Sino-Soviet split in Asia
How the leadership of Korea and Vietnam navigate the Sino- Soviet split.
Introduction
After the Chinese Civil war, from 1945–49, the power of China came into the hands of the Chinese Communist party. There was rejoice amongst communists worldwide, for another country, and that too as large as China, had adopted communism as its political philosophy. China being neighbored by the USSR, the leader of the communist world, only increased the ecstasy. CCP was supported by the Soviet Union during the Chinese civil war, and hence after the war they became natural partners. But this relationship was short lived. Throughout the 50s, the relationship between the two communist behemoths started going south, but both of them at least publicly still maintained a facade of socialist solidarity. The fractures although finally became public during the 60s, when both countries started engaging in a war of words, and later at the end of 1960s, during the peak of the split, both of them engaged in a seven month long border skirmish that caused military casualties on both sides. Although the casualties were very low, it marked a new low for Sino-Soviet relationship.
During the split, two major wars happened where both the countries although beginning to grow apart found themselves at the same side, Korean War (1950–53) and Vietnam war (1955–75). This paper attempts to explain how the communist leadership of the two countries (Korea and Vietnam) where the war was happening, tried to navigate the split between the two major communist powers in the region.
Before understanding how both the leaderships juggle both Chinese and Soviet support, one must understand why these two wars are important. During the cold war, the communist bloc was trying to expand their sphere of influence by supporting communist revolutions in various countries. After CCP grabbed power in China, a Chinese model of revolution came into place, and Chinese wanted to help export it. So, Soviets and Chinese communists decided to divide spheres of influence, with Europe and other western countries under the influence of USSR and eastern Asia under the influence of CCP (Jian).
Chen Jian argues the seeds of the split were sown just before and during the Korean War itself. He mentions in his book “China’s Road to the Korean War”, that after meeting with Stalin, in 1949, Mao didn’t want to play the role of his junior while directly interacting with Soviets, especially in face-to-face discussions with Stalin himself. He argues this personal feud and in some sort inferiority being felt by Mao with respect to Stalin in personal discussions led to the origins of the fracture during the Korean war that would later become a full-fledged split between the nations and an ideological split.
The origins of Korean war, as Jian states in his book, lie with the North Korean premier Kim Il Sung’s decision to invade the South. He mentions, Kim spent most of 1949 and early 1950 discussing his plans to invade the south with the Soviets. Kim and North Korean leadership, at least in the early days of the Korean war, were tilted more towards Soviet Union than China.
The first instant of juggling between the two countries by the Korean leadership appears here, as mentioned by Jian that Kim went ahead with his plans after securing an agreement with Stalin and a promise of reinforcements, if needed, in a secret meeting in the April of 1950, and only after that went to meet Mao in mid-May, one month before he declared war on the South (Jian). Jian argues Kim only came to Beijing only to get Chinese approval on the direction of Stalin himself. This argument is supported by the fact Kim during this visit didn’t reveal any details of either his plan or date of action, only that he wished to use force to unify his country. He did reveal that Stalin had approved of his plan but didn’t mention the request for reinforcements from the Soviets. He further reveals that when Mao asked whether he would require Chinese support and proposed to send three Chinese armies along Chinese-Korean border, Kim arrogantly, possibly a little too sure in his discussions with Stalin about reinforcements, rejected the idea, claiming that they North Korean forces along with Communist guerrillas in South could “solve the problem” on their own (Jian).
Kim was wrong in his estimation, he believed that Americans although supported the South, but they wouldn’t commit troops for its defence and even if they would, by the time they would land on Korean peninsula, his forces would have achieved total victory on the ground. He was wrong, Americans had come to South’s defence and under the UN’s banner held a defensive perimeter around Busan (Jian). Then to flank the North Korean forces, came the Inchon landing. North Korean forces were on the defensive now. The war’s tide had turned.
The direct American action had threatened both Chinese and Soviets. Chinese had already ordered the creation of a border defence army, to push troops in Korea if need be. In September, Kim sent a letter to Stalin, asking for direct Soviet military help, and if not possible assist in creation of international people’s volunteer units like in China to help. Stalin, unwilling to force a direct confrontation between USSR and USA, liked the second idea, and suggested they must consult their Chinese comrades (Jian). Stalin later in a meeting with Chinese would make it clear that he had no intention of sending Soviet troops to Korea, but promised material help and air cover(that too not immediately but at some later point in the war) if the Chinese were to enter the war on North Korea’s behalf, and to defend new China’s territories if need be (Jian).
Stalin would go on to backtrack his promise of air cover, informing Chinese that Soviet Air Forces would not cross the Yalu river (which was present on Chinese Korean Border). This decision would anger the CCP leadership and leave a strong mark on their relationship (Jian). Chinese terming it ‘betrayal’ decided to continue with their push in Korea, without air cover, and still trying to convince Stalin to send air cover to Korea (Jian).
The majority of the war would be fought by the Chinese and North Korean on their own without the direct Soviet help. The viewpoint of Korean leadership went from dismissing Chinese help before the war and starting on their own to welcoming and even Kim Il-Sung personally requesting for Chinese intervention in the war. The ‘betrayal’ by Soviet Union would not go unnoticed by the Chinese and Mao and other CCP leadership would go on to reexamine their alliance with USSR and foreign policy, focusing on ‘self-reliance’ (Jian).
The same decade as Korean war saw another communist revolution in Asia, but things were quite different. In Korean War, since the seeds of split were being sown between China and USSR, they still maintained an allied outlook, promising to help each other, but by the Vietnam war, the Sino-Soviet Split was far more in open and would reach its peak during the duration of the war itself.
In the early years of the war, when the split was still happening, the CPV aiming to retain support from both communist blocs tried to not take sides in the split, but rather use the competition for maximum output (Lawrence). From the beginning of the Vietnam war, from Vietnamese perspective it was about Anti-American struggle. Vietnam would use everything at their disposal to help their objective, from military to diplomacy, especially diplomatic struggle or ‘dau tranh ngoai giao’ to secure support from friendly countries (Asselin).
Ideologically Asselin, in his paper “We Don’t Want a Munich”: Hanoi’s Diplomatic Strategy, 1965–1968, argues that Hanoi was initially way more tilted towards PRC, having quoted the Romanian charge d’affaires in Hanoi as having said that “this did not mean that [VWP leaders] were permanently sold out to China” implying the heavy tilt, just as North Korea was initially tilted towards the USSR, and just like Korea, Vietnam would also later go on to be a bit more flexible, having realised later that any sole dependence on either USSR or PRC would hinder their struggle.
Asselin provides evidence of this juggling of alignment in his piece by mentioning the Chinese increasing their military aid to Vietnam during the height of the split to nudge them away from the USSR. Chinese would go on to supply material, and even units to help in local construction so that Vietnamese troops could concentrate on fighting the war (Lawrence). He also mentions when Vietnam realised PRC’s equipment won’t win them the war, they started being cautious to publicly align with CCP’s line, to gain Soviet support (Logevall). Initially Hanoi would go on to support Chinese stance in calling Khruschev’s USSR having swayed to a revisionist position, but after realisation of the need of Soviet help, CPV would go on to censor any criticism of Soviets (Asselin). This would bear fruits as by early 1965, Soviets would publicly acknowledge their obligation to help a socialist ally by helping them build economic and public defense capabilities (Asselin). We can see this as example of how Vietnamese aware of the split, diplomatically played it for their benefit.
Vietnam had just come out of the First Indochina war against the French, before they had to deal with another superpower at their doorstep. It wasn’t all military conflict though, in the backdrop was running long standing political discussions first with the French and later Americans to find a political settlement and stop the fighting and diplomatic movement to attain help form allies and friendly countries (Asselin)(Lawrence). The effect of Sino-Soviet split was seen in these political negotiations as well. Asselin argues that although the Soviets agreed to help build North Vietnamese defense capabilities, they didn’t wish for a showdown with the USA in Vietnam. He quotes Le Duc Tho admitting to a French journalist that Soviets don’t “”do not believe in our victory and this pushes them to search for a resolution of the Vietnamese question by way of negotiations.” (Asselin). Soviets would go on to push Vietnam for a negotiations-based solution, but Asselin also states they were careful in this endeavour for their pressure on Vietnam would be used by CCP to attack them for bowing down to the western powers (Logevall). Later realising that this would only diminish their influence in Vietnam, Soviets too would go on to lift pressure about diplomatic solutions on Vietnam. In 1968, Vietnamese would go on to open themselves for peace talks, much to the pleasure of Soviets and Chinese anger. This would also temporarily strain their relationship with the Chinese, as it seemed they had agreed to the Soviet policy of peaceful co-existence, which was much criticized by Chinese till now (Asselin). Vietnamese realizing Soviet material help was much valuable and advanced than Chinese, had played that gamble (Logevall).
Conclusion
Both of these wars speak volumes about the perceived role of ideology in the Cold war. The Cold war, which is seen as this mammoth clash of ideologies, capitalism vs communism, wasn’t as black and white as is often stated, and these two wars depict this exact caveat. In both the wars, we see initially a bigger emphasis on ideology while choosing allies, like Vietnam earlier with PRC, but after the onset of the war, we see more practicality start appearing in countries foreign policy and choice of ally, as seen with Korea and Vietnam’s choice of support once the fighting started. This effect is not only seen in North Korea and Vietnam with respect to the USSR and PRC, but rather in PRC as well with respect to the USSR, when post-Korean war, PRC realised that it can’t keep depending on the USSR for help and must follow a trend of self-dependence (Jian).
We also see ideology, which was supposed to unify a bloc, appearing to fail in the job even when all the countries held to the similar ideologies with dear life. The Sino- Soviet split pitted traditional allies against each other, while, at least for a while appearing, to pursue similar foreign policy goals of assisting newly emerging socialist countries, but the different brands of socialism in both the countries didn’t help in saving the relationship. While the other socialist countries, also largely following their own brand of socialism, tended to align themselves with either country, yet experience forced them to be a bit more open to making friends and accept support from wherever they can. Hanoi was more experienced than Korea in the matter, and although parroted CCP’s lines in criticizing USSR, quickly decided to warm the relationship in order to receive aid which might help them in their struggle against Americans. So, although the ideology as a whole helped forming the blocs as a whole, and countries with similar ideologies would band together for similar goals, though through different means, it couldn’t out do with the internal conflicts, for example both PRC and USSR wanted to help Vietnam against USA, but both would get angry at the help received by the client from the other side.
References
Asselin, Pierre. “‘We Don’t Want a Munich’: Hanoi’s Diplomatic Strategy, 1965–1968.” Diplomatic History, vol. 36, no. 3, 2012, pp. 547–581. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44376189. Accessed 17 Dec. 2020.
Jian, Chen. China’s Road to the Korean War The Making of the Sino-American Confrontation. Columbia University Press, 1994.
Lawrence, Mark Atwood. Vietnam War: A Concise International History. Oxford University Press, 2008.
Logevall, Fredrik. Origins of the Vietnam War. Routledge, 2015.
