China’s Foreign Affairs and International Relations

1. China’s Foreign Affairs and International Relations China’s Foreign Affairs and International Relations Professor QIU Huafei Professor SONG Lilei & Dr. WANG Liqin School of Politics and International Relations

2. Chapter Two: Sino-Soviet-Russian Relationship • Sino-Soviet Split • From Split to Confrontation • Factor Affecting Sino-Soviet Relations • Return to Normality • Conclusion

3. China-Russia Relationship • Russian-Chinese Military Maneuvers • The Shanghai Cooperation Organization • Outlook on Russia-China Relations • Sino-Russian Economic Relations • Conclusion

4. Chapter Two • Sino-Soviet-Russian Relationship • After the founding of the People's Republic, the Chinese leadership was concerned above all with ensuring national security, consolidating power, and developing the economy. The foreign policy course China chose in order to translate these goals into reality was to form an international united front with the Soviet Union and other socialist nations against the United States and Japan. Although for a time Chinese leaders may have considered trying to balance Sino-Soviet relations with ties with Washington, by mid1949 Mao Zedong declared that China had no choice but to “lean to one side”--meaning the Soviet side.

5. Soon after the establishment of the People’s Republic, Mao traveled to Moscow to negotiate the 1950 Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance. Under this agreement, China gave the Soviet Union certain rights, such as the continued use of a naval base at Luda, Liaoning Province, in return for military support, weapons, and large amounts of economic and technological assistance, including technical advisers and machinery.

6. China acceded, at least initially, to Soviet leadership of the world communist movement and took the Soviet Union as the model for development. China’s participation in the Korean War (1950-53) seemed to strengthen Sino-Soviet relations, especially after the UN-sponsored trade embargo against China. The Sino-Soviet alliance appeared to unite Moscow and Beijing, and China became more closely associated with and dependent on a foreign power than ever before.

7. During the second half of the 1950s, strains in the Sino-Soviet alliance gradually began to emerge over questions of ideology, security, and economic development. Chinese leaders were disturbed by the Soviet Union’s moves under Nikita Khrushchev toward de-Stalinization and peaceful coexistence with the West.

8. Sino-Soviet Split • Sino-Soviet split was a gradual worsening of relations between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) during the Cold War. There is no particular date or event which marked the onset of the split, for tensions had plagued the Sino-Soviet alliance even at its best, but there was growing divergence between the two countries since about 1956.

9. De-Stalinization in the Soviet Union provided the second moment of ideological conflict. While Khrushchev’s Secret Speech in February 1956 was rooted mainly in domestic necessities, it reverberated throughout the socialist world. As a result, over the course of 1956 and 1957, Mao and Khrushchev took up opposite positions on Stalin as a theoretician and practitioner.

10. Most other points of Sino-Soviet conflict were either the result of these ideological disagreements or of lesser importance. Security disputes—such as the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis in 1958—and economic disagreements—in particular trade and the sudden withdrawal of the Soviet specialists from China in 1960—arose as the consequence of ideological arguments. Similarly, territorial disputes that predated the Sino-Soviet alliance did not threaten the relationship until the two countries had developed their ideological disagreements. Finally, personality clashes contributed to but did not cause the existing ideological problems.

11. From Split to Confrontation • By the early 1960s, the Sino-Soviet split was a permanently established fact, cracking the bipolar system with which the Cold War began as China now saw itself competing with the Soviet Union for leadership in the Communist movement. The onset of Mao's Cultural Revolution in 1966 worsened relations between the two countries and severed ties, and also between mainland China and most of the rest of the world.

12. The only exception to the freeze was Chinese permission for the transport of Soviet arms and supplies across China to support Communist North Vietnam in its conflict against the South and the United States in the Vietnam War. Nevertheless, both countries competed to win Vietnam to their respective sides.

13. During the 1960s the Sino-Soviet ideological dispute deepened and spread to include territorial issues, culminating in 1969 in bloody armed clashes on their border. In 1963 the boundary dispute had come into the open when China explicitly raised the issue of territory lost through “unequal treaties” with tsarist Russia. After unsuccessful border consultations in 1964, Moscow began the process of a military buildup along the border with China and in Mongolia, which continued into the 1970s.

14. During the Cultural Revolution, China’s growing radicalism and xenophobia had severe repercussions for Sino-Soviet relations. In 1967 Red Guards besieged the Soviet embassy in Beijing and harassed Soviet diplomats. Beijing viewed the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 as an ominous development and accused the Soviet Union of “social imperialism.”

15. The Sino-Soviet dispute reached its nadir in 1969 when serious armed clashes broke out at Zhenbao (or Damanskiy) Island on the northeast border. Both sides drew back from the brink of war, however, and tension was defused when Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai met with Aleksey Kosygin, the Soviet premier, later in 1969.

16. By 1970, Mao had realized that he could not simultaneously confront both the Soviet Union and the United States and suppress internal disorder. During the year, despite the fact that the Vietnam War was at its height and China’s anti-American rhetoric at their peak, Mao decided that since the Soviets were the greater threat because of their geographical proximity to China, he should seek an accommodation with the United States to confront the USSR.

17. In July 1971, Henry Kissinger secretly visited Beijing and laid the groundwork for President Richard Nixon’s visit to China in February 1972. Although the Soviets were initially furious, they soon held a summit of their own with Nixon, thus creating a triangular relationship between Washington, Beijing, and Moscow. This ended the worst period of confrontation between the Soviet Union and China.

18. Return to Normality • When Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the Soviet Union in 1985, he endeavored to restore normal relations with China. Soviet military forces along the border were greatly reduced, normal economic relations were resumed, and the border issue was quietly forgotten. The Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan removed the major contention between the two states.

19. In 1979, the Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan when the Communist regime there was in danger of being overthrown. The Chinese government, viewing this as part of a Soviet plot to encircle them, formed an alliance with the United States and Pakistan to support the Islamist resistance movements in Afghanistan and thwart the Soviet invasion.

20. Soviet troops at the Sino-Soviet border and in Mongolia, Moscow’s support for Vietnam’s occupation of Cambodia and Soviet military presence in Afghanistan became the “three obstacles” which, Deng Xiaoping insisted, had to be overcome before Sino-Soviet relations could be normalized.

21. The 12th CCP Congress in September 1982 proclaimed that China would henceforth pursue an “independent foreign policy.” In view of these developments, Deng Xiaoping took advantage of Brezhnev’s Tashkent speech to engage in a dialogue with the Soviets.

22. Sino-Soviet consultations at vice-ministerial were resumed in the fall of 1982 and continued thereafter on a semi-annual basis (13 rounds were held). Although it proved difficult to immediately remove the “three obstacles” at these consultations, they played an important positive role in bringing the two sides together. • Three obstacles

23. Moscow had to remove: the Soviet presence in Afghanistan, Soviet support for Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia, and the presence of Soviet forces along the Sino-Soviet border and in Mongolia. For the first half of the 1980s, Moscow called these preconditions “third country issues” not suitable for bilateral discussion, and neither side reported substantial progress in the talks.

24. When Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the Soviet Union in 1985, he endeavored to restore normal relations with China. Soviet military forces along the border were greatly reduced, normal economic relations were resumed, and the border issue was quietly forgotten.

25. The Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan removed the major contention between the two states. The still frosty relations between the Soviet Union and China prompted many in the United States government under Ronald Reagan to consider China a natural counterbalance against the Soviet Union, resulting in American military aid to the People’s Liberation Army.

26. Factors Affecting Sino-Soviet Relations • The connection between domestic and foreign policy was less tangible in the following year . Mao’s refusal to address the congenital problems of the Great Leap Forward and his suppression of criticism further radicalized China’s political discourse, and thereby produced a negative context for the development of Sino-Soviet relations throughout the year.

27. The newly available documents point to the vital role of ideology in the Sino-Soviet Split. Both the Chinese Communists and the Soviets were true Marxist-Leninist believers. Discord between Beijing and Moscow arose over the method of establishing a socialist society domestically and over the direction of the joint policy of the socialist camp toward the capitalist world. Furthermore, while ideology was central, it increasingly became entangled in internal politics. Leadership conflicts led Mao Zedong to exploit the worsening of Sino-Soviet relations for his goals abroad and at home.

28. Conclusion • The story of the Sino-Soviet breakup cannot be told without a focus on ideology. In line with this characterization, Marxism-Leninism envisioned the communist society as the final objective of history, and granted the communist party the exclusive vanguard role in this process, at the expense of all other political movements or even the democratic process itself.

29. Although Marx and Lenin wrote in great detail about how communism would look like once it was achieved, they in fact left relatively few concrete cues on the exact path of transforming the bourgeois present into the communist future. Therefore keeping steady economic and trade cooperation between Russia and China is essential to guarantee the security and stability of the two Countries, and even the whole area of North-East Asia.

30. Though there does exist some problems and difficulties, both governments have already taken them into consideration and have been working on some new ideas and policies on future cooperation.

31. China-and Russia • On December 27, 1991, China recognized the Russian Federation and entered into diplomatic relations with it at the ambassadorial level. President Yeltsin visited China at the end of 1992. During the visit, the two sides issued the Joint Statement on the Basis of Mutual Relations between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation, recognizing each other as friendly countries.

32. Russia and China have joined together in a strategic partnership aimed at countering the U.S. and Western "monopoly in world affairs," as was made clear in a joint statement released by the Chinese and Russian presidents in July 2005. The long standing border disputes between the two countries were settled in agreements in 2005, and joint military exercises were carried out in the same year.

33. Furthermore, Russia, in addition to its arms exports, has been increasing its oil and gas commitments to China. Clearly, the recent comprehensive improvement of bilateral relations between China and Russia is a remarkable development.

34. Sino-Russian partnership of strategic coordination mechanism consists of the following: 1, A system of regular top level political meeting. A telephone hotline between the heads of state between Beijing and Moscow. 2, A regular meeting committee of the two prime ministers is instituted to oversee bilateral cooperation in the economic, trade, scientific, energy, transportation, nuclear energy and other important fields.

35. 3,A system of consultation on international issue. 4,A system of non-governmental exchanges, the Sino-Russian Friendship, Peace and Development Committee, a   non-governmental friendly institution oriented towards the new century.

36. Sino-Russian Military Maneuvers • In August 2005, for the first time in 40 years, Chinese and Russian armed forces carried out joint military exercises. China took the lead in proposing the size, participating type of forces and content of the maneuvers. China also took care of most of the costs of the exercises.

37. The formal objectives of the mission were to strengthen the capability of joint operations and the exchange of experience; to establish methods of organizing cooperation in the fight against international terrorism, separatism and extremism; and to enhance mutual combat readiness against newly developing threats.

38. From a military-operational point of view, Russia as well as China gained from the experience of the bilateral exercises. The Chinese armed forces are -- as a consequence of China's increasing political and economic power -- in a stage of growth, in size as well as in ambition. Therefore, practicing command and control procedures but also purely operational aspects, such as carrying out an airborne assault, will strengthen the capabilities of the Chinese forces.

39. If Russia considers that China might turn into a threat in the long run, then these exercises have also been worthwhile for the Russian general staff by providing it insight into how the Chinese armed forces operate and what their current capabilities are.

40. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization • The SCO was created by China and Russia in 2001 — out of a prior organization called the Shanghai Five (which was founded in 1996) — and now also includes Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The SCO began as group tasked with organizing the border demarcation between China and Russia, China and Central Asia but quickly grew into a venture that organized security in the region.

41. The SCO mainly dealt with regional security -- in particular against the three “evils” of terrorism, separatism and extremism -- as well as with economic cooperation. Some foreign media argued that the SCO was created to develop a new world power center designed to challenge the United States, the world’s only superpower. That view gained traction in 2005 when several media organizations dubbed the SCO the “NATO of the East.”

42. In reality, the SCO is not a talk-shop like so many other Moscow-initiated organizations such as the Collective Security Treaty Organization or the Commonwealth of Independent States. In fact, it is a Eurasian security organization that occasionally dips into political and economic affairs. It also poses no real challenge toNATO since it is not a military bloc. Its motivation is to manage post-Soviet issues in a region of overlapping Chinese and Russian interests, not coordinate joint military policies.

43. At the July 25 meeting,2008, the SCO is deciding whether to admit new members. Only five candidates are currently up for consideration — Mongolia, Iran, India, Pakistan and Turkmenistan. Accepting new members is not out of the question, but which countries are accepted could radically change the dynamic of the SCO.

44. Moscow is interested in creating a balance with the U.S.-led NATO by including some of the alliance’s enemies, such as Iran, or dividing Washington’s influence in India or Pakistan. Russia has an increasing interest in creating such an organization since the divide between Moscow and the West has been growing. But Moscow’s intention all rests on the assumption that Tehran, New Delhi or Islamabad would go along with Russia’s push for their membership — an uncertainty at this point.

45. The SCO has demonstrated rapid development in the past few years. The organization is becoming a major international player in the Central Asian region and beyond as its members’ see new possibilities for cooperation. SCO members might consolidate their efforts in Afghanistan to fight security threats there. Furthermore, SCO members are actively exploring opportunities for energy cooperation.

46. China does not regard the SCO as an anti-Western organization and agrees that Central Asian states have the right to build the own regional organizations. The SCO’s internal dynamics and acceptance of new members and observers will play out depending on how its current members will be able to accommodate these differences.

47. Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Chinese President Jiang Zemin, Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev, and Tajik President Emomali Rakhmonoc, the original leaders of the Shanghai Five.

48. Afghan President Hamid Karzai at a SCO summit in 2004

49. Putin with representatives from Iran and Mongolia, observers in the SCO, at a meeting of the Council of Heads of Government in 2005

50. A summit of the SCO’s Council of Heads of Government in 2006