Mao's China and the Cold War (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Mao's China and the Cold War Xiaobing Li (bio) Chen Jian. Mao's China and the Cold War. The New Cold War History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001. x, 400 pp. Paperback $19.95, ISBN 0-8078-4932-4. Since the sudden end of the Cold War in the 1990s, there has been in America and in the West generally an increasing interest in the mysterious, untold, "view-from-the-other-side" stories of the Communist experience. This book provides a comprehensive study of Communist China's experience during the Cold War from the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 to President Nixon's visit to Beijing in 1972. Making the first effort of this kind, Chen Jian offers path-breaking insights into the calculations, decisions, and divergent views toward the world in general and the United States in particular by Mao Zedong and other Chinese leaders. Rather than using the traditional America-centered methodologies to follow the Soviet-American rivalry, Chen instead focuses on the Sino American conflicts that made East Asia the main battlefield of the Cold War. He studies the relatively neglected inner dynamics of the Chinese revolution, which defined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) worldview and determined their foreign policy. With its fresh new look at Sino-American relations, this book should be read by both specialists and nonspecialists interested either in China's foreign policy or in Asian international relations. Chen begins by introducing Mao's doctrine of "continuous revolution" and the role played by communist ideology in Chinese foreign-policy making. Then, the book follows a chronological approach, beginning with the examination in the first chapter of China's transition between World War II and the revolutionary [End Page 374] civil war in 1945-1946. Although at this time the CCP attempted to establish "a closer relationship with Washington" and had actually felt "betrayed" by Stalin, the Soviet-American confrontation nevertheless "had a profound effect" on China and eventually brought the Cold War to East Asia (p. 36). The second chapter challenges the commonly held belief that the United States somehow "lost" China, suggesting instead that it was impossible for Washington to establish a normal working relationship with the CCP since Mao was using an anti American discourse to mobilize the masses for his revolution. The discussion of Mao's grand plans continues into the next two chapters, explaining why China entered the Korean War in 1950, why Mao sought a negotiated settlement to end the war, and the growing problems between Beijing and Moscow. Since Mao treated China's foreign policy as an "integral part" of the revolution, his policy and actions also served to maintain and enhance the "inner dynamics" of the CCP revolution. Chapter 5 is devoted to Mao's support of the Vietnamese Communists in their struggle during the First Indochina War of 1950-1954. For example, Mao sent a "Chinese Military Advisory Group" to Vietnam, supported the Dien Bien Phu campaign, and pushed a settlement at the 1954 Geneva Conference, where Premier Zhou Enlai emerged as "the real winner." A deepening rift between Beijing and Moscow in the late 1950s is discussed in chapter ., where it is argued that the Polish and Hungarian crises may have "triggered a series of more general confrontations within the Communist world, eventually leading to the decline of international communism as a twentieth-century phenomenon" (p. 145). Chapter 7 deals with the 1958 Taiwan Strait crisis and shows Mao's desire to use the issue of Taiwan to create new momentum for his Great Leap Forward movement, one of the most important episodes in the development of China's continuous revolution. Chapter 8 explains China's deep involvement and its ultimate policy failure in the Vietnam War in the period 1962-1969. According to Chen, Beijing lost its influence over Vietnam after the collapse of an alliance that "was once claimed to be 'between brotherly comrades'" (p. 205). There was a "huge gap" between Beijing's words and actions: while portraying itself as a model and leader of the communist movement, Beijing failed to satisfy the Vietnamese communists. When the unification of Vietnam made...