RUSSIA & CHINA :

THE APPROACHING CONFLICT

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“A new critical work…” Dr Jim Saleam, Australia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Dr K R Bolton FCIS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CONTENTS

Abstract

 

Introduction

 

Salisbury’s Thesis

            Sino-Soviet Discord

            1950 Sino-Soviet Treaty

            Sino-Soviet Border Clashes

 

Chinese Territorial Ambitions

            Invasion of Vietnam

            China’s War with India

 

Approaching Conflict

            Central Asia and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation

            Russian Far East

            Treaty with Mongolia Aimed at Russia

 

Scenarios for War

            Water Wars

 

Sino-American confrontation unlikely

            Carter’s Trilateral Administration Develops Ties with China

            US-China Economic Symbiosis

 

Russia: Between East & West

 

Conclusion: Prospects for New Zealand

 

Appendix I: Coming War in Asia

Appendix II : Russia sets scene for new Cuban crisis

Appendix II: China, NZ pledge further army exchanges

Appendix III: Wellington Power Grid Under Chinese Military Front-man

Appendix IV: Asians in NZ to outnumber Maori – report

 

Works Cited

 

© 2008

Renaissance Press

P O Box 1627

Paraparaumu Beach

Kapiti 5252

New Zealand

 

Note: This is the text only version of an illustrated self-published book available from the author for $20.00. Reviews, comments, critiques and publication offers welcome. Send to:

vindex@clear.net.nz

 

ABSTRACT

The seeming rapport in recent years between Russia and China is one of the foundations of the post-Cold War world. Yet Russo-China friendship is an aberration of history. This monograph examines whether the Sino-Russian accord is based on secure and enduring foundations, or whether it is a very temporary alliance of convenience that will erupt sooner rather than later into conflict and expanding conflagration throughout Asia.

 

The question is set in the context of the larger stream of history covering centuries of conflict. The so-called “treaty of friendship” between the USSR and Maoist China, two supposedly fraternal communist super-powers, is considered as the means by which Soviet Russia kept China in a subservient, colonial position. Even under the duration of that “fraternal friendship” border conflicts resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Russian and Chinese soldiers in border disputes, the shelling of Chinese territory and the desire of the USSR to launch a pre-emptive strike on China to thwart the emergence of a nuclear power; with the termination of the Soviet-China treaty dramatically signalled by China’s invasion of Vietnam.  China’s past inclination to resort to invasion backgrounds the current suspicion between the two newfound “friends” amidst China’s growing incursions into traditional Russian spheres of influences, and even within the Russian Far East.

 

Scenarios for future conflict are examined, particularly what will emerge as major contentions over water resources, both between Russia and China and further afield. Rivalry over oil resources will pale in comparison to the question of water. Also examined is the recent historical relationship between China and the USA, often cited as rivals over spheres of strategic interest. It is contended that the relationship between the two has been cordial, despite occasional political public stances on the world stage by leaders of both nations. In particular the USA and china have entered into a symbiotic economic relationship and conflict would result in economic collapse. Conversely, the newfound “friendship” between Russia and China is not based on any such symbiosis.

 

This subject is of vital importance to New Zealand – and Australia – as the country has been set on a course for the past several decades of merging with Asia, and more specifically with China. The entire region is beset by the prospect of scenarios for disaster. China’s economy itself is fundamentally very fragile and could implode, which bodes ill for New Zealand, having hitched its wagon to China’s star. The New Zealand-China Free Trade Agreement, the first such agreement with China, was signed in April 2008 and passed into law by Parliament on the night of July 24. Amidst the jubilation over the prospect of vastly increased New Zealand exports to China, most New Zealanders remain oblivious as to the dangers, because New Zealand’s business and political leaders are ignorant as to some inexorable laws of history. The question is not one of “racism” or anti-Chinese sentiment, but is one of identity and survival at its most basic level.

 

Finally, this is written from the perspective of Realpolitik, a method of analysis based on hard Fact rather than wishful thinking or personal inclination.

 

Note: This monograph has been written at the very time when in July 2008 Russia and China are reported to have signed an agreement over disputed border territories. Again it is Russia making the concessions and appeasing China, allowing China to further consolidate its growing military and technological strength. The present agreement, set against the historical context outlined herein, does not diminish the prospect of future conflict.[1]

 

INTRODUCTION

One of the primary geo-political shifts in recent years has been the rapport that has seemingly developed between two historic enemies, Russia and China. The discord between the two powers goes back to the centuries long duration of the Mongol occupation of Russian territory, and subsequent annexation of Chinese territory by Imperial Russia.  This historic conflict was not mitigated by the triumph of communism in China, despite the proclaimed aim of world proletarian solidarity.

            However, in recent years Russia and China have developed trade and diplomatic relations. Most significantly, Russia has been China’s main supplier of arms (followed by Israel). Chinese and Russian leaders sought accord in the face of what they consider US global hegemony following the collapse of the Soviet bloc.

It is the thesis of this paper that the accord between Russia and China will not hold, any more than the “fraternal relations” between the two when both were nominally “communist”.

            There will eventually be conflict between Russia and China over land and resources. As shown in other articles, Asia is replete with potential crises over land and resources, many of which could erupt into regional conflagration[2].

            The relationship between China and Russia is full of meaning for New Zealand, not least because we’ve been tied economically to China, and more broadly because we are being pushed into an “Asian bloc”.

In the 1960s, when Chinese “communists” dissolved their “fraternal relations” with the USSR and resorted to the old ethnic rivalries, American journalist Harrison Salisbury wrote a prophetic book on geopolitics The Coming War Between Russia & China.[3] Salisbury’s predictions seem to have been proven wrong in recent years with the new Sino-Russian accord, yet developments now indicate that his predictions are unfolding, and precisely at the time he foretold they would – the 21st Century. Now another book, although not subscribing to the view of a war, is being published that nonetheless shows the rising tensions between Russia and China; Axis of Convenience: Moscow, Beijing and the New Geopolitics, by diplomat Bobo Lo.[4]

           

 

SALISBURY’S THESIS

This writer has long held that a Russo-Chinese accord would not hold, but rather there would be conflict with the possibility of war:

“The split between Russia and China over communist ideology is a mere façade, and practically irrelevant. The real split is historically and racially based. We can trace the Russo-Chinese split back to 1229 when the Mongol ‘Golden Horde’ of Genghis Khan invaded Russia. The Mongols ruled Russia for 250 years. Even as late as the 18th C. Mongols still ruled the Lower Volga and the Crimea. This centuries long Mongol rule has resulted in an ingrained… fear of Eastern conquest.”[5]

           

 

Harrison Salisbury states:

“The Russian makes no distinction between the people of the East. He does not distinguish between the Mongols who ravished his land 600 years ago and the masses of China whom he believes are standing just beyond the lower hills of Asia ready to attack again. No Russian finds it unusual to hate the Chinese. He does not apologise when he says ‘little yellow bastards”.

           

SINO-SOVIET DISCORD

Stalin backed Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalists. The primary Soviet goal was a united front between Chiang and Mao to fight the Japanese, while recognising Chiang as the leader of China. Mao put up a pretence at fighting the Japanese and claiming to be able to work with Chiang. Salisbury remarks that Stalin always preferred Chiang to Mao, whom he regarded as a “Trotskyite”.  During World War II Chiang was the focus of Soviet support, not the Reds under Mao. In 1945 the Russians prepared to evacuate Manchuria, but stayed until 1946 at the request of Chiang in order to thwart a Maoist takeover. The Soviet ambassador was only withdrawn from Chiang’s entourage on Oct. 2 1949, the day after Mao announced his Government in Peking. Russia’s continuing support for Chiang at the ambassadorial level, right up until the formation of the Communist regime was a grudge that Mao forever carried.

            Even under the Sino-Soviet alliance of 1950 the military equipment from the USSR was second rate and expensive. In 1957 Mao took a delegation to Moscow and asked for nuclear warheads, but was rebuffed.

 

1950 Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance

Mao’s dreams of establishing China as a superpower rested on the assumption that it would be built up with Russian largesse. This was not the case. Rather the 1950 Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance that served as the basis of Russo-Chinese relations for thirty years was humiliating and debilitating. It was one moreover which was the primary cause for China’s invasion of Vietnam in 1979, as will be considered below.

            Mao could have cultivated friendship with the USA, which was favourable towards a Maoist takeover. Gen. George Marshall for e.g. was antagonistic towards Chiang and did not view the Chinese communists as having Soviet support. Marshall told Chiang that US assistance would halt if Nationalist forces continued pursuing the Red Army into northern Manchuria in 1946 at a time when such an offensive could have finished Mao. This gave Mao a strong base from which to gather his strength and finally defeat Chiang.

            As Chang and Halliday point out in their definitive biography on Mao this US assistance to Mao, and betrayal of Chiang was decisive. [6]

            Conversely, as surprising as it might seem – superficially – aid from Stalin to Mao was extracted at a very high price; the prelude to the humiliating Sino-Soviet treaty. This was not at all a matter of communist solidarity, but of the ancient animosity existing between Russia and China, whatever the ideological facade. In return for Russian aid, Red China was committed to repaying with food on such terms as to create famine. In Yenan, for e.g. 10,000 peasants died of starvation. It was a prelude to the future “Great Famine”, again the price of assistance from Russia.[7]

             Mao was determined to establish China as a super-power, but he was badly mistaken if he thought he could secure his ambitions with Russian help. Nonetheless he courted Stalin by flagrantly repudiating American and other Western relations, although his aggressive action caused Stalin alarm.  Chang and Halliday write: “It is widely though that it was the US that refused to recognise Mao’s China. In fact, Mao went out of his way to make recognition impossible by engaging in overtly hostile acts.”[8]

            It is only recently that the secret annexes to the 1950 Sino-Soviet Treaty have become known. The $US300 million loan was spread over five years.  Stalin approved 50 large industrial projects, a lot fewer than Mao intended.

            Mao paid a high price in return. Manchuria and Xinjiang were to be recognised as Soviet spheres of influence, with exclusive Russian access to their industrial, financial and commercial activities. “As these two huge regions were the main areas with known rich and exploitable mineral resources, Mao was effectively signing away most of China’s tradable assets.”

            Mao referred to the two regions among his inner circle as Russian ‘colonies’. This was to be a permanent sore point with China’s leadership. In 1989 China’s leader Deng told Russian leader Gorbachev that,

“Of all the foreign powers that invaded, bullied and enslaved China since the Opium War (in 1842), Japan inflicted the greatest damage; but in the end the country that got the most benefit out of China was Tsarist Russia, including the Soviet Union during a certain period…”

           

Chang and Halliday remark: “Deng was certainly referring to this treaty.”[9]

            The ironically named ‘friendship treaty’ established virtual Russian colonial status over China. The Chinese had to pay huge salaries to Soviet technicians in China, in addition to extensive benefits to them and their families. Compensation had to be paid to Russian enterprises for the loss of the technicians working in China. The clause that Mao particularly sought to conceal was that which placed Russians employed in China outside of Chinese jurisdiction. The Chinese communists had always railed against this status imposed on China by the imperial powers during the 19th Century as ‘imperialist humiliation.’ [10]

Now the old imperialism had returned under Soviet ‘fraternity’

            During the years 1953-54 Mao embarked on a so-called “Superpower Programme”  that was again to wreak havoc especially on the peasantry. The Chinese were told that the equipment from the USSR was ‘Soviet aid’, implying a gift.  But everything had to be paid for, mainly in food. [11]

            Halliday and Chang state that China has only 7% of the world’s arable land but 22% of the world’s population, in underlining the seriousness of the Russian terms on China. However, that is something also which should be kept in mind in regard to present and future developments.

            China’s repudiation of the Treaty was aggressively signalled by its invasion of Vietnam in 1979 as a direct challenge to the USSR. However, major border clashes and loss of life among Chinese and Russian troops occurred even during the years that the ‘friendship’ Treaty was operative.

 

SINO-SOVIET BORDER CLASHES

            Sino-Soviet discord through the late 1960s was the result of contention over the status of Outer Mongolia and of numerous territorial disputes along the Sino-Soviet border. These conflicts had festered beneath the surface of Russo-Chinese relations for over a century, since Czarist Russia forced China to sign a series of treaties ceding vast territories. Mao’s China considered the USSR as a continuation of Czarist Russia.

 

 

According to S. C. M. Paine:

"For China, the physical territorial losses were enormous: an area exceeding that of the United States east of the Mississippi River officially became Russian territory or, in the case of Outer Mongolia, a Soviet protectorate."[12]

 

            The USSR never had any desire to assist China to superpower status. The Soviet policy towards China was to secure a united front between Chiang and Mao to fight the Japanese. The supposed treaty of friendship between Mao’s China and the USSR signed in 1950 was one of Chinese subjugation. The Chinese soon turned their attention to securing the return of areas regarded as having been stolen by Imperial Russia.

            Salisbury states that in 1952 a college textbook was published, A Short History of Modern China, which includes a map depicting China with 19th C. borders, designating 19 regions ‘lost to a European power.’ These stretch from India to Indo-China. Five other regions were taken by Russia, in addition to Mongolia and Tibet being incorporated into China. Ten years later China moved on its claims with confrontations on the borders of India, Outer Mongolia and Russia.

            In 1964 A Concise Geography of China was published. This shows China’s borders being settled with all neighbours, except for Russia. Frontiers between Sinkiang and Kazakhstan, and along the Amur and Ussuri rivers are designated “undefined national boundary”.

            In 1964 Mao told a delegation of Japanese socialists.

“There are too many places occupied by the Soviet Union. About 100 years ago, the area to the east of Lake Baikal became Russian territory and since then Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, Kamchatka and other areas have become Soviet territory. We have not yet presented our account for this list.”

           

In 1960 there were 400 border clashed between Russian and Chinese troops, in 1962 more than 5000, in 1963 more than 4000.

            The biggest clash came on 2 March 1969, when Chinese forces attacked Russian troops on the disputed uninhabited island of Zhenbao (Damansky in Russian) in the Ussuri River.  The incident was contrived by Mao as a show of defiance. A Chinese elite unit ambushed Soviet troops, killing 32. The Russians responded on the night of 14-15 March, brining up heavy artillery and tanks, and firing missiles 20 kms into China. Around 60 Russian and 800 Chinese were killed during the engagement. A CIA aerial photograph showed the Chinese side had been shelled so extensively as to look like a pot-marked moon landscape.

            Mao was taken aback by the massive Russian response and worried over a Soviet invasion.

            On 13 August the Russians attack at the Kazakhstan-Xinjiang border, surrounding and destroying Chinese troops deep inside China. Mao hurriedly ordered earth defences to be constructed should the Russians drive for Peking. [13]

            At this time, the Russians intended to drive home their offensive to the point of nuclear attack, but were rebuffed by the USA when approval was sought. The journalist Victor Louis, associated with the KGB and Moscow’s emissary to Taiwan, stated that Russia intended bombing China’s nuclear test site and setting up an alternative leadership structure to take over China.[14]

            The revelations of a top Nixon aide go further:

            Pres. Nixon’s chief of staff H R Haldeman reveals in The Ends of Power that for years the Russians had been warning the US that China mustn’t be allowed to build a nuclear capacity. In 1969 the Russians approached the USA for a joint strike against China. Nixon rejected the Russians, but was informed that they intended to proceed anyway. He warned Russia that the USA and China shared common world interests, and sent 1300 airborne nuclear weapons to Russian cities. The Russians backed down. [15]

            The thesis of Salisbury was that a food-population crisis, which is periodic throughout China’s history, would result in China’s seeking living space and resources in Russia. Salisbury states China will not sit back and starve with the lands of Russia beckoning. “They will – and must – fight.”

            In 1979 the Soviet publication Soviet-Chinese Relations – What Happened in the 60’s, stated in a realistic manner the real causes for the Russo-Chinese conflict behind the facade of ideological rift:

“The more distant goal was to call in question and, if possible, challenge the legality of the existing borders between the USSR and China, and thus to substantiate Mao’s statement, made during a meeting with Japans socialists in 1964, about ‘the seizure of 1.5 million sq. kilometres of Chinese territory by Russia’… In analysing the Maoists’ stand on the territorial questions, one should turn to China’s history and consider the expansionist aspirations of the Chinese emperors and the chauvinistic claims of the Chinese nationalists who dreamed of the return of the ‘golden age’ of the Chinese empire when many of China’s neighbours were mere vassals… It is crystal clear that in pressing their territorial claims the Maoists pursue far-reaching expansionist aims which can be summed up as Great Han Hegemony…”

 

`Far from the USSR having been a benevolent father figure in siring a communist offspring that would achieve Super-Power status with Russia arms and technology, and stand side-by-side with the USSR in confronting the imperialist powers and bringing communism to the world, China had been relegated to the status of a colony. The bitterness endured long past Mao’s demise.

            Towards the end of his life, Mao changed tactics and sought an alliance with the USA, which the American ruling and business elites had long sought. The USSR became the common threat that would be contained by a Washington-Peking Axis. Despite the apparent thawing of the ‘cold war’ between Russia and China initiated recently by Putin, the main focus for China’s power comes from a symbiotic economic relationship between the USA and China. This will be considered further.

 

CHINA’S TERRITORIAL AMBITIONS

            China’s expansionary aims are not necessitated by the demand for ‘living space’ or lebensraum in the conventional sense, at least not for the moment, although Salisbury raised the prospect in the advent of a food/population crisis.

            China, as we’ve seen, has been expanding economically and this has resulted in the movement of Chinese nationals following economic penetration. The advance has been peaceful and subtle, relatively, as in the case of the Russian Far East.

            However, Bobo Lo’s contention as to the peaceful economic expansion of China notwithstanding, China has in the years since Mao shown itself ready for shooting wars over strategic territory and even as shows of force towards its neighbours.

            Despite the proclamations and treaties aimed at showing China’s ‘good neighbourliness’ towards Russia, Central Asia and India, China stubbornly continues to raise the question of disputed borders in an ominous manner. This seems to be contrary to Bobo Lo’s theory that China will adhere to a peaceful road of economic expansion. It shows rather that something psychotic remains in the mentality of the post-Mao leadership.

 

INVASION OF VIETNAM

            China invaded Vietnam in 1979 as a grand gesture for the repudiation of the debilitating and ironically named Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance, which was due for renewal. Clause number six of the Treaty stated that if neither signatory announced their intention to terminate the treaty during its final year, the alliance would automatically be extended for another five years.  As we have seen, the Treaty was designed not to secure Superpower status for China, nor even as a friendly alignment between two supposedly fraternal communist states, but to maintain a position of subjugation and outright humiliation. The Chinese regarded the Treaty as maintaining Russian “hegemony” (sic) over China.

Moreover, the tensions that occurred between Russian and China, including the border clashes resulting in hundreds of deaths and the threat of nuclear confrontation, happened when the friendship treaty was operative. Bruce Elleman states:

“One should recall that on