How Chinese Sovietologists Perceived and Interpreted Soviet Foreign Policy in the Early 1980s

Abstract

This article will examine the analyses of Chinese Soviet-watchers on Soviet foreign policy against the larger context of China’s political setting in the early 1980s, before the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985, and investigate how those Chinese scholars placed post- Mao Chinese official agendas centrally in their research. In the early 1980s, when the Sino-Soviet relations were in estrangement and the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan had exacerbated the bilateral relations, the CCP regime called for the state-wide denunciation of the so-called Soviet hegemonism (baquan zhuyi). After that, Chinese Soviet-watchers became preoccupied with criticizing Soviet hegemonism in their writings. This article will show that both the real Soviet military threat along the PRC border after Moscow’s incursion into Afghanistan, and the historical memory of the past Russian invasion of China played key roles in intensifying the hostility of Chinese scholars toward the USSR in the early 1980s. The criticisms gradually receded after Mikhail Gorbachev took power in 1985, and the label of Soviet hegemonism finally disappeared from Chinese Sovietology writings in the late 1980s, when the bilateral relations had normalized. Moscow’s relations with Albania, Yugoslavia and the Third World also became popular topics in the early 1980s Chinese writings. In the case of Albania, although post-Mao China deeply disliked Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha’s Maoist isolation policy, Chinese scholars highly appreciated Albania’s resistance to Moscow’s domination in the early 1980s. Their stand served quite well to China’s anti-Soviet position then. In the early days of the decade, the CCP regime was attracted by Yugoslavia’s intransigence toward the Kremlin and, most importantly, Belgrade’s trajectory of reform that deviated from the orthodox Soviet model. Many Chinese Soviet-watchers supported wholeheartedly Yugoslavia’s stand in its conflicts with Moscow since the end of the Second World War. The trend reflects China’s ambition of challenging the Soviet domination of the socialist camp, and its aspiration to embrace Yugoslavia’s trajectory of reform, which mixed central planning and market mechanism, and is exactly the path the PRC has taken since 1978. Chinese perceptions of Soviet-Third World relations should also be viewed in the context of China’s Third World policy direction in the early 1980s, when the CCP regime was determined to end Maoist isolation and become a partner of the underdeveloped nations. Chinese scholars always had strong sympathy for the Third World and stood by the side of those countries through their criticisms of Soviet aggression in the region. Many of these scholars argued that Soviet behaviours were contradictory to Lenin’s internationalism. In the Chinese mind, Moscow’s unequal treatment of some Third World states evoked memories of China in the past, when the country had also been bullied and weakened by Tsars and the Kremlin after 1949. Chinese scholars strongly promoted and defended the case of the Third World in their articles. The writings demonstrate China’s determination to challenge Moscow’s authority, appeal for redress for past historical wrongdoings, and promote the moral superiority of Chinese socialism over that of the USSR. As such, seen from the early 1980s Chinese criticisms of Soviet foreign policy, Chinese research of Soviet hegemonism, Soviet-Albanian and Soviet-Yugoslavian conflicts, and Soviet-Third World relations all reflected Beijing’s ambitions of challenging the orthodox Soviet model of economic development in the socialist world, competing with the Kremlin for leadership in the developing countries, and projecting a fair and benevolent image of Chinese socialism vis-à-vis Moscow. As has been demonstrated, Chinese Soviet-watchers did not present many vicissitudes of Soviet international manoeuvres in their writings; instead, through research on the formation and evolution of Soviet foreign policy, they attempted to adjust their analyses to align with China’s vision of itself and the world. Their writings function to highlight lessons learned from Moscow, legitimize the CCP rule and the Chinese way of practicing socialism, and to envision the future direction of China in the reform era. In short, Chinese research of Soviet foreign policy in the early 1980s had primarily been to trace problems of Chinese socialism as experienced by scholars at the time of their research; this was done in order to legitimise state agendas, rather than to seek truth about the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).