leap
rightward
CHINA chinese foreian potter Since 197r by CARLOS ROSSI Chinese foreign policy has gone through three distinct phases since the end of the Korean war: 1. During the 1950s Peking applied the strategy of "peaceful coexistence" with and support to the supposedly "progressive" bourgeois regimes of the Third World. The Bandung Conference (featuring Nasser, Nehru, Sukaro, and Chou En-lai) is the best-known symbol of this strategy, which was not substantially different from that followed by the USSR. During the Geneva Conference on Indochina (1954) the two "socialist" states played a "moderating" role with respect to the Vietnamese revolufionaries. According to the July 15, 1954, London Times, "members of the Viet Minh delegation openly stated that pressure from Chou En-lai and Molotov forced their country to accept less than it could have obtained here. " (Quoted by J. Lacouture and P. Devillers, De la guerre française à la guerre américain, Editions du Sevil, p. 334.) 2. During the 1960s the Sino-Soviet polemic and the Cultural Revolution provoked a significant turn to the left. Without abandoning its support to the so-called national-democratic regimes of the Third World - with the catastrophic results of 1965 in Indonesia - China criticized Moscow's capitulations to U.S. imperialism and offered material and the great political support to several revolutionary or anti-imperialist movements around the world. In spite of certain negative aspects - the rejection of a united front with the USSR to support the struggle of the Vietnamese (see Che Guevara's critique in the 1967 Letter to the Tricontinental Congress) -this policy had favorable results on an international scale: the breakup of the Stalinist monolith, the creation of an atmosphere more receptive to leftist criticism of the opportunist policy of Moscow, the stimulation of the emergence of new revolutionary vanguards. This leftist course of Chinese foreign policy culminated during the Cultural Revolution. According to Kostas Mavrakis (a professional antiTrotskyist and "pro-Chinese" apologist), at that time "the leftist 516 group, which had seized the leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, had uselessly degraded relationships with certain Asian countries. • • . In addition, the ministry directed by the ultraleftists had issued an ultimatum to Great Britain on the subject of repression in Hong Kong." (K. Mavrakis, "La politique internationale de la Chine, " in Tel Quel, No. 50, summer 1972, p. 63.) It was also at the time of the Cultural Revolution that China supported the May 1968 movement in France, and so on. 3. Toward 1971, after a transition period of a year
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CHINA or two, the "great leap rightward, " whose content and meaning we will examine in some detail, began. By all evidence, this turn coincided with internal changes: the elimination of the "left" from the Political Bureau of the Chinese Communist party; first the demotion of Chen Po-ta, president of the Central Group of the Cultural Revolution (now accused of always having been "an anticommunist Koumintang element, an agent of the enemy"), and then of Lin Piao, who probably wanted to continue the orientation of the 1966-69 period, that is, the struggle against American imperialism as the main enemy. This turn has had colossal consequences on an international scale. It considerably facilitates the game of U.S. imperialism, which cleverly maneuvers within the framework of the new "triangular diplomacy. " The world scene nearly resembles the nightmare imagined by George Orwell in his novel 1984: the planet divided among three superpowers, "Eurasia, " "Eastasia, "and "Oceania, " any two of which line up to fight against the third, with the portners changing every ten years. In reality, the entire international relationship of forces was partially shaken by the new Chinese policy, without which, for example, it would have been difficult to imagine the present insolent threats of U.S. imperialism against the Indochinese revolution. Furthermore, this policy has dealt a grave blow to a large number of armed revolutionary movements that had received material aid from China during the 1960s and have been weakened militarily or obliged to secure their supplies exclusively from the USSR, with all the negative consequences of such unilateral dependence (Cameroons, Eritrea, Dhofar, Angola, and so on). Let us examine, continent by continent, the deeds and misdeeds of Chinese foreign policy. After four years, the time has come to draw an overall, systematic balance-sheet of the "great leap rightward, which has already emerged as one of the key events of the 1970s. I. ASIA The first clear sign of the new Chinese line came with the crisis in Pakistan in 1971. During the revolt of the Bengali people, oppressed by the reactionary and proimperialist military regime of Yahya Khan, China unhesitatingly supported the Pakistani government. While government troops were committing unheard-of massacres and atrocities against the worker, peasant, and student revolts in Chittagong, Dacca, and throughout East Bengal, Chou En-lai sent a message to dictator Yahya Khan (published in the Pakistan Times of March 13, 1971) that declared: "Your Excellency and the leaders of the various regions of Pakistan have accomplished great useful work (sic) in preserving the unity of Pakistan and preventing it from drifting toward secession."
During the interbourgeois Indo-Pakistani war that followed the Bengali revolt, the Soviet bureaucracy supported the Indian government and the Chinese bureaucracy supported the Pakistani regime. That was the first time since the victory of the Chinese revolution in 1949 that China's foreign policy coincided with that of the United States. In fact, Nixon also supported the Pakistani regime (a member of the anticommunist CENTO alliance) and sent a detachment of the Seventh Fleet to the Gulf of Bengal to intimidate India and the USSR. It is interesting to add that in a statement issued after the events, the new Pakistani president, the "friend of China" Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, bitterly complained about the insufficiency of the American intervention against the "communist threat" to Pakistan: "The member countries of CENTO and SEATO slept while our country was dismembered by violence. ... They did not intervene, in spite of the treaties that call for such intervention in the event of communist aggression." (Le Monde, January 27, 1972.) It is obvious that this position of the government of the Peoples Republic of China had absolutely nothing to do with the interests of the popular masses of Bengal, Pakistan, India, or China, or with the struggle against reaction and imperialism. The sole motivation was Chinese "state interest, "that is, the alliance of the Peking bureaucracy with Pakistan and against India, which derives from the Sino-Indian border clashes of the 1960s. The fact - brought up by the Maoist epigones in Europe - that the leadership of the Bengali national movement was bourgeois (Mujibur Rehman) in no way justifies the Chinese policy. The task of the Chinese state was to aid Bengali revolutionaries in winning the leadership of the national liberation movement, which was the profound and legitimate expression of the popular masses of Bangladesh. In this way it could have been possible to break the Bengali liberation struggle from the grip of the Indian bourgeoisie. The events in Ceylon, also in 1971, were even more serious than those in Bengal. In April 1971 in response to a police provocation the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP - People's Liberation Front), a revolutionary youth organization with a solid base among the peasantry, defended itself in the name of socialism against the bourgeois government of Bandaranaike (a government in which the pro-Moscow Communist party and the renegades from Trotskyism of the Lanka Sama Samaja party also participate). The repression was brutal, with massacres and summary executions (8, 000 of them, according to René Dumont) and 14,000 arrests. Ceylonese Lieutenant Colonel Cyril Ranatunga, trained at the Sandhurst military academy in Britain, justified the murder of prisoners with the following argument: "We have learned too many lessons from Vietnam and Malaysia.
We have to destroy them completely." (International Herald Tribune, April 20, 1971.) An unprecedented international "holy alliance" was formed around the bourgeois government of Ceylon in its war of extermination against the young revolutionaries: Supporting Bandaranaike and her army with helicopters, planes, ammunition, weapons, and money were the governments of the United States, the USSR, India, Pakistan, Yugoslavia, ••. and China. (See Fred Halliday, "L'insurrection cinghalaise, "in Les Temps Modernes, No. 306, January 1972. See also the article "Wijeweera Sentenced to Life Imprisonment, " INPRECOR, No. 18, January 31, 1975.) At the end of April 1971 the government of People's China granted the Ceylonese government a no-interest loan of $25 million. In order to make explicit the political meaning of this gesture, Chou En-lai sent Bandaranaike a letter stating: "We are happy to observe that thanks to the efforts of Your Excellency and the Ceylonese government, the chaotic situation provoked by a handful of individuals calling themselves 'Guevarists, ' whose ranks have been infiltrated by foreign spies, has been mastered, . . . In the interest of friendship between China and Ceylon, and taking into consideration the needs of the Ceylonese government, the Chinese government has agreed to furnish a long-term, no-interest loan of 150 million rupees in convertible foreign currency. ... As for any further material aid, please let us know if you are in need. " (Published by the Ceylon Daily News, May 27, 1971.) With this gesture, a new step was taken in the turn of Chinese policy: For the first time since the establishment of the People's Republic of China, it actively supported a bourgeois government in the repression of a revolutionary movement. It is interesting to study the "justifications" offered by pro-Chinese scribblers in regard to this astonishing affair. According to K. Mavrakis, the JVP was a "Blanquist and adventurist" organization that did not merit the support of China. "It is not by accident that they claim allegiance to Guevara. " (Mavrakis, "La politique internationale de la Chine, " Tel Quel, summer 1972, p. 72.) Unfortunately, this does not explain why the People's Republic of China not only refrained from supporting the JVP, but also actively supported the bourgeois government in its efforts to crush the rebellion. According to the "logic" of Mavrakis, the People's Republic of China could have just as well supported the Barrientos government in Bolivia in 1967 against the "Guevarist adventurer" Ernesto Che Guevara. In Mavrakis's defense it must be added that in spite of his great will to accept any insult of Chinese origin, he cannot refrain from making a slight gesture of repugnance toward Chou En-lai's letter (the authenticity of which he does not contest): "Although the message was basically correct, one may wonder about how opportune it was, in view of the exploitation to which it was put." (Ibid., p. 73.) On the field of unconditional servility Mavrakis is beaten by André Pommier, of the Stalino- Mao review Communisme, who offers, among other things, the following argument: "After the insurrection, a swarm of vultures descended on the island, af the head of which stood the Russians, eager for influence and bases in the Indian Ocean. It was crucially important for all the peoples of the region to act to prevent them from nesting there. If China undertook to establish good relations with the government of Bandaranaike, it was because it preserved the neutrality of this much-coveted island." (A. Pommier, "La politique extérieure chinoise, " Communisme, No.2, January-February 1973, p. 92.) The interesting thing about this thesis is that it probably corresponds to the truth. One of the motives of the Chinese intervention was to counter Soviet influence and to prevent Moscow from "nesting. "By itself becoming a vulture, Peking wrenched the carrion monopoly from the Kremlin birds of prey. This was important, and beginning in 1971 it would become one of the central axes of Chinese policy: try to counter Soviet influence everywhere and at any price. This reasoning would inevitably push the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China toward a more and more openly pro-American orientation, the three most striking examples in Asia being Chinese policy toward Japan, Thailand, and Iran. In the course of conversations with Takeo Kimura, an important personality of the conservative governmental party in Japan, and later with M. Nakasone, Japanese minister of industry, Chou En-lai insisted that in the present situation the maintenance of the Japanese-American security treaty was "inevitable" for Japan. He also declared that the American nuclear umbrella was necessary for Japan, not for defense against China, but for defense against the Soviet Union. (Le Monde, April 11, 1973.) It is needless to add that this Chinese maneuver, as Le Monde's Tokyo correspondent stressed, "seriously disconcerted" the opposition left parties in Japan, which were preparing to launch a hard offensive against the security treaty. If is also needless to add that U.S. imperialism, for which the treaty with Japan guarantees the principal bases of its air and naval potential in the Pacific, much appreciated this unexpected support. The case of Thailand is more serious in that it closely affects problems of the Indochinese revolution. In a telegram to Bangkok the minister of foreign affairs of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam denounced the American presence in Thailand, and particularly the utilization of bases for the supply of arms to Saigon and Phnom Penh and the resupply of foreign
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CHINA mercenaries in Laos. In January 1975 Chou En-lai, receiving General Choohaven, the Thai minister of foreign affairs, declared that China wanted the United States to maintain military strength in Thailand... because the USSR might step up its activities in the Indian Ocean! (Declaration, not denied, of the spokesman of the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Le Monde, January 16, 1975.) Moreover, the National Student Center of Thailand protested against "the Chinese support to the continuation of the U.S. military presence in Thailand under the pretext of containing Russian military expansion in the region. " (Voice of the Nation, Bangkok, January 20, 1975.) It would be difficult to demonstrate greater indifference to the Indochinese revolution, whose vital interests have been sacrificed on the altar of the anti-Soviet obsession of Chinese diplomacy -The "coincidence" with American policy is equally striking in the case of Iran. The regime of the shah is one of the most barbaric dictatorships in the world. SAVAK, its political police, organized and trained by American specialists, systematically arrests and tortures oppositionists. There are thousands of political prisoners, more than 200 of whom have been shot on orders from the shah. (On the atrocious torture of revolutionary militants, both male and female, see Pétrole et violence, terreur blanche et résistance en Iran, Editions Anthropos, 1974.) The shah's foreign policy is that of gendarme of imperialism in charge of maintaining order in the region of the Gulf. In fact, the shah proclaims this very explicitly and proudly. In an interview with Newsweek in May 1973, for example, His Imperial Majesty declared: "West Europe, the United States, and Japan consider the Persian Gulf as integral to their security, but they are not in position to guarantee this security. We do it for them. " The same tone was struck by the Iranian prime minister in an interview with Eric Rouleau: "This maritime route is very important for you Westerners. ... In your interest and ours, we have offered our neighbors our support in case they should want to suppress subversive movements directed from abroad. At its request, the sultanate of Oman has extensively benefited from our military aid in repressing the rebellion in Dhofar. " (Le Monde, October 7, 1973.) In reality, the position of "guardian and protector" of the Gulf that the shah has arrogated to himself fits into Kissinger's new strategy of establishing "subimperialisms" as regional relays for U.S. imperialism: Iran in the Middle East, Brazil in Latin America, and so on. These are well-known facts, but they must be recalled briefly in order to examine how Chinese policy has reacted to them. 14
A spectacular Sino-Iranian rapprochement began in 1971. In August 1971 a joint communiqué was published that declared: "The government of the People's Republic of China firmly supports the just struggle of the imperial government of Iran to safeguard its national independence and sovereignty and to protect its natural resources. " (Le Monde, December 2, 1971.) During a banquet held in Tehran on June 16, 1973, Chi Peng-fei, then Chinese minister of foreign affairs, praised the "policy of independence" of the Iranian monarch and judged "necessary and understandable" the strengthening of Iranian military potential, which was destined, he said, to combat "subversion" and "expansionism" by the superpowers. Chi Peng-fei is said to have assured his interlocutors in private that Peking approved of Iran's membership in the imperialist CENTO pact. (Le Monde, October 7, 1973.) It is in this light that one must read a rather incredible little piece published in the magazine Pekin Information under the title: "Iran: un sujet d'inquiétude: 'influence soviétique au Moyen Orient" (Iran: A Source of Uneasiness: Soviet Influence in the Middle East). Here are some passages from that article: "During his visit to the United States the shah of Iran confirmed in a press conference last July 25 that Iran still wanted to acquire fighterbombers from the United States in order to deal with the new models of Soviet Migs. ... The shah declared at his press conference that Iran was prepared to come to the aid of the countries of the Persian Gulf and to Pakistan's aid as well, if they were attacked. The night before, at a welcoming ceremony at the White House opened by Nixon, the president of the United States, the shah said in his responding speech that his country was determined to make itself the guardian of peace and equilibrium in the vast region located between the Middle East and South Asia. He stressed that Iran wanted to preserve its independence and sovereignty. " (Pékin Information, No. 31, August 6, 1973, p. 20.) Marvels of "triangular diplomacy": China and the United States both support the shah's role as "guardian of peace and equilibrium" as well as his struggle against "Soviet influence. " It is needless to stress the concrete meaning of this "pacifying" role: The sending of thousands of Iranian soldiers, along with tanks and planes (bought from the United States) to defend the sultan of Oman against the red guerrillas of Dhofar. It is important to observe that on the part of the Chinese bureaucracy this is not simply a matter of declarations dictated by considerations of protocol and intended purely for diplomatic use. According to all the information we possess, this turn has extremely concrete practical consequences: the halfing of military and material support to the Front for
the Liberation of Occupied Oman. According to Eric Rouleau, Chi Peng-fei declared during his trip to Tehran in 1973 that China was no longer supplying the rebels in Dhofar. (Le Monde, October 7, 1973.) Moreover, this is confirmed by an interview with the shah himself, in which he proclaimed with satisfaction that China had "completely" ceased aiding the Liberation Front. (Interview conducted by A. Fontaine, Le Monde, June 25, 1974.) Are the motives for this opportunist and counterrevolutionary policy of the Chinese bureaucracy toward Iran economic in nature? Is it a question of absorbing the shah's fabulous billions of petrodollars? If is true that in November 1974 a Chinese economic delegation led by Li Chiang, the minister of foreign trade, visited Iran to negotiate about Iranian investments in the Chinese oil and petrochemical industry. (Le Monde, December 3, 1974.) But that said, it seems to us that the main motivation for the policy of the Chinese bureaucracy does not lie at such a "vulgar materialist" level. We will return to this point further on. Nixon's visit to China in February 1972, the spectacular manifestation of a rapprochement that was actually already visible in 1971, fit into this overall framework. It is difficult to evaluate precisely the political consequences of this operation, but it is obvious that it contributed to Nixon's electoral victory in 1972. Some elements of the former radical anti-imperialist orientation still remain in Chinese foreign policy in Asia. Cambodia and Korea provide the notable examples. Chinese aid to the FUNK in Cambodia has undoubtedly contributed decisively to the struggle of the revolutionary Khmers and this should not be underestimated. Nevertheless, one is entitled to wonder uneasily whether these progressive aspects of Chinese policy will be preserved in the future as the "great leap rightward" accelerates. Even now it can be said that Chinese support to the American presence in Thailand has extremely negative consequences for the revolutionary struggle in Cambodia in that the U.S. bases in Thailand are one of the principal sources of supply for Lon Nol's puppet army. Il. AFRICA In Africa during the 1960s People's China supported "left nationalist" regimes like those of Tanzania, Somalia, etc. It also aided guerrilla movements against the proimperialist puppet regimes: Mulele's movement in the Congo, the UPC in the Cameroons, etc. Finally, in Angola it supported the most progressive anticolonial movement, the MPLA. The 1970s brought a radical change. On the government level, the Chinese bureaucracy did not abandon its regular clientele. But it considerably "enlarged" its list. There was the surprising reconciliation with Mobutu, the murderer of Lumumba and Mulele and U.S. imperialism's main man in Africa. In a welcoming speech delivered on the occasion of Mobutu's visit to Peking, Teng Hsiao-ping saluted the contribution of the president of Zaire "to the united struggle of the Third World against hegemonism" as well as his courage in "defying the despotism of the superpowers. " (Pékin Information, No. 51, December 23, 1974.) As for Ahmadou Ahido, faithful instrument of French neocolonialism and assassin of Ouandié and thou sands of revolutionaries in the Cameroons, he was also received triumphally in Peking by Chairman Mao and by Chou En-lai, who declared: "The Chinese people and government feel admiration for the success obtained by the government of the Cameroons in both foreign and domestic political matters. (Pékin Information, No. 13, April 2, 1973.) Finally, again in 1971, Mao received the Emperor Haile Selassie, the feudal despot of a bygone age, since deposed. The Chinese CP daily Renmin Ribao saluted the contribution of His Majesty "to the promotion of the cause of anti-imperialist unity in Asia and Africa." (Pékin Information, No. 42, October 20, 1971) As if the now departed emperor of Ethiopia were not one of the surest allies of American imperialism in Africa. In all three cases it was once again not simply a matter of empty words and diplomatic bows. All Chinese political, material, and military support to the UPC in the Cameroons and to the Eritrean Liberation Front was cut off beginning in 1971. (On the halting of support to the Eritrean fighters, see Le Monde, June 23, 1972.) But the events most revealing of the Chinese turn in Africa were those in the Sudan in 1971. Let us briefly recall what happened: In July 1971 there was an attempted coup by the left wing of the army, supported by the Sudanese CP one of the most powerful CPs in Africa). The reactionary General Nimeiry (with the aid of Sadat's Egypt) succeeded in crushing the rebellion. Hundreds of communists were arrested and massacred. The principal leaders of the CP, among them General Secretary Mahgoub and Shafei el-Sheikh, general secretary of the Sudanese trade-union federation, were hanged in an atmosphere of white terror and witch-hunt. The Chinese bureaucracy unconditionally supported the Nimeiry regime, denouncing the abortive July coup as a maneuver undertaken by the USSR "through the intermediary of its agents in the Sudan." (Le Monde, December 25, 1973.) During his visit.to China in December 1971 General Hassan Abbas, vice-president of the Sudanese military regime,
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CHINA warmly thanked the Chinese government for its "economic and military support. " (Le Monde, December 20, 1971.) Nimeiry's staunch anticommunism quickly paid off. During 1971 Washington extended a credit of $18 million to the Sudanese government, Britain provided a credit of $25 million, the International Monetary Fund (controlled by the United States) gave $40 million, ... and People's China gave a credit of $80 million. (Le Monde, February 18, 1972.) In reality, Mahgoub was far from being an "agent of Moscow. " On several occasions he had demonstrated his (relative) independence of the bureaucratic Soviet leadership, refusing to dissolve the Sudanese CP (as the Egyptian CP was dissolved at Kremlin urging), criticizing the USSR's economic aid to the reactionary Abboud regime, etc. (On this subject, see Eric Rouleau, "Soudan: Les colonels sans les camarades, " Le Monde, February 18, 1972, and "Zum Lage im Sudan, "in Rote Press Korrespondenz, 1971, 5 Jg., p. 8-10.) But for Chinese policy, this was a "secondary" feature. In face of the "Soviet danger, " Peking rallied to the support of the butchers of Sudanese communism. It is extremely enlightening to examine the embarrassed justifications offered by European Maoist ideologues to explain this sinister incident. For Kostas Mavrakis, "the victory of the putschists would have meant simply that the Sudan would have fallen under the grip of social imperialism. The Chinese manifestly preferred the faction of the army that wanted to safeguard the country's independence. (Mavrakis, op. cit., p. 71) At the same time, Mavrakis is compelled to recognize that "Nimeiry took advantage of his victory to extend repression among the masses. " The conclusion that follows with Cartesian necessity is the following: The Chinese "manifestly preferred" a bloody regime that oppresses the masses, on the sole condition that if oppose "social imperialism, " that is, the USSR. There could be no more explicit ignoring of the interests of the masses and of the class criterion in a policy that claims to be "Marxist" and "Leninist." The most recent example of the Sino-American "objective convergence" in Africa is provided by An- "present foreign gola. The future of the ex-colony of Portugal is in process of being decided at this very moment. The least that can be said is that China is very effec- decided behind tively collaborating in establishing a pro-American solution. After supporting (together with the USSR) the chinese mas the left wing of Angolan nationalism, the MPLA, during the 1960s, China gradually changed its line, first aiding the UNITA of Jonas Savimbi, and then the Angola NLF of Holden Roberto. Holden, an intimate friend of Mobutu, has had close relations with U.S. imperialism since the beginning of the 1960s. "American advisers" have been discovered 16
in his ranks, including officers who served in South Vietnam. Moreover, in a statement to a French journalist in 1970, he denounced the MPLA as "communist" and complained that "the Western countries" had "fallen into the trap" of this movement. (See Basil Davidson, L'Angola au coeur des tempêtes, Maspero, 1972, p. 222 and 236.) In December 1973 Holden Roberto was invited to China. Upon his return to Kinshasa he declared that a "cooperation agreement between the Chinese authorities and the Angola NLF has been established. " (Le Monde, December 26, 1973) Toward the end of 1974 some 200 Chinese instructors arrived in Zaire to train the ANLF's reserve army, stationed in Zaire, thus contributing to strengthening this pro-imperialist movement and placing an obstacle before the "Soviet influence" allegedly embodied in the MPLA. If Angola becomes a semicolony of U.S. imperialism, which is avidly interested in the country's fabulous mining wealth, Kissinger will be able to thank. Mao the Helmsman for his precious aid extended in a difficult situation. III. LATIN AMERICA Latin America occupies a lesser place in Peking's politico-diplomatic concerns than do Africa and Asia. But the fundamental tendency is the same. Here, for example, is an item that appeared in Pékin Information in 1973: "On September 5 Western news agencies citing disclosures made by a spokesman of the U.S. Defense Department reported that a Soviet flotilla composed of a destroyer, a cruiser, a nuclear submarine, and a supply ship have undertaken activities in the Caribbean Sea. ... The presence in the Western hemisphere of Soviet air and naval forces bearing nuclear arms, as well as their utilization of military bases in this region, constitutes a threat to peace and security in Latin America. " (Pékin Information, September 24, 1973.) It is regrettable that this article, including its final commentary, looks as if it were directly extracted from a propaganda pamphlet of the United States Information Service: the "Soviet threat" to Latin America, etc. What military bases in the region are at issue? That is a transparent reference to Cuba. policy has been Is People's China prepared to support U.S. imperialism against Cuba, the bastion of Russian "socialthe backs of imperialist influence". in the Western hemisphere? The ambiguity of Peking's foreign policy in Latin ses» America was strikingly manifested at the time of the overthrow of Allende in Chile. While denouncing the Pinochet coup (Chou En-lai's letter to Mrs. Allende, etc.), China, along with Rumania, was the only workers state that did not break diplomatic relations with the new regime. The Chinese authorities coldly discharged Allende's ambassador in China,
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CHINA "after receiving a note from the new government divesting him of his functions. " (Le Monde, October 12, 1973.) Let us add that it is not one of Peking's principles to maintain diplomatic relations Portugal before 1974 because of Lisbon's colonial policy, and now, it seems, because of the presence of the Portuguese CP in the government. Furthermore, the Chinese Embassy in Santiago closed its doors and generally refused to admit persecuted militants seeking refuge. But there is more. In October 1973, several weeks after the military coup and the barbarous repression that had fallen on the Chilean people, the Executive Committee of UNESCO unanimously adopted a resolution expressing its profound concern about the events in Chile. Two countries abstained on the vote on this resolution: the United States ... and China. (Le Mande, October 16, 1973.) In addition, it should be noted that the first commentary published in the Chinese press after the coup discussed the "reactionary forces inside and outside the country, " but carefully refrained from mentioning the role of U.S. imperialism in the affair. It was only in January 1974 that Renmin Ribao, breaking a silence of several -months on Chile, revealed to its readers "the interference of imperialism" in the overthrow of Allende. Nevertheless, the article immediately stressed that U.S. imperialism was rapidly losing ground in Latin America and that the main danger now comes from the USSR! (Le Monde, January 21, 1974.) IV. EUROPE In 1971 China began to develop the theme of a united (capitalist) Europe opposed to the "superpowers." Nevertheless, we are now seeing a more and more pronounced drift toward the doctrine of a united Europe associated to the United States against "Russian social imperialism. In 1972 the Chinese leaders discreetly advised their European interlocutors to support the maintenance of Americon troops on the continent. Pékin Information published without comment the "Atlanticist" declarations of a reactionary English lord: "Lord Chalfont criticized the idea that all military threat to Western Europe had disappeared and that consequently all the American troops could be withdrawn and NATO dismantled. " (Pékin Information, August 6, 1973, p. 21.) Concurrently, Peking is developing its ties with certain regimes that are, let us say, not very democratic but do offer serious guarantees as to antiSovietism. In May 1973 Makarezos, vice-president of the Greece of the fascist colonels, visited China. During the classic diplomatic banquet, Li Hsiennien, Chinese vice prime minister, greeted this 18 visit, which had "increased our mutual understanding and our friendship. " (Le Monde, May 25, 1973.) What was the meeting ground for this "friendship" and "mutual understanding"? According to Alain Bouc, Le Monde's "Sinophile" correspondent in Peking, "it is obvious that Greece occupies an unequaled strategic position to observe, and even to control, Soviet naval expansion in the Mediterranean. " Is it for this same "strategic" reason that China established diplomatic relations with Francoist Spain? Whether it is the case or not, on March 11, 1973, when these relations were established, Renmin Ribao published a historical sketch of Spain that "forgot" to mention the fascist character of the regime and even the civil war of 1936-39! Madrid-Peking relations are so cordial that when Carrero Blanco was executed by Basque revolutionaries, Foreign Minister Chi Peng-fei went to the Spanish Embassy in Peking to "express his sympathies" to the Francoist authorities! (Le Monde, December 24, 1973.) The most recent episodes in Peking's "European line" were the invitations to China of Edward Heath, then head of the British Tory party, and later of FranzJosef Strauss, the revanchist German nationalist, champion of the cold war, frenzied anticommunist, and advocate of "getting tough" with striking workers and dissident students. Received with full honors by Mao and Chou En-lai, Strauss listened with pleasure to Chinese generals who explained that "the security of West Europe can be assured only by the military support of the United States." (Le Monde, January 15, 1975.) This was the comment of K. S. Karol, a slightly disappointed friend of China: "One can only be astonished at the unconcern of the Chinese about the repercussions that their accolades to Franz-Josef Strauss and his ilk will have on the European workers movement. " (Nouvel Observateur, February 10, 1975.) It is also important to examine the "applications" of the Chinese orientation by Peking's faithful disciples in Europe. A recent pamphlet published by Humanité Rouge, the main Maoist sect in France, denounces the French bourgeoisie because it is tending toward capitulation to the USSR! Here are some extracts from this remarkable text: "The imperialist bourgeoisie will not resist through to the end... Already on several occasions it has not reacted when there were Soviet submarine incursions into territorial waters (which happened again a month ago near Brest).. • . To be sure, there is a tendency toward compromise with social imperialism on the part of the French bourgeoisie.... " (Vigilence contre le danger social-impérialiste soviétique en Europe, " Humanité Rouge, p. 27, emphasis in the original.) The same pamphlet also denounces the acts within the French army of "the modern revisionists and their Trotskyist henchmen, who are using the movement of the draftees... to spreod illusions
about the détente, to push our country toward submission before Soviet social-imperialism. " (Ibid., p. 29.) See also the pamphlet significantly entitled: "Le social-impérialisme, danger principal en Europe" (Social Imperialism: Main Danger in Europe), published by Humanité Rouge in 1974, p. 19: "The Trotskyist leaders propagate dangerous pacifist ideas, particularly when they encourage conscientious objection and other antimilitarist positions, apparently justified by the struggle against the bourgeois army, in order to fool young intellectuals. " Let us add by way of comment that this delirious Stalino-Maoist grouplet enjoys the total political support of People's China, as is shown by the articles from Humanite Rouge that are regularly published in Pekin Information (the latest in the issue of January 13, 1975). What is the logic and meaning of the "great leap rightward"? At the beginning of the process, it could have been thought that it was essentially only a diplomatic turn aimed at gaining Chinese access to the United Nations. Nevertheless, events since then clearly show that the phenomenon had other deeper and more serious implications going well beyond the requirements of UN-oriented diplomacy. The official Chinese doctrine that serves as ideological justification for Peking's foreign policy is that of the "three worlds": the "superpowers" (the United States and the Soviet Union), the "socialist camp" (China and Albania), and the "intermediary zones" (Europe and the Third World), or, in its new version as explained by Teng Hsiao-ping, "hegemonism" (USA and USSR), the developed countries (Europe and Japan, and the developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. (For a Marxist critique of this theory, see Pierre Rousset, "The Three Worlds of Teng Hsiao-ping, " in INPRECOR, No. 2, June 20, 1974.) Nevertheless, this doctrine does not at all correspond to the real Chinese policy. Coherence can be given to the Chinese international orientafion, in our view, only with another conception, a bipolar one, in which there is "social imperialism" (that is, the USSR) on one side as the main enemy and the rest of the world (including the United States) on the other side. It is only from this dualist "vision of the world, " more and more openly expressed by Chinese leaders, that the unity of the Chinese policy in Africa, Europe, and Asia can be grasped. "The social-imperialist (or social-fascist) USSR is the main enemy. "This formula is not without unfortunate similarities to the formulas of the Stalinist Comintern during the "third period" (1929-33). The Social Democracy, defined as "social-fascist, " was the main enemy, while the pure and simple Nazis and fascists were considered negligible, less dangerous, or "secondary. " And with the remarkable results that are so well known: the triumph of Hitlerism in Germany and the Nazi aggression against the USSR after Hitler was able to monopolize the war industry of the whole European continent. The difFerence is that the Stalinist policy of the "third period" corresponded to a "bureaucratic left" turn, while the Chinese version of the 1970s fits into the framework of an accelerated "turn to the right. " For whom is the USSR the "main enemy"? For the Vietnamese people? For the Chilean masses? For the workers of Portugal? The history of the past thirty years has shown that American imperialism is the most powerful and most barbarous adversary that the international proletariat has had to confront since the fall of the fascist regimes, the force that is responsible for the immense "bloodbath archipelago" of which J.P. Faye speaks in his introduction to Noam Chomsky's book on the bloodbaths "made in the USA. " This evidence can be denied only from a standpoint other than that of the internafional proletariat. This other standpoint is that of Chinese "reasons of state" as they are conceived by the Peking bureaucracy. For them, the USSR is the main enemy of the Chinese state, for it is Moscow that threatens China with military intervention. It is on the basis of this narrow nationalist view that they determine a foreign policy that has very little to do with the problems of the world class struggle. Is the threat of the Soviet bureaucracy against People's China real or imaginary? There is no doubt that Soviet policy toward China during the 1970s (and before!) has been just as opportunist, rightwing, and counterrevolutionary as that of the Chinese leadership. The Soviet bureaucracy uncondifionally supported the Indian bourgeoisie against People's China. It also made overtures to Taiwan. An article distributed by the bulletin produced by the Novosti Press Agency (No. 44, October 1973) underlined with complacency "the stability of the economic and political situation of Taiwan" and *the considerable strengthening of the international positions of the island as an independent unit." (Le Monde, January 2-3, 1973) Finally, for a long time the USSR has refused to support the FUNK in Cambodia because of Sihanouk's pro-Chinese sympathies. Up to now, the Kremlin has maintained its ambassador to the rotten puppet regime of Lon Nol. Further, the Kremlin has massed troops near the Chinese border and has issued bellicose threats cbout the territorial differences between the two countries. There is therefore a "rational kernel" in the Chinese fears, but everything indicates that these fears are immeasurably inflated by the Maoist bureaucracy. It is improbable that the Soviet bureau-
NEW LEFT
Includes a major study by Norman Geras of Rosa Luxemburg and the debate with Lenin,
Trotsky, and others on the nature of the coming Russian revolution; two articles on domestic labor under capitalism and the relation between women's liberation and proletarian revolution; articles on the political and economic realities of People's China,
CHINA cracy would engage in the suicidal adventure that a war with China would constitute. Nevertheless, whether the "Soviet danger" is real or imaginary, it has been the basic postulate of Chinese foreign policy since 1971. This total subordination of the interests of the international proletariat to the "reasons of state" of a country that is supposed to be the "fatherland of socialism" is not a new phenomenon. It has always been the essence of the policy of the Stalinist USSR. The present orientations of the Chinese bureaucracy and the Soviet bureaucracy logically flow from the doctrine of "socialism in one country. " In both cases "national interest" - as understood by the bureaucracy - is the sole criterion for determining foreign policy. Sincere revolutionary militants of the colonial and semicolonial countries and of the imperialist metropolises who, while criticizing the present foreign orientation of China, continue to sympathize with the "Chinese road to socialism" or with the "thought of REVIEW Double issue 87/88 September-December 1974 90 pence (overseas £1.00, $2.90) Robin Blackburn Jon Halliday Ernest Mandel/ Bill Warren Goran Therborn Roy Medvedev Theodor Adorno John Berger No. 89 January-February 1975 75 pence (overseas £1.00, $2.90) including a revealing agricultural case study. NEW LEFT REVIEW 7 Carlisle Street London WIV 6NL 20
Mao Tse-tung must draw all the conclusions. The revolution is an indivisible whole. You cannot be a Marxist-Leninist before the Chinese masses and an opportunist or counterrevolutionary before the Bengali, Ceylonese, and Sudanese proletariats, that is, before the international proletariat. It is obvious that Peking's present foreign policy has been decided behind the backs of the Chinese masses. It coincides with the return to power of the "rightist" elements that had been eliminated during the Cultural Revolution under the pressure of the Red Guards: Teng Hsiao-ping and company. It is the expression of the interests and conceptions of a bureaucratic layer, still less crystallized as a parasitic caste than that of the USSR, but whose orientation is outside any real democratic control by the Chinese workers. The Cultural Revolution demonstrated the difference of the Chinese leadership from the degenerated Soviet bureaucracy. Peking's foreign policy of the 1970s is now in process of demonstrating the limitations of this difference.
The Test in Portugal
Hong Kong: Britain's Chinese Colony
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Theorists of Ascendant Capital
What Lies Ahead for Us?
Commitment: Sartre and Brecht
Migrations Into Hell
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