What this lesson teaches
I can judge which factors shaped China's and Japan's relations with the superpowers.
Syllabus 8838, Theme II, Learning Outcomes. evaluate the factors that shaped China's and Japan's relations with the superpowers during the Cold War
Make a guess
In 1956 Khrushchev denounced Stalin and called for peaceful coexistence with the West. How do you think Mao reacted?
- He welcomed it and began his own peace talks with the USA.
- He disagreed, seeing it as weakening communism and abandoning revolution.
- He ignored it, since China had no interest in Stalin.
Show the answer
He disagreed, seeing it as weakening communism and abandoning revolution.
Disputes over ideology, Taiwan, nuclear help and aid then turned allies into open rivals by the early 1960s.
Disputes over de-Stalinisation, coexistence with the West, Taiwan and Soviet aid turned allies into open rivals.
In 1956 Khrushchev denounced Stalin in a secret speech and called for peaceful coexistence with the West. Mao disagreed. He thought the attack on Stalin weakened communist authority, and he saw coexistence as abandoning revolution.
Security disputes followed. During the 1958 Taiwan Strait crisis, the USSR gave only cautious support. In 1959 Moscow cancelled its promise to help China build an atomic bomb, and stayed neutral in China's border dispute with India.
Mao's Great Leap Forward, launched in 1958, rejected the Soviet model. Khrushchev mocked it. At the Romanian Workers' Party Congress in Bucharest in June 1960, Khrushchev attacked the Chinese delegation openly. The next month, the USSR withdrew all its experts from China.
The quarrel became public. China criticised Soviet "adventurism" and "capitulation" in Cuba in 1962 and attacked the 1963 test ban treaty. Each side competed to lead world communism. Ideology, security and national pride were tangled together.
- Secret speech
- February 1956: Khrushchev denounces Stalin.
- Bucharest congress
- June 1960: Khrushchev attacks China.
- Experts withdrawn
- July 1960.
- Nuclear help cancelled
- 1959.
Real examples to use
Secret speech, 25 February 1956
Khrushchev denounced Stalin to the Soviet party congress without warning Mao, who saw it as weakening communist authority.
Experts withdrawn, July 1960
On 16 July 1960 Moscow told Beijing it would recall its experts, about 1,300 to 1,500 people, within a month, leaving many projects unfinished.
Test ban and the bomb, 1963 to 1964
China called the August 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty "a big fraud". On 16 October 1964 it exploded its own atomic bomb at Lop Nur without Soviet help.
Worked example: Weighing causes of the split
An essay asks whether ideology was the main cause of the Sino-Soviet split.
- Ideology: disputes over Stalin, coexistence and the path to communism.
- Security: Taiwan, the nuclear question and India showed different national interests.
- Leadership: Mao and Khrushchev each claimed authority over world communism.
- Judgement: ideology was the language of the dispute; national interests and status drove it.
Watch out for this
The split happened suddenly over a single event in 1969.
The split developed from 1956. The 1969 border clash was a later climax of a long rivalry.
Check your understanding
Why did the USSR withdraw its experts from China in 1960?
- China had asked for them to stay longer and Moscow refused the cost.
- Their projects had been finished, so Moscow called them home.
- Relations had collapsed after open disputes, such as at Bucharest.
Show the answer
Relations had collapsed after open disputes, such as at Bucharest.
Right. The withdrawal turned an ideological quarrel into a practical break.