Russian Foreign Policy Since 1990 by Peter Shearman

Author:Peter Shearman [Shearman, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9780429977121
Google: FpVLDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 38634132
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1995-03-30T00:00:00+00:00

8

Russian Policy Toward China

Eugene Bazhanov

Traditional Friends or Traditional Adversaries?

Ever since Moscow’s tsars commenced their expansion into Siberia in the seventeenth century, the Russians have encountered the Chinese attempting to check their advance. The first military clashes between Russians and Chinese took place in 1652, and since then, confrontation has been continuous with only minor interruptions. The two empires competed for control in Siberia, the Far East, and Central Asia, but by the nineteenth century, a much stronger Russia secured favorable borders with China. Although it signed border treaties with Russia, Chinese officialdom nevertheless felt uneasy about “the loss” of immense territories to its northern rival.1

Following their seizure of power in 1917, the Bolsheviks began promoting a communist movement on Chinese territory. On many occasions the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party recognized the significant role the Kremlin played “in the victory of socialism” in China in 1949, when the People’s Republic of China was proclaimed.2 However, in the 1920s disagreements emerged between the two communist parties, later contributing to the deterioration of Sino-Soviet relations. Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin differed on ideological issues (for example, on how to conduct the revolutionary struggle in China) and on political problems (Moscow wanted the Chinese communists to engage the Japanese armies more actively in the Far East, while Mao preferred to conserve his forces for the civil war). Moscow was perceived as the center of the international communist movement—as the “elder brother” who gave orders to the “younger brothers,” openly intervening in their affairs. Mao resented this interference, particularly as Stalin attempted to elevate Mao’s rivals to the highest ranks of the Chinese communist movement.3

During the Chinese civil war and throughout the first years of the PRC, tensions eased as Stalin and Mao closed ranks in their struggle for socialism in China and against world “imperialism.” The accession of the revisionist Khrushchev to power in the Kremlin revived some of the old grievances while simultaneously creating new ones. Disagreements between Moscow and Beijing came to encompass a wide range of issues: the two states differed in their approach to the role of leadership in a socialist country, the ways and means of building socialism, the implications of international trends; attitudes toward the USA, interactions within the communist movement, and regional conflicts. Purely bilateral antagonisms also arose: disagreements in the military and economic spheres, and territorial disputes.4

Fuel was added to the fire by Mao’s irritation over China’s role as a “junior partner” to the Soviet Union and by Khrushchev’s anger over the challenge Beijing posed to the dominant position of the Kremlin in the world communist movement. The dogmatism of the communist elites in both states, combined with their totalitarian structures, prevented management of the differences in a civilized manner.5 By the end of the 1960s the two giant neighbors were engaged in a full-fledged cold war that occasionally erupted into genuine military engagements along their common border. China turned to, and found, allies in the West, and adversarial relations between the two communist powers became an important and (it seemed) permanent feature of world politics.

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