The Emergence of China during the Cold War - an Analysis of the History - Essay Example

? The Emergence of China during the Cold War: An Analysis of the History Introduction The build up to the Korean War revolved around the changing Sino-Soviet relationship of 1949, and the subsequent war saw a growing sense of independence from the Chinese government that eventually shattered the Sino-Soviet alliance and changed the Cold War situation in Asia. The once-known Soviet proxy army began to perceive its weight in international politics and build up its own national identity well before the Korean War in 1950, rekindled by the Chinese Civil war of 1949. Through the build-up of a modern Chinese national identity in the 1950s, China increasingly began to come into conflict of interest with her Soviet benefactor. Though some scholars like Harold Ford, Ziang Chen,1 etc. claim that the Sino-Soviet Split can be dated back to the 1940s, the Sino-Soviet conflict in its true sense started in the late 1950s, with the self-perception of its weight to go into conflict with Soviet Union in term of political, economic and geo-strategic interest, and this conflict reaches the climax in 1967.23 Indeed Mao Zedong’s victory in the fight against the Nationalist Kuomintang, led by Chiang Kai-Shek, during the Chinese Civil was crucial to the emergence of China as a rising power.4 The Sino-Soviet strife caused by Mao’s failure to follow Joseph Stalin’s politico-military doctrine during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1939–45) and the Civil War significantly contributed to the worsening of the Sino-Soviet relationship in the 1950s. Even though Mao proved to be a non-compliant ideological power-partner in the region, his victory over Chiang Kai Shek compelled Stalin to reconsider his China policy and interstate relationship between Soviet Union and newborn People’s Republic of China (PRC) by the end of the Civil. It was just the beginning of China as a strong role-player in the power-play of international politics. The victory of Moa-led China in the following Korean War, further endows the newborn power with refreshed zeal and self-confidence in its own power.5 Consequently, China passed its boyhood and started its era as a fresh and young world power who then could challenge its neighbour power, Soviet Union, and America in the West. Critical Summery The evolving Sino-Soviet relations in the late 1940's following the creation of the Peoples Republic of China set the stage for the Korean War as the USSR sought new allies and bases in Asia that could be controlled directly rather than indirectly from Moscow. The Korean Peninsula offered a chance for the USSR to gain a new ally and ice free deep water ports in the Pacific Ocean, thus the Soviet Union supported a plan for a war of reunification proposed by the provisional communist government of North Korea, using China as a proxy fighter in hopes of preventing a possible 3rd world war. Due to his use of China as the main belligerent on the side of communism set the stage for the subsequent break up of the Sino-Soviet partnership of the late 1940's and early 1950's, allowing China to emerge as a third power in Asia. In Zhou Enlai’s word, the country’s struggle to emerge during the Cold War is evident: Since the liberation and until the period of 1958-1959, thanks to a series of wars and struggles we waged in the international arena and on the domestic front, and by always keeping as a cornerstone the class struggle, we gave the masses a spiritual and material stepping stone, laid down the general course for the construction of socialism, and executed the organization of the popular communes in the village and the Great Leap Forward for the development of the national economy.6 Accumulation of Momentum as a Power in World Politics Both the Chinese Civil War and the Korean War are crucial to the emergence of China during the Cold War. Whereas the first one is significant for the plantation of the seed of today’s China, the second one was important for the rendering maturity to the newborn power.7 After division of pre-civil war China into People’s Republic of China under the leadership Mao Dezong and Republic of China (present Taiwan), Mao’s China began to show newer prospects of playing in the world politics during the Cold War. Even though Mao’s China was ideologically attached more with Soviet Union, there were several conflicts of interests between two countries. From the end of the Second World War to the beginning of Chinese Civil War the Sino-Soviet relationship had been shaped by Soviet Superiority. All politically, economically, geo-militarily Soviet Union enjoyed the unparallel privileges.8 The beginning of Cold War in 1947, forced Stalin to search for new geo-strategic allies and partners in Asia in order to preserve and preach its revolutionary communist ideal from the western capitalist countries who then turned their focus from fascist Germany to Soviet Union in order to face the rising threat of communism from it. Being a neighbouring country, China was one of those first countries who welcomed communism inland.9 But Mao’s leadership was almost uncompromising in term of the internal issues of the country. Though there was an increasing pressure from Stalin on Mao to sign a truce with Chiang Kai Shek’s Kuomintang with a view to pacifying the threat from the Japanese front, and to materialize the communist agendas in the country, Mao chose to continue his fight against West backed Kuomintang and consequently won the fight. At this victory, the so-far neglected status of China in Sino-Soviet relationship was reversed to a certain extent and the superiority of the Soviet Union began to decline because of two reasons. The first one is purely psychological. Mao’s China was then far more psychologically reimbursed with a sense of self-reliance that they had won a war that had been opposed by their strategically superior counterpart Soviet Union. And the second one is that China had won the victory over a counterpart that had been backed by the west.10 This victory changed the Chinese self-perception as well as the voice of the Western countries that then started to talk officially over different issues. The Peoples Republic of China, which had not yet been formally recognized by most world governments, sought to change a Sino-Soviet Treaty that gave basing and harbour rights to the USSR in key cities in Manchuria.11 At first these were politely ignored by the USSR as they were important ice free ports and vital to the Soviet navy. This attitude changed in China's favour when the West began discussing officially recognizing the PRC. After a new treaty was signed and the USSR lost basing rights, they looked to the Korean Peninsula with 3 usable ports as a possible alternative basing area. Stalin pressured China into supporting the North Korean provisional Communist government before the war began. From Boyhood to Maturity The Korean War was important not only for China but the Cold War, as it set the stage for NATO's containment doctrine in regards to the spread of Communism. It also showed how wars could be fought via proxy, thus avoiding a devastating world war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. In this case, China was the proxy army for the USSR. This position was largely forced upon the Chinese by the Soviets and caused some strains between the two countries. Mao was largely preoccupied with the internals such the developments in different sectors and with establishing a revolutionary culture in the country. Yet Mao’s decision to involve in Korean War was partially a result of the Soviet pressure to boost up its strategic presence in the region and also partly of the circumstance that newborn PR China was facing, as Moa clear his position, Externally, unite in a common struggle with those nations of the world which treat us as equal and unite with the peoples of all countries. That is, ally ourselves with the Soviet Union, with the People's Democratic countries, and with the proletariat and the broad masses of the people in all other countries, and form an international united front.... We must lean to one side.12 Participating in the War was beneficial to Mao’s China in three ways: first, the newborn nation needs an ideological partner in the region in order to be more sustainable; second, the capitalist’s West’s presence in the Korean Peninsula was a potential threat to the newly established communist nation; thirdly taking a position against any anticommunist force, would prove to be a tonic for the communist revolutionary culture and zeal in the country.13 In regard to Mao’s strategy to boost up the communist revolutionary zeal by taking part into the Korean War, Chen Zian, a Cold War analyst, says in this regard, “Placing the CCP's policy behavior into the international background, it is easy to see that Mao's "lean-to-one-side" statement was a logical outgrowth of the CCP's long-time revolutionary policy of attaching itself to the international progressive forces led by the Soviet Union.”14 Chinese Identity Boosted Up at the Result of Korean War Being born only several years back, the State’s revolutionary zeal was at its fully ripen stage with which it could challenge any force that tended to confront. Nearly after the birth of People’s Republic of China, there was an increasing possibility of American intervention into the Chinese mainland, as Zian says in this regard, “During an enlarged politburo meeting in January 1949, American intervention became one of the central topics”.15 In response to the possible American intervention into the Chinese mainland, the nation further got united allowing Mao to manipulate the fear in order to create a common communist identity all over China.16 According to Mao’s expectation, the Chinese communist identity and revolutionary zeal were reimbursed at the price of several million of Chinese’s lives. When the Korean War ended in a stalemate, China believed that it had done most of the work of holding back the United States and its allies despite the lack of support from the USSR. This idea increased Chinese moral at home, and caused further strain between the two communist countries. But the Sino-Soviet relationship was further deteriorated since the soviet leaders fail to provide enough reinforcements according to their earlier promise. Such failure to provide the reinforcement on the part of the USSR allowed the Chinese leaders to claim that the war had been mostly by the Chinese nation and it was an achievement on the part of the newborn nation. Indeed this incident led the nation to perceive its identity as a power in the world power conflict as well as self-confidence and self-reliance. Also the communist ideals as the prestige factors became deep rooted in the Chinese self-identity. With the reimbursed self-identity and boosted sense of self-reliance, the Chinese leaders wanted to view the Sino-Soviet relationship to be shaped on a basis of equality. Consequently Mao’s China began to come into more conflicts of interests with the USSR. This revamped Chinese zeal was evident in numerous speeches of Committee member of the Chinese Communist Party. The following one of Comrade Deng Xiaoping bears the evidence of such zeal: The American imperialists today have no interest in widening the war in Laos, because they think that it is not in their favor. The Korean War is still a fresh lesson for them. The American imperialists are trying to create an aggressive bloc in East and Southeast Asia, with Japan as its nucleus, including also South Korea and Jiang Jieshi [Chiang Kai-shek], but until now they have not been able to achieve this.17 From Dependence to Self-Reliance At the end of the Korean War, with the new turn in the Sino-Soviet relationship, China attempted to establish its image changed from an accessory to the existing polar power of Soviet Union. On one hand, it defeated the United States backed anti-communist allies; on the other hand it did this on its own without much help of the USSR. Following the Korean War, the myth of a victorious China that fought the United States largely by itself continued to grow. Therefore the victorious China was confident enough to choose its own path of ideology, replacing the Soviet as an ideological leader. During the late 1950s and the early 1960s, Mao and his followers started to establish Chinese model of Communism as the lighthouse of world communist movements advocating its own peasant revolution while rejecting the Russian urban one. Indeed the ideological strife between the USSR and China dated back in the late 1940s. From the very beginning of People’s Republic of China, Mao was a criticizer of Russian urban model of communist revolution. In her book, “Dawn out of China”, Anna Louise Strong, a US journalist, wrote that one of the Maoist China’s goal was “to change Marxism from a European to an Asiatic form... in ways of which neither Marx nor Lenin could dream”.18 Though due to the rising tension in the Korean Peninsula, Russia and China were allied together to defend the American intervention, the China-claimed solo victory in the war fuelled the old ideological strife between the two countries. But the difference is that whereas in the late 1940s Soviet’s counterpart was a newborn infant in term of world power politics, it was enthusiastic, confident in its own power and morally much stronger in the late 1960s. When ideological differences arose in the late 1950's and early 1960's between Chairman Mao and Premier Khrushchev, the Chinese Communist Party was firmly in the belief that they had been abandoned by the Soviet Union during the Korean War and they would be better off without their unreliable ally. This enabled China to break away from the Soviet Union sphere of influence and become a third power in Asia. Conclusion The Emergence of China during the Cold War was essentially a phenomenon that had been facilitated by a number of successive events during the period from the late 1940s to the early 1970s. During this period, China became a potential role-player in the power politics of the world. In the rise of China under the clever leadership of Mao Dezong, who utilized the maximum of the scopes, he was provided by fortune, in the country’s favour. Also from another analytical perspective it can be asserted that the Sino-Soviet relationship played a great role in shaping the country’s course of emergence. In the first place, the Mao-Soviet relationship along its splits and adversaries in the late 1940s contributed to the birth of the People’s Republic of China and consequently compelled to play the role of an accessory state. But the upcoming Korean turned the course of the Sino-Soviet relationship to another direction. The China-claimed victory in the War revamped an enthusiastic soul and sense of self-dignity into the nation. Meanwhile, inspired by the victory, the Chinese leaders were inspired to replace the soviet model of urban communist revolution with the Chinese peasant revolution. Such attempt to claim ideological superiority on China’s part finally ends the accessorial role of China, and gave birth to a new role-player in the world’s power-politics. Bibliography Read More