[NSP Report 73] Sino-Soviet Détente and the Soviet Union: Perceptions and Responses to the International Situation

Professor of Russian Studies, School of International Studies, College of Social Sciences, Kookmin University. Graduated from Seoul National University with a degree in Diplomacy and received a Master's degree in Political Science from the same university. Earned a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Glasgow, UK. Previously served as a special researcher at the Seoul National University Institute for Russian Studies, a research fellow at the Korea University Institute for Eurasian Studies, and a senior researcher at the Seoul National University Institute for Global Studies. Her main research areas include Russian politics and history, and women in politics. Her publications include "The Future of Russia and the Korean Peninsula" (2009, co-authored), "Russia's Choice: Post-Soviet Transition and Changes in State, Market, and Society" (2006, co-authored), "A Collection of Historical Materials on Korea-Russia Relations 1990-2003" (2005, co-authored), "Russian Regime Transition: The Role and Limitations of Civil Society in the Democratization Process" (2012), and "Stalin's Industrialization Strategy and Changes in the Function of the Soviet Communist Party, 1928-1932: A Case Study of Leningrad" (2002).

I. Introduction

Three events occurred in Soviet diplomacy in 1969. A back channel was established between Moscow and Washington, and negotiations for the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) began; Willy Brandt became Chancellor of West Germany, leading to negotiations for a non-aggression pact with West Germany; and a border clash occurred between China and the Soviet Union on Damansky Island in the Ussuri River. These three events concisely illustrate the direction of Soviet diplomacy in the 1970s. Specifically, the Soviet Union pursued an active détente policy with the United States and Western Europe while leaving the conflict with China unresolved. The issue was that the United States seized the opportunity presented by the Sino-Soviet conflict, drawing China into a dramatic rapprochement.

Looking back, the series of international changes that occurred during the détente period of the first half of the 1970s can be seen as a period of constructing a new international order to replace the Cold War. Of course, détente as a policy did not last long and ended with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. However, the Sino-American rapprochement and normalization of relations during the détente period of the 1970s enabled China's reform and opening up in the 1980s and 1990s, ultimately laying a crucial foundation for the reorganization of the world order by leading to China's rise today. Therefore, how did the Soviet Union, which, along with the United States, was a global superpower with worldwide influence in the 1970s, understand détente, and to what extent did it perceive the Sino-American rapprochement as a threat to its own interests? Did the Soviet Union overlook the potential for China's rise? If so, why did it make such a miscalculation? This paper seeks to answer these questions by examining the foreign policy perceptions and diplomatic strategies of the Soviet leadership in the first half of the 1970s.

Before proceeding to the main body, it should be noted that due to time and financial constraints, this study relies heavily on secondary sources, although primary sources from within Russia would have been necessary to illustrate the foreign policy perceptions and decision-making processes of the Soviet leadership in the 1970s. Primary sources illustrating international relations during the détente period include meeting minutes and official documents held by the Presidential Archive of the Russian Federation (APRF) and the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation (AVPRF), the proceedings of the 24th and 25th Congresses of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union held in 1971 and 1976 respectively, and newspaper editorials from Pravda and Izvestia, which represented the official stance of the Soviet government and the Communist Party. Among these, this study only references the proceedings of the Congresses of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Meanwhile, some materials from Russian archives and U.S. State Department documents were accessible through websites such as The National Security Archive at George Washington University and the Cold War International History Project (CWIPH) at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Additionally, monographs on Cold War history published in the United States provided significant resources for this study. Indirect information was obtained through the memoirs of Anatoly Dobrynin, Soviet Ambassador to the U.S. from 1962 to 1986 (Dobrynin 1995), Cold War history research utilizing Russian archival materials and U.S. archives (Zubok 2009), the memoirs (Kissinger 1982) and transcripts (Burr 1998) of Henry Kissinger, and the détente and Cold War studies of R. Garthoff (Garthoff 1994). Nevertheless, the available information remains insufficient to fully examine the Soviet leadership's perception of the international situation or its view of China in the first half of the 1970s, leaving many aspects to speculation or as unresolved questions. It is hoped that future research will address these gaps.

II. Deepening Sino-Soviet Conflict and the Soviet Leadership's View of China

Long before the Sino-Soviet border conflict erupted in 1969, the relationship between the Soviet Union and China had begun to fracture. The Sino-Soviet relationship, which appeared solid after the Chinese Communist Party's victory in the civil war in 1949, started to falter in the late 1950s. Following Nikita Khrushchev's visit to China in 1959, personal attacks between the leaders of the two countries commenced, and the Chinese Communist Party and Mao Zedong vehemently criticized Khrushchev's Soviet Union as a revisionist force of Marxism-Leninism. In response, the Soviet Union exerted pressure on the Chinese economy by recalling its experts working in China, but China, proclaiming "self-reliance," embarked on a socialist path distinct from the Soviet Union.

Although the initial confrontation between the two countries in the early stages of the Sino-Soviet conflict appeared to be a dispute over socialist ideology, realpolitik factors played a significant role beneath the surface (Zang 2010; Radchenko 2010). Above all, the Soviet Union's negative reaction to China's attempts to develop nuclear weapons intensified China's dissatisfaction and suspicion towards the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union refused to transfer atomic bomb technology to China and angered China by signing the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty proposed by the United States in 1963. Furthermore, Khrushchev's de-Stalinization campaign had negative implications for Mao Zedong's standing within China, causing Mao considerable discomfort. Moreover, following the Rodion Malinovsky incident in 1964, Mao Zedong completely turned against the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union's plan to construct an airbase in Vietnam in 1965 and its invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 led the Chinese leadership to perceive the possibility of Soviet military intervention against China as a tangible threat. It was in this context that armed conflict erupted on the Sino-Soviet border in 1969, marking the lowest point in bilateral relations.

Why, then, did the Soviet Union fail to resolve its conflict with China in the 1960s and allow the dispute to escalate? In fact, the Soviet Union did make some conciliatory efforts to win back the Chinese leadership. According to the research of Vladislav M. Zubok, during the period of the Soviet collective leadership established after Khrushchev's ouster (1964-1968), the Soviet leadership considered reconciliation with "fraternal" communist China, rather than détente with the capitalist West, as the top priority of Soviet foreign policy (Zubok 2009, 197). However, the Soviet leadership failed to properly understand the political upheaval occurring within China (which was heading towards the Cultural Revolution). Despite reports sent to Moscow by Soviet diplomats in Beijing regarding the local situation, these reports did not receive adequate attention. Sergey Georgyevich Lapin, who replaced Stepan Chervonenko as ambassador to China in 1965, was a cynical party apparatchik who did not even send adequate analyses of the local situation (Zubok 2009, 197). Meanwhile, Premier Alexei Kosygin visited Beijing twice during his visit to Hanoi in 1965, meeting with both Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong, but the results of the talks were disappointing. The Chinese representatives were rigid, ideologically aggressive, and criticized Soviet "revisionism." Premier Kosygin was unable to achieve policy coordination with China regarding aid to the Viet Cong.

In the initial stages of the Sino-Soviet border conflict in 1969, the Soviet Union responded to China using both military and diplomatic means. Following the first engagement in March, the Soviet Union retaliated militarily against China's actions, and Premier Kosygin attempted to contact the Chinese leadership by phone, but the Chinese leadership refused the call, insisting on communication through normal diplomatic channels. The Soviet Union also proposed negotiations on the Sino-Soviet border issue, which had been suspended since 1964. However, the Soviet stance began to change after a sudden outbreak of fighting in the border region between Xinjiang, China, and Kazakhstan in mid-August. On August 28, Pravda mentioned that if a Sino-Soviet war were to break out due to Chinese adventurism, it could escalate into a nuclear war. Concurrently, the buildup of Soviet forces in the Far East and Siberia began in earnest. The number of Soviet divisions in this region increased from 25 in 1969 to 45 in 1973, tactical combat aircraft increased from 200 to 1,200, and approximately 50 SS-4 and SS-5 intermediate-range ballistic missiles in the region were replaced with 120 newer SS-11s. Garthoff interpreted this as the Soviet Union's decision to fight on two fronts, in both Europe and Asia, in the event of a crisis, by augmenting all its military forces in the Far East and Central Asia (Garthoff 1994, 231-232).

Thus, the Soviet Union decided to abandon diplomatic efforts and adopt a policy of military pressure towards China. This decision was significantly influenced by the Soviet leadership's fear of China's irrational aggression following the border conflict. According to Zubok, a joke circulated in Moscow at the time: "The Soviet commander in the Far East urgently called the Kremlin and asked, '50,000 Chinese have just crossed the border and surrendered! What should I do?'" (Zubok 2009, 210) The fact that China, which was in no way comparable to the Soviet Union in terms of overall national strength or nuclear capabilities, initiated a military conflict against the Soviet Union was an "irrational decision" that baffled the Soviets. Therefore, if the Soviets feared China, it was not due to its aggression (or aggressive capability) itself, but rather the "irrationality" behind it.

Ultimately, the Soviet stance on the 1969 border conflict was to intimidate China so that the Chinese would not dare to provoke the Soviet border again. When Kosygin met Zhou Enlai at Beijing Airport in 1969, Zhou Enlai mentioned "rumors" about a preemptive Soviet nuclear strike, which a Soviet diplomat present interpreted as China being very fearful of a potential Soviet nuclear attack. Zhou Enlai clearly conveyed that China had no intention of planning or initiating a war with the Soviet Union. Following this conversation, the Soviet leadership sent further threatening signals to China, leading China to propose a secret non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union.

However, the Soviet tactic of deterring China through nuclear threats was, at best, only half successful. The Soviet nuclear threat ultimately led the Chinese leadership to pursue rapprochement with the United States and jointly counter the "polar bear" to the north. In other words, a classic security dilemma effect occurred. Kissinger's transcripts, which led the Sino-American rapprochement, reveal that China's security anxiety caused by Soviet military threats was considerable, and the United States used this as leverage to draw China closer to its side.

Meanwhile, Soviet efforts to improve relations with China did not cease entirely even after the outbreak of the Sino-Soviet border conflict in 1969. During the meeting between Premier Kosygin and Zhou Enlai in 1969, both countries agreed to exchange ambassadors, and Soviet Ambassador V. S. Tolstikov arrived in Beijing, and Chinese Ambassador Li Xinguan arrived in Moscow in 1970. Bilateral trade also gradually increased, reaching $290 million in 1972 (Garthoff 1994, 241). However, relations were dominated by mutual distrust and hostility, and never improved as dramatically as the Sino-American rapprochement. Immediately after the Sino-American rapprochement in 1972, Brezhnev made "constructive" proposals to China for a non-aggression pact and border issue resolution to strengthen the Soviet Union's position in triangular diplomacy, but China no longer needed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union (Garthoff 1994, 242). As a result, throughout the détente period, the Soviet Union remained the disadvantaged party in triangular diplomacy.

III. Sino-American Rapprochement and the Soviet Leadership's Perception of the International Situation

Why, then, did the Soviet leadership not worry about the possibility of China aligning with the United States against the Soviet Union? Several hypotheses can be proposed: first, the possibility that they judged China would not align with the United States due to ideological factors; second, the possibility that they judged that even if China reconciled with the United States, the practical effect of the Sino-American rapprochement would be minimal due to existing realpolitik issues between the two countries; third, the possibility that they judged that the threat to the Soviet Union would not be significant unless the Sino-American rapprochement became a military alliance hostile to the Soviet Union; and fourth, the possibility of miscalculation due to a lack of information regarding the diplomatic situations of China and the United States. (Continued)