Li Danhui

Editor's Note:

A recent article published in History Reference magazine claims that the Soviet Union was seriously considering a nuclear attack on China in 1969, at the height of the Sino-Soviet conflict.

Since the magazine is part of the State-owned People's Daily group, this has drawn some attention from the foreign media. Does this reflect shifts in modern Sino-Russian diplomacy? What really happened in 1969?

Global Times (GT) reporter Li Yanjie talked with Li Danhui (Li), a researcher at the Cold War International History Studies Center, East China Normal University, on this issue.

GT: History Reference magazine published an article in April, claiming that the US had helped to stop a Soviet nuclear attack plan on China. Do you agree with it?

Li: I think the planned Soviet nuclear surgical strike on China was actually more bluffing than a real plan, although the Soviets had published articles on the plan and might have used diplomats to probe US opinion. I think the US might have unintentionally helped to prevent the so-called nuclear attack.

We can verify some facts in the article concerning historical events, as the CIA has released some materials concerning the Sino-Soviet border clashes. However, I really doubt the emotional expressions used in the article, such as "Nikita Khrushchev shouted angrily."

GT: There's a range of opinions about what these plans signified. What do you think?

Li: I think it was actually a form of nuclear deterrence by the Soviets aimed against China. In fact, during the first negotiation over the two countries' border in 1954, the Soviets threatened the possibility of nuclear attack.

In June 1964, the two sides were able to reach a preliminary agreement on the eastern section of the border. The Soviets agreed to demarcate disputes waters according to international rules and to return some islands to China.

Meeting a Japanese delegation in July 1964, Chairman Mao Zedong said that Tsarist Russia had stripped China of vast territories in Siberia and to the east of Lake Baikal over a century ago, and China hadn't presented a bill for that.

Later the Japanese delegation leaked Mao's words. This cast a serious shadow on Sino-Soviet border negotiations. The head of the Chinese delegation, Zeng Yongquan, said that China wouldn't rule out the use of force to get back the territories lost by the Qing empire to Russia. So the first border negotiations finally broke up.

On September 2, 1964, Pravda, the official Soviet newspaper, reported Mao's comments to the Japanese delegation and published an editorial warning of Chinese territorial designs.

On September 15, 1964, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev said, in conversation with another Japanese delegation, that the Soviet Union would use destructive weapons against any country trying to seize its territory. This was nuclear deterrence directed against China, and part of the Sino-Soviet split of that year.

China and the Soviet Union had been quarrelling since 1960.

From 1960 to October 1964, there were over 1,000 border clashes, and 4,189 between October 1964 and March 1969, when they culminated in fighting on Zhenbao Island, in the middle of the Ussuri River. There were heavy casualties on both sides. On September 11, 1969, Soviet Prime Minister Aleksei Kosygin visited Beijing for talks with his Chinese counterpart, Zhou Enlai.

Four days later, the London Evening News published an article by Victor Louis, a Russian journalist often used as a channel by the KGB to the Western media, implying that Moscow was considering an attack on Lop Nor, China's nuclear test site, and that the Soviets were looking at how to support China's opposition forces.

On September 18, Zhou secretly advocated to Kosygin that both countries should promise not to use force, including nuclear force, to attack each other. On September 26, Kosygin replied and suggested that strict supervision should be implemented and both sides should respect each other's airspace. He also proposed signing a non-aggression treaty.

This shows that the Soviet Union promised China it would not launch a large-scale attack against China or use nuclear weapons, even at the nadir of Sino-Soviet relations.

I think China wanted to exaggerate the conflict, as there was an anti-Soviet trend in China during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), while the Soviets wanted to ease the tension. All of the Soviets' actions, such as domestic demonstrations, press conferences and complaining about China to the West, were aimed at forcing a second round of border negotiations.

But China gave no feedback, so the Soviets tried the nuclear deterrence tactic, eventually leading to the talks between Zhou and Kosygin. Zhou said during the talks that if the Soviets were to attack China's nuclear base, it meant war and that China wouldn't give in.

This was actually testing the Soviets' real thoughts, and Zhou and Kosygin were able to reach an oral cease-fire agreement. Besides, Kosygin talked about Sino-Soviet economic and trade relations and communication, indicating the Soviets wanted to normalize bilateral relations.

But China's then-leader, Mao Zedong, thought the talks might be a Soviet smokescreen covering their real plan to launch a nuclear attack.

I personally think China overestimated the possibility of war, which is why it took such large-scale anti-nuclear measures later, like evacuation. At that time Mao was thinking of adjusting China's policies toward the West and he wanted to work with the US against the Soviets, so he also intended to exaggerate the incident when talking to the US.

But I don't know whether the US played a role in the case, though I think the US might have helped to stop the so-called nuclear attack unintentionally. I haven't yet found any materials showing that the Soviet had actually deployed nuclear weapons against China. The Soviets may have used the West as another channel to communicate their nuclear threat to China and press it to return to the bargaining table.

GT: Xu Yan, a major general and a professor of military history, has said that there were no signs that China and the Soviets were ever planning to attack each other. Instead, he argues, they were each preparing for an attack by the other. He also argued that the US used the issue to push its relationship with China forward. What do you think of his opinions?

Li: Mao's estimate that the Soviets might launch large-scale attacks on China was wrong, and resulted in vast amounts of resources being wasted on defensive preparations.

When Leonid Brezhnev became the Soviet Union's leader in 1964 and then invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968, the danger of an attack on China seemed more real. The border conflicts in 1969 also made China worried.

On the Soviet side, after the first border negotiations broke up, the Soviets deployed more forces along the Sino- Soviet border. But they couldn't make a clear judgment as to whether there would be an attack.

So the two sides both prepared for an ultimately imaginary war. It's certainly possible that the US might have helped poison Sino-Soviet relations by leaking information on Soviet plans to China, since they always saw the Soviet Union as the bigger enemy and wanted to ally with China against them.

GT: The Russian newspaper Pravda has claimed that such an article published in an official magazine might indicate that some political forces in China are trying to improve Sino-US relations. Is this correct?

Li: The foreign media have overreacted to this article, since this is not a new story and the facts have been known for some time. The History Reference magazine is part of the People's Daily group, but I don't think this represents any government opinions on either Sino-US relations or Sino-Russian relations. Times have changed, and China has regular diplomatic contact with the US and Russia. There's no need to use obscure channels to signal changes.

The magazine is very market-orientated and sensationalistic nowadays. You can see that it used bold headlines to describe Vladimir Lenin in the same issue as this article, such as "Lenin was crueler than the Tsar."