| Username |
Post |
| Trailokya Aryal |
Posted
on 13-Mar-02 10:29 PM
Dear all,
I'd like to thank you all for your feedbacks,c omments and to san dai for letting us start this club.
Now, let me answer Siwalikjyu:
Siwalik-jyu, I don't know the names of those handful of nepali students concentrating in IR. However, I personally know some of the students who are concentrating in it right now or are recent IR grads. I know that there is a srtudent in Japan concentrating in this field, and also a student in Georgetown is working towards his Master's on International Security. There used to be a student at Johns Hopkins (School of Advanced International Studies, Washington DC) who got his Master's in International Economics. I know two of these people personally, so I can request them to come and share their views.
To Biswoji:
Yes, I agree. We need to have some sort of executive MASTER'S PROGRAM in IR so that our diplomats know how to talk, how to get things done and also learn etiquettes.
Biswoji, your wide-ranging experience/knowledge will definately help us all learn about the changing world. So, please keep on posting anything that you think is interesting and is relevant to this thread.
Plus, to everyone, who sent me personal emails, I appreciate you guys' enthusiasm and I request you all to post messages, comment on each other's postings (without getting personal). It will be a good learning experience.
Thank you very much.
Trailokya
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| Trailokya Aryal |
Posted
on 13-Mar-02 10:43 PM
Here's my first posting on the subject. Please feel free to comment:
A Key Strategic Move in the Cold War: The U.S.-China Rapprochement
Trailokya Aryal
The Sino-US rapprochement of the early 1970's was a major diplomatic breakthrough for the US. Even though appearing inconsistent with the long established anti-communist rhetoric of American foreign policy, it proved a keystroke in achieving U.S. Cold War aims directed against the Soviet Union. Though U.S. foreign policy had long been able to ignore its anti-communist rhetoric when convenient in practice, at least since Yugoslavia’s break with the Soviet Union in 1948, demonization of “Red China” had been at the heart of official “Americanism” for a generation. Nonetheless, thanks to the then National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger's commitment to realpolitik [flexibility in foreign policy based on national security interests] and to the immunity of then President Nixon to charges of being ‘soft on communism’ earned by having lead the domestic anti-communist hysteria of the McCarthy period, the U.S. was able to reverse its fierce opposition to Communist China overnight. By this move, the U.S. was finally able to take advantage of the deteriorated Sino-Soviet relationship.
China and the USSR- From friends to foes
After it's establishment in 1949, the People's Republic of China (zhon hua ren min gong he guo) sided with the Soviet Union in the global Cold War in which it found itself. This was the only option history presented to it. The two Communist parties had been allies, despite many bitter if covered-over differences, through the entire Chinese civil war. What’s more, the primary opponent of the Soviet Union - the United States – had been the main support of the Nationalist regime of Chiang Kai-Shek (Jiang Jieshi) in the 1940's, and continued to protect and arm its remnant in its base on Taiwan. And barely had the revolution been accomplished before China found itself in a bloody war with the United States (formally with the “United Nations” but in practice with the United States) in Korea. There was even an open threat of the use of nuclear weapons against China by the U.S., and it is likely that Chinese leaders reasonably believed that the only reason such weapons were not used (as they had been used against the Japanese) was that the Soviet Union was both their ally and a nuclear power. And of course both states shared the Marxist Leninist ideology and traditions of the Communist parties that had made their revolutions. But in the sweep of history, the alliance based on these factors was short-lived.
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| Trailokya Aryal |
Posted
on 13-Mar-02 10:48 PM
Part II
From as early as the 1920s the Chinese leaders had reason to be wary of growing Soviet influence in their movement and in their country. Yet the help the Soviet Union had provided to the CCP was the deciding factor in the relationship until well after the triumph of 1949. The Soviet Union’s insistence on its global leadership of the Communist movement and its playing the "big Brother" role in China, was a continuous source of tension with the Chinese leadership. Real military, economic and technical help from the Soviet Union was appreciated, but also the resulting influence in Chinese politics was feared as leading to Soviet hegemonic domination. Yet as long as fierce U.S. enmity to both China and the Soviet Union was the main tendency in world politics the relationship between the two countries remained firm. It only started to deteriorate when, after Khrushchev consolidated his power, the Soviet Union sought to reduce Cold War tensions with the doctrine of “peaceful co-existence.” The decisive turning point in the relationship between Moscow and Beijing came in 1959, when the Soviets backed down from what they had promised earlier in 1957--helping China develop nuclear weaponry.
Beijing viewed this as the Soviets siding with the United States on a matter that had been, only a few years earlier during the Korean War, a life and death issue.
During the 1960's the split between the two Communist parties grew and with great speed resulted in open enmity. The Chinese argued that the Soviet Union was drifting away from Communism, and denounced the Soviet leadership as revisionist and counter-revolutionary. The Soviet Union denounced the Chinese for risking the future of humanity in nuclear war, spreading nonsensical economic doctrines, and adventurism. The Soviet Union even went so far as to, more or less, side with India in the Sino-Indian war of 1962. When, in 1968, the Soviet Union intervened militarily in Czechoslovakia to restore a more reliably pro-Soviet government, the Chinese government immediately denounced the move as Soviet imperialism. By 1969, with China internally engaged in the Cultural Revolution, border clashes made even an outbreak of full fledged war between the two countries appear, for the moment, conceivable.
In this situation, despite long years of intense hostility, the Chinese leaders had to begin to consider aligning with the United States. Even after the possibility of actual warfare receded, internal Chinese instability created a threat of Soviet interference in China’s politics and the possibility of a pro-Soviet faction ousting the leaders and coming to power. At this time the Nixon administration was looking for a way to maintain its client regime of “South Vietnam” following the imminent withdrawal of its armed forces, and the prospect of Chinese pressure on the Vietnamese seemed promising. But more than that, the Americans feared the end of the Sino-Soviet split and the possibility of a pro-Soviet regime in China. Henry Kissinger--the key figure involved in ameliorating the Sino-US ties-- in his best-selling book Diplomacy writes that if China had again fallen to the Soviet Union, it would have drastically altered the global balance of power. “A highly populous country being subordinate to an aggressive nuclear power”, he writes, would have put American national interests at stake. With this announced rationale, the U.S. undertook a proactive strategy and decided to get diplomatically involved in China at a time when the Chinese leaders could be expected to be more receptive to international co-operation with the US than they had been at any earlier time.
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| Trailokya Aryal |
Posted
on 13-Mar-02 10:52 PM
Part III
The U.S. Diplomatic Involvement in China
The U.S. diplomatic involvement in China arose out of a difficult historical context. Both countries shared a rhetoric that pictured the Soviet Union as a global aggressive power. And both countries shared an interest in putting pressure on the government of Vietnam, a Soviet ally, at the moment of U.S. military defeat and withdrawal. However, the Sino-US relations at that time were full of complexities, contradictions and mistrust towards one another. The PRC could not accept the U.S. supporting the Nationalist government of Taiwan as the sole legitimate ruler of China (which barred the PRC's entry into the United Nations) and the ideological differences between the U.S. and China and long years of inflamed propaganda were significant enough to restrict any formal dialogues/meetings between the leaders of the two countries.
The US made the first move necessary to ameliorate the hostile relationship by sending its National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger on a secret trip to Beijing in 1971. While on his secret visit, Kissinger held talks with the Chinese Premier, Chou Enlai (Zhou Enlai) and conveyed to him the U.S. President's desire to have, what Andrew Nathan, a Political Science Professor at Columbia University refers to as a "strategic partnership" with the People's Republic directed against the common enemy, described as the threat of Soviet expansion in East Asia.
Kissinger also assured the Chinese Premier that agreements could be reached through negotiations on issues surrounding Taiwan and the PRC's representation in the United Nations. The Chinese side had been waiting for this. They not only agreed to enter into a strategic partnership with the U.S. directed against the Soviet Union but also agreed to
welcome the U.S. president Richard Nixon in Beijing.
President Nixon's visit and it's accomplishments
"This was the week that changed the world" the U.S. President Richard Nixon remarked at the end of his week-long tour of the People's Republic of China in 1972. The U.S. Presidential visit to China marked the beginning of a new era of friendship and cooperation between the two countries. This was a win-win situation for the both parties as they both got what they had wanted from one another. Americans assured the Chinese that they would soon establish a formal, diplomatic relationship with the PRC (however, this happened only in 1978). The U.S. even offered to help the Chinese modernize the People's Liberation Army
(PLA). But most important from the perspective of the Chinese leadership, the U.S. acknowledged, in the diplomatically vague language of the Shanghai Communiqué jointly issued at the end of the U.S. Presidential visit, that Taiwan was a part of China. Moreover, the U.S. assured the Chinese leadership that it will not support any military action against the PRC by Taiwan. The Chinese leadership in return, agreed to co-operate with the U.S. against the Soviet Union.
Conclusion
The inclusion of China in the American circle of friends was, in retrospect, a major diplomatic victory for the U.S. It was a major factor in increasing the Soviet concern for their own security; a
concern that contributed to the ever increasing military pressure on limited resources that many observers believe was a key factor in the ultimate demolition of the USSR. And without doubt the “opening” to China was a key preliminary step in setting the Chinese off on the road toward internal “reforms” and eventual integration into a world market dominated by the United States. By joining hands with the Chinese, the Nixon-Kissinger team had indeed changed the world.
[ Coomnts/feebacks will be highly appereciated. I would like to thank my Prof. Nigel Boyle, and someone in NYC who helped me edit this paper.]
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| naresh_karki |
Posted
on 13-Mar-02 10:56 PM
Make a sperate user group INTERNATIONAL POTITICS and post this all things there.
I am sure less tha 10% of visitors of this site read your boring posting.
Naresh Karki
Baltimore
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| hmmm.... |
Posted
on 14-Mar-02 01:05 AM
TAji:
Although you don't see any comments (because we don't know much), we do read your postings. Please don't be discouraged by dim-wit morons.
Things that make you go hmmm....
Hoohi
hmmm....
Hamrika
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| Da Ge |
Posted
on 14-Mar-02 02:40 PM
Here goes my comments.
1. China and Soviet relation was not as cosy as everybody thinks even during Stalin and Mao regime. Mao and Stalin never trusted each other. Their difference goes back to the time of chinese revolution. Mao used the force of Peasant uprising as the cornerstone of his fight whereas, in Stalin's view, Farmers were more oppertunistic and unreliable in bolshevik revolution.
2. Communist leaders were worrying if they will get Russian support and recognition when Mao was anouncing the bith of PRC in Tiananmen. Chiang Kai Shek was favoured by Stalin. His biggest regiments was not built by Americans but by Russians. The support Soviets started to provide during the brief coalition between Communists and Nationalists during Sun Yat Sen's era never stopped even after his death. Irony is, as claimed by Mdm. Ching Ling (spell ?), had Sun been alive during Chiang, he could have abandoned Chiang. But Soviets kept on supporting.
3. Early into Chinese Communist Revolution, The leaders of the party were mainly Soviet Unioun Educated People. Most of these people were influenced by Trotsky. when Trotsky lost his power war against Stalin, CCP (Chinese Communist Party) lost its major connection to Russian Communist Party and its favour too.
4. According to Mao's doctor, Mao, even during the early years of communist china when Chinese people were forced to learn Russian and Learning english was a taboo, fantasized himself learning English and never bothered to learn russian. His special fastination towards America was more than just a result of his hatred for USSR.
The main point here is Russians and Chinese never have had a smooth relations. Powerful china was not something Stalin wanted. Russian Domination was not something Mao enjoyed. They were alligned together by outside world, labelling both of them as communist and forcing them to be together. Had America been more knowledgeable of Mao and chinese communist party and reached out to him, stronger sino-american relation was possible 1949. But this is my opinion.
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| Gandhi |
Posted
on 14-Mar-02 05:02 PM
Trailokyaji,
Though Karkiji's tone is not friendly to the posting, I strongly suggest to start this discussion in a seperate user group as soon as possible. Haven't you talked to San yet about this? Since the topic is still new to many Nepali students/professionals, fewer people will participate in the discussion. Flooding of insane postings in the recent days shows that a very interesting and useful topics, which fewer people visit and ever fewer people reply, could be burried under the mud. Under the usergroup interested people can visit the site at their convenience and read peacefully to learn from each other.
Gandhi
Auburn, Alabama
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| verite |
Posted
on 14-Mar-02 08:36 PM
That was quite summed up and interesting Trailokyaji! I really think that we should have a separate section for IR though. Then kurakani wouldnt get so clustered with such specific topics and we could discuss issues and help each other out.
Just a small comment though - you didnt mention anything about the Panda diplomacy or the Ping pong diplomacy in your article? You dont think that was noteworthy?
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| hmmm.... |
Posted
on 14-Mar-02 08:46 PM
This is a under the IR usergroup. It gets posted on the main kurakani as well.
You guys still haven't figured that out. hmmm.... makes me wonder how smart you guys are.
Hoohi
hmmm....
Hamrika
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| Trailokya Aryal |
Posted
on 14-Mar-02 09:19 PM
Dear all,
Let me answer you all in the same message, beccause internet access in nepal is slow and very expensive.
To Da Ge jyu,
Yes, I agree with you. Stalin favored Chiang-Kai Shek (jiang jie shi) over Mao. That's why, he didn't wnat the CCP to emerge as a seperate party and because of this, for a few years, the CCP remained within the Nationalist party. But after the northern march was over (and when Chian started to kill the communists), only then the CCP emerged as a strong party. Correct me, if I am wrong. But, one interesting thing is, even though the CCP was an organ of Guomindang, it started its land reform operations immediately afetr its formation in 1920/21. They 20 members (including) Mao belived in land to the tillers policy of Sun-Yat Sen, and they were fueling peasant revolutions in rural areas.
I don't know much about the Trotsky affiliation. But, one thing for sure is, Mao and Stalin never get along too well. There was always this status quo between these two leaders, and the situation worsened when Mao came back from Moscow, where he thought he was mistreated by Stalin.
Are you talking about Song Ching Ling or Jiang Ching (mao's wife?)
Mao always wanted to be in good terms with the US. This was made clear to the interview he gave to Edgar Snow when the PRC wasn't even established and Mao was somewhere in the cave of Jiangshu. Zhou Enlai too was very keen on having good trems with the US, but the US which had just emnerged as anuclear power, didn't want to commit itself to a communist nation as it would have been going totally against their philosophy. This, according to Fairbank, wa sthe biggest mistake America committed after the second world war. The Americans should have sideed with China (mainland) than Taiwan and respected the sentiments of the Chinese people [The US and China, Fairbank]
Now, coming to Panda diplomacy and PingPong diplomacy:
Yes, these two things do matter. PingPong diplomacy gave way to Kissinger's secret visit, and Nixon's historic visit. Pingpong diplomacy was a briiliant move on Zhou's part because it showed the American people that China wasn't a bash-america nation. Ditto can be said about XingXing (the panda who died at the smithsomian zoo 3 yars ago), it showed that the Americans and Chinese were open for negotiations, cultural exchanges and trade.
Thanks for pointhis this out verite jyu. I was thinking of mentioning it but the message was laready too long, so I had to skip many things. If i ever rewrite this, then I'll defuinately point these two interesting and important diplomatic moves.
Gandhiji: We already have a seperate usergroup, but the thing is, even when I post messsage on the usergroup, it gets posted on the main Kurakani page. And Karkiji is also write, why spend time reading something so dry and boring when you can watch beautiful nepali girls on the web/read deragotary remarks towards fellow posters (which are spicy..)
hmmm ji, hamrika ma basera hmm matra garne ki, comment pani garne..
thank you all.
Trailokya
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