July 2, 2010
_hoover digest_ (http://www.hoover.org/publications/hoover-digest) » _2010
no. 3_ (http://www.hoover.org/publications/hoover-digest/5326) » hoover
archives
The Russia Option
by Paul H. Tai
Moscow once offered Chiang Kai-shek a chance to smash his enemies. Why did
he refuse? By Paul H. Tai.
____________________________________
Nearly a decade after the Sino-Soviet split, Victor Louis, a Russian
correspondent for the London Evening News who reputedly had KGB connections,
visited Taiwan for ten days. In meetings with Nationalist officials,
principally Defense Minister Chiang Ching-kuo, he proffered Soviet cooperation
for a
joint attack on mainland China. Louis’s visit in October 1968 and his
subsequent contacts with Taiwan have been widely reported upon and analyzed by
scholars, but until very recently certain key details had never been
revealed.
What were the terms of cooperation under consideration by Russia and
Taiwan? To what extent was Chiang Kai-shek, president of the Republic of China
on
Taiwan, personally involved in this episode? And perhaps most important,
why did Chiang ultimately decline to exercise the Russia option in his long
struggle with the Chinese Communists?
Many of the answers lie in portions of Chiang Kai-shek’s diaries, housed at
the Hoover Institution, that were released in July 2009. These volumes,
which cover Chiang’s final collection of entries (1956–72), provide for the
first time detailed information on this highly intriguing Cold War
engagement.
POINT AND COUNTERPOINT
After receiving Chiang Ching-kuo’s report on his meetings with Louis,
Chiang Kai-shek took immediate charge of the negotiations and recorded them in
his diaries. Numerous entries in 1969 and, with less frequency, in 1970–72
reveal how Chiang pondered the Russian offers and framed Taiwan’s response.
The central figures in the negotiations were Louis and, representing Chiang
Kai-shek, Wei Jingmeng, a confidant of Chiang Ching-kuo and former
director of the Republic of China’s information office. The Louis-Wei
rendezvous
took place in Taipei, Vienna, and other places not identified.
Newly released parts of Chiang Kai-shek’s diaries provide for the first
time detailed information on this highly intriguing Cold War engagement.
The Russia-Taiwan contacts, however, were not limited to the meetings
between Louis and Wei. Indeed, they spanned several continents, involving many
diplomats and journalists. Among them were meetings between Wang Shuming
(head of Taiwan’s military mission to the United Nations and a onetime chief
of staff of the Nationalist army) and Russians in New York; a reporter from
Taiwan and a Russian reporter in Tokyo; Taiwan’s ambassador to Mexico, Chen
Zhiping, and his Soviet counterpart in Mexico; Taiwan’s ambassador to
Japan, Peng Mengji, and his Soviet counterpart in Japan; Song Fengsi, a
reporter from Taiwan, and a Soviet officer in West Berlin; and Taiwan’s and
Russia’
s ambassadors to Brazil. Some of these contacts continued well into 1972,
while others appear to be one-time liaisons.
Chiang apparently channeled the information he gathered from these contacts
to Wei and instructed him to exchange concrete proposals with Louis. After
the first round of talks, Wei in April 1969 relayed Louis’s first set of
terms to Chiang. As paraphrased from Chiang’s diary entries, they were:
* The two sides would conduct negotiations for purposes of mutual
understanding and mutual benefit, without preconditions.
* One side would not interfere with the internal politics of the
other side.
* All political parties in Taiwan would be under the direction of the
Nationalist government.
* The Taiwanese side should not conduct any propaganda campaign on
this matter.
* The Taiwanese side should not receive assistance from any other
foreign country.
* The Russian side would not create any governmental organization or
military force in China.
* The Russian side would provide assistance only to the Nationalist
government, not to any political party or faction in Taiwan.
Chiang paid close attention to the stipulation that the Taiwanese side
should not receive assistance from any other foreign country, considering it a
Russian ploy to drive a wedge into his relations with the United States.
Chiang’s government apparently had informed the United States of the ongoing
negotiations, and Chiang had learned that the American ambassador to Taiwan
had expressed “neither opposition to nor endorsement of” the
negotiations. Yet the issue of relations with the United States would be
important
later.
In the spring of 1969, a sharp deterioration in Soviet relations with
Communist China resulted in military clashes on Zhenbao Island (Damansky) on
the
Chinese-Russian border river, the Ussuri. Talks of a Soviet pre-emptive
strike on the Chinese nuclear facilities were afoot as hundreds of thousands
of Russian troops were deployed along the long Chinese-Russian frontier.
Louis kept in constant touch with Wei during April and May, vigorously
pushing for military cooperation between the forces of the Soviet Union and
Taiwan.
Chiang, however, remained cautious. Relying on Wei’s briefings, he assessed
the Soviet position as follows:
1. Russia is so eager in seeking our government’s [cooperation] that it is
willing to lend its military bases to us, and it intends to invade
Xin-jiang, thereby solving its problem [with the Chinese Communists].
2. It does not emphasize a policy of cooperative coexistence of our two
nations. . . .
3. Its ultimate objective is to create a new Chinese Communist regime to
rule China.
4. It will use its weapon [offer] as the only means to lure us [into
cooperation with it]. It does not have a sincere desire for rendering
[meaningful] assistance to us.
Two days later, Chiang commented further on the Louis-Wei exchange:
1. Louis has again urgently asked us to forward to him a list of weapons
we need [from Russia]. He is attempting to use the list as a bargaining chip
in a deal with us. For that reason, we should not provide him with the list
so that he could not exert pressure on us.
2. As for dispatching a formal representative [from Russia to Taiwan], he
did not reject the idea, only saying that finding [a proper] means of
transportation is difficult and that a high-ranking [Russian] officer could
not
come [to Taiwan] under disguise.
3. He is not emphasizing negotiation on political matters, only saying
that anything could be discussed once the Mao regime is toppled. From this I
can see that in its policy toward China, Russia is not taking us seriously
as its primary partner.
Chiang soon came to the conclusion that the Russians were interested only
in making use of the Chinese Nationalist forces for a yet-unspecified
objective, without any intention of engaging in a broad political
collaboration.
Not surprised by the Russian position, Chiang considered it only natural
that the two sides would make use of each other for their own purposes. He
reminded himself to deliberate carefully on the matters to be negotiated so
that he would be sure to benefit from them.
RUMBLINGS OF A NUCLEAR DANGER
In June, Chiang recorded Louis’s talks with Wei on military collaboration:
Louis is urgently asking us to designate personnel in Europe as liaisons
[with Russia]; he said it would be difficult to talk on this matter once war
starts. He hoped we would present at the next meeting a list of military
items [we need from Russia].
I believe we should pay special attention to the following:
1. Louis made the point that [Russian] weapons do not have to be shipped
in total to Taiwan . . . but [some of them] could be delivered directly to
the vicinity of our landing sites [when we launch our attack on the
mainland].
2. He said we must work out detailed plans with Russia on the country’s
support of our attack on the mainland.
3. [These plans] would concern, for instance, how to make use of Russian
military bases and what types and quantity of weapons are needed in what
battle areas.
4. The Russians could create border disputes [with Communist China] during
our landing operations.
5. Because the prevailing tense international situation is unpredictable
and rapidly changeable, the Russians may find it necessary to come to Taiwan
[for consultation]; hence Taiwan should alert its embassies abroad to be
ready to provide them with visas.
Still wary of Louis, Chiang refused to authorize discussion with him on the
specifics of weapon assistance. In August, Chiang learned of a new border
clash between the Russian and the Chinese forces not in Manchuria, as
before, but in Xinjiang, northwestern China. He now believed that the tension
between the Russian and Chinese Communists was centered more in Xinjiang than
Manchuria.
“From this I can see that in its policy toward China, Russia is not taking
us seriously as its primary partner,” Chiang wrote.
By early September, when rumors about a possible Russian pre-emptive strike
on Chinese nuclear facilities had again appeared in the news, Chiang
commented, “In seeking our cooperation, Russia is now setting the destruction
of
Chinese Communists’ nuclear facilities as its top priority. To overthrow
the Mao regime becomes its secondary objective. And the idea of creating a
Nationalist-Communist government is also under consideration.”
Chiang considered his exchanges with the Russians, though intensive, to be
still exploratory. Yet he felt that he now needed to make a comprehensive
response, prompted in no small measure by the issue of nuclear weapons. He
was concerned that his contacts with the Russians might “prompt the Chinese
Communists to use their short-range or intermediate-range atomic weapons to
strike us.” On the other hand, he pondered whether such a strike might
give the Russians an excuse to attack China, thus deterring the Communists. He
noted with increasing concern that the Chinese Communists had conducted an
underground nuclear test in Xinjiang on September 22 and an air-drop
nuclear test—their ninth—on September 29.
On October 1, he set forth his terms of cooperation with the Russians:
* Chiang would maintain complete independence in Chinese foreign
policy, not subject to any restriction.
* He would maintain Chinese territorial integrity and administrative
independence without allowing foreign interference.
* He would guarantee these three points through an oral statement:
1. 1. After recovery of the Chinese mainland, he would not permit any
foreign power to create anti-Russian bases on Chinese soil.
2. 2. He would not conclude an anti-Russian alliance with any foreign
power.
3. 3. He would permit Chinese-Russian joint economic development of
Chinese areas bordering Russia on a mutual assistance and equitable basis.
Chiang also contemplated at this time how to cooperate with the Russians to
destroy the Chinese Communist nuclear weapons in localities most
threatening to Taiwan—south of the Yangzi River—and then those in northern
China.
THE DENOUEMENT
Suddenly, just as Chiang turned serious in his negotiations, Russia lost
interest. Louis failed to show up for a scheduled meeting with Wei in Italy
in October; Chiang suspected that his absence was deliberate. During the
rest of 1969, Chiang’s diary made no further reference to Taiwan’s contact
with the Russians. Not until the next April did he return to the subject,
pointing out then that the Russian attitude had been changeable and
unpredictable. For the next two years, until April 21, 1972, Chiang’s diaries
showed
that Taiwan remained in contact with the Russians, but the liaison became
increasingly sporadic, and nothing of substance came out of it.
Looking at all of Chiang’s diary entries relevant to the Louis episode, one
may identify two reasons why the Russia option never came to pass. The
first is that the Soviets—after a meeting between Premiers Aleksei Kosygin and
Zhou Enlai in Beijing in September 1969—began that fall to ease tensions
with the Chinese Communists. Chiang thought this was part of the reason
Louis failed to show up to meet with Wei. He observed that Russia and
Communist
China had started negotiations in Beijing on October 20 to settle the
Manchurian border dispute; those talks went on intermittently until December
18, 1970, and resulted in a treaty. That treaty apparently lessened the
prospect of war between the Soviet Union and China, thus making Russia’s
approach to Taiwan for military cooperation less urgent. (The border
settlement,
however, did not fundamentally alter the hostile relations of the two
Communist nations. Thus, the Russians continued to engage in talks with
Taiwan,
through Louis and Wei—who had resumed contact—as well as ambassadors [1970–
72] in Mexico City and Tokyo.)
The second reason these lingering contacts resulted in no cooperative
arrangement—military or otherwise—was Chiang’s resistant frame of mind. From
the beginning of Louis’s contact with Wei, Chiang had shown a strong distrust
of the Russians. He characterized them as “cunning” and reminded himself
to guard carefully against their “fraudulent” activities. No doubt he had
in mind that Russia had acquired through chicanery and outright aggression
many pieces of Chinese land since mid-Qing times. And he often lamented
that Russia had gained unjustified advantages over China through the Yalta
Agreement of 1945.
That is why he warned Wei to be vigilant when dealing with Louis and why he
repeatedly refused to supply the Russians a list of weapons he might need.
And he was especially conscious of the danger of a joint military
adventure with the Russians. He cited a well-known Chinese historical episode
as a
warning to himself. In that episode, General Wu Sangui of the Ming Dynasty
appealed to the Manchu army for help as a rebellion threatened the dynasty’
s existence. The invited Manchu army did suppress the rebels, but went on
to topple the Ming as well.
With the danger in mind, Chiang nevertheless engaged in talks with the
Russians because he would explore any possibility that might help him realize a
goal he considered as important as his own life: recovery of the lost
Chinese mainland. “Anyone helping me recover the mainland is my friend,” he
once wrote as he weighed the Russia option. “Otherwise, he is my enemy.”
But late into negotiations, he met a Russian condition he could not accept.
“The Russians have taken the United States as an enemy, not a friend,” he
wrote in June 1970. “And they have told us that the only condition for
their cooperation is that we must act against the United States.” He branded
the condition “unthinkable.”
At one stage in his negotiation with the Russians, Chiang had expressed
willingness to make two concessions: he would not allow a foreign power to use
Chinese territory for anti-Russian bases and he would not form an
anti-Russian alliance with a foreign power. The foreign power in question was
implicitly the United States. But those concessions were far different from
the
proposition that he treat the United States as an enemy. In realpolitik
terms, he could not trade the support of the United States, a decades-old
ally, for an uncertain cooperation with Russia, a nation that had historically
proven inimical to Chinese interests.
While seriously ill in June 1971, Chiang struggled to jot down in his diary
his thoughts on foreign aggression—especially Russia’s—against China, and
he reminded himself: “Today Russia is luring me to oppose the United
States for the sake of fighting the Chinese Communists. I must never be
tempted
by it.”
Chiang had made up his mind not to exercise the Russia option.
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