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CIAO DATE: 8/99
Changes in China’s International Strategy and Goals for the New Millenium
May 1998
Institute for the Study of Diplomacy
Georgetown University
The views expressed in this paper are purely personal and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Government of the People’s Republic of China or the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy staff, associates, or board of directors.
Part One: Changes in China’s International Strategy
China’s international strategy consists of using national power to secure national interests in international struggles. Since the founding of New China in 1949, China has implemented a number of internationally significant strategic decisions. This essay will describe the changes in China’s international strategy since the late 1940s and will explain China’s international strategic goals for the turn of the millennium.
“Leaning to One Side”: Strategic Decisions in the Early Days of New China
When New China was founded, there emerged a sharp confrontation between the socialist camp headed by the Soviet Union and the imperialist camp headed by the United States. China had to decide where it stood in this struggle and determine a foreign strategy in a bipolar world where China’s sphere of international activities would be limited.
Chairman Mao Zedong, the leader of New China, thought it was not feasible for China to “sit on the fence” or to gain advantage from each camp by standing between them. Starting from fundamental interests, to consolidating national independence, to protecting national security, and to carrying out peaceful reconstruction, he enunciated three Great Decisions during the spring and summer of 1949: 1
Starting anew. New China did not recognize the diplomatic relations established by the old Kuomintang, or Nationalist, government with foreign countries. New diplomatic relations would be reestablished on the basis of mutual respect for territorial sovereignty, equality, and mutual benefit.
Putting the house in order before inviting guests. New China would first remove the imperialist countries’ prerogatives, force, and influence in China prior to establishing diplomatic relations with them.
Leaning to one side. New China would stand with the socialist camp led by the Soviet Union. This decision served as the core of the three Great Decisions.
The decision to pursue a strategy of “leaning to one side” largely resulted from the world being divided into two antagonistic camps. The U.S. government’s hostile policy toward New China at that time was another important reason why China allied itself with the Soviet Union. On the eve of victory in the Chinese People’s Liberation War (China’s Civil War), Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai wished to establish a good relationship with the United States, but were refused by the Truman Administration. After its founding, the administration thought that New China’s regime would not last long and consequently adopted the policy of “waiting for the dust to settle,” which involved political isolation, military threats, and an economic blockade. To consolidate China’s new regime and to protect their hard-earned national independence, the Chinese people naturally adhered to the Soviet Union’s anti-U.S. and anti-imperialist front.
After experiencing war, chaos, and tragedy, New China urgently needed economic aid, including capital and technology, and experience in nation-building and economic development. Such aid could only be obtained from the Soviets at that time. The U.S. government assumed that China was incapable of handling its own economy and awaited its failure. 2 This stance also helped New China to cooperate and maintain friendly relations with the Soviet Union.
“Leaning to one side” did not mean that China depended on the Soviet Union for everything. It also did not mean that China would become a “satellite state” of the Soviet Union. On the contrary, Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai repeatedly warned that China should think with its own head and walk with its own legs. Zhou Enlai also stated that China needed a basic stance when approaching diplomatic problems, a stance based on affirming the independence of the Chinese nation and keeping the initiative in its hands so that it would become self-reliant and no country could interfere in its internal politics. Naturally, China wanted foreign aid if it was beneficial, but it did not want to depend upon it.
Unveiled months before the founding of New China, the strategy of “leaning to one side” was practiced for about ten years. During that time, China accomplished three things: First, it completely ended Nationalist rule on the mainland and drove out the foreign forces that had been entrenched in China during the past one-hundred years. Second, it achieved victory in the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea (the Korean War, 1950-53), frustrating the threat posed by the United States from Korea , Taiwan, and Indochina during the early 1950s. Third, it launched a smooth recovery of the domestic economy, which had been destroyed by years of war, and established the base for China’s industrialization with the 156 construction projects received from the Soviet Union.
These accomplishments depended mainly on being self-reliant, but without aid from the Soviet Union and other friendly countries, it would have been more difficult to achieve them. In essence, allying itself with the Soviet Union allowed China to realize its national sovereignty in the face of U.S. isolation and threats. Over time, “leaning to one side” strengthened the new regime, secured the nation’s independence, and enhanced China’s world position.
Between the late 1950s and the end of the 1960s, important changes took place in China’s domestic politics and international strategy. The biggest event was the Sino-Soviet split. This occurred because China could not tolerate the Soviet Union’s great-power chauvinism, which attempted to bring China under its control as part of its global strategy. The Soviet Union exerted intense pressure on China, and a serious confrontation developed between the two countries. During this period, the United States continued to pursue a hostile policy toward China. Thus, China found itself caught in a two-way squeeze from the Soviet Union and the United States. To protect the Chinese nation, Mao Zedong replaced the strategy of “leaning to one side” with the strategy of the “double-anti”; that is, the simultaneous pursuit of the anti-imperialism struggle against the United States and the antirevisionism struggle against the Soviet Union.
The “Double Anti”: Changes During the 1960s
In practice, “double-anti” led to the development and strengthening of relations between China and the countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. It also led to the development of relations between China and Japan and China and the West European countries. Gradually, China developed into an important force independent of the Soviet and U.S. camps.
”Double-anti,” however, was based on an overestimated danger of world war. It was also influenced by the “ultra-leftist” trend in domestic political thinking evident during the Cultural Revolution. As a result, China for a time made too many enemies and based the intimacy of its foreign relations on ideological considerations. China’s antirevisionist struggles, in turn, intensified the spread of the ultra-leftist trend of “taking a class struggle as the key link.” China’s strategy of national development deviated increasingly from the correct track of “centering on economic construction.” China had missed a historic opportunity in the rise of a new technology revolution and the great growth of the world economy. This was a very bitter historical lesson.
The Theory of “Three Worlds”: Changes During the 1970s
After going through a period of turbulence, disintegration, and reorganization during the 1960s, the world situation was notable for three major changes: First, the Soviet Union gradually took the hegemonist path, which intensified the contradictions and conflicts within the socialist camp and ultimately caused it to disintegrate. Second, the postwar hegemony of the United States, after culminating in the mid-1960s, began to decline and the imperialist camp began to split. Third, through the Non-Aligned Movement, the Third World began to emerge as an independent political force on the world stage. These changes profoundly altered the nature of the ongoing international political struggles. The bipolar system remained intact, but the struggle between the socialist and imperialist camps had been turned into a struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union for world hegemony.
From the late 1960s to the 1970s, the Soviet Union, by taking advantage of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and troubles at home, began to expand wantonly. In the process, it became the major threat to world security and to China. In the early 1970s, Chairman Mao and other Chinese leaders seized the opportunity to push forward the normalization of Sino-American relations. China’s leaders wanted to ally with the United States and contain the Soviet Union. On the common ground of tackling the main threat posed by the Soviet Union, China and the United States established a policy of strategic cooperation.
In February 1974, when meeting President Kuanda of Zambia, Mao Zedong observed that the international system could be divided into “Three Worlds”: “The US and the USSR are the First World. In the middle, Japan, Europe, and Canada belong to the Second World. We are the Third World. The US and the USSR have many atomic bombs and are rich. The Third World has a large population. All Asia, except Japan, belong to the Third World. All Africa belongs to the Third World. Latin America belongs to the Third World.” 3
Deng Xiaoping further explained the concept of “three worlds” at the 6th Special Meeting of the United Nations in 1974. He emphasized that the United States and the Soviet Union had become the largest exploiters and oppressors of the time. Their contest had become a new source of war. The vast number of developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America had long been exploited by rich countries and thus had developed a strong sense of resistance. This group had become the major force in combating hegemony because it had been threatened and controlled by the superpowers to different degrees.
For China, the strategic concept of “three worlds” completely broke through the idea of the postwar system as a two-camp system. It also changed the rhetoric of class division from “revolutionary” and “counter-revolutionary” to “hegemony and anti-hegemony” and “control and anti-control.” China’s basic criteria for determining enemies and allies had lost its pure ideological element. Instead, the new criteria emphasized the security of all nations. Under the “three-worlds” paradigm, China sought to strengthen its unity with Third World countries, strive for unity with Second World countries, and establish a united international front against Soviet hegemony that included the United States. During the 1970s, China succeeded in improving its foreign relations on all sides.
“Independent Foreign Policy of Peace”: Changes During the 1980s
The great changes in China’s international strategy of the 1980s actually began with the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee, held by the Communist Party of China, at the end of 1978. The Third Plenary Session reestablished the principles of emancipating the mind and seeking truth from facts. It resolutely discarded the wrong “leftist” policy of “taking a class struggle as the key link” and turned the focus of the Communist Party and the country to economic modernization and construction. The meeting emphasized that China’s basic task was to develop its productive forces and that economic construction is the basis for solving all domestic and international problems.
Two aspects marked the great changes in China’s international strategy of the 1980s: First, the long-standing view that a world war was imminent had changed. Instead, it was concluded that the forces of peace outweighed the forces of war; that a new world war could be avoided; that the theme of the times should be peace and development, not war and revolution; that China could not develop itself in isolation; and that the world also needed China for its own development. China was thus the first country to break the mode of thinking in terms of Cold War confrontations. It resolutely surmounted the obstacles of ideological and social differences and carried out a comprehensive, peaceful, and friendly diplomacy.
Second, China predictably reiterated its independence and self-determination and practiced a truly nonaligned diplomacy according to changes in the international system and the needs of its development. As Deng Xiaoping stated, “We adhere to an independent foreign policy of peace. We do not join any groups. We communicate and make friends with anybody. We combat whoever practices hegemony and whoever invades others. 4 The elements of China’s independent foreign policy of peace can be summarized as follows:
With these great changes in China’s international strategy, the Chinese government also advanced the new ideas of “two systems, one country” and “peaceful unification” in the late 1980s. These ideas combine the great task of China’s unification, the supreme interests of the Chinese nation, and the peace and development of the world. It also provides a successful example of peaceful resolution of international disputes.
The great adjustment in China’s international strategy, carried out by Deng Xiaoping, greatly expanded the strategic sphere for China, presented the prospect for the development of China, and established the basis for China’s international strategy of the 1990s and beyond.
Part Two: Goals for the New Millennium
As we approach the turn of the millennium, the international situation is becoming more relaxed; the trend toward multipolarity is accelerating. Safeguarding peace and promoting development are common themes throughout the world. However, the pursuit of hegemony and power politics remain. The proliferation of dangerous weapons and high-technology warfare continue. Regional wars and chaos can hardly be avoided, and armed conflicts caused by ethnic, religious, and territorial disputes will take place. Elements of insecurity and instability, such as disputes over borders, seas, and the ownership of resources, still exist.
Politically, the Asia-Pacific region is relatively stable. Economically, the economies of the main Asian countries continue their relatively speedy economic development--despite the current financial crisis. Militarily, China has, for the first time, resolved its confrontations with its neighboring great powers. China is thus free to continue strengthening its economy through trade and economic cooperation with the Asia-Pacific region. Peace and development remain the primary international circumstances facing China in the late 1990s. China’s international goals for the new millennium are the following:
Continue opening up to the outside world and creating a favorable international environment for economic development. China emphasizes that the basic path of reform and economic development should be followed for a long time to come. Opening to the outside world is a basic, long-term policy of the state. Confronted with globalization trends in economic, scientific, and technological development at the turn of the century, China will take an even more active stance by further opening to the world. The new pattern of opening includes further developing friendly relations and good-neighbor policies with surrounding countries; settling border disputes between China and neighboring countries through friendly consultations and negotiation; further strengthening solidarity and cooperation with Third-World countries; improving relations with developed countries based on the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence; taking an active part in multilateral diplomatic activities; giving full play to China’s role in the United Nations; and at the same time conducting extensive trade, economic, and technological cooperation, as well as scientific and cultural exchanges with all countries and regions. China has built a strategic cooperation partnership with Russia and is building a constructive strategic partnership with the United States, both of which are oriented for the 21st century.
Expediting national unification. For unifying the motherland, the turn of the millennium is a period of special significance. In 1997, China resumed the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong. China will resume sovereignty over Macao in 1999, finally ending the long history of foreign colonial rule and the humiliation of the Chinese nation since the Opium War of 1848. The smooth return of both Hong Kong and Macao, and the maintenance of their long-term stability and prosperity, will undoubtedly create favorable conditions for the settlement of the Taiwan issue. China’s fundamental principle in addressing Taiwan is “peaceful reunification based on one country, two systems.” China is ready to move gradually toward peaceful reunification through political negotiations on the premise of one-China. The People’s Republic of China favors the peaceful reunification of the nation, but it cannot renounce the use of force. As a last resort, force will have to be used to stop foreign intervention or the declaration of independence by Taiwan. Thus force is also a guarantee that the Taiwan issue might be solved peacefully.
Accelerating the strengthening of national power and increasing China’s weight as a pole in the future multipolar world. According to the strategic objectives targeted by the 13th National Congress, held by the Communist Party of China in 1987, China’s modernization program will be carried out in three steps: (1) doubling the gross national product of 1980 to solve shortages of food and clothing; (2) quadrupling the GNP of 1980 by the end of the century and achieving a comfortable life for the people; (3) completing the nation’s modernization, raising the per capita GNP to the level of an intermediate developed country and achieving a fairly well-off life for the people. The first and second steps were achieved by 1995, well ahead of schedule. 5
However, China’s national strength still lags behind the world’s major powers because China’s population is large and its initial level of development is low. It will take several generations before China reaches the level of an intermediate developing country. Although China is counted as a pole in the present multipolar setting, it is a relatively weak one. China cannot yet fully concentrate on protecting its own national interests, realizing the great cause of unification, and promoting world peace and the progressive cause of the human race. This situation is not compatible with the historical duty of the Chinese nation with a population of 1.2 billion. Therefore, China seeks to hasten its self-development and strengthen its national power. Of course, from a development point-of-view, China will be a developing country well into the 21st century. To carry out its socialist modernization program, China requires a long-term peaceful international environment. Above all, China needs to maintain good relations with surrounding countries.
China’s development will not pose a threat to any country. As a matter of principal this has been written into China’s constitution. China’s large population requires that all its resources to be devoted to its economic development. China will practice neither aggression nor expansion, or seek hegemony even when it becomes developed in the future. The Chinese people were subjected to aggression, oppression, and humiliation by foreign powers for decades and will not inflict such suffering on others.
Joining with the peoples of the world to gradually establish a new international order. As early as 1993, Chinese President Jiang Zemin raised the question of what kind of international order should be created for the 21st century. 6 Gradually establishing a just and rational new international political and economic world order is an important part of China’s strategy to promote world peace and development. In 1997, Jiang Zemin emphasized that the Chinese government stands for an international order based on the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence and the United Nations Charter. 7 Jiang Zemin’s main ideas on the new international order are the following:
From “leaning to one side” in the 1950s to the “independent foreign policy of peace” in the 1980s, China’s international strategy has gone through a winding, complex process that reflects the tide of globalization and opening to the world, and a fundamental shift from pursuing world revolution to national modernization.
Endnotes
Note 1: Nan Nianlong, Ed., Diplomacy of Contemporary China, vol. 8 (New Horizon Press, 1990), p. 5. Back.
Note 2: Selected Works of Mao Zedong, vol. 4 (Beijing: People’s Press, 1991), p. 1480. Back.
Note 3: Wang Shenzuo, Ed., History of International Relations, vol. 10 (Beijing: World Knowledge Press, 1995), pp. 337-38. Back.
Note 4: Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, vol. 3 (Beijing: People’s Press, 1993), p. 163. Back.
Note 5: China 1996 (Beijing: New Star Publishers, 1996), p. 63. Back.
Note 6: People’s Daily, 21 November 1993. Back.
Note 7: Beijing Review, vol. 40, no. 40, 6-12 October 1997. Back.
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