by Dennis J. Doolin
Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Calif.
1965, pp.77, US$2.50
Reviewed by Chang Kuo-wu
This little volume will make no bestseller lists. But it is of considerable value to the Republic of China in ascertaining current territorial claims of the Peiping regime, and to scholars in analyzing what is probably the world's oldest continuing territorial dispute.
The book consists of a brief introduction, a series of 30 "documents" (most are press reports and broadcasts), and three maps.
Mr. Doolin, who is a student of China (although not necessarily one of the so-called "China experts" whose objectivity is being questioned by scholars in the Republic of China), opens with a historical review that sets the stage for the present conflict and his documentation. He makes these points:
— Russia and China first clashed in the Amur River valley in the 1680s. In 1689, they signed a treaty (the first between China and a European state) at Nerchinsk. It delimited the frontier and recognized China's right to much of the land north of the Amur. Khalka (Eastern) Mongolia and the Kalmuk district of northern Sinkiang (Chinese Turkestan) were placed within China's sphere of influence. Ostensibly, the Treaty of Nerchinsk remained in force until the middle of the 19th century.
— China’s difficulties of the mid-1800s (Opium War with Britain, Taiping Rebellion, and pressures of the Great Powers for concessions) gave the Russians opportunity to send troops and colonists down the Amur. In 1858, the Treaty of Aigun was forced on the Ching (Manchu) dynasty, and territory north of the Amur was ceded to Russia. The area east of the Ussuri river was to be a condominium. The Chinese government did not ratify the Treaty of Aigun, but the essential provisions were confirmed in the Treaty of Peking in 1860, except that the area east of the Ussuri was ceded to Russia outright. Russia also was given a large part of the Ili region of Chinese Turkestan.
When the Manchus were overthrown, the Nationalists were quick to demand the abrogation of unequal treaties and the restoration of China's traditional frontiers. A Russo-Chinese protocol signed in 1912 stipulated that Outer Mongolia was a part of China proper, although it was to have internal autonomy. After establishment of the Soviet Union, Acting Commissar for Foreign Affairs L. M. Karakhan issued his Declaration of July 25, 1919, repudiating the unequal treaties and renouncing any and all Russian privileges in China, Mongolia, and Manchuria. The 1924 Agreement on General Principles reiterated Russian renunciation of extraterritorial ism and of Chinese sovereignty over Outer Mongolia.
Mr. Doolin points out that both Dr. Sun Yat-sen and President Chiang Kai-shek wrote of China's lost territories and tributary areas, and implied the righteousness of their return. That is true. However, he omits the immensely important fact that the Chinese Communists have constantly threatened to repossess by force, whereas Dr. Sun advocated settlement of territorial disputes by peaceful means. President Chiang has followed in the Founding Father's footsteps, even to a pledge of self-determination for Tibet (which the Communists have already made an integral part of their new "empire").
When the Chinese Communists came to power on the mainland, the Sino-Russian territorial disputes were at first ignored. The Peiping regime of that moment was in no position to talk strongly to Big Brother. Mao Tse-tung attempted to discuss Outer Mongolia with Khrushchev and Bulganin In 1954 but said "they refused to talk to us". In 1957 Chou En-lai endeavored to discuss territorial questions which Khrushchev and got nowhere.
Then, late in 1962 and early in 1963, the territorial dispute erupted with a big bang as a by-product of the Cuban missile crisis. The Chinese Communists criticized the Soviets for stationing missiles in Cuba in the first place ("adventurism") and removing the missiles to avoid a head-on clash with the United States ("capitulationism"). Khrushchev responded that the Chinese Reds had not "liberated" Hongkong and Macao, but that this was common sense rather than capitulationism, and that Cuba was in the same category. The Communist Party of the United States backed the Soviet, noting that the Peiping regime had not followed "the adventurous policy in Taiwan, Hongkong, and Macao that they advocate for others. Why this double-standard approach?"
Peiping responded with an attack on the old unequal treaties, listing nine of them. In 1964, a Soviet delegation went to Peiping to discuss border problems. Six days after its arrival, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party wrote a letter to its Soviet counterpart charging Russian violation of the border, occupation of Chinese territory, and subversive activities in Chinese frontier areas. The letter compared the Soviets with India's "reactionary nationalists" and border violators.
In July of 1964, a Sino-Mongolian border protocol was signed. Outer Mongolia thereupon ejected Chinese Communist advisers and technicians, and the frontier seems as uncertain as ever. Then, on July 10, Mao accused the Soviet Union of having territorial ambitions in both Asia and Europe, asserted that the Chinese Communists were prepared to "wage this war against the Communist Party of the Soviet Union) for another 25 years" and supported Soviet return of the Kurile Islands to Japan. Mao also said: "About a hundred years ago, the area to the east of (Lake) Baikal became Russian territory, and since then Vladivostok, Khaborovsk, Kamchatka, and other areas have been Soviet territory. We have not yet presented our account for this list. "
Pravda and Khrushchev subsequently "answered Mao in scathing words and at considerable length, including comparisons of Mao with Hitler and Tojo. Nikita K. infuriated the Chinese Communists with suggestions that the peoples of Sinkiang are not Chinese and have been deprived of their independence. Mao thereupon accused
Russia of massing troops along the Chinese border and threatened them with the same fate as the "Indian reactionaries" that "invaded China".
Things have quieted down since the accession of Kosygin and Brezhnev. But as Mr. Doolin notes, nothing has been settled.
"One suspects," he writes, that territorial problems "will not be easily resolved, no matter who rules in Moscow or Peking." That is no doubt true. But it is also a fact — which even the Soviet Union may be beginning to recognize — that only under the mainland sovereignty of the Republic of China is there the remotest chance of a peaceful settlement. Chinese Communism's dedication is to the solution of every problem through force and violence, and finally in the furnace of Nuclear War I. That goes for Enemy No.2, the Soviet Union, as well as for Enemy No.1, the United States.
COMMUNIST CHINA AND ARMS CONTROL
by Morton H. Halperin and Dwight H. Perkins
Frederick A. Proeger. New York
1965. pp. 191. US$2.50
Reviewed by Chen Eng-chieh
Although this is the work of two Harvard professors, it also reflects the information and ideas developed at a conference on Communist China and arms control sponsored by the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. The conference met for 10 days in July of 1964 and was attended by 20 academicians and military experts. A two-day follow-up meeting was held in December.
Coverage is extensive There are chapters on foreign policy as related to goals and perceptions, domestic politics, and economics; to nuclear strategy and proliferation; to conventional war, arms control and war, and arms control and insurgency; to the Peiping public record and attitudes toward arms control, as well as toward international agreements, organizations, and inspection; and to the problem of how to make Peiping arms-control-minded and to the impact of arms control on the Chinese Communists.
If there is anything that the conferees -and the authors — have not thought about on this subject, it doesn't come easily to mind.
To their eternal credit — and we think this will be verified by history-everybody concerned is pessimistic about getting Peiping and arms control under the same tent. In the first chapter comes the key declaration that "(Red) China's foreign policy goals and her perception of the world around her, therefore, do not dispose Peking favorably toward arms control arrangements."
The thinking that went into this book is no flabby reflection of "containment without isolation" and similar fictional imagery. It is stipulated that "a world Communist revolution is an important determinant of (Red) Chinese foreign policy, and probably will remain so." It is also bluntly stated that Red "China desires to see Communist governments ultimately established throughout Southeast Asia."
One important paragraph on Peiping's attitude declares: "From the point of view of their military security, the (Red) Chinese would also find sufficient reasons to oppose any arms control or disarmament agreements limiting their own ability to improve their forces ... They are determined to develop the weapons of a modern superpower, particularly nuclear weapons and associated delivery systems, and are therefore most unwilling to accept any agreement that implies freezing of the military status quo by interfering with their attempts to get nuclear weapons and delivery systems and to modernize their own conventional forces...
"However ... the Chinese have in fact put forward a proposal for complete nuclear disarmament and have suggested, as a first step, a pledge by the nuclear powers not to be the first to use nuclear weapons. They indicated a willingness to consider other proposals, such as nuclear-free zones. The major reason for this apparent in consistency in (Red) Chinese policy is dearly the attempt to establish friendly relations with at least certain African, Asian, and Latin American states. The (Red) Chinese failure to sign the Test Ban Treaty hurt them in their relations with these countries and forced the (Red) Chinese to counterattack their own proposal for more radical and comprehensive nuclear disarmament."
In other words, "murder will out", and now Peiping is trying to hide the body.
Then again, "...the (Red) Chinese are interested in building up their military capability and are therefore unlikely to be interested in agreements that stabilize the military balance."
The authors state again and again, in various ways, that no restrictions on Peiping's armaments can be expected in the foreseeable future. What — then — can the United States and the free world do? Interestingly, the conclusion is that the United States "can communicate to the (Red) Chinese about military affairs" only in the "deployment and use of its military force, not in direct person-to-person contact on either an official or a private level." To which the Republic of China can only say, "Hear! Hear!" It's a point of view that this country has been recommending for a long, long time.