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The Vietnam War and Mao's Struggle for Power
| Article
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11789 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
4 / 1987 |
6,948 Words |
| Author
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F. Charles Parker
F. Charles Parker, a specialist on Soviet foreign policy, did
his graduate study at Georgetown University and served in
Vietnam in the period before the collapse of the Saigon
regime. |
The Vietnam War was a critical factor in Chinese domestic politics. Where a Chinese politician stood on the issue of support for North Vietnam defined where he stood on how best to transform China from a backward agricultural state to modern industrial power. Mao's Tse-tung's 1957 Great Leap Forward was designed to put China on an independent path of development. He intended the Great Leap to be the first step in a break from the alliance with and the reliance on the Soviet Union. He specifically called for a balanced development of light and heavy industry, rejecting the unbalanced Stalinist economic model that placed emphasis on heavy industry at the expense of all else. Moreover, Mao was rejecting Soviet control of the pace and success of China's modernization.
Mao's position, however, meant the rejection of large-scale Soviet economic assistance. Many Chinese leaders viewed a break with the Soviet Union as a mistake, because without Soviet assistance modernization would be delayed. The principal proponents of this view were Liu Shao-ch'i and Deng Xiaoping. As they attempted to curtail some of the excesses and economic setbacks of the Great Leap Forward, they increased their power at Mao's expense. By 1960, the party and state bureaucracies were controlled by opponents of Mao who questioned the path to modernization. Thus, the issue of Sino-Soviet relations was a domestic one - whether to continue the alliance with the Soviet Union and accept Soviet aid or to do something else.
From the Soviet perspective, China had three fundamental foreign policy options. First, China could continue a close relationship with the Soviet Union, allied with and dependent on them. Second, China could choose an independent path of development. As a backward state seeking to modernize rapidly, however, this would not be a viable long-term option. Third, and most serious from a Soviet perspective, China could turn to the West, including the United States, for technology, developmental assistance and even military alliance. This would threaten the secure Soviet eastern border, raise the specter of a two-front conflict, and reverse Soviet wartime gains in Asia. When Mao initiated the Great Leap Forward and moved China toward the second course, he raised the possibility of China's movement toward the third course of action. This represented a strategic crisis for the Soviet Union, a crisis that coincided with Khrushchev's consolidation of power. A central issue that tested Khrushchev's leadership was the Sino-Soviet split.
As a result of Mao's activities, Khrushchev developed a strategy designed to eliminate alignment with the West as an
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