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The Foreign Policy Uses of the Chinese Revolutionary Model

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

A. M. Halpern
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Extract

As we all know only too well, the American student of Chinese Communist affairs must rely heavily on the recorded public utterances of representatives of the régime. The interpretation of such data is of course subject to a number of uncertainties. The ways in which public political statements can be used to deceive, to mislead, or to bargain are not always obvious. Even when a statement embodies a real calculation or the speaker's genuine perception of the world, the motive for making it may lie in the passing demands of small-scale tactics, or it may be of extreme subjective import to the speaker. One of the more favourable situations for analysis of this kind of material is found when linked propositions concerning a unitary topic are reiterated over a fairly long tune period, so that they occur in varying environmental contexts, with qualitative or quantitative variations in content, and with fluctuations of frequency or emphasis. The problem under examination here— the way the Chinese Communists have represented the significance for others of their experience in achieving power by revolutionary means— fits these last specifications.

Type
Foreign Relations
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 7 , September 1961 , pp. 1 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1961

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References

1 The data reviewed for this paper consisted of a selection from the periodic reports on foreign policy made by Chinese leaders, statements on recurrent ceremonial occasions (anniersaries of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of 1950, the Russian October Revolution, and the National Day of the Chinese People's Republic), supplemented by a number of items that had attracted the author's notice over the years. The original intent was to rely on the recurrent ceremonial statements primarily, but it quickly became clear that these data, though useful for corroboration and illustration, were inadequate for the purpose.

2 Apart from the continued holding of high posts by men identified as having been deviationists at specified times, there have been continuing signs of differences of viewpoint within the régime. In ideological terms, the issue in the Hundred Flowers period (1957), for example, was whether the class struggle moderated or became sharper in the period of Socialist construction.

3 Originally published in For a Lasting Peace, For a People's Democracy. Quoted here from People's Daily, 06 16, 1950Google Scholar, translated in Current Background (CB) (Hong Kong: U.S. Consulate-General), No. 173.

4 Ting-yi, Lu, “The World Significance of the Chinese Revolution,” New China News Agency (NCNA), 06 25, 1951.Google Scholar

5 Liu Shao-ch'i's speech at the mass meeting in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, NCNA, 06 30, 1951.Google Scholar

6 Ibid.

7 “New China's International Position,” World Culture, No. 11, 1951.Google Scholar A discussion of the peculiarities of the structure of people's democracy in the countries of the East, held in the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R., November 12–23, 1951, is regarded by some students as an official Soviet denial of the relevance of the Chinese model, despite the earlier endorsement in the Cominform journal. See Izvestia Akademii Nauk SSSR, Seriia istorii i filosofii, Vol. 9, No. 1, 1952.Google Scholar

8 En-lai, Chou, “Political Report to the Third Session of the First National Committee of the CPPCC,” NCNA, 11 2, 1951.Google Scholar

9 NCNA, 10 5, 1951.Google Scholar

10 Jung-fu, Chu, “Foreign Relations of New China during the Past Five Years,” World Culture, 10 5, 1954, in CB No. 307.Google Scholar

11 More on the Historical Experience of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1957).Google Scholar

12 Revisions in the Chinese estimate of Japan's domestic politics and rising international status are relevant here, but not central to the argument.

13 En-lai, Chou, “Report on Government Work,” First Session of the Second National People's Congress, 04 18, 1959, CB No. 559.Google Scholar

14 Some earlier signs of Sino-Soviet differences on the approach to third countries could have been detected in the report of the discussion of a “Joint Conference of the Editorial Boards of International Affairs and the Shihtze Chihshih” in International Affairs, 03 1959.Google ScholarWorld Marxist Review, Nos. 8 and 9, 08 and 09, 1959Google Scholar, carried abstracts of a “seminar on the national bourgeoisie and the liberation movements” held in May at the Leipzig Institute of World History. This is the type of thing that becomes more meaningful by the application of hindsight.

15 Shao-ch'i, Liu, “The Victory of Marxism-Leninism in China,” in Ten Glorious Years (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1960).Google Scholar

16 Yi, Ch'en, “Ten Years of Struggle for World Peace and Human Progress,”Google Scholar and Hsiao-p'ing, Teng, “The Great Unity of the Chinese People and the Great Unity of the Peoples of the World,”Google Scholaribid.

17 Three major statements in commemoration of the 90th anniversary of Lenin's birth are reprinted in Long Live Leninism (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1960).Google Scholar

18 Peking Review, 06 14, 1960.Google Scholar

19 Quoted from Peking Review, combined Nos. 49 and 50, 12 13, 1960.Google Scholar

20 Report at the meeting of party organisations of the Higher Party School, the Academy of Social Sciences, and the Institute of Marxism-Leninism attached to the Central Committee of the CPSU on January 6, as published in Kommunist, No. 1, 01 1961.Google Scholar

21 Mao's 1941 pamphlet, Reform Our Studies, is frequently referred to as a guide to the achievement of objectivity. Of a number of articles emphasising the unique features of the Chinese revolutionary process, two appear to be of special interest: Wu Chiang's “The Course of Seizure of State Power in the Chinese Revolution,” Li-Shih Yen-chiu (Historical Research), No. 2, 1961Google Scholar, for its comprehensiveness and its emphasis on armed struggle and the smashing of state power; and Teng T'o's “The Thought of Mao Tse-tung Opens the Way for the Development of China's Science of History,” ibid., No. 1, 1961, for its attack on Europe-centred historiography.

22 Liu Ning-yi's address to the World Peace Council meeting in New Delhi on March 24 approached humility in describing China's support for national independence movements based on local initiative and the reciprocal support of the “Peoples of various countries” to the “Chinese people” Ch'en Yi in an interview in Jakarta on April 4 expressed himself as follows:

On the SEATO meeting in Bangkok: “We do not want to express any views as to how they conduct their meeting. … SEATO may commit an error; it is also possible that it will not commit this error. It is their own affair.”

On Sino-Japanese relations: “It is mainly up to the Ikeda cabinet to take the initiative. … [W]ould the Ikeda cabinet of Japan follow Indonesia? However, this is its own affair.”

On Sino-American relations: “The U.S. leaders are too arrogant. … However, Sino-American relations are a matter of the United States adopting an imperialist policy toward China. Whether this will be changed or not is up to them.”

23 Peking Review, combined Nos. 26 and 27, 07 7, 1961.Google Scholar Excerpts cited below are from this source.