It is generally believed that while China is trying to live down the excesses of the cultural revolution and to improve its relations with other countries, there has been no change in its foreign policy objectives.
This belief is the product of two factors. First, most people continue to interpret China’s foreign policy in terms which ceased to be relevant with the victory of the Maoist faction in the cultural revolution in 1968. Secondly, they do not fully appreciate that since the international environment has changed greatly in the past decade, Peking cannot possibly be pursuing the same objectives.
The cultural revolution marks a watershed in the post-revolution history of China. It has changed the character of the Chinese State so much that its ideology has ceased to be just a more radical variant of Soviet communism. Though its leaders still pay lip service to Marxism-Leninism, they are in fact attempting to blaze a new trail. Whatever they may say and even believe, Maoism is not a “creative” development of Marxism-Leninism. It is a new creed.
Subordinate
The Communist Party no longer enjoys a monopoly of power in China; it is in some ways subordinate to the army; unlike Stalin’s, Mao Tse-tung’s emphasis is on decentralisation and not on centralisation; he is giving a higher priority to agriculture, small and medium-scale industries than to heavy and basic industries; and he is sparing no effort to prevent the concentration of power in urban centres and the exploitation of the peasantry in the interest of a primitive accumulation of capital.
This break from orthodox Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism at home cannot but influence deeply China’s foreign policy. This is only logical. The question is: how? In sum the answer is that the triumph of pragmatism as currently expressed in the desire to normalise relations with other countries is not a passing phenomenon. The “new look” in China’s foreign policy is neither an empty facade nor does it represent a mere change of tactics. It denotes a basic change in outlook. While it may be an exaggeration to say that Peking has got over its messianism, such a statement will not be entirely off the mark.
Though the Chinese continue to engage in what still passes for an ideological debate with the Russians, this is nothing more than a ritual which confuses rather than clarifies issues. They opened the ideological debate with the Kremlin after the twentieth Congress of the Soviet Communist Party in February 1956 and kept it up till 1965. By that time they had given up the hope that they could either influence Russia’s domestic and foreign policies or win sufficient support within the international communist movement to make good their claim to its leadership. Almost at the same time Mao-Tse-tung decided to throw overboard many of the old communist orthodoxies to launch his country on the uncharted path of a permanent revolution.
This is an over-simplified summary of extremely complicated developments over a whole decade. But students of Chinese affairs will recall that Peking hailed Mr. Khrushchev’s overthrow in October 1964 and that it was visibly disappointed when the new leadership in Moscow continued to pursue the old policies. This shows that in spite of the steady deterioration in Sino-Soviet relations, specially after 1960, the Chinese had not until 1965 finally abandoned the hope that a change of leadership in the Kremlin may produce a reversal of policies. They could not sustain this hope long after Mr. Khrushchev’s exit and therefore lost interest in the ideological debate with the Russians.
There is also enough evidence to show that while the Chinese are not averse to the idea of promoting splits in pro-Soviet communist parties, they do not set much store by established leaders who have been fed for years on a diet of Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism. Their denunciation of the CPI(M) and strong support for the juvenile adventurism of the Naxalites illustrates the point that it prefers to deal exclusively with men who swear solely by Maoism and have only a passing or no acquaintance at all with the old communist classics.
Developments
If these two developments – the virtual termination of a serious ideological debate with Moscow and the loss of interest in the old-style communists on the part of China – are evaluated in the context of Mao Tse-tung’s decision to stand communist orthodoxy on the head, the only possible inference can be that the Chinese are no longer competing with the Soviet Union for the leadership of the world communist movement. If it is also conceded that they do not expect much from small self-proclaimed Maoist groups in other countries and that they extend limited moral and physical assistance to these organisations largely because they need the myth of rapidly growing “revolutionary movements” for domestic consumption, it will be difficult to escape the conclusion that the Chinese have turned their gaze inward.
It is logical to expect that as China moves away from its old communist moorings, it will increasingly emphasise its claims to the leadership of Asia, Africa and Latin America. On a superficial view it will even appear that Peking’s behaviour conforms to this logic. In fact it does not and this is not surprising.
The Chinese leaders’ claim to the leadership of the third world in the past has rested as much on the uniqueness of their revolution as on its communist and universalist character. The men in Peking could believe in their capacity to lay down the law for other underdeveloped nations so long as they were convinced that in spite of its peculiarities arising out of the circumstances of the country, their revolution had universal features and validity. But as they emphasise ever more stridently their “contributions” to Marxism-Leninism and carry the process to the point where the original doctrine is for all practical purposes replaced by one which is peculiarly Chinese, the claim to universal validity cannot but become increasingly weak.
No Chinese leader will openly accept the validity of this view. But actions provide a better clue to a nation’s thinking than propaganda and, in the case of China, they tell a different story.
Two Circles
In the ‘fifties China operated in two circles which met but did not overlap – the communist and the Afro-Asian movements. The first, though divided and dispirited, still survives. But Peking has been excluded from it even if Russia has not found it possible to have it formally excommunicated. The second represented a yearning on the part of the newly independent countries of Asia and Africa to cooperate among themselves in order to master their own destinies and shake off colonial domination. It is difficult to say whether it could have become a reckonable factor in international affairs even in the most favourable circumstances. But it is a fact of history that Peking delivered it crippling blows when it committed aggression against India in 1962 and then wrecked the second Afro-Asian summit that was scheduled to be held in Algiers in 1965 ostensibly to prevent Russian participation in it. In the process it also wrote off its second most important foreign policy plank of being recognised as the leader of the third world.
It is possible that the Chinese were not aware of the long-term consequences of their action and that they were guided solely by their determination not to permit Russia to join an exclusive Afro-Asian gathering. But it is pertinent to point out that since then they have not made the slightest effort to join the non-aligned group which is still in existence and is predominantly Afro-Asian in its composition.
If the assessment that the Chinese no longer regard themselves as potential leaders of the communist movement and the Afro-Asian world is correct, it must then be conceded that the objectives of their foreign policy have undergone a radical transformation. This proposition is so starkly different from what is generally said and written about China that it is bound to be treated with a great deal of scepticism. But this is largely because the foreign policy implications of the cultural revolution have not attracted the study and attention they clearly deserve. Most students of Chinese affairs have not also made sufficient allowance for the possibility that Peking’s revolutionary rhetoric may in fact have helped to obscure the reality of the situation. They have not cared to ask the question whether the attacks by the Red Guards on the officials of the Foreign Office, including the Foreign Minister himself, and on foreign diplomats during the cultural revolution, represented something more than the excesses of youthful enthusiasts.
Desire
In fact, these actions gave expression to a deeply-felt Chinese desire to shun the outside world of which they, in any case, know very little. Why else was it found necessary to withdraw all but one ambassador from the countries with which Peking had diplomatic relations? If they had gone “bourgeois” why were they not replaced?
In this age total isolation is just not possible for a country of the size and importance of China. Only Burma has performed the miracle of opting out of international contacts. It is also inconceivable that the rulers in Peking can make a complete break with the dogmas which inspired them in their youth. The requirements of legitimacy and the compulsions of a continuing struggle against America on the one hand and Russia on the other require them to use the old rhetoric. The question is one of emphasis and priorities and these have apparently changed with the result that there is no facet of Chinese foreign policy which needs to be explained in terms of a messianic vision which, it needs to be emphasised, is wholly alien to the country’s traditions. On the contrary, all of Peking’s moves from its assistance to North Viet Nam and the Viet Cong to the construction of a 1,000-mile railway line linking Zambia with Tanzania make excellent sense in the context of Peking’s natural desire to avoid encirclement by the United States and the Soviet Union.
The Times of India 4 November 1970