Communist China and the Free World
CHANG, C.M.
Communist China and the Free World EVER SINCE Lenin developed his theory of imperialism, Communist planners have stressed the revolutionary potential of the "colonial and semicolonial" countries...
...anti-Americanism enjoys full freedom while anti-Communism does not...
...If this is true of Japan, which has never known colonialism, how much more must it apply to Southeast Asia, which was only recently freed from foreign domination...
...Imperialism, according to Lenin, is the highest stage of capitalism...
...Asian political leaders have sought to make a distinction between the local Communist parties, which they vigorously oppose, and Communist countries like China and Russia, whose friendship and good will they cultivate...
...He is thrilled by Red China's military and diplomatic successes over the Americans in Korea and the French in IndoChina...
...which is the obverse of "the imperialist mind" and represents "an intellectual hangover from the period of subjection to one or other kind of Western subjection...
...Yet, the situation is not beyond salvation...
...Any move now to normalize trade relations with Red China and admit it to the United Nations would so enhance Peking's power and prestige as to make its march toward the conquest of all Asia perhaps irresistible...
...Despite his outward anti-Americanism, at heart he bears the United States no real ill will...
...On the contrary, the Chinese press hailed it as the beginning of "a new and glorious era" in Asia, where it greatly enhanced the prestige and respectability of Communism...
...The tactic now favored is remorseless economic, political and diplomatic penetration in order to soften up the resistance to Communism...
...And he has "a private version of Communism," which he equates with the fine ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity...
...in the July 1955 issue of Foreign Affairs, called "the colonial mind...
...He regards America as fickle and unreliable, and fears that it may suddenly pull out of Asia...
...When the Chinese revolution failed in 1927, Stalin realized that the Soviet Union would have to be greatly strengthened before Communism could triumph in other countries...
...is not going to compromise with Communism...
...Moscow and Peking are now tempting the Asian countries with offers of economic aid and trade, ah approach which has caused new embarrassment for the United States.' The countries accepting Communist aid scoff at the idea that, in so doing, they are in danger of losing their freedom of political action...
...Khrushchev's obiter dicta on the doom of capitalism, the iniquities of colonial rule, and the inevitability of Communist victory made a profound impression in the countries he visited...
...Hence, American efforts to enlist the Asian countries in a defensive alliance against Communism look like cunning attempts to prolong Western domination...
...It is perfectly safe, because, after all, America will not punish us...
...He is capable of responding to American leadership if he feels sure that the U.S...
...They are pretty well convinced that Communism will win in the end, and this produces a mood of defeatism...
...Communist economic penetration, if allowed to continue over a period of years, is bound to end in disaster...
...In time, the local parties will undoubtedly gain respectability and prestige...
...The Asian peoples will not choose or reject Communism on the basis of the pace of Indian or Chinese industrialization...
...The growing power of Communist China has particularly attracted them, for they derive psychological satisfaction from seeing Peking "tell off" the white man...
...In Asia, as elsewhere, the Soviet .Union still has overall direction...
...The British Empire, though won by force, was maintained for so long principally by the high esteem in which the British were held east of Suez...
...to stem the Communist tide, it is not enough to improve economic conditions...
...Professor Takeyama Michio of Tokyo University has analvzed this state of mind in the following terms: "Now that we have freedom of speech in Japan, anti-Americanism is all the rage...
...In their view, there can be only two opposing positions in a given political situation...
...they have a strategic importance out of all proportion to their numerical and economic strength...
...If Communism is to win in Asia, every remnant of Western influence must be systematically squeezed out...
...Bad economic conditions do not automatically produce Communism...
...Thus...
...That would be too risky and expensive...
...the idea of a "third way" is a petty-bourgeois notion...
...As an Asian country, Red China has a special role to play in bringing the rest of Asia under Communist control...
...for they realize that the spread of neutralism advances their ultimate objective: the total triumph of Communism...
...Communism takes over through the activities of a militant, tightly-disciplined minority, trained to seize power and taking orders from a centralized international apparatus...
...But to be anti-Communist is to risk hanging if the Communists should take power...
...In the eyes of the "jealous and proud" Chinese Communists, it was said, the demonstrative appearance of the Soviet leaders was a challenge, a new manifestation of the southward-probing dynamic of old Imperial Russia...
...And this is made easier by the prevalence of neutralism in Asia...
...But he is not at all sure...
...Peking did not regard the triumphant Soviet visit as an encroachment...
...But they are for the most part illiterate and inarticulate...
...Red China's prestige is already considerable—much of it bestowed gratuitously by the West...
...In Asia, prestige counts even more than military power...
...However much he may admire Communism's "achievements," the Asian intellectual is still vaguely uneasy about its brutal methods and realizes what is happening to intellectuals in mainland China...
...they only produce certain vague mass moods—a desire for betteY things, apathy, frustrated resentment, etc...
...Nonetheless, they do not hesitate to promote that "third way" and call the neutralist countries "peace-loving...
...This lesson we can learn from the Communists, who, inside and outside the Soviet Empire, never take any economic action for its own sake, but always with an eye toward the political effect which the action may serve...
...Communist China and the Free World EVER SINCE Lenin developed his theory of imperialism, Communist planners have stressed the revolutionary potential of the "colonial and semicolonial" countries of Asia...
...For a country does not succumb to Communism because the majority of the people want it...
...Currently, the United States is being singled out for concentrated attack...
...In the struggle against Communism," observes James Burnham, "economic measures are useful only to the extent that they promote anti-Communist political or ideological results...
...Nothing could be farther from the truth...
...After the founding of the Chinese Communist party in 1921, Moscow relentlessly exploited the Chinese situation in the interests of the world revolution...
...When Bulganin and Khrushchev made their celebrated tour of India, Burma and Afghanistan last December, some Western observers saw signs of encroachment on Peking's sphere of influence...
...It should be made clear at this point that Communism in Asia is not primarily an economic problem...
...However, that does not mean a Chinese monopoly of Communist leadership in that part of the world...
...And, besides, resisting authority is very fashionable and gives one a pleasant air of heroism...
...This can happen in countries rich as well as poor...
...If they think Communism is riding the wave of the future, they will choose Communism, even though they may believe democracy a better system...
...Their attitude, I believe, will be determined by which side seems likely to win the final struggle...
...However, in accepting Communist aid and admitting Russian technicians, who are schooled in propaganda and subversion, they have blurred the moral issue, and it will be increasingly difficult for them to convey to their peoples the precise nature of the Communist menace...
...The Soviet Union and Red China have no intention of conquering Asia by military force in the immediate future...
...If Asia is to be saved from Communism, then, the free world and particularly the United States must show by words and deeds that it does not intend to compromise...
...Today...
...The world mistakenly assumed that Communism had subsided into a mere internal affair of the Russian people and interpreted Stalin's "socialism in one country" as a renunciation of world revolution...
...The Asian intellectual holding this outlook, according to Masani, is "a wellmeaning, earnest soul" in whom reports of Chinese Communist "achievements" evoke a ready response...
...In fact, the Communists really have no more love for neutralism than for capitalism...
...It is therefore not surprising that people take the 'heroic' and conformist course, which is of course absolutely safe, and then set out to convince themselves of its correctness...
...The "colonial mind" in them tends to evaluate national achievement in terms not of human welfare and individual freedom but of national power...
...He believes that Soviet Russia and Communist China are sincere in their advocacy of "peaceful coexistence" while the perverse Americans reject it...
...They seem to forget that neither the Soviet Union nor Communist China, both of which have serious economic problems at home, can afford to give out of pure altruism...
...Neutralism, of course, is not Communism...
...Since the United States is the most highly developed capitalist country in the world, it must also be the greatest imperialist power...
...Asian neutralism is the product of what the Indian writer M. R. Masani...
...Those who contend that the ideological struggle in Asia will be decided by the race for industrialization between India and China do not seem to understand this...
...Once they are accepted as a legitimate element in political life, it is only a matter of time until they capture power...
...Instead, within two decades the frontiers of Communism had embraced Eastern Europe, North Korea, North Vietnam and China...
...Furthermore, it is condemned as 'reactionary.' a word which sends intellectuals scurrying for shelter...
...The ruling class in Asia consists of the educated urban elements...
...The conquest of China means that Communist victory in all Asia is now within reach...
...This explains his sense of guilt in opposing Communism...
...It is they who create "public opinion" and influence Government policies...
...They are still comparatively small, but in most of the Southeast Asian countries they represent the only definite alternative to the parties and groups now in control...
...It cannot be said too emphatically that the Asian masses, conservative and tradition-bound, are ideologically opposed to Communism...
...The "colonial mind" is receptive to Communist propaganda because it believes in the "scientific truth" embodied in Lenin's theory of imperialism...
Vol. 39 • September 1956 • No. 89
