Russians bid for allies in Asia as the military build-up continues along the border with the Communists of Peiping
The questions of the month seemed to be these:
Is there going to be war between the Soviet Union and the Chinese Communists? - and - Can Russia move into Asia and build the anti-Peiping alliance that Leonid Brezhnev has proposed?
Tentatively, the answers are both in the negative. Yet no one can be sure. The two questions are likely to be around for some time and subject to reassessment in the light of developments.
The thesis of "no war but border clashes and skirmishes" grows out of Chinese Communist weakness and internal turmoil and Soviet recognition that the Chinese mainland is not Czechoslovakia. No one seems to have seriously suggested that the Peiping regime is on the verge of a large-scale attack on the Russians. The Chinese Reds have the manpower but nowhere to go with it. The expanse of Siberia could gobble up even armies of the size that Peiping could send crashing across the frontier. As for missiles and hydrogen bombs, Peiping is not yet ready.
But wouldn't the Soviet Union like to make sure that Red China will never be ready? Possibly this could be done with a war that wasn't intended to overrun all China but that stopped with the northern provinces and concentrated on Sinkiang, the heartland of the Chinese Communists' nuclear undertakings. This conceptualization could be summed up as no Sinkiang, no Maoist nuclear war.
The question that the Soviet Union must ask itself is whether the objective can be attained only by means of war. If the Russians believe their own propaganda, Maoism is doomed and Mao himself is not likely to last much longer. Most authorities agree it will be five to six years before Peiping has warheads and missiles for even a small nuclear war. So wouldn't the Kremlin prefer to wait a few years? Whatever else a Russian attack might do, it would destroy the international Communist movement for once and all. Quite possibly the East European satellite system would fly off in as many directions as there are countries. An Asian conflict would provide the necessary cover.
Do military build-ups make wars? If so, the Sino-Russian border could be the fuse of a powderkeg. The Chinese Communists have at least a million men along the 4,500-mile frontier; the number has sometimes been put as high as 1.5 million. Reinforcement is the order of the times-and for the Soviet Union, too. Russian strength has doubled in the last three years to possibly as many as 300,000 men and 30 divisions. New air bases have been built and old ones expanded. The Russians have missile launchers and probably nuclear warheads in Outer Mongolia.
This military strength gives the Soviet Union an unspoken argument in its bid for an anti-Mao alliance of Asians. What with the United States having tried for Asian unity and failed, the Russians have their work cut out for them. Always very naive about Asia - perhaps even more so than the United State-the Russians may try.
To date, the Soviet Union doesn't have a single friend in Asia. India comes closest but all things being equal, and if there had to be a choice, the. Indians would choose the United States and the West. Russia has something to give the Japanese - such as Kuriles and half of Sakhalin - but there is no indication that Brezhnev and Kosygin could persuade their Kremlin colleagues to pay that high a price.
If the United States were added to the Russian equation, the answer might be quite different. There is a school of thought that expects a sort of Pax Russo-Americana - with Maoist Peiping frozen out - within the next few years. The first step would be taken at a summit conference between President Nixon and the Kremlin leaders. In the end, the Vietnam war would be settled, the Middle East would be cooled down, Europe would be divided into stabilized spheres and the two superpowers would stand firmly united against Maoist aggression, nuclear or otherwise.
One thing is sure: the Maoists hate the United States and Russia with an increasing impartiality. They spent the month in some new shooting at the Russians and a complete blackout of news that the Americans bad walked on the moon. The grapevine was busy, though, and most of the 700 million people of the mainland probably knew that the Americans had beaten the Russians to a lunar touchdown.
This was the record of mainland and peripheral occurrences in the June 20-July 19 period:
June 20
Clashes and skirmishing between the Chinese and Russian Communists will continue, the Ministry of National Defense, Republic of China, predicted in Taipei. A spokesman said Peiping is using the incidents to divert the attention of mainland people from turmoil at home. Moscow seeks to represent the Chinese Communists as bent upon aggression and thus solicit the sympathy of other Communist countries and isolate Peiping.
June 21
Reports reaching Hongkong told of war preparations and militia-building throughout Red China. Activities are concentrated along the Soviet border. Militia strength, once estimated at 20 million, is now placed at 10 million. New units are being created, old ones streamlined and training intensified. A military training system is being introduced into schools.
June 22
Moscow announced that Russia and the Chinese Communists had held their first discussions since 1967 in the Soviet city of Khabarovsk. The meeting was of a commission which is supposed to supervise navigation and traffic on the Amur-Ussuri river system that forms about 1,500 miles of the Russo-Chinese border. The commission has no authority to seek the settlement of disputes over frontier territory.
A Hongkong newspaper claimed that General Wang En-mao, strong man of Sinkiang, had resigned as political commissar because Mao Tse-tung appointed three co-commissars. He was said to have flown to Peiping to tell Mao and "defense minister" Lin Piao that he refused to be a stooge.
June 23
Reports reaching Hongkong told of factional fighting in President Chiang Kai-shek's home province of Chekiang. Red Guards and other dissidents were said to have taken up arms against the Maoists. Clashes also were reported in Fukien and Kwangsi, and disruption in Kwangtung. Young people were said to be congregating in Canton with another attempt at Hongkong exodus a possibility.
June 24
Moscow opened a new air route to Hanoi by way of Tashkent, Karachi and Calcutta. The previous route was by way of Peiping, where passengers had to change planes.
Visiting Taipei, Australia's speaker of the House of Representatives, William John Aston, said most of the people of Australia agree that the Peiping regime is the source of most of the turmoil in the Asian region.
June 25
Having discarded the Red Guards, Mao Tse-tung apparently has decided he also can get along without the workers. Provincial broadcasts on the Chinese mainland told workers they exist only to serve Mao's cause in the Communist power struggle. "The leadership of the working class," said a Canton broadcast, "is carried out through the Communist Party." Its purpose is to implement the thought of Mao.
Hongkong sources said the Maoists have undertaken a purge of cultural and educational cadres in Eastern China. These cadres were accused of "walking the old road in new shoes" and of providing opportunity for a comeback by class enemies. Intellectuals from the bourgeoisie were charged with oppressing poor and lower-middle peasants in Kiwangsu.
People's Daily asserted that anti-Maoists hidden in Mao organizations were making a bid for power. The "6900 unit" of the "people's liberation army" was cited as one example. Another article told of PLA difficulties in Heilungkiang.
June 26
A Hongkong newspaper said PLA troops killed 10,000 anti-Maoists in one night in the northern part of Kwangtung. Travelers said the anti-Maoists had been planning an uprising in Chu Chiang county, which borders Hunan province.
Communists said they would return a Macao radio station to its private owners because of insufficient funds. The Reds took over the station during the riots of 1967 and banished Western music in favor of propaganda. Western tunes later were reinstated and advertising accepted but the station still lost money.
India protested to Pakistan and Red China against the start of construction on a road linking Kashmir with Sinkiang and Tibet. The Indians charged 12,000 members of the PLA were working on the road in the Pakistani-held portion of Kashmir.
June 27
Travelers from Canton said Maoist officials had rejected a demand of railroad workers for higher pay and then arrested their leaders. Workers retaliated with a whispering campaign that accused Mao and Lin Piao of bad faith. Other travelers told of PLA supervision of farm harvests in parts of southern Kwangtung.
A fishing family of nine stole a boat and returned to Hongkong after being detained in Red China for 10 years. They said they had been treated as slaves and were on the verge of starvation.
June 28
In a cable from Ottawa to Manila, Philippines Foreign Secretary Carlos Romulo denied that he is in favor of admitting the Chinese Communists to the United Nations. Nor had he advocated such a course, he said.
June 29
Intelligence sources in Taipei told of worker revolts in Yunnan and Kwangtung. In Yunnan, workers were said to have smashed equipment of a salt enterprise and then escaped to the mountains. Discharges and a pay cut triggered the uprising. Workers at a manganese mine in Kwangtung were said to have killed 30 Communist cadres after the arrest of their leaders following a food rations dispute.
July 1
Hongkong sources told of widespread factional fighting on the mainland. There were rumors that Chou En-lai was trying to undermine the Mao/Lin Piao faction. Especially fierce clashes were reported in Kwangtung and Shanghai. Rival Red Guard factions were confronting each other in Canton.
July 2
Sources in the Republic of China announced the sinking of a Communist gunboat and two supply ships in the Min River estuary on the Fukien coast. Another gunboat was heavily damaged by a force of the Chinese Anti-Communist National Salvation Corps, which conducts commando and guerrilla operations against the Chinese Communists. The attacking vessels, whose number and size were not disclosed, return ed to base safely.
July 3
The United States said it had no knowledge of the Min estuary naval battle but that the State Department was concerned "over any action by either side which might create tension in the Taiwan Straits".
July 4
Writing from Peiping, a Kyodo News Service correspondent said the Chinese Communists view closer Russo-Japanese relations as indication that Tokyo is plotting against the Mao regime. The Chinese Reds were represented as believing that the goal was an anti-Peiping alliance of Russia, the United States, Japan and other Asian countries.
Moscow said rival Chinese Communist factions were using tanks, rockets and heavy artillery in continuing conflict. Heavy fighting was reported between military factions in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. Other clashes were said to have taken place in Yunnan and Kiangsu. Some regular PLA units were reported joining anti-Maoists in Yunnan.
Travelers said Yang Chiang county of Kwangtung had been declared a cholera-infested area and isolated. Other diseases are of epidemic proportions in Kwangtung, they said.
July 5
Reports in Hongkong said "deputy premier" Li Hsien-nien will replace "marshal" Chen Yi as "foreign minister". Li is currently "finance minister". Chen Yi was said to have asked to return to the military.
The Indonesian armed forces newspaper said Red China should not be permitted to, re-establish diplomatic mission in Jakarta. An editorial rejected the contention of Foreign Minister Adam Malik that Indonesia is prepared to restore official relations with Peiping.
July 6
Peiping admitted that mainland intellectuals oppose Mao's "cultural revolution" and urged them to accept re-education by workers, peasants and soldiers. Red Flag said capitalist slogans are disseminated by "diehards still dreaming of reviving dictatorship by the capitalists".
The Chinese Communists accused Russia of turning Mongolia into a colony and military base, oppressing the people and taking huge profits out the country.
Mainland cholera reached Hongkong. The first case since 1966 was reported and' Hongkong's 4 million people were urged to report for free inoculations.
July 7
Travelers reaching Hongkong told of mainland reports that troops of the Republic of China had landed in Fukien and were conducting guerrilla warfare against the Chinese Communists. The Red Chinese were said to be moving factories out of coastal areas.
Two groups totaling seven people swam to freedom in Hongkong. One was a woman. All were aged from 18 to 21.
July 8
Moscow and Peiping told of a clash along the Amur River. Each protested to the other. The Russians said a Soviet river worker was killed and three were wounded in an attack by Chinese Communist soldiers on Goldinsky Island. Peiping said the Russians had destroyed a house and claimed they sent troops, gunboats and planes into Heilungkiang.
Travelers from Canton said public order was deteriorating there. Gangs of youths were said to be battling each other and robbing passersby. The Canton revolutionary committee was reported unable to assert its control.
July 9
Another cholera case was reported in Hongkong. The victim was an 8-year-old boy living in a refugee resettlement area of Kowloon.
July 10
Hongkong reports told of renewed fighting in Tibet. Two rival Red Guard factions were said to be battling in Lhasa. Both were opposed to the Maoist revolutionary committee.
July 11
Taipei sources said anti-Maoists bombed a railroad station and blew up a train recently in Szechwan, killing or wounding more than 40 Communist troops. Guerrilla forces operating in the province were said to number more than 10,000.
Reports from Hongkong said the Chinese Communists were strengthening air defenses at key industrial areas of Northern China. Maoist task forces were readied to take over key war industries.
American economic sources in Hongkong said Chinese Communist foreign trade totaled about US$3.6 billion last year, down from US$3.8 billion in 1967 and US$4.3 billion in 1966. Exports were put at US$1.86 billion and imports at US$1.76 billion. Japan was the leading trade partner, followed by West Germany and Singapore.
Maoist campaigns to denigrate Confucius and Mencius were under way in Shanghai, according to travelers reaching Hongkong. China's two greatest philosophers were denounced as reactionaries.
Forty cholera deaths were reported from Canton.
Hospitals in the biggest South China: city were said filled to overflowing.
July 12
Moscow charged the Chinese Communists with breaking off the river navigation talks in Khabarovsk. The Russians said the Peiping delegation insisted on raising frontier claims that were outside the competence of the river commission.
Peiping claimed that the Soviet Union had purged 100,000 officers of the armed forces and reorganized central and regional military commands in preparation for war against the Chinese mainland.
Red China attacked Britain for trying to hang onto a military role in Southeast Asia through Australia and New Zealand.
Hongkong reported its third and fourth cholera cases. There had been no deaths.
July 13
Red Chinese troops opened fire on an Indian patrolling the border between Uttar Pradesh state and Tibet. The Indians claimed the Chinese Communists were on Indian soil in 16,700-foot Lilpuelefh Pass.
Chou En-lai lashed out at Soviet hints of an anti-Peiping collective security system in Asia. Speaking at a reception for a visiting Pakistani military group, the Chinese Communist "premier" said Moscow was hiding a tendency toward aggression under the bid for an alliance and threatening the independence and sovereignty of Asian nations.
July 14
Diplomatic sources in London said Peiping-Moscow tension would continue to increase but that full scale war was unlikely. The sources took note of Soviet efforts to improve relations with India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Malaysia.
Hongkong reports said PLA troops on Hainan Island had refused to carry out a combat mission ordered by Mao Tse-tung. Discipline was said to be slack. PLA elements on Hainan reportedly had no interest in suppressing "class enemies".
The Yugoslav news agency Tanjug reported from Peiping that the Chinese Communists were preparing to release Reuters correspondent Anthony Grey, who has been under house arrest since early in 1967. He was said to have been given more privileges.
Canadian officials said Japanese reports of imminent recognition of Peiping by Ottawa were inaccurate. The Stockholm talks may last a long time, the sources said.
Hongkong reported two new cholera cases, raising the total to six.
July 15
Provincial radio broadcasts called for an all-out effort to mitigate flood damage and combat disease in South and Central China. Flooding was reported to be serious along the Yangtze River, especially in Anhwei province. Disease (apparently cholera) was threatening Kwangtung, including Hainan Island.
Six more young people swam to Hongkong to get away from life under the Chinese Communists.
July 16
Peiping said that the spectacle of Russia reaching out the hand of friendship to the United States was an "ugly drama". A radio commentary said the meeting between astronaut Frank Borman and President Nokolai Podgorny was "disgusting". Ambassador Dobrynin was accused of sitting next to President Nixon in the White House rose garden listening to American music.
Further rainfall raised the Yangtze level higher in Anhwei. There were flood threats in southern Hunan and northern Kwangtung. Some flood-fighting teams were said to number as many as 100,000 people.
Canada's Minister of External Affairs Mitchell Sharp admitted that recognition talks with the Chinese Communists were nowhere near completion. He said sale of Canadian wheat to Peiping was not involved in the negotiations.
July 17
News of the U.S. Apollo 11 moon shot was completely blacked out of Chinese mainland newspapers and radio and television broadcasts. By contrast, Russian papers played the story of Apollo 11's take-off prominently.
Red China told Arab countries to continue the struggle against Israel and denounced efforts of the United States and the Soviet Union to find a peaceful solution.
July 18
Rival Red Guard factions battled in Shanghai. Travelers also told of 500,000 youngsters roaming the streets. Some had fled from rustication in the countryside.
Anhwei radio reported the Yangtze at the highest level in its history. More than 200,000 flood fighters were said to have been mobilized in Lang Chi county.
Western sources reported a heavy earthquake in the vicinity of Tientsin in Northern China.
Republic of China sources said that major clashes between the Chinese Communists and Russia or India do not appear to be imminent. However, the Peiping regime seeks to create a warlike atmosphere on the mainland, said a spokesman for the foreign ministries:
July 19
Radio Moscow said students of Peiping colleges have refused to accept the kind of education decreed by their schools and the municipal revolutionary committee. Many of the students were said to have returned from exile in the countryside. Troops were called to suppress them.