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Reins of Liberation: Geopolitics and Ethnopolitics of China, Central Asia and the Asia Pacific

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Xiaoyuan Liu
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In late May 1949, after troops of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) entered Shanghai, Mansfield Addis, then First Secretary of the British Embassy in Nanjing, wrote to his mother back home: “Shanghai liberated! We rejoice that it was not more difficult! It brings the end nearer.” The sentiment expressed in Addis's letter drew the attention of the British Foreign Office, which felt the matter serious enough to warrant a special telegram to its Nanjing embassy in July 1949:

We notice a growing tendency in telegrams from China to refer to the Communist occupation of an area as “liberation”. In the case of a Consular officer reporting to you en clair and post facto the expression may possibly be unavoidable, but we feel bound to point out that China telegrams get a wide distribution here with the consequent danger that expressions such as this, oft repeated, may serve to strengthen beliefs all too prevalent that Chinese Communism is different from the Soviet brand. We hope therefore that posts will in future refrain from using this word in a sense so far divorced from its true meaning.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 5 , Issue 5 , May 2007 , e14
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Copyright © The Authors 2007

References

Notes

1. Addis to Lady Addis, 27 May 1949 and 20 June 1950, Mansfield Addis Collection, Public Record Office (PRO), Kew Gardens, Surrey, England.

2. Foreign Office to Nanjing, 25 July 1949, FO 371/75764, PRO.

3. Maurice Meisner, “Mao Zedong,” in Joel Krieger, ed., The Oxford Companion to Politics of the World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 561.

4. Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives (New York: BasicBooks, 1997), 148, 195.

5. John F. Melby to Lillian Hellman, 9 November 1946, John F. Melby Papers, box 36, Truman Library, Independence, Missouri.

6. The so-called “racial Mongols” was an assorted group that made contact with American officials in wartime China. They sought American support in pressuring the GMD government to change its negative attitude toward Inner Mongolian autonomy. Prince De (Demchugdongrob) was a leading figure in the pre-war autonomous movement of Inner Mongolia. He collaborated with the Japanese in the war years. In the late 1940s, when the GMD regime was collapsing, he sought American support for an Inner Mongolian regime in western Inner Mongolia.

7. George R. Merrell to the Secretary of State, 13 January 1947, General Records of United States Department of State Central Files: 711.93 Tibet / 1-1347, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland.

8. “To Cai Hesen and others, 1 December 1920”, Mao Zedong, Mao Zedong Shuxin Xuan (Selected correspondences of Mao Zedong) (Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, 1983), 3; “Meeting of the Communist Caucus, 18 January 1924”, Liangong (Bu), Gongchan Guoji yu Zhongguo Guomin Geming Yundong (1920-1925) (Communist Party of the Soviet Union [Bolshevik], the Comintern, and the Chinese nationalist revolutionary movement, 1920-1925) (Beijing: Beijing Tushuguan Shubanshe, 1997), 469.

9. Wang Gui and Huang Daoqun, Shibajun Xianqian Zhenchake Jin Zang Jishi (Records of entering Tibet of the 18th army's advance reconnaissance unit) (Beijing: Zhongguo Zangxue Chubanshe, 2001), 8.

10. Stephen D. Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1999), 9-25.

11. Committee on Collection of Party History Materials of the Autonomous Region of Tibet, Zhonggong Xizang Dangshi Dashiji, 1949-1994 (Chronology of important events of the Chinese Communist Party in Tibet, 1949-1994) (Lhasa: Xizang Renmin Chubanshe, 1995), 6; “Tibetan Government's Five Conditions for Negotiations, 17 December 1950”, Heping Jiefang Xizang, 250-251; Mao Zedong to the CCP Central Committee and Peng Dehuai, 2 January 1950, The CCP Central Office of Documentary Research, CCP Committee of Tibet, and Research Center of Tibetan Studies of China, Mao Zedong Xizang Gongzuo Wenxuan (Selected manuscripts of Mao Zedong on the work in Tibet) (Beijing: Zhongyang Wenxian Chubanshe, 2001), 6.

12. In using Siam as a case, Thongchai Winichakul, Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-Body of a Nation (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994), offers an insightful discussion of the making of “geo-body” in traditional states' transition to modern states.

13. Zhao Shenying, Zhongyang Zhu Zang Daibiao Zhang Jingwu, 1; Danzeng and Zhang Xiangming, Dangdai Zhongguo Xizang (Contemporary Tibet) (Beijing: Dangdai Zhongguo Chubanshe, 1991), 1: 180-181.

14. Victoria Tin-bor Hui, War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 214-216; Martin Sokefeld, “From Colonialism to Postcolonial Colonialism: Changing Modes of Domination in the Northern Areas of Pakistan,” The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 64, no. 4 (November 2005), 941-943.

15. In April 1947, an Inner Mongolian Autonomous Government was established under the CCP and it marked the beginning of regional autonomy for Inner Mongolia.

16. Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission, “Ten measures for the liberation of slaves in Tibet and Xikang, 13 August 1929”, General Record Number (GRN) 141/3136, Second Historical Archives of China (SHAC); Wu Zhongxin to Jiang Jieshi, 26 December 1943, and appendix, “Propaganda outline for Tibet”, GRN 141/2374, SHAC.

17. The Center to the Southwest Bureau and Working Committee on Tibet, a message to be conveyed also to the Northwest Bureau and the Xinjiang Branch Bureau, 6 April 1952, Mao Zedong Xizang Gongzuo Wenxuan, 63.

18. Mao Zedong's comments at the first meeting of the drafting committee on te constitution of the People's Republic of China, 23 March 195, Mao Zedong Xizang Gongzuo Wenxuan, 104; Zhonggong Xizang Dangshi Dashiji, 50-51.

19. Wang Lixiong, Tianzang: Xizang de Mingyun (Sky burial: the destiny of Tibet) (Mirror Books, 1998), 171-174; Melvyn C. Goldstein, The Snow Lion and the Dragon: China, Tibet, and the Dalai Lama (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 52-53.

20. Mao Zedong's written comments on the directive of the CCP Central Committee on the mobilization of young people to enter Tibet to open up farmlands, 22 January 1959, Mao Zedong Xizang Gongzuo Wenxuan, 164.

21. Akira Iriye, Power and Culture: The Japanese–American War, 1941–1945 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981).

22. Intelligence Handbook, “The Deterioration of Sino-Soviet Relations 1956-1966,” 4/22/1966, CIA FOIA F-2000-01330, http://www.foia.cia.gov; Dai Chaowu, “India's Foreign Policy, Great Power Relations, and the Chinese-Indian Border Wars in 1962”, in Niu Dayong and Shen Zhihua, eds., Lengzhan yu Zhongguo de Zhoubian Guanxi (The Cold War and China's relations with neighboring regions) (Beijing: Shijie Zhishi Chubanshe, 2004), 487-556.

23. Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison, The CIA's Secret War in Tibet (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002), 76-77; John Kenneth Knaus, Orphans of the Cold War: America and the Tibetan Struggle for Survival (New York: Public Affairs, 1999), 153, 232-233.

24. Committee on Collection of Party History Materials of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, Pingxi Xizang Panluan (Pacification of the Tibetan rebellion) (Lhasa: Xizang Renmin Chubanshe, 1995), 183; Zhonggong Xizang Dangshi Dashiji, 119, 122, 135, 213; Wang Gui, et al., Xizang Lishi Diwei Bian (Tibet's historical position defined), 599.

25. Francine R. Frankel, “Introduction,” in Francine R. Frankel and Harry Harding, eds., The India-China Relationship: What the United States Needs to Know (New York and Washington, D.C.: Columbia University Press and Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2004), 16-17.

26. Zhou Enlai's speech at the forum on the establishment of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region held by the second committee of the National Political Consultative Conference, 25 March 1957, Zhou Enlai he Xizang, 156.

27. Martin Stuart-Fox, A Short History of China and Southeast Asia: Tribute, Trade and Influence (Crows Nest, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 2003), 5, suggests that “international relations culture” includes conceptions about values, behavior norms, and expected effects of international interactions commonly endorsed by states involved in such interactions.

28. Mao Zedong's conversation with the delegations from the Soviet Union and other ten countries, 6 September 1959, Mao Zedong Xizang Gongzuo Wenxuan, 193-194; Wu Lengxi, Shi Nian Lunzhan, 1: 198-199; Mao Zedong's added words to the written reply of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to a speech made by an official of the Indian Foreign Ministry, 13 May 1959, 376-377; Wang Hongwei, Ximalayashan Qingjie, 148-151.

29. Information Report, “Chinese Communist Ministry of Foreign Affairs Foreign Policy Report,” 7/3/1961, CIA FOIA, EO-2001-00347, http://www.foia.cia.gov. According to the introduction to this document, this is a report disseminated by the Chinese foreign ministry among its missions abroad. The CIA obtained the Chinese original from a defected Chinese diplomat.

30. “Document 1: First Conversation of N.S. Khrushchev with Mao Zedong, Hall of Huazhentan [sic][Beijing], 31 July 1958,” Cold War International History Project Bulletin (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars), Issue 12/13 (Fall/Winter 2001), 250-260.

31. “Document 3: Memorandum of Conversation of N.S. Khrushchev with Mao Zedong, Beijing, 2 October 1959,” Cold War International History Project Bulletin (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars), Issue 12/13 (Fall/Winter 2001), 262-270.

32. M.Y. Prozumenschikov, “The Sino-Indian Conflict, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Sino-Soviet Split, October 1962: New Evidence from the Russian Archives,” Cold War International History Project Bulletin (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars), Issues 8-9 (Winter 1996/1997), 251-256.

33. Examples of recent studies on the Sino-Soviet split include Dong Wang, “The Quarrelling Brothers: New Chinese Archives and a Reappraisal of the Sino-Soviet Split, 1959-1962,” Cold War International History Project Working Paper No. 49 (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars). Sergey Radchenko's doctoral dissertation at the London School of Economics, The China Puzzle: Soviet Policy towards the People's Republic of China in the 1960s, is noteworthy. Hope M. Harrison's Driving the Soviets Up the Wall: Soviet-East German Relations, 1953-1961 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003) indicates that even in the eastern European bloc controlled tightly by Moscow, the relations between the Soviet Union and its satellites were still affected by their national interests and the balance of international power, and that under certain circumstances the weaker side could prevail.

34. Zhou Enlai, “Ten issues about the counterattack in self-defense along the Chinese-Indian border, 24 November 1962”, The CCP Central Office of Documentary Research and the Military Science Academy of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, Zhou Enlai Junshi Wenxuan (Selected military writings of Zhou Enlai) (Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, 1997), 4: 469-470.

35. SNIE 13/31-2-62, “The Sino-Indian Conflict: Outlook and Implications,” 12/14/1962, CIA FOIA, EO-1993-00513; CIA memo, “Implications of the Sino-Soviet Rupture for the US,” 7/18/1963, CIA FOIA, EO-1998-00565; CIA memo, “India's Economy and the Sino-Indian Conflict,” 12/14/1962, CIA FOIA, EO-1997-00577. These are from http://www.foia.cia.gov.

36. Zhou Enlai yu Xizang, 517. Zhou Enlai used “long-term armed coexistence” in his telegram, dated 23 July 1962, to the Chinese delegation to the Geneva Conference.

37. SC No. 02684/66, “Intelligence Handbook: The Deterioration of Sino-Soviet Relations, 1956—1966,” 4/22/1966, CIA FOIA, F-2000-01330, www.foia.cia.gov.