Soviet Public Diplomacy in China: “Small Steps” towards Bilateral Rapprochement (1978–1985)

Abstract

The paper examines the use of public diplomacy within the framework of the ‘small steps’ policy in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Mutual distrust, the fragility of the global balance of power and the absence of consensus within the political elites precluded China and the USSR from having productive dialogue through official diplomatic channels. Yet both sides felt the need to probe their counterpart’s intentions. The paper argues that the ‘small steps’ policy was one of the most logical options for both the Soviet Union and China at the time; it laid the groundwork for further normalisation efforts.

Key words:

• Sino-Soviet relations
• Sino-Soviet normalisation
• small steps policy
• public diplomacy
• Soviet-Chinese Friendship Association

Acknowledgement

The author would like to express her gratitude to Charles Hayford, Yi Guolin, Xia Yafeng and two anonymous reviewers for reading the earlier drafts of the article and providing insightful comments and suggestion. The author is also grateful to the faculty of the 7th European Summer School for Cold War History, where this paper was originally presented.

Notes

¹ Nicholas Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency: American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy, 1945–1989, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), xv.

² G.S. Jowett, V.O'Donnell, Propaganda & Persuasion, (Los Angeles: Sage, 2012), 288.

³ Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency, xv.

⁴ Craig Hayden. The Rhetoric of Soft Power: Public Diplomacy in Global Contexts, (New York: Lexington Books, 2012), 49.

⁵ See J. Montville ‘Track Two Diplomacy: The Arrow and the Olive Branch’ in V. Volkan, J. Montville, and D. Julius, eds.,The Psychodynamics of International Relations, vol. 2, (Massachusetts: Lexington Books, 1991), 162.

⁶ See Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency, 1–80.

⁷ Ibid., xvi.

⁸ Eleonory Gilburd, ‘The Revival of Soviet Internationalism in the Mid to Late 1950s’ in Denis Kozlov andEleonory Gilburd, eds., The Thaw: Soviet Society and Culture during the 1950s and 1960s, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013), 373–4.

⁹ Zhihua Shen, Sulian zhuanjia zai Zhongguo (1948–1960) [Soviet Experts in China (1948–1960)], (Beijing: Xinhua Chubanshe, 2009), 115.

¹⁰ Ibid.

¹¹ Chen Jian ‘China and the Cold War after Mao’ in M.P. Leffler and O.A. Westad, ed., Cambridge History of the Cold War, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 2010), 189–95.

¹² А.Тitov, ‘Partiya protiv gosudarstva: reforma apparata TsK KPSS pri Nikite Khrushcheve [Party against the State: the CC CPSU Apparatus Reform during the Period of Nikita Khrushchev]’, Neprikosnovenny zapas, No. 3, 2012 (http://www.intelros.ru/readroom/nz/n3-2012/14962-partiya-protiv-gosudarstva-reforma-apparata-ck-kpss-pri-nikite-hruscheve.html), (accessed 12 January 2015).

¹³ Protocol No. 80 of the CC CPSU Praesidium meeting on the measures to improve the Soviet propaganda in foreign countries, 4 March 1957, Russian State Archive of Contemporary History (RGANI), F. 3, Op.36, D. 7, L. 1–2.

¹⁴ Eleonory Gilburd, ‘The Revival of Soviet Internationalism in the Mid to Late’, 373–4.

¹⁵ Decree of the All-Union Congress of the SSOD, 1958, undated, State Archive of Russian Federation (GARF), F. 9576, Op.5, D. 1, L. 175.

¹⁶ Information on the establishment of Soviet Friendship Associations with foreign countries, GARF, F. 9576, Op.1, D. 1, list 113, Protocol # 1 of OSKD Congress , 29 October 1957, GARF, F. 9576, Op.5, D. 6, L. 1–3.

¹⁷ Sulian Buzhang Huiyi Duiwai Wenhua Lianxi Weiyuanhui Guanyu ‘Suzhong Youhaobao’ de Beiwanglu [Memorandum of the USSR Soviet Council of Ministers to the VOKS on the ‘Sino-Soviet Friendship’Magazine], 57.06.14, Zhongguo Renmin Duiwai Youhao Xiehui Danganshi [The Archive of the CPAFFC], Yongjiu [Permanent] 57–3-72, pp.25–28.

¹⁸ See G.V. Kulikova, Rossia-Kitay. Narodnaya diplomatiya [Russia-China. People's Diplomacy], (Мoscow: ID ‘Forum’, 2012).

¹⁹ The OSKD second half-year work plan, 1958 , undated, GARF, F. 9576, Op.5, D. 6, L. 170–3.

²⁰ The mechanisms were similar for most Friendship Associations, see Rachel Applebaum, ‘The Friendship Project: Socialist Internationalism in the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia in the 1950s and 1960s’, Slavic Review 74, No. 3 (Fall 2015), 484–507.

²¹ Letter from the head of the GKKS Yu. A.Zhukov to the head of the SSOD N.V. Popova, undated, GARF, F. 9518, Op.1, D. 17, L. 1.

²² Information on the OSKD in 1961, GARF, F. 9576, Op.5, D. 120, L. 54–91; Plan of cultural cooperation between the USSR and the PRC in 1962, undated, GARF, F. 9576, Op.5, D. 120, L. 20–24.

²³ Brief on activities of the OSKD (1965–1966), GARF, F. 9576, Op.5, D. 233, L. 7–12; G.V. Kulikova. Rossia-Kitay. Narodnaya diplomatiya [Russia-China. People's Diplomacy], (Мoscow: ID ‘Forum’, 2012), 65–6.

²⁴ Li Danhui ‘Cong fenlie dao duikang’[From Split to Confrontation] in Shen Zhihua (ed) Zhongsu guanxi shigang (1917–1991) [History of Sino-Soviet Relations (1917–1991)], (Beijing: Shehui Kexue Wenxian Chubanshe), 2011, 403.

²⁵ For instance: Record of conversation between executive secretary of the OSKD Danilov and Jian Sheng, March , 21, 1961, GARF, F. 9576, Op.5, D. 102, L. 4–5.

²⁶ Ma Yili [Elizabeth McGuire], ‘Liangge geming zhijian: zai Sulian de Zhongguo liuxuesheng (1948–1966)’ [Between two revolutions: Chinese students in the Soviet Union (1948–1966)], trans. Liu Wennan, Lengzhan Guojishi Yanjiu 2010, No.2: 50–78.

²⁷ Materials on situation in China: reviews, press bulletins, etc., GARF, F. 9576, Op.5, D. 344.

²⁸ The editorials from Pravda were reprinted in multilingual periodicals such as the Soviet Union, the Soviet Woman etc., these magazines were widely circulated around the socialist camp and delivered to Friendship Associations with Western countries.

²⁹ Manifest of the Board of Directors of the OSKD, 14 March 1969, GARF, F. 9576, Op.5, D. 344, L. 206–7.

³⁰ G.V. Kireev. Rossiya-Kitay . Neizvestniye stranitsy pogranichnyh peregovorov [Russia-China. Unknown Pages of Border Talks],(Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2007), 158.

³¹ Materials on the events held by the OSKD (reports, speeches, etc.), 1972, GARF, F. 9518, Op.5, D. 343.

³² Letters from the SSOD and Soviet-Chinese Friendship Association to the Department of CC CPSU, GARF, F. 9576, Op.5, D. 346, L. 20–25; Order # 428 of the State Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, 13 December 1967, GARF, F. 9518, Op.4, D. 1, L. 13.

³³ Sergey Radchenko, Unwanted Visionaries: the Soviet Failure in Asia at the End of the Cold War, (Oxford: Oxford Univeristy Press, 2014), 16.

³⁴ Letters from V. Khorokhordin, Deputy Chairman of the SSOD, to L.M.Zamyatin, Director of TASS, 15 April 1977, GARF, F. 9576, Op.20, D. 1741, L. 23.

³⁵ Letters from V. Khorokhordin, Deputy Chairman of the SSOD, to O.B. Rakhmanin, Deputy Head of the Department of CC CPSU, undated, GARF, F. 9576, Op.20, D. 1741, L. 1–10.

³⁶ Suggestions from the SSOD and the OSKD to the Department of CC CPSU about the Association's 1977 annual working plan, undated, GARF, F. 9576, Op.20, D. 1741, L. 10–11.

³⁷ Kulikova, Rossia -Kitay, 72.

³⁸ O.B.Borisov, B.T. Koloskov. Sovetsko-kitayskiye otnosheniya 1945–1980 [Soviet-Chinese relations 1945–1980], (Moscow: Mysl',1980), 603.

³⁹ According to the Soviets, in 1978 only in Renmin Ribao there were 2350 anti-Soviet articles. See: Borisov, Sovetsko-kitayskiye otnosheniya, 606. At the same time, every issue of Pravda in 1978 had at least one article or op-ed which expressed strong criticism of the Chinese government.

⁴⁰ Borisov, Sovetsko-kitayskiye otnosheniya,606.

⁴¹ See: A.V. Lukin Medved’ nabliudaet za drakonom [The Bear Watches the Dragon], (M: Vostok-Zapad, 2012), 532, fn. 253; E. P. Bazhanov ‘Metamorphoses of the Kremlin’s China Policy’ in E.P. Bazhanov Aktualnye problemy mezhdunarodnyh otnoshenii. Izbrannye Trudy v treh tomah, T.2, 312–314; Anatolii Chernyaev, Sovmestnyi Iskhod: Dnevnik Dvukh Epokh, 1972–1991 gody [Joint Outcome. Journal of Two Eras], (Moscow: Rosspen, 2008), 487, 507; Radchenko, Unwanted Visionaries, 16–7.

⁴² Letter from the Central Committee of the CC CPSU to the Italian Communist Party, undated (probably November 1982). Italian Communist Party Archive, Rome, Italy: file 8302, pp. 53–62 in Radchenko, Unwanted Visionaries, 323.

⁴³ Minutes of a Politburo meeting, 31 May 1983. Cold War International History Project Bulletin, Issue 4 (Fall 1993), 79; Radchenko, Unwanted Visionaries, 38.

⁴⁴ Chernyaev, Sovmestniy Ishod, 498, Lukin Medved nablyudaet, 267.

⁴⁵ Borisov, Sovetsko-kitayskiye otnosheniya, 603.

⁴⁶ Kireev, Rossiya – Kitay, 155.

⁴⁷ H. Kissinger, On China, (New York: Penguin Books, 2011), 367–77.

⁴⁸ Kulikova, Rossia -Kitay, 72.

⁴⁹ Zhonggong Zhongyang Wenxian Yanjiushi bian [CCP Documents Research Office (ed.)]: Deng Xiaoping Nianpu, Shangce [The Chronicles of Deng Xiaoping. Part 1], (Beijing: Zhongyang Wenxian Chubanshe, 2004), 268.

⁵⁰ Ibid, 159.

⁵¹ Ibid, 360.

⁵² Zhonggong Zhongyang Wenxian Yanjiushi bian [CCP Documents Research Office (ed.)]: Chen Yun Nianpu, Xiajuan [The Chronicles of Chen Yun. Part 2], (Beijing: Zhongyang Wenxian Chubanshe, 2000), 230.

⁵³ Borisov, Sovetsko-kitayskiye otnosheniya, 601–18.

⁵⁴ Robert S. Ross, Negotiating Cooperation: The United States and China (1969–1989), (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), 218.

⁵⁵ Report on the activities of the Soviet-Chinese Friendship Association in 1979, GARF, F. 9576, Op.20, D. 2509, L. 29–31.

⁵⁶ Report on the activities of the OSKD in 1979, GARF, F. 9576, Op.20, D. 2509, L. 29–31.

⁵⁷ Kulikova, Rossia -Kitay, 73.

⁵⁸ Radchenko, Unwanted Visionaries, 12.

⁵⁹ Ibid.

⁶⁰ J. Hershberg, S. Radchenko, P. Vamos, and D. Wolff ,'The Interkit story: A Window into the Last Decades of the Sino-Soviet Relationship', Cold War International History Project Working Paper, No.63 (February 2011) in Radchenko, Unwanted Visionaries,12.

⁶¹ M.S.Kapitsa, Na raznyh parallelyah. Zapiski diplomata [On different parallels. Notes of a diplomat], (Moscow: Kinga i Biznes, 1996), 111.

⁶² S.L.Tikhvinsky, Huidao Tiananmen – Eluosi zhuming hanxuejia Qihewensiji huiyilu [Returning to Tiananmen – the memoirs of famous Russian sinologist Tikhvinsky], (Beijing: Zhonggong Dangshi Chubanshe, 2004), 306.

⁶³ Kulikova, Rossia -Kitay, 70.

⁶⁴ Lukin Medved nablyudaet, 254.

⁶⁵ Zhonggong Zhongyang Wenxian Yanjiushi bian [CCP Documents Research Office (ed.)]: Deng Xiaoping Nianpu, Xiace [The Chronicles of Deng Xiaoping. Part 2], (Beijing: Zhongyang Wenxian Chubanshe, 2004), 23.

⁶⁶ Jin Chongji authored and co-edited many historical works, among them ‘Mao Zedong Zhuan’, ‘Zhou Enlai Zhuan’, etc., he also was the Deputy Director of the Zhongyang wenxian yanjiushi (Party Literature Research Centre).

⁶⁷ Tikhvinsky, Returning to Tiananmen, 306.

⁶⁸ Ibid.

⁶⁹ Tikhvinsky, Returning to Tiananmen, 308.

⁷⁰ Kulikova, Rossia -Kitay, 73.

⁷¹ B.N.Vereshchagin, V starom i novom Kitae: Iz vospominaniy diplomata [In the Old and New China: The memories of a diplomat], ( Мoscow: Izdatelstvo Isntituta Dalnego Vostoka , 1999), 188.

⁷² Ross, Negotiating Cooperation, 276.

⁷³ Qian Qichen, Waijiao Shiji［Ten episodes on China's diplomacy］(Beijing: Shijie Zhishi Chubanshe, 2003), 4.

⁷⁴ ‘Soviet Sinologist in China for Talks’, The New York Times, 21 May 1982, http://www.nytimes.com/1982/05/22/world/soviet-sinologist-in-china-for-talks.html (accessed 4 January 2015 ).

⁷⁵ The Chronicles of Chen Yun. Part 2, 339.

⁷⁶ Radchenko, Unwanted visionaries, 33.

⁷⁷ Niu Jun, ‘Heading towards Normalisation’, 484.

⁷⁸ Qian Qichen, Ten episodes on China's diplomacy, 16.

⁷⁹ Lukin, Medved’ nablyudaet, 269.

⁸⁰ Ibid,16–8.

⁸¹ Kulikova, Rossia -Kitay, 82.

⁸² Ibid, 84.

⁸³ Tikhvinsky, Returning to Tiananmen, 307–8.

⁸⁴ Kulikova, Rossia -Kitay, 84.

⁸⁵ Ibid, 86.

⁸⁶ Tikhvinsky, Returning to Tiananmen, 307–8.

⁸⁷ Kulikova, Rossia -Kitay, 87.

⁸⁸ Kulikova, Rossia -Kitay, 87–8.

⁸⁹ Cable from Ambassador Katori to the Foreign Minister, 'Prime Minster’s Visit to China (Foreign Ministers’ Discussion – Relations with the Soviet Union)', 25 March 1984, History and Public Policy Programme Digital Archive, 2002–113 http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/119555 (accessed 20 January 2016 ).

⁹⁰ Kulikova. Rossia -Kitay, 40.

⁹¹ Ibid, 88.

⁹² Letter from the Soviet Embassy in China to the Foreign Ministry, 16 February 1973, RGANI, F. 5, Op. 66, D. 660, L. 9–10.

⁹³ Qian Qichen, Ten episodes on China's diplomacy, 22.

⁹⁴ Ibid,19.

⁹⁵ Cable from Ambassador Katori to the Foreign Minister, 'Prime Minster Visit to China (Foreign Ministers’ Discussion – Relations with the Soviet Union)', 25 March 1984, History and Public Policy Programme Digital Archive, 2002–113. http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/119555 (accessed 20 January 2016 ).

⁹⁶ Qian Qichen, Ten episodes on China's diplomacy ,18.

⁹⁷ Excerpts from the Final Report of the 24th and 25th Congress of CC CPSU and Brezhnev's Tashkent speech, GARF, F. 9576, Op.20, D. 4870, L. 35–43.

⁹⁸ Report of the head of the OSKD delegation V.P. Oskach on their visit to the PRC, 29 April, 1987, F. 9576, Op.20, D. 5535, L.2–9.

⁹⁹ Attachment to the brief on the Sino-Soviet Relations, March, 1985, GARF, F. 9576, Op.20, D. 4870, L. 33–4.

¹⁰⁰ Ruth Eckstein, ‘Ping-Pong Diplomacy: A View from Behind the Scenes’, The Journal of American-East Asian Relations, Vol.2, No.3 (FALL 1993), 327–42.

¹⁰¹ Brief on the Sino-Soviet Friendship Association, March, 1985, GARF, F. 9576, Op.20, D. 4870, L. 17–19.