Both Moscow and Beijing should have benefited fTom a Cold War alliance. Indeed, the leaders in both capitals had tried to maintain the alliance by resolving differences through direct communications and through what they regarded as a fair exchange of resources. But unlike the key Western Cold War alliances, the Sino-Soviet one failed in the end. In explaining the Sino-Soviet estrangement, some historians have pointed to the differences in leaders’ personality and psychology; others credited it to US attempts at driving a wedge between the two.576 More recent scholarship argues that culturally bound factors such as values, beliefs, and historical memories contributed to the collapse of the compact.
The historical consciousness of Chinese leaders largely shaped their attitudes toward Moscow. Given their strong sentiment about “foreign devils” and “national humiliations,” the CCP leaders could hardly relinquish their memories of Russian chauvinism, which they continued to see in Stalin’s behavior regarding aid, trade, and advisers. Within this context, they treated Khrushchev’s reluctance to offer the most advanced (especially atomic) technology, his proposal for further integration, and his harsh criticism of Mao’s
Domestic and foreign policies as new evidence of a chauvinistic and expansionist USSR.
The Russian ethnocentric view of the Chinese formed the basis of the Kremlin’s China policy. Seeing the world through the prism of their own beliefs, Soviet leaders could not allow the CCP to take a different path from theirs. Locked in their own belief system, Soviet officials expected their "junior partner" to adopt the Soviet model of socialist transformation. While denouncing Mao for his misunderstanding of the Cold War’s big picture, Khrushchev failed to respect the Chinese emphasis on independence, sovereignty, and self-reliance in foreign relations. Kremlin leaders often found it hard to understand why the Chinese seemed so "stubborn" on these principles, even at the risk of losing badly needed Soviet aid.
Coming from different traditions, the Chinese and the Soviets harbored different expectations of the partnership. The Chinese tended to stress personal trustworthiness in a relationship: you can only deal with a person when there is trust. Believing that policy stances reflected a person’s character, Mao took all policy differences as personal affronts. Stalin and then Khrushchev, in his view, did not pay due respect to him, and were thus untrustworthy. On the other hand, the Soviets attached greater importance to structural interests in a partnership. They believed the Chinese were in need of assistance and that Beijing had little to offer in return. Regarding the alliance as asymmetric, they were frustrated about the CCP’s emphasis on building personal relations and found it hard to understand why the Chinese stressed equality and reciprocity.
The personal clashes between Khrushchev and Mao were defined by cultural differences. Having acted in official capacities under Stalinism, Khrushchev showed a limited ability to tolerate challenges and believed in the utility of coercion to resolve differences. A good student of Chinese traditions, Mao overreacted to challenges because he saw them as threats to his long-term plans. From this perspective, he regarded Khrushchev as a shortsighted opportunist: when in need of Beijing’s support, Khrushchev was willing to accommodate; otherwise, he never shied away from coercion. In Khrushchev’s judgment, Mao became China’s Stalin: the only way for Mao to secure control was to build a cult of personality, not just in China but eventually within the world Communist movement.
Mao believed Khrushchev tried to dominate him while Khrushchev thought Mao treated him as a "subordinate." The same feeling, ironically, seemed rooted in the same oriental traditions. Bound by natural ties of kindness on one side and devotion on the other, the oriental way of relationship-building requires favors in exchange for loyalty. Both Mao and Khrushchev thought of
Themselves as benefactors: Mao supported Khrushchev politically, and Khrushchev aided Mao economically. Each leader expected his largesse to be reciprocated with appreciation and deference; when this did not happen, each viewed the other as returning kindness with ingratitude. The mutually patronizing attitude invariably produced mutual animosity.
The increasingly difficult relationship between Beijing and Moscow between 1954 and 1962 shows that common interests in fighting common enemies were not enough to sustain an alliance between the two Communist powers. China and the Soviet Union failed to overcome the perceptions and misperceptions derived from their culturally bound ethnocentrism.
World History
