Khrushchev’s and Mao’s efforts to accommodate one another were shortlived. The already fragile alliance was tested by a series of Beijing-Moscow
Interactions over domestic and external affairs in 1957-58. Again, hard feelings, strong beliefs, erroneous perceptions, and historical memories proved more difficult to overcome than policy differences.
The first encounter was economic. China's first Five-Year Plan seemed successful. In 1957, production of steel reached 5.35 million tons, iron 5.8 million tons, electric power 19.3 billion kWh, and coal 131 million tons, each exceeding the aims of the plan (which stood at 4.12 million tons for steel, 5.75 million tons for iron, 15.9 billion kWh for electric power, and 113 million tons for coal).514 The success made the CCP more anxious to implement industrialization quickly. Toward the end of the plan, Mao had declared his “firm belief' that it might take just three “Five-Year Plans" to “build a powerful socialist country" in China. He anticipated that China, already not too far behind the United States in iron and steel production, would soon catch up with other industrial countries.515
Moscow, however, doubted Beijing's aspirations, and the CCP felt disgruntled. In an economic development review in early 1957, the Soviet Far East Economic Committee was very critical of China's economic policies. After seeing the report, the PRC Foreign Ministry protested and singled out every “error" the Soviet report contained. Refuting the Soviet claim that Chinese peasants opposed collectivization, for example, Chinese officials argued that the pace of China's “agricultural collectivization" was welcomed nationwide. The Foreign Ministry then pointed out that Soviet experts “deliberately distort and obliterate" China's achievements simply because they were unhappy with the CCP's not following their model.516
Mao, in particular, was bothered by Soviet skepticism about China's success. He believed that Moscow harbored an unnecessary fear that an industrialized China would seriously challenge Soviet leadership in the international Communist movement. Some Soviet leaders, Mao said to a Yugoslav delegation in September 1957, wanted “China's socialist construction _ to fail." They wildly imagined that China might become “an imperialist state," reviving the adventures of Chinggis Khan, and resulting in another “Yellow
Peril.” Their real intention, he asserted, was to discredit the CCP as a Marxist-Leninist party.517
Soviet skepticism in part prompted Mao to aim unrealistically high for China's development. During a high-profile visit to Moscow in November
1957, he boasted at a meeting of world Communist leaders that China would overtake Britain in iron, steel, and other heavy industries in the next fifteen years and would soon beat the United States in these areas as well.518 In April
1958, he proclaimed that it might not take fifteen years for China to overtake Britain and the United States. CCP leaders began to plan to surpass Britain in seven years and to catch up with the United States in eight or ten years.519 The result of Mao's dreamlike aspirations was the Great Leap Forward campaign, calling for a 19% increase in steel production, 18% in electricity, and 17% in coal output for 1958. Buoyed by unrealistic optimism, the CCP leaders kept raising the production goals in hopes of achieving an unprecedented rate of growth.520
Interestingly, Moscow tried to adapt itself to Beijing's quest for quick economic success. In its report to the presidium dated July 26, 1958, the Soviet Foreign Ministry said that it felt “very positive” about China's economic performance. “The sharp rise of the PRC economy,” it stated, “creates the conditions for a significant shortening of the time necessary to liquidate China's economic backwardness.” It was not unrealistic for China to catch up with Britain in industrial production within fifteen years. If China's second Five-Year Plan was as successful as the first, the report predicted, China could even realize this aim in some areas “in the next 2-3 years.”521 China welcomed this changed Soviet attitude and subsequently expected more aid from Moscow.
The CCP, however, was disappointed at no significant increase in Soviet aid and dismayed, in particular, by continual Soviet reluctance to help with China's atomic project. In September 1957, Marshal Nie Rongzhen - in charge
Of China's nuclear program - led a mission to Moscow to secure Soviet nuclear assistance. Nie's trip ended with the signing of another protocol in October, in which the Soviets agreed to provide a model of an atomic bomb. But the Soviets did not specify exactly when it would be delivered and what it would entail. When Nie pressed, the Soviet leaders said they were not yet ready.522 Even when Moscow dispatched 102 Soviet missile specialists to China with two Soviet P-2 short-range ground-to-ground missiles late in 1957, and when it sent another delegation to Beijing to talk about transferring atomic technology in August 1958, the Chinese leaders were under the impression that the Soviets were trying "to find all possible excuses not to help us."523
Although aspiring to acquire Soviet nuclear technology, Beijing did not want the USSR to build a missile base in China. Early in 1957, Khrushchev remarked to a Chinese news delegation that if the United States "openly" installed missiles in Taiwan, the USSR would do the same in China. Meeting with Soviet ambassador to Beijing Pavel F. Iudin on May 22, Zhou Enlai rejected the Soviet offer on the grounds that a US missile base in Taiwan served only to tighten Washington's control over Jiang with "no intention" to provoke a large-scale war. As "a counterthreat," he said, a Soviet missile base on the mainland would "intensify the situation."524 What Zhou did not state was his concern that Moscow would exploit such an arrangement to control China. Later, Beijing became even more alarmed when it noted that some Soviet officials "casually" suggested that the Chinese should consider a "two-China" solution to the Taiwan problem. Calling in Iudin for a meeting on October 22, Zhou demanded that Moscow must firmly support China's "opposition to a two-China scheme."525
What transformed Chinese leaders' attitudes from suspicion to anger was Moscow's "intention" to incorporate China's coastal defense into its East Asian security system. In an April 18, 1958, letter to Peng Dehuai, Soviet minister of defense Marshal Radion I. Malinovskii suggested that they jointly build a radio communications station linking the Chinese navy with the Soviet navy in East Asia. Malinovskii said that the USSR would provide the technology and finance the construction. 526 Meeting with Mao on July 21,
Soviet ambassador ludin also proposed that the Soviet navy would like to form a joint fleet of nuclear-powered submarines with China in the Far East. Although the Soviet coastline was not appropriate for the Soviet navy’s newly developed submarines, Iudin explained, China’s "harbor conditions" were suitable for them.527
Moscow’s proposals led Chinese leaders to believe that the long-suspected Soviet intention to control China was becoming real. Should China agree to build a joint radio station, Mao insisted on June 6, 1958, it would finance the project itselfin order to ensure Chinese ownership; otherwise, there would be no deal. Should the USSR agree to provide technological help, Mao stressed, China would be willing to negotiate with Moscow about using its facilities.528 Six days later, Mao urged Defense Minister Peng to stick to these principles in his response to Malinovskii, allowing no compromise on China’s sovereign rights.529
In response to Iudin’s "joint submarine flotilla" suggestion, Mao decided to call in the Soviet ambassador for a private meeting on July 22,1958. He bluntly told Iudin that he was angered by the proposal because the Soviet Union intended to control China through a joint Sino-Soviet ownership scheme. To him, such an attitude was racial: "[To you] the Soviets are the first-class [people] whereas the Chinese are among the inferior who are dumb, careless," and untrustworthy. Should the Soviet Union continue in this vein, Mao said that Moscow might as well take control of China’s army and economy, leaving the CCP "only to maintain a guerrilla force."530
Driven by Russian chauvinism, Mao explained to Iudin, the Kremlin had long ordered the CCP around. An unforgettable example was Stalin’s demand to turn the northeast of China and Xinjiang into Soviet "spheres of influence” and insistence on joint ownership and operation of four newly built plants. It was all because Stalin regarded the CCP as "the Second Tito,” and treated China "as a backward nation”; other Soviets followed the example by "looking down upon the Chinese people.” The Sino-Soviet relationship, Mao asserted, had become a "father-son or cats-mice” one, and the CCP had to accommodate the USSR. Thus, the CCP "never openly” challenged Khrushchev’s
Peaceful-evolution idea; it had been consistently backing the Kremlin whenever there was a dispute among the Communist Parties in Eastern Europe. To assist Moscow in resolving the Polish crisis of 1956, Mao told Iudin that he personally tried to persuade the Polish leaders not to challenge Soviet dominance.531
This time, Mao declared, the CCP would stand up against Russian chauvinism. It was his determination that China "won’t get entangled with you." It was all because Khrushchev’s Kremlin intended to extend Soviet influence to China’s coast with the two proposals. Although bitterly angry with Moscow, Mao did not seem prepared to break the alliance. "It still is possible," he assured Iudin, that the two governments could "cooperate in many other areas." Finally, Mao requested that the Soviet ambassador should report back "exactly what I have remarked without any polishing," which would remind Khrushchev that "he has criticized Stalin’s policies but now adopts them himself."532
Mao’s protest alarmed the Kremlin. Coming to Beijing on July 31, 1958, Khrushchev affirmed that Moscow would provide only loans and technology for building the radio station, which China would completely own. He also explained to Mao that the Kremlin never intended to establish a joint nuclear submarine force in China, and that Iudin’s proposal was the result of a "misunderstanding." Although apologetic, Khrushchev reminded Mao that it was Soviet economic power and "rockets" that were "holding back" the United States, implying that China would still need Soviet protection and assistance. Mao conceded that China still needed to rely on the alliance.533
Whether or not Beijing would still need Soviet protection was soon tested. Late in August 1958, shortly after Khrushchev’s visit, the PRC began shelling the Nationalist-held offshore islands (Jinmen), initiating the second Taiwan Strait crisis.534 Worried about the US reaction, Khrushchev asked the Soviet embassy in Beijing on September 5 to request an urgent meeting between Mao and his personal envoy, Andrei A. Gromyko, who planned to visit Beijing secretly. Intending to draft a letter to Washington to warn the United States not to overreact, Moscow needed to know the CCP’s view. Beijing appreciated Moscow’s offer but suggested the insertion of stronger words in the letter which, it believed, would help to "compel" the United States to talk
With Beijing about a solution to the Taiwan problem.535 Assured that China’s bombardment of Jinmen was not a prelude to an attack on Taiwan, Khrushchev wrote to President Dwight D. Eisenhower on September 7 that any nuclear attack on China would result in a Soviet nuclear retaliation. Late that month, to reinforce his stance, he sent another letter - which was preapproved by Mao and slightly edited by Zhou - urging Washington to negotiate with Beijing.536 When Khrushchev suggested sending a third letter to propose multilateral talks on resolving the Taiwan issue, Beijing declined because the CCP did not want to appear "so anxious" that it might give "the impression of weakness."537 Khrushchev gave in to the Chinese.538
But Soviet attitudes toward the CCP remained in flux. PRC ambassador to Moscow Liu Xiao reported on October 20, 1958, that Khrushchev on several occasions stated the Chinese were right "that war must not be feared and peace cannot be begged for." Other Soviet leaders willingly admitted that China could be a major player in international politics. Khrushchev, moreover, began to stress the need to speed up Soviet economic performance in the "race against time" to prevent general war. These changes, Liu asserted, were positive, but future developments were still uncertain. The Kremlin still "lacked" an accurate understanding of Chinese strategy and tactics for socialist transformation, doubted the People’s Commune program, and disagreed with Beijing’s anti-imperialist propaganda.539
Uncertain of Moscow’s reliability, Mao and his colleagues, again, stressed self-reliance as a basic principle of CCP policies. What China had learned in its nationbuilding experience, Mao told two Brazilian journalists in September 1958, was to do away with "blind faith in foreigners."540 At the fifteenth session of the Supreme State Conference that same month, he declared that growing "international pressure" compelled the Chinese people to "rely on themselves."541 Partly to prove that China could develop quickly on its own, Mao became even more resolute in pushing the Great Leap Forward. After its
Launch in the spring of 1958, he kept raising its production goals in hopes of achieving an unprecedented rate of growth without relying on Soviet aid.542
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