Chinese Foreign Policy and the Collapse of Communism

CHINESE FOREIGN POLICY AND_ THE COLLAPSE OF COMMUNISM Michael B. Yahuda F,rom the perspective of the old men who rule China, the world has become a darker and more dangerous place. The collapse of the August coup in the Soviet Union has left Beijing isolated as the last upholder of communism, and fearful that nationalist separatism might spread to the ethnic groups which straddle China's 4000-mile border with the Commonwealth of Independent States. Despite having partially overcome their post-Tiananmen international isolation and renewed policies ofeconomic reform, China's elderly leaders are not feeling secure. Even before the events in the Soviet Union DengXiaoping was quoted in a Hong Kong journal as warning: "Socialism is at a crossroads, our China is at a crossroads." For good measure his nominated successor, Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Jiang Zemin, added: "the road ahead is very difficult; if we cannot push forward, there is the danger that our party and country [will be] doomed."1 In the wake ofthe demise of communism in the Soviet Union, the road ahead must appear more daunting than ever before. 1. "Cheng Ming," August 1, 1991 in BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, Part 3. Far Eastern Relations (Henceforth SWB FE)IlUO A3/1 August 2, 1991. Michael B. Yahuda is Reader in International Relations at the London School of Economics & Political Science. He is the author of two books on China's foreign relations, and has written many articles in scholarly journals on Chinese politics and foreign policy. He is currently preparing a textbook on the international politics of Asia and the Pacific. 125 126 SAISREVIEW Some speculate that China's leaders were forewarned of the coup.2 There can be no doubt that they felt more comfortable with the Soviet conservatives than with the reformers. During their visits to Moscow in April 1990 and May 1991, Premier Li Peng and General Secretary Jiang Zemin did not meet radical leaders such as Boris Yeltsin. But early in August the visiting Chinese Chiefofthe General Staff, Chi Haotian, held talks with the then-Soviet Vice President Yanaev and Defense Minister Yazov, who both played key roles in the putsch. Moreover, there were obvious signs that the coup was welcomed in China. News of its occurrence was broadcast in Beijing within minutes ofit being made public in Moscow. By contrast, four hours elapsed before the news of Gorbachev's return was officially released in Beijing. Meanwhile, General Secretary Jiang Zemin reportedly had issued an inner-Party document welcoming the coup as "good for the Soviet Union, good for China and good for the world."3 Naturally, China's public pronouncements were more circumspect . They simply pointed out that these events were the internal affairs of the Soviet people. If the coup was regarded as a "good" thing, its ignominious end was not. The formal position was curtly put by Foreign Minister Qian Qichen, who stated that the Chinese government looked forward to the continuation of good neighborly relations with the Soviet Union. But larger implications could not be so neatly and formally put aside. On August 25, the day after Gorbachev's disavowal of the Communist Party and his dissolution of its property rights, the official Chinese news agency cited the remarks of China's staunchest hardliner, the elderly Vice President General Wang Zhen. Having just completed a tour of Xinjiang, the westerly province bordering on Soviet central Asia whose Turkish Muslim ethnic minorities are dissatisfied with Chinese rule, Wang Zhen asserted defiantly that China was "united" and "stable." Having "successfully quelled the anti-government rebellion" (a reference to Tiananmen) the Chinese people were now opposing "bourgeois liberalization" and carrying out "socialist reform." He then called upon the army to "strengthen [its] faith in the absolute command ofthe Communist Party" and asserted that "all should unite under [its] leadership." In an oblique reference to the events in the Soviet Union, he added: "faced with changes in the international situation, we must further strengthen our faith in socialism." This defiant response suggests that China's leaders saw the Soviet events as extremely damaging to the cause ofChinese communism. By drawing an 2.See for example, Hugo Gordon, "Peking...