No one side of a triangle can be bigger than the sum of the other two. This about sums up the dilemma of the Soviet Union and China in dealing with the United States.
Moscow and Peking have been accusing each other of colluding with American “imperialists.” In both cases the campaign has been designed to serve two different purposes – to give each a propaganda advantage over the other and to enable each to realign its foreign policy. The latter process had now advanced to the point where one regards the other and not the United States as its principal enemy.
This is an important development which is likely to dominate the international scene in the ‘seventies. This does not necessarily mean that the Soviet Union and China will go to war or that there will be major border clashes between them in coming years. In spite of the massive preparations on both sides and the intense debate that is believed to be taking place between the hawks and the doves in Moscow on the question of a pre-emptive strike against China, it is hard to believe that either country will deliberately provoke war.
Vulnerable
China is in a highly vulnerable position. Its nuclear armoury is still small and cannot act as a deterrent against a nuclear strike by the Soviet Union; its conventional forces do not have enough firepower and mobility or the necessary logistical support; its air force consists largely of obsolescent planes which cannot stay in the air for long against the Soviet Union; Sinkiang is connected with the main supply bases by just one single-track railway line and can easily be detached from the rest of the country. The Chinese superiority in guerilla warfare can come into play only if the Soviet Union wants to occupy large parts of the country. It is most unlikely therefore that it will wish to precipitate a major armed conflict with Russia.
The Soviet Union enjoys immense advantages at the moment. It can destroy Chinese nuclear installations; it can detach Sinkiang; it can play havoc with the Chinese industry which is concentrated in Manchuria and the coastal areas. But China is not Czechoslovakia. Any attempt to exploit its present weakness will only further inflame its intense nationalism and strengthen its determination for revenge. China’s progress towards the status of a great power can be arrested for some years but it cannot be frustrated. Moreover, Russia cannot afford to incur the odium which an unprovoked attack on China will attract.
The United States will be gravely perturbed by a Soviet pre-emptive strike against China. It may not come to the rescue of Peking but it will not be able to trust Moscow thereafter because it will then be haunted by the fear that the Kremlin may spring a surprise on it or its allies as well. The chances therefore are that Russia will remain immobilised in spite of its fear of China’s growing power and of a Sino-US rapprochement on the one hand and its irritation at Peking’s defiance on the other.
Cold War
But while it is reasonably certain that Russia and China will not go to war, the prospect of a significant improvement in their relations is bleak. The cold war between them will continue even if they succeed in defusing the present explosive situation on the 4,500-mile long common borders. The struggle between them for supremacy in Central Asia has opened in right earnest and it cannot be ended by a border agreement, limited or comprehensive. The conflict relates to what has been described as the world’s heartland.
In this context it is pertinent to recall that the notorious Tanaka memorial of 1927 to the Japanese emperor said: “In order to conquer China we must conquer Manchuria and Mongolia. In order to conquer the world we must first begin by conquering China.”
The authenticity of the document has been disputed. But that is irrelevant. The important points, as Mr. Harrison E. Salisbury has noted in his book The Coming War between Russia and China (Pan Books Ltd., London), are that the memorial finds mention in almost every Soviet political work on East Asia, that it “sums up the principles which underlay Russian policies for at least a century before the communists,” and that “the continuity of that policy with the policy of the Soviet regime in the Far East is unbroken.”
The story of Russia’s expansion eastward from the 17th century onward, its interest in Mongolia, and its success in detaching it from China and establishing a friendly communist regime there are well known. But not so well known is Stalin’s attempt to set up a more or less autonomous regime in northeast China including Manchuria under Kao Kang in 1948-49, to maintain the Russian hold there through the continued occupation of Dairen in Port Arthur and the Manchurian Railway, and to acquire a say in the management Sinkiang through the establishment of joint companies. He thought of the last device after he had failed to detach Sinkiang from China and set up a Mongolian style friendly regime there
Mr. Khrushchev gave up concessions in Sinkiang, handed over the Manchurian railway to China and withdrew his forces from Dairen and Port Arthur. But he too refused to countenance a belittling of the Soviet position in Outer Mongolia and even to discuss its future with Chairman Mao Tse tung. Chinese labourers were admitted into Outer Mongolia during the period of the Sino-Soviet “honeymoon” but they were quickly asked to leave when the relations between the two communist giants began to deteriorate.
Two quotations from Mr. Salisbury are relevant: “… the strategic importance of Mongolia has not changed. If Russia is to be dominant in East Asia, if Vladivostok is truly to be ‘Ruler of the East’, if Moscow’s 300-year Drang nach Osten is to resume, Mongolia holds the critical role. Any Soviet thrust eastward and southward will inevitably be made from Mongolia. Any thrust at Chinese communist strength – just as any thrust at Japan’s Kwantung army – will be made from Mongolian concentration points. The Chinese troops today stand where the Japanese troops stood thirty years ago…….”
Important
“Conversely, Mongolia is as important to China… If the Chinese industries are to be secure in Manchuria, if their new Chinese cities in Inner Mongolia are not to be under constant threat, if the great nuclear facilities of Inner Mongolia and further west in Kiangsu are not to stand under danger from long-range rockets, if Peking itself is not to be imperilled by a sudden double development ……… Mongolia must be neutralised, at a minimum, and brought to China’s side if possible.”
Nuclear missiles and long-range bombers have transformed the thinking of the big powers on strategic problems. But the maintenance of large American and Soviet forces in Central Europe and Russia’s programme of naval expansion show that geographical factors have not lost their importance. In sum the age-old Sino Russian struggle for supremacy in Central Asia has not become irrelevant in the nuclear age. The resumption of this struggle has automatically placed the United States a favourable position.
So long as the United States was obsessed with the Chinese menace and so long as it regarded the outcome of the Viet Nam war as crucial to the future of South and South-East Asia, it was clearly not in a position to take advantage of Peking’s increasing pre-occupation with the Soviet threat to reopen a dialogue with it. But the Nixon Administration is gradually adapting its policy to the view held by most American Sinologists that the Chinese leaders are by no means reckless, that it is a gross misrepresentation of Peking’s position to say that it wishes to plunge the world into a nuclear holocaust and that it is wrong to regard North Viet Nam as an instrument of Chinese expansionism.
Complex
Washington has to move cautiously till it finds that China is ready to respond to its gestures. But in the larger historical perspective the process of reversing America’s Asia and China policies has already begun. The plan to de-escalate and end the Viet Nam war is one facet of this complex process, the firm declaration that America will not commit its troops in future conflicts in this part of the world is another, and the modification of the trade embargo and the near withdrawal of the Seventh Fleet from the Formosa Straits is yet another. All these moves are inter-related and should be viewed as part of a major change in America’s Asia policy.
Formosa is a major obstacle in the path of Sino-US reconciliation. It will be years before the political evolution of the island moves to a point where the issue can be settled in terms of the Formosan people’s right to determine their own future. Right now they are still ruled by Chinese from the mainland who went there with Marshal Chiang Kai-shek.
But even a settlement of the Formosa issue will not eliminate all sources of conflict between America and China. They will remain distrustful of each other for a host of reasons. But unlike in the case of Russia and China, there is no historical enmity between America and China; they do not share a common border; and their armies do not confront each other in battle array.
Widespread
There is still a widespread belief in the United States that China will not become a global power in the foreseeable future, that its influence will be limited to the adjoining region, that even there it will continue to be outclassed by Japan in the fields of economy, science and technology and that Moscow will remain Washington’s principal rival. Disengagement in Viet Nam and the growth of Russia’s naval power are likely to strengthen this view.
All in all, in the triangular contest the United States is placing itself in the highly advantageous middle position. The Russians know it and are deeply disturbed by it. But they cannot counter the American moves unless they are willing to make some dramatic gesture to West Germany. Indian policy planners should also take note of these new developments if they are not to be overtaken by events once again. This country has paid dearly for their failure in the late ‘fifties and early ‘sixties to grasp the nature and magnitude of the Sino-Soviet rift and its larger implications.
The Times of India 22 January 1970