Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XXX, China

303. Paper Prepared by Alfred Jenkins of the National Security Council Staff¹

Washington, February 22, 1968.

THOUGHTS ON CHINA

Prologue to the Present

The Present Predicament

The Most Probable Future

Relations with Others

The term “madness” has been applied to the present climate in Peking. In some ways it is not inappropriate. But to a Chinese, because of the historical prologue to the present and because of the Chinese way of viewing China and the world, much of the “madness” is explained as inescapable logic and reason.

A Burning in the Belly: The “Hundred Years of Ignominy”

There is something awesome about the world’s oldest continuous civilization relentlessly rending itself. Since a quarter of humanity is directly involved, and the rest indirectly, China’s current writhings are as important as they are spectacular. The ancient Confucian way of life—for so long the very cement of the Chinese race—has cracked and crumbled, and it is not yet clear what will lastingly take its place.The nature of the transformation could fundamentally affect not only the shape of Asia, but in no small measure the character of world civilization itself.

China’s self-conscious, embarrassed, but inevitable attack on its own past actually has been going on for a century and a quarter—ever since the Opium War of 1842 proved that an outrage, and then a long stream of outrages, could be forced upon a great civilization which had neglected to develop the gunboat prerequisite to self-determination.

China’s struggle to destroy its persistent Confucian past and to come into the modern world has been waged in varying manner and degree, but—at least for the first hundred years—always against humiliating odds imposed by the foreigners. “The imperialists” enjoyed extra-territorial rights, owned most of China’s large-scale production, regulated much of its trade, and even managed its customs receipts! Through this bitter “hundred years of ignominy” the Chinese developed a veritable burning in the belly for renewed national dignity. And fantasies of sheer revenge—sweet revenge against the white man’s exploitation and presumption—often crowded out even those fantasies of regained grandeur. The wounds of humiliation were all the deeper because for over 3,000 years the Han people had considered that they were only truly civilized people. Their “Middle Kingdom” was in their eyes the center of the universe—in all literalness—and even by religious sanction.

Especially since the turn of the century, China has made increasingly urgent—almost frenzied—efforts to modernize into viability as a great power. The republicanism of Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek made some progress, and gave promise of more until the Japanese war. The tragedy depleted the nation’s energies, furthered the disintegration of traditional ethics and mores, encouraged corruption in officialdom, and led the Kuomintang’s ruling circles to commit political suicide by leaning ruinously on the hated foreigner.

During the war, the Chinese Communists won the peasants’ loyalty in the large agrarian pockets between the Japanese-held cities and lines of communication. And at Mao’s cave headquarters in Yenan, the degree of self-sacrifice, patriotism, honesty and fraternity evident in that temporary and unreal community won the praises of unbiased observers and the allegiance of increasing numbers of Chinese of a whole spectrum of political and economic persuasions.

The result was that in the Civil War the all-vital intelligence on troop movements in the countryside was given to the Communists and not to the Nationalists. In the cities not only many workers, but many students, professional people and even some government officials worked clandestinely for the Communists in the interest of China’s new day.

And so China was “lost.” The enormity of that event was apparent, and the United States entered on an orgy of self-flagellation.

For some seven years the Chinese Communists in many ways performed impressively in bringing about a new China. The costs were high (e.g., up to twenty million persons liquidated in the land reform period) but the nation was united, at peace, and expectant. It forged ahead economically so that it was widely spoken of as a model for other developing nations. It had purposeful, cohered leadership which made a fetish of taking no guff from foreigners. And soon, it must be admitted, the masses of Chinese were a little better off—at least materially—than they had ever been. Mao, success-crowned, began to be deified, and his works canonized.

(If more people, Chinese and others, had read his works earlier, the story might have been different. The Mein Kampf-like candor of his writings would have shown up the war-time “democratic, peace-loving, agrarian reformer” era for what Mao intended it to be: a temporary show-case period to gain support—a tactical way-station on the road to communism. But not many of his writings at that time were in English. I remember my feeble, worried efforts to spread what I had read in Chinese and heard, but then I was just a Vice Consul from Georgia—and South Georgia at that. The “agrarian reformer” thesis was widely believed for a long time.)

The regime became overconfident, and Mao (against significant opposition, it now appears) in 1957 launched the so-called Great Leap Forward. This attempt to force production by rapid transition to extreme forms of social and economic organization was a colossal failure. The Russians had strongly advised against the Great Leap. Its economic dislocations disgusted them, its go-it-alone atmosphere affronted them, and its ideological implications alarmed them. Relations festered until in 1960 Russian aid and aiders were withdrawn, and the communist giants split.

The God Who Failed: The Cultural Revolution

The failure of the Great Leap Forward was not only of domestic import; the failure was on the international front, too, and that front was desperately important to the Chinese view of China’s place in the sun—and to Mao’s in history. China was no longer the economic model for the Afro-Asian-Latin American world, and this fact began to register itself.

That double failure, domestic and foreign, ironically made inevitable Mao’s second supreme effort to enforce his “truth” on China—a truth which, being demonstrated in practice, was eventually expected to be embraced by the world—with an assist, of course, from “peoples’ wars of liberation.”

In order to get back on its feet after the Great Leap, China had to shelve Mao’s extreme policies and adopt the road of “revisionism,” skirting close to the heresy of private incentive and reward. Not only was Maoism for a time quietly shelved, so was Mao—at least as much as his associates dared and desired. Mao later complained of being treated like a deceased parent. He was trotted out at times, for he had become the symbol of the new China’s ancient uniqueness and centrality—a concept of womb-like balm to the Chinese psyche. After all, he was billed as the greatest living communist theoretician, in the direct Marx-Lenin-Stalin-Mao lineage and the perfecter of “peoples’ wars”—and this, with luck, meant that the Chinese, appropriately, would in time inherit the earth by proxy.

But Mao is not practiced in the art of hiding his light under a bushel. He did not like being semi-shelved, nor did he like what he saw of the bureaucratization of his revolution, the growing apathy of the fattening cadres, and what he considered the recent compromises throughout the nation with “spontaneous capitalistic tendencies.” Accordingly he launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, in the attempt to re-solidify his own power, and revive and purify the revolution into something of its pristine vigor, to restore the visionary romance of the Yenan cave days as a needed propellant to the lagging revolution, and to temper the younger generation (who for the most part had not experienced battle, Yenan austerity, or even, adequately, class hatred) for its post-Mao revolutionary responsibilities.

Mao had become disillusioned with the Party apparatus. Being charged with implementing policy at the local level, the Party bureaucracy had learned to temper doctrinal purity with practical realities, but to report the results, falsely, as constant with the expectations of doctrinal purity. It was professionally healthier to do so. This ruse was cumulative in its errors, and the day of reckoning had to come. Mao proceeded to wreck the wayward Party with the Great Cultural Revolution.

Mao’s greatest opposition is human nature itself, which he is trying to remake. This is one reason why he has met instinctive opposition as he has successfully turned to each major segment of Chinese society for support during the tortuous two years of his Cultural Revolution. (His belief in the right thinking of the masses has been naively total.) Yet his utility as the national father image makes him almost indispensable at this time in Chinese history—which partly explains why the opposition, so far, has not solidified. The extremes of Maoism are instinctively opposed, while Mao is instinctively clung to.

This genuine and terribly serious dilemma exacerbates already weighty, political, economic and military policy differences in Peking. And a suspicious, perhaps somewhat senile Mao has so reduced his trusted circle of cronies during the testiness of the Cultural Revolution that his prestigious minority has barely been able to balance the fighting-for-their-lives bureaucratic majority. This tug-of-war has insured that Peking speaks to the provinces with vacillation, indecision and even contradiction. Such confusion has generally resulted in inaction by the local agents of the central government and has given opportunistic groups, from policy opponents to plain hooligans, a breezy field day.

Forces long denied expression by Central Government unanimity and confidence have now been unleashed by Peking’s division and indecision, and all sorts of repressed “bourgeois tendencies” are bursting out. These are furthered by the bureaucratic opposition, by patriotic elements which feel they were early deluded into support of a regime, the nature of which was misrepresented, by disgruntled youth, by opportunistic workers and peasantry, and by underprivileged elements of society who see advancement only through lawless acts in a time of increasing disrespect for authority.

The Party organization is discredited and its recently respected leadership largely unseated—throughout the countryside, save for the one important region of Sinkiang (nuclear installations and oil). Lower echelons are uncertain of their mandate, confused by contradictory exhortations from Peking, and affronted (earlier) by the license of the Red Guards and (more lately) by encroachments of the military. Factional fighting (for both ideological and pure power-grab reasons) and lawlessness are rampant. Industrial productivity has been curtailed, agricultural productivity will be seriously hampered for the coming year, and foreign trade jeopardized through economic dislocations and political pig-headedness. The military establishment is assigned jobs for which it is ill fitted: overseeing factories, farms and railroads. But Mao apparently is reluctant to have the military intervene to stop the factional fighting because it is one of his axioms that the people and the army love and support each other, and always act in unison. To admit that the country can only be ruled by the use of military force would be to admit what increasingly seems to be the fact: things have gone too far for Mao to reconsolidate his power. Mao The Symbol may be kept at least as long as he lives, but Maoism, as he conceives it in his domestic policies, is not likely to prevail.

The Watershed’s Nether Slope: Something of a New Dynasty

While Mao’s “mandate of heaven” is clearly slipping, it is too early to tell what will take its place. It may take some time yet in coming, or the military may decide almost any time that they have had enough of their country’s coming apart, and impose a crisper solution. Regional break-downs could prevail for a time, but are not likely to be the pattern for long, because of the universal Chinese thirst for reconstituted nationhood, and because China’s economy is now sufficiently sophisticated so that it depends upon a network of specialized contributions from all parts of the country.

It is impossible to know the true thinking of the Chinese people, because for 18 years there has not only been lack of freedom of speech, there has not even been freedom to remain silent. All have had to be vocal in support of the regime. It is just possible that the confusion and contradiction in Peking is viewed by a great many Chinese as a welcome sign of collapse, and that they want something quite different to follow. Surely many must be disillusioned with unfulfilled promises of a decade ago; must be bone tired of 18 years of overlapping mass campaigns—ideological flogging to increase production at little or no personal gain; and must be wearied by receding promises of restored Chinese primacy in the world. Too, the ridiculous lengths to which Mao has been made an infallible god could at some point trigger the most destructive of weapons: ridicule. A non-communist successor regime could thus become conceivable, but it is unlikely. Most Chinese consider capitalism as the only real alternative to communism, and the “capitalism” they knew in China was most unattractive except for the few; it was highly exploitive, with semi-colonial associations. The pragmatic communism of less Maoist periods is probably viewed as not too bad in contrast.

Much more likely, therefore, is a military-bureaucratic collegium of “communist” continuity, but less doctrinaire, increasingly adopting private incentive methods, along with the trend in several other communist countries. Domestically, the likely new management would be termed relatively moderate. In time this may also apply to foreign relations, but at first I should expect disappointingly little change there. Much will depend upon the Chinese assessment of the future utility and promise of the “peoples’ war” concept. Much, that is, depends upon the outcome in Vietnam. If later it should appear that the “imperialists” may be on the run through even partial successes of several simultaneous peoples’ wars (if they can be ginned up) there may well be a temptation for China in a post-Mao situation to paper over its differences with the Soviet Union and cooperate somewhat more fully against common enemies.

It is inconceivable, however, that the Sino-Soviet relationship will again be anything like as close as in the early 50’s. Several of the people purged in the Cultural Revolution are believed to have been ousted because they favored rapprochement with the Soviet Union. If Mao loses out, these may return to favor. I am not sure that a China in league with the Soviet Union would necessarily be mellowed thereby. I think it might be that the Soviet Union instead would be hardened. The Soviet Union seems to harden when it feels strong, and to mellow only as a tactic of prudence when necessary. Formerly, with a fast strengthening China on the loose, the Soviets even came a bit closer to us. It may not be accidental that they have hardened somewhat toward us, now that an estranged China has been weakened by the Cultural Revolution. They might harden the more if China should become again an ally, even a tenuous and uncomfortable one.

China under almost any auspices, if it is united and growing in strength, will continue to present us, and its neighbors, with problems. It will probably not rest until it has carved out in some fashion what it considers to be its legitimate sphere of influence in Asia. Under a successor regime to Mao, and in a situation of something like power balance in Asia, that sphere might well be defined within limits tolerable to us, depending upon how the “influence” were exercised. But not as long as Mao has his way. He is too committed to world revolution as a fundamental article of faith, and too convinced that peoples’ wars are the infallible way to reach that objective.

China and the United States: The Mao Dynasty and After

One of Mao’s biggest problems has been to activate the traditionally politically lethargic Chinese people. The peasants have long purred: “Heaven is high, and the emperor is far away.” Intrusive central government is not the Chinese norm.

Both the communist dialectic and, seemingly, Mao’s own psychological make-up dictated that he use the hate-object technique, to ensure political engagement of the populace. He set about, from the very inception of his regime, to make the United States serve the indispensable purpose of the hated devil. He has tried to forge with us, paradoxically, even a sort of “inimical partnership” in the interest of his revolution! This is not just a catch phrase. I believe it accurately describes his conception of our utility to him, for both domestic and foreign policy purposes, and that he and his regime (so long as it is “his”) will not respond to any un-devilish overtures on our part. In dealing with the Chinese Communists in Tientsin for nine months after they came to power, in carrying on the negotiations in Geneva before they went to the ambassadorial level, and in four years of advising in the Warsaw talks I have seen scarcely a shred of evidence to the contrary.

So long as the true Maoists are in control, then I think we can take it for granted that we will get no response from any bridge-building efforts. Such a response would undermine Mao’s basic philosophy. He believes that he can keep his revolution pure, and wound up, only through class hatred at home and devil hatred abroad.

Our occasional statements in the “ultimate reconciliation” vein, as distinguished from tangible bridge-building offers, however, should be continued—not too frequently, and in very measured tones. These are almost certainly carefully registered in various Peking circles. For just as in many ways China is our biggest headache, so we are certainly China’s; it follows that what we do or do not do, and say or do not say, is carefully noted. Primarily our stand in Vietnam, but also our un-devilish statements have surely helped sharpen policy debates in Peking, and it seems certain that potential successor leadership is well aware of its policy options in our regard, if it should wish to test them.

It would not seem to be the time quite yet for new bilateral initiatives with China, or even for unilateral gestures toward China of the tangible bridge-building sort. Not only would we be rebuffed, but China would have to go on record to that effect, and a successor regime may well feel sufficient continuity with the present one so as to make renunciation of that record awkward, though it might otherwise be tempted to test us through response.

A better case, at least, could have been made for new initiatives prior to, say, August 1966. Prior to that time Peking’s leadership seemed unified and the dislocations of the Cultural Revolution had not threatened the integrity of the nation. Big global issues such as disarmament, non-proliferation and the like seemed to call for efforts before very long to get China better articulated into the world community, for the sake of ultimate world stability. While these considerations as such are still valid, a China weakened through turmoil lends somewhat less urgency, and the prospect of a different China to come, possibly readier to respond, recommends the waiting game. We can sympathize with the Chinese people in their turmoil and strife, but from the standpoint of stark U.S. interests, and so long as China is under present auspices, situations of less advantage to us than the present one easily come to mind.

Our East Asian policies must in general be of a piece. Gestures of magnanimity or friendship toward China in the face of the presently necessary stand in Vietnam and Laos might be applauded in some European capitals and on some American campuses, but not by our friends around the periphery of China. Nor does the degree of promise in overtures to Peking at present seem to warrant creating enormous problems for us on Taiwan.

It seems to me, in short, that we have kept our future options open better, rather than otherwise, by keeping relatively quiet while mainland China is trying to sort itself out.

Finally, there is something to be said for keeping our own ideological skirts clean. The evils of the present Peking regime are sufficiently discernible and documentable so that an attempt to cozy up to it—while possibly serving other honorable purposes if it worked—would be widely interpreted as a compromise of those things we stand for, as well as the ditching of a rather satisfactory ally on Taiwan. The Great Problem of Taiwan must mature further before it can be solved, and an altered mainland may make it easier.

Meanwhile, we are doing other sorts of things which are very much a part of China policy. We are attempting to thwart Chinese abetted and supported aggression, and we are doing what we can to strengthen non-communist Asia—very successfully in many instances. And we have made clear that we would not be unresponsive to a China ready to deal on other than paranoically one-sided terms.

Beyond that, it seems to me that the steps we can profitably take are limited, until we can see the color of the China which is to emerge from the present “curious, costly general election” on the mainland. Among those limited steps, we might consider the following:

1. Perhaps we could afford to twist arms in New York with less ferocity and anxiety on the Chinese Representation issue. We spend a lot of blue chips on this issue. This is certainly no time to bring China into the UN, but I think there is no danger of it. On his present tack of all-out peoples’ wars, I cannot imagine that Mao would accept the limiting implications of UN membership if it were offered, and it is not likely to be offered to a Peking when everyone knows it is hard to define just what constitutes Peking today—along with other reasons which have been advanced all along against entry. Peking has said that the UN is controlled by the imperialists, especially the United States, and before it would be interested in membership the organization must be reconstituted, and must withdraw the aggressor label (re Korea) unjustly placed on China and place it where it belongs, on the United States. I think we could put the monkey on Peking’s back for its self-imposed isolation, and get a lot of Europeans and Afro-Asians off ours. We could not advocate Peking’s entry, of course, but we could relax more, in safety.

2. We might keep adequate China trade controls while removing the opprobrious “trading with the enemy” label, and demonstrate readiness for future flexibility by moving slightly from the total embargo wicket. The “working level” at State is preparing a very modest package which should be scrutinized when it is finished. Even though it is modest, it may go a bit far for now. It seems to me we should quietly move away from the principle of total embargo, both because it is ineffective and because it smacks of former black-and-white days in China policy, but we should not move to a degree which may make any practical difference so long as the Vietnam war goes on.

3. We should use the Warsaw talks more as an educational platform. The record of the talks is read in a Peking leadership circle of some indeterminate size. One of the dangerous things about present Peking leadership is the almost unbelievable degree of its provincialism. We should find excuses to weave into our prepared materials at Warsaw small discourses about the nature of the open world partly already arrived, partly just around the corner: the overlapping, global patterns of social, economic and cultural organization constantly spawned by continuing revolutions in communication, travel and electronic wizardry; the impossibility, today, of curtaining off a society if it expects to keep up with the advanced nations—reciprocal contributions to knowledge and growth enable advancement in geometrical ratio, while even partially isolated societies will grow in more nearly arithmetic ratio; the total fund of human knowledge is now such that computer centers must specialize more and more, and a country not geared into other centers of learning is at an increasing disadvantage; etc., etc. We cannot negotiate anything meaningful at Warsaw under present conditions, but perhaps we can help worry the semi-mad Maoists into an earlier cracking up, and give the potential successors something to think about.

4. We have done well to refrain from public appraisal of the Cultural Revolution. Its reality is embarrassing enough to the Chinese, without advertisement. At some point when the watershed in China has been passed long enough for the other side to show its character a bit, a Presidential speech on China will probably be advisable. Almost anything we say now will be turned against us by the present regime, and the rec-ord of rejection will have grown. We should wait until the present regime may be so discredited that its record in its dying days will not really be pertinent.

Basically, (and at the risk of speaking in broader terms than my assignment) it seems to me we will help shape the new China as much by what we are as what we do or do not do. Prestige kept carefully intact; quiet, abundant power in the larger sense; credibility and integrity; and fidelity to those fundamentals of the American heritage which made us strong in the first place and in turn have guided, goaded, shamed and inspired people of many other lands to revolutionary progress—these are the things which will be negotiable assets, when the time comes, with that Chinese quarter of humanity seeking a new national purpose and a new station in the world. It is we who are associated with the real revolution going on in Asia, and that, by and large, is the very best China policy open to us for this transitional period. We need not be lacking in initiatives when the time comes for them to pay off. That could be fairly soon, but no one can yet tell.

Alfred Jenkins

1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, China, Vol. XII. Secret. Rostow sent the paper to the President with a covering note of the same date.