nize large-scale amphibious landing operations there. In comparison, the gmd had greatly strengthened Jinmen’s defensive system since 1949–50, transforming the island into an enhanced fortress. Beijing’s leaders thus believed that until the pla could improve logistic capacity and receive proper air support in Fujian, the plan to invade Jinmen should be put on hold.26 When the pla’s East China Military Region was actively preparing for the Zhejiang campaign, Mao suddenly changed the emphasis of Beijing’s Taiwan strategy again. In a telegram to Zhou Enlai on 23 July 1954, Mao sternly criticized the premier, who had just attended the Geneva conference and was then visiting several socialist countries in Eastern Europe. The chairman claimed: ‘‘After the end of the KoreanWar, we failed to highlight the task [the liberation of Taiwan] to the people in the whole country in a timely manner (we are about six months behind). We failed to take necessary measures and make effective efforts in military affairs, on the diplomatic front, and also in our propaganda to serve this task. If we do not highlight this task now, and if we do not work for it [in the future], we are committing a serious political mistake.’’27 Following Mao’s instruction to ‘‘highlight the Taiwan issue,’’ the Chinese media immediately initiated a propaganda campaign with ‘‘We must liberate Taiwan’’ as the central slogan.28 In the meantime, the pla high command revised the original campaign plan: in addition to conducting landing operations against the islands off Zhejiang province, the pla’s shore batteries in Fujian were to prepare to shell Jinmen.29 This latest decision made some sense from a military perspective. As a military strategist, Mao certainly understood that by shelling Jinmen before conducting landing operations from Zhejiang, the pla would distract the attention of the gmd high command, thus better guaranteeing the success of the Zhejiang campaign. Indeed, this is exactly how Beijing’s official history interpreted the change of plans.30 But the military interpretation alone does not satisfactorily reveal the main reasons underlying the decision to shell Jinmen.31 Mao and the ccp leadership also intended to use the shelling to ‘‘highlight’’ the Taiwan question, stressing that it was an internal Chinese issue. A ccp Central Committee telegram to Zhou Enlai dated 27 July 1954 pointed out: ‘‘After the armistices in Korea and Indochina, the Americans will not be willing to accept their failure at the Geneva conference, and will inevitably carry out policies designed to create international tension, to seize more spheres of influence from the British and the French, to expand military bases and prepare for fighting a war, and to remain hostile toward our country.’’ In particular, the telegram stressed, Washington had been ‘‘discussing signing a treaty of mutual defense with Jiang Jie168 beijing and the taiwan strait crisis Copyright 2001. The University of North Carolina Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law. EBSCO Publishing : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY AN: 312413 ; Jian Chen.; Mao's China and the Cold War Account: s9381947.main.ehost shi,’’ which made it necessary for Beijing to continue ‘‘the war against Jiang’s bandit clique in Taiwan’’ by introducing ‘‘the slogan of liberating Taiwan.’’32 Therefore, Mao and the Beijing leadership decided to order the pla to shell Jinmen to expose Washington’s plot of ‘‘interfering with China’s internal affairs.’’33 The decision to shell Jinmen must also be understood in the context of Mao’s aspiration for creating new momentum for his continuous revolution. The end of the Korean War allowed Mao and his comrades to devote China’s resources to the ‘‘socialist revolution and reconstruction’’ at home. From the chairman’s perspective, 1954–55 represented a crucial transitional period for the ccp to build the foundation for a socialist society in China. In search of means to mobilize the party and the ordinary Chinese citizens for this new stage of the Chinese revolution, Mao, informed by his Korean War experience, again sensed the need to emphasize the existence of outside threats (be it from Jiang’s gmd or from the United States). In justifying Beijing’s new Taiwan strategy, Mao and the ccp leadership stressed in an internal correspondence: ‘‘The introduction of the task [the liberation of Taiwan] is not just for the purpose of undermining the American-Jiang plot to sign a military treaty; rather, and more important, by highlighting the task we mean to raise the political consciousness and political alertness of the people of the whole country; we mean to stir up our people’s revolutionary enthusiasm, thus promoting our nation’s socialist reconstruction.’’34 This emphasis upon using the Taiwan issue to promote domestic mobilization, however, contradicted from the beginning the ‘‘peaceful coexistence’’ foreign policy line Zhou Enlai was endeavoring to promote around the same period.35 It also caused great confusion in terms of Beijing’s goals for the new strategy (that is, deterring American interference in China’s internal affairs and driving a wedge between Taipei and Washington). When the pla’s shore batteries fiercely bombarded Jinmen on 3 and 22 September,36 and especially after the pla increased pressure on the gmd-controlled Dachen and Yijiangshan islands off Zhejiang, Washington and Taipei accelerated negotiations toward signing a defense treaty.37 On 2 December 1954, the treaty was formally signed, withWashington officially committing to using military force to defend Taiwan in the case of a Communist invasion.38 The treaty, though, did not include explicit U.S. commitment to defending the gmd-controlled offshore islands. When the pla finally conducted a full-scale landing operation in Dachen and Yijiangshan in January 1955, Washington, except for helping gmd troops to withdraw from these islands, did not intervene.39 When the pla occupied all gmd-controlled islands off Zhejiang province in February 1955 beijing and the taiwan strait crisis 169 EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use and, two months later, Zhou Enlai announced in Bandung, Indonesia, that Beijing was willing to negotiate with Washington to ‘‘reduce the tension in the Far East,’’ the first Taiwan Strait crisis ended.40 The Fourth Phase: The Peace Initiative, Mid-1955–1957 The consequences of the 1954–55 Taiwan Strait crisis presented to Beijing’s leaders a paradoxical challenge. On the one hand, the crisis caused the international community to pay attention to the Taiwan issue (although not exactly in the way Beijing’s leaders had wanted), and the pla’s liberation of offshore islands in Zhejiang significantly improved the prc’s coastal security north of Fujian province. Therefore, Mao and his comrades felt justified in telling the Chinese people that Beijing’s handling of the crisis was a great success.41 On the other hand, the American-Taiwan defense treaty made it more difficult for the pla to ‘‘liberate Taiwan’’ and, as a result, the separation between the mainland and Taiwan became further formalized. In order to deal with this challenge, the ccp leadership began to reexamine its Taiwan policy in 1955, which resulted in a shift toward a possible peaceful settlement of the Taiwan issue through negotiations with the gmd. Zhou Enlai was one of the main architects of the new peace initiative, and at this moment Mao supported him.42 In July 1955, Zhou stated at the Second Session of the People’s Congress that ‘‘there are two ways for the Chinese people to liberate Taiwan, one military way and one peaceful way. If possible, the Chinese people are willing to liberate Taiwan through the peaceful way.’’43 On 30 January 1956, Zhou announced the ccp’s new policy toward Jiang Jieshi and the gmd at a plenary session of the Chinese People’s Consultative Conference. While reiterating that the ccp was prepared to use military means to liberate Taiwan whenever necessary, the Chinese premier also made it clear that Beijing was now willing to consider ‘‘solving the Taiwan issue’’ in peaceful ways. He also welcomed gmd members living in Taiwan to come back to visit the mainland, claiming that ‘‘anyone who is willing to contribute to the unification of the motherland’’ would be pardoned for ‘‘whatever wrongdoing’’ they might have committed in the past.44 After a series of probes, Zhou Enlai announced publicly on 28 June 1956 that Beijing was ‘‘willing to discuss with the Taiwan authorities about the concrete steps toward, as well as conditions for, a peaceful liberation of Taiwan.’’ He invited the Taiwan authorities to ‘‘dispatch representatives to Beijing, or to another proper location, to begin such discussion with us.’’45 This statement represented a radical departure from Beijing’s militant policy during the first Taiwan Strait crisis less than two years earlier. Beijing continued to carry out its new moderate policy toward Taiwan 170 beijing and the taiwan strait crisis EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use throughout late 1956 and 1957. In addition to openly announcing the ccp’s willingness to negotiate with the gmd, Beijing’s leaders also explored contacting Jiang and other gmd leaders in Taipei through secret channels. One such channel was through a Hong Kong–based freelance journalist named Cao Juren, who had extensive connections with gmd leaders. In a meeting with Cao on 7 October 1956, Zhou outlined Beijing’s conditions for a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan issue: After Taiwan’s ‘‘return to the motherland,’’ the island would continue to be governed by the gmd, and a ‘‘proper position’’ would be arranged for Jiang Jieshi in the central government. Zhou also emphasized that Beijing had stopped anti-Jiang propaganda in order to create an atmosphere for negotiating with the gmd. 46 From 1956 to 1958, Cao frequently traveled to Beijing to serve as a messenger between top ccp and gmd leaders. On one occasion, Zhou claimed that in carrying out the moderate policy toward Taiwan, ‘‘we are sincere and patient, we can wait.’’47 Beijing’s peace initiative toward Taiwan in 1955–57 was a natural outgrowth of the ccp’s longtime tradition of pursuing a ‘‘united front’’ with the gmd whenever the party leadership deemed it necessary.48 When the gmd regime in Taiwan signed the treaty of mutual defense with the United States, Mao and his comrades not only realized that liberating Taiwan by military means had become next to impossible but also were aware of the urgent need to do everything possible to prevent Taiwan from being ‘‘colonized’’ by a hostile imperialist foreign power.49In addition, two important international and domestic pursuits supported China’s Taiwan policy. First, during this same period, Beijing was seeking to improve the prc’s international status through the introduction of the principles of pancha shila and the ‘‘Bandung spirit,’’ and the peace initiative toward Taiwan became an important component of this endeavor.50 Second, in September 1956, ccp’s Eighth National Congress adopted a policy that emphasized economic reconstruction rather than class struggle in following China’s path toward a socialist society, and the Taiwan initiative was compatible with this policy.51 Not surprising at all, with dramatic changes in these two pursuits in 1958, Beijing would return to a highly militant policy toward Taiwan, resulting in the second Taiwan Strait crisis. 1958: The Year of Mao’s Revolutionary Outburst Beijing’s return to a more militant strategy toward Taiwan began around late 1957 and early 1958. On 18 December 1957, Mao Zedong instructed Peng Dehuai, China’s defense minister, to ‘‘consider the question of moving our air force into Fujian in 1958.’’52 In mid-January, the headquarters of Fujian Military Region formulated plans for pla air units to enter Fujian by early summer beijing and the taiwan strait crisis 171 EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 1958.53 On 31 January 1958, Peng reported at a cmc meeting that a main railway line leading to Xiamen had been completed (which was key to the pla’s large-scale military operations aimed at Jinmen), that numerous pla artillery units had been deployed in Fujian, and that the pla air force would finish all preparations for occupying the newly constructed airfields in Fujian in July or August. Early in March, Mao approved Peng’s plans.54 In April, the headquarters of the Fujian Military Region followed the cmc’s instruction to work out a detailed contingency plan to shell Jinmen and formally submitted it to Beijing for approval on 27 April.55 Behind these changes was Mao himself. When top ccp leaders met in Chengdu in March, Mao announced that he had not been personally involved in military decision making since the KoreanWar and that ‘‘this year I will come back to do some military [commanding] work.’’56 All of these developments, as it soon turned out, would became the prelude to Mao’s decision to shell Jinmen in summer 1958. Why did Beijing harden its policy toward Taiwan in 1958? In exploring the causes, some scholars have referred to ccp leaders’ frustration with Taipei’s lack of positive response to their peace initiative in the previous two years. The more militant policy, these scholars argue, was designed to pressure the gmd to take the ccp’s peace initiative more seriously.57 Other scholars have focused their attention on Beijing’s deepening confrontation with Washington. They point out that by late 1957 and early 1958, while the Chinese-American ambassadorial talks inWarsaw (which began in 1955) had hit a deadlock, Beijing’s leaders became alarmed byWashington’s increasingly complicated military involvement in Taiwan following the signing of the U.S.-Taiwan mutual defense treaty. Consequently, Mao and his comrades found it necessary to ‘‘do something substantial’’ to probeWashington’s real intention toward Taiwan, as well as to determine to what extent Washington was willing to commit to Taiwan’s defense.58 These interpretations make good sense as far as they go. But they do not take into consideration the profound connections between Beijing’s changing policy toward Taiwan and the broader domestic and international environment in which Beijing’s leaders formulated the policy. In order to understand the dynamics underlying Beijing’s decision to shell Jinmen in summer 1958, the decision must be placed into the context of the emerging Great Leap Forward, one of the most important episodes in the development of Mao’s continuous revolution. Indeed, as revealed by recently released Chinese evidence, the ccp leadership’s handling of the Taiwan issue in 1958 was from the beginning shaped by the revolutionary zeal prevailing in Chinese political and social life during this unique moment in China’s modern history. 172 beijing and the taiwan strait crisis EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use Mao’s revolutionary outburst began early in 1958, with the Chinese chairman using every opportunity to argue that the ‘‘revolutionary enthusiasm’’ of the masses was required to push China’s ‘‘socialist revolution and reconstruction’’ to a higher level.59 In the chairman’s vision, the successful completion of the ‘‘socialist transformation’’ of China’s industry, commerce, and agriculture in 1956 had already prepared conditions for Chinese society to enter a new stage in the Marxist order of socioeconomic development. By turning the Hundred Flowers Campaign into an Anti-Rightist movement in 1957, the chairman clearly revealed his determination to create a new wave of mass mobilization by manipulating China’s ‘‘public opinion.’’ At a series of conferences attended by top party leaders early in 1958, Mao fiercely criticized the mistakes of ‘‘opposing rash advance’’ committed by Zhou Enlai and others in 1956–57.60 In the meantime, he repeatedly outlined the blueprint for building a Communist society in China, calling upon the whole party and the whole country to ‘‘do away with all fetishes and superstitions, and [to] defy laws both human and divine.’’61 Consequently, in summer 1958, Mao and the ccp leadership, formally announcing that ‘‘the realization of a Communist society in China is not far away,’’ unleashed the Great Leap Forward throughout China’s cities and countryside. While China’s political landscape was being rapidly transformed by this Maoist revolutionary discourse, Beijing’s security concerns and foreign policies were also undergoing profound changes. In March, yielding to Mao’s insistent pressure, Zhou Enlai criticized his handling of Chinese foreign policy in the 1954–58 period at the Chengdu conference. The premier admitted that in dealing with nationalist countries he had put too much emphasis on unity with them to the extent of neglecting the ‘‘necessary struggle’’ against the reactionary elements in these countries, and that he should have taken a more aggressive approach to struggle against capitalist/imperialist countries like Japan and the United States.62 Zhou then resigned from his post as China’s foreign minister. When Marshal Chen Yi took over the Foreign Ministry, his first move was to follow Mao’s instructions to convene a series of rectification meetings at the ministry aimed at ‘‘clearing up’’ the ‘‘rightist tendency’’ among members of the Chinese diplomatic service.63 Against this background, in the spring and summer of 1958, Beijing initiated a series of diplomatic ‘‘offensives.’’ As discussed in Chapter 3, when the Soviet leaders proposed to form a joint submarine flotilla with China and to establish a long-wave radio station on Chinese territory, Mao immediately characterized these proposals as indications of Moscow’s ‘‘big-power chauvinism,’’ throwing the leaders in the Kremlin on the defensive.64 Early in May, after beijing and the taiwan strait crisis 173 EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use two right-wing Japanese youth destroyed the prc’s flag at a Chinese exhibition in Nagasaki, Beijing’s leaders quickly characterized this incident as a ‘‘serious imperialist plot’’ designed to attack the dignity and reputation of the People’s Republic. In protest, Beijing decided to cancel all of China’s trade and cultural exchanges with Japan, which led to further erosion of Beijing’s already highly strained relations with Tokyo.65 It was within the context of these ‘‘offensives’’ that Mao made the decision to shell Jinmen. What should be emphasized is that the rapid radicalization of China’s domestic and foreign policies reflected Mao’s unique perception of the serious threats facing the People’s Republic. Ironically, although Mao had repeatedly announced since late 1957 that ‘‘the East Wind has overwhelmed the West Wind’’ and that ‘‘while the enemy is becoming weaker everyday, we are getting stronger all the time,’’66 his sense of insecurity seems to have increased dramatically. On several occasions, the chairman fretted: ‘‘It is destined that our socialist revolution and reconstruction will not be smooth sailing. We should be prepared to deal with many serious threats facing us both internationally and domestically. As far as the international and domestic situations are concerned, although it is certain both are good in a general sense, it is also certain that many serious challenges are waiting for us. We must be prepared to deal with them.’’67 It is apparent that Mao’s concerns for China’s security were not limited to the country’s physical safety but were broader and more complicated. In order to fully comprehend the implications of Maoist rhetoric concerning China’s security status, we must understand Mao’s profound ‘‘postrevolution anxiety.’’ According to Mao, the final goal of his revolution was the transformation of China’s old state and society and the reassertion of China’s central position in world affairs. For Mao, the Communist seizure of power in China represented the completion of only the first step in the ‘‘Long March’’ of the Chinese revolution. Since the prc’s establishment, Mao repeatedly warned his comrades that if the revolution was not constantly pushed forward, it would lose its momentum. Therefore, in Mao’s vision, the threats to revolutionary China did not just come from without—such as from the imperialist/reactionary forces hostile to the People’s Republic—but also from within, especially from the chronic decline of the revolutionary vigor on the part of party cadres and ordinary party members. For the chairman, how continuously to mobilize the party and the masses thus became a central issue in dealing with the threats that revolutionary China would have to face.68 In 1958, when Mao was leading the whole party and the whole nation to begin the Great Leap Forward, he 174 beijing and the taiwan strait crisis EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use found that the tension emerging in the Taiwan Strait provided him with much needed means to legitimize the unprecedented mass mobilization in China: Besides its disadvantageous side, a tense [international] situation can mobilize the population, can particularly mobilize the backward people, can mobilize the people in the middle, and can therefore promote the Great Leap Forward in economic construction. . . . Lenin once introduced this point in his discussions about war. Lenin said that a war could motivate people’s spiritual condition, making it tense. Although there is no war right now, a tense situation caused by the current military confrontation can also bring about every positive factor.69 Mao’s statement is telling because it reveals that Beijing’s decision to shell Jinmen was made not only to punish the gmd’s lack of interest in the ccp’s peace initiative or to probe Washington’s intention in East Asia but also, and more importantly, to promote the extraordinary revolutionary outburst in China in 1958. The shelling served as a crucial means for Mao to mobilize the Chinese people to devote their innermost support to the Great Leap Forward. In retrospect, given the revolutionary atmosphere prevailing in Chinese society in 1958, it would have been inconceivable for Mao not to make Taiwan an outstanding security issue. The Decision to Shell Jinmen Although Mao had actively considered ‘‘taking major military actions’’ in the Taiwan Strait since early 1958,70 not until July did he decide to conduct large-scale shelling of the Jinmen islands. What triggered the decision, interestingly, was the crisis emerging in the Middle East following American and British intervention in Lebanon and Jordan. On 14 July, a group of young nationalist officers led by Abdel Karim Kassim staged a coup in Iraq, which resulted in the establishment of a new regime friendly to the socialist bloc. In response, U.S. marines landed on Lebanon and British paratroopers landed in Jordan the next day. Beijing angrily protested the U.S.-British intervention. While millions of ordinary Chinese held protest demonstrations and rallies in Beijing, Shanghai, and other major cities, the prc government announced that it firmly opposed Washington’s and London’s imperialist behavior in the Middle East and supported the newly born Republic of Iraq.71 Beijing’s protest was not confined to mere words. On 17 July, without consulting other top leaders in Beijing, Mao asked Peng Dehuai to convey the beijing and the taiwan strait crisis 175 EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use following order to the pla’s General Staff: In response to the crisis situation in the Middle East, the air force should move into Fujian as soon as possible, the Fujian shore batteries should be prepared to shell Jinmen and blockade Jinmen’s supply lines, and the General Staff should work out plans for conducting these operations immediately.72 The next evening, Mao chaired a meeting attended by Beijing’s top military planners to discuss how to carry out the shelling operation.73 He told the participants that the U.S.-British intervention in Lebanon and Jordan had made the Middle East the focus of an international confrontation between progressive and reactionary forces. China’s aid to the Arab people, claimed the chairman, should not be restricted to moral support but must be given ‘‘through taking practical actions.’’ He announced that he had decided to use the pla’s shore batteries to shell gmd troops in Jinmen and Mazu. ‘‘The first wave,’’ he instructed, ‘‘will include the firing of 100,000 to 200,000 shells, and will be followed by 1,000 shells every day for two to three months.’’ The chairman said that he intended to make Jiang Jieshi the main target and, at the same time, try to gauge the strength of the Americans. He also reasoned that since Jinmen and Mazu were Chinese territories, and the shelling was a matter of China’s internal affairs, the Americans could not use it as an excuse to strike back.74 Late on the evening of 18 July, Peng Dehuai called a cmc meeting to work out more detailed plans to carry out Mao’s order. It was decided that pla’s air force, unless hindered by bad weather, should move into the airfields in Fujian by 27 July to cover the shelling operation. In addition, more artillery units would be transferred to Fujian immediately to join the shore batteries already stationed there. The shelling would focus on Jinmen’s harbor and gmd supply vessels, so that the islands’ supply lines would be cut off. In making plans for the air force, Peng and his colleagues showed caution. They believed that the air force should restrict its operations to the airspace over the mainland and should never enter operations over open sea. The meeting participants also decided that the shelling of Jinmen would begin in one week, on 25 July.75 The Chinese military machine was promptly put into motion after the meeting. At 11:00 p.m. on 18 July, the pla General Staff relayed the cmc’s order by security telephone to General Ye Fei, political commissar of the Fujian Military Region who, according to Mao’s order, would assume the frontal commanding duty for the shelling operation. Ye immediately met with his staff to discuss how to implement the order. They decided to concentrate, by the evening of 24 July, thirty artillery battalions in the Xiamen area directed against Jinmen and another four artillery battalions in the Lianjiang area di176 beijing and the taiwan strait crisis EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use rected against Mazu.76 In the meantime, the air force decided that their air units would move into several Fujian and nearby eastern Guangdong airfields in two groups on 24 and 27 July, and that additional antiaircraft artillery units and radar units would be dispatched to Fujian.77 On 20 July, the naval headquarters ordered the units under its command to complete all preparations for operations in Fujian.78 In the next several days, the railways and highways leading to the Fujian coast became jammed by large numbers of pla artillery and other supporting units being transferred to the front. Despite the difficulties created by a severe typhoon on 21 July, Ye Fei was able to report to Mao and the cmc on 23 July that thirty-three artillery battalions had taken position on the Fujian coast, that about 50,000 artillery shells had been distributed among front units, with another 100,000 shells on their way, and that all other preparations would be completed by 24 July. Ye also summarized the Fujian Military Region’s operation plans: ‘‘(1) We plan to use our artillery forces to conduct abrupt and fierce shelling of the enemy in Jinmen and Mazu simultaneously. (2) In terms of the targets of our artillery strike in Jinmen, we will concentrate on attacking the enemy’s docks, artillery grounds, and important warehouses. (3) We will then be prepared to enter operations in the air and, at the same time, will use our shore batteries to blockade the enemy’s ports and airfields, striking continuously the enemy’s artillery forces and other reinforcements.’’79 Although no landing operation was mentioned in these well-calculated plans, it is logical to conclude that the pla would try to take over Jinmen and Mazu after significantly weakening the enemy’s defense capacity and cutting off its supply lines. As pla units nearly completed their preparations on the Fujian front, top ccp leaders in Beijing postponed the deadline for the shelling operation twice. On 24 July, after learning that Taipei had dispatched two more divisions to Jinmen as reinforcements, Peng Dehuai proposed to Mao to change the deadline from 25 to 27 July, and Mao approved.80 On the morning of 27 July, when Ye Fei and his staff were waiting for the final order from Beijing to commence the shelling, Mao decided to postpone the operation again. In a letter to Peng Dehuai and Huang Kecheng (a copy of which was simultaneously cabled to Ye Fei), the chairman stated: I could not sleep and have thought about the question again. It seems more appropriate to hold the shelling on Jinmen for several more days. While holding our operations, we will observe the development of the situation. . . . We will wait until the other side launches a provocative attack and then beijing and the taiwan strait crisis 177 EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use respond with our counterattack. The solution of the problem in the Middle East will take time. Since we have time, why should we be in a big hurry? We will hold our attack plan for the moment, but one day we will implement it. If the other side invades Zhangzhou, Shantou, Fuzhou, and Hangzhou, that is the best scenario. . . . It is extremely beneficial to have politics in a commanding position and to make a decision only after repeated deliberations. . . . Even if the other side attacks us, we still can wait for a few days to make clear calculations and then start our counterattack. . . . We must persist in the principle of fighting no battle we are not sure of winning.81 Why did Mao decide to put the shelling of Jinmen on hold at the last minute? One possible explanation was that the chairman was not certain if the pla artillery units on the Fujian front had indeed reached full readiness, and that he knew that his air force would need more time to occupy the airfields in Fujian.82 As a longtime advocate of ‘‘never fighting a battle without being fully prepared,’’ the chairman must have felt it necessary to give the pla more time to complete all preparations. The chairman also must have realized that the shelling would inevitably escalate the tension between China and the United States, and although he repeatedly claimed that he would never be scared by the American ‘‘paper tiger,’’ he would like to calculate possible American reactions more carefully.83 Furthermore, given the emphasis he had placed upon the political impact of the shelling, it is possible that Mao hoped that the pla’s military concentration in the coastal area might trigger a gmd preemptive military attack on the mainland (most likely by air bombardment), which would provide additional justification for the pla to shell Jinmen and thus greatly enhance the shelling’s mobilization effect upon ordinary Chinese people. In addition, Mao may have decided to postpone the shelling because Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was scheduled to visit Beijing in a few days to deal with a potential crisis recently emerging between Beijing and Moscow. In summer 1958 Moscow proposed to Beijing to establish a joint Soviet-Chinese submarine flotilla and a jointly owned long-wave radio station on the Chinese coast, which Beijing opposed immediately. On 22 July 1958, five days before Mao decided to postpone the shelling of Jinmen, he had a highly emotional talk with Pavel Yudin, Soviet ambassador to China, during which he criticized Moscow’s proposals as evidence of Soviet leaders’ ‘‘big-power chauvinism,’’ as well as their desire to control China.84 Khrushchev, after receiving Yudin’s report, quickly decided to travel to Beijing to meet Mao. Although we have no way of knowing exactly how this turn of events might have influenced Mao’s 178 beijing and the taiwan strait crisis EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use consideration of the Taiwan issue, one thing is certain: the Chinese chairman did not want to let the Soviet leader have any impact on his decision making on Taiwan. When Khrushchev was in Beijing from 31 July to 3 August, he had four substantial meetings with Mao and other Chinese leaders, but Mao never informed Khrushchev that the pla was planning to shell Jinmen.85 From the beginning, for Mao, the shelling was a challenge not just to Taipei and Washington but to Moscow’s domination of the international Communist movement as well. Militarily speaking, Mao’s decision to postpone the shelling did give the pla more time to complete pre-operation preparations. From 27 July to 13 August, several pla air regiments successfully moved into airfields in Fujian and eastern Guangdong, thus establishing effective air coverage for the artillery and ground units that had taken position in Fujian.86 In the meantime, pla field commanders in Fujian gained more time to establish better communications and logistical support for their troops.87 From Mao’s perspective, though, prolonging the preparations gave him more opportunity to contemplate the shelling’s possible consequences, especially Washington’s likely reaction. Indeed, as we shall see, how to avoid a direct confrontation with the Americans became a main concern for Mao when he made the final decision to shell Jinmen. Mao’s decision to postpone the shelling operation, however, also confused some of his own commanders. By mid-August, since they had not received further orders from Mao, top pla commanders began to believe that the chairman meant to call off the shelling operation or postpone it indefinitely. On 13 August, Peng Dehuai instructed the Operation Department under the General Staff that if the American/gmd side did not initiate any military activity in the next few days, the shelling operation in Fujian should be called off and the pla units there should return to ‘‘normal status.’’ On 19 August, the General Staff formally notified the Fujian Military Region that the ‘‘combat readiness’’ status on the Fujian front had been lifted.88 At this point, though, Mao was actually ready to execute the shelling plan. Beginning on 17 August, the ccp leadership convened an enlarged politburo conference at Beidaihe, a summer sea resort for top ccp leaders, to discuss how to propel the Great Leap Forward into its most radical phase: the communization of China’s rural population and the militarization of the entire Chinese workforce (that is, the commencement of the nationwide ‘‘everyone a soldier’’ campaign). Although the Jinmen issue originally was not on the meeting’s agenda, on the first day of the conference, Mao suddenly announced that he had decided to shell Jinmen.89 Mao then offered one of the most outspoken statements he had given during the 1958 Taiwan Strait crisis to justify beijing and the taiwan strait crisis 179 EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use his decision, emphasizing that, as far as its mobilization effect is concerned, international tension was not a bad thing at all: In our propaganda, we say that we oppose tension and strive for détente, as if détente is to our advantage [and] tension is to their [the West’s] advantage. [But] can we or can’t we look at [the situation] the other way around: is tension to our comparative advantage [and] to the West’s disadvantage? Tension is to the West’s advantage only in that they can increase military production, and it is to our advantage in that it will mobilize all [our] positive forces. . . . Tension can [help] gain membership for Communist parties in different countries. [It] can [help] us increase steel as well as grain [production]. . . . To have an enemy in front of us, to have tension, is to our advantage.90 No statement could be more revealing about Mao’s intentions. Following this singular logic, Mao acted to create an enemy. Early on the morning of 18 August, he personally wrote a letter to Peng Dehuai, telling the defense minister to ‘‘prepare to shell Jinmen now, dealing with Jiang [Jieshi] directly and the Americans indirectly.’’ The chairman also asked Peng to ‘‘call the air force headquarters’ attention to the possibility that the Taiwan side might counterattack us by dispatching large numbers of aircraft (dozens, or even one hundred planes) to try to take back air control over Jinmen and Mazu.’’ ‘‘[I]f this happens,’’ he instructed Peng, ‘‘we should prepare to use large numbers of our air units to defeat them immediately.’’ Demonstrating his willingness to maintain a balance between strategic aggressiveness and tactical cautiousness, the chairman advised the defense minister that ‘‘in chasing them, our planes should not cross the space line over Jinmen and Mazu.’’91 After being put on hold for more than three weeks, the shelling operation was again activated. Two days later, Mao further defined the operation’s scope and objective. He reduced the operation’s size from what he had planned one month before, deciding that intensive shelling would be conducted only toward the Jinmen islands, but not Mazu. He also made it clear that the shelling’s main goal was to isolate the gmd troops on Jinmen, cutting them off from supplies. He also clarified that he intended to take over Jinmen, although not necessarily through a landing operation. ‘‘After a period of shelling,’’ the chairman pointed out, ‘‘the other side might withdraw its troops from Jinmen and Mazu, or might continue to struggle in spite of huge difficulties. Then, whether or not we will conduct landing operations will be determined by the specific situation at that time. We should take one step and watch to take the next step.’’92 Mao’s main concern was how the United States would respond to the shell180 beijing and the taiwan strait crisis EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use ing. In a general sense, Mao did not believe that Washington would intervene militarily for the sake of Jinmen and other gmd-controlled offshore islands; nor did he anticipate that the shelling on Jinmen would result in a general war between China and the United States.93 But as an experienced military strategist, he had been accustomed to ‘‘striving for the best while preparing for the worst,’’ and he thus needed to have contingency plans in hand. Consequently, before he gave his orders, Mao talked to his field commanders in person. Late on 20 August, the General Staff telephoned Ye Fei, who had been waiting for Mao’s final order since late July, instructing him to fly immediately to Beidaihe to meet with Mao.94 Ye arrived at Mao’s quarters on the afternoon of 21 August, and the meeting was also attended by Marshals Peng Dehuai and Lin Biao. After Ye reported to Mao in detail the situation on the Fujian front, the chairman abruptly asked: ‘‘You use so many cannons in the shelling, is it possible that some Americans would be killed?’’ Ye, knowing that there were American advisers in Jinmen, replied that it was possible. Mao also asked: ‘‘Is it possible that you might avoid hitting the Americans?’’ Ye said that it was impossible. Mao did not ask another question before peremptorily adjourning the meeting. The next day Mao again summoned Ye to his quarters and told him that even though the shelling might result in the deaths of Americans, it should go on. And in order to assure that the central leadership, and Mao in particular, would directly control the shelling the chairman ordered Ye to stay in Beidaihe to command the operations by telephone.95 The fact that Mao made the final decision in mid- and late August to begin the shelling is highly revealing. By that time, the tension in the Middle East had already been greatly reduced—since early August, Washington and London had recognized the new nationalist government in Iraq, and they both had begun to withdraw their troops from Lebanon and Jordan. As a result, Mao’s main original reason to shell Jinmen—‘‘to support the people in the Middle East’’—was no longer a valid justification for the decision. The logical interpretation, as will be discussed below, can only be that he was driven by domestic political considerations. On the morning of 23 August, all pla units in Fujian entered a ‘‘first-class alert of operation readiness.’’ At the pla’s frontline headquarters in Xiamen, General Zhang Yixiang, the vice commander of the Fujian Military Region who had been assigned the frontal commanding duty during Ye Fei’s absence, maintained constant telephone communication with Ye in Beidaihe. After almost a whole day’s waiting, at around 5:20 p.m., Zhang received the order from Mao via Ye that the shelling should start at 5:30 p.m. Ten minutes later, a largescale barrage of the Jinmen islands began.96 beijing and the taiwan strait crisis 181 EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use The Shelling and the Crisis The pla’s intensive bombardment of Jinmen on 23 August touched off a major international crisis. Although the Eisenhower administration was not caught entirely off guard by the shelling since for weeks American officials had observed Beijing’s massive military buildup in Fujian and had formulated various contingency plans, policymakers in Washington were not certain about Beijing’s intentions.97 Fearing that the shelling could be a prelude to a major invasion of the gmd-controlled offshore islands or even Taiwan itself, President Eisenhower ordered U.S. forces in East Asia to enter ‘‘readiness alert’’ for war operations. To enhance American naval strength in the Taiwan Strait, he ordered two aircraft carrier groups (recently deployed in the Middle East during the crisis over Iraq and Lebanon) to sail to East Asia. In the meantime, Washington expedited the shipment of all kinds of military equipment and ammunition, including the deadly Sidewinder air-to-air missile, to Taiwan.98 Indeed, as historian Gordon H. Chang points out: ‘‘Within days the United States had assembled off the Chinese coast the most powerful armada the world had ever seen.’’99 These developments did not come as a surprise to Mao, since one of his main purposes was to stir up international tension on his own terms. On the evening of 23 August, Mao called a Politburo Standing Committee meeting at Beidaihe and delivered a long and comprehensive speech, divulging his understanding of the international impact of the shelling. According toWu Lengxi, who attended the meeting as director of the Xinhua News Agency and one of Mao’s political secretaries, the chairman was in very high spirits. He first explained why he chose 23 August for the barrage. The chairman pointed out that just three days earlier the un Assembly had passed a resolution requesting that American and British troops withdraw from Lebanon and Jordan, a request that, in his view, made ‘‘American occupation of Taiwan look even more unjust than before,’’ thus making the timing perfect for beginning shelling on Jinmen. In elaborating what he saw as the purpose of the shelling operation, the chairman stressed: ‘‘Our demand is that American armed forces withdraw from Taiwan, and Jiang’s troops withdraw from Jinmen and Mazu. If they do not do so, we will attack. Taiwan is too far away to be bombed, so we shell Jinmen and Mazu. This will surely produce a shock wave in the world. Not only will the Americans be shocked but the Asians and the Europeans will be shocked too. The people in the Arab world will be delighted, and the vast masses in Asia and Africa will take our side.’’100 As he did on so many other occasions in the summer of 1958, the chairman again explained how international tension could be beneficial to China’s con182 beijing and the taiwan strait crisis EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use tinuous revolution. He told Wu Lengxi that the Chinese media should continue to propagandize that China opposed the international tension created by the imperialists and was in favor of relaxing international tension. However, stressed the chairman, his real belief was that ‘‘all bad things have two sides.’’ While ‘‘international tension is certainly a bad thing, there is a good side of it: it will bring about the awakening of many people, and will make them determined to fight against the imperialists.’’101 During the course of his long talk, the chairman stated that the bombardment of Jinmen was also meant to ‘‘teach the Americans a lesson.’’ ‘‘The Americans have bullied us for many years,’’ claimed the chairman, ‘‘so now that we have a chance, why not give them a hard time?’’ He emphasized that ‘‘the Americans started a fire in the Middle East, and we are now starting a fire in the Far East.’’ In his opinion, ‘‘we did not put the Americans in the wrong; they did it by themselves—they have stationed several thousand troops on Taiwan, plus two air force bases there.’’ Beijing should observe how the international community, and especially the Americans, respond to the shelling operation, the chairman continued, and ‘‘then we will decide on our next move.’’102 Fighting continued in the Taiwan Strait area on 24 August. In addition to inflicting another day of the fierce artillery bombardment (about 10,000 rounds were fired), the pla navy dispatched six torpedo boats to attack several gmd supply ships off the Jinmen port. It was reported that one gmd ship, Zhonghai, was severely damaged, and another one, Taisheng, was sunk.103 In retaliation, the gmd used forty-eight F-86 fighters to attack the pla air force the next afternoon, leading to a major air battle over the Fujian coast. The outcome of the battle has become a myth since each side claimed that it had won a victory.104 As the conflict in the Taiwan Strait escalated, Mao called another Politburo Standing Committee meeting on the afternoon of 25 August, specifically devoted to the discussion of Washington’s reaction and Beijing’s next move.105 Again the chairman dominated the meeting. Beginning his talk by joking that ‘‘now we are taking our summer vacation here at Beidaihe, but we have made the Americans extremely nervous,’’ the chairman told the participants that, according to his observations, Washington was worried that the pla not only would land on Jinmen and Mazu but also would attack Taiwan itself. ‘‘In reality,’’ commented the chairman, ‘‘although we have fired dozens of thousands of rounds on Jinmen, we only mean to probe [the Americans’ intention].We will not say if we are, or if we are not, going to land on Jinmen. We will be doubly cautious and will act in accordance with the situation.’’ The chairman further clarified that he was taking such a cautious attitude not bebeijing and the taiwan strait crisis 183 EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use cause there were 95,000 gmd troops stationed on Jinmen islands but because he needed to assess the attitude of the American government. ‘‘Washington has signed a treaty of mutual defense with Taiwan, but it does not clearly spell out whether or not the U.S. defense perimeter includes Jinmen and Mazu.’’ Thus, Mao continued, ‘‘we need to see if the Americans want to carry these islands on their backs.’’ In the chairman’s opinion, the best way to deal with the Americans at the moment was to keep them guessing. Thus Mao directed the Chinese media not to link U.S. actions in the Middle East directly with the pla’s bombardment of Jinmen for the moment, but rather to criticize Washington’s ‘‘imperialist behavior’’ in broad terms, including its ‘‘occupation of China’s Taiwan.’’ ‘‘We should build up our strength and store up our energy, that is, draw the bow but not discharge the arrow,’’ concluded the chairman.106 In response to Mao’s vague instructions, the planners at Beijing’s General Staff headquarters spent the whole evening of 25 August working out what specific strategy the pla’s three services in Fujian should take in the next few days. On 26 August, Peng Dehuai, with Mao’s approval, summarized the planners’ conclusions in a telegram to Vice Commander Zhang Yixiang: The artillery forces should do everything possible to isolate the Jinmen islands, cutting off communications between Big Jinmen and Small Jinmen and between the Jinmen islands and Taiwan, while destroying airstrips at the Jinmen airport; the navy should strengthen attacks on the gmd’s small and middle-size vessels; and the air force should guarantee the defense of the mainland’s airspace by repulsing any air attack the gmd might launch against targets on the mainland, and in no circumstance should the air force engage in fighting outside the mainland’s airspace.107 It is apparent that Beijing’s military strategy now concentrated on strangling the Jinmen islands rather than landing on them directly, with eventually seizing Jinmen, Mazu, and other gmd-controlled offshore islands as the operation’s objective. In an international crisis, the big picture sometimes can be changed by a small incident. On 24 and 27 August, the pla’s Fujian frontline radio station, without Beijing’s authorization, announced that ‘‘our army’s landing operation is imminent’’ and called on the gmd troops to surrender and ‘‘join the great cause of liberating Taiwan.’’108 Policymakers in Washington, as well as the Western media, immediately took this provocative message as evidence that Beijing was about to launch an amphibious landing operation against Jinmen. The same day, for the first time since the crisis began, the U.S. State Department publicly announced that the gmd-controlled offshore islands such as Jinmen and Mazu were vital to the defense of Taiwan itself.109 Beijing’s leaders were alarmed by Washington’s statement since it revealed 184 beijing and the taiwan strait crisis EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use that, with any mistake, the shelling of Jinmen could turn from a ccp-gmd conflict into a direct Chinese-American military showdown. This prospect was unacceptable to Mao. No matter how provocative the chairman had been toward the United States in internal speeches and open propaganda, what he really wanted was, to borrow a phrase from the political scientist Thomas Christensen, ‘‘a conflict short of war.’’110 After learning of the contents of the Fujian radio station’s broadcast from Cankao ziliao (an internally circulated journal by the Xinhua News Agency that published translations of Western news reports on a daily basis), Mao ‘‘lost [his] temper.’’ He sternly criticized this ‘‘serious mistake,’’ reemphasizing that no one should comment on issues related to the Taiwan Strait crisis without Beijing’s approval.111 In the face of a greater American military threat in the Taiwan Strait, Mao needed to adjust Beijing’s strategies. He wanted to continue the military pressure on gmd troops in Jinmen, but his attention increasingly turned to using other measures to contain the danger in direct American intervention. One was announcing the limits of the prc’s territorial water. Right after the shelling of Jinmen began, Mao had instructed the Foreign Ministry and the General Staff to study how best to define the boundaries of China’s territorial water. At the end of August, Mao decided that the time for a decision had come.112 On 1 and 2 September, Mao chaired a two-day Politburo Standing Committee meeting, which was also attended by several international law experts from the Foreign Ministry, to discuss the issue. Although the experts believed that the limits should be set up at three nautical miles from the coastline, Mao and other top ccp leaders, for political and strategic considerations, decided that the limits should be established at twelve miles.113 On 4 September, Beijing formally established the prc’s territorial waters at twelve nautical miles and declared that no foreign military aircraft or naval vessels would be allowed to cross the boundary without Beijing’s permission.114 In Zhou Enlai’s words, this declaration was made at this particular moment to ‘‘prevent American military vessels from coming close to the Jinmen islands, which were situated well within the twelve-mile zone of China’s territorial water.’’115 In the meantime, in order to observe Washington’s responses, Mao ordered the pla to stop shelling gmd targets for three days.116 The ‘‘Noose Strategy’’ Beijing’s leaders did not have to wait long for Washington’s response. The same day that Beijing announced the extent of its territorial water, U.S. secretary of state John Foster Dulles, after meeting with President Eisenhower, issued a statement on the Taiwan Strait crisis. He emphasized that ‘‘[t]he beijing and the taiwan strait crisis 185 EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use United States is bound by treaty to help defend Taiwan (Formosa) from armed attack’’ and that ‘‘we have recognized that the securing and protecting of Quemoy [Jinmen] and Matsu [Mazu] have increasingly become related to the defense of Taiwan.’’ In the same statement, Dulles also indicated that Washington was willing to resume the ambassadorial talks with Beijing in order to reach an agreement on ‘‘mutual and reciprocal renunciation of force’’ in the Taiwan Strait.117 Dulles’s statement, along with Washington’s subsequent announcement that the Seventh Fleet would begin escorting gmd supply vessels to Jinmen, brought the Taiwan Strait crisis to a crucial juncture. Now Beijing’s leaders had to face the tough reality that if the shelling on Jinmen went out of control, a direct military confrontation with the United States could follow. Within this framework, Mao introduced his ‘‘noose strategy.’’ When Dulles’s statement reached Beijing, Mao was chairing a Politburo Standing Committee meeting to discuss the new situation in the Taiwan Strait, focusing on analyzing Washington’s intentions. Mao emphasized that it seemed to him that the Americans were afraid of fighting a war, and it was unlikely that they would engage in a major war for Jinmen. Zhou Enlai pointed out that the current world situation was different from that of the KoreanWar period, and none of the U.S. allies—such as Britain, Japan, and the Philippines—would support American military action in the Taiwan Strait. Therefore, claimed Zhou, the U.S. government would be unwilling to use military means to end the crisis. The meeting participants concluded that although the Americans certainly would help the gmd defend Taiwan, it was doubtful that they would help defend Jinmen and Mazu as well.118 Participants of the meeting believed that the shelling of Jinmen had already successfully probed Washington’s intentions toward Taiwan and the offshore islands, as well as mobilized the people in the world. Regarding Beijing’s future strategy, Mao pointed out that now was the time to turn Jinmen into a ‘‘noose’’ for Washington by not landing on Jinmen but putting more pressure on the Americans. When American ships entered China’s newly established territorial water, the chairman asserted, they should first be warned to leave, and, then, if they refused to leave, ‘‘due measures should be taken.’’ The chairman was also prepared to return to the ambassadorial talks in Warsaw, thus ‘‘employing the diplomatic means to coordinate the fighting on the Fujian front’’; at the same time, he stressed, Beijing should further mobilize the people in the whole country through a big propaganda campaign centered on condemning America’s ‘‘interference with China’s internal affairs.’’119 On 5 and 8 September, Mao made two speeches at the Fifteenth Meeting of the Supreme State Council, in which he explained in particular what he 186 beijing and the taiwan strait crisis EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use meant by using a ‘‘noose strategy’’ to deal with the Americans. The chairman repeatedly stressed that international tension was more a ‘‘good thing’’ than a ‘‘bad thing’’ because it would help mobilize the people both in China and in the world, that Washington feared Beijing more than Beijing feared Washington, and that, in the final analysis, ‘‘the East Wind has overwhelmed the West Wind.’’ Within this context, the chairman claimed that Jinmen and Taiwan, like many other places in the world where the United States had military bases, were ‘‘nooses’’ for the United States: At present, America has committed itself to an ‘‘all-round responsibility’’ policy along our coast. It seems to me that the Americans will only feel comfortable if they take complete responsibility for Jinmen and Mazu, or even for such small islands as Dadan, Erdan, and Dongding [small islands within the Jinmen archipelago]. America has fallen into our noose. Thereby, America’s neck is hanging in China’s iron noose. Although Taiwan is [for America] another noose, it is a bit farther from [the mainland]. America is now moving its head closer to us, since it wants to take responsibility for Jinmen and other islands. Someday we will kick America, and it cannot run away, because it is tied up by our noose.120 Despite Mao’s provocative language, his ‘‘noose strategy’’ did not represent any significant escalation of Beijing’s belligerence toward Washington. Behind Mao’s radical rhetoric and metaphorical language lurked cunning and careful calculations. He understood that the American military presence in the Taiwan Strait made it impossible for Beijing to ‘‘liberate Taiwan’’ through military means and that it would be necessary to deal with the Americans at the negotiation table. But, to prevent the negotiations from jeopardizing the mobilization effect he hoped to achieve through the shelling of Jinmen, he figured that a dramatic propaganda campaign, with a provocative concept as its central symbol, had to be introduced. In other words, the primary designated audience of the ‘‘noose strategy’’ was not the Americans but China’s ordinary people. Not surprising at all, when millions of Chinese were told that Jinmen and Mazu had become ‘‘nooses’’ for the Americans and were holding anti-American demonstrations and rallies throughout China, Mao was turning his attention to the diplomatic front and preparing to negotiate with the Americans. ‘‘Dancing’’ with Moscow, Negotiating with Washington On 6 September, Zhou Enlai issued a formal response to Dulles’s statement of two days earlier. The Chinese premier sternly condemned Washington’s beijing and the taiwan strait crisis 187 EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use ‘‘policy of aggression’’ in the Taiwan Strait and ‘‘continuous intervention in China’s internal affairs.’’ He reiterated that it was within China’s sovereignty for Beijing to use military means to deal with the gmd’s ‘‘sabotage and harassment activities.’’ But Zhou also stated that Beijing would make a distinction between the ‘‘international dispute between China and the United States in the Taiwan Strait’’ and the ‘‘internal matter of the Chinese people’s efforts to liberate Taiwan,’’ and thus was willing to ‘‘sit down at the negotiation table with the Americans to discuss how to relax and eliminate the tension in the Taiwan Strait.’’121 The timing of Zhou’s statement was probably related to a secret visit to Beijing by the Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko. Since the beginning of the shelling on Jinmen, Beijing had kept Moscow in the dark about the plans for the operation. Dulles’s 4 September statement and the prospect of a Sino-American clash in the Taiwan Strait alarmed the leaders in Moscow. On 5 September, Khrushchev personally telephoned Beijing’s leaders, informing them that he intended to dispatch Gromyko to China.122 The next day, Zhou Enlai met with N. G. Sudarikov, a counselor at the Soviet embassy in China. The Soviet diplomat informed Zhou that Khrushchev was planning to send a message to Eisenhower regarding the Taiwan Strait crisis, and the major goal of Gromyko’s visit was to inform Beijing’s leaders of the message and to ‘‘exchange opinions on this matter.’’ Zhou, for the first time since the outbreak of the Taiwan Strait crisis, explained to the Soviets Beijing’s aims in conducting the shelling. Zhou emphasized that by shelling Jinmen, Beijing meant to have the Americans ‘‘get stuck’’ in Taiwan, ‘‘just as they have ‘gotten stuck’ in the Middle East and Near East.’’ The shelling, according to Zhou, would also cause ‘‘more acute contradictions’’ between Jiang Jieshi and Dulles, as well as ‘‘prove to the Americans that the People’s Republic of China is strong and bold enough and is not afraid of America.’’ The shelling’s domestic aim, Zhou continued, was ‘‘to raise the combat spirit of our people and their readiness for war, to enhance their feeling of not being afraid of war and their hatred toward American imperialism and its aggressive, insolent foreign policy.’’123 Zhou stated that the shelling of Jinmen and Mazu would not be followed by a landing operation on the gmd-controlled offshore islands, let alone on Taiwan. In particular, Zhou promised that Beijing would take full responsibility for its own behavior and would not ‘‘drag the Soviet Union into the water’’ if ‘‘big trouble’’ resulted from the shelling.124 Gromyko arrived in Beijing on the morning of 6 September and met with Zhou Enlai at 2 p.m. the same day. At the beginning of the meeting, Zhou gave Gromyko a copy of the statement he had issued that day, and the Soviet foreign 188 beijing and the taiwan strait crisis EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use minister presented to Zhou a draft letter Khrushchev was preparing to send to Eisenhower. With Gromyko’s prodding, Zhou again explained Beijing’s aims and plans regarding Taiwan, basically repeating what he had told Sudarikov the day before. Gromyko stated that ‘‘the CC cpsu is in full support of the stand and measures taken by the Chinese comrades.’’ He also mentioned that Zhou’s statement and Khrushchev’s letter to Eisenhower represented ‘‘two important actions that are highly compatible and mutually supplementary on the diplomatic front.’’125 At 6:30 p.m. Gromyko met with Mao. He again expressed Moscow’s support for the ‘‘stand, policies, and measures’’ Beijing had taken during the Taiwan Strait crisis. In addition, he emphasized that Khrushchev’s letter to Eisenhower would send a ‘‘serious warning’’ to the Americans, which should make the Americans calm down, ‘‘as if they had taken a cold bath.’’126 Mao found that ‘‘ninety percent’’ of Khrushchev’s message to Eisenhower was ‘‘correct’’ and only ‘‘a few points may need to be further discussed.’’127 With Beijing’s consent, Khrushchev sent the letter to Eisenhower on 7 September, warning Washington that an attack on China ‘‘is an attack on the Soviet Union’’ and that Moscow would ‘‘do everything’’ to defend both countries.128 Behind this open demonstration of solidarity between Beijing and Moscow, the Sino-Soviet schism that had emerged after Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization widened. According to Soviet documentary records and Gromyko’s recollections, how to deal withWashington’s nuclear threat was an important topic the Soviet foreign minister discussed with both Zhou and Mao. Zhou told Gromyko: ‘‘Inflicting blows on the offshore islands, the prc has taken into consideration the possibility of the outbreak in this region of a local war between the United States and the prc, and it is now ready to take all the hard blows, including atomic bombs and the destruction of its cities.’’ The Chinese premier advised the Soviet foreign minister that the Soviet Union should not take part in the Sino-American war ‘‘even if the Americans used tactical nuclear weapons.’’ Only if Washington resorted to using ‘‘larger nuclear weapons’’ and risked broadening the war ‘‘should the Soviet Union respond with a nuclear counterstrike.’’129 In his memoirs, Gromyko recorded a similar conversation with Mao. The Chinese chairman, according to Gromyko, stated that if the Americans were to invade the Chinese mainland or to use nuclear weapons, the Chinese forces would retreat, drawing American ground forces into China’s interior. The chairman proposed that during the initial stage of the war, the Soviets should do nothing but watch. Only after the American forces had entered China’s interior should Moscow use ‘‘all means at its disposal’’ (which Gromyko understood as Soviet nuclear weapons) to destroy them.130 beijing and the taiwan strait crisis 189 EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use Although China’s official account of the conversation angrily rebutted Gromyko’s story after it was first published in 1988, claiming it to be a ‘‘serious distortion of the historical truth,’’131 I believe that both Mao and Zhou had made these statements concerning the danger of a nuclear war since both remarks were consistent with Mao’s own philosophy and view on this issue. Since the mid-1950s, Mao had repeatedly expressed his unique views on the destructive effects of nuclear weapons, claiming that ‘‘even if the American atom bombs were so powerful that, when all dropped on China, they would make a hole right through the earth, or even blow it up, that would hardly mean anything to the universe as a whole, although it might be a major event for the solar system.’’132 For Mao, the discussion concerned not a strategic matter but rather a philosophical issue. With a profound belief that ‘‘history is on our side,’’ Mao, especially in the 1950s and 1960s, often adopted a very special definition of space and time in discussions of important policy and strategic issues, referring to the universe (or ‘‘all under the heaven’’—Tianxia in Chinese) and ‘‘ten thousand years’’ as the basic scale in measuring the grand mission of his revolution. Within this context, Mao would often describe nuclear weapons as nothing but a ‘‘paper tiger.’’ Mao’s unconventional attitude toward nuclear weapons had already scared many of his Communist comrades in other parts of the world (especially at the summit of Communist leaders in Moscow in November 1957); this time, he alarmed his comrades from Moscow.133 Despite Mao’s belligerent rhetoric, Beijing acted cautiously toward American participation in the gmd’s supply convoys to Jinmen. During the early days of the shelling, Beijing issued a strict order to pla units on the Fujian front that they should not take any action toward the Americans without Beijing’s authorization.134 On 7 September—when, for the first time since the outbreak of the crisis, American ships were involved in escorting gmd supply vessels to Jinmen—the prc Foreign Ministry issued a ‘‘serious warning’’ to Washington, but the pla’s shore batteries maintained complete silence.135 Actually, Beijing’s leaders were carefully considering how to respond to this new development, taking into account all possible contingencies. They finally reached a decision close to midnight and sent the following order to the Fujian Frontal Headquarters: (1) Our artillery units on the Xiamen front should conduct another punitive barrage on important gmd military targets at Jinmen. The strike should be both accurate and fierce. The scale of the barrage should be larger than that of 23 August with a plan to fire about 300,000 rounds. (2) Concerning American military ships’ action of escorting Jiang’s vessels 190 beijing and the taiwan strait crisis EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use and invading our territorial water, the spokesman of our Foreign Ministry has already issued a warning. If the American ships come again, we will issue another warning. After these two warnings, if the American ships continue to invade our territorial water to escort Jiang’s ships, we will concentrate the strength of our artillery force and navy to bombard Jiang’s vessels stationed in the Liaolowan beach [of the Big Jinmen]. However, no strike should be aimed at American ships.136 The order puzzled the pla’s front commanders since they could not figure out how their units, in a long-distance artillery bombardment of the mixed American-gmd convoy, might manage to hit only gmd vessels.Ye Fei, who had returned from Beidaihe to resume the command post in Fujian late in August, personally called Mao seeking clarification. When he asked if he should order the firing in the event that American and gmd ships were mixed together, Mao said, ‘‘Yes.’’ He then asked if he could strike both American and gmd ships. Mao replied: ‘‘No, only strike the gmd but not the Americans.’’ He also asked if he could retaliate if the Americans opened fire first. Again, Mao said, ‘‘No.’’ The chairman also instructed Ye to report the position, composition, and direction of the mixed gmd-American convoy at least once every hour and not to open fire until he received the final order from Beijing.137 When another joint gmd-American convoy approached Jinmen the next day, Ye strictly followed Mao’s orders. When he ordered firing, to his surprise, he found he only needed to deal with the gmd because all American ships were staying at least three miles offshore to avoid exchanges with the pla’s shore batteries.138 Mao’s insistence that the pla avoid hitting American ships reflected not only his caution in dealing withWashington in a military situation but also the emergence of a new focus in Beijing’s management of the Taiwan crisis: while the seizure of Jinmen and other offshore islands remained one of Mao’s key goals, his main attention had moved from the military conflict in Jinmen to the Sino-American ambassadorial talks in Warsaw, which, after being suspended for more than nine months, would soon resume. The Sino-American ambassadorial talks first opened in Geneva in August 1955, serving as the only channel of communication between Beijing and Washington. In December 1957, the meetings were suspended when the American negotiator, Ambassador U. Alexis Johnson, was reassigned to Thailand and the Chinese refused to accept his replacement, Edwin Martin, because he was not an ambassador.139 On 30 June, the Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a statement, demanding that Washington appoint an ambassadorial negotiator in fifteen days; if Washington did not comply, Beijing would regard the talks beijing and the taiwan strait crisis 191 EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use as being terminated by the American side.140 Washington, though missing the fifteen-day deadline to name a new negotiator, announced on 28 July that the U.S. ambassador to Poland, Jacob Beam, had been appointed as the American representative to the talks, which would be moved to Warsaw. As soon as the shelling on Jinmen began, Mao started formulating Beijing’s strategy for the ambassadorial talks. Late in August, he recalled Ambassador Wang Bingnan, the chief Chinese negotiator at the bilateral talks. Two days after Wang arrived in Beijing, he attended a politburo meeting to brief top party leaders on the progress of the ambassadorial talks from 1955 to 1957. At this meeting and then during a private talk with Wang, Mao demonstrated a keen interest in knowing if Washington could be persuaded to force the gmd to withdraw from the offshore islands through the ambassadorial talks.141 BeforeWang left forWarsaw on 10 September, he received a five-point draft proposal and a signed letter from Zhou Enlai. In addition to reiterating that Taiwan and the offshore islands were Chinese territory and that the Taiwan issue belonged to China’s internal affairs, the proposal included two new points. First, in order to ‘‘remove the immediate threat’’ Jinmen and Mazu posed to Xiamen and Fuzhou, Beijing proposed that if ‘‘gmd troops are willing to withdraw from the islands on their own initiative, the prc government will not pursue them.’’ Second, after the prc government had recovered Jinmen, Mazu, and other offshore islands, it would ‘‘strive to liberate Taiwan and Penghu by peaceful means and [would], in a certain period, avoid using force to liberate Taiwan and Penghu.’’142 These two points represented a major concession on Beijing’s part because, if Washington accepted them, Beijing would be obliged to give up use of force as a means to liberate Taiwan. Zhou Enlai’s letter provided detailed instructions on the tactics Wang should follow: Here are the main points of your presentation (draft). At the first meeting, if the Americans are eager to present their opinions, you may let them speak first. . . . If the Americans present their proposal first and if there are some parts in it that are worth our consideration, you should not hurriedly present our proposal but should comment on the ridiculous parts in the American proposal and wait to give a comprehensive response to the other parts at the next meeting. If the American side does not present anything concrete and is eager to learn about our opinion, you may use the points drafted here and present the proposal we have prepared.143 The new Chinese stand demonstrated that Mao was now willing to bring the Taiwan Strait crisis to an end through negotiating with the Americans. Mao triggered the crisis himself in the first place, so he could have ended it 192 beijing and the taiwan strait crisis EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use easily—for example, just by ordering the pla to lift the siege of Jinmen—if he had wanted to do so. But Mao needed the crisis to end in a way that would allow him to claim a great victory. This was particularly important for Mao since the shelling of Jinmen was central to promoting his Great Leap Forward. He also knew that profound differences in opinion existed between Taipei and Washington, so he believed it possible to ‘‘persuade’’ the Americans to force the gmd to withdraw from Jinmen and other offshore islands.144 At the same time that Beijing was preparing to resume the ambassadorial talks withWashington, Zhou Enlai began to explore the possibility of reestablishing contacts with Jiang and the gmd in Taiwan. On 8 and 10 September, the premier twice met with Cao Juren, who had served as a messenger between Beijing and Taipei since 1956. Zhou asked Cao to tell the gmd leaders that they had three options in Jinmen: first, they could ‘‘live and die together with the islands’’; second, they could ‘‘withdraw the whole force back to Taiwan’’; and third, they could ‘‘be forced by the Americans to withdraw.’’ Zhou commented that the second option should be the best for Jiang, since the gmd troops on the offshore islands accounted for almost one-third of Jiang’s whole military strength, and ‘‘by withdrawing them back to Taiwan, Jiang will have more capital to bargain with the Americans.’’ Zhou also asked Cao to inquire of the gmd leaders: ‘‘If the Americans can openly negotiate with us, why cannot the ccp and the gmd also begin another round of open negotiations?’’145 Wang Bingnan returned to Warsaw on 11 September, and, in two days, he and Beam had agreed that the ambassadorial talks would reopen on 15 September at the Swiss embassy. At that moment, however, Mao changed his mind again about how to proceed with the talks. By then the chairman had left Beijing for an inspection tour in the South. On 13 September he wrote a two-part letter to Zhou Enlai and Huang Kecheng from Wuchang. In the first part of the letter, the chairman ordered the pla artillery units in Fujian, in addition to bombarding gmd ships ‘‘entering the Liaolowan harbor to unload supplies,’’ to also begin ‘‘sporadic shelling (by firing 200 to 300 rounds a day)’’ on Jinmen’s military targets, in order to make ‘‘the enemy panicky and restless day and night.’’ In the second part of the letter, the chairman dictated a new negotiation strategy at Warsaw: ‘‘As far as the Warsaw talks are concerned, in the next three to four days, or one week, [we] should not lay out all of our cards on the table at once but should first test [the attitudes of the Americans].’’ He also predicted that it was ‘‘unlikely that the other side would lay out all of their cards at once, and they will try to test us as well.’’146 Mao’s letter reflected his calculations at both tactical and strategic levels. In a tactical sense, the chairman, himself a longtime player of all kinds of power beijing and the taiwan strait crisis 193 EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use games, fully understood that unless his representative was able to speak from a position of strength at the negotiation table, the Americans would not easily make concessions. Therefore, the shelling of Jinmen needed to be continued in ways new and disturbing to the enemy. In a strategic sense, the last thing Mao wanted to do was to create the impression that Beijing had significantly softened its stand on Taiwan. To do so, from Mao’s perspective, would be extremely harmful to the revolutionary reputation Mao had persistently strived to create for the prc abroad, and, especially, to the huge political mobilization effect Mao had managed to initiate through the shelling campaign at home. Although Zhou Enlai informed Mao in a note dated 13 September that, after receiving Mao’s letter, he had instructed Wang Bingnan to ‘‘go around with the Americans to force them to lay out all of their cards first,’’147 Wang, for whatever reason, failed to act in accordance with Mao’s new instructions. When the ambassadorial talks reopened on 15 September, Beam, the American negotiator, argued for an immediate cease-fire in the Taiwan Strait before any other issue could be discussed. Wang asked for a ten-minute recess and then presented Beijing’s five-point proposal. Beam immediately countered that the Americans could not ‘‘entertain’’ the proposal because it ‘‘would mean surrender of territory’’ belonging to an American ally.148 The next day, Dulles publicly announced that immediate cease-fire was the first step toward resolving the Taiwan Strait crisis. Mao flew into a rage when he received the reports about Wang’s performance. In the chairman’s view, Wang exposed what was supposed to be Beijing’s bottom line on the first day of the negotiations, thus making the Americans think that Beijing was vulnerable. The chairman commented: ‘‘Wang Bingnan is worse than a pig; even a pig knows to how turn around when it hits the wall, and Wang Bingnan does not know how to turn around after he hits the wall.’’149 He intended to fire Wang immediately. Only after Zhou Enlai ‘‘took the responsibility’’ forWang’s mistakes and pointed out that firing Wang would cause more confusion did Mao decide to keep him in Warsaw.150 But this episode had already completely changed Mao’s view of and, as a result, strategies toward the ambassadorial talks. Instead of regarding the talks as a chance to bring about acceptable solutions to the crisis in the Taiwan Strait, Mao now firmly believed that he had no other choice but to treat the talks as a forum to expose the ‘‘reactionary’’ and ‘‘aggressive’’ nature of America’s imperialist policy in East Asia. Following Mao’s instructions, Zhou called a series of meetings at the Foreign Ministry to consider new diplomatic alternatives. The participants concluded that Beijing ‘‘should adopt a policy line of positive offensive’’ toward the Americans at the forthcoming meetings.151 194 beijing and the taiwan strait crisis EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use Chinese-American ambassadorial talks at Warsaw, 15 September 1958. Xinhua News Agency. ‘‘If the American side fails to respond to our proposal directly and continues to argue for an immediate cease-fire,’’ reported Zhou in a letter to Mao on 17 September, ‘‘we should immediately present another proposal, demanding that the Americans withdraw all of their armed forces from Taiwan, Penghu, and the Taiwan Strait, stop all provocative military actions in China’s territorial space and water, and cease interference in China’s internal affairs, thus relaxing the tension existing in the Taiwan Strait.’’152 Mao probably was not totally satisfied with Zhou’s response because the next day, after having met with several other top party leaders, the premier presented a more comprehensive plan ‘‘for struggling against the United States’’: In order to counter America’s cease-fire request, we should expand our activities in all respects to demand that U.S. armed forces stop all provocations and withdraw from Taiwan and the Taiwan Strait. Concrete measures are as follows: (1) Prepare a statement by the foreign minister to rebut Dulles’s un speech. (2) After the issuance of the statement, mobilize newspapers, various parties, and people’s organizations all over the country to echo it. (3) Convey our strategies to Soviet chargé d’affaires and Liu Xiao beijing and the taiwan strait crisis 195 Image Not Available EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use [Chinese ambassador to the Soviet Union], letting them convey [our plans] to Khrushchev and Gromyko, so that the Soviet Union and other fraternal countries will cooperate with us.153 Zhou’s new plans delighted Mao. The chairman immediately wrote to the premier, praising these plans as ‘‘very good indeed’’ since they ‘‘will allow us to gain the initiative.’’ The chairman also instructed Zhou to ‘‘take due action immediately’’; in particular, he asked Zhou to convey these plans both toWang Bingnan inWarsaw and to Ye Fei in Fujian, ‘‘making sure that they understand that the keys to our new policy and new tactics are to hold the initiative, to keep the offensive, and to remain reasonable.’’ The chairman commented at the end of the letter: ‘‘Sweeping down irresistibly from a commanding height, and advancing like a knife cutting through a piece of bamboo—this is what our diplomatic struggle needs to be.’’154 With the implementation of Mao’s instructions, the possibility of ending the crisis through the ambassadorial talks in Warsaw virtually disappeared.155 ‘‘Leaving Jinmen in Jiang’s Hands’’ In late September, when the crisis was entering its second month, the tension in the Taiwan Strait looked as bad as—if not worse than—it did at any point in the previous four weeks. On 22 September, when Wang and Beam met for the third time in Warsaw, the Chinese ambassador was primed for a counteroffensive. He called the proposal Beam presented on 18 September, which emphasized immediate cease-fire as the first step toward relaxing tension in the Taiwan Strait, ‘‘absurd and absolutely unacceptable.’’ Abandoning his own offer from one week earlier, Wang presented a new three-point proposal, which established U.S. withdrawal of all its armed forces as the precondition to ease the tension in the Taiwan Strait area. The Swiss embassy was turned into a battlefield of sharp accusations and denunciations, with Wang and Beam rebutting every point the other side was making and charging the other side for causing the crisis in Taiwan and in East Asia.156 At the same time that Wang was ‘‘taking the offensive’’ in Warsaw, Zhou Enlai was making every effort to mobilize international support. On 18 September, Zhou met with S. F. Antonov, Soviet chargé d’affaires in Beijing, to brief him on recent developments in the Taiwan Strait crisis. Zhou told him that after the first meeting of the Sino-American ambassadorial talks in Warsaw, Beijing firmly believed that ‘‘the central issue is that the United States should withdraw all of its armed forces from Taiwan and the Taiwan Strait area, and that only after the withdrawal of U.S. armed forces will the tension in 196 beijing and the taiwan strait crisis EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use this area be eliminated.’’ Zhou also told Antonov that ifWashington continued to request an immediate cease-fire in the Taiwan Strait, Beijing would demand the withdrawal of all U.S. forces first. In the meantime, Beijing would ‘‘mobilize the entire Chinese media to demand that the U.S. armed forces withdraw from the Taiwan Strait area,’’ and the pla would ‘‘continue to concentrate on conducting punitive shelling of Jiang’s troops on Jinmen and Mazu.’’ Zhou asked Antonov to convey these points to the Soviet government as well as to the Soviet representative to the un. 157 In the following days, Zhou met with Indian, Burmese, and Ceylonese ambassadors to China, as well as a governmental delegation from Cambodia, denouncing Washington’s ‘‘cease-fire plot’’ at Warsaw and asking the representatives of these ‘‘friendly countries’’ to prevent Dulles from ‘‘playing with the same cease-fire plot’’ at the un. 158 On 20 September, Chinese foreign minister Chen Yi issued a statement to rebut Dulles’s speech of four days earlier, claiming that ‘‘the six hundred million Chinese people are determined to unite together to resist the U.S. aggressors and to maintain the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the great socialist motherland.’’159 Despite the highly provocative language used in open propaganda, Beijing’s leaders did not want to escalate the military conflict in the Taiwan Strait.What Mao desired from these ‘‘offensives’’ was to win back the ‘‘initiative’’ in a diplomatic confrontation with the United States rather than to trigger a military showdown. When commanders at the Fujian Frontal Headquarters received the instruction from Beijing to ‘‘win back the initiative,’’ they immediately worked out a new plan to escalate military operations aimed at Jinmen so as to ‘‘coordinate with the diplomatic struggle inWarsaw.’’ According to the plan, in addition to continuing artillery shelling, the pla’s air force would begin bombing Jinmen to ‘‘increase pressure on gmd troops there,’’ and, then, ground shelling and air bombardment would be coordinated to pursue ‘‘bigger and more comprehensive results.’’160 When the plan was submitted to Beijing for approval, Zhou found it inappropriate. In a letter to Mao dated 22 September, the premier pointed out: Under the current situation, it is appropriate for the guidelines for operations in Jinmen to remain ‘‘shelling but not landing’’ and ‘‘cutting off [the enemy’s supplies] but not letting [the enemy] die,’’ so as to make the enemy panicky day and night without being able to take any rest. It is indeed not easy to coordinate a joint operation of the navy, air force, and ground artillery force, and there is the possibility that American ships and planes could be hit. It is even more inappropriate for our air force to bomb Jinmen, as beijing and the taiwan strait crisis 197 EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use this will provide Jiang’s air force with an excuse to bomb the mainland. At present, the U.S. is controlling Jiang’s air force, not allowing it to bombard the mainland, and one main reason for this is that they are not certain how our air force will retaliate: by bombing Jinmen or Taiwan? Since the Americans are unable to predict the direction of our air force’s operations, it is beneficial to us not to trigger Jiang’s air force to bomb the mainland. If Jiang’s air force bombs the mainland and we are only able to bomb Jinmen (but not Taiwan), we are showing our weaknesses.161 Mao approved Zhou’s letter as soon as he read it. The chairman commented that the premier’s opinions about operations in Jinmen were ‘‘all correct, as they will allow us to occupy an unbeatable position while at the same time completely holding the initiative.’’162 In accordance with Mao’s and Zhou’s instructions, the pla shore batteries in Fujian continued sporadic daily shelling of the Jinmen islands, striking the gmd’s supply convoys, while the pla’s air force and navy occasionally attacked the gmd’s transport planes and ships in the Jinmen area (but always avoided the Americans).163 Consequently, the actual combat intensity in the Jinmen area had reduced significantly by the end of September. Within this context, Beijing’s leaders again considered how to bring the crisis to an end. In a meeting with Soviet chargé d’affaires Antonov on 27 September, Zhou discussed three future scenarios for the Taiwan Strait crisis. The first scenario was that ‘‘when the conditions become mature, the United States will be ready to make concessions. . . . If the United States guarantees the withdrawal of Jiang’s troops [from Jinmen], we may agree to hold fighting for a period to allow Jiang’s troops to withdraw.’’ The second and third scenarios were that ‘‘the current confrontation will continue as both sides will stick to their positions,’’ or that ‘‘the United States will voluntarily put its neck into the noose’’ by directly involving itself in the military conflict. In Zhou’s opinion, the second scenario was the most possible.164 However, at the end of September, when signs indicated that Washington might be willing to end the crisis along the lines of the first scenario, Beijing’s whole approach toward seizing Jinmen, a key goal of the shelling campaign, changed completely. On 30 September, Dulles made extensive comments on the Taiwan Strait crisis at a news conference. In response to a question concerning whether it would be feasible for the gmd troops to withdraw from the offshore islands, the secretary of state asserted, ‘‘[I]t all depends upon the circumstances under which they would be withdrawn. . . . If there were a cease198 beijing and the taiwan strait crisis EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use fire in the area which seemed to be reasonably dependable, I think it would be foolish to keep these large forces on these islands.’’165 Dulles’s message immediately caught Beijing’s attention. By that time, Mao had returned to Beijing from his inspection tour of southern China. On 3 and 4 October, the ccp Politburo Standing Committee met to discuss Beijing’s overall strategy toward the Taiwan Strait crisis. Zhou reported to his colleagues that, in his opinion, Dulles intended to ‘‘use the current opportunity to create two Chinas.’’ What Dulles wanted, according to the premier, was for Beijing to commit to a nonmilitary policy in dealing with the Taiwan issue, and Washington in turn would pressure Taiwan to give up the plan to ‘‘recover the mainland.’’ In Zhou’s view, Dulles’s unspoken goal was to ‘‘trade Jinmen and Mazu for Taiwan and Penghu,’’ thus formalizing the separation between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland. Zhou particularly emphasized that this was exactly what the Americans had tried to do at the ambassadorial talks in Warsaw, and that ‘‘the American negotiators spoke even more undisguisedly at the talks than had been suggested in Dulles’s speech.’’ Reacting to Zhou’s introduction, Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping pointed out that both China and the United States had been probing the other’s real intentions, and, by now, both sides had gained some idea about the other side’s bottom line. They also argued that both China and the United States had acted cautiously during the crisis to avoid a direct military confrontation. Now, in their views, ‘‘the shelling had mobilized the Chinese masses, had mobilized world opinion, had played the role of supporting the Arab people, and had created dramatic pressure on American rulers.’’ In short, they believed that it was time to bring the crisis to an end.166 At this point, Mao asked a crucial question: ‘‘How about leaving Jinmen and Mazu in Jiang Jieshi’s hands?’’ The chairman, who obviously had carefully considered this issue, presented his reasoning: ‘‘The advantage [of doing so] is that since both islands are very close to the mainland, we may maintain contacts with the gmd through them. Whenever necessary, we may shell them. Whenever we are in need of tension, we may tighten this noose, and whenever we want to relax the tension, we may loosen the noose. We will let them hang there, neither dead nor alive, using them as a means to deal with the Americans.’’ The chairman also argued that even if Jiang were allowed to continue to occupy Jinmen and Mazu, he could not ‘‘stop the socialist construction in the mainland’’; nor would his troops at Jinmen and Mazu alone be capable of constituting a serious security threat to Fujian province. In comparison, argued the chairman, if Jiang lost Jinmen and Mazu or if his troops were forced beijing and the taiwan strait crisis 199 EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use by the Americans to withdraw from them, ‘‘we will lose a card to deal with the Americans and Jiang, thus leading to the emergence of a de facto ‘two Chinas’ situation.’’ At Mao’s urging, the politburo agreed to adopt this new policy of ‘‘leaving Jinmen in Jiang’s hand,’’ so that the offshore islands might be ‘‘turned into a burden for the Americans.’’ Mao then pointed out that, to justify the new policy domestically and internationally, it was necessary to begin a huge propaganda campaign. Indeed, how to present Beijing’s new strategy to end the crisis became an important issue for Mao. The chairman knew very well that if he failed to present his case powerfully, the very reasons for the entire shelling operation, as well as Beijing’s initiation and management of the crisis, would be called into serious question. Mao proposed that Beijing’s propaganda emphasize that the Taiwan issue was a matter of China’s internal affairs, that the shelling of Jinmen was the continuation of the Chinese civil war and thus should not be meddled in by any foreign power or international organization, that the presence of American troops in Taiwan was a violation of China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and that after the Americans left, the Taiwan issue could be solved through direct negotiation between the ccp and the gmd. At the end of the meeting, Mao instructed the Chinese media, and Renmin ribao in particular, to ‘‘hold the fire’’ for a few days in order to ‘‘prepare and replenish munitions,’’ and then ‘‘ten thousand cannons will boom with one order.’’167 As soon as Mao had made up his mind, he moved to change his will into action. What he put together was an extraordinary drama, one that would combine in one act unexpected military maneuver, well-calculated diplomatic feints, and, most important of all, an unconventional propaganda effort. On 5 October, Mao wrote a letter to Peng Dehuai and Huang Kecheng in which he laid out his operational plans: ‘‘Our batteries should not fire a single shell on 6 and 7 October, even if there are American airplanes and ships escorting [the gmd]. If the enemy bombards us, our forces should not return fire. [We should] cease our activities, lie low, and wait and watch for two days. Then, we will know what to do.’’ The chairman stressed to Peng and Huang not to ‘‘issue any public statement during these two days because we need to wait and see clearly how the situation will develop.’’168 At the same time that Mao was shuffling military deployments, Zhou was busy with diplomatic activities. He first met with Indonesia’s ambassador to China. The premier told him that he had learned that eight countries, with Indonesia as one of the main initiators, had been preparing to issue a statement concerning the Taiwan Strait crisis. Zhou advised the Indonesian am200 beijing and the taiwan strait crisis EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use bassador that the statement should acknowledge that Taiwan was part of Chinese territory, that the crisis was the result of America’s policy of aggression in the Taiwan area, and that Washington had no right to intervene in Jinmen and Mazu.169 Zhou then met with the Soviet chargé d’affaires. After informing Antonov that Beijing had decided that ‘‘it is better to leave Jinmen and Mazu in Jiang’s hands,’’ the premier gave a detailed explanation about why Beijing had reached this decision. In particular, said the premier, the new policy would turn Jinmen and Mazu into a huge burden for Washington; ‘‘whenever we wanted tension, we will strike at them, and whenever we want relaxation, we will loosen [the noose] there.’’ Thus the new policy would play the role of ‘‘educating the people of the world, and primarily the Chinese people,’’ while deepening the already profound contradictions between Taipei and Washington. The premier asked that Moscow give the policy its full support.170 Early on the morning of 6 October, Beijing stopped all regular radio broadcasts to deliver a ‘‘Message to the Compatriots in Taiwan’’ in the name of Defense Minister Peng Dehuai. Written in powerful and shrewd yet elegant language, this document actually was Mao’s creation. The chairman originally did not plan to issue a statement because he wanted to observe how Taipei and Washington would respond to the pla’s holding of fire on Jinmen. But he quickly changed his mind and decided to draft a message himself.171 ‘‘We are all Chinese and reconciliation is the best course for us to take,’’ the message asserted. The shelling of Jinmen was designed to punish the ‘‘rampant actions’’ of Taiwan’s leaders and to highlight that ‘‘Taiwan was part of Chinese territory, not part of American territory’’ and that ‘‘there exists only one China, not two Chinas.’’ ‘‘The U.S. imperialists are the common enemy for all of us,’’ the message continued, and, beginning on 6 October, on the condition of ‘‘no American escorts,’’ the pla would suspend shelling on Jinmen for seven days so as to allow supplies to be ‘‘freely delivered’’ to the islands.172 After seven days, on 13 October, Peng Dehuai announced that the shelling would be put on hold for another two weeks.173 Yet Mao still wanted to show that Beijing was in full control of the situation. Therefore, taking Dulles’s forthcoming official visit to Taiwan as an excuse, Mao ordered the pla’s shore batteries to conduct a one-hour barrage of Jinmen on 20 October. Mao instructed that the shelling should be announced in both Chinese and English in order to achieve the biggest propaganda effect.174 On 25 October, Peng Dehuai issued ‘‘Another Message to the Compatriots in Taiwan’’ (again drafted by Mao), announcing that, from that day on, the pla would shell the Jinmen islands only on odd days, leaving even days for gmd troops to receive supplies beijing and the taiwan strait crisis 201 EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use and take rests.175 After more than two months, the pla stopped regular and intensive shelling on Jinmen, and the Taiwan Strait crisis of 1958 finally came to an end. Conclusion Given the fact that the use of nuclear weapons had been widely considered and discussed during the course of the Taiwan Strait crisis of 1958, the event must be regarded as one of the most dangerous international crises in Cold War history. Yet, from a conventional ‘‘threat reaction’’ perspective— even by taking into account the usually extraordinary sense of insecurity prevailing during the Cold War era—this crisis should not have occurred in the first place. Despite frequent military clashes between Taiwan and the mainland since 1949, neither the gmd nor the United States presented a serious and immediate threat to the prc in 1958. Indeed, since the first Taiwan Strait crisis in 1954–55, the tension in the strait had been declining continuously, with Taipei dramatically reducing its hostile military activities aimed at the mainland (partly because it was bound by the 1954 U.S.-Taiwan treaty of mutual defense) and with Beijing offering peace overtures to the gmd. When the crisis erupted in the summer of 1958, Mao and his comrades saw little challenge from the United States and its allies (including the gmd regime in Taiwan) to the prc’s physical safety; and they did not believe that the United States was either willing or ready to involve itself in a major military confrontation with the prc in East Asia.176 Thus, narrowly defined ‘‘security concerns,’’ which emphasize only ‘‘hard’’ and physical threats, cannot be the main reason that Beijing initiated the crisis. As indicated in this study, Mao decided to bring China into the crisis primarily for the purpose of creating an extraordinary environment in which the full potential of the Great Leap Forward—a crucial episode in the development of Mao’s grand enterprise of continuous revolution—would be thoroughly realized. No other world leader had ever used such straightforward and enthusiastic language as did Mao in 1958 to discuss the huge advantage involved in using international tension to initiate domestic mobilization. Mao certainly was obsessed by a tremendous sense of insecurity, but his fear in no way resembled any of the conventional ‘‘threat perceptions’’ that prevailed during the ColdWar period; first and foremost, Mao’s obsession was the product of his unique ‘‘postrevolution anxiety.’’ What worried the chairman most was that if he failed to find new and effective means to enhance the inner dynamics of his continuous revolution, the revolution would lose its momentum and, as a result, would eventually wither. For Mao, this was a threat of 202 beijing and the taiwan strait crisis EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use a fatal nature, and he was determined to do anything possible to prevent it from happening. In 1958, in the context of the emerging Great Leap, Mao’s determination was easily transformed into his decision to initiate a crisis in the Taiwan Strait by ordering the pla to shell the Jinmen islands. In a sense, the Great Leap was for Mao a great drama, one that was designed to mobilize and enhance the revolutionary enthusiasm of China’s ordinary people. The shelling and the crisis played a role similar to the drumbeats in a Beijing opera— without them the drama would completely lose its rhythm, dramaticism, and theatricality, and thus would lose the very elements for which it is performed in the first place. The special way in which Mao used international tension to promote domestic mobilization reflected the chairman’s reading of a key factor shaping popular Chinese perceptions of China’s relations with the outside world, that is, the Chinese people’s profound victim mentality. Throughout modern times, the Chinese consistently believed that the political, economic, and military aggression by foreign imperialist countries had humiliated China and the Chinese people. As a result, a victim mentality—one that had been reinforced by China’s age-old Central Kingdom concept—emerged to dominate the Chinese view of China’s position in the world. Consequently, almost every time that China encountered an international crisis (no matter how the crisis began), the deep-rooted Chinese victim mentality would readily provide the Chinese leaders with a theme to encourage nationwide mobilization—provided that the leaders were able to present the Chinese as a victimized party or as endeavoring to resist China being continuously victimized in the international community. In the 1958 crisis, Mao consistently justified his shelling decision by emphasizing that Jinmen and Mazu, together with Taiwan and Penghu, were Chinese territories that had been ‘‘lost’’ during modern times as the result of imperialist aggression (first by the Japanese and then by the Americans) against a weak China. In doing so, Mao effectively appealed to the Chinese people’s victim mentality, thus making the decision to shell Jinmen almost unchallengeable from a Chinese perspective. Mao also used the crisis to challenge the postwar international order dominated by the United States and the Soviet Union. That Mao acted to put the United States on the defensive by constantly probingWashington’s intentions and strategic bottom lines was evident in terms of both his rhetoric and diplomatic and military strategies. What should be emphasized is that underlying his behavior was also a profound desire to push the United States to recognize that his China was a qualified challenger to America’s regional and global hegemony, thus making China a central actor in international politics. This beijing and the taiwan strait crisis 203 EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use is why, despite the fact that China is so far away from the Middle East and had so few practical interests there, Mao still found it necessary for Beijing to respond to the American-British intervention in Lebanon and Jordan in dramatic ways. Equally revealing is Mao’s attitude toward Moscow before and during the crisis. Although the Soviet Union was China’s most important ally in the 1950s, Mao intentionally kept the Soviet leaders in the dark about the timing, course, and purpose of his actions against Taiwan. Particularly troublesome was Mao’s consistent expression of contempt for the danger involved in the possibility that the crisis might lead to a nuclear catastrophe. The chairman certainly did not believe that the crisis would lead to such a dire situation—indeed, it was exactly because he did not believe so that he ordered the shelling. However, he enjoyed repeatedly bringing the topic—in his highly dialectic and philosophical manner—to the attention of the Soviet leaders. What Mao wanted was to challenge the moral courage and ideological values of the Soviet leaders, thus making them appear morally inferior. Consequently revolutionary China’s centrality in the international Communist movement and in the world—since communism represented the future of the human race—would naturally be established and recognized. For China 1958 turned out to be a year of great disaster. Following the failure of the Great Leap Forward, it is estimated that between 20 and 30 million Chinese people died in a three-year-long nationwide famine. The effects of the Taiwan Strait crisis were for China no less serious. In the wake of the crisis, the conflict between China and the United States intensified, the distrust between Beijing and Moscow deepened continuously, and the hostility between the mainland and Taiwan, especially in a psychological sense, increased dramatically. However, from Mao’s perspective, his initiation and management of the crisis remained a successful case of promoting domestic mobilization by provoking international tension. The experience set a decisive precedent in Mao’s handling of China’s domestic and external policies in the 1960s, especially when he was leading China toward another crucial episode in his continuous revolution—the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. That, as is well known today, was a path toward another great disaster. 204 beijing and the taiwan strait crisis EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use chapter 8 china’s involvement in the vietnam war, 1964–1969 The Vietnam War was an international conflict. Not only was the United States engaged in large-scale military operations in a land far away from its own, but the two major Communist powers, China and the Soviet Union, were also deeply involved. Scholars have long assumed that Beijing played an important role in supporting Hanoi’s efforts to fight the United States. Because of the lack of access to Chinese source materials, however, it has been difficult for scholars to illustrate and define the motives, decisionmaking processes, magnitude, and consequences of China’s involvement in the Vietnam War. This chapter, as the continuation of the examination in Chapter 5 of China’s connections with the First Indochina War, aims to shed some new light on China’s involvement in the Vietnam War. It covers the five crucial years from 1964 to 1969, with emphasis on an analysis of the failure of an alliance that was once claimed to be ‘‘between brotherly comrades.’’ Background: Chinese–North Vietnamese Relations, 1954–1962 The 1954 Geneva agreement on Indochina concluded the First Indochina War but failed to end military conflicts in Southeast Asia. When it became clear that a peaceful reunification through the plebiscite scheduled for 1956 would be indefinitely blocked by Washington and the Ngo Dinh Diem government in Saigon, the Vietnamese Communist leadership decided in 1959– 60 to resume ‘‘armed resistance’’ in the South.1 Policymakers in Washington, perceiving that the battles in South Vietnam and other parts of Southeast Asia (especially in Laos) represented a crucial contest against further Communist expansion, continuously increased America’s military involvement there.2 Consequently, the Second Indochina War intensified. Beijing was a main participant, as well as a beneficiary, of the Geneva agreement of 1954. China’s policy toward the settlement of the First Indochina War reflected its strategic considerations at that time, which included a desire to EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use focus on domestic problems after the end of the Korean War, the need to take precautions against possible American military intervention in the Indochina area, thus preventing another direct Sino-American confrontation, and the need to forge a new international image to correspond with its new claims of peaceful coexistence.3 Because of these considerations, the Beijing leadership neither hindered nor encouraged Hanoi’s efforts to ‘‘liberate’’ the South by military means until 1962. After the Geneva agreement was signed, the leaders in Beijing seemed more willing than their comrades in Hanoi to accept that Vietnam would be indefinitely divided. In several exchanges between top Beijing and Hanoi leaders in 1955–56, the Chinese advised that the most urgent task facing the Vietnamese Communists was how to consolidate the revolutionary achievements in the North.4 In December 1955, Beijing’s Defense and Foreign Ministries decided to recall the Chinese Military Advisory Group, which had been in Vietnam since July 1950. Peng Dehuai, China’s defense minister, informed his Vietnamese counterpart, Vo Nguyen Giap, of this decision on 24 December 1955, and all members of the group returned to China by mid-March 1956.5 In the summer of 1958 the vwp politburo formally asked Beijing’s advice about the strategies for the ‘‘southern revolution.’’ In a written response, the Beijing leadership emphasized that ‘‘the most fundamental, most important, and most urgent task’’ facing the Vietnamese was ‘‘how to promote socialist revolution and reconstruction in the North.’’ ‘‘[R]evolutionary transformation in the South,’’ according to Beijing, ‘‘was impossible at the current stage.’’ Beijing therefore suggested that Hanoi adopt in the South a strategy of ‘‘not exposing our own forces for a long period, accumulating our own strength, establishing connections with the masses, and waiting for the right opportunities.’’6 The nationwide famine following the failure of the Great Leap Forward forced the Beijing leadership to focus on domestic issues. During his meetings with Ho Chi Minh and Pham Van Dong, the drv’s prime minister, in Hanoi in May 1960, Zhou Enlai advised the Vietnamese that they adopt a flexible approach in the South by combining political and military struggles. He emphasized that even when military struggle seemed inevitable, political struggle was still necessary.7 All of these developments indicate that Beijing’s leaders were not enthusiastic about their Vietnamese comrades initiating military action in the South in 1959–60 and that the Vietnamese themselves made the decision ‘‘to resume the resistance.’’8 However, Beijing took no active steps to oppose a revolution in South Vietnam. The relationship between the prc and the drv was very close in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the leaders from Beijing and Hanoi frequently 206 china’s involvement in the vietnam war EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use visited each other and coordinated their domestic and foreign policies.9 This close connection, as well as Beijing’s revolutionary ideology, precluded the Chinese from hindering the Vietnamese cause of revolution and reunification. During this period, Beijing also implemented a propaganda campaign emphasizing that China was a natural ally of the oppressed peoples of the world in their struggles for national liberation. It would be inconceivable, in such a circumstance, for Beijing to impede the Vietnamese revolution. In addition, from a strategic point of view, since Sino-American relations experienced several crises during this period, especially in the Taiwan Strait in 1958, the Chinese leaders would not ignore the fact that intensifying revolutionary insurgence in South Vietnam might overextend America’s commitment, thus improving China’s position in its conflict with the United States in East Asia.10 Under these circumstances and in response to Hanoi’s requests, China offered substantial military aid to Vietnam before 1963. According to one highly reliable Chinese source, during the 1956–63 period, China’s military aid to Vietnam totaled 320 million yuan. China’s arms shipments to Vietnam included 270,000 guns, over 10,000 pieces of artillery, 200 million bullets of different types, 2.02 million artillery shells, 15,000 wire transmitters, 5,000 radio transmitters, over 1,000 trucks, 15 planes, 28 naval vessels, and 1.18 million military uniforms.11 Beijing’s leaders used this material support rather than their direct military presence to show to their comrades in Hanoi their solidarity. Beijing’s Increasing Support to Hanoi, 1963–1964 Beijing’s policy toward Vietnam began to take a radical turn in late 1962 and early 1963. In the summer of 1962, a drv delegation led by Ho Chi Minh and Nguyen Chi Thanh visited Beijing. The Vietnamese summarized the situation in South Vietnam, emphasizing the possibility that with the escalation of military conflicts in the South, the United States might use air and/or land forces to attack the North.12 The Chinese leaders were very much alarmed by this assessment. In a meeting with the drv defense minister, General Vo Nguyen Giap, on 5 October, Mao Zedong emphasized that ‘‘in the past several years, we did not think much about whether or not the imperialists might attack us, and now we must carefully think about it.’’13 Accordingly, Beijing offered to equip an additional 230 Vietnamese battalions.14 Beijing made general security commitments to Hanoi throughout 1963. In March, a Chinese military delegation headed by Luo Ruiqing, pla chief of staff, visited Hanoi. Luo told Vietnamese leaders that if the Americans were to attack North Vietnam, China would come to its defense. The two sides also discussed how they should coordinate their operations in the event that china’s involvement in the vietnam war 207 EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use America invaded North Vietnam.15 In May, Liu Shaoqi visited Vietnam, and in his meetings with Ho Chi Minh and other drv leaders, he promised that if the war expanded as the result of their efforts to liberate the South, they could ‘‘definitely count on China as the strategic rear.’’16 In September, the leaders of four Communist parties (Zhou Enlai from China, Ho Chi Minh, Le Duan, and Nguyen Chi Thanh from Vietnam, Kaysone Phomvihane from Laos, and D. N. Aidit from Indonesia) held an meeting in Chonghua, China’s Guangdong province. In a keynote speech, Zhou Enlai pointed out that Southeast Asia had been the focus of a confrontation between international revolutionary and reactionary forces. He encouraged Communist parties in this region to promote an anti-imperialist, antifeudal, and ‘‘anti–camprador capitalist’’ revolution by mobilizing the masses and conducting armed struggles in the countryside. He also emphasized that China would serve as the great rear of the ‘‘revolution in Southeast Asia’’ and would try its best to support the antiimperialist struggles by the people in Southeast Asian countries.17 Beijing’s leaders certainly were willing to turn these promises into actions. In October, Kaysone Phomvihane, head of the Laotian People’s Revolutionary Party (the Communist Party), secretly visited Beijing. He requested China’s support for the Communist forces in Laos for their military struggles and base-area buildup. Zhou Enlai agreed to the request. As the first step, a Chinese work team, headed by General Duan Suquan, entered Laos early the next year ‘‘to investigate the situation there, as well as to prepare conditions for large-scale Chinese assistance.’’18 At the end of 1963, after the Johnson administration demonstrated its intention to expand American military involvement in Vietnam, military planners in Beijing suggested that the Vietnamese strengthen their defensive system in the Tonkin Delta area. Hanoi asked the Chinese to help complete the construction of new defense works there, to which the Chinese General Staff agreed.19 Beijing extended its security commitments to Hanoi in 1964. In June, Van Tien Dung, North Vietnam’s chief of staff and the person in charge of military operations in the South, led a delegation to Beijing. Mao told the delegation that China and Vietnam should unite more closely in the struggle against the common enemy. Referring to the crucial question of how China would respond if the war expanded to North Vietnam, Mao told the Vietnamese: ‘‘If the United States risks taking the war to North Vietnam, Chinese troops should cross the border [to enter the war]. It is better for our troops to be [called] volunteers. We may claim that they are organized by the people, and that the [prc] government has no control over them. You may also organize your own volunteers and dispatch them to the South, and you may claim that 208 china’s involvement in the vietnam war EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use they have been organized by the people without the knowledge of President Ho.’’ In analyzing the prospect of American intervention, the ccp chairman advised his Vietnamese comrades: ‘‘[T]he more you fear the Americans, the more they will bully you. . . . You should not fear, you should fight. . . . In my opinion, the less you fear [the Americans], the less they will dare to bully you.’’ Liu Shaoqi, who was also present at the meeting, reiterated the chairman’s message: ‘‘The less you fear them, the more they respect you. If China does not fear them, and if the Vietnamese people do not fear them, they will have to consider again and again before taking any action. . . . When they do something about Vietnam, they will have to think of China.’’20 One month later, in a conversation with Tran Tu Binh, Hanoi’s ambassador to Beijing, Mao again used powerful language to promise to Hanoi that if the war expanded to North Vietnam, China would intervene: ‘‘We must be prepared. Both North Vietnam and China must be prepared. If they [the Americans] start bombing or landing operations [against North Vietnam], we will fight them. . . . If the United States attacks North Vietnam, that is not just your problem. They will have to remember that we Chinese also have legs. The Americans can dispatch their troops. Cannot we Chinese also dispatch our troops? From our country to your country, we take one step and we are already there.’’21 Believing that the war in Indochina was facing a crucial juncture, on 5–8 July 1964, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Laotian Communist leaders held a planning meeting in Hanoi to discuss how to evaluate the situation and to coordinate their strategies.22 In assessing the possible development of the war in Indochina, the three delegations agreed that the United States would continue to expand the war in Vietnam by sending more land forces to the South and, possibly, using air forces to attack important targets in the North. Zhou Enlai promised that China would increase its military and economic aid to Vietnam, help train Vietnamese pilots, and, if the Americans were to attack the North, provide support ‘‘by all possible and necessary means.’’ The Chinese premier emphasized that ‘‘if the United States takes one step, China will respond with one step; if the United States dispatches its troops [to attack the drv], China will also dispatch its troops.’’23 These words, together with Mao’s promises to Van Tien Dung and Tran Tu Binh, indicate that Beijing’s leaders were now more willing than before to commit China’s resources to supporting their comrades in Indochina, and especially in North Vietnam, if the war expanded further. There were profound domestic and international reasons behind Beijing’s adoption of a more aggressive strategy toward the escalating conflicts in china’s involvement in the vietnam war 209 EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use Southeast Asia. First, Beijing’s more enthusiastic attitude toward Hanoi has to be understood in the context of the rapid radicalization of China’s political and social life in the 1960s. Since the early days of the prc, Mao had never concealed his ambition to transform China into a land of universal equality and justice under the banner of socialism and communism. In the late 1950s, Mao’s grand revolutionary plans led to the Great Leap Forward, which turned out to be a nationwide catastrophe. For the first time in Communist China’s history, the myth of Mao’s ‘‘eternal correctness’’ was called into question. Starting in 1960, with Mao’s retreat to the ‘‘second line,’’ the Beijing leadership adopted more moderate and flexible domestic policies designed for economic recovery and social stability (such as allowing the peasants to maintain small plots of land for their families). Mao, however, gave up neither his revolutionary plans nor his position as China’s paramount leader. When China’s economy began to recover in 1962, Mao called the whole party ‘‘never to forget class struggle’’ at the Central Committee’s Tenth Plenary Session.24 In early 1963, a ‘‘Socialist Education’’ movement began to sweep across China’s cities and countryside, which would finally lead to the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.25 Mao, informed by his previous experience, fully realized that creating the impression that China was facing serious external threats would help strengthen the dynamics of revolutionary mobilization at home, as well as legitimize his authority and controlling position in China’s political life.26 On a series of occasions from late 1962 to 1964, Mao repeatedly emphasized that China was facing an international environment full of crises, arguing that international reactionary forces were preparing to wage a war against China and it was therefore necessary for China to prepare politically and militarily for this coming challenge.27 In the meantime, Mao used the party’s international strategy in general and its Vietnam policy in particular to win the upper hand in a potential contest with other party leaders who, in his view, had demonstrated a ‘‘revisionist’’ tendency on both domestic and international issues. Wang Jiaxiang, head of the ccp’s International Liaison Department, was the first target of his criticism. In the spring and early summer of 1962, Wang submitted to the party’s top leadership a series of reports on international affairs in which he argued that China should not allow itself to be involved in another Korean-style confrontation with the United States in Vietnam.28 Mao quickly characterized Wang’s ideas as an attempt to conciliate imperialists, revisionists, and international reactionaries and to reduce support to those countries and peoples fighting against imperialists. He stressed that the policy of ‘‘three conciliations and one reduction’’ came at the time when some leading ccp members 210 china’s involvement in the vietnam war EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use had been frightened by the international reactionaries and therefore were inclined to adopt a ‘‘pro-revisionist’’ policy line at home. He emphasized that his policy, by contrast, was to fight against the imperialists, revisionists, and reactionaries in all countries and, at the same time, to increase support to antiimperialist forces in other countries.29 Mao would later use these accusations to challenge and overwhelm his other more prominent ‘‘revisionist’’ colleagues in the party’s central leadership, especially Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping. It is not surprising, then, that with the reconsolidation of Mao’s leadership role, there emerged a more radical Chinese policy toward Vietnam. Beijing’s new attitude toward the escalating Vietnam conflict was also closely related to the deteriorating relationship between China and the Soviet Union. The honeymoon between Beijing and Moscow in the 1950s ended quickly after the Twentieth Congress of the cpsu in 1956. The divergences were political, economic, ideological, and psychological. Mao strongly disagreed with Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization, viewing it as evidence of ‘‘capitalist restoration’’ in the Soviet Union. Khrushchev’s decision to withdraw Soviet experts from China, to cut Soviet assistance, to take a pro–New Delhi attitude during the Chinese-Indian border conflict in 1962, and not to share nuclear secrets with China further damaged the relationship.30 In 1962 and 1963, the split between the two Communist giants was publicized, with Beijing and Moscow openly criticizing each other’s lack of loyalty to Marxism-Leninism. As far as this rift’s immediate impact on China’s policy toward Vietnam is concerned, two points should be stressed. First, in order to guarantee that Hanoi would stand on Beijing’s side, it became more important than ever for Beijing’s leaders to give resolute backing to their Vietnamese comrades. Second, since Beijing was escalating its propaganda criticizing Moscow’s failure to give sufficient support to revolutionary national liberation movements, Beijing’s leaders must have realized that they would be seen as hypocritical if they themselves failed to offer support. In the context of the rapidly deteriorating relationship between China and the Soviet Union, Vietnam had become a litmus test for ‘‘true communism.’’ Beijing’s new attitude toward Vietnam also grew out of its understanding of the central role China was to play in promoting revolutionary movements in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Ever since the victory of the Chinese revolution in 1949, the ccp leadership had believed that China’s experience had established a model for the struggles of other oppressed peoples, and that the significance of the Chinese revolution went far beyond China’s boundaries.31 But in the 1950s and early 1960s, Beijing’s interpretation was still subordinate to the ‘‘two-camps’’ theory, which contended that the center of the world china’s involvement in the vietnam war 211 EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use revolution remained in Moscow. With the emergence of Sino-Soviet split in the early 1960s, the Chinese changed their attitude, alleging that the center of the world revolution had moved from Moscow to Beijing. Applying China’s experience of ‘‘encircling the cities by first liberating the countryside’’ to the entire world, Beijing viewed Asia, Africa, and Latin America as the ‘‘world’s countryside.’’ China, by virtue of its revolutionary past, was entitled to play a leading role in promoting revolutionary struggles in the ‘‘world cities.’’32 Beijing’s new policy toward Vietnam was certainly compatible with this line of thinking. It is apparent that underlying Beijing’s more radical policy toward Vietnam were the ambitious Maoist revolutionary programs of transforming China and the world. While the intensifying crisis situation in Vietnam in the early and mid-1960s posed an increasing threat to China’s security interests, Mao’s primary concern lay in the interplay between the changing situation in Vietnam and his grand plans of promoting China’s continuous revolution. The vision of Beijing’s Vietnam policy was never restricted to Vietnam itself. The policy seemed to have complicated aims: Mao and his comrades certainly hoped that the Vietnamese revolutionaries would eventually defeat the U.S. imperialists and their ‘‘lackeys,’’ and it was thus necessary for Beijing to support their struggles, but it would be against Mao’s interests if such support indeed led to a direct Chinese-American confrontation, which would thus sabotage his efforts to bring about the Cultural Revolution at home. American expansion of warfare in Vietnam would threaten China’s security in general, but the war’s expansion on a limited scale could provide Mao with much-needed stimulus to mobilize the Chinese population. Beijing’s belligerent statements about war in Vietnam were certainly aimed at both Hanoi and Washington, but they were also aimed at the ordinary people in China. After the Gulf of Tonkin Incident Early in August 1964, Vietnamese torpedo boats purportedly twice attacked American naval vessels in the Gulf of Tonkin area. The Johnson administration immediately ordered retaliation with air bombardment of selected North Vietnamese targets.33As Chinese and Vietnamese leaders had been predicting for months, the war in Vietnam had reached a crucial turning point. Beijing responded promptly to the incident. On 5 August, Zhou Enlai and Luo Ruiqing cabled Ho Chi Minh, Pham Van Dong, and Van Tien Dung, advising them to ‘‘investigate and clarify the situation, discuss and formulate proper strategies and policies, and be ready to take action.’’Without going into details, they proposed closer military collaboration between Beijing and Hanoi 212 china’s involvement in the vietnam war EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use to meet the American threat.34 The same day, as a precautionary measure, the Central Military Commission and the General Staff in Beijing ordered the military regions in Kunming and Guangzhou (the two regions adjacent to Vietnam) and the air force and naval units stationed in southern and southwestern China to enter a state of combat readiness, advising them to ‘‘pay close attention to the movement of American forces, and be ready to cope with any possible sudden attack.’’35 In order to coordinate Chinese and Vietnamese strategies, Le Duan, vwp first secretary, secretly visited Beijing in mid-August. On 13 August at Beidaihe, he had a two-hour meeting with Mao Zedong, at which the two leaders exchanged intelligence information on the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Le Duan confirmed to Mao that the incident of 2 August was the result of a decision made by the Vietnamese commander at the site, and Mao told Le Duan that, according to Beijing’s intelligence sources, the incident of 4 August was ‘‘not an intentional attack by the Americans’’ but was caused by ‘‘mistaken judgment’’ as the result of wrong information. While discussing the prospect of the war’s expansion into North Vietnam, Mao pointed out: ‘‘It seems that the Americans do not want to fight a war, you do not want to fight a war, and we do not necessarily want to fight a war. Since none of the three sides wants to fight a war, the war will not happen.’’ When a member of Le Duan’s delegation mentioned that ‘‘the enemy is now making outcries to attack North Vietnam,’’ Mao responded: ‘‘If the United States attacks the North, they will have to remember that the Chinese also have legs, and legs are used for walking.’’ But the Chinese chairman also advised the Vietnamese that, no matter how unlikely, in case the Americans did send ‘‘several hundred thousand’’ troops to invade North Vietnam, the Vietnamese should give up some land in the coastal area and should fight a protracted war against the aggressors in the interior. ‘‘As long as the green mountains are there,’’ commented the chairman, ‘‘you need not worry about firewood supplies.’’ Le Duan told Mao that ‘‘the support from China is indispensable, it is indeed related to the fate of our motherland, and the Soviet revisionists only want to use us as a bargaining chip.’’36 While Mao was meeting Le Duan at the scenic Beidaihe, the Chinese air force was busy moving a large number of air and antiaircraft units into the Chinese-Vietnamese border area. On 12 August, the air force’s Seventh Army headquarters was moved from Guangdong to Nanning, so that it would be able to take charge of possible operations in Guangxi and in areas adjacent to the Tonkin Gulf.37 Four air divisions and one antiaircraft artillery division were moved into areas adjacent to Vietnam and were ordered to maintain combat readiness. In the following months, two new airfields were constructed in china’s involvement in the vietnam war 213 EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use Guangxi to serve the needs of these units. Beijing also designated eight other air force divisions in nearby regions as second-line units.38 Allen Whiting, relying on American intelligence information, argues that Beijing’s transfer of new air units to the border area and the construction of new airfields there were carefully designed to deter further American expansion of war in the South and bombardment in the North.39 This interpretation certainly deserves credit. As quoted above, Mao told Le Duan on 13 August that it was unlikely that the Americans would expand the war to North Vietnam.40 In the same conversation, the Chinese chairman also mentioned that Beijing had transferred several air divisions and antiaircraft artillery divisions to Yunnan and Guangxi provinces and planned to construct new airfields in the Chinese-Vietnamese border area. It is interesting to note that the chairman then emphasized that ‘‘we will not make this a secret but will make this open.’’41 A logical deduction from Mao’s words is that, asWhiting has argued, Beijing intended to use these actions to deter the Americans. Beijing’s leaders also used these actions to assure their comrades in Hanoi of their backing, to allow themselves the time to work out the specifics of China’s strategy toward the Vietnam War in light of Beijing’s domestic and international needs, and to turn the tensions caused by an external crisis into a new driving force for a profound domestic mobilization. Not surprisingly, then, Mao immediately used the escalation of the Vietnam War in August 1964 to revolutionize further China’s political and social life, bringing about a ‘‘Resist America and Assist Vietnam Movement’’ throughout China. On 5 August, the Chinese government announced that ‘‘America’s aggression against the drv was also aggression against China, and that China would never fail to come to the aid of the Vietnamese.’’42 Following the ccp Central Committee’s instructions, according to the statistics of the Xinhua News Agency, over 20 million Chinese took part in rallies and demonstrations all over China on 7–11 August, protesting against ‘‘the U.S. imperialist aggression against Vietnam,’’ as well as showing ‘‘solidarity with the Vietnamese people.’’43 Through many such rallies and other similar activities in the next two years, the concept of ‘‘resisting America and assisting Vietnam’’ would penetrate into every part of Chinese society, making it a dominant national theme that Mao would use to mobilize the Chinese population along his ‘‘revolutionary lines.’’44 Several of Mao’s internal speeches further revealed his mind-set. In midAugust 1964, the ccp Central Secretariat met to discuss the international situation and China’s responses. In his addresses on 17 and 20 August Mao emphasized that the imperialists were planning to start a new war of aggression 214 china’s involvement in the vietnam war EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use against China, and it was therefore necessary for China to fundamentally restructure its economic framework. Mao paid particular attention to the fact that, since most industry was then located in coastal areas, China was economically vulnerable to sudden attacks. To safeguard the industrial bases, Mao believed it necessary to move a large number of factories to the interior of the country and to establish the Third Front (san xian, that is, the industrial bases located in the interior). Meanwhile, in order to cope with the situation in Indochina, Mao called for rapid completion of three new railway lines—the Chengdu-Kunming line, the Sichuan-Guizhou line, and the Yunnan-Guizhou line, all of which would provide better connections between China’s interior and the Chinese-Vietnamese border area. All of China’s economic planning, Mao emphasized, should now be oriented toward China’s national defense, to prepare for a coming war with the imperialists.45 The escalation of the Vietnam War in late 1964 thus triggered a profound transformation of the entire structure of China’s national economy.46 Following Mao’s ideas, the ccp Central Committee discussed the need to establish a ‘‘Headquarters for National Economy and National Defense,’’ with Mao Zedong and Liu Shaoqi as its co-commanders.47 By early 1965, a large portion of the coastal industry had begun to move into the inner areas, and the emphasis of China’s economic development changed from agriculture and light industry to heavy industry, particularly in the sectors related to the military build-up.48 A large portion of China’s population (especially in coastal areas) were affected by these changes, which, as Mao had intended, created a broadreaching and intense revolutionary popular mentality in Chinese society and politics. Defining China’s Aid to Vietnam, Late 1964–Early 1965 In a strategic sense, the security commitments Beijing had previously offered Hanoi had been given in general terms. Thus in late 1964 and early 1965, Beijing’s leaders needed to define the specifics of China’s support to Vietnam in light of both how Mao perceived the country’s domestic and international needs and the changing situation in Vietnam. At first, as indicated by the conversations between Mao and the visiting Vietnamese delegations, Beijing’s leaders seemed to believe that the ‘‘resolute struggles on the part of the Vietnamese people’’ would effectively prevent Washington from dramatically escalating the war in Vietnam.49 Therefore, the Johnson administration’s decisions in February and March 1965 to launch a sustained bombing campaign against North Vietnam (Operation Rolling Thunder) and deploy a growing number of ground forces in South Vietnam china’s involvement in the vietnam war 215 EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use came as an unpleasant surprise to Beijing’s leaders. Mao and his comrades were forced to reconsider the implications of American actions in Vietnam and, accordingly, formulate Chinese strategies to deal with the worsening crisis. While doing so, Beijing’s leaders were influenced by the lessons of the Korean War, as well as the assumption that the Americans would also learn from their experience in Korea. In March and April 1965, top Beijing leaders held a series of discussions about the situation in Vietnam, putting special emphasis on whether Washington would further expand the war by bringing the ground war to North Vietnam and air/ground war to China. A speech made by Deng Xiaoping at a politburo meeting of 12 April, which was also attended by Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai, revealed some of Beijing’s basic considerations: It seems that the [American] bombardment will continue. The U.S. imperialists’ first step was fighting a special war. According to the Vietnamese comrades, the [American] special war has reached a new stage. Our view is that the special war has failed and the war will be expanded. The American air bombardment has penetrated into the airspace only twelve kilometers south of Hanoi, and, if the bombardment continues, it is inevitable that even Hanoi, Hai Phong, and Thai Nguyen will become the targets. . . . [I]t is even possible for them, under the excuse of chasing after Vietnamese planes, to invade our airspace. . . . If this is allowed to continue, they will come to Yunnan and Guangxi. Then the war will expand to part of China, and then, to all of China.50 Deng Xiaoping also identified four possible ways the war could develop: ‘‘First, the war [could] be fought in South Vietnam; second, the war [could] be fought both in South and North Vietnam, and [could] be linked to the war in Laos; third, the war [could] be fought in our provinces neighboring Vietnam; or, fourth, the U.S. imperialists [could] fight a larger regional war with us, even including Korea.’’51 In order to avert the worst-case scenario, Beijing’s leaders decided to adopt three basic principles in formulating China’s strategy. First, if the Americans went beyond the bombing of the North and used land forces to invade North Vietnam, China would have to send military forces. Second, China would give clear warnings to the Americans so that they would not feel free to expand military operations into the North, let alone to bring the war to China. Third, China would avoid a direct military face-off with the United States as long as possible; but it would not shrink from a confrontation.52 Guided by these principles, Beijing sent out a series of warning signals to Washington in spring 1965. On 25 March, the Renmin ribao(People’s Daily) an216 china’s involvement in the vietnam war EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use nounced in an editorial that China was to offer ‘‘the heroic Vietnamese people any necessary material support, including the supply of weapons and all kinds of military materials’’ and that, if necessary, China was also ready ‘‘to send its personnel to fight together with the Vietnamese people to annihilate the American aggressors.’’53 Four days later, Zhou Enlai made the same announcement at a mass rally in Tirana, the capital of Albania, where Zhou was making a formal visit.54 Beijing’s most serious effort to warnWashington occurred on 2 April, when Zhou Enlai, visiting Karachi, Pakistan, asked President Mohammad Ayub Khan to convey several points to Washington: ‘‘(1) China would not take the initiative to provoke a war against the United States; (2) China means what it says, and China will honor whatever international obligations it has undertaken; and (3) China is prepared.’’55 Since Ayub Khan’s visit to Washington was later abruptly postponed by the Johnson administration,56 Beijing tried other channels to make sure that the same message (but with a more clearly defined fourth point) would get toWashington. On 28 May, in a meeting with Indonesian first prime minister Subandrio, Zhou Enlai issued a four-point statement: ‘‘(1) China will not take the initiative to provoke a war against the United States; (2) China will honor what it has said; (3) China is prepared; and (4) If the United States bombs China, that means bringing the war to China. The war has no boundary. This means two things: First, you cannot say that only an air war on your part is allowed and the land war on my part is not allowed. Second, not only may you invade our territory, we may also fight a war abroad.’’57 Three days later, Chinese foreign minister Chen Yi met with British chargé d’affaires Donald Charles Hopson, formally asking him to deliver the same four-point message toWashington: ‘‘(1) China will not provoke war with [the] United States; (2) What China says counts; (3) China is prepared; and (4) If [the] United States bombs China that would mean war and there would be no limits to the war.’’ Chen Yi emphasized that Zhou Enlai had asked Ayub Khan to convey these messages to Washington but that since the Pakistani president’s visit was canceled, ‘‘perhaps this message had not gotten through,’’ so ‘‘he would be grateful if the British government would pass it on.’’58 It is apparent that Beijing’s warning messages were carefully crafted. The explicit language of these messages left no doubt about what Beijing would do if Washington failed to listen to them. Particularly noteworthy is the addition of the fourth point in later messages, especially in the ones Chen Yi asked the British to convey to Washington, which Beijing’s leaders believed certainly would not fail to reach top American policymakers. By making sure thatWashchina’s involvement in the vietnam war 217 EBSCOhost - printed on 4/15/2023 4:47 PM via CARDIFF UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use ington would under no circumstances misunderstand the meaning of these messages, Beijing’s leaders hoped to prevent the war’s expansion into North Vietnam and, in particular, into China.59 While sending out these warnings, Beijing’s leaders were also preparing for a worst-case scenario. The same day, following the decision reached at the 12 April politburo meeting, the ccp Central Committee issued ‘‘Instructions for Strengthening the Preparations for Future Wars,’’ a set of directives that ultimately was relayed to every part of Chinese society and became one of the most important guiding documents in China’s political and social life for the rest of the 1960s. The document pointed out that the U.S. imperialists were escalating their military aggression in Vietnam and directly invading the drv’s airspace. This move represented a serious threat to China’s safety. In light of the situation, the Central Committee emphasized, it was necessary for China to further its preparations for a war with the United States, and it therefore called on the party, the military, and the whole nation to be prepared both mentally and physically for the worst possibility. Supporting the Vietnamese people’s struggle to resist the United States and save their country, the document concluded, was to become the top priority in China’s political and social life.60 This document served the dual purpose of mobilizing China’s military and economic potential to deal with the possible worsening of the Vietnam War and of radicalizing China’s polity and society by inspiring a revolutionary atmosphere at home.61 In the meantime, Beijing and Hanoi were discussing the specifics of their cooperation in the escalating war. In early April 1965, a Vietnamese delegation led by Le Duan and Vo Nguyen Giap secretly visited Beijing.62 On 8 April, Liu Shaoqi, on behalf of the ccp Central Committee, met Duan and Giap. Duan, according to Chinese records, told his hosts at the beginning of the meeting that the Vietnamese ‘‘always believed that China was Vietnam’s most reliable friend’’ and that ‘‘the aid from China to Vietnam was the most in quantity, as well as the best in quality.’’ Liu thanked Duan and told him that ‘‘it was the consistent policy of the Chinese party that China would do its best to provide whatever was needed by the Vietnamese.’’ Duan then stated that the Vietnamese hoped China would send volunteer pilots, volunteer troops, and other volunteers—such as engineering units for constructing railways, roads, and bridges—to North Vietnam. He emphasized that the dispatch of these forces would allow Hanoi to send its own troops to the South. Duan further expressed the hope that the support from China would achieve four main goals: restrict American bombardment to areas south of either the 20th or the 19th parallel; defend Hanoi and areas north of it from American air bombardm