Were Those Decisions Righteously Made? The Chinese Tradition of Righteous War and China’s Decisions for War, 1950–1979

Abstract

This research provides the first empirical study examining the actual role that the Chinese Righteous War Tradition (CRWT) played in Chinese decisions for external war between 1950 and 1979. It aims to answer particularly whether the consideration of righteous war was treated as the decisive influence or simply as an instrument for legitimating such a decision. This research traces the role that the CRWT played in successive Chinese leaders' decision in three cases—the Korean War, the Sino-Indian War, and the Sino-Vietnamese War. The findings indicate that the ideas of the CRWT were largely used to assess and legitimate the decision for external war. However, the assessment of righteous causes generally occupied a lower priority and did not play the decisive role in determining the decision for external war. The actual role of the CRWT may largely be an instrument to help the Chinese to find legitimacy, and the legitimacy may have the potential to assist the Chinese to choose what should be done from among the options based on different pragmatic calculations.