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Mike's Essay Template PEKING UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY IN QUEST OF MUSHROOM CLOUDS: PERSPECTIVES OF NUCLEAR-WEAPON STRATEGY FROM THE CHINESE SIDE BY JING ZHANG GRADUATE HISTORY WORKSHOP 27 NOVEMBER 2009 1 The declassification of Chinese foreign relations archives by the People‘s Republic of China‘s (PRC) Ministry of Foreign Affairs during 2004–8, which number more than 80,000 volumes from 1949 to 1965, sheds light on many hitherto unclear problems, the most interesting one to me being Chinese foreign policy before and after the Chinese detonation of a nuclear device on 16 October 1964.1 Since my dissertation is about U.S.–China rapprochement during Nixon presidency, 1969–72, this workshop paper is a stepping-stone in the process of designing my dissertation. Yet, it is closely tied to a general—and important— problem I want to explore and I hope resolve, and which I will talk about first. In the light of these newly available Chinese materials, my research interest or curiosity is enlightened by outstanding works by scholars like Evelyn Goh, Jeremi Suri, John Lewis Gaddis, Akira Iriye, Chen Jian, as well as Chinese scholars like Zhihua Shen, Dayong Niu, and Jun Niu. The different approaches used by these scholars, from orthodox realpolitik, to constructivism, to the new international history, coached me to be alert of some pitfalls in studying Cold War history and meanwhile to dig some holes. One possible pitfall concerns ideology itself. Compared to the traditional, revisionist and post-revisionist scholars, it is evident that the new Cold War historians emphasize the role of ideology in policymaking during the Cold War era. Yet sometimes their overemphasizing of ideology makes for a misreading of historical materials. In addition, especially when explaining Chinese foreign policy after 1949, I feel that clearly distinguishing and defining ideology, and the basic needs or goals of the nation-state according to its stage of development are important. 1. All the Chinese materials for this paper were collected from the declassified archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the published writings and Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, the governmental biographies of Mao and Zhou that used documents still classified to the public, the memoirs of Chinese officials, and official newspapers like Ren Min Ri Bao. 2 The holes that I want to dig will reveal that Beijing‘s rapprochement with Washington since the late 1960s was well suited to the Chinese leadership‘s long pursuit of basic nation- state goals, which they had failed to realize in the unequal relationship between the PRC and the USSR. The Chinese goals were: security, including both economic and military aspects; the acknowledgement of Chinese ideology, institution, and government by the international society; and the PRC‘s equality, dignity, and status in the world order. U.S.–China rapprochement was not a cause and effect process, but rather a historical process in which personal, national, material, and psychological factors applied, and forces such as domestic politics, struggles within the Communist bloc, and strength in the international world interacted during the two decades before 1969. How, for example, did China‘s physical development affect its leaders‘ psychological condition, and thus their policy towards the U.S., to be specific, U.S.–China rapprochement? So, this is my general thinking, in light of which, with the rich and newly declassified materials from the Chinese side, I intend to focus only on the military security aspect, specifically, the nuclear detonation in 1964. In the thirty odd years since China exploded its first atomic bomb, on 16 October 1964, some of the mysteries shrouding the history of the Chinese nuclear weapons program have been cleared away. Scholarly research has shed light on the Soviet Union‘s nuclear policy,2 Soviet aid to the Chinese nuclear industry,3 the development of Chinese nuclear weapons, and 2. Yuri Sminov and Vladislav Zubok, ―Nuclear Weapon after Stalin‘s Death: Moscow Enters the H-Bomb Age,‖ Cold War International History Project Bulletin, Issue 4, Fall 1994, pp. 14–18; David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1994); Mark Kramer, ―Documenting the Early Soviet Nuclear Program,‖ Cold War International History Project Bulletin, 6-7 (Winter 1995/1996), pp. 266–71; John Lewis Gaddi, ed., Cold War Statesmen Confront the Bomb: Nuclear Diplomacy since 1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). 3. Viktor M. Gobarev, ―Soviet Policy Toward China: Developing Nuclear Weapons 1949–1969,‖ in The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 12:4 (December 1999), pp. 1–53. Dai Chao-Wu, ―Zhongguo Hewuqi de Fazhan Yu Zhong Su guanxi de Polie (1954-1962)‖ (The Development of China‘s Nuclear Weapons and the Rupture of Sino-Soviet Relations (1954—1962)), in Contemporary China History Studies, 3 (2001), pp. 76–85; Vol.5, 2001, pp. 62–72. Shen Zhihua, ―Sulian dui Zhongguo de Hewuqi Yanzhi de Yuanzhu yu Xianzhi‖ (Soviet 3 Chinese nuclear strategy.4 In addition to this body of excellent scholarship, a number of interesting memoirs relating to the Chinese nuclear project have been published in the last few years, adding to our knowledge of this dimension of the PRC‘s military and technological history.5 The same degree of attention, however, has eluded questions regarding the connection between the making of the bomb and developments in Chinese foreign policy. The issues of the Chinese leadership‘s perception of the strategic role of nuclear weapons,6 and the interaction between Chinese nuclear strategy and foreign policymaking after China‘s first nuclear detonation have yet to be investigated in depth.7 Aid to and Constraining of Chinese Nuclear Weapons Research and Production), in Zhong Su Guanxi Shigang, 1917-1991 (The History of Sino-Soviet Relations, 1917-1991), ed. Shen Zhihua (Beijing: XinHua Press, 2007), pp. 177-206. 4. John Wilson Lewis and Xue Litai, China Builds the Bomb (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988). 5. Li Jue, Lei Rongtian, Li Yi, and Li Yingxiang, chief eds., Dangdai Zhongguo de Hegongye (The Nuclear Industry of Contemporary China) (Beijing: China Social Sciences Press, 1987). Nie Rongzhen, Nie Rongzhen Huiyilu (Memoirs of Nie Rongzhen, 3 Volumes) (Beijing: The PLA Press, 1982). Nie Rongzhen Zhuanji (Biography of Nie Rongzhen) (Beijing: Contemporary China Press, 1994). Zhou Junlun ed., Nie Rongzhen Nianpu (The Chronicle of Nie Rongzhen) (Beijing: People Press, 1990). 6. Strictly speaking, the nuclear weapon concludes three parts that are atomic warhead, delivery means, and commanding system. Commonly, atomic warhead can be substituted with nuclear setting and nuclear weapon. In 1950s and 1960s, the nuclear weapon can also be called as the top weapon or nuclear technology of national defense. 7. The materials that John Wilson Lewis and Xue Litai draw heavily upon include Memoirs of Nie Rongzhen and open sources like Renmin Ribao (People‘s Daily), Xinhua Yuekan (New China Monthly), and Hong Qi (Red Flag), all of which were all published before 1988. In terms of the China decision to build the atomic bomb, the authors point out that the events in Korea, Indochina, and the Taiwan Strait, constituted the proximate cause of the Chinese decision to build a national strategic force. These events galvanized the leadership to act in the winter of 1954-1955 and lent special urgency to strategic weapons development in the decade thereafter. They also think that during 1963 and 1964, Chinese nuclear strategy was intended to complement China‘s international struggle, that is, they think that the atomic test was a manifestation of China‘s prevailing international line. See China Builds the Bomb, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988, p.35, pp.195-196. With regard to Mao Zedong‘s strategic thinking and his perception of nuclear weapons, see Shu Guang Zhang, ―China‘s Strategic Culture and the Cold War Confrontations‖, in Reviewing The Cold War: Approaches, Interpretations, Theory, ed. Odd Arne Westad, London, Portland: Frank Cass Publishers, 2000, pp.258-277; Shu Guang Zhang, ―Between ‗Paper‘ and ‗Real Tigers‘: Mao‘s View of Nuclear Weapons‖, in Cold War Statesman Confront the Bomb: Nuclear Diplomac since 1945, ed. John Lewis Gaddis, Philip H. Gordon, Ernest R. May, and Jonathan Rosenberg (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 194–215. 4 On 16 October 1964, China successfully exploded its first atomic bomb. Scholars have done extensive researches on Soviet Union‘s assistance to the Chinese nuclear industry and the process of China developing its nuclear weapons. In analyzing Chinese nuclear strategy, they emphasize the security aspect, especially the influence of the Korean War, Taiwan Strait Crisis, and the Vietnam War. Through examining the published collections of more than one decade, and the newly declassified documents from the Archives of Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this paper argues first, that there were altered as well as unchanged aspects of the Chinese leadership‘s perceptions toward nuclear weapons; second, Chinese nuclear strategy was an ―active defense,‖ which is not difficult to understand, although the reasons, in addition to the security concerns, were more complicated; third, from the comparison between foreign policy after the nuclear detonation and foreign and domestic policy in the past thirty years, I will make some important reflections on the meaning of nuclear weapons to the PRC‘s sixty years of development. “From Mockeries of the Paper Tiger to the Quest for Nuclear Clouds” By analyzing Mao‘s sentence, ―The atomic bomb is nothing without the struggle of the people,‖ and his critiques on conferring primacy to the role of arms in settling conflicts, which he dubbed ―Weapon-ism‖ in 1945 after the two U.S. atomic bombs fell on Japan, I explain that Mao‘s contempt towards the atomic bomb and emphasis on his People‘s War arose from his voluntaristic philosophy that human individuals could play what he called ―a conscious dynamic role‖ in shaping the course of history, and hence should not be dismissed as mere posturing.
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