China-Soviet 3:  The Sino-Soviet Treaty in 1950 and Two Nationalisms Could Lead to Conflict 

Yang Kuisong, April  2005

Yang Kuisong is Professor of History at East China Normal University

Professing the same ideology and advocating internationalism have long characterized the Communist parties of different countries. However, Party members in almost every country are nationalist by nature. In other words, while they are Communists in dealing with national problems, they tend to be nationalists when it comes to international relations. Consequently, despite the fact that each is Communist and that their common interests would appear to far outweigh those that serve to align non-Communist countries, their alliances are no whit closer than those of their non-Communist counterparts. On the contrary, disagreements and clashes between two Communist countries are often fiercer and more frequent than those between non-Communist countries. Relations between China and the Soviet Union after 1949 are a classic illustration of this principle. Previously, the heated confrontations between the two Parties from the late 1950s have been the focus of public attention. In actuality, conflicts triggered by nationalism were already obvious in the early days of the PRC in the negotiations between the two parties on an official alliance between the two countries.

Section  I

 The revolution led by the Chinese Communist Party  owed its success partly to the party’s use of the idea of “class struggle” mobilize and organize the impoverished masses and partly to rallying the nation under the banner of independence and national equality and uniting all those forces dedicated to national salvation. Thus the CPC leadership realized that after 1949 the key to consolidating the new regime consisted in;

(1) internally, whether it was able to satisfy the aspirations of the impoverished populace for achieving emancipation and becoming masters of their own country, and;

(2) externally, whether it was able to win national independence and equality with other nations.

Of course, (1) presented no problem to a revolutionary Communist party like the Chinese Communist Party.  But (2) was not an issue in which the Chinese Communist Party alone had the final say. Strictly speaking, achieving true national independence was not a hard task for the new regime. The basic reason for China’s past semi-independent status was that she had been unable to wrest free of the bonds of unequal treaties.

Given that abolition of all unequal treaties and re-establishment of diplomatic relations with countries across the world was a basic plank of New China’s foreign policy, in theory it should not have been too difficult to abolish or nullify the treaties concluded with and privileges conceded to other countries that constituted an impediment to complete independence. The new Chinese government followed precisely this approach to foreign relations. However, the biggest obstacle to New China’s pursuit of full national independence was none other than her relations with the Soviet Union. The most important of all the unjust treaties bequeathed by the old to the New China was the August 1945 Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance. According to the treaty, China was forced to renounce its sovereignty over Outer Mongolia by acceding to the latter’s independence, concede the Soviet Union Port Lüshun in NE as a naval base, and run jointly with the Soviet Union the Changchun Railway which stretched between Manchuria and Dalian.1 It is evident that handicapped by its special relations with the Soviet Union, the Chinese Communist Party failed to tackle the Soviet Union about the unjust treaty and the privileges the Soviet Union drew from it the way the new Chinese government thrashed it out with other governments. But such a complication involving China and the Soviet Union stood out as a most exacting touchstone exposing whether the new Communist regime in China could live up to its pledge that it would have the Chinese nation “stand up.” Needless to say, Moscow was completely aware how, under the circumstances, the straits the CPC was in and the challenges faced by the new regime in China had to take up in relation to this issue. Just before the establishment of the PRC, from January 30 to February 8 of 1949, Mikoyan, a member of the Politburo of the Soviet Communist Party (Bolshevik), was on an official but clandestine visit to Mao Zedong and other Chinese Communist Party leaders at Xibaipo, a village in Fuping, Hebei Province, where the CPC Central Committee was staying temporarily. His visit was especially for an exchange of views with the Chinese Communist leaders on issues that might claim immediate attention after the foundation of the new People’s Republic. In the course of his talk with Mikoyan, Mao Zedong probed with seeming casualness an issue raised by “a female social activist of bourgeois extraction”: “Once the revolutionary force achieved the seizure of power in China, it would seem meaningless for the Soviet Union to retain Port Lushun as its military base. Therefore Lushun Port’s return would certainly be extremely important to China.”

On the same occasion, Mao openly expressed his desire for the re-integration of Outer Mongolia with China. To all this the response from Stalin was quite clear-cut. In one of his cables to Mao, he wrote: “In view of the impending seizure of power by the Chinese Communists, the Soviet Union has come to the conclusion that it will annul the agreement on an equal footing and withdraw its military forces from Port Arthur as soon as the US military presence in Japan is evacuated after the conclusion of a peace treaty with Japan. However. should the Chinese Communist Party prefer an immediate withdrawal of the Soviet armed forces from Port Arthur, the Soviet Union would be ready to comply.”  As for Outer Mongolia, Stalin expressed the firm belief that she would never forsake the independence she had won. This was indeed a de facto rejection of Mao’s proposal.2 One of the primary motives, it is obvious, that impelled the Soviet Union to use Port Lushun as a concession and to control the Changchun Railway had been not only to pre-empt the US endeavor to turn Northeast China into an important bridgehead for its invasion of the Soviet Union but also to deter the military threat from Japan, an old enemy of Russia.

Since the foundation of the New China was in itself a deterrence to both the United States and Japan, the Soviet military presence in Northeast China was no longer necessary.  On the other hand, to enable New China to regain her sovereignty over Outer Mongolia would have meant that China would physically wedge a portion of her territory into the hinterland where the European and the Asian section of the Soviet Union were linked. This would certainly not strike the Soviet Union as a good idea. Inferentially Stalin was averse to promptly handing over management of the Changchun Railway, being alert to possibly unfavorable public opinion in the Soviet Union. In the last analysis—to borrow his words—the Changchun Railway was built with money from Russia’s coffers. Differences of opinion showed definitely in Mao’s talk with Mikoyan and were hard to mitigate through further communication. A few months later, at the end of June 1949, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party secretly sent a delegation headed by Liu Shaoqi to Moscow. Addressing the contention with the Soviet Union, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party again told Moscow —through its delegation—about the disquiet in China over the Soviet military presence in Port Lüshun, the separation of Outer Mongolia from China, and the actions taken by the Soviet Union, after the conclusion of WWII, to appropriate and transshipping to the Soviet Union the machinery and equipment of the factories Japan had built in Northeast China during WWII.  The Chinese delegation made a point of setting forth its claims in very mild terms and was especially careful in of the wording in which it couched its opinion of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance concluded between China’s Nationalist government and the Soviet Union: the Chinese delegation in Moscow contended that since the prospective government of New China was about to start “weaving a new fabric of diplomatic relations,” it would not only ignore but nullify all the treaties signed between the Nationalist government and other countries. Thus, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party evidently cherished the hope that the Soviet Union would agree to conclude a new pact with New China. However, being fully mindful of the special relations between the Chinese Communist Party and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Liu Shaoqi chose to use deliberately roundabout and inoffensive language when he addressed the issue in a report he sent to Stalin. He wrote that after the establishment of its diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, the new Chinese government would be willing either to announce its total acceptance of the existing Treaty of Friendship and Alliance and let it stay valid, or “to conclude a new treaty of friendship and alliance between the Soviet Union and New China, which, while being based on the spirit of its predecessor, would differ from the latter in wording and content in accordance with the new developments.” Of course, as Liu hastened to add in his message to Stalin, the existing treaty could continue in its present form until the time was ripe for a replacement.3 After the PRC was founded on October 1, 1949, its diplomatic activities, including a comprehensive overhaul of all the treaties the Nationalist government had concluded with various capitalist countries, were rapidly placed on the agenda. In these circumstances the question of how to deal with the Treaty of Friendship and Alliance formerly signed between the Nationalist government and the Soviet Union once more became a top priority.  Mao Zedong was manifestly in favor of China’s starting to “weave a new fabric of diplomatic relations.”

Whether or not the Treaty was an unequal one, the agreements and protocols consequent upon that treaty contained unequal provisions that disadvantaged China; these had long elicited an angry reaction from students and democratic political parties in China. Tomake an exception for the Soviet Union would inevitably diminish the political stature of the CPC. Following his decision to visit the Soviet Union as soon as possible, Mao repeatedly signified to Moscow his intention to sign a new pact with the Soviet Union.4 However, no outright response came from Stalin. Fraught with misgivings about the possible futility of his visit, Mao would not even include any top party or government officials in his retinue when he traveled to Moscow. As New China’s paramount leader, Mao departed for Moscow with only one secretary, one translator, and a couple of staff members who worked for his office. This suffices to reveal that he regarded his visit to Moscow as a forlorn attempt.

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