Nationalism Flashcards
Getting rid of foreigners
- In due course, nearly all the foreigners were told to leave China, or went of their own accord.
- By 1952, the new regime hadvirtually cleared China of the barbarians
Ethnicities
- 400 ethnic minorities answered the invitation to identify themselves
- boiled the number down to fifty
- groups were then putunder military supervision
- Propaganda Office stressed the revolutionarysupremacy of the Han
Tibet repression
- 7 October 1950 Chinese troops crossed into Tibet
- Belief in historial sovereignty of China over the region
- Fierce mountain tribesmen of the Khamba people wages a bitter campaign against PLA
- Seventeen-Point Agreement reached on 23 May 1951, designated Tibet as an ‘autonomous region’
- Meant that Chinese would control Tibet’s internal security and foreign policy while the Lhasa government under the Dalai Lama would largely control domestic matters
- Chinese government began building highways into the region
- Agrarian policies of GLF caused rebellion in March 1959
- PLA responded with overwhelming force, including heavy artillery, tanks and air strikes
- Tibetan insurgency continued for some time, supported by CIA which trained Tibetan rebels
Fenby view on colonialsm
The People’s Republic had thus shown that it could match the colonial scope of the last dynasty, forgetting talk of independence for Inner Mongolia or better treatment for Tibetans in the interests of the new Chinese empire,
Early period - Soviet relations
- 14 February 1950, the Treatyof Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance was signed,
- Moscow agreed to go to China’s aid if Beijing founditself at war. It extended a $300 million loan, half of it for military purposes
- in secret annexes,Manchuria and Xinjiang were recognized as being in the Soviet spheres of influence
- Soviet advisers were not subject to Chinese law.
Fenby view on Mao Soviet visit
His visit marked his country’s re-emergence on the world stage, albeit only the Communist half of it.
Nationalism general
“Mao allowed the Chinese to feel superior again by blinding them to the outside world.” (Chang)
Mao convinced the Chinese that
i. They were in the strongest country in the world
ii. All other places were “a miasma of poverty and misery” (Chang)
iii. Communism was the best and only system possible, “the road that every country must eventually take” (Mao)
Sino-Soviet splt
- 25 February 1956 – Khrushchev denounced Stalin as a brutal dictator in his ‘Secret Speech’
- Mao had continued to publicly support Stalin who had been ‘a friend to all people everywhere and a friend to the Chinese people.’
- • mid-1959 – Moscow informed Beijing that the Soviet Union would not provide China with nuclear weapons; declaration of neutrality in border clash between China & India
• by early 1960s – insults and accusations; Russian technical personnel recalled from China; loss of 1400 Soviet scientists and engineers
• 16 October 1964 – China detonated its first atomic bomb (2 days after Khrushchev’s demise as Soviet leader)
• 14 July 1964 – China severed formal diplomatic relations with the USSR; increased troops along the Russian-Chinese border
One of the Chinese assertions that caused the estrangement was its perception that concerted mass movements such as the Great Leap Forward could bring about communism faster than the experiences provided by the Soviets. Moreover, the Chinese accused the Soviets of looking for technocratic instead of revolutionary solutions and increasingly neglecting ideology in favor of “goulash communism”, i.e., providing its people with material comfort.
Mao - accusations of Soviet imperialism
- Chairman resented Moscow’s effort to dominate the world Communist movement
- attributed imperialist motves to Moscow
Third Front
- 380 factories andtheir labour forces were moved inland from coastal areas
- everything had to be done at once, planning was rudimentaryand costs soared as a result while projects fell further and further behind
- doubled spending on construction between 1966 and 1970 to 894 million yuan
America visit
- • hoping to counter international influence of USSR & put pressure on Vietnam by easing hostilities with China
- • 25 October 1971 – China gained seat on UN Security Council
Shanghai Communique
- • 25 September 1972 – positions on issues such as Taiwan & proposed further Sino-US cultural and diplomatic exchanges
• ensured China would not face a military threat from two super-powers
- the more powerful country played the role of suitor.
- Kissinger’s deputy, Alexander Haig, said the US would work against the Soviet attempt to encircle the PRC with unfriendly states. That brought a ‘withering blast’ from Zhou. He told Haig that China would never depend on external forces to maintain its independence because that would make it a ‘protectorate or colony’.
Funding of 3rd world revolutions
- ; 7 per centof GDP went on funding Third World revolutionaries
- had not met with much practical success. Fidel Castro wassolidly pro-Soviet. Hanoi needed aid from the USSR for the war in Vietnam, and North Korea was equally reluctant to side with Beijing against Moscow.
Korean War build up
Zhou Enlai: ‘The Chinese people absolutely will not tolerate foreign aggression, nor will they supinely tolerate seeing their neighbours invaded by imperialists.’
North Korean expansionism:
Korea divided at 38th parallel at end of WW2:
Communist government in the north under Kim Il-sung, supported by Soviet military equipment; Stalin approved of Kim’s ambitions, believed China needed to help him
American-backed government in south headed by right-wing Syngman Rhee
North invades south:
< >5 June 1950 – North Korean troops crossed 38th parallel
US President Harry Truman secured UN backing for intervention
15 September Western allies launched counter-offensive
- MacArthur’s troops captured northern capital Pyongyang & advanced towards the Chinese border
Kim begged Mao for help – China did not want their Communist ally to fall to US ‘imperialism’ or a hostile government in North Korea
Zhou Enlai condemned US forces entry under UN flag in June 1950
Arguments
- PLA general Lin Biao and China’s leading economist, Chen Yun, urged caution
- Mao, Zhou Enlai and Zhu De felt intervention necessary
Korean War china role
< >General Peng Dehuai commanded the ‘People’s Volunteers’
MacArthur paid no attention to Zhou Enlai’s warning – two million Chinese troops amassing on border
Stalin reneged on promise of Soviet air support
8 October 1950 – Mao released formal decree approving the campaign & a week later (15 October), Chinese troops crossed the border
MacArthur claimed he would ‘get the boys home by Christmas’
took seven weeks to recapture North Korea
900,000 soldiers missing, wounded or killed
Americans and allies - 157,000 out of action
January 1951 – UN forces launched effective counter-attack
July 1951 – ceasefire
27 July 1953 – armistice – Panmunjong truce
Korean War implications
UN resolution that China was the aggressor; economic embargo enforced; People’s Republic excluded from UN; ‘China’ represented by Chiang’s Republic of China in Taiwan – US support
Korea still divided
PRC made more reliant on Soviet support
drain on PRC’s economy – industrial resources, material losses
land reform & political movements were intensified – Chinese whipped into a frenzy to ‘Resist America, Aid Korea’.
Mao later said it was a mistake, ‘100 per cent wrong’.
also boosted Chinese morale as Mao’s forces had taken on the ‘biggest imperialist’ and not been beaten; crushed remnants of GMD on the mainland
“seen as proof of enhanced status… Beijin became the beacon of the anti-imperalist cause” Fenby
