Some Further Thoughts on the Test Ban

...As is well known, the Chinese have ridiculed the Khrushchevian containment thesis in general, and Russia's actions during the Cuban crisis in particular...

...The shock of awareness of Western technological superiority, and the humiliation of being forced into subjection by more technologically advanced Western powers, has only heightened Chinese ethnocentrism by underscoring the immorality of Western attitudes and behavior...

...For beyond the obvious fact that the treaty is jeopardized by the threat—however remote—of China's acquiring nuclear weapons, there lies a more important problem...

...Thus, while Khrushchev undoubtedly expects the atmosphere of accommodation to mollify aggressive American elements and make it easier to extend Communism (through Jagan...

...Perhaps the most prominent is the manner in which the Chinese revolution and the Communist movement in general have become inextricably involved in the aspirations of Chinese (and Asian) nationalism...

...The vicissitudes of the Chinese Communist party in the Civil War period, the implacable hostility of the American-backed Kuomintang, the wartime experiences in Yenan and the final, remarkable victory of the Communists in the postwar years only reinforced the identification of Communism with the aspirations of nationalism...

...only the tangible consequences of a policy of "struggle" will validate the Chinese condemnation of Khrushchev and his policies in clearcut terms that are readily apparent to the other Communist countries...

...and refused to accept the idea of a détente with the West, as implied in the Soviet reduction of military expenditures and armed forces, as well as in Khrushchev's visits to the United Nations...

...Hsinhua, the Communist Chinese press agency, has described it as "a preposterous deception," "a universal fraud," and worse...

...While the militant imperialists were thus contained, he went on, Communism could continue to spread within the very heartland of capitalism: Cuba was but the beginning...

...In his speech on July 1, 1949, commemorating the founding of the CCP and establishing the principles which would guide it while in power, Mao Tsetung chose to insist that "Imperialist aggression shattered the Chinese dream of learning from the West...

...As such, the treaty must be viewed as a test of the efficacy of Khrushchev's leadership and his policies in advancing the Communist cause...

...PERSPECTIVES Some Further Thoughts on the Test Ban By William G. Rosenberg Now that the first flush of relief at the prospect of a reduction of radioactivity in the atmosphere has passed, it is perhaps time to consider some of the broader implications of the test-ban treaty, especially for Sino-Soviet relations and the foreign policy of Communist China...

...This does not mean, of course, that the test-ban treaty is not eminently desirable, or that the West should not wholeheartedly endorse an agreement which even temporarily promises to reduce the hazards of a contaminated atmosphere...

...William Rosenberg is currently at Harvard's Russian Research Center...

...Indeed, in its limited form the test-ban agreement fits neatly into the foreign policy prospectus outlined by Khrushchev at the 22nd Party Congress...

...It goes without saying that Khrushchev recognized the real danger of active American military intervention in his Caribbean Socialist outpost...

...Had not Lenin demonstrated what a closely coordinated revolutionary movement could accomplish...

...The truculent Chinese attitude toward negotiation with the West has been abundantly clear since the Bandung line was abandoned in 1956: The Chinese opposed Khrushchev's demand for a summit conference in response to the Lebanon crisis...

...derided the "Spirit of Camp David...

...To embrace Communism was both to oppose Western penetration and to ally oneself with a virile opposition force...

...in this hemisphere, the Chinese can be expected to renew and intensify their militant activities in Laos, Burma, Vietnam and on the Indian border...

...Neither the collapse of the Manchu Empire, nor the lure of Marxian "internationalism" has been capable of totally effacing this strain of cultural superiority in the Chinese character...

...Before long, Communism would creep up on the capitalist West and overwhelm Western society by its sheer momentum...

...What influence will the treaty, with its concomitant lessening of East-West tensions, have on those who formulate Communist China's foreign policy...

...China's policy derives only in part from a strict adherence to the Leninist ideological precepts on war as a continuation of politics by other means...

...Western penetration in the Orient, foreign domination in the Chinese economy, the intolerable conditions obtaining in Western-owned treaty port factories—with a deceptively profound clarity, all this was suddenly explicable in the revelations of Marxian thought...

...After depicting in general terms the growing weakness of Western capitalism on the one hand, and the developing strength of Communism on the other, at the Congress Khrushchev insisted that the proper Communist policy should be to contain the most hostile and reactionary forces within the capitalistic world, preventing them from lashing out against the perceptible spread of Communist Socialism...

...The danger of the test-ban treaty is that it further stimulates the pressures on China to adopt a militant aggressive posture toward the West...

...Perhaps the real importance of the test-ban treaty does not lie in the immediate reduction of radioactivity, but instead in the clarification of our perspective on Communist China...

...It does mean, however, that the test-ban agreement sharply isolates China in a manner that does not augur well for the peace and stability of the world at large...

...Another prominent force contributing to Chinese truculence— though, admittedly, one more difficult to analyze—is Chinese ethnocentrism and the cultural perspectives it brings with it...

...And his willingness to accede to Western demands, insofar as they did not endanger the existence of Cuban Communism as a whole, apparently demonstrated the efficacy of his containment policy to the Central Committee...

...While NATO and the Common Market have been effectively used in Europe to eliminate those forces which in Germany were used to construct the Nazi machine and to foment intra-European hostilities, the Western powers have not acted to erase the same forces in the Far East...

...Its technology and military capacity is at present perhaps less extensively developed, but the vital forces which precipitated the disaster of the Rising Sun are certainly every bit as potent...

...Aliens have traditionally been "barbarians" to the Chinese, who have historically placed the level of their civilization on a plateau far above that attained, or indeed attainable, by the rest of the world...

...The rehabilitation of Japan has merely shifted the locus from Tokyo to Peking...

...Evidence of the Chinese attitude abounds...

...If the Chinese are successful, if Southeast Asia again enters a state of vassalage toward Peking, who will be able to convince Mao Tse-tung that the "spirit of Moscow" (July 1963) advanced the cause of world Communism...

...From the Chinese point of view, the uselessness of negotiation must be demonstrated by contrasting its results with those of a militant, aggressive policy...

...Doubtless the test-ban treaty is integrally related to the set of perspectives the Soviet government has adopted concerning the most auspicious methods for advancing world Communism...

...In isolation, Communist China startlingly resembles the militant, aggressive samurai Japan of 1930...

...The victory of the Chinese Communists, isolated and without support from any quarter in the 1930s and '40s, further added to this inherent cultural pride...

...Here is a statement as remarkable for its implications for Marxism as for what it portends about future Chinese attitudes toward the West: It clearly demonstrates that ethnocentrism has not been smothered by the influence of Marxism-Leninism...

...In statements wholly consistent with this thesis, the Chinese have denounced the proposed test-ban treaty in virulent terms...

...The most recent statement, the now famous Chinese letter of June 14 to the Central Committee of the cpsu, states the position quite plainly: "According to the Leninist viewpoint, world peace can be won only by the struggles of the people in all countries and not by begging the imperialists for it...

...its forces would become irresistible...

...The test-ban treaty is the first major application of the Khrushchevian policy of "containment" since the furious attempt by the Chinese leadership to dislodge both the Soviet Premier and his ideas from dominance in the Soviet Union and the international Communist movement...

...Communism's appeal to Ch'en Tu-hsiu, Li Ta-chao and other founders of the Chinese Communist party was precisely that the Communist perspective defined the chaos to which Chinese intellectuals were awakening during the famous May Fourth Movement...

...In the Chinese context, other equally powerful forces are operating...

...The proximity of Premier Khrushchev's declaration that "the USSR was ready to conclude an agreement on the stoppage of nuclear tests in the atmosphere, in outer space and underwater" (Berlin, July 2) and the opening of the Sino-Soviet conference on ideological differences (Moscow, July 5) clearly indicates the relevance of the treaty to Soviet ideological premises...

...The most obvious implementation of this policy obtained, of course, during the Cuban missile crisis...