It is a matter of speculation whether the question of China’s need for and interest in certain kinds of US military equipment like an advanced American computer, C-141 cargo transport, satellite cameras and radar will figure in the discussions that Chinese leaders will have with Mr. Kissinger during his visit to Peking beginning October 19. Rut if the recent report in The New York Times and the articles in the autumn issue of Foreign Policy, New York, are any indication, it will not be much of an exaggeration to say that despite the continuing differences over Formosa, the two governments are getting ready to widen the area of cooperation.
The New York Times often gets access to classified material and publishes it in disregard of the US administration’s susceptibilities. But in the present case, the CIA’s study on the Moscow-Peking-Washington equation and its recommendations regarding the supply of various kinds of equipment to strengthen China’s military capability have been made available to it. In other words, this is a deliberate leak.
Source
It is difficult to identify either the source of the leak or its central purpose. But there is no dearth of evidence to suggest that influential Americans are convinced that it is necessary to help China improve its air defences in order to enable it to withstand the Soviet pressure and to leave Moscow in no doubt that the United States will resist any attempt by it to use its massive military presence along the Chinese borders to influence the outcome of the struggle for the succession to Chairman Mao Tse-tung.
After having quoted Mr. William Colby, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, to the effect that one reason for the drastic cut in the Chinese military procurement programme in 1972 was a cutback in aircraft production, possibly due to the inability to produce a new all-weather interceptor, Col. Angus M. Frazer, for instance, writes in the September 1975 issue of Current History: “The general air defence of the PRC has serious shortcomings. The lack of all-weather interceptors has been noted. There has been no attempt to develop an advanced anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system. Surface-to-air missiles (SAM) sites are limited and communications and control systems are poor.”
As the US Defence Secretary, Mr. Schlesinger, put it, the Chinese nuclear programme, too, has been only “moderately successful”. Peking still depends on Tu bombers of Soviet design and liquid-fuel-medium-range ballistic missiles which take time to be fired and therefore require longer warning than solid fuel devices. Work on a solid-fuel ballistic missile is in progress but none is operational yet. The Chinese have not yet tested a missile which can be launched from a submarine. In plain terms, Peking has not acquired the capability to absorb a pre-emptive nuclear strike and then retaliate and is therefore vulnerable to attack.
This is not to suggest that the Americans regard a Soviet attack a serious possibility but that they appear to take the view that the Chinese air defences are not sufficiently strong to enable the leaders in Peking to ignore the threat. Indeed the current campaign against “capitulationism” in China cannot but reinforce the impression in Washington that at least some persons in top positions in Peking favour rapprochement with Moscow out of fear and that this group can acquire considerable support in the event of Chairman Mao’s death or incapacity to influence policies due to failing health.
It is difficult for outsiders to say anything definite about the US administration’s assessment of the current Soviet propaganda campaign in relation to internal development in China. But three facts are incontrovertible.
First, in every major crisis even after the establishment of the people’s republic in 1949, Chairman Mao and his supporters have accused senior Chinese leaders of conspiring with the Soviet Union or at least of imitating the Soviet model – Kao Kang, overlord of Manchuria and north-east China, including Manchuria in 1954; Peng Teh-huai, the then defence minister, in 1958, Mr Liu Shao-chi, the president of the republic, in 1965; and Chairman Mao’s successor-designate, Mr. Lin Piao, in 1971.
The Issue
Secondly, neither the cultural revolution nor the subsequent party congress nor the national people’s congress has settled the succession issue. On all accounts, relations with the Soviet Union continue to figure prominently in the policy disputes, though it is well known that Chairman Mao himself is the architect of the current approach which favours rapprochement with the West, including the United States.
Thirdly, Moscow itself claims that it has friends in important positions in China and that they do not share the Maoist group’s anti-Soviet views. On May 15, 1974, Izvestia, for example, alleged that this group was purging the ranks of military and civilian officials out of the fear that they might “mount an organised opposition” to the regime’s anti-Soviet course. This campaign has been vastly stepped up since.
On top of it all, there must be the feeling in Washington that the moment of truth is at hand. Earlier American policy-makers appeared to take the view that Mr. Chou En-lai would be able to keep China on the present course for some years in the post-Mao phase. But as things have turned out, he himself has been hospitalised for over a year and cannot therefore head the new collective leadership which will take over after the Chairman disappears from the scene. Thus from the US point of view, it is necessary to make some moves which strengthen the position of those like Mr. Teng Hsiao-ping who share Chairman Mao’s and Mr. Chou En-lai’s distrust of the Soviet Union. The supply of sophisticated equipment can be one such move.
Two additional points need to be noted in this connection about America’s China policy. First, even at the time of considerable tension and distrust between the two countries, there existed in Washington influential men who were convinced that China would not engage in overt aggression in pursuit of its objective of promoting communism in neighbouring countries. General Taylor, for instance, told a Congressional committee in the early ‘sixties that Peking did not take the initiative in the armed conflict between it and India in 1962. The view that Peking’s military posture is essentially defensive has come to be more widely accepted in the United States since, and it is further reinforced by the assessment that the Chinese armed forces are just not equipped for a major operation outside their borders.
Theory
Secondly, most American policymakers and commentators appear to have long abandoned the theory that Peking regards itself as the centre of the world communist movement in competition with Moscow and that it will, therefore, do everything in its power to support what it calls wars of national liberation.
As far as support to subversive movements is concerned, facts speak for themselves. China has not extended much aid to the communist rebels in Burma, Thailand and Malaysia. It has not only ended its support to the rebels in the Dhofar region of Oman but endorsed the Shah of Iran’s efforts to eliminate the danger of subversive movements in that critically important part of the world. No one can say that the Chinese government has sought to utilise the presence of thousands of its personnel in Tanzania in connection with the construction of the railway line there to promote communism. It is involved in the current struggle in Angola but with the objective of preventing the Soviet-supported MPLA from seizing total power. Indeed, there it is clearly co-operating with the United States, Britain, France and Zaire.
China’s view of its role in the world is equally clear. If, as Mr. Teng Hsiao-ping told the UN General Assembly last year, the socialist camp no longer exists, the question of its leadership cannot arise. This is not merely an exercise in deductive logic because in recent years Peking has concentrated its efforts on befriending third world countries on a state-to-state level.
After all this, one has only to note Peking’s support for continued American presence in Asia, NATO and the European Economic Community to draw the inference that its response to world developments is determined not by ideological considerations but by the classical concept of balance of power. This may not only account for the easy understanding between the dominant group in the Chinese leadership and Mr. Kissinger but also provide an additional explanation for its hostility towards the Soviet Union.
The Times of India 8 October 1975