American Academy of Political and Social Science

Chinese History and the Foreign Relations of Contemporary China

Author(s): Albert Feuerwerker
Source: Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 402, China in the
World Today (Jul., 1972), pp. 1-14
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. in association with the American Academy of Political and
Social Science
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 ChineseHistory and the ForeignRelations
of ContemporaryChina

By ALBERTFEUERWERKER

ABSTRACT:It is frequently implied that there is something

peculiarly "Chinese,"derived from the millennia of a separate
and remarkablecultural tradition, which operates to motivate
the foreign relations of the People's Republic of China
(P.R.C.). It is, of course, absurdto expect that there would be
no residue of the past at work in the present, even after the
profound revolutionary changes that China has undergone in
the past century. That persistence of tradition,however, is not
simple and unproblematic. Precisely what out of the past has
a functionalrole in contemporaryChinarequiresexplication. A
distinction between influences from the pre-nineteenth-century
"Great Tradition" and those growing from the importunate
impact of the outside world on China in the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries must be made. And the weight of
tradition/history must be comparedwith that of other factors
influencingthe formationand execution of foreign policy. This
paper examines five components which have determined the
foreign relations of the P.R.C. and suggests that they may be
ranked in the following order of importance: 1) nationalism;
2) the politics of the international Communist movement; 3)
China's domestic politics; 4) Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideol-
ogy; and 5) a strategic-politicalimagery based on a traditional
spatial-ideologicalworld order.

Albert Feuerwerker, Ph.D., Ann Arbor, Michigan, received his doctorate in History
and Far Eastern Languages from Harvard University (1957). He has been Professor
of History at the University of Michigan since 1960 and was Director of the Center
for Chinese Studies there from 1961 to 1967. He previously taught at the University of
Toronto (1955-58) and was a Research Fellow, East Asian Research Center, Harvard
University (1958-60). He is the author of numerous books and articles on China and
is currently on the Board of Editors of The American Historical Review and on the
Advisory Editorial Board of The China Quarterly. Since 1970 he has been Chairman of
the Social Science Research Council-American Council of Learned Societies Joint Com-
mittee on Contemporary China.
1

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2 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

IT IS frequently implied that there is China was reduced to a semicolonial

something peculiarly "Chinese," de-status? Is not the tone of superiority-
rived from millennia of a separate and Chinese "arrogance"-which is directed
remarkable cultural tradition, which not just toward the "imperialist"United
operates to motivate the foreign rela- States, but also toward the "modern re-
tions of the People's Republic of China visionist" Soviet Union, directly linked
(P.R.C.). This influence is described to a traditional assertion of the superior-
in a number of different ways. In its ity of the Confucian moral order which
identified China as Civilization and all
most extreme form, the question is raised
as to the genuineness with which the outside its influence as Barbarism?
P.R.C.-as the inheritor of China's past Should we not see in the contemporary
-accepts the nation-state system that claim to leadership of the Third World
a continuation of the ethnocentrism of
is central to the international order de-
fined by the assumptions of the policy- the past in which the Middle Kingdom,
makers of the United States and the by its "virtue,"irresistiblydrew the non-
Soviet Union. Is it correct to assume Chinese world into enrollment in a hier-
that Peking's participation in a "bour- archic system of interstate relations
whose single center was Peking? And is
geois" or "revisionist"international sys-
tem, composed of formally equal and not the wining and dining, at the ex-
sovereign states of varying real power pense of the P.R.C., of numerous em-
which interact in changing combina- bassies to Peking from the very small
tions, is more than a temporaryand tac- states of the Third World, and of Com-
tical maneuver? Is the P.R.C. recon- munist and non-Communist opposition
ciled to a system of world politics in leaders from other states, only the most
which states with greater power do in- recent form of the tribute system by
deed impinge upon the lesser powers, means of which the imperial dynasties
but in which no single center exists or granted trade privileges and political
would be tolerated; in which changes do support in return for the kowtow and
take place in the relative power of the acknowledgmentof Peking's suzerainty?
participants, but only according to someThis alternative is summed up in John
common rules of the game that are vio- Fairbank's brilliant conceit of a "Peo-
lated at great peril; in which communi- ple's Middle Kingdom"-though I
cation among states is possible and con-hasten to add that the above sentences
are a caricature and do not represent
flict usually held within tolerable limits
because of shared assumptions and Professor Fairbank'sviews.
rules? While it is, of course, absurd to ex-
pect that there would be no residue of
IS IT THE "PEOPLE'SMIDDLE the past at work in the present, even
KINGDOM?"
after revolutionary changes as profound
Because of the weighty cultural bag- as those which China has undergone in
gage which China carried into the mod- the past century, several serious diffi-
ern world, should not the foregoing culties stand in the way of attributing
questions be answered no? Even if we very much weight to this particular ver-
dismiss for the moment the ecumenical sion of the pervasiveness of traditional
vision of utopian Maoism, is not the images in contemporary policy. After
P.R.C. driven to attempt to reestablish commenting on these difficulties, I shall
the Sino-centric world order which suggest alternative possibilities for ex-
crumbledin the nineteenth century when pressing the place of Chinese tradition

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 HISTORY AND FOREIGN RELATIONS
and history in the formation and execu-
tion of the foreign policies of the P.R.C.,
and shall indicate the relative weight
that I would assign to the past as com-
pared with other components in this
heady mixture.
AN INFLEXIBLEPOLICY?
The attribution of continuing signifi-
cant influence to a traditional strategic-
political imagery, to begin with the most
general demurrer,implies a fixity about
the resulting policy which is contradicted
by the history of China's foreign rela-
tions since 1949. While of course the
fact that China is the largest country in
Asia with the greatest population and
the most resourcesfor potential develop-
ment must always be considered in ana-
lyzing the structure of world politics,
these geographical and economic-demo-
graphic capabilities do not autonomously
determine any policy for the leaders of
the Chinese state. For these parameters
to have any effect, they must be medi-
ated by the implicit or explicit decisions
of specific policymakers who, in effect,
assign them their values. To assert that
"deep" and unchanging cultural factors
determinesuch decisions is to ascribe an
inevitability and inflexibility to posi-
tions on current substantive matters
which are as misplaced as the parallel
Maoist claim to unvarying ideological
consistency. In fact, the twenty-two-
year period since the establishment of
the P.R.C. has been one of great shifts
and unanticipated changes, in foreign
affairs as much as in domestic matters.
Compare the "leaning to one side" alli-
ance with the Soviet Union of the early
1950s with the armed clashes on the
Ussuri River and in Sinkiang in 1969;
or the "spirit of Bandung" of the mid-
1950s with the anti-imperialist offensive
in the Third World of 1958-65; or the
xenophobia and isolation of the Cultural
Revolution years of 1966-68 with the
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3
entertainment of Richard Nixon and
party in the P.R.C. in February 1972.
An emphasis upon cultural continui-
ties, secondly, tends to give an unwar-
ranted image of benignity to the for-
eign relations of contemporary China.
I do not attribute any more malevolence
to the P.R.C. than to any other great
power-which, of course, China is, not-
withstanding its denial in the Shanghai
joint communiqueof February 27, 1972:
"China will never be a superpowerand
it opposes hegemony and power politics
of any kind." But its foreign policies
are not merely a replay in the present,
with new actors and costumes, of the
feckless conduct of the decaying Ch'ing
dynasty (1644-1911), which Lord Ma-
cartney described in January 1794,
toward the end of his futile embassy to
the court of the Ch'ien-lungemperor,as
an old crazy,First rate man-of-war,which
a fortunatesuccessionof able and vigilant
officershas contrived to keep afloat for
these one hundredand fifty yearspast ....
Shemay perhapsnot sink outright;she may
drift some time as a wreck,and will then
be dashedto pieces on the shore ....
The P.R.C. is not an antique Chinese
hulk, afloat in isolated serenity in an
ancient sea all its own, but a dynamic,
modernizingstate whose striving for do-
mestic political integration, economic
development, and social revolution oc-
curs in an internationalcontext which it
views as, at least, unsatisfactory and is
therefore desirous of changing. While
this unhappiness with the status quo of
world politics is rooted both in the his-
tory of the past century and in con-
temporary exigencies-as I shall indi-
cate in what folloWs-China's efforts to
alter the relative distribution of inter-
national power are no more-nor less-
benign than those of other states acting
to assert or protect what they see as
their national interests.
4 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
COMPLEXITY OF CHINA'S TRADITION
A third difficulty associated with
looking to the traditional past for the
sources of present policy arises from the
complexity and dynamism of China's
historical experience. Even at the apo-
gee of pre-nineteenth-century imperial
China-before the importunate incur-
sions of the West-China's tradition was
not an unproblematicunity. To empha-
size those strains of the past which pre-
sumably favored current developments
may in fact distort our apprehensionof
the practice of international politics in
late-imperial China. The tribute sys-
tem, for example-a congeries of insti-
tutions for which the Chinese had no
specific term and which constitute a
system only in the eyes of later his-
torians-may be said to have rested
upon three ideological assumptions: 1)
China's cultural superiority which pre-
cluded relations on the basis of equal-
ity; 2) the sufficiency of the emperor's
virtue to win the peaceful submission of
"men from afar"; and 3) the priority
of political over economic relations. But
so long as China de facto remained the
center of the universe it knew, and
while the assumptions themselves were
not challenged, there was no need-as
indeed there was no possibility-of in-
sisting upon their literal implementation.
I would argue, in other words, that we
may be misled if we treat the tribute
system ideology of the Ch'ing empire as
something radically different in its force
from the public and official commitment
to, for instance, free enterprise in con-
temporaryAmericaor the "mass line" in
the P.R.C. What is really important in
all of these cases is that the integrating
myths of tribute, free enterprise, and
mass line not be contradicted within
their respective societies, rather than
that the actual practice of foreign rela-
tions or economic enterprise conform in
all respects and at all times to the ideol-
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ogy in its purest statement. The spatial-
ideological imagery of the Sino-centric
and moralistic tribute system was a
critical component of the legitimation
of imperial rule within China; its do-
mestic function of raising the Son of
Heaven to a moral height above all other
men was as important as its role as a
practical medium for China's interna-
tional relations. The essential thing
was that the Chinese documentary rec-
ord-and so far as possible the behavior
of foreignersin China-not depart from
the ideology. Thus Lord Macartney,
although he in fact refused to perform
that ceremony, is recorded as having
kowtowed-the three kneelings and nine
knockings of the head-when received
by the emperor. Nor did George III
present tributary gifts to the Chia-ch'ing
emperor in 1804, though the Chinese
documents so assert. Many similar ex-
amples can be cited. And lengthy evi-
dence can be offered that, notwithstand-
ing the tributary ideology, the Ch'ing
empire, on the one hand, used armed
force when it appeared necessary-
rather than rely on moral virtue alone-
in its relations with its smaller neigh-
bors in Central Asia and, on the other
hand, dealt realistically and on terms of
equality with the expanding power of
Russia-as in the treaties of Nerchinsk,
1689, and Kyakhta, 1728. Moreover,
the tribute embassies from the small
maritimestates of Southeast Asia did no
more than opportunisticallyacknowledge
the Chinese definition of the world or-
der in the interest of furthering their
trade with the mainland. If Korea,
which sent 664 embassies to China in the
period 1637-1874-an average of al-
most three a year-was truly under the
influence of Chinese culture, the dili-
gent Ryikyu (Liu-ch'iu) tributary was
in fact under the domination of the han
of Satsuma in Japan which utilized the
Ryikyu island kingdom as an entrep6t
 HISTORY AND FOREIGN RELATIONS 5

for an unacknowledged Sino-Japanese is the fourth reason why it is difficult to

trade. award any primacy to the persistence of
The widening of the Sino-Soviet split tradition, in the sense of pre-nineteenth-
has perhaps seemed to vindicate those century historical influences, in the for-
who have stressed the cultural bases of mation of current policy. To do so ig-
the behavior of the P.R.C. Does not nores the main historical influences
Mao Tse-tung, like the emperorsof old, which affect the present. The intrusion
dwell inaccessibly in the Forbidden City of European, American, and Japanese
in Peking, and once again proclaim the power into the Middle Kingdom, the
true-but now Marxist-Leninist-way to opium wars and the resulting unequal
the barbarians in Moscow's Kremlin? treaties, the loss of imperial China's
A striking image which resonates with nominal dependencies to the imperialist
traditional overtones, but as a historical powers, large war indemnities to the
analogy it is belied by the pragmatic foreigners,and a scramble for economic
flexibility which the emperorsof old ex- concessions-all these helped shatter the
hibited while the dynasty and its social old self-image of China's cultural superi-
elite still retained an undiminished be- ority and political centrality. In its
lief in their values and institutions. Un- place arose-fitfully and with many
til this self-confidencewas weakened, by false starts-modern Chinese national-
domestic rebellion and foreign incursions ism whose memory of the trauma of the
in the nineteenth century, the role of cataclysmic impact of foreign imperial-
Confucian ideology-although its claims ism on traditionalChina is the principal,
were formally universalisticlike those of but not exclusive, force which operates
Marxism-Leninism-was primarily a do- now to shape the actions of the P.R.C.
mestic one. What the foreignerdid and in the world arena.
said outside of China-how he inter-
preted the tributary relationship-was SOURCES OF FOREIGN POLICY
of no consequence. But as the discrep- There are at least five influences
ancy between China's assumed superi- which together have determined the for-
ority and its actual weakness grew in
the early nineteenth century, romantic eign policies of the People's Republic of
traditionalismwas substituted for genu- China during the past twenty-two years.
ine belief, and an irrational insistence I suggest that they can be ranked in the
upon the letter of the tribute system following order of importance: 1) na-
replaced the previous flexibility. tionalism-in a particularly well-devel-
oped form of the variety known in nine-
DISSOLUTION OF THE TRADITIONAL
teenth-century Europe; 2) the politics
WORLDORDER
of the international Communist move-
The confrontation between this arte- ment; 3) China's domestic politics; 4)
rioscleroticlate-imperialChina and nine- Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideology; and
teenth-century Europe-pursuing that 5) the strategic-political imagery based
combination of civilizing mission, as on a traditional spatial-ideologicalworld
some saw it, and squalid greed, which order whose saliency I have questioned
more than half falsified the former mo- in the foregoing paragraphs. The first
tive, that set it on the path to temporary and the last of these five factors are
domination of the world-dissolved the specifically historical in nature; having
traditional Chinese world order as a po- undermined culturalism, I want now to
litical ideology and as an actuality. This consider nationalism more closely.

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6 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
There are aspects of the other three
which merit attention as well.
MODERN NATIONALISM
While the content of modern Chinese
nationalist demands is familiar to any
student of recent world history-sover-
eignty, territorialintegrity, equality with
other nations, autonomy in determining
its path to the future-there is a gen-
erally acknowledged fervency, almost
vehemence, in their expression. It is as
if the classical contours of nineteenth-
century nationalism had been replicated
in an exaggerated form when this peren-
nial phenomenon of the modern world
made its appearance in Chinese dress.
The intensity of Chinese nationalist feel-
ing has, I believe, two sources. Most
important is the gross sense of outrage
that every twentieth-century Chinese
has felt at the actual indignities which
his country experiencedat foreign hands
since the mid-nineteenthcentury.
By the end of the Ch'ing dynasty in
1911, the foreigners in China had by
force acquired extraterritorial rights,
that is, immunity from Chinese legal
jurisdiction; had established foreign-
governed enclaves in the treaty ports;
had deprived China of tariff autonomy;
freely navigated China's inland waters
not only with their merchantvessels, but
also with their gunboats; competed with
themselves for railroad and mining con-
cessions and to place loans with the
Chinese government which would en-
hance their influence over its decisions;
had penetrated into the interior of the
country with their missionaries who
challenged the dominance of the rural
social elite; and had begun to nibble at
the territory of the Chinese empire in
Manchuria,Shantungprovince, and else-
where. But the imperialist bark before
1911, we can now see, was more fero-
cious than its bite. Foreign political in-
fluence in late-imperial China was less
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than the powers thought it was or hoped
it would be. While the foreign role in
the very small modern sector of the
economy was a significant one, the great
bulk of the Chinese economy did not be-
come dependent upon an export market
for primary agriculturalor mineralprod-
ucts-as was the case in parts of South-
east Asia and Latin America. Though
it may run contrary to the more com-
mon view, I would also hold that the for-
eign merchant in late-Ch'ing China in-
creasingly served rather than controlled
the traditional Chinese commercial sys-
tem.
If the direct effect of imperialism on
the Chinese state and society in the
nineteenth century was a limited one, the
perception of its consequences by the
Chinese elite was of an altogether larger
dimension,disproportionateto the actual
derogations of China's sovereignty by
the imperialistpowers. Here we have to
take account of the second source of the
particularpower of Chinese nationalism,
and here also, if anywhere, we can see
the influence of traditional forces on
moder actions. For the modern
nationalist (anti-imperialist) sentiment
which began to appear at the end of
the century, in particular after the
shocking defeat inflicted by Japan on
China in the war of 1894-95, gained
intensity by incorporatinginto itself the
culturalist xenophobia of Confucian tra-
dition. China's first nationalists were
mostly men of elite background social-
ized in the traditional society. If they
now focused their efforts on the survival
of the Chinese nation-state (kuo-chia)
rather than the Confucian cultural ecu-
mene (t'ien-hsia), the pain of losing the
latter was still a great one and added a
strong emotionalism to their outlook.
Here, for example, is a passage by a stu-
dent nationalist writing in 1903:
Alas! Is not today'sworldonein whichthe
tides of struggleare more fierce than ever
 HISTORY AND FOREIGN RELATIONS
before! And is not Chinathe most violent
vortex of this world struggle! The Rus-
sian tiger, the Britishleopard,the German
and Frenchfoxes, the Americanwolf, and
the Japanesejackeldeliberatelyand eagerly
bare their claws and expose their fangs as
they encircleand prepareto pounce upon
this 4,000-yearold sick lion. They seize
strategicplacesand force the lease of naval
basesin orderto stranglehim at the throat;
they openminesandbuildrailroadsin order
to sever his muscles and tendons; they
grant loans, demandindemnities,and en-
largetheir industryand commercein order
to feed on his flesh and blood; they "open
the door,"carve"spheresof influence,"and
springuponthe fat victim to devourhim-
withoutany misgivings.
CHINESE REACTIONS TO
FOREIGN INCURSIONS
The first Chinese reactions to the in-
cursions of post-industrial revolution
Europe, in the 1840s and 1850s, were a
combination of blind antiforeignismand
futile attempts to play off one barbarian
against another-variations, that is, on
the old culturalistic theme that had
worked when the dynasty was domesti-
cally secure, self-confident, and isolated
from any really powerful external chal-
lenge. In the decades after 1860, until
the Sino-JapaneseWar, this gave way to
a more pragmatic effort to prevent fur-
ther foreign demands by, on the one
hand, honoring the treaty privileges
which they had exacted and, on the other
hand, attempting a modest military and
economic "self-strengthening," which
was immediately directed to the repres-
sion of internal dissension, but might
ultimately deter the powers from enlarg-
ing their foothold. Briefly, in the Boxer
uprising of 1900, there was a partial
reversion to the xenophobic response of
mid-century. Thereafter, the field was
held by modern Chinese nationalism.
From the end of the nineteenth century
until 1949, nationalist strivings to com-
bine domestic reform-in the first in-
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7
stance in order to achieve the political
and material basis for ending foreign
special privileges-with an attack on the
imperialist prerogatives themselves con-
stituted the main content of China's his-
tory. Each of the successive centralizing
efforts of this half-century-the late-
Ch'ing reform program,the brief rule of
Yuan Shih-k'ai in the first years after
the republican revolution of 1911, the
nationalist revolution of the 1920s in
which the Kuomintang emerged victori-
ous and established its government at
Nanking, the road to power of the Chi-
nese CommunistParty (C.C.P.) itself-
has in its own manner been a response
to this two-prongednationalist program
of domestic reformand anti-imperialism.
When, after the brief or conditional suc-
cesses but ultimate failure of their
predecessors, the Chinese Communists
came to rule China, they did so as the
legitimate and authoritative inheritors
of the leadership of this nationalist
revolution.
But in the fifty-year course of the
passage of the mantle of nationalist lead-
ership from the late-Ch'ing statesmen to
Mao Tse-tung, two critical developments
increased the intensity and saliency of
Chinese nationalism even over the al-
ready high levels of the first decades of
the twentieth century. Whereas before
World War I the imperialist powers had
collectively nibbled at the margins of
China's sovereignty and territorial in-
tegrity, between 1915 and 1945 one of
those powers, Japan, in effect made an
all-out political and military effort to
turn China into its exclusive dependency,
an attempt which culminated in the war
of 1937-45. The memory of Japanese
imperialism in China remains deeply
etched in the minds of the present lead-
ers of the P.R.C., for these men who are
now in their sixties and seventies-Mao
is seventy-eight; Chou En-lai is seventy-
four-spent the prime years of their
8 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
lives fighting against it. That they
should, as we might see it, over-react to
a contemporary distribution of interna-
tional power which might lead even in
the distant future to a repetition of that
struggle-and to a possible derailmentof
the domestic goals of development and
social revolution-is not surprising.
MODERN MASS NATIONALISM
The second related development ap-
plies to the people of China rather than
to their leaders. One majorconsequence
of the fifty-year nationalist revolution
was the progressive mobilization, or
politicalization, of ever broader sectors
of the population. While the principal
import of this process is in domestic af-
fairs rather than foreign relations, it is
not without bearing on the latter. Late-
nineteenth-century Chinese nationalism
was confined to the members of the of-
ficial and nonofficial elite, for some of
whom at least the motivation was the
protection of their traditional political
and economic privileges against the for-
eigner's competition. The nationalist
movement of the 1920s saw the begin-
nings of the participation of persons who
were not members of the traditional so-
cial elite-merchants, Western-type pro-
fessionals, the new intelligentsia, even
some workers and peasants; it was, how-
ever, still largely an urban phenomenon
which did not touch most of China's
millions; and it was only ambiguously
related to the goal of domestic social
change. In the course of the anti-Japa-
nese war of 1937-45, largely through the
efforts of the Chinese CommunistParty,
a significant part of the rural peasant
population was mobilized under the ban-
ner of nationalism and for a concomi-
tant program of social change-though
not yet in support of the ultimate col-
lectivist program of the C.C.P. The
point here is that the course of China's
modern history had produced not only
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nationalism, but modern mass national-
ism. Whatever weight one chooses to
give to the importanceof elite manipula-
tion of the populace in China's domestic
politics, it is manifest that in foreign
affairs the leadership has ready-made
popular support for any policy that
could be seen as furthering broadly ac-
cepted nationalist goals.
To place the force of Chinese nation-
alism first among the determinants of
the foreign policies of the P.R.C. implies
a particular answer to a question similar
to those that I asked rhetorically at the
beginning of this paper: Would the
achievement of an identifiable list of
specific objectives turn the P.R.C. into
a "status quo power," or does it, on the
contrary, pursue the unlimited objective
of overthrowing the present interna-
tional system and substituting a Maoist
-if not a traditional Confucian-world
order? I can give my answer best in
the course of commentingon the second,
third, and fourth of the factors determin-
ing foreign policy which I ranked
earlier: the politics of the international
Communistmovement, China's domestic
politics, and Maoist ideology.
SINO-SOVIETCONFLICT
For Mao Tse-tung at least-and he
and those associated with him appear to
be in control of the foreign relations of
the P.R.C. at present-opposition to
the Soviet Union is clearly a critical
component in the formation of foreign
policy. The most important sources of
the Sino-Soviet conflict seem to lie, first,
in Mao's reaction to Khrushchev's at-
tack on Stalin and the "cult of person-
ality" in February 1956, which had the
effect of weakening the legitimacy of
Mao's position at a critical point in the
domestic policy deliberationsof the Chi-
nese leadership. In effect, Mao Tse-
tung's effort to realize his utopian vision
of the Chinese revolution was short-
 HISTORY AND FOREIGN RELATIONS
circuited, and only revived over strenu-
ous opposition within the C.C.P. and
with uncertain success in the Great Leap
Forward of 1958-60 and the Cultural
Revolution of 1966-68. For this revi-
sionist betrayal, he has never forgiven
the Russian leadership. This personal
quarrel, however, represents only a par-
ticular manifestation of a broader con-
flict over which of the contending com-
munist parties is the legitimate heir to
the Marxist-Leninist heritage-which,
that is, is the authoritative interpreter
of that doctrine and consequentlyis able
to claim the support of the communist
nations and communist parties of the
world. And to these personal and ideo-
logical strains there was added, as the
Chinese saw it, a military, economic,
and political betrayal by the Soviet Un-
ion which failed to back the P.R.C. in
the second Taiwan Straits crisis, allied
itself with India, withdrew its economic
aid and technicians from China, and
attempted to interfere in China's do-
mestic politics.
An extended treatment of the Sino-
Soviet conflict is beyond the scope of this
paper, but its practical effect on the
foreign relations of the P.R.C. is ap-
parent and relevant to my argument.
At present, the P.R.C. sees the Soviet
Union, whose troops are present on its
borders in large numbers, as the princi-
pal threat to the realization of its na-
tionalist goals of domestic development
and the achievement of an international
status commensuratewith its dominant
place on the Asian mainland. So much
more important are these considerations
than any others that the P.R.C., in spite
of two decades of directing its sometimes
vehement rhetoric against American im-
perialism as the principal enemy of the
Third World, has now joined in what
will be a lengthy, complex, and probably
mutually painful process of achieving a
detente with the United States.
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9
DOMESTIC POLITICS AND
FOREIGN POLICY
With respect to domestic politics as a
determinant of foreign policy, I can be
brief. For the People's Republic of
China, foreign policy definitely stands in
second place as comparedwith domestic
political and economic concerns. It is
doubtful that Mao Tse-tung, the Great
Helmsman, has found his way easily
between the Scylla of gross national
product and the Charybdisof the Yenan
ideal. The radical impulse provided by
collectivization had been dissipated by
mid-1956; the failure of the Great Leap
set the Chinese economy back by half a
decade, forced Mao into retirement, and
aroused bitter struggle within the party
and alienation among the populace; the
Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution,
for all the claims of the Chinese press,
has apparently ended in a compromise.
But neither has he been shipwrecked,as
the Russians and some in this country
would have it. It has been altogether a
remarkableperformance,and if a Maoist
utopia is essentially as impracticable as
any other, no one in China is prepared
to sacrifice even small progress toward
that ideal in aggressive internationalad-
ventures. The saliency for most Chinese
of the goals of political integration and
economic development, in other words,
makes for a generally realistic and cau-
tious foreign policy. Domestic dis-
equilibrium, as in the Cultural Revolu-
tion, has at times produced an unpleas-
ant rhetoric, but no movement of troops
outside of the borders of the P.R.C.
MAOIST IDEOLOGY
It is clearly the cumulative implica-
tion of the preceding paragraphs that
the Maoist version of Marxism-Leninism
plays only a minor role as a source of
China's foreign policy. But is not the
support of wars of national liberation in
Asia, Africa, and Latin America a cen-
10 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
tral focus of that foreignpolicy, and does
not this support derive directly from
Maoist ideology? Does it not, moreover,
signify that the penultimate goal of the
People's Republic of China is dominion
over a Maoist commonwealth of have-
not nations, as a step toward the final
conquest of the industrialized world-
both the communist and noncommunist
parts thereof-from the Third World
"countryside," in the same manner as
Mao's peasant armies purportedly came
to power in China? The facile response
to these questions is that Lin Piao-
author of the famous manifesto of Sep-
tember 1965: "Long Live the Victory
of People's War!"-in the summer of
1971 disappeared from the Chinese po-
litical scene, from all available evidence
purged by Mao Tse-tung; or, equally
correct but only somewhatmore helpful,
that Lin Piao's manifesto is "intellec-
tually absurd and politically impracti-
cal." I would suggest two additional
and, I believe, more germane observa-
tions.
First, support of wars of national lib-
eration by the P.R.C.-in the form of
clandestine arms shipments and military
training,but more importantly and more
commonly by favorable propagandaand
political relations with revolutionary
organizations-has in fact been more a
product of the short-rangetactical needs
of the Chinese nation-state than of any
ultimate Maoist program. Such sup-
port, in other words, can be and has been
turned on and off as it suited the policy-
makers in Peking, without any particu-
lar concern about ideological consis-
tency. In 1965, for example, China
endorsed 23 out of a possible 120 revo-
lutionary and armed struggles in Asia,
Latin America, and Africa. And the
pattern of endorsement, which mostly
took the form of propaganda support,
identifies this policy as the tactic of a
relatively weak state attempting-clum-
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sily and with only minor success-to
keep the United States off balance and to
coerce support from other Third World
states for China's aspirations for a
larger and recognizedrole in the interna-
tional system. From the point of view
of the r volutionary movements them-
selves, China has ignored or even be-
trayed their interests as often as it has
supported them. I would expect that
support of insurgency in the Third
World will continue, as it does today,
but that it will become a less important
tactic as the P.R.C. is fully incorporated
-through membership in the United
Nations, and normal diplomatic and
commercial relations with other states,
especially the United States-into the
ongoing system of world politics.
The ideology of a Maoist ecumene,
secondly, is far more important as a
determinantof China's domestic politics
and of relations within the international
Communist movement thanl it is as a
source of China's foreign policy in gen-
eral. Its primary role is akin to that of
the Confuciantribute system ideology of
old; that is, as a source of legitimacy for
the rulers of the P.R.C. within their na-
tion and among the communist nations
and communist parties of the world.
The ability to describe external events
for this audience in terms that seem to
endorse the infallibility of the Maoist
leadership is of some consequence for
securing domestic support for a genu-
inely ideological program of reshaping
Chinese society. But as I have already
indicated, there has been a strong reality
factor operative in the actual foreign
policies of the P.R.C. since 1949, though
not always in its rhetoric.
CONCLUSION
My conclusion,then, is that in China's
contemporary foreign policy the strong
emotional demand for undiminishedsov-
ereignty in its territory, for equality
 HISTORY AND FOREIGN RELATIONS
with other nations, and for autonomy in
determining its domestic path to the
future-that is, nationalism-is a su-
premely important fact. The sources
of the P.R.C.'s international behavior
are not something peculiarly and mysti-
cally Chinese, or even Maoist, but the
same national interests-as seen by the
rulers of the country and influenced to
some unknown degree by its popula-
tion-that determine the actions of
*QU
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Q: Is the report from Peking of No-
vember 3, 1971, published in the To-
ronto Globe & Mail, of any relevance to
this lecture? The report claimed: China
set the theme for its participation in the
United Nations tonight by affirming
that it "will stand together with all the
countries and peoples that love peace,"
but Chinese officials left no doubt that
they remain committed to world revolu-
tion. "Countries want independence,
nations want liberation and people want
revolution." This has become an ir-
resistible trend in the world today.
That seems to be a commitment to
the policy of helping people who want
their freedom.
In 1969 the Detroit News reported
"Blacks predict own nation in the
South," and the leaders said that they
had decided on a strategy to secure the
Southern states with the help of African
and Asian countries, particularly Red
China. The newspaper on April 7 re-
ported that a twenty-nine-member
American Black Panther delegation had
crossed the border into Hong Kong,
representinga delegation from a possible
internal struggle in this country.
Does any of this relate to what you
said about China's policy of helping
insurgents in other countries?
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11
other modern nations. These national
interests will in many cases not be the
same as ours, which means that dealing
with China will require hard bargain-
ing and subtle negotiation. Undoubt-
edly there will be victories and defeats
for all parties, but one can expect that
these confrontations will occur within
the present international system which
allows no successful universal claim to
any state, ideology, culture, or religion.
* *
A: That certainly is a central matter.
I see China as a great power-although
it denies this-just like the other great
powers whose motives are neither better
nor worse. Given its size and its po-
litical system, it is a power with which
one will have to deal carefully and with
great deliberation, and not always
successfully.
But, looking at the history of the past
twenty-five years, I tend to discount
ideological statements made by any
country. I don't entirely ignore them,
but see them as secondary to real con-
siderations in relations with other
powers.
American leaders, Russian leaders,
Chinese leaders, and the leaders of many
other countries as well have made hair-
raising statements. But I believe one
should take these with a grain of salt.
Their primary importance is internal;
they do not determine policy. Where
they do-and we have some cases of
this in world history-we have a serious
problem. I simply do not believe that
it is accurate, historically, to see China
or Mao Tse-tung as another Hitler.
I took Mein Kampf very seriously; I
think Lin Piao now departed, maybe
from life, is a joke.
12 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

Q: I am interested in freedom of the A: I would make distinctions among

press and how the newspapermen of the various disciplines. This kind of
China obtain information. About six development is easiest in the natural
months ago there were press reports of sciences. It is next easiest in the
a momentous event taking place in humanities, and most difficult in the so-
China. I suppose that it concernedLin called social sciences.
Piao or some of the Chinese hierarchy. One can't say what the actual devel-
But there were never any follow-ups. opment will be, but it seems that in the
Something unreported must have hap- sciences, the Chinese have a good base
pened that would be of interest to and will continue to produce. I suspect
political and social scientists. What has that production of works and studies in
happened recently regarding the hier- the humanities-though not of the kind
archy, and what has happened to Lin that are appropriate for humanities in
Piao? some other countries (but appropriate
in China)-will probably thrive.
A: If I could tell you what has hap- Whether there will ever be social sci-
pened to Lin Piao, I might get a good ences equivalent to our social sciences-
job in the White House. I don't think or whether indeed, there should be-
anybody knows. Certainly last summer is more problematic. That would seem
something occurred that we don't know to be the last area where one could ex-
about-at least I don't know about- pect a real exchange.
with respect to a struggle within the top
leadership. This was symbolized by the Q: I listened with great interest to
cancellation of the National Day cere- your major theme that basic ideology
mony on October 1 and the disappear- is not quite as important as realistic
ance of Lin and other leaders from considerations in international politics;
public view. Perhaps they crashed in and certainly in many instances that is
a plane in Mongolia. correct. But I am wondering, if the
This is not reported in the Chinese
foreign policy, even though it is based
press, if that was the purport of the on
realism, gets too far afield from the
question. There is no Chinese press whether there might not be a very
ideal,
equivalent to the Philadelphia Bulletin reaction which could trigger seri-
or the New York Times. Nor is it even strong
assumed that there is. But I never ous problems? This, of course, can be
applied to what seems to be the over-
implied in my remarks that that was
the critical matter. whelming ideologically stated commit-
ment of the Chinese People's Republic.
Q: First, what are the possibilities of
early change in the nature of the uni- A: That's a very complicated ques-
versities in China? They are now really tion, but a very significant one in this
technical institutes; what we know as sense: there are contending parties
the liberal educational base has largely within any state who, with greater or
disappeared. lesser power, try to influence the way
And second, what is the possibility in which foreign policy is formed. This
in the next few years of there being a is true in China as well. If the present,
resurgence of any degree of free think- shall we say, nonideological foreign pol-
ing in China making possible the free icy collapses, I can see the possibility
exchange of professors, students, vari- of men within the Chinese leadership
ous professional people, and so forth? who are more ideological, expressing

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 HISTORY AND FOREIGN RELATIONS
themselves by putting a larger ideologi-
cal component into the policy.
I don't know what went on in the
conversations between Mr. Nixon and
the Chinese leadership. Maybe the
Americans were aware of this and were
desirous of supporting the Mao-Chou
leadership, which they see, at this time,
as less ideological.
Q: First, what does the term Maoist
world mean to you, and how do the
Chinese see a Maoist world. Second,
how do you interpret the Chinese ob-
jective of establishing a commonwealth
of nations, and how do you think the
Chinese see their relations with such
commonwealthnations?
A: There is a theory, an ideology. I
don't mean to ignore it, for it is a matter
to be taken seriously. But I empha-
sized other matters because I thought
they were more practically important in
the formation of foreign policy. There
is indeed a tradition, developed some-
what vaguely by Mao, which sees a
world in which all powers, all states,
have somehow successfully passed
through revolution and live in some kind
of utopian communist world. There is
no war, no conflict; within and without
all is peaceful and serene. That vision
exists, and I wouldn't deny wanting
such a world to exist. But I am skepti-
cal that we've yet found a way to over-
come personal or political sin.
Q: What will the Americanpeople get
out of Nixon's visit? China got admis-
sion to the U.N.; she wanted Taiwan
and got it. Nixon enhanced his re-
election possibilities. But what was in
it for the American people?
A: A big TV spectacle! One has to
differentiate between that TV spectacle
and the content of the trip. The media
can create a great interest in China-a
Sino-centric America in one week-and
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13
destroy it the next. That you are
aware of. It is unfortunate.
The possibility of dealing on realistic
terms-rather than through an ideo-
logical screen-with the power which,
given its population, resources, political
structure, and economic plans is indeed
the largest and potentially the most
powerful in Asia, seems to be self-
evidentally useful. It will not produce
any immediate results of great conse-
quence. But over time, I see or at least
hope that there is the possibility that
relations between our country and the
People's Republic of China can be such
that the possibility of the two of us
going to war-as we almost did in
1965-may no longer exist.
Q: What importancedo you place on
the domestic economicsituation in China
in terms of its growing conciliatory ap-
proach to foreign affairs?
A: It is my perhaps exaggerated im-
pression that the People's Republic has
been able to obtain, through interna-
tional trade, anything that it wanted
and could pay for, without exception,
and regardless of any embargoes or ef-
forts to prevent it from doing so. In-
volvement in economic relations with
another country, if indeed they are non-
exploitative and have an element of
reciprocity, forms a positive bond which
hopefully implies a reduction in the
chances for political fights. Related to
this is something which I believe I
implied without developing because I
wasn't talking about domestic policy.
This is my feeling that Maoist ideology
has to be taken very seriously, domesti-
cally, in China, in terms of the way in
which Chinese society may or may not
be reshapedover the next period of time.
There, the thinking of Mao is a matter
of great importance and is not to be
treated as lightly as I dealt with Lin
14 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

Piao's manifesto. It fits into a long grator. With the return to normalcy,
historical context of an approach to real however, one would believe there would
problems, and its answers are by no also be a lesser need for that kind of
means out of line with one particular symbolic activity.
mainstream of thought in our world.
Their ideology has to be taken seri- Q: You said the Great Leap Forward
ously. It's possible that in China, as and the Cultural Revolution were dis-
in any other country, some radical or asters with regard to economy. But
crazy ruler may somehow be able to use don't you think this is the wrong ap-
ideology internally for external adven- proach, since they involved more than
tures; but it hasn't happened yet. economics? I think the Great Leap
Forward, which was altered by the
Q: A student at Swarthmore College Cultural Revolution, did a great thing
came back from China in the late for the Chinese people. It taught the
autumn feeling that the problem in farmers to rely on themselves and to
Peking was to de-emphasizeadulation of handle modern machinery. It led to
Mao, because people had had too much the distribution of industry-what
of that. Would you comment on that, Mao calls standing on two feet. Was
please? it, in this respect, detrimental to their
development?
A: I haven't been permitted to visit
yet, so I haven't seen it personally. A: I said I believed that the Great
Certainly there are reports which indi- Leap Forward was an economic dis-
cate that the overstress, as one might aster and that the Cultural Revolution
see it in Mao pictures, and so forth, has was ambiguous in its results. I can
somewhat declined. see both positive and negative factors.
We must first ask: What is the I don't find it necessary to accept
source of authority or legitimacy in the Mao's vision or the Chinese vision of
People's Republic of China? Within the what goes on in order to understand it.
period since the Cultural Revolution- But either to approve or disapprove, it
and we forget how recently it was that seems to me, is a role that the Chinese
the Chinese were fiercely struggling may want to assume themselves rather
among themselves, at least within the than following my directions as to what
leadership-what means do the Chinese it is they want to do. My answer is:
see as best for bringing together-inte- you may be right, although I'm not cer-
grating-the conflictingparties? Appar- tain that you've looked carefully at all
ently Mao has been that great inte- aspects of the question.

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