confines of these empires as Persians, Greeks, Mongols, Uzbeks, Turks or Austrians.
The ``Renovator of the Universe" gives no thought to the absurdity of his arguments that China has ``primordial rights" to possession of the Far Eastern and Central Asian lands of the Soviet Union merely because in 60 B.C., during the Han dynasty, a short-lived vicegerency was formed for the Western area, which gave individual rulers and heads of ethnic groups and tribes (which perhaps lived in part of the present-day Central Asian republics some two thousand years ago) various pompous, but purely symbolic, aristocratic Chinese titles (p. 119); or because during the first half of the 8th century, the Tang empire waged expansionist wars against the Shi wei and Mo he, who lived in the Amur basin, and set up special administrative bodies to govern the lands which had been seized only temporarily and to communicate with the chiefs of the native tribes (p. 114). Julius Caesar and his legions are known to have set up their own 212 governing bodies on the invaded territories ofi the British Isles, in Gallic and German lands, and in North Africa and Asia Minor as well, but this would not justify a claim that various European, African or Asian territories belong to modern Italy.
In the works on the world history, the history of the USSR, and the history of China published in the Soviet Union, the facts about the brief stay of the armed forces of the Han and Tang empires in the Western area (the so-called Xi yu, the territory of the present-day Sinkiang-Uigur Autonomous Region of the PRC) in the 2nd-lst century B.C. are amply and objectively elucidated. The fact that Arab and Chinese armed forces fought a battle in 751 B.C., on the Talassa near the modern city of Dzhambul is widely known, but it is also known that for the ten centuries that followed there were no Chinese armies or Chinese administrations or, for that matter, Chinese people west of the border of the Great Wall of China (Gansu province). It was only in the middle of the 18th century, during the Qing dynasty that Manchurian-Chinese feudalists seized regions of Dzungaria and East Turkestan after a sanguinary expansionist war with the independent Dzungarian Khanate. Through their military garrisons they began ruthlessly to oppress the indigenous population which escaped massacre on the New Territory (Xin Siang), as the invaded area was officially named. The Uigurs, Dunganians, Mongols, Kazakhs, Kirghiz, Taranchi, Tajiks and other peoples of the ``new territory's'' local population rebelled repeatedly against the invaders, and drove them out of East Turkestan and partly out ofi Dzungaria for a time in the 60s-70s of the 19th century. Only the overwhelming numbers of the Qing forces permitted the invaders to restore their colonial domination over the New Territory in the course of protracted military operations by the 80s of the 19th century.
Shi Yuxing keeps his silence about the short-lived nature of the Chinese armies' stay in East Turkestan and Dzungaria during the Han and Tang dynasties, as he is about the fact the numerous ethnic groups of non-Chinese origin populated these territories in the long intervals between the occupations (lst-7th and 8th-18th centuries). Many of these had their own stable state formations. Referring to the third invasion of these lands by the Manchurian-Chinese feudalists in the middle of the 18th 213 century, Shi Yuxing dismisses as ``unmitigated nonsense of Soviet rivisionists" the very existence of the Dzungarian Khanate of the Oirots on this territory which was independent of the Qing dynasty (p. 120). The ``Renovator of the Universe" claims that ``the Oirots were branch of a people of our country---the Mongols" and were granted aristocratic titles by the Emperors of the Ming and later of the succeeding Qing dynasty.
``In 1677 Galdan, the leader of the Dzungarian Mongol-Oirots declared himself Khan and took to independence (sic!). After this, the Dzungarian chiefs alternately submitted to or betrayed the Qing government and were continually engaged in splitting the motherland. In 1755 the Qing dynasty put down the rebellion in Dzungaria. This was China's internal affair, and not at all an invasion of one country by another" (p. 120).
In this fashion, the ``Renovator of the Universe" wrote the Dzungarian Mongolian Oirot Khanate which was formed in the 30s of the 17th century and played a major role in Middle, Central and East Asia in its time out of existence.^^17^^
The Qing forces dealt most brutally with the inhabitants of the Dzungarian Khanate. Due to massive annihilation of the peaceful population, a mere 30--40 thousand, who fled to Russia^^18^^ for safety, remained of a people that numbered at least 600 thousand.
Shi Yuxing does not go out of his way in search of plausible arguments in an attempt to justify Manchu Emperor Jianlung's aggressive actions against the Dzungarian Khanate, a sovereign Kingdom of Central Asia. Instead he repeats verbatim the statement in the ``Document of the PRC MFA" of 8 October 1969, to the effect that ``the quenching (sic!) of Dzungaria by the Qing dynasty is related to China's internal problems".^^19^^
A ``note'' from Lifanyuan, the Tribunal of Foreign Relations of the Qing Empire, dispatched to the Russian Senate on 18 June 1763, testifies that the Qing government formally recognised that until 1757 the Oirot state was independent of Qing China and _-_-_
~^^17^^ See H. fl. SAOTKUH. HcropHH ^jKynrapcKoro xaHcrea (1635-- 1758), Moscow, 1964; B. 77. FypeeuH. BejiHKOxaHbCKHH UIOBHHHSM H iieKoiopbie nonpocbi HCTOPHH napoflon UenTpajibHOH ASHH B XVIIIXIX neKax.---Voprosy istorii, No. 9, 1974.
~^^18^^ H. ff. SAUTKUH, op. cit., p. 462.
~^^19^^ Renminribao, 9 October 1969.
214 was its neighbour whose rulers, as the ``note'' has it, ``began to act in a haughty and unruly fashion'', as a result of which they were subdued by the Qing emperor, who then annexed their lands to his possessions.^^20^^Most of the article is an effort to ``prove'' that the Dalny Vostok and Primorye population has always considered itself Chinese. With the ease displayed in declaring the Oirots ``a branch of a people of our country" Shi Yuxing designated as ``Chinese'' not only the Manchus but also the peoples of the Dalny Vostok, the Shi wei and the Mo he, remote ancestors of today's Evenks, Nanaians, Manchus, Golds, Nivkhis, Orochis, and other peoples as well.
In the torrents of invective against the Soviet historians who dare to maintain that ``the Manchus were not Chinese, while the Qing dynasty was mere a foreign domination over China'', the ``Renovator of the Universe" resorts once more to geopolitical trickery and says ``it is general knowledge" that ``Manchus are a nationality living in China'', and that the thesis that `` Manchus are one of Chinese nationalities and both banks of the Amur are Chinese territory" was certified by none other than Karl Marx in his article ``The Russian Trade with China" written in 1857 (p. 115).
Let us first consider the ethnic background of the Manchus and their ancestors and then return to Shi Yuxing's point on Marx's statements as to Manchus and Manchu rule in China.
By the beginning of our era, contemporary Manchuria was populated by proto-Tungus tribes, the Mo he. In the 7th century, the Mo he rallied into a tribal union under Mbfo Mandu. In detachments of several thousands, they raided their neighbours and frequently took part in wars between China and the Korean state of Kogure. Mo he chiefs received titles and awards from both Chinese and Kogure rulers. Thus, 50 thousand Mo he are known to have helped Kogure to beat back the forces of the Chinese rulers of the Tang empire in 654.
In 698, the Zhen Kingdom emerged with the Sumo, the more advanced of the Mo he tribes. Its name was changed to B'ohai _-_-_
~^^20^^ B. A. Mouceee. K sonpocy 06 HcxopHqecKOM craxyce rapcKoro xancTBa.---«LUecxaH Hayqnaa KoiKpepenuHH «O6mecXBO H rocyaapcTBO B KHxae». Teancbi H flOKJiaflbi», Issue I, p. 177.
215 in 712. This early-feudal state existed till 926, when it was destroyed by the Kidanis. It covered a vast part of the South Maritime, the northeastern part of Korea, and the southeastern part of Manchuria. The Bohai rulers maintained lively diplomatic, economic and cultural relations with Tang China, but guarded the independence of their state and their distinctive culture. Shi Yuxing ``omits'' any mention of the Bohai state, and flaunting the century-old history of China, groundlessly declares that ``more than a century before the founding of Kiev Rus" the Amur basin ``had for many centuries been ruled by the governments of several Chinese dynasties" (p. 115).The new consolidation of the Tungus tribes after the decline of Kidani power was precipitated by the formation of another feudal state, that of the Nurzhens (1115--1234), who ruled North China and named their ruling dynasty Angchung or Jin (Golden). The state of the Nurzhens fell under the Mongolian onslaught.
The shaping of the Manchus proper into a single nationality was completed at the beginning of the 17th century with the creation of the feudal state of Nurhachi in 1616, the name of which pretended to continuity with the Nurzhen state of ``Late Jin" and was changed in 1636 to Qing (Clear). The name Manchu, designating both the area (northern part of the Liaodung Peninsula) and the people, appeared at the beginning of the 17th century.^^21^^ They spoke the Tungusic language which belongs to the Altai group bearing no resemblance whatsoever to Chinese, and they adopted the Mongolian script for writing.
The Manchu state began as a military and tribal association that strengthened and developed via war. After conquering the adjacent tribes, the Manchus conducted constant campaigns against remote lands, pillaging their populations, bringing prisoners to Manchu territory and enlisting all able-bodied men to _-_-_
~^^21^^ See A. n. OKAadnuKoe. RaneKoe npouuioe OpHMopbH, Vladivostok, 1959; A. B. rpe6enw,UKoe. MaHbHwypu, HX H3HK H nHcbMeiiHocib, Vladivostok, 1912; E. 77. Jlededeea. PaccejieHHe MaiibMwypCKHX pojiOB B Koime XVI H nauajie XVII nn.---«yiieiibic aarmcKH JlenHiirpaACKoro rocyaapcTBeinioro neflarorH'iecKoro micTHTyra HM, M. H. noKpoBCKoro», Volume 132, 1957; P. B. MeAUxoe. Main. HJKypu iia.CeBepo-BocioKe KHTHH (XVII B.), Moscow, 1974.
216 serve in their ``eight-banner forces''. Beginning in 1618, the Manchus regularly raided the Chinese border lands, and 1619 saw the first armed invasion of Korean territory. Taking advantage of the disunity of Mongolia and the lack of unity of action of its feudal rulers, they had captured Southern Mongolia by 1636, and after the conquest of China proper which lasted almost 30 years, the Manchus also added North Mongolia (Halhu) to their empire.The aggressive foreign policy of the Manchu nobility was formulated at a military council in 1633 in the following terms: ``To carry out two campaigns a year when our state is free from vital concerns and one campaign a year when it is not free.''^^22^^ They kept to the same aggressive line after conquering China, involving the Chinese feudalist upper crust in this, the class alliance with which was the prop of their military and political dominion. The Qing empire waged expansionist wars against Russian settlements on the Amur, the peoples of the Dzungarian Khanate, Tibet, Nepal, Burma, and Vietnam.
In Shi Yuxing's article, the idea that ``the Manchus and the Chinese are one family" is supported by communications from Tang and Ming chronicles about Chinese attempts to set up a kind of system of buffer zones among the neighbouring northern tribes by winning tribal chiefs over to their side, handing out generous grants and pompous titles, which were followed by more or less regular gifts.
This line was aimed at fanning constant discord between the chiefs of tribes and tribal alliances which, on the one hand, hampered the consolidation of the tribes and alliances and prevented their concerted raids on China, and, on the other, permitted the use of the armed forces of these tribes to attack independent states adjacent to China. This policy of the Chinese rulers was applied especially at the beginning of the 15th century to the ancestors of the Manchus, the Nurzhen tribes. The most effective means of weakening and disuniting the Nurzhens was the institution of numerous administrative districts (wei) on their lands, headed by local tribal chiefs, who, on the strength of this _-_-_
~^^22^^ H. C. EpMaieHKO. IlojiHTHKa MaiibM>KypcKoii H H CesepHOH MonrojiHH B XVII B., Moscow, 1974, p. 4.
217 institution, received the right regularly to visit the Chinese border posts to barter and receive gifts befitting their position. The political and economic advantages accorded to the Nurzhen chiefs from relations with the Ming empire promoted, to a great extent, the popularity of this administrative system among the Nurzhen clans and tribes, and favoured the influx of more and more tributaries from the northeast into China. In the 15th century, the Ming dynasty carried out a series of consistent peaceful diplomatic measures to free these tribes from Korean influence and to then draw them towards China and neutralise their military potential.The Nurzhen districts, wei, were designated as ``jimi wei'', which means ``force-binding districts'', and which was fully in accord with their character and purpose. Their lands were never considered Ming territory, as the Nurzhen chiefs, the appointed heads of the wei-districts, committed themselves only to a certain loyalty to China in exchange for the economic and political advantages they derived from these relations.
For Nurzhen chiefs who were continually engaged in internecine wars, political advantages were no less important than economic ones at times. Their subservient position was purely formal and consisted merely of the duty periodically to appear with a nominal tribute at the Ming court. The ``tribute-return gift" system was the most widespread form of Chinese foreigntrade bartering. In addition to ``return gifts'', generous gifts from the Ming court awaited the members of the tributary Nurzhen embassies, and the visits of district heads to China were no burden for the Nurzhen chiefs. The weakness of the Ming empire's actual impact upon the Nurzhens was first and foremost manifest in that the Chinese officials left the institution of local chiefs and the tenor of Nurzhen life intact. Proceeding from the traditional Chinese foreign policy doctrine, the imperial administration sought ``to use barbarians to curb other barbarians" and to prevent the various Nurzhen tribes from uniting.
In 1409, the Ming court undertook the so-called Yishiha expedition to the Amur to strengthen its prestige among the Nurzhens. It was incumbent on Yishiha, the Ming ambassador, to ``disperse the fears and reassure" the local Nurzhen population, as states the inscription on the stela of Yununsi temple, on the 218 Tyr rock, which he ordered built on the right bank of the Amur, some 100 km from its mouth. It was also his duty to set up the so-called Nurgan wei from among the chiefs of local Nurzhen tribes. The. Nurgen wei was an administrative body which was no different than other Nurzhen wei. In this wei, full power remained in the hands of the local chiefs; no Chinese vicegerents were appointed, and no Chinese garrison deployed. In the period between 1409 and 1432, Yishiha made several visits to the Nurgan wei.^^23^^
The Yishiha expeditions coincided with an upsurge in Ming foreign policy and foreign trade activities during the reign of Yongle. There were, at this time, seven expeditions to Southeast Asian and South Asian countries and to the Arfican coast under fleet commander Zheng He. They were undertaken in the period from 1405 to 1433 and were conducted with 208 vessels and up to 30 thousand simultaneous participants.^^24^^
Unlike the Zheng He expeditions, there is almost no historical evidence for those of Yishiha, yet this^does not prevent Shi Yuxing from asserting that ``two stone stelae erected by the Ming government in Teling in 1413 and 1433 .. . prove .. . this region to have been under the jurisdiction of the dynasty" and that the Nurgan administration ``supervised the Mongols, Nurzhens and Tsilimis, who lived in the region" (p. 114). However, even the scanty materials about Yishiha's expeditions contained in Zhong Miniang's article, ``Historical Proofs'', Lishi yanghu, No. 1, 1974, written after and to the same end as Shi Yuxing's article, are a convincing proof of the brief and occasional nature of Chinese expeditions into this region.
In all Chinese sources without exception, the lands beyond the borders of the Ming empire in Liaodung (distinctly separated by a fortified border wall) were designated as ``jimi lands'', i.e., as lands of non-Chinese barbarian peoples bound to China by certain commitments (mainly non-aggression).
Defying all logic, Zhong Miniang reads these materials, _-_-_
~^^23^^ See G. V. Melikhov, ``Ming Policy towards the Nurzhen (1402-- 1413)" in China and Her Neighbours from Ancient Times to the Middle Ages, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1980, pp. 200--20.
~^^24^^ See A. A. BoKW,aHUH. KHiaft H crpaiibi roKHbix Mopefl B XIVXVI nn., Moscow, 1968, p. 66.
219 Yishiha's building 06 the Buddhist temple, and the installation of the stela as ``proof'' that ``the Ming government was the government of a multinational state while the Amur basin was an inalienable part of the Ming dynasty frontiers" (p. 154). Yet the selfsame Zhong Miniang admits that no sooner had Yishiha left Teling region than the local population tore down the temple. This happened on several occasions before 1432 (pp. 151, 157). Following the ``Renovator of the Universe'', Zhong Miniang makes an antiSoviet jab, alleging that the existence of the Ming inscriptions on the Amur is kept hidden in the Soviet Union and that ``people are not given opportunity to learn their true content" (p. 144). It is widely known that the monument itself is preserved in the Arsenyev Maritime Museum for Regional Studies in Vladivostok, while the translation of the inscription has been published repeatedly in Russian and Soviet literature. The most recent and accurate translation was published by the Soviet historian-- sinologist Melikhov,^^25^^ a fact which the Chinese nationalists ignore, thus deliberately misleading their readers.In the article in question, Shi Yuxing, as mentioned before, freely skips over centuries and millennia to substantiate the thesis of the ``immemorial'' Chinese presence on territories lying far beyond the state border. When he considers the history of the neighbouring Nurzhen tribes, the ``Renovator of the Universe" also resorts to this favourite technique, linking Yishiha's military and diplomatic expeditions in the beginning of the 15th century directly with the events of the end of the 16th century, when Nurhachi, the Nurzhen chief whom Shi Yuxing presents above all as an official of the Jianzhou wei (p. 114) and tries to pass off as subject of the Ming dynasty, brought together first the clan and tribal alliance ``Manchu'', then a number of neighbouring Nurzhen tribes under his leadership, and set up a military and feudal state, the ``Late Jin''. Nurhachi, who repeatedly routed Chinese forces and who united the Nurzhen tribes of South Manchuria to fight the colonial expansion of the Ming empire is, according to Shi Yuxing, a respectable and loyal Chinese official who ``undertook to govern the Northeastern border area on behalf _-_-_
~^^25^^ See G. V. Melikhov, ``Ming Policy towards the Nurzhen (1402-- 1413)" in China and Her Neighbours. . ., pp. 200--20.
220 of the Mingi dynasty''. Characteristically the Chinese authors quite arbitrarily include the Amur basin into this territory.As Shi Yuxing has it, the vast Far Eastern territories which had never been part of either China or the ``Late Jin" of the Manchus were witnessing a lyrically ``peaceful transition of power" from the Chinese Ming empire to a ``Chinese'' Nurhachi.
Appropriate here is a parallel with the historical events which, in their time, occurred in European countries. The leadership of tribes and clans which repeatedly invaded the frontiers of the Roman empire during the great migration of peoples and tribes--- Alemanni, Burgundians, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Huns, Vandals, Langobards, Franks, Sclavins, Antians, and others---were frequently granted various magnificent titles, tokens of distinction, and awards by the Roman and Byzantine rulers, but an historian would not dream of asserting that Bulgarians, Serbians and Horvatians are, on the strength of this, Greeks, or that Frenchmen and Germans are Italians, while the lands where they migrated and live belong to modern Greece, Turkey, Italy, etc.
Another example of such juggling and ignoring of the principle of historicism is Shi Yuxing's assertion that in the first period of the rule of the Manchu dynasty Qing, the so-called Willow Palisade was not, as the Soviet historians assert, the state frontier of the Qing empire in the northeast. He says that the ``territory beyond this palisade was also Chinese and was controlled by the Ninguta governor and Inner Mongolian vicegerent'', and that ``the Amur and Ussuri basins had belonged to China since ancient times" (pp. 115, 118), as is proven by the Qianlung shilu, a chronicle by Qianlung, the Qing emperor, who reigned in China from 1736 to 1796, or a century after it was invaded by Manchus. Melikhov has proved convincingly in his detailed monograph^^26^^ that the land beyond the Willow Palisade was not Manchurian feudal state territory by the 80s of the 17th century, when the palisade was erected. On the basis of Manchu and Chinese documents, he reconstructed the history of this Manchu conquest of the neighbouring Nurzhen tribes that lived _-_-_
~^^26^^ See r. B. Menuxoe. MaiibMjKypbi na Ceuepo-BocTOKe KHTBH, p. 246.
221 in what is today the northeast of the PRO as occurring only after the Manchus had consolidated into a nationality.The northeastern frontier of the Chinese Ming empire was finalised by the middle of the 15th century, and a line of fortifications, known as the frontier wall in Liaodung, was erected along its border. It stretched to the northeast from Shanghaiguan passing somewhat to the north of present-day Kaiyouan, turned south towards the present-day town of Fushun, then to the southeast towards the Yalu River, which served as frontier between Ghina and Korea. Approximately half the northeast territory beyond the Chinese frontier belonged to the South and East Mongolian Khanates, with the remaining part populated by Nurzhen tribes of varied ethnic composition. Prominent here were the Nurzhens of Jianzhou, among whom in the 80s of the 16th century emerged a strong Manchu tribal union, and the Haixi Nurzhens (the Hulun Union), who were related to them. To the east lived the tribes of the so-called Changbaishan union, while in the north and the northeast lived numerous small tribes and ethnic groups, not connected to each other which were called the ``wild Nurzhens" by the Chinese authors in the Middle Ages. These were the Evenk and Tungus-Manchu tribes and ethnic groups, ancestors of the Far Eastern and Maritime Nanaians, Daurs, Nivkhs, Orochi, Duchers (Khurkha) and other present-day nationalities. Among these only the Daurs and the Duchers engaged, apart from hunting and fishing, in the simplest forms of agriculture. All of them retained the tribal system. These tribes were ancestors of the contemporary small peoples of the Soviet Far East, who, in the 17th century, were subject to aggression from the southern Manchu tribe groups. Okladnikov, in his basic research, has shown that these people have a developed and distinctive culture which is rooted deep in antiquity.^^27^^
The consolidation of the Manchu nationality under Nurhachi, capable military commander and outstanding statesman, was carried out in several stages. In 1583--1589 he united all the tribes on the territory of the former Jianzhou (the Jianzhou wei _-_-_
~^^27^^ See A. U. OK.AO.dHUK.oe. JUjieKoe npouuioe A. fj. OKJiadnuKoe. HCTOPHH CoeeTCKoro /JajibHero BocroKa, Vols. 1-2, Vladivostok, 1967.
222 of the Ming chronicles). Their chiefs were connected with the Ming empire by non-aggression agreements, and they received various marks of> distinction, gifts, and financial assistance from the Chinese. This territory, which is situated in the southern part of present-day Manchuria became the birthplace of the Manchu nationality. Nurhachi incessantly waged war on his neighbours. He increased the number of his forces by capturing and bringing back the population of local tribes from lands beyond the Manchurian possessions. In the period from 1589 to 1599 the Manchu tribal union conquered the Changbaishan tribes, while from 1599 to 1614 Nurhachi brought the Nurzhen tribes of the Hulun union together. In 1601, he founded the unified corps structure in the army, thus putting an end to the making up of armed forces according to tribe or family identification. He placed the entire army, divided into four banners (corps), under one command. A banner was made up of 30 nuru (companies) numbering 300 warriors each. Assigned to each nuru were craftsmen---armorers, blacksmiths, harness and shoe makers, tailors, and members of the warriors' and craftsmen's families, domestic servants, slaves, and numerous serfs as well. The nuru thus became the military and economic administrative cells of the shaping Manchu state.^^28^^ Additional nuru were formed from prisoners captured in current campaigns, which were then included under one of the banners. The newly conquered were immediately granted all the rights and privileges of the indigenous population of Manchu. Thus, the army of Nurhachi subsumed the Nurzhen tribes of Hada, Hoifa, Ula, Ehe, and others. In 1614, Nurhachi doubled his banners, of which, from that period on, there were eight in his army. In 1616, after having brought together his neighbours in the course of wars lasting more than 30 years, Nurhachi set up a united centralised state, the ``Late Jin'', and declared himself Great Khan.^^29^^Such a strengthening of the Manchus in the immediate proximity of the Chinese frontier in Liaodung aggravated the relations between the Ming empire and the Manchus. The Ming _-_-_
~^^28^^ See r. B. Mejtuxoe. MaHb^xypbi na Cenepo-BocTOKe KHTHSI, p. 37.
~^^29^^ This title is of a Mongolian origin.
223 court siding openly with the Ehe began to interfere in Nurhachi's struggle against this tribe. This soon led to a war between the Manchus and China. In 1621, Nurhachi captured several well fortified Chinese cities in Liaodung and, in 1625, decided to transfer the capital of the Manchu state to Shenyang, which he named Mukden, or the ``capital of the dynasty's rise''.The name ``Manchu'' designating both the entire area and the people appears only at the beginning of the 17th century. In 1635, Abahai decreed that his people adopt the name ``Manchu'' instead of Nurzhen or Jianzhou. But this name was conferred only on the people, not the territory.
Beginning in 1622, the Manchus carried out constant raids on the western part of Liaodung, which belonged to China, and then on the Northern China proper. These grew especially frequent after Abahai succeeded Nurhachi. The Manchus also conducted military operations against the Mongolian principality of Chahar and, in the course of two campaigns, 1625--1626 and 1636--1637, conquered Korea. These military expeditions and raids demanded constant reinforcements, which were obtained by taking all the adult males of the remote Northeastern and Maritime tribes of Varka, Votszi and Khurkha capable of carrying arms from their native lands. The mass taking of prisoners and of the captured populations, including women and children, to the territories of the Manchu state proves convincingly that, as Melikhov correctly inferred, the main purpose of the Manchu campaigns against the Northeastern nationalities was ``not the seizing of neighbouring territories to add to the Manchu state, but the capturing of manpower. The local population which did not succeed in escaping was taken away to Manchu territory".^^30^^
Because these campaigns were never undertaken for the purpose of acquiring and securing new lands to extend the Manchu territory, the parts they reached in the northeast, including the middle reaches of the Amur, were never at that time frontier border lands of the Manchu state, as neither troops nor administrators were left behind to secure them.
At the end of 1639, the Manchus began a ruthless war against the Solons and the coalition of tribes which was formed on the _-_-_
~^^30^^ r. B. Mejiuxoe. MaHbMJKypu Ha Ceeepo-BocTOKe KHTSH, p. 57.
224 Amur under the leadership of Bombogor, who put up an army of six thousand men to oppose them. Although the Manchus routed the Solons and took 5,600 people into captivity, they had to send military expeditions in 1643 and in 1645 (January) as they had not succeeded in crushing the opposition from the Amur tribes. After they began their ruthless seizure of China proper in 1644, the Manchus were obliged to move all available troops there to suppress Chinese patriotic opposition. This ended their campaigns in the Amur and Maritime regions, while the lands north of Mukden, which had attracted them mainly as a source of reinforcements, lost their importance.The mass-scale taking away of the local population by the Manchus was accompanied by frequent escapes and returns of the captives back to their native lands, and after Russian settlements were established on the Amur in the 50s, the Evenk and Daur tribes began to cross over to the Russian side with increasing frequency, headed by such leaders as Gantimur, Baodai and Wendu, who, it seems, had previously recognised a nominal dependence on the Manchus and on whom these latter had conferred the high title of Zuoling.^^31^^ Thus the Russian state protected the Amur basin peoples from Manchu raids and from being taken away from their native lands.
The lands around Mukden reached a state of desolation when the ``Eight banner" forces of the Manchus moved to China, as small garrisons in only sixteen localities of their estate were left behind. As an expedient measure to preserve farming in the fertile lands of Liaodung and Liaosi, the Manchus initially attempted to encourage the Chinese to colonise the area, but in 1668 they put a decisive end to the influx of Chinese settlers. From 1655 on, Ninguta, the most remote Manchu outpost in the northeast, was used as exile for political offenders and criminals who were turned into domestic slaves of the officers and warriors of the local garrison. In 1666, both the town and the fort of Ninguta were moved to a more convenient location 25 kilometres to the southeast of the former settlement.
From the middle of the 70s the Manchus began preparations for military action in the Amur area against Albazin, the Russian _-_-_
~^^31^^ Ibid., p. 67.
__PRINTERS_P_225_COMMENT__ 15---2499 225 regional colonisation centre. For this purpose, in 1674, Girin was built on the Sungari and a river fleet was built up for the coming operations. In 1676, the Manchu chieftain's headquarters was transferred from Ninguta to Girin, and Mukden chieftain, jiangjiun, Anchruh was ordered to begin building a line of border fortifications. This was named the Willow Palisade or the Willow Frontier, as a double row of tall willow stakes was put up along some of its sections. The 900 km line walled off the Manchu domain in the west, the north, and the east, and had guard and frontier posts along its entire length, through which persons leaving the empire passed.^^32^^The territories beyond the Willow Palisade became outlands, ``lands beyond the border'', ``the vast waste land'', as they were referred to in the formal decrees and orders. Even the officers and soldiers dispatched to hunt, fish, collect ginseng, etc. beyond the Willow Palisade, had to obtain special permits from the Mukden chieftain. American historian Lattimore noted that the Palisade was ``the frontier between Manchus and Chinese on the east and Mongols on the west".^^33^^ Later, in the first quarter of the 18th century another line was built to supplement it. This line was some 345 km long, consisting of willow stakes tied together, and was named accordingly, the Willow Stake Frontier, Liu tiaobian. This line of fortifications separated the Mongolian nomad lands from the Girin province, which was set up in 1726.^^34^^ Shi Yuxing takes advantage of the uninformed reader to identify the Willow Palisade with the Willow Stake Frontier erected 50 years later.
In 1682--1683, the Manchus made their first attempt to get a foothold in the Amur area. As springboard for their attack on the Russian settlements, primarily Albazin, they used the Aigun fortress, which had been pronounced the centre of the _-_-_
~^^32^^ Shengjing tongzhi (General description of the Mukden lands), Peking, 1684, Vol. 1, p. 6a.
~^^33^^ O. Lattimore, The Mongols of Manchuria, New York, 1934, p. 225. Relations between the Manchus and Mongols were studied in detail in the work of H. C. EpManeHKO, op. cit.
~^^34^^ See P. B. Mejtuxoe. ManbHxypbi na Cesepo-BocTOKe K.man, p. 108. Shi Yuxing absolutely ignores the existence of the Willow Palisade built in 1676 and speaks only about the Willow Stake Frontier built over half a century later (p. 115).
226 Heilunjiang (Amur) voivodeship since 1683. The Shengjing tongzhi says: ``Aigun is located beyond the border, to the north of Ninguta.... It is over a thousand li from the border to this spot.... No order has yet arrived to elucidate the location of mountains, rivers and populated centres (of the area) in detail.''^^35^^ It is not mere happenstance that the confluence of the Sungari and the Amur, which is depicted as its tributary, is shown as very close to the sea by the Chinese map-makers of that period (18th century).In Liubian jilue (Description of lands within and without the Willow Palisade) composed in the first half of the 18th century by Yang Bin, a Chinese exile in Ninguta, it is stated twice that the Ninguta and Heilunjiang territories are ``jimi'' lands, i.e., they do not belong to the Qing empire.^^36^^
Well-known Russian sinologist and manchurologist Vasiliev wrote that the Qing government invariably sought to isolate its colonial outskirts from the rest of the world and from China proper, regarding them as a ``shield''. ``The very term `vassal' (fan) means a `protection', a 'wattle fence' in Chinese, i.e., the vassal must serve'as a shield against the attacks of the foreigners that live beyond him. Should they prove powerful, let them first overcome that fence; hence the vaster the territories of vassal lands, the safer China proper would be. It also follows that the vassals should not only be uncared for, but it should be seen to that the conditions and welfare of their population do not improve, otherwise they might become dangerous.''^^37^^
In another work, Vasiliev wrote about the Manchu government: ``The Manchus regarded the vast and varied countries of Mongolia, Dzungaria, Turkestan, Tibet, and China, as their quarry and keenly watched, guarding these countries from all contact with the rest of the world-----"^^38^^
_-_-_~^^35^^ Shengjing tongzhi, Vol. 10, pp. 20a-20b.
~^^36^^ Yang Bin, Liubian jilue (Description of lands within and without the Willow Palisade), Vol. 1, Shanghai, 1936, p. 5.
~^^37^^ B. n. BacuJitee. HaciofliuHfl BOCTOIHHH sonpoc.---Golos, No. 3, 3(15) January 1879. Quoted in K. Ul. Xa(f>U3oea. POCCHH, KHTBH H Hapoflbi TypKecraHa B ny6.nm;HCTHKe B. n. BacHJibeea.---« HcxoPHH H Kyjibrypa KHT3fl». A collection in memory of Academician V. P. Vasiliev, Moscow, 1974, p. 113.
~^^38^^ Ibid., p. 114.
__PRINTERS_P_227_COMMENT__ 14* 227The first attempt by the Manchu authorities to integrate part of Girin territory into the Qing empire was undertaken only in 1726.^^39^^
Thus the lands adjoining the Amur from the south actually remained beyond the Qing empire's border long after the signing of the Nerchinsk treaty in 1689.
The Pingding luocha fanglue (Strategic plans to subdue the Russians), a source on 18th-century Russo-Chinese relations compiled on the order of emperor Kangxi by Chang Shu, president of the Hanlin academy, is graphic testimony to this fact. The Pingding luocha fanglue is a thematic selection of archive materials and documents dated from 1682 to 1690 related to the territorial expansion of the Qing empire on the Amur. This source, containing authentic documents of the period, shows that in their relations with the neighbouring peoples, the Qings followed the usual pattern of Chinese diplomacy, and saw in their neighbours not equals but ``vassal peoples'', ``tributaries'' of their empire. The book is bursting with adulation for Kangxi and the Manchu-Chinese army; the Russian state is named a ``tributary'' to the Qing empire, while the Russians are ``locha'' or ``demons that prey on humans''. The thrice-repeated testimony that through the 1689 Nerchinsk treaty the Qings asquired lands that had never been theirs previously is highly valuable. Thus, the State Council's 13 January 1690 report to Kangxi refers to the results 06 the negotiations with Russian ambassadors in the following terms: ``In this manner several thousand li of lands lying to the northeast, that had never formely belonged to China, have now become part of Your possessions.''^^40^^ Later, when these _-_-_
~^^39^^ See F. B. Mejiuxoe. MaHbHwypu Ha Ceaepo-BocTOKe p. 117.
^^40^^ «PyCCKO-KHT3HCKHe OTHOUI6HHH B XVII B6Ke», Vol. 2, p. 686. Translation and commentary of the Pingding luocka fanglue by G. Melikhov. Many documents and materials that first appeared in this source were re-issued in many other publications, including the Kangxi shilu (Kangxi Chronicle) compiled in 1713. They were, however, doctored and the testimonials which- the Qings considered undesirable were deleted. The foreword to «PyccKO-KHTaflCKHe OTHOiiieHHH B XVII B6Ke», Vol. 2, p. 47 indicates erroneously that the Pingding luocha fanglue quote from the State Council report (as in text of the document on p. 686, Ibid.) is from the report of the Military Council, which took over the __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 229. 228 documents were re-issued the Qing authorities deliberately omitted all mention of ``acquiring'' lands in the northeast as a result of military operations with Russia. Chinese historians are no doubt well aware of all these facts, as they are aware that 18th-century Manchu and Chinese maps of the northeast abound in factual inaccuracies, indicative of the map-makers' poor knowledge of these parts.
It is also generally known that the 1849--1855 Nevelsky's Amur expedition found no traces of Chinese presence in the vast Maritime territory. Member of the expedition N. M. Chikhachev who explored the lower reaches of Amur and questioned the local population, reported that they ``have no notion of China and of the Chinese and it may be positively asserted that there is no influence upon them on the part of the Chinese government".^^41^^ Similar statements are to be found in the notes of A. I. Petrov, first builder of Nikolayevsk-on-Amur and other members of the expedition.^^42^^
For lack of historical material to back the Chinese hegemonist claims to Soviet Maritime and Far Eastern lands, Shi Yuxing resorts to Marx's article, ``The Russian Trade with China'', in which Marx fleetingly mentions that Russia seized the banks of the Amur River, the birthplace of the ruling dynasty in China. In this general remark, which stems from insufficient information _-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 228. major functions of the State Council in 1727. In calling attention to this error (p. 118), Shi Yuxing dates the setting up of the Military Council incorrectly, putting it at 1732 whereas it was formed in 1727 by Emperor Yong Zheng, heir of Kangxi, and operated for two years in deep secrecy. It was formally instituted in 1729, but the official stamp of the establishment was confirmed only in 1732 (A Documentary Chronicle of SinoWestern Relations. 1644--1828, Tiscon, 1966, p. XVI). This, incidentally, is far from the only factual mistake in the article. On the same p. 118 he not only presented the results of Count Raguzinsky's embassy to Qing China in 1725--1728 in a distorted fashion, he was mistaken as to the very name of the ambassador. The Manchu word ``Hingan''---the mountain, is given as ``a very cold spot" on p. 115. Its essence is thus lost in the article.
~^^41^^ See A. A. AMKCCBB. AMypcKan 3Kcne.HHu.Hfl 1849---1855 IT., Moscow, 1974, p. 65.
~^^42^^ See A. H. flerpoe. AMypcKHft IUHT. SarmcKH nepBoerpoHTeJiH HHKOJiaeBCKa-Ha-Aivtype, Khabarovsk, 1974.
229 on Manchu history in the West, Shi Yuxing eagerly seeks ``justification'' of his Great-Han ambitions, and alleges that these words ``clearly show that Manchus are a Chinese nationality while both banks of the Amur are Chinese territory" (p. 115).Shi Yuxing's article is permeated with still another idea: the glorification of the Manchu rule in China, when, during the Qing dynasty, there allegedly reigned an idyllic friendship among nations. He presents the Qing empire as a gentle Iamb, not as a feudal predator which was the equal of the Eastern empires of Genghis Khan, Timur, or Bayazed.
Vast factual material testifies that all public representatives of progressive ideas in China from Wang Fuzhi and Huang Zongsi in the 17th century to Hong Xiuqiuan, Yang Xiuqiang, Xioa Chaogui, the leaders of peasants' war in the mid-19th century, all the way down to revolutionary democrat Sun Yatsen, always regarded the Manchus as alien conquerors of China and called for a relentless struggle against them.
The slogan ``Fan Qing" was the most widespread slogan of all the popular movements in China from the 60s of the 17th century up to February 1912.
While China was still in the throes of the grim period of Manchu rule, Sun Yatsen, the great son of the Chinese people and recognised leader of the revolution who overthrew the Qing power, to explain the first of his ``three popular principles'', `` nationalism'', said that although 260 years had elapsed since the Manchus invaded China, any Han, even a child, would recognise a Manchu immediately and would never take him for a Han. He stressed that, vanquished by the Manchus, the Chinese became a ``people without a motherland''. He called on them to ``turn to the time when our country perished'', when ``our ancestors would not submit to the Manchus''. ``Close your eyes and imagine a scene of fierce fighting, when blood ran in rivers and the fields were strewn with the bodies of the fallen; you will then understand that our ancestors' conscience is clean'', said Sun Yatsen. ``But when one turns to the times after our state perished, when the Manchu government taunted the Han people in every way,'' he continued, ``one sees then that we Hans have but outwardly submitted to the aliens, while within we have not 230 reconciled ourselves to the conquerors and have repeatedly rebelled.''^^43^^
The works of Marx to which Shi Yuxing unsuccessively attempts to refer carry a series of very keen descriptions of the Chinese political regime of that period, i.e., the Qing monarchy. Marx drew attention to the fact that ``the hatred against foreigners and their exclusion from the Empire, once the mere result of China's geographical and ethnographical situation, have become a political system only since the conquest of the country by the race of the Manchu Tartars. ...'' Explaining the reason for the policy of political isolation of China from the outer world followed by the Qing emperors, Marx noted: ``There can be no doubt that the turbulent dissensions among the European nations who, at the later end of the 17th century, rivaled each other in the trade with China, lent a mighty aid to the exclusive policy adopted by the Manchus. But more than this was done by the fear of the new dynasty, lest the foreigners might favour the discontent existing among a large proportion 06 the Chinese during the first half century or thereabouts of their subjection to the Tartars.''^^44^^
In another work ``Chinesischen'' published in Die Presse, 7 July 1862, Marx wrote that in the living fossil which was China a revolutionary fermentation had begun. An alien dynasty ruled China, so why, asked Marx, should there not arise after the lapse of three hundred years a movement to overthrow this dynasty.^^45^^ Lenin in his The War in China published in December 1900 said that the Chinese people suffer ``from an Asiatic government that squeezes taxes from the starving peasantry and that suppresses every aspiration towards liberty by military force".^^46^^
Shi Yuxing's idealisation of the Manchu rule contradicts the principles of the founders of Marxism-Leninism.
Not to be ignored is yet another aspect of Shi Yuxing's article: he seeks to antagonise Chinese people and the Soviet _-_-_
~^^43^^ Cynb flrceH. HafipaHHbie npOH3ne,neHHfl, Moscow, 1964, pp. 121-- 22.
~^^44^^ Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 12, p. 98.
~^^45^^ Karl Marx, ``Chinesisches'' in Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Werke, Bd. 15, Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1964, S. 514.
~^^46^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 4, p. 377.
231 peoples by fanning the bogus ``border question'', maintaining that ``of all the imperialist states, tsarist Russia seized the largest expanses of Chinese territory" and groundlessly proclaiming unequal ``all agreements related to the present Chinese-Soviet border" (p. 121). All decisions concerning the border in the Aigun, Peking, and Petersburg treaties are peremptorily classed as `` Russian aggression'', though he never ventures to quote the texts of these treaties relying exclusively on secondary sources---appraisals, in books unfriendly towards Russia.There is no need to dwell on the question of the demarcation of the Russian-Chinese border in the present article as it has been sufficiently treated in the works of Soviet scholars.^^47^^ The border between prerevolutionary Russia and Qing China was shaped historically and established by life itselfi and the frontiers wherein the Russian people and other peoples of the former Russian empire carried out the Great October Socialist Revolution and defended their Motherland's independence in the course of the Civil War and intervention by 14 states (including warlord China), as well as the frontiers, recorded in the international agreements summing up the results of World War II, are inviolable.
The strength of these borders in the Far East had erstwhile been tested by the Chinese warlords: Zhang Zuolin's troops _-_-_
~^^47^^ See JI. r. BecK.po8H.biii, C. JJ. TuxeuHCKiiu, B. M. Xeocroe. K HCTOpHH <j)OpMHpOBaHHfl pyCCKO-KHTaftCKOH rp3HHU,bl; E. ff. K.OCTU- Koe. BeJiHKoaep>KaBHbie aivi6HUHH H norpaHHqHan nojiHTHKa KHTaftCKOPO pyKOBOflCTBa.---Problemy Dalnego Vostoka, No. 1, 1973; E. JI. KOCTUKOB. OojiHTHMecKaH KaprorpacpHH Ha cjiyxfie BejiHKOAepJKaBHoro HauHonajiHSMa.---Problemy Dalnego Vostoka, No. 4, 1973; Jl. P. BeCKpOBHbM, A. JI. HapOHHU.U,K,UU. K HCTOpHH BHeillHeft nOJIHTHKH POCCHH H3 ZlajIbHCM BdCTOKe B XIX B6K6.---Voprosy istOTli, No. 6, 1974; P. B. Mejiuxoe. 3KcnancHH UHHCKOFO KHTBH B FIpHaMypbe H UeHTpajibnoft ASHH B XVII---XVfll seKax.---Voprosy istorii, No. 7, 1974; B. 77. Pypeeun. BeJiHKOxaHbCKHft IUOBHHHSM H HCKOTOpbie BOnpOCbl HCTOpHH HapOAOB UeHTpajIbHOH A3HH B XVIII--- XIX Benax.---Voprosy istorii, No. 9, 1974; A. JI. HapoHHunKuu. Me>KAynapoflHbie OTHomeiiHH iia ZlaJibHCM BocroKe, Vol.-I, Moscow, 1973, chapters I---II; B. C. OAbzun. 3KcnaHCHOHH3M B norpaimmiofi nojiHTHKe FleKHHa.---Problemy Dalnego Vostoka, No. 1, 1975; M. //. CAadK.oBCK.uu. OniomeHHfl Mexay PoccHefl H KHraein B cepeXIX B.---Novaya i noveishaya istoria, No. 3, 1975.
232 participating in the 1918--1920 intervention against Soviet Russia as well as in 1929, by the Japanese military clique together with the puppet troops of Manzhou Guo (1932--1945), and by the Maoist trouble-makers in 1969.The General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee in his report on the 50th Anniversary of the Great October Revolution, said in regard to Soviet-Chinese relations: ``Nothing, of course, will make us depart from our principled Marxist-Leninist line, from our firm defence ofi the state interests of the Soviet people and the inviolability of Soviet territory.''^^48^^
Let us but briefly touch upon the crude distortions of the facts by Shi Yuxing, who seeks to ``expose'' Soviet historians' alleged concealing of ``the criminal seizure of Chinese territory by tsarist Russia" to the Chinese reader. Thus, he maintains that the Large Encyclopaedia issued in 1903 in Russia clearly admitted that the ``western Chinese border ran over Lake Balkhash'', a fact the Soviet historians allegedly do not wish to acknowledge. However, page 805 of Volume 76 of the Encyclopaedia carries a statement to the effect that, in its time, it was the Dzungarian not the Chinese border that crossed Balkhash. But, because he earlier declared the Dzungarian state never to have existed, and the Dzungarians to be but a Chinese national minority, Shi Yuxing does not hesitate to make this crude distortion.
He acts in a similar manner when he says that in 1871, Russia was ``henchman to British imperialism" and ``in conspiracy with western countries dragged China step by step into the disastrous mire of a semicolonial position" (p. 124).
Alleging that ``the tsarist government's line towards China was essentially no different from that of western states" and that ``if it differed at all" it exceeded the western states in greed, he piles up all manner of accusations on tsarist foreign policy of various periods in history and seeks to identify it with the Soviet Union today, to which he attributes ``covetous aspirations for Chinese territory" (p. 126).
It is not our purpose to exculpate the entire foreign policy of tsarist Russia, yet facts and authoritative testimonials indicate that due to historical, geographic and economic circumstances, _-_-_
~^^48^^ L. I. Brezhnev, Following Lenin's Course, Moscow, 1975, p. 85.
233 its line towards China up to the 1890s differed substantially from that of Britain, France, and the USA. It remained friendly despite the Qing authorities' reluctance to establish relations based on equality and mutual advantage. K. K. Rodofinikin, Director of the Asian Department for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, determined the fundamentals of this policy in his formal letter to the head of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Peking ( Russia was the only foreign country to have since 1725 a constant delegation in the capital of the Qing Empire). He wrote on 26 April 1833: ``The main and unchanging purpose of the Russian ministry in relation to China is political and commercial; the first is to preserve and strengthen friendly ties with China as a state; the second---to spread and develop our trade with China to the advantage of national industry and mutual profit.''^^49^^Russia resolutely condemned the opium trade conducted by Britain, the USA, and other western countries, and did not have a network of missionary institutions as did Britain, France, and the USA. Until the 60s of the 19th century, trade with China was over land only. Unlike the western states, Russia was not involved in military action against China. The Russian government firmly refused to join the western states' anti-Chinese coalition during the second Opium War. In reply to Britain's proposal, the Russian government declared clearly and unambiguously through its Paris ambassador Kiselyov that Russia would neither take part in any coercive measures in relation to China, nor resort to the language of threats.^^50^^
In his article, referred to by Shi Yuxing, ``The Russian Trade with China'', Marx notes the different policy Russia pursued towards China. ``The relations of Russia to the Chinese Empire are altogether peculiar. While the English and ourselves .. . are not allowed the privilege of a direct communication even with Viceroy of Canton, the Russians enjoy the advantage of maintaining an Embassy at Peking. . . . Being excluded from the maritime trade with China, the Russians are free from any _-_-_
~^^49^^ «HoBaa HCTOpHfl Kvnan», Moscow, 1972, p. 100.
~^^50^^ See A. JI. HapoiHUHKuti. KojiOHHaJibnan nojiHTHKa CTHM6CKHX flcpxas Ha HaJibHeM BocTOKe. 1860---1895 rr., Moscow, 1956, pp. 120--21.
234 interest or involvement in past or pending disputes on that subject; and they also escape that antipathy with which from time immemorial the Chinese have regarded all foreigners approaching their country by sea. .. .''^^51^^ Contrary to what is generally known, Shi Yuxing presents tsarist Russia of the middle of the 19th century as China's main enemy among all capitalist states.Lenin, in the first issue of Iskra in December 1900, responded to the events in China, and on behalf of the Russian SocialDemocrats and the wide toiling masses of Russia, voiced sympathy for the Chinese people in the period of the Yihe tuan antiimperialist movement which developed in 1899--1900 in North and Northeast China. He clearly defined the beginning of Russian capitalism's participation in the colonialist plunder of China at the end of the 19th century: ``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 have waged wars against China in order to win the right to trade in opium with which to drug the people (the war of England and France with China in 1856); and who hypocritically carried their policy of plunder under the guise of spreading Christianity? The bourgeois governments of Europe have long been conducting this policy of plunder with respect to China, and now they have been joined by the autocratic Russian Government.''^^52^^
The basic fact that the Russian Bolsheviks led by Lenin were the first to fight consistently against the tsarist colonial policy, including the policy of the tsarist government towards China also, fully escaped Shi Yuxing's attention.
True to Lenin's tenets, the Soviet science of history exposes fully and indignantly the reactionary domestic and foreign policy of tsarism, but it will not denigrate the feats performed by the Russian peasants and artisans in the economic development of the vast and sparcely populated fringes of the Russian state--- Siberia and the Far East. It will not take the cosmopolitan stand of those who have forgotten their kinship. Nor is there any reason to forego criticism of colonial expansionist policy of the British, _-_-_
~^^51^^ New-York Daily Tribune, 7 April 1857, p. 4.
~^^52^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 4, p. 373.
235 French, or American capitalists who coveted the Russian lands of Maritime territory and Kamchatka, sent their naval expeditions to the Far Eastern shores, and waged colonial wars against China and Japan. Soviet historians will, for that matter, continue to note the objective distinction of tsarist Russia's Far Eastern policy in the 50s of the 19th century from the policy of the western colonialists.Today only Chinese nationalists, infatuated with great-power fever, can ignore the radical distinction of peaceful Soviet policy from that of tsarism and the Provisional bourgeois-landlord government. From the very first days of the Soviet government, Soviet Russia's policy towards China was one of good-- neighbourliness and selfless fraternal assistance to the Chinese people in its national liberation struggle and the building of the foundations of socialism.
In the concluding part of his article, Shi Yuxing endeavours, in the spirit of Peking's usual anti-Soviet propaganda concoctions, to vilify present-day Soviet foreign policy with Peking's reading of the aggravation in Soviet-Chinese relations on border questions and the state of Soviet-Chinese talks. He echoes the virtually stalemate position the Chinese leadership took at the very outset in 1969, and tries to lay responsibility for the procrastination on the Soviet side by alleging that the USSR ``does not acknowledge that there are disputed areas on the Soviet-Chinese border" (in other words that the USSR will not agree to the groundless and importune territorial pretensions of the Chinese side.---ST.).
Shi Yuxing's article and the accompanying articles in Lishi Yanjiu, No. 1 are akin to the other articles in the Chinese press of 1974 which try to substantiate the Maoist thesis that the Soviet Union is China's arch enemy and an invader of its lands. Apart from a re-issue of the Statement by the government of the PRC of 7 October 1969 and the Document of the PRC Ministry for Foreign Affairs of 8 October 1969, in the form of a booklet, an article appeared in Dili zhishi (Geographical Knowledge), No. 2 called ``A Glance at the Amur Basin from the Standpoint of Historical Geography'', and in the end of 1974 in the Beijing daxue xuebao (Peking University Messenger), No. 6 another article ``Kangxi's Battle to Defend the State and Repulse 236 Tsarist Russia's Aggression''. The contents of these articles are designed to convince the Chinese reader that tsarist Russia seized ``Chinese lands'', while the Soviet Union is guardian, successor and perpetuator of these seizures. Rabid anti-Sovietism and the fanning of anti-Soviet hysteria have thus become part of the hegemonist Great-Han drive conducted by the Maoist leadership in China and abroad.
The central press of the PRC and its historical periodicals continue publications presenting the history oft Russo-Chinese and Soviet-Chinese relations in a distorted form. They are designed to incite among the readers, especially among the young ones, enmity to the Soviet people and to implant anti-Russian and anti-Soviet sentiments.
Fang Xiu's article ``The Russian Orthodox Ecclesiastical Mission---Instrument of Tsarist Russia's Aggression" carries a distorted presentation of Russia's Ecclesiastical Mission in Peking, instituted on the consent of Qing court in 1715. The author tries to present the natural interest in the language, history and culture of adjacent China of the representative of the Mission as espionage and subversion. He divides the 200-year history of the Mission (1715--1917) into two periods: before and after the signing of the 1860 Russian-Chinese treaty in Peking, and says that in the first period it was ``the focus of political, economic, and cultural aggression of tsarist Russia in China'', while in the second, ``it preceded to engage in even more covert political activity and to continue the policy of aggression".^^53^^ The author sees proof of the ``aggressiveness'' of the Mission's members A. Leontiev and N. Bichurin in that immediately after their arrival in Peking, they ``began to acquire and translate numerous Confucian tracts'', while the known Russian sinologist, Academician V. Vasiliev ``lifted high the black banner of Confucius and of aggression against China".^^54^^
Many articles carry attempts to challenge the well-known facts that by the riiiddle of the 17th century, when Russian settlements _-_-_
~^^53^^ Fang Xiu, ``Sha Edi qin Hua gongju---eguo dongzhengjiaobu daotuan" (The Russian Orthodox Ecclesiastical Mission---Instrument of Tsarist Russia's Aggression) in Lishi Yanjui, No. 3, 1975, p. 123.
~^^54^^ Ibid., p. 129.
237 were set up on the Amur and economic development of the area was begun by the Muscovian state, the vast territories of what today is Manchuria, particularly its central and northern parts, were either uninhabited or, at best, sparcely populated, and that the Chinese colonisation of Manchuria, which began in the reign of Jiaqing, a Manchu emperor, in 1803, yielded tangible results only in the end of the 19th century (Jie Shi,^^55^^ Li Jingwen^^56^^ and others).Authors of some articles strive to ``prove'' that Manchus, Mongols, Kazakhs and Uigurs are ``national minorities who are members of a united multinational community of China'', that ``China was of yore a unified multinational state" and ``the result of gradual development and shaping in the course of millennia".^^57^^
Qin Wuping in Guangmingribao,^^58^^ and Wu Yinnian and Xi Da in Lishi Yanjui^^59^^ thoroughly berate the Soviet sinologist historians and depict Russia and the Soviet Union as immemorial enemies of China, because they will not agree to the periodisation of the new history of China approved by Mao Zedong.
Nevertheless, despite what Shi Yuxing and others write to declare Soviet lands Chinese and to accuse the Soviet Union of seeking to encroach upon the territories of Xinjiang, Manchuria and even North China ``up to the Great Wall'', their attempts to deceive the Chinese people and world public opinion are doomed to failure. As was clearly stated by General Secretary of _-_-_
~^^55^^ Jie Shi, ``Liutiaobiandi lishi he suxiu---di miulun" (History of the Willow Palisade and the Absurd Theory of Soviet Revisionists) in Lishi Yanjui, No. 3, 1975, pp. 110--19.
~^^56^^ Li Jingwen, ``The Study of the Northeastern Border Areas of the Ming Dynasty Period" in Kaogu xuebao, No. 1, 1976, pp. 63--82.
~^^57^^ Yang Ruowei, Zhang Lichun, ``On Crushing Galdan's Mutiny by Kangxi Emperor" in Liaoning daxue xiuebao, No. 2, 1976, pp. 68--72; Wu Yinnian, ``~`Masterpiece' of Hegemonism" (Critical notes on Modern History of China published in Moscow) in Lishi Yanjui, No. 2, 1976, pp. 121--31; Qing Si, ``The Suppression of the Mutiny in Dzungaria by the Qing Government and the Struggle to Rebuff the Tsarist Russia's Aggression" in Lishi Yanjui, No. 2, 1976, pp. 110--20.
~^^58^^ Guangmingribao, 8 April 1976.
~^^59^^ Wu Yinnian, ``~`Masterpiece' of Hegemonism" in Lishi Yanjui, 1976, No. 2, pp. 121--31; Xi Da, ``On the Early Stages of Tsarist Russia's Aggression Against Our Western Areas" in Lishi Yanjui, No. 3, 1976, pp. 120--30.
238 the Central Committee of the CPSU Leonid Brezhnev on 24 September 1973 when awarding the Uzbek SSR the Order of the Friendship of Peoples: ``The Soviet Union has no territorial claims upon the People's Republic of China and bases its relations with that country on principles of respect for sovereignty and equality, and non-interference into internal affairs.''^^60^^The Soviet Union's foreign policy, its consistent efforts for detente, and the efforts of the CPSU and the Soviet government directed at making the process of detente irreversible---all this cuts the ground from under the feet of the Maoists who build their plans upon inevitable ``tremendous upheavels" and a new world war. This is why the policy of inculcating antagonism against the Soviet Union and its peaceful stand has become an integral part of the great-power hegemonistic policies of the present Chinese leadership pursued in China and abroad.
The struggle against Maoist Great-Han nationalism and hegemonism is, at the same time, a struggle for China's return to the road of building socialism. The Soviet people are confident that the laws of history will, in the final analysis, prevail over subjective political distortions, that the cause of socialism will triumph in China too, that the science of history in the PRC will overcome bourgeois nationalism and will develop anew on the the basis of the Marxist-Leninist method.
From the book of C. JI. TuxeuHCKUU. HcTOpHH KHTHH H coBpeMCHHOCTb, Moscow, 1976.
_-_-_~^^60^^ L. I. Brezhnev, Following Lenin's Course, Moscow, 1975, p. 293.
[239] __ALPHA_LVL2__ IDEOLOGICAL BANKRUPTCY OFV. Myasnikov
Developments show that China's present leadership has not abandoned one of the more dangerous aspects of Maoist foreign policy, its aggressive frontier policy, which has been devised to bring sundry forms of pressure to bear on China's neighbours and accomplish far-reaching schemes of territorial aggrandisement. Thus, the actions of the armed ``fishermen'' who demanded that the Japanese authorities clear out of the ``Chinese state territory---the Senkaku Islands'', the encouragement and backing given to the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary regime's aggressive actions on the Vietnam border, and, finally, the Chinese aggression against Vietnam, are all a continuation of the Maoist strategy of pressuring neighbouring states.
This policy of blackmail, homicidal provocations, and the fanning of tension in relations with neighbouring countries has been pursued for more than twenty years now. Has it brought the Chinese anything? Only sweeping propaganda drives, all to stir up chauvinism, only want and privation, with militarisation proceeding behind the noises of these campaigns.
As for the question of the PRC's borders, the results of the Maoist frontier policy that is pursued by Mao's heirs in Peking are disheartening. PRC borders with the USSR and India, nearly half the dryland border, are still, to use Peking's diplomatic gobbledygook, ``unsettled''. As for maritime borders, the Chinese leadership has staked claims to several island territories in the East China and South China Seas, a circumstance in itself pregnant with future conflicts. In short, tension is the salient feature of the situation on the PRC's borders.
In its hankering to achieve its hegemonistic great-power ambitions, the Peking leadership has jettisoned the Marxist-- Leninist principle of the self-determination of nations, when deciding 240 the lot of territories inhabited by non-Han minorities incorporated within the PRC. To further these same aims, the Chinese leadership has also abandoned the principle of adhering to the frontier treaties defining extensive sectors of the country's borders; it has declared these treates ``historically unfair" and `` unequal''. This has done much to shatter the foundations of state and international legal basis these borders rest upon. Most warlike, nationalist and hegemony-seeking, the Maoist frontier policy impairs the country's own national interests and conflicts with the basic interests of the broad working masses.
It is in frontier and territorial issues that Maoism most strikingly discloses the predatory hegemonistic hankerings of the relatively small group comprising the upper crust of the militarybureaucratic regime which Mao and his followers have created. Inside the country this group seeks to seize and hold power, outside, to entrench the PRC's hegemony at first among a definite set of countries, and then among the top world powers.
These hidebound egoistic cravings clash with the vital interests of all the peace-loving peoples of the world, let alone Chinese people. Naturally, the Peking leaders assiduously disguise their intentions. Maoism will not survive without shameless distortion of the basic trends of modern world development, without the rewriting of cultural traditions and the falsifying of history. Propaganda of anti-scientific, anti-Marxist views of history is part and parcel of the Peking leadership's frontier policy. Peking's ideologues bend every effort to misrepresent our country's history, especially that of its foreign policy. They pursue a twofold aim: one is by adducing ``historical'' instances to inculcate the Maoist allegation that the ``Northern neighbour" has always been China's ``Number One Enemy''; the other is by juggling with historical evidence to ``substantiate'' territorial claims to the USSR.
Maoist authors have borrowed from imperialist propaganda the ``thesis'' of Soviet foreign policy being inherited from tsarist Russia. In Peking's elaboration, this has the stage for the wholesale denigration and misrepresentation of our people's entire past history. The rise of Muscovy, the formation of the Russian state as a multinational one, the joining of Siberia and the Far East, Peter the Great's foreign policy, the evolution of the Russo-- __PRINTERS_P_241_COMMENT__ 16---2499 241 Chinese border, and Russia's policy in the Balkans are only a few aspects continuously raised in Peking publications.
Among the latest specimens of the scribblings of Peking interpreters of history are the four-volume History of Tsarist Russia's Aggression in China^^1^^ and the two collections Tsarist Russia Has Always Sought World Hegemony^^2^^ and Falsehoods of the Soviet Revisionists and Historical Reality.^^3^^
An analysis of these opuses shows that they all pursue the common provocatory aim of sustaining an anti-Soviet and antiRussian hysteria in China, and of kindling among other nations an unfriendly disposition towards the USSR.
``The history of China's relations with Russia,'' the Peking publications pronounce, ``is in fact the villainous history of tsarist Russia's aggression in China and also the history of the Chinese people's struggle against tsarist Russia's aggression.''^^4^^ The purpose of this is to coax the reader into believing that ``China's subjugation was a crucial aspect of tsarist Russia's expansionism".^^5^^ Chinese authors represent the settling of the Trans-Baikal area and Amur basin by Russian explorers in the mid-17th century as armed incursions into ``Chinese'' territory. Completely eschewing all objective approach to the illumination of history Yu Sheng-wu et al contend that the Nerchinsk Treaty was supposedly an equal treaty concluded through equal negotiation,^^6^^ and that by the first quarter of the 18th century ``the eastern and central sectors of the Sino-Russian border had been clearly defined".^^7^^
Meanwhile Peking authors construe the beginning of the Ching Empire, the conquests by Nurhachi and Abahai and the Manchu seizure of China merely as episodes of the struggle inside China _-_-_
~^^1^^ Yu Sheng-wu et al, History of Tsarist Russia's Aggression in China, Peking, 1978 (in Chinese).
~^^2^^ Tsarist Russia Has Always Sought World Hegemony, Peking, 1978 (in Chinese).
~^^3^^ Falsehoods of the Soviet Revisionists and Historical Reality, Peking, 1978 (in Chinese).
~^^4^^ Yu Sheng-wu et al, op cit., p. 1.
~^^5^^ Ibid., p. 2.
~^^6^^ Ibid., p. 3.
~^^7^^ Ibid., p. 4.
242 itself. These anti-historical constructions have been devised to assure the reader that the Amur and Maritime areas were the habitat of the ancestors of the ``Chinese nation".^^8^^ Ranking the Tungus-speaking population of Eastern Asia as ``proto-Chinese'', present Chinese authors expunge the history of entire nations who were instrumental in promoting civilisation in the Far East and who set up powerful states which, as the Po Hai state, not only stood forth as China's equal partners in international relationships, but also not infrequently inflicted grave military and political defeats upon it, such as the Jurchen Empire of Aihsin, which partly subjugated it, or the Manchu Empire of the Chings, which fully subjugated it.The Peking falsifiers of history deny the very fact of Russian geographical discoveries in the Far East, In their view, the Russians had nothing there to discover, as all these lands belonged to China. ``The Russians inhabited the East European plain, and had never heard of China's internal Amur River,'' Yu Shengwu et al declared, mixing a jigger of geography with a jigger of history to produce a cocktail of their own concoction.^^9^^ The Chinese authors even go so far as to allege that ``the Lake Baikal area is inside Mongolian lands, and since antiquity has been Chinese territory".^^10^^
Retailoring history for their own narrowly selfish purposes, the Peking authors simultaneously claim that their opus should be viewed as a ``maiden attempt" at an analysis of Russo-- Chinese relations from the angle, believe it or not, of the MarxistLeninist science of historiography. One can only say that the publications of the Chinese falsifiers of history are worlds removed from true Marxist studies of the history of China and international relations.
Indeed, what can Marxism have in common with the attempt of the Peking ideologues to extend tsarism's imperialist policy vis-a-vis China to all of Russo-Chinese relations? Nobody is denying that there was a time in history when in the wake of the European powers and of the USA and Japan, tsarist Russia _-_-_
~^^8^^ Ibid., pp. 69--70.
~^^9^^ Ibid., p. 89.
~^^10^^ Ibid., pp. 221--22.
__PRINTERS_P_243_COMMENT__ 16* 243 pursued an imperialist policy vis-a-vis China, one angrily castigated by Russia's progressives, the Bolshevik Party, and V. I. Lenin, and .whose results the Great October Socialist Revolution expunged.However, before this policy was implemented, there were more than two centuries of friendly good-neighbourly relations. It was precisely this aspect of bilateral relations which Karl Marx emphasised when writing in 1857 that ``the relations of Russia to the Chinese Empire are altogether peculiar.. .. Being excluded from the maritime trade with China, the Russians are free from any interest or involvement in past or pending disputes on that subject; and they also escape that antipathy with which from time immemorial the Chinese have regarded all foreigners approaching their country by sea . . . the Russians enjoy an inland and overland trade peculiar to themselves....''^^11^^
One will easily see that the opuses put out by the Chinese publishing houses come within a category, reading which ``there will be the inevitable, and fully justified, suspicion that the facts were selected or compiled arbitrarily, that instead of historical phenomena being presented in objective interconnection and interdependence and treated as a whole, we are presented a ' subjective' concoction to justify what might prove to be a dirty business. This does happen .. . and more often than one might think.''^^12^^
What are the ideological fountainheads of the present antiMarxist, anti-historical publications which Peking attempts to palm off as ``scholarly'' treatises, and lavishly supplies with reference to imperial chronicles, faked charts, and other addenda?
The ideological foster-fathers of the Peking falsifiers of history, especially as regards their interpretation of the history of China's neighbours, more specifically the USSR, are dyed-in-- thewool anti-Sovieteers from the imperialist camp, from whom their diligent Peking pupils have ``borrowed'' the long-since bankrupt thesis of Soviet foreign policy's ``continuity'' with that of tsarist _-_-_
~^^11^^ Karl Marx, ``The Russian Trade with China'', New-York Daily Tribune, April 7 1857, p. 4.
~^^12^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 23, pp. 272--73.
244 Russia, of the ``threat'' supposedly emanating from the USSR, of the execution nowadays of ``Peter the Great's testament'', etc., etc.As for the history of China itself, the history of its external relations and the evolution of its state borders, here the Maoist falsifiers directly continue the feudal historiography and the GreatHan constructions of the bourgeois nationalist Kuomintang ideologues.
By virtue of China's specific conditions, ``right up to the 20th century, historical literature was in effect feudal, based mainly on Confucian postulates and the idea of the stability of imperial power. Prevalent in this literature, especially in its official portion, were traditional forms and methods of collating material that restrained its free development.''^^13^^ One should add that in the China of the Chings the harshest of sensorships was rife and books, frequently along with their authors not subscribing to the official Manchu concept of China's history in the 17th-early 20th centuries, were destroyed. The authentic records were accessible only to top Empire officials, and current was the direct rewriting of texts. ``Whole paragraphs extolling the Manchus were inserted into books, and even introduced into ancient scrolls was the spirit of submissiveness to alien enslavers.''^^14^^
Thus, the Ching Emperor Hsuan Yeh contended: ``History may be written by officials, but it is the emperor in whose reign the history is written who is finally responsible, and it is he who will be blamed by posteriority if there are distortions and errors, as there were in both the Sung History and Yuan History.''^^15^^ Shouldering the responsibility for the interpretation of facts and events, the Emperor energetically intervened in scholarly activity, compelling writers to accep his concepts, He confessed, ``I read the drafts of each biography and chronological section as it was completed, and warned the editors not to criticize the _-_-_
~^^13^^ P. B. BXTKUH. HctopHMecKan nayKa B KHP.---«HcTOpHqecKaa nayKa n KHP», Moscow, 1971, pp. 3-4.
~^^14^^ O. JJ. (t'litiiMdH. O nojiiiTHKc HHIIOB n o6.aacTii HfleojrorHH.--- «Maiii)li>KypcKoe n/iayiwipcTHo H KnTar», Moscow, 1966, p. 180.
~^^15^^ J. D. Spcnce, Emperor of China. Self-Portrait of K'ang-hsi, N.Y., 1974, p. 86.
245 rulers of the past too lightly---as a ruler myself, I wanted to see their good points as well as their shortcomings. And I warned them not to feel they were above criticism as writers, for there is no word or sentence that is not capable of being corrected, regardless of what the prouder Hanlin scholars might say.''^^16^^ A sad lot lay in store for all who failed to heed the Emperor's warning. When Tai Ming-shih, a well-known historian and writer and a member of the Hanlin Academy, attempted to retrace the history of the last Mings, and accused the Ghings of the conquest of China, he was executed.^^17^^Feudal Chinese historiography was constantly affected by the ``extreme tenacity of an archaic political ideology'', which made Sinocentrism the supreme criterion of all values.^^18^^ The history of China's external ties was based on a range of officially endorsed conceptions and ideas. In the first place, China's relations with all countries and nations were arbitrarily construed both in documents and by authors from the angle of the Sinocentric foreign-policy doctrine based on the ``suzerain''---``vassals'' pattern. Accordingly, vast territories contiguous to China's periphery and nations maintaining contacts with the empire were classified in traditional historiography as ``tributaries'', regardless of the actual state of affairs.
This, in turn, gave the Emperor the ``right'' to interfere as supreme arbiter in the affairs of neighbouring nations and dispose of their territories at his own discretion. To argue the principle of dynastic continuity, the problem of relations with any concrete state was viewed from the angle of traditional Chinese historiography, and contemporary developments were hinged to the entire history of China's relationships with one or another region, which might cover hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
In the second place, the ``right'' to interfere in the affairs of neighbouring states was not to be taken mechanically. Even the ideologues of the Ching monarchy did not construe it in that fashion. In each specific case pretexts for war or territorial conquest were specified separately. Neighbouring nations were _-_-_
~^^16^^ Ibid., p. 88.
~^^17^^ Ibid., pp. 85--86.
~^^18^^ 0. B. Bopucoe, B. T. KoAocKoa. CoueTCKo-KHraHCKHe oTiiouieHHS, Moscow, 1977, p. 105.
246 ``pacified" either because they were seen as inordinately dangerous to the empire's borders, or out of ``humane'' considerations, due to the feudal discord weakening one or another neighbouring state, or with allusion to the ``traditional'' status of ``tributary'', which neighbouring states had suddenly dared to violate. While the Ching Emperor Hsuan Yeh dispatched troops against the Amur territories or Mongolia behind professions of love for peace with his neighbours, and ``serenity in the Celestial Empire'', his grandson Hung Li declared that he was supposedly ``doing the bidding of his forefathers'', when he seized Dzungaria and East Turkestan. It should be noted that during the incursion of China by foreign capitalist powers in the second half of the 19th century, official historiography assiduously covered up the concessions the Manchu government was forced to make to the aliens.^^19^^In the third place, documents were most arbitrarily prepared for publication. Thus, the Manchus arbitrarily dropped from the text of the 1698 Nerchinsk Treaty with Russia all mention of the need to leave undemarcated territories south of the Wudi River, and attempted to incorporate these territories within the sphere of their domination.^^20^^
Withal, in keeping with Chinese traditions, Ching historiographers collated a vast wealth of documents germane to the records of the State Chancellory, State Council, Ministries, and other top government agencies of the empire. These records were taken as the basis for one of the chief treatises on the subject of interest, namely the Chronicles of the Great Ching Dynasty, published in Tokyo in 1937--1938. Despite its unquestionable value, when referring to it one should realise that broadly misleading statements were deliberately included in documentation to entrench the official version, especially in cases pertinent to the conquest of the territories of neighbouring countries and nations. It is precisely for this reason that not infrequently facts adequately _-_-_
~^^19^^ Here one of the basic principles of traditional foreign policy
was the demand to ``restore territorial losses" (See E. R. KOCTUKOB. Be-- jiHKOflepwcaBiibie aM6nnnn n norpaiiHMHan no;iHTHKa neKHMCKoro
pyKOBOflCTBa.---Problemy Dalnego Vostoka, No. 1, 1973, p. 56).
~^^20^^ «PyCCKO-KHT3HCKHe OTHOUieHHSJ B XVII B6Ke», Vol. II, MOSCOW, 1972, p. 43.
247 authenticated by other sources conflict with the interpretation in the Shilu (Truthful Record) and also in the Chronicles.On the other hand, many important documents which reveal the springs of Ghing diplomacy but which did not suit the Ching version, were simply excluded from the Shilu. A comparison of its material with Russian and other European documents warrants confirmation of the assessment provided by US scholar Wills, who in a study of Ching China's relations with Holland noted that the Chinese official records were absolutely unsatisfactory, and that there were a range of important imperial edicts which he had in a full Dutch translation, but of which he could find no trace in the Shilu and other compilations.^^21^^
Hence by the early 20th century Manchu-Chinese feudal historiography had furnished a picture of the Ching Empire's external ties that was distorted a) conceptually, b) from the angle of interpretation of one or another event, and c) by directly falsifying documentary evidence. This pinpoints the task of a critical reinterpretation of the feudal legacy.
With the 20th century came China's deliverance from the Manchu yoke. The Manchu Ching dynasty was overcome, and in an uphill struggle the Chinese revolution, backed by the international communist and working-class movement, and by the forces of socialism led by the USSR, succeeded in terminating imperialist aggression in China, and in bringing the country and its people out onto the road of social progress. In such conditions the bourgeois nationalist Great-Han ideology came to fierce grips with the ideas of socialism and proletarian internationalism, of which China's working masses under their Communist Party were now the vehicle.
As far as the problems of the demarcation of China's present borders were concerned, bourgeois nationalist Kuomintang historiography did not seek---and by virtue of its great-power nationalistic substance could not seek---to seriously revise the shopworn feudal conceptions, which it merely tried to provide with a facelift and include in its arsenal.
However, bourgeois nationalistic historiography mostly concentrated on the 19th century. Trying to utilise for their own _-_-_
~^^21^^ Quoted in The Chinese World Order, Carabr., Mass., 1968, p.226.
248 narrowly selfish aims the revolutionary potential of the Chinese people's national liberation movement, the ideologues of the rightwing national bourgeoisie, speculating on western humiliation of China's national pride, put forward the revanchist thesis as to the need to ``regain'' the Chinese irredentas, in other words, territories that the Ching Empire had lost in its time of crisis.A maiden work of this order was Su Yen-tsung's The General Tendency of the Modification of China's Borders,^^22^^ which was published shortly after the Hsinhai revolution. Coming after it, Hua Chi-yun's China's Borders^^23^^ gained wide currency. Indeed, its author, possibly the Kuomintang's leading authority in the field, completed his treatise in the spring of 1930, shortly after the Kuomintang provocations on the Chinese Eastern Railway, the raids on Soviet territory, and the rupture of SovietChinese relations. Hua Chi-yun's conceptions, which reflected the official moods of the Kuomintang right wing, derived from a blend of Great-Han chauvinism with anti-communist and anti-Soviet dicta.
Hua Chi-yun advocated the thesis of the need to ``return'' to China the lands it had ``lost''. He claimed that ``China's old borders" had embraced vast territories extending from Kamchatka to Singapore and from Lake Balkhash to the Philippines. Korea, Burma, Vietnam, and Bhutan were seen as ``conceded tributaries'', which had been within the ``old borders''. Considerable tracts of Soviet Far Eastern territory along with the Island of Sakhalin, part of Kazakhstan and the Soviet Central Asian republics, sections of Afghan and Indian territory, and the Ryukyu Archipelago were also included among China's ``losses''. The Mongolian People's Republic was generally ignored as a sovereign state and was designated as within China's contemporary borders. Maritime boundaries stretched hundreds and thousands of miles away from the mainland, taking in the islands of the East China and South China Seas. The special map appended to the chapter, ``Revision of Frontiers and Lost _-_-_
~^^22^^ Su Yen-tsung, The General Tendency of the Modification of China's Borders, Shanghai, 1916 (in Chinese).
~^^23^^ Hua Chi-yun, China's Borders, Shanghai, 1932 (in Chinese).
249 Territories'', illustrated this projected programme of territorial aggrandisement.^^24^^The book examined a set of political, economic, and cultural measures devised to bring about a rapid Sinification of non-Han inhabitants of border territories. Having roots deep in antiquity and the Middle Ages, China's intercourse with Korea, Siberia, Central Asia, Afghanistan, India, and Vietnam was analysed with the author seeking to prove China's ``historical rights" to the lands beyond its borders. Hua Chi-yun challenged the validity of quite a number of border treaties and tried to justify Kuomintang's claims to the USSR, Burma, and India.
Hua Chi-yun's methods were borrowed by his disciples, who sought to supplement his ``system of arguments" and continually fan revanchist sentiments over China's frontier relations with its neighbours.
In the 1930s and 1940s, Kuomintang writers attached special significance to efforts to subvert the national liberation movement of the non-Chinese peoples inhabiting considerable border lands. Their rights to independent historical development were virtually denied and their historical ties with China were represented as a craving to enjoy the blessings of a higher civilisation, supposedly a boon for the ``barbarians''. Peddled under cover of the call to create a ``united state-nation'', was the thesis of the logical assimilation of non-Han peoples, and all talk of improving the administrative system, economy, transportation, and educational services on China's outskirts was geared to justifying governmental Sinification of the border lands.
It should be noted that yet when the Kuomintang ruled China, internationalist Communists framed a fundamental programme for the country's revolutionary forces over the national territorial issue. In contrast to the Kuomintang slogans of ``the equality of nations" and ``the Republic of the Five Nations'', the first All-China Congress of Soviets in Juichin in the autumn of 1931 declared that the ``Chinese Soviet Republic categorically and unreservedly recognised the rights of all nations to self-- determination".^^25^^
_-_-_~^^24^^ Hua Chi-yun, op. cit, p. 50.
~^^25^^ «CoB6Tbi B Kmae», Moscow, 1933, p. 440.
250``This implies,'' the Congress resolution on the national question emphasised, ``that in such regions, among others, as Mongolia, Tibet, Sinkiang, Yunnan, and Kweichow, where most of the population are of other, non-Chinese nationalities, the working masses of these nationalities may decide for themselves whether they wish to secede from the Chinese Soviet Republic and set up their own independent state, or whether they desire to join the Union of Soviet Republics, or become an autonomus region within the Chinese Soviet Republic. The Chinese Soviet Republic will do all in its power to assist and facilitate every movement by the national minorities against imperialism, the Chinese warlords, landowners, bureaucrats, merchants and usurers. The Chinese Soviet Republic will also support the national revolutionary movement and struggle by nationalities that have already gained independence, as for instance, the Outer Mongolian People's Republic, against assault and threats from the imperialists and Kuomintang militarists.''^^26^^
Hence China's progressive revolutionary forces rebuffed the Great-Han conceptions of the nationalist authors literally from the very start of their official publication.
However, even the Kuomintang government reckoned with international acts defining the demarcation of China's borders. In diplomatic documents it did not dare to raise the issue of their ``revision''. True, off the record it, already in the mid-1920s, evolved the method of so-called cartographic aggression, in accordance with which published maps of China incorporated large territories belonging to neighbouring countries.^^27^^
__*_*_*__After the victory of the popular revolution and the formation of the PRC, the history of China's border demarcation continued to be an arena of acute clashes between the _-_-_
~^^26^^ See E. H. KOCTUKOB. rio^HTHMecKaa KaprorpacpHH na cJiy>K6e BejiHKOflepmaBiioro Hau,HOnaJiH3Ma.---Problemy Dalnego Vostoka, No. 4, 1973, p. 86.
~^^27^^ See E. R. KOCTUKOB. nojiHTimecKasi KaptorpaipHH na cjiy>K6e HCJiHKOflepHOBiioro nanHOiia.niMMa.---Problemy Dalnego Vostoka, No. 4, 1973, p. 86.
251 internationalist and the nationalist ideologies. Moreover, whereas PRC historiography undertook initial rather half-hearted steps to revise and criticise Kuomintang concepts as regards the history of China's relations with tsarist Russia and the USSR, it most intensively dragged in nationalistic ``versions'' of the territorial formation of the Chinese state. At the same time, in its struggle against the revolutionary gains of the Chinese people and the nonHan minorities inhabiting the PRC and also against the ideas of internationalism and friendship with neighbours, firstly the USSR, the Kuomintang constantly undertook purposeful sallies, representing Great-Han chauvinism as ``true patriotism" and the extent of territorial claims as a criterion of the ``greatness of the national spirit''. Thus in Taiwan were published such books as the notorious Studies of Siberia, the Chinese Territory and Home of the Hsienpi by a certain Wang Su^^28^^ and numerous ``histories of the aggression" of Russia in China among which probably one should put first Wu Hsiang-hsiang's lampoon, which went through seven editions between 1954 and 1973, and which was recommended as a manual for Taiwan schools and colleges.^^29^^In the PRC the first attempts are being made to follow such ``historical monographs''. Noteworthy in this connection is the publication of Liu Peihua's Outline History of Modern China.^^30^^ Like Hua Chi-yun he provided a map of ``China's lost territories'', in which he incorporated either the full, or large parts of the territory of many of China's neighbours; this publication aroused public protest within the countries neighbouring on the PRC.
That the publication of such literature was no chance occurrence is borne out by the fact that during the struggle against right-wing bourgeois elements in 1957, the CPC leadership left unanswered their claims as to the unsettled territorial and frontier issues still existing between China and the Soviet Union.^^31^^
_-_-_~^^28^^ Wang Su. Studies of Siberia, the Chinese Territory and Home of the Hsienpi, Yang Ming, 1954 (in Chinese).
~^^29^^ Wu Hsiang-hsiang, The History of the Aggression of Russian Imperialism in China, Taipei, 1973, 7th edition (in Chinese).
~^^30^^ Liu Peihua, Outline History of Modern China, Faking, 1953, 2nd edition in 1954.
~^^31^^ See O. E. Bopucoe, B. T. KOAOCKOB, op. cit., p. 265.
252The CPC leadership's outright break with Marxism-Leninism, the consolidation, in the process of the so-called cultural revolution, of the Maoist clique, and the fact that a military and bureaucratic dictatorship was installed resulted, as far as ideology is concerned, in sharp swing to the right, which has also been manifest in interpretations of the history of China's border-- formation. Indeed, interpretations of the history of the Chinese state as such and that of its neighbours, as well as of international relations in the Far East and in Central and Southeast Asia, along with the history of geographical discoveries and ethnographical, toponymical, archeological, and literary data are geared in the PRC to attempts to justify the Peking leadership's hegemonistic great-power policy.^^32^^ As a result, the Maoist interpreters of the history of China's borders have to all practical intents clubbed together with Kuomintang ideologues and historiographers.
The constructions of both are rooted in a Great-Han nationalistic approach to the territories of China's neighbours as being ``lost'' Chinese territories. The Maoists have borrowed from the Kuomintang the ``historical ledger" of China's territorial claims to its neighbours. The aims and methods of this irredentist policy virtually dovetail, even though Taipei rebukes Peking for its ``indecision'' in implementing programmes of expansionism. The Peking authorities react by pumping up border tensions. Not once has there been any criticism in the PRC of the Kuomintang's territorial and frontier political tenets.
The selfsame Great-Han nationalistic stance is characteristic also of the Maoist interpretation of the history of China's borders, whose substance was officially explained in a PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs document of 8 October 1969^^33^^ as follows: ``China became a united multinational state more than 2,000 years ago. China has always existed in the world as a multinational state, regardless of the change of feudal dynasties and the ruling nationality at the moment.''
_-_-_~^^32^^ See C. JI. TuxeuHCKUti. Be/iHKOxaHbCKHH UIOBHHHSM H ny6. nnna HcxopHqecKHe TeMbi B KHP.---Voprosy istorii, No. 11, 1975, pp. 64--96.
~^^33^^ Jenmin jihpao, 9 October 1969. In early 1974 this document was published as a separate booklet.
253One easily sees that this postulate reflects the theory of ``the united state-nation" which the Kuomintang ideologues once put forward, and under cover of which the non-Han minorities inhabiting upwards of 60 per cent of Chinese territory were forcibly assimilated. Speculating with the fact that now and again the non-Han peoples fell victim to invasions of Chinese armies and that at other periods these peoples had now and again themselves overrun China, depriving it of political independence and creating the great empires of the past, the authors of various publications issued in the PRC and more specifically, Yu Shengwu et al, in the afore-mentioned The History of Tsarist Russia's Aggression in China, attempt to reduce the history of the Jurchens, Mongols, Turkic peoples, and a whole range of other nations to that of the ``united, indivisible" Chinese state, which thus erases the right to independent historical development of non-Han peoples who over the millennia entered into cultural, political, and economic contacts with China, created their own statehood and culture, and made their own contribution to world history.
How in concrete terms is this thesis of the ``united multinational" Chinese state utilised in the ``historical'' opuses published in Peking? The present Chinese authors contend that whether China dispatched its armies far outside the country in the days of the Han and Tang Dynasties, whether the Kitans (Liao), Jurchens (Chin), Mongols (Yuan), on Manchus (Ching) established empires by incorporating China with its neighbours, or whether the Ching Empire mounted incursions into Russian Amur territories or seized Mongolian lands, these were all events that took place inside the Chinese state, while suppression of the independence movement of the non-Chinese nationalities is dished up in Peking opuses as ``pacification'' of all who ``sought to dismember the motherland''.
Thus in reference to the history of the Jungarian Khanate and its struggle against Ching aggrandisement, Peking pronounced the Oirots ``an offshoot of one of the peoples of our country, the Mongols''. With this as the point of departure, according to the ``logic'' of the Peking falsifiers of history, the history of the Jungaian Khanate is as follows: ``In 1677, Galdan, leader of the Jungar Mongol-Oirots, proclaimed himself Khan and began to rule 254 independently. Afterwards the Jungarian leaders either submitted to the Ching government or unremittingly engaged in dismemberment of the motherland. In 1755, the Ching dynasty pacified a rebellion in Jungaria. This was China's internal affair, not at all the conquest of one state by another.''^^34^^
This is nothing but a word-for-word repetition of the version of the Ching conquest of Jungaria which had been devised by imperial historiographers in the 17th-19th centuries.^^35^^ The untenability of this version has long been demonstrated against the background of extensive documentary evidence.^^36^^ However, to ``prove'' this the Peking falsifiers of history had no qualms about borrowing even the terminology from the chronicles and compositions of the times of Imperial China. As far as the historical facts go, imagine someone trying to interpret the history of Europe as events, say, within the framework of a ``united French state'', regardless of whether Napoleon's armies had set out to subdue the Germans, Italians, or Slavs, or whether the Allied troops had entered Paris. No doubt, that would be qualified as something worse even than quackery.
Characteristic of both the Kuomintang and Maoist conceptions of China's ``border problems" is a bellicose expansionism disguised in claptrap about the importance of borders for national defence. Moreover, whereas the strategy of national defence from the angle of the border characteristics was reviewed by Kuomintang writers mostly during the period of very real Japanese aggression, today's Chinese authors, ignoring the qualitatively different character of the PRC's present borders (its mainland _-_-_
~^^34^^ Lishih Yenchiu, No. 1, 1974, p. 120.
~^^35^^ See Imperially Endorsed Strategic Plans for the Pacification of the Jungarians, 1772; Ho Chiu-tao, ``On the Pacification of Jungaria in the 18th Century'', Shofang Peicheng, Vol. 2, Chuan 4.
~^^36^^ See JI. H. MyMOH. ArpapHan nojimHKa UHHCKOFO npasHTejibCTBa B CHHbu.3HHe B KOHU.6 XVIII BeKa, Moscow-Leningrad, 1936; H. H. 3M2TKUH. HCTOPHH flxynrapcKoro xaiictsa (1635---1758), Moscow, 1964; B. 77. Fypeem. BejiHKoxaHbCKHii IUOBHHHSM H neKOTopbie Bonpocbi HCTOPHH Hapoflos UenrpajibHOH ASHH B XVIII--- XIX BB.---Voprosy istorii, No. 9, 1974; B. A. Mouceee. K Bonpocy 06 HcxopHMecKOM CTaTyce «,fl,}KyHrapcKoro xaHCTaa»,---«Te3Hcu H flOK^aabi 6-oft HayiHoft KOHCJ>epenu,HH «O6mecTBo H rocyAapciBO B K.HTae», Vol. I, Moscow, 1975.
255 neighhours today are either socialist or developing states), invent for propagandistic purposes the myth of ``China's encirclement" by hostile states and the myth of the ``Northern threat''. The Maoist slogans calling for war preparation are mostly illustrated in propaganda against the background of material concerned with the border lands.Finally, characteristic of Peking's concept to as great an extent as of its Kuomintang counterpart, is a rabid anti-Sovietism. It is again impressed upon the Chinese reader that there supposedly exists between the PRC and the USSR ``the present-day issue of the Sino-Soviet border bequeathed by history''.
Hence, PRC historiography has not surmounted the nationalistic constructions of feudal and Kuomintang historiography nor has it rebuffed the ideological offensive mounted by Taiwan propaganda around the history and present status of the PRC's borders; on the contrary, the Maoists killed in the embryo all attempts at a critical reinterpretation of relevant historical evidence. Rocked by a profound crisis and subsequently completely banned during the ``cultural revolution'', contemporary Chinese historiography is today nothing but a summation of official propaganda material serving the needs of the Maoist clique's expansionist anti-socialist foreign policy, and in this respect it has to all practical intents dovetailed with the line pursued by Kuomintang bourgeois nationalist propaganda.
As regards the history and present state of China's borders, PRC historiography, which Maoism has so perniciously affected, has slithered down into great-power nationalistic positions, and is virtually in harness with feudal and Kuomintang historiography. In the guise of impartiality, bourgeois Sinology and imperialist propaganda flirt with the Maoist falsifiers of history, hoping thereby to exacerbate political relations between the states of the region under review.
__*_*_*__Marxist-Leninist Sinology and Orientology study the objective processes and the ensuing regularities of the formation of such a multinational state as the PRC. Students currently face major tasks of writing concretely historical and comprehensive treatises 256 that would furnish the real picture of the formation of the PRC's state territory and borders. Instrumental herein is elaboration of the theoretical and methodological problems of this particular branch of Sinology and also a synthesis of the achievements of national schools of historiography.
The struggle against the Great-Han hegemonism and expansionism in what concerns China's borders is more than a purely scholarly issue, as here questions of history are most intimately related to the drafting of practical policy. This imposes a special responsibility upon the historians. After all the present Chinese leadership's frontier policy is an important part of its overall foreign policy, the substance of which was pinpointed with such profound scientific accuracy at the 25th CPSU Congress. In the Central Committee Report to that Congress, CC CPSU General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev declared: ``Peking's frantic attempts to torpedo detente, to obstruct disarmament, to breed suspicion and hostility between states, its efforts to provoke a world war and reap whatever advantages may accrue, present a great danger for all peace-loving peoples. This policy conducted by Peking is deeply opposed to the interests of all peoples.''^^37^^
Far Eastern Affairs, No. 1, 1979, pp. 28--38.
_-_-_~^^37^^ Documents and Resolutions. XXVth Congress of the CPSU, Moscow, 1976, p. 14.
__PRINTERS_P_257_COMMENT__ 17---2499 [257] __ALPHA_LVL2__ HOW PEKING FALSIFIES HISTORYF. Nikolayev
__NOTE__ Author(s)'s name(s) appear above chapter title.The history of the Soviet government's abrogation of the unequal treaties concluded between tsarist Russia and China is exhaustively dealt with in official Soviet documents, in the research work of Sinologists, historians and jurists, and, lastly, in the statements of the Chinese leaders themselves in the period when they had not finally broken with Marxism-Leninism and socialist internationalism. If today we find we have to return to that question, which has been settled long ago, it is only because in China they continue to juggle with the facts about Russo-Chinese and Soviet-Chinese relations.
In particular, the Maoists allege that the Russo-Chinese frontier treaties were ``unequal'' and that Russia had seized territory from China. These allegations cover up reckless claims of the Peking leaders to Soviet territory and a desire to cast doubt on the legality of the existing Soviet-Chinese frontier and to erode and break up its contractual and legal foundation.^^1^^
In 1972, Peking presented its territorial claims mainly as the legend to the maps of the notorious World Atlas. Now these claims have assumed a new cover, a historical one. The commentaries to a pamphlet by Shi Tsung Let Us Read the World History (from the ``Learn History" series) published in Peking in January 1973, are a monstrous piling-up of absurdities in respect to the history of Russia and Russo-Chinese relations. The aims of this piece of work are the same---stir up hatred in the Chinese people toward its great neighbour and try to wipe out from the memory of the younger Chinese generation the generous Soviet assistance given to the Chinese working people in their long and hard struggle for national and social emancipation and for economic reconstruction.
_-_-_~^^1^^ See International Affairs, No. 7, Moscow, 1972, pp. 15--20.
258The core of the latest historical ``research'' undertaken by the Maoists remains the same: allegations, with neither historical nor legal grounds, on the ``unequal'' treaties which defined the RussoChinese frontier. These allegations are not the invention of the Maoists themselves. They are inherited from the Chinese militarists of the mid-1920s.
In 1925--1926 the militarist clique in power in Peking put forward far-reaching demands for a revision of the Soviet frontier in favour of China. Since then Chinese nationalists of all shades have been claiming primordial Soviet territories, including the Maritime region and the territory along the Amur.
The treaties demarcating the long-established frontiers between the two countries were signed in the latter half of the 19th century. They were drawn up in accordance with the requirements of international law and treaty practices of those days. Their legality is unimpeachable and has never been questioned until the mid-1920s. On the contrary, there were many instances when China insisted on the absolute observance of the ``red frontier line" marked in the treaty charts.
In order to support their territorial claims the Chinese nationalists had to falsify history and groundlessly allege that the Soviet government had itself declared as unequal all the treaties signed by Russia with China, including the frontier treaties, and had annulled them in 1917--1924. Hence the conclusion that the frontier between the two states must be ``determined anew''.
The facts can easily be reconstructed by reading Lenin's statements and studying the documents and actions of the Soviet government under his direct leadership.
Lenin stigmatised as predatory and piratical the policy that was pursued toward China by the bourgeois governments of Europe, including the Russian autocratic government. He was unsparingly critical of the participation of tsarist troops, together with the forces of other imperialist countries, in the suppression of the people's I'ho T'uan (Boxer) Rising of 1900. ``The bourgeois governments of Europe,'' Lenin wrote in 1900, ``have long been conducting this policy of plunder with respect to China, and now they have been joined by the autocratic Russian Government.''^^2^^ Thus, as Lenin noted, with the onset of the _-_-_
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 4, p. 373.
259 epoch of imperialism tsarism joined in the policy of looting China. The treaties demarcating the Russo-Chinese frontier were signed much earlier, and Lenin and the Soviet government never regarded them as unequal, as a result of the imperialist policy of brigandage that tsarism began pursuing at the turn of the century.Peking social-chauvinists readily use statements by the classics of Marxism-Leninism which they take out from historical context to make sound truthlike their declarations of the ``inequality'' of frontier treaties between China and Russia, but they completely forget Leninism when they start to ``substantiate historically" their territorial claims. In the above-mentioned commentaries to Let Us Read the World History, an important Lenin's statement that the bourgeois governments of Europe had long before Russia started their policy of plundering China is replaced by an allegation that tsarist Russia ``was the first to start the aggression against China''.
After the Great October Socialist Revolution, the peoples of Soviet Russia, led by the Communist Party, put an end, once and for all, to the policy of national oppression. All the unequal treaties signed by tsarist Russia with Eastern countries, including China, were annulled by the historic decrees signed by Lenin and also by other documents adopted by the young Soviet Republic. This unparalleled noble action by the workers' and peasants' government of Soviet Russia which had been born in the fires of the October Revolution won the profound gratitude of the oppressed peoples of the world.
Lenin's Decree on Peace abrogated all the secret treaties signed by previous governments. The annulled treaties were immediately published in seven volumes prepared (under the direction of N. G. Markin) by the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. Later, the treaties from the secret archives of the tsarist Foreign Ministry were published in other publications. These did not and could not include a single treaty concerning the frontier between Russia and China if only for the reason that the frontier treaties had never been secret. The Decree on Peace did not annul all of Russia's treaties with foreign countries. It only annulled secret treaties that were used as a cover for looting and violence. At the 2nd All-Russia Congress of Soviets Lenin said: 260 ``We reject all clauses on plunder and violence, but we shall welcome all clauses containing provisions for good-neighbourly relations and all economic agreements; we cannot reject these.''^^3^^
A clear insight into the Soviet government's attitude towards the treaties signed by former Russian governments is provided by a letter that was sent to the Director of the International Intermediary Institute at The Hague on 2 April 1924 on instructions from G. V. Chicherin, the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs. In that letter, published in the July 1924 issue of the Institute's bulletin, it is underscored that the Decree on Peace proclaimed as null and void the secret political treaties signed by the former governments ``in the interests of the landowners and capitalists'', and that there had never been a general annullment of the treaties Russia signed under the tsarist or Provisional Government. In G. V. Chicherin's letter it was explained that with the exception of the treaties annulled by the Decree on Peace, the question of the fate of all the other treaties should be decided in each individual case with consideration of the changed circumstances for each state and each treaty separately.
The Soviet government's attitude towards the treaties signed by Russia with China was defined in the Message of the Government of the RSFSR to the Chinese People and the Governments of South and North China of 25 July 1919, and in a Note of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR of 27 September 1920. The Message specified the treaties between Russia and China that were regarded as unequal by the Soviet government. It stated that immediately after the October Revolution the workers' and peasants' government of Russia had annulled all the secret treaties with China, Japan and Russia's former Entente allies with respect to China. The Message recalled the Soviet offer to the government of China ``to enter into negotiations on the annullment of the Treaty of 1896, the Peking Protokol of 1901, and all the agreements signed with Japan from 1907 to 1916".^^4^^ It declared that the Soviet government was prepared to renounce Russia's rights under the treaties on spheres _-_-_
~^^3^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 26, p. 255.
~^^4^^ «/JoKyMCHTbi BHeiiiHeH nojiHTHKH CCCP», Vol. II, Moscow, 1958, pp. 221---23.
261 of influence in China, on extra-territorial rights and consular jurisdiction, on the factories and privileges of Russian merchants in China, and on Russia's share of the indemnity forced on China by the imperialist countries following the suppression of the Boxer Rising. Soviet Russia was prepared to surrender all her rights under treaties of this kind, regardless of whether they were concluded with China or with third countries with respect to China.The Message noted that the ``Soviet Government has renounced all the conquests of the tsarist Government, which had wrested Manchuria and other regions from China. Let the peoples of these regions decide for themselves within the frontiers of what country they wish to live and what form of government they wish to have''. This concerned not only the right of way of the Chinese Eastern Railway and Manchuria as a whole but also Outer and a considerable part of Inner Mongolia, which, under the Treaty of 1896 and under the Russo-Japanese treaties of 1907--1916 were in tsarist Russia's sphere of influence.
There is thus not a word in the Message of 1919 about the frontier between China and Russia or about the Russo-Chinese treaties demarcating that frontier. Nor was there, naturally, any mention that the frontier treaties were considered unequal and had been annulled.
Neither in the documents underlying Soviet foreign policy in 1917--1918, nor in the Message of 1919, nor in the subsequent acts of the Soviet government were there any words that could be interpreted as recognition that the territorial demarcation concluded between Russia and China in the middle of the 19th century was unlawful. In keeping with Lenin's elaboration of the Marxist principle of the right of nations to self-determination, the Soviet government used this principle from the very beginning as the basis for its approach to the question of frontier demarcation. ``Frontiers are determined by the will of the population,'' Lenin said.^^5^^ Utilising their right to self-determination, the peoples of Central Asia formed their own republics, which became members of the closely-knit family of Soviet republics. In the other regions adjoining China---the Maritime Territory and the Amur region---the population, which had long consisted _-_-_
~^^5^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 24, p. 300.
262 mainly of Russians, exercised its right to self-determination and, together with the rest of the Russian people, formed the Soviet Socialist State.Both before and after the publication of the Message of 1919 the Soviet government, as, incidentally, the government of China, regarded the frontiers between the two countries as established in full conformity with the Russo-Chinese frontier treaties. The entire world knows how vigorously the people of the Soviet Far East, and the peoples of the Land of Soviets under the guidance of the Soviet government and Lenin personally resisted the foreign intervention in the Far East, the landing of Japanese, US and other foreign troops in Vladivostok.^^6^^ At their 5th Congress in Khabarovsk in August 1918, the working people of the Soviet Far East characterised the intervention in the Maritime territory as the ``grossest insult to and an outrageous violation of the sovereign right of the people of Russia''. They declared: ``The Soviet Far East is an inseparable part of the great Russian Federative Soviet Republic. .. . We shall not yield an inch of our socialist Motherland without a battle.''^^7^^
At the formation of the Far Eastern Republic, its Constituent Assembly, held in April 1920, declared that the region ``from Lake Baikal to the Pecific Ocean, including the Trans-Baikal, Amur, Maritime, Sakhalin and Kamchatka region" and also the ``right of way of the Chinese Eastern Railway" constituted an independent state.^^8^^ The Chinese government of those days recognised this declaration, maintaining regular relations with the Far Eastern Republic, receiving its representatives in Peking and sending its own representatives to Verkhneudinsk (now Ulan Ude) and, later, to Chita.
The immutability of the frontiers with China was also stressed in the message of the Constituent Assembly of the Far Eastern Republic to the People and Government of China of 24 March 1921 in which it was stated: ``China and Russia had _-_-_
~^^6^^ See V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 27, p. 226; «Coo6meHHe CoBeicKoro npaBHTejibcrsa o HOOHCKOM flecaiire BO BjiajiHBOCTOKe», /[oKyMeiiTbi Biieumeii ROJIHTHKH CCCP, Vol. I, Moscow, 1957, pp. 224--26.
~^^7^^ «/],OKyMenTbi BiieuiHeii OOJIHTHKH CCCP», Vol. I, pp. 456--57.
~^^8^^ Ibid., Vol. II, p. 444.
263 common frontiers extending for several thousand versts. [1 versta = 0,663 miles.] Today the Far Eastern Republic has inherited from Russia a considerable part of that unbounded common frontier.''^^9^^ In the many scores of documents that were exchanged throughout the 1920s by Soviet Russia and the Far Eastern Republic with China in respect to the situation on the frontier and the use of Chinese territory as whiteguard bases both sides took as their point of departure the fact that the frontier passed along the Ussuri, the Amur and the Sarykol Range as established by the relevant Russo-Chinese treaties.In a telegram of 26 October 1922 to the government of the Far Eastern Republic on the liberation of Vladivostok Lenin stated: ``The capture of Vladivostok by the People's Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic unites with the masses of the working people of Russia the Russian citizens who have borne the heavy yoke of Japanese imperialism. I congratulate all the working people of Russia and our valiant Red Army on this new victory, and I request the Government of the Far Eastern Republic to convey to all the workers and peasants of the liberated regions, and in Vladivostok, the greetings of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR.''^^10^^ Finally, in this last pronouncement, in a speech at a plenary meeting of the Moscow Soviet on 20 November 1922 Lenin declared: ``The capture of Vladivostok has shown all of us (though Vladivostok is a long way off, it is after all one of our own towns) everybody's desire to join in our achievements. The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic now stretches from here to there.''^^11^^
These are only some of the facts and they eloquently show that neither the working people of Russia nor the Soviet government headed by Lenin had ever proposed that the annulment of the unequal treaties with China should apply to the RussoChinese frontier treaties, or that the return to the Chinese people of the tsarist conquests in China should apply to the regions recognised by the frontier treaties as belonging to the Russian people.
_-_-_~^^9^^ «j[[oKyMeHTbi Biieuinefl HOJIHTHKH CCCP», Vol. IV, 1960, p. 20; International Affairs, No. 7, Moscow, 1972, pp. 16--21.
~^^10^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 382.
~^^11^^ Ibid., p. 437.
264The provisions contained in the Message of 1919 were reaffirmed in the Note of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs of 27 September 1920. In that Note it was stressed that the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs would ``steadily abide by the principles enunciated in the Russian Soviet Government's Message of 25 July 1919 and use them as the basis for friendly agreement between China and Russia".^^12^^ The Soviet government thereby reaffirmed its readiness to annul the treaties and rights acquired by Russia to Chinese territory mentioned in the 1919 Message.
However, the present Chinese leadership deliberately misinterprets the 1920 Note of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. In a ``document'' dated 8 October 1969 the Chinese Foreign Ministry asserts that the 1920 Note did not reaffirm the principles of the 1919 Message but ``developed'' them in the direction of annulling all the treaties concluded by the former Russian governments with China, in the direction of renouncing the territories recognised in these treaties as belonging to Russia.^^13^^ As a matter of record, the 1920 Note begins with the following words: ``Over a year ago, on 25 July 1919, the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic published a Message to the Chinese People and the Governments of North and South China, in which the Government of Russia renounced all of the former tsarist treaties concluded with China and returned to the Chinese people all that had been forcibly seized and appropriated by the tsarist government and the Russian bourgeoisie, and offered the Government of China to enter into official negotiations for the establishment of friendly relations.'' Thus the words ``all the treaties" and ``all that had been seized" figure in the 1920 Note. However, from the text it is quite clear that far from speaking of `` development'', the Note only reiterates the contents of the 1919 Message. Consequently, it referred to the same unequal treaties and the conquests mentioned in the 1919 Message.
Although the 1920 Note only reaffirms the principles stated in the 1919 Message, there is also a difference between these two _-_-_
~^^12^^ Ibid., Vol. Ill, 1959, p. 214.
~^^13^^ Jenmin Jihpao, 9 October 1969.
265 documents. The first enunciated the Soviet government's fundamental programme with respect to China, while the second put forward concrete proposals and the draft of a general treaty on the principles governing relations with China. The draft, as does the opening paragraph of the 1920 Note, likewise speaks of ``all the treaties" concluded by the former governments of Russia with China. Obviously, this, too, refers only to the unequal treaties with China which the Soviet government declared in the 1919 Message it was prepared to renounce, and regarding which it reaffirmed its words in the opening paragraph of its 1920 Note.A proposal to conclude an agreement on the annulment of treaties is juridically quite different from a unilateral renunciation of these treaties. In 1920, it was by no means Soviet Russia's fault that no agreement whatever was reached with China on the former treaties or on other issues, and the Soviet proposal to consider the unequal treaties null and void was left hanging in the air. There are absolutely no grounds for referring to the 1920 Note as proof of the Soviet government's unilateral renunciation of any treaties.
This applies not only to the proposal for the annulment of unequal treaties but also to such a clear-cut question as the Soviet government's proposal for the renunciation of Russia's share of the indemnity for the Boxer Rising. Explaining the juridical aspect of the matter, the Soviet Mission in China pointed out in its Note of 13 December 1923: ``The Soviet Government's Notes of 1919 and 1920 do speak of a renunciation of the Boxer Rising indemnity. But the sole fact that the Chinese Government had acquainted itself with the contents of these Notes is not enough to free it from the formal commitments imposed by the final Protocol of 1901. The Soviet Government's Notes are, on the one hand, a statement of its view on all RussoChinese issues and, on the other, a proposal to conclude an agreement on that basis. But, regrettably, the Chinese Government has still not given the proper reply to these Notes and, as is known, no agreement has so far been signed between China and the Soviet Union. The fact that the Chinese Government knows their contents does not give it any right to base its actions on these contents. The Chinese Government will acquire the rights arising from the principles of the Soviet declarations 266 only when these principles are formalised in a bilateral act of international significance.''^^14^^
The annulment of Russia's unequal treaties with China was formalised juridically by the Agreement of 31 May 1924 on the general principles for the settlement of issues between the Soviet Union and the Chinese Republic. This is a historical fact. That is the significance of the 1924 Agreement.
A Note of 13 July 1929 from the Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs to the Chinese Charge d'Affaires in the USSR states on this point: ``Back in 1919 the Government of the USSR had, on its own initiative, sent the Chinese people a Message in which it declared its readiness to annul all unequal treaties signed between China and tsarist Russia. This statement was effectuated by the Government of the USSR in the Treaty of 1924.''^^15^^
In Article IV of the 1924 Agreement^^16^^ it is stated that in keeping with its policy and its statements of 1919 and 1920, the Soviet government declared null and void all the treaties signed by the tsarist government with third countries, affecting the sovereign right or interests of China. This signified the annulment of all the treaties on Russia's spheres of influence in Chinese territory.^^17^^
Under Article IX of the same Agreement, the Soviet government consented to transfer to the jurisdiction of the Chinese authorities questions concerning the Chinese Eastern Railway with the exception of questions pertaining to the administration of the railway as a purely commercial enterprise. This signified the formal annulment of the treaties rejecting China's sovereignty over the railway's right of way. In Articles X-XIII, the government of the USSR renounced its rights under the conventions, treaties, agreements, and so on that had given tsarist Russia special rights and privileges in China, and also all the _-_-_
~^^14^^ «aoKyM6HTbi BHeuineft noJiHTHKH CCCP», Vol. VI, 1962, p. 538.
~^^15^^ Ibid., Vol. XII, 1967, pp. 383--84.
~^^16^^ Ibid.,, Vol. VII, 1963, pp. 331--35.
~^^17^^ Soon after the Soviet-Chinese Agreement was signed the theocratic regime was deposed in Mongolia and the Mongolian People's Republic was proclaimed.
267 concessions received by tsarist Russia in China. The Agreement formalised Soviet Russia's renunciation of the Russian share of the Boxer Rising indemnity, of extra-territorial rights and consular jurisdiction, and of the customs tariffs that had been established in violation of the ``principles of justice and reciprocity''.On all these questions, the provisions of the treaties between tsarist Russia and China had placed the latter in a position of inequality, and their annulment was formalised in the Agreement of 1924. The problem of the unequal treaties was thus settled once and for all and could no longer becloud the relations between the two great neighbouring countries.
Chinese public opinion highly appreciated the Agreement of 31 May 1924 which cancelled the unequal treaties. The Kuomintang Executive, which in those days was headed by Sun Yat-sen, published a statement which declared that Russia's renunciation of her rights and privileges in China and her annulment of the treaties violating China's sovereignty were in keeping with the principles of the Russian revolution. It noted that the Chinese people were grateful to Russia for her sense of justice and friendship.
This view was shared also by Mao Tse-tung, who declared at the 7th Congress of the Communist Party of China in 1945: ``The Soviet Union was the first country to renounce unequal treaties and to sign new equal treaties with China.''^^18^^ In December 1949, he reiterated this statement, saying: ``After the October Socialist Revolution the Soviet Government was the first to annul the unequal treaties that had been signed with China by tsarist Russia.''^^19^^ After great-power chauvinism and adventurism became the guidelines of its openly anti-Soviet foreign policy, Peking prefers to ignore admissions of this kind. But there is no escaping the facts.
Besides the unequal treaties and unequal commitments, there were agreements signed by Russia and China on technical questions, such as the procedure of settlements for telegraph correspondence (this question was dealt with in the additional Declaration of the Governments of Russia and China on the _-_-_
~^^18^^ Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. Ill, Peking, 1969, p. 332, (in Chinese).
~^^19^^ «O MBM yMajWHBaioT B OeKHHes, Moscow, 1972, p. 10.
268 Modification of Article IX of the Telegraph Convention of 13 (25) August 1892 signed at Peking on 18 (30) July 1896).^^20^^In many cases these technical agreements were based on the interests of both countries and were mutually benefical. Nevertheless, not all of these agreements, signed before the Revolution of 1911 in China, were found suitable for the new phase in the relations between the two countries. They had to be revised and replaced with new treaties. This category was meant in Articles II and III of the 1924 Agreement, which provided for a Soviet-Chinese conference for the annulment of former treaties and their replacement with new treaties ``based on equality, reciprocity and justice and in the spirit of the Soviet Government's declarations of 1919 and 1920''.
The opening of this conference was delayed by the Chinese warlords, who did not desire rapprochement with the USSR. The talks commenced in Peking not a month after the signing of the Agreement of 1924, as was provided for by Article II, but more than a year later, at the close of August 1925. They dragged on until June 1926, when they were suspended by the Chinese.
At the talks, the sides examined the possibility of signing a new consular convention, a trade agreement, an agreement on the extradition of criminals, a treaty on juridical aid in civilian affairs, a convention on inheritance, and so on. No final agreement was reached on any of these documents.^^21^^ As was noted in the reports of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs on the international situation and the Soviet Union's foreign policy in 1925 and 1926, no political issue that could determine normal relations between the USSR and China was settled in those years, at the Peking conference, too, because at the time the Chinese government's attention was centred on the domestic problems caused by the civil war and because there was no stable government in the capital.^^22^^
_-_-_~^^20^^ See «C6opHHK aoroeopoB H flHnjioMaTimecKHx flOKyneHTOB no aM flajibiiero BocTOKa,» 1895--1905, St. Petersburg, 1906, pp. 181--82.
~^^21^^ See M. C. Kanutfa, CoBeiCKO-KHTaflcKHe OTHOiueHHH, Moscow, 1958, pp. 154--55.
~^^22^^ See «/toKyM6HTbI BHeUJHeH nOJIHTHKH CCCP,» Vol. IX, MOSCOW, 1964, pp. 634, 674.
269The provisions of Article III of the 1924 Agreement on the conclusion of new treaties thus remained unfulfilled through no fault of the Soviet government. However, it must be stressed that this Article's provision for the annullment of former treaties at the Soviet-Chinese talks did not concern unequal treaties, inasmuch as the Soviet Union's renunciation of its rights under the unequal treaties signed between Russia and China had been decided by the 1924 Agreement.
Attention must be drawn to yet another fact: Article III of the 1924 Agreement had no bearing on the frontier treaties, which were dealt with in Article VII of the same Agreement. That Article stated in part: ``The Governments of the two Contracting Parties have agreed that their national frontiers shall be checked at the conference, mentioned in Article II of the present Agreement, and that until the said check has been made the existing frontiers shall be maintained.'' If the two countries intended, alongside the treaties mentioned in Article III of the 1924 Agreement, to annul the frontier treaties at the coming conference, there would have been no sense in according a separate article (VII) to the frontier question. Insofar as a special article was devoted to the frontier, there can be not the least doubt that the sides had no intention whatsoever of linking the frontier treaties with the treaties the two countries had in mind in Article III.
They had obviously adopted a differentiated approach to the three different problems: the unequal treaties were annulled by the Agreement of 1924; other treaties were subject to annulment at the pending Soviet-Chinese conference; the existing frontiers between the two countries were to remain unchanged inasmuch as they had been defined in the treaties in operation, although it was intended to check the frontiers at the Soviet-Chinese conference.
A frontier check is standard procedure in the relations between neighbouring states, especially as the Soviet-Chinese frontier had been established many decades prior to 1924 and had not been everywhere demarcated locally. However, to check whether, for instance, the frontier reference-points and signs given in the treaties are intact does not in any way mean to revise the frontier treaties themselves. This was not and could not be 270 the intention of any of the sides at the signing of the 1924 Agreement.
However, the present Chinese leadership misrepresents undeniable facts. In the above-mentioned ``document'' of 8 October 1969 of the Chinese Foreign Ministry it is alleged that under the 1924 Agreement the sides had agreed to ``redefine'' their national frontiers. It states: ``If all the treaties on the present Sino-Soviet frontier are indeed equal, and here no question exists. . . one may ask why it was necessary to redefine the national frontiers.''^^23^^ But the fact of the matter is precisely that under the 1924 Agreement the understanding was that the frontiers would not be ``redefined'' but ``checked''.
The Peking leaders need the untenable arguments about the territories that Russia had allegedly wrested from China under ``unequal treaties" in order to stir up passions round what they term as the ``territorial issue between the USSR and the People's Republic of China" and provide a ``historical foundation" for unlawful claims to Soviet territory.
In reality no territorial issue exists between the Soviet Union and China. Throughout its extent, the frontier between the Soviet Union and China is defined and corroborated by treaties, protocols, descriptions, maps, and other operating treaty documents. These documents fully retain their juridical validity and have nothing in common with the unequal treaties.
International Affairs, No. 5, 1973
_-_-_~^^23^^ Jenmin Jihpao, 9 October 1969.
[271] __ALPHA_LVL0__ The End. [END]REQUEST TO READERS~
Progress Publishers would be glad to have your opinion of this book, its translation and design and any suggestions you may have for future publications.
Please send all your comments to 17, Zubovsky Boulevard, Moscow, USSR
[272]A collection of articles by Soviet and foreign journalists and Sinologists which analyses Chinese expansionism through a critical study of Chinese propaganda in the sphere of foreign policy and a discussion of the militarily aggressive and deliberately provocative actions taken by the Peking leadership in pursuit of its ends: the staging of frontier incidents, the encouragement of internal dissension and separatist tendencies in neighbouring states, and the exploitation of international tensions.
Certain of the contributions to this general-interest book have been abridged.
[273]