1
MVZ-207
Chinese Foreign Policy
since 1949
Mgr. Jan Polišenský
Spring 2011
Week 6: Independent Foreign
Policy for Peace (1979 – 1988)
China in 1970 - 1980
• Hua Goufeng
• Deng Xiaping
• Four modernizations
• China – US relations
• China – European Countries
• China – Vietnam War
• Normalization of FP
Changes in politics
• the reforms in beginning 80's aimed to recover
from the crises from Mao
• Improvement of agricultural production,
industry, foreign trade, science, technology
• the economical reforms replaced the the class
struggle
• the red communist Ideology faded away
• The Beijing Spring (1977 and 1978 ) brief period
of political liberalization
• After 1979, the Chinese leadership moved toward
more pragmatic positions in almost all fields
• The party encouraged artists, writers, and
journalists to adopt more critical approaches,
although open attacks on party authority were
not permitted
• In late 1980, Mao's Cultural Revolution was
officially proclaimed a catastrophe
Changes in politics
• “Democracy Wall” in 1979 and the “fifth
modernization”
• Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yun, Hu Yaobang and Zhao
Ziyang, different policy packages
• Campaigns against “bourgeois spiritual
contamination” and “bourgeois liberalization”
Changes in politics China entered a new age in 1979
• The new, pragmatic leadership led by Deng
Xiaoping emphasized economic development
and renounced mass political movements
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Democracy Wall
• Long brick wall in Beijing, which became the
focus for democratic dissent
• Recorded news and ideas, often in the form of
posters
• Encouraged to criticize the Gang of Four and
previous failed policies
• Part of Deng Xiaoping's struggle to gain power
closed in December 1979
• The Fifth Modernization by Wei Jingsheng on
December 5, 1978 – Democracy
Zhang Chunqiao Jiang Qing
Wang Hongwen Yao Wenyuan
The Gang of Four
Sino – Japanese Relations
•1972- Nixon visit to China - normalization process
•1975 - anti-hegemony clause – sino-soviet split
•August 12, 1978 - The Treaty of Peace and
Friendship
•came into effect October 23, 1978
•Deng Xiaoping and Fukuda Takeo.
• December 1978 Third Plenum (of the 11th Party
Congress Central Committee)
• the leadership adopted economic reform policies
aimed at expanding rural income and incentives,
encouraging experiments in enterprise
autonomy, reducing central planning, and
establishing direct foreign investment in China
Modernizations
The Four Modernizations
Zhou Enlai in 1963
Focused by Deng Xiaoping.
• Agriculture
• Industry
• National Defense
• Science and Technology
Four Cardinal Principles
Deng Xiaoping in 1979, four issues for which debate
was not allowed:
• The principle of the socialist path
• The principle of the democratic proletariat
• The principle of the leadership of the Communist
Party of China, and
• The principle of upholding Marxist-Leninist-Mao
Zedong thought
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Ye Jianying、Hua Guofeng & Deng Xiaoping, in
Dec., 1976
Hua Guofeng
• Hua Guofeng, a protege of Mao
• Replaced as Premier in 1980 by reformist
Sichuan party chief Zhao Ziyang
• Replaced as party General Secretary in 1981 by
Hu Yaobang, an even more reformist and former
Communist Youth League General Secretary
Deng Xiaping
Long March
1978 - 1992 - Paramount Leader of the People's Republic of
China
1981 –1989 - Chairman of the Central Military Commission
of CPC
Two purges
• During the Cultural Revolution were targeted by Red
Guards
• Gang of four
Hua Guofeng, not Deng, was selected to become Zhou's
successor
Opening up economy
Tienanmen Incident
Confrontation with the
Vietnamese – to teach them a
lesson
• Causes of the trouble
• Cambodia, Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge
• Vietnamese attempt to dominate Indochina –
“regional hegemonism”
• Economic aid
• Moscow and Hanoi moving closer
• Vietnam’s persecution and deportation of ethnic
Chinese
• Territorial disputes
Sino-Vietnam War
On January 1, 1979, Deng Xiaoping visited the
USA for the first time and spoke to American
president Jimmy Carter
• Escalation of tensions, 1978
• Ending all economic and technological assistance
to Vietnam
• Closing of borders with Vietnam
• Le Duan’s visit to Moscow to sign a friendship
treaty in November 1978
• Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, December
1978
• Chinese warnings
• China’s “defensive war” for three weeks in early
1979 to punish Hanoi, followed by persistent
military pressure in border
• PLA performance not too impressive
• But the invasion achieved important political
results:
• Emboldened ASEAN countries in opposition to
Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia, thus
placing Vietnam in international isolation
• Prevented Hanoi from concentrating on defeating
the Khmer Rouge
Sino-Vietnam War
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Diplomatic relations with the
USA
• January 1979 - Three preconditions met:
withdrawing forces, severing official ties with
Taiwan, and abolishing Mutual Defense Treaty
• “The Government of the United States of America
acknowledges the Chinese position that there is
but one China and Taiwan is part of China”
• “Neither (China nor the U.S.) should seek
hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region or in any
other region of the world and each is opposed to
efforts by any other country or group of countries
to establish such hegemony”
Sino-Soviet reconciliation
1985-1988
• China’s “swing position” in the strategic triangle
with strengthening ties with other countries and
a growing economy
• The decline in Soviet power, particularly after its
invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979
• Mikhail Gorbachev’s “new thinking”
• Gorbachev visited Beijing in May 1989
• Convinced the US of its resolve to resist Soviet
pressure
• Bled Vietnam economically and placed a burden
on the declining Soviet economy as well
• In 1988 Moscow failed to support Hanoi in its
naval clash with China
• In 1989 Moscow agreed to discuss with China all
the three conditions for improved relations,
including Cambodia
Sino-Soviet reconciliation
1985-1988
Jimmy Carter and the Taiwan
Relations Act
• TRA stipulates that the United States will
"consider any effort to determine the future of
Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including
by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace
and security of the Western Pacific area and of
grave concern to the United States" but does not
mandate that the United States intervene in
these situations
• The TRA authorizes quasi-diplomatic relations
with the Taiwan authorities by giving special
powers to the American Institute in Taiwan to
the level that it is the de facto embassy
• This TRA also requires the United States "to
provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive
character," and "to maintain the capacity of the
United States to resist any resort to force or
other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the
security, or the social or economic system, of the
people on Taiwan.“
• Successive U.S. administrations have sold arms
to Taiwan in compliance with the Taiwan
Relations Act despite demands from the PRC that
the U.S. following legally “non-binding” Three
Joint Communiques and the U.S. government's
proclaimed One-China policy
Taiwan Relations Act
• The Taiwan Relations Act does not require the
U.S. to intervene militarily if the PRC attacks or
invades Taiwan, and the U.S. has adopted a
policy of "strategic ambiguity" in which the U.S.
neither confirms nor denies that it would
intervene in such a scenario
• Differences between China’s One China Principle
and America’s One China Policy
Taiwan Relations Act
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January 1979
Renewed China-US tensions
and negotiations over Taiwan
• The 17th August 1982 Sino-US communiqué
with the Reagan administration
• US pledges that its arms sales to Taiwan would
not exceed either in qualitative or in quantitative
terms the level of supplies during the past years
and that it intended gradually to reduce its sale
of arms to Taiwan, leading to a final resolution
• Beijing reaffirmed it fundamental peaceful
approach to Taiwan
• US not to carry out a policy of “two Chinas” or
“one China, one Taiwan”
• US understands and appreciates PRC policy of
seeking a peaceful resolution of the Taiwan
question, strongly implying the its agreement to
curb arms supplies to Taiwan was contingent on
a continuation of Beijing’s peaceful intentions
toward the island
• US offered Six Assurances to Taipei
Renewed China-US tensions
and negotiations over Taiwan
Six Assurances
1. The United States would not set a date for
ending arms sales to the Republic of China (ROC);
2. The United States would not hold prior
consultations with the People's Republic of China
regarding arms sales to the ROC;
3. The United States would not play a mediation
role between the PRC and the ROC;
4. The United States would not revise the Taiwan
Relations Act;
5. The United States would not alter its position
regarding sovereignty over Taiwan (i.e. "The
United States acknowledges that all Chinese on
either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is
but one China and that Taiwan is a part of
China. The United States Government does not
challenge that position"); and
6. The United States would not pressure Taiwan to
enter into negotiations with the PRC.
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• Independent Foreign Policy of Peace endorsed by
the 12th Party Congress in 1982
• Disillusionment about the Unites States
• Need to improve relations with Moscow
• Alertness against Western political influence in
China
• Changes in the assessment of the danger of war
The Domestic political scene
and implications for foreign
policy
• Reform policies brought great improvements in
the standard of living, especially for urban
workers and for farmers who took advantage of
opportunities to diversify crops and establish
village industries. Literature and the arts
blossomed
• Chinese intellectuals established extensive links
with scholars in other countries
• Political dissent as well as social problems such
as inflation, urban migration
• Although students and intellectuals urged
greater reforms, some party elders increasingly
questioned the pace and the ultimate goals of the
reform program
• In December of 1986, student demonstrators,
taking advantage of the loosening political
atmosphere, staged protests against the slow
pace of reform
• Such movements confirmed party elders' fear
that the current reform program was leading to
social instability
Loosening Political Atmosphere
• Hu Yaobang, by now a protege of Deng and a
leading advocate of reform, was blamed for the
protests and forced to resign as CCP General
Secretary in January 1987
• Premier Zhao Ziyang was made General
Secretary and Li Peng, former Vice Premier and
Minister of Electric Power and Water
Conservancy, was made Premier
Loosening Political Atmosphere
Hu Yaobang
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EU – China relations
• 1975 May Diplomatic relations established. Christopher
Soames first European
• Commissioner to visit China
• 1978 2 May Trade agreement EEC-China signed. Inter
alia, establishes Joint Committee
• 1979 February Roy Jenkins visits China. First visit of a
Commission President. Meets Deng
• Xiaoping
• July First meeting of the Joint Committee in Beijing
• 18 July (First) agreement on textile trade
• 1980 16-19 June First inter-parliamentary meeting
between delegations of the EP and of the
• National People's Congress, Strasbourg.
Diplomatic Relations
• 1950's – 25 countries
• 1960's – 18 countries
• 1970's – UK, Mexico, Netherlands,Greece, Japan,
Australia, New Zealand,Spain, Portugal, USA
• (Over 60 countries)
• 1980's – 19 countries
• Economic opening of no return
• Planned economy to “commodity economy” to
socialist market economy
• Abandoning the Soviet model but keeping the
Soviet revolutionary spirit
• Socialism with Chinese characteristics
• American political model rejected, but cultural
goods moved in
• Lesson: To learn from Western technology but
guard against Western ideology
Conclusion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBT3rWF
oU3w