¹ Obviously, Chinese leaders do not hold identical views about the most appropriate way to manage international conflicts. I am therefore referring only to the general orientations that enter into the decision process of Peking's foreign policy elite.

² George, Alexander L., Hall, David K., and Simon, William E., The Limits of Coercive Diplomacy: Laos, Cuba, Vietnam (Boston: Little, Brown 1971).Google Scholar

³ The Chinese seldom discuss their views and analyses of actual or potential military conflicts involving themselves openly; see Chan, Steve, Kringen, John A., and Bobrow, Davis B., “Chinese Views on Crisis Diagnosis and Management: Insights from Documentary Analysis” (University of Maryland 1976)Google Scholar, mimeo. Recently, some materials shedding light on the private appraisal of international conflicts by the Chinese leaders (e.g., the volume,Long Live the Thought of Mao Tse-tung) have become available in the West. For an example of research based on such data, see Whiting, Allen S., “New Light on Mao; Quemoy 1958: Mao's Miscalculations”, China Quarterly, No. 62 (June 1975) 263–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴ Allison, Graham T., Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston: Little, Brown 1971).Google Scholar

⁵ Bobrow, Davis B., “The Relevance Potential of Different Products”, in Tanter, Raymond and Ullman, Richard H., eds., Theory and Policy in International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1972), 204–28.Google Scholar

⁶ Blechman, Barry M. and Kaplan, Stephen S., “Use of the Armed Forces as a Political Instrument: An Interim Report”, paper delivered to the International Studies Association, February 1976;Google ScholarBlechman, and Kaplan, , “The Use of Military Force Abroad by the United States since 1798: An Annotated Bibliography of Unclassified Lists of Incidents Prepared by the U.S. Government”, Journal of Conflict Resolution, xix (December 1975), 708–12;Google ScholarHazlewood, Leo, Hayes, John J., and Brownell, James R. Jr., “Planning for Problems in Crisis Management: An Analysis of Post-1945 Behavior in the U.S. Department of Defense”, International Studies Quarterly, xxi (March 1977), 75–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷ All of the conflicts examined took place at China's periphery, and were to varying degrees related to Chinese efforts to maintain border security. It is reasonable to expect that in the short- and mid-term future, direct Chinese military involvement in international conflicts is likely to be restricted to countries contiguous to China, since China will lack the capability to carry out large-scale conventional operations abroad. For discussions on the use and development of Chinese military capabilities, see Whiting, Allen S., “The Use of Force in Foreign Policy by the People's Republic of China”, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, No. 402 (July 1972), 55–66;CrossRefGoogle ScholarDernberger, Robert F., “The Economic Consequences of Defense Expenditure Choices in China”, U.S. Congress, Joint Economic Committee, China: A Reassessment of the Economy (Washington, D.C.: 1975), 467–98.Google Scholar

⁸ For discussions on Peking's logics for diagnosing and managing international conflicts as induced from its media statements, see Bobrow, Davis B., “Chinese Communist Response to Alternative U.S. Continental Defense Postures”, in Bobrow, , ed., Weapons System Decisions: Political and Psychological Perspectives on Continental Defense (New York: Praeger 1969), 151–213;Google Scholar and Bobrow, , “Peking's Military Calculus”, in Bobrow, , ed., Components of Defense Policy (Chicago: Rand McNally 1965), 39–52;Google Scholar Chan and others (fn. 3).

⁹ Among these plausible factors are considerations such as our imperfect understanding of Chinese decision logics, our incomplete knowledge of Chinese policy behavior or unwarranted inference of the calculations behind this behavior, bureaucratic politics in Peking's foreign policy decision-making processes, and elite deception in public statements of policy rationales.

¹⁰ The most relevant works are: Bobrow (fn. 8); Whiting, Allen S., The Chinese Calculus of Deterrence: India and Indochina (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press 1975);Google ScholarTsou, Tang and Halperin, Morton, “Mao Tse-tung's Revolutionary Strategy and Peking's International Behavior”, American Political Science Review, Vol. 59 (March 1965), 80–99;CrossRefGoogle ScholarNess, Peter Van, Revolution and China's Foreign Policy: Peking's Support for Wars of National Liberation (Berkeley: University of California Press 1970);Google ScholarRobinson, Thomas W., “Peking's Strategy in the Developing World: The Failures of Success”, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, No. 386 (November 1969), 64–77;CrossRefGoogle ScholarBoorman, Scott A., The Protracted Game: A Wei-ch'i Interpretation of Maoist Revolutionary Strategy (New York: Oxford University Press 1969).Google Scholar

¹¹ The most important of these changes are, of course, the Cultural Revolution in China, the Sino-Soviet dispute, and the Soviet-American détente.

¹² This discussion has benefitted from a large body of previous research on Chinese decision making in the five conflicts. The most helpful studies on the Korean War are Whiting, Allen S., China Crosses the Yalu: The Decision to Enter the Korean War (New York: Macmillan 1960);Google ScholarSimmons, Robert R., The Strained Alliance: Peking, Pyongyang, Moscow and the Politics of the Korean Civil War (New York: Free Press 1975).Google Scholar On the subject of the Quemoy conflict, the most relevant works are Whiting (fn. 3); Halperin, Morton H. and Tsou, Tang, “The 1958 Quemoy Crisis”, in Halperin, , ed., Sino-Soviet Relations and Arms Control (Cambridge: The MIT Press 1967), 265–303;Google ScholarGurtov, Melvin, “The Taiwan Strait Crisis Revisited: Politics and Foreign Policy in Chinese Motives”, Modern China, 11 (January 1976), 49–103;CrossRefGoogle ScholarMcClelland, Charles A., “Action Structure and Communication in Two International Crises: Quemoy and Berlin”, in Rosenau, James N., ed., International Politics and Foreign Policy: A Reader in Research and Theory (New York: Free Press 1969), 473–82.Google Scholar Useful discussions on the Sino-Indian border conflict are provided in Whiting (fn. 10); Maxwell, Neville, India's China War (New York: Pantheon 1970).Google Scholar For discussions on Chinese decisions and actions in the early period of the Vietnam War, see Zagoria, Donald S., Vietnam Triangle: Moscow, Peking, Hanoi (New York: Pegasus 1967)Google Scholar, and Zagoria, , “The Strategic Debate in Peking”, in Tsou, Tang, ed., China in Crisis, Vol. 2 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1968), 237–68;Google Scholar Uri Ra'anan, “Peking's Foreign Policy ‘Debate,’ 1965–1966,” ibid., 23–27; Harold Hinton, “China and Vietnam”, ibid., 201–36, and Hinton, “Vietnam Policy, Domestic Factionalism, Regionalism, and Plotting a Coup”, in Pye, Lucian W., ed., Cases in Comparative Politics: Asia (Boston: Little, Brown 1970), 119–57;Google ScholarYahuda, Michael, “Kremlinology and the Chinese Strategic Debate, 1965–1966”, China Quarterly, No. 49 (January-March 1972), 32–75;CrossRefGoogle ScholarMozingo, David and Robinson, Thomas, “Lin Piao on the People's War: China Takes a Second Look at Vietnam” (Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand Corporation, RM-4814-PR, November 1965);Google ScholarHarding, Harry and Gurtov, Melvin, “The Purge of Lo Jui-ch'ing: The Politics of Chinese Strategic Planning” (Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand Corporation, R-548-PR, February 1971);Google Scholar Whiting (fn. 10). Finally, for analyses on the Sino-Soviet border clashes in March 1969, see Robinson, Thomas W., “The Sino-Soviet Border Dispute: Background, Development, and the March 1969 Clashes”, American Political Science Review, Vol. 66 (December 1972), 1175–1202;CrossRefGoogle ScholarMaxwell, Neville, “The Chinese Account of the 1969 Fighting at Chenpao”, China Quarterly, No. 56 (October-December 1973), 730–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar It should be noted that the quality of information available on these conflicts varies a great deal. Information on the SinoSoviet clashes is especially poor.

¹³ Some of the conflicts did not develop beyond the warning (the Vietnam case) or demonstration (the Quemoy and Sino-Soviet cases) phases.

¹⁴ Chan and others (fn. 3).

¹⁵ The various analyses done by Whiting (fn. 12) are particularly helpful for illuminating this aspect of Chinese behavior.

¹⁶ In addition to the studies by Whiting, McClelland, and Maxwell (fn. 12), see George, Alexander L. and Smoke, Richard, Deterrence in American Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice (New York: Columbia University Press 1974)Google Scholar; Hoffmann, Steven A., “Anticipation, Disaster, and Victory: India, 1962–71”, Asian Survey, XII (November 1972), 960–79;CrossRefGoogle ScholarDeWeerd, H. A., “Strategic Surprise in the Korean War”, Orbis, VI (Fall 1972), 435–52Google Scholar

¹⁷ The immediate objectives for India and the Soviet Union in their border dispute with China were, of course, to evict the Chinese from the territories under contention. In Korea and Vietnam, the U.S. objectives were, respectively, to reunify Korea under a pro-West regime and to coerce North Vietnam, by escalating the air war to that country, to abandon its support for the Viet Cong. In the case of Vietnam, China was interested in avoiding a repetition of the Korean history, which could have resulted from American conflict escalation to North Vietnam.

¹⁸ See Whiting (fn. 3); McClelland (fn. 12).

¹⁹ Chinese actions in this case coincided with the rising incidence of harassment by commando teams from Taiwan. See Chan, , “Conflict Modelling and Management: Chinese Foreign Policy Behavior in the Vietnam War, 1963–1965”, Ph.D. diss. (University of Minnesota 1976).Google Scholar

²⁰ Tretiak, , “Challenge and Control”, Far Eastern Economic Review, October 17, 1966, pp. 216–21.Google Scholar

²¹ Quemoy is, of course, only a few miles off the Mainland coast. Its status as Chinese territory was not under dispute. In the Korean War, the Chinese forces did not attack the South Koreans until the latter had reached the Yalu River, which demarcates the Chinese-Korean border.

²² Bobrow, “Peking's Military Calculus” (fn. 8).

²³ Robinson (fn. 12) has, however, indicated the possibility that the Russians might have initiated the March 15 clash.

²⁴ Pauses in military actions during this initial period of armed combat are not likely to be a result of Peking's logistic problems. Similarly, the periodic slackening of China's bombardment of Quemoy cannot be confidently attributed to problems of military supply and equipment, although it might have been affected by weather conditions in late August 1958. For a discussion of this issue in the Quemoy case, see Pollack, Jonathan D., “Perception and Action in Chinese Foreign Policy: The Quemoy Decision”, Ph.D. diss. (University of Michigan 1976). 35Google Scholar

²⁵ There is some disagreement among analysts as to whether the Chinese occupied the island after the clashes in March. Robinson (fn. 12) reports that they did not, while Maxwell (fn. 12) indicates that they did.

²⁶ George and others (fn. 2), especially pp. 1–35.

²⁷ Diplomatic communications also provide an important means to control the speed and direction of conflict development. Moreover, they enable the protagonist to maximize the impact of his military operations, and to reduce the possibility of his policy objectives being misunderstood by the enemy. It is, however, often very difficult to initiate and maintain diplomatic contacts while a conflict is developing. Such contacts are never under the unilateral control of any one party, as the U.S. found out in the Vietnam and Arab-Israeli conflicts.

²⁸ Graham Allison (fn. 4) indicates that President Kennedy was extremely dismayed by a U-2 overflight of the Soviet Union during the height of the Cuban missile crisis. Kennedy's concern was based on possible Soviet misinterpretation of this overflight as an indication that the U.S. was preparing for a massive nuclear attack. This logic may be reversed to understand possible Soviet concern over the same incident. From the perspective of the Kremlin, shooting down the U.S. intelligence plane might be misconstrued by Washington as a Soviet effort to conceal military preparations for imminent hostility, and would consequently increase the danger of a U.S. pre-emptive strike. More generally, as nations become increasingly vulnerable to the military capabilities of their adversaries, there is likely to be greater incentive to establish shared warning systems, such as the one currently in place in the Sinai. For a discussion on this topic, see Bobrow, Davis B., “Defusing Military Tension in the Third World”, paper delivered to the International Studies Association, March 1977.Google Scholar

²⁹ It is possible that inconsistent policy behavior on the part of the United States contributed to the outbreak and escalation of the Korean War. For example, as Whiting, China Crosses the Yalu (fn. 12), has indicated, both MacArthur and Acheson excluded Korea from the U.S. “defense perimeter” in speeches made before the outbreak of the conflict. These speeches could have misled the North Koreans into believing that the U.S. would not respond militarily to their attack on South Korea. Similarly, Truman's order for the Seventh Fleet to “neutralize” the Taiwan Straits—despite his previous promise of U.S. neutrality in the Chinese civil war—might have undermined the credibility of later U.S. assurances of non belligerence as far as the Peking leaders were concerned. In addition, the credibility of Washington's assurances was damaged by contradictory statements made by MacArthur with regard to U.S. policy objectives.

³⁰ For instance, John Scali, the ABC correspondent, played an important role in the Cuban missile crisis. The use of quasi-official personal representatives by decision makers in crisis situations enables them to bypass normal bureaucratic channels in the search for a tentative basis for conflict

³¹ Unintended audiences may include the opponent's allies and domestic public, who might be alerted to block any concession. They may also include the protagonist's own allies. For instance, in the 1958 Quemoy conflict, the U.S. was faced with the problem of trying to convince Peking of its resolve to defend the offshore island, while at the same time having to avoid that this threat would be exploited by Tapei to provoke an unwanted Sino-American confrontation.

³² In this respect, the Sinkiang-Tibet Road in Aksai Chin and the Chinese troops in Laos and North Vietnam served as “hostages” that would trigger Chinese involvement in case of enemy invasion.

³³ Of course, such consent need not be explicitly stated and agreed to by the parties. A de facto cease-fire can be instituted without a formal conflict settlement, as in the 1962 Sino-Indian border war. Similarly, in limited wars such as Vietnam and Korea, a tacit understanding about the “rules of the game” restrains the potential for conflict escalation. The Communists did not challenge U.S. air and naval superiority, and the U.S. did not, with the exceptions of the Cambodian and Laotian incursions, attempt to capture the Communist sanctuaries.

³⁴ In a crisis, decision makers tend to perceive themselves confronted with “now or never” situations. Thus, for example, the Kaiser was under tremendous pressure to mobilize the German Army in response to the Russian mobilization in the First World War; President Kennedy had to rush to a decision before the Soviet missiles became operational in the Cuban missile crisis; and President Truman had to choose very quickly between intervention and nonintervention before the North Koreans could capture the entire peninsula in the initial days of the Korean War. Pressure for a swift response in these cases precluded the possibility of graduated escalation. With regard to China's decision to intervene in Korea, the rapid advance of the U.N. forces in October 1950 might have upset Peking's timetable for a gradual escalation of warning and demonstration activities. On the other hand, Peking might have tried to seize the opportunity presented by the Cuban missile crisis to attack India in 1962, while India's chief allies were embroiled in their own crisis. For a discussion on the temporal coincidence of the Sino-Indian border conflict and the Cuban missile crisis, see Whiting (fn. 10).

³⁵ As shown in the dispute between Truman and MacArthur, it is particularly difficult for the central decision maker to keep his military “leashed” in fighting a limited war. Furthermore, in an extended conflict the central decision maker can very quickly deplete his political “capital” vis-à-vis various domestic constituents. There will be great pressures for dramatic escalation or complete withdrawal.

³⁶ In one of the secret Chinese military documents that have become available in the West, we find the following injunction to officers at the regimental level: “In neigh-boring countries (including fraternal nations and nationalistic countries) if and when in these border regions there occurs any international incident, it is required to report quickly to superiors and await the decisions and orders, if any. Under no circumstances should an officer upon his own personal responsibility take steps to carry out an unauthorized decision.” This document is part of the secret Chinese military journal, Kungtso T'ung Hsun [Bulletin of Activities]; see Cheng, J. Chester, ed., The Politics of the Chinese Red Army: A Translation of the Bulletin of Activities of the People's Liberation Army (Stanford: Hoover Institution 1966), 191.Google Scholar

³⁷ Obviously, this is not to argue that local insubordination does not exist in China, or that its leaders hold homogeneous views on policies of conflict management. The literature on the Vietnam War cited in footnote 12 provides a particularly interesting examination of disagreements within the elite.

³⁸ Whiting, China Crosses the Yalu (fn. 12); Zagoria, Vietnam Triangle (fn. 12).

³⁹ Chan and others (fn. 3).

⁴⁰ In the Vietnam War, China stationed troops in both North Vietnam and Laos to discourage U.S. invasion.

⁴¹ Whiting (fn. 10), 220–21.

⁴² Although we have little information about these possibilities in the Korean and Sino-Indian wars, evidence from other conflict situations indicates the plausibility of these explanations. The analyses by Zagoria, Ra'anan, Yahuda, and Gurtov (fn. 12) suggest disagreements among the leadership in the Vietnam and Quemoy conflicts. And Edgar Snow provides an interesting example of China's miscalculation of U.S. intentions in the Vietnam War. When he interviewed Mao Tse-tung in 1965, Mao thought that the fighting in Vietnam “would perhaps go on for one or two years. After that the United States troops would find it uninteresting and might go home or go somewhere else.” Snow, Edgar, The Long Revolution (New York: Random House 1971), 218.Google Scholar

⁴³ Such caution, of course, does not preclude the possibility of policy miscalculation. In the case of Quemoy, the lack of U.S. response to the initial Chinese probes prompted Peking to escalate the conflict. Mao later admitted that he had miscalculated’ the American reaction to the intensification of China's bombardment of Quemoy. See Whiting (fn. 3).

²⁷ Whiting (fn. 10), 221. The lesson of the importance of unobtrusive signalling was not forgotten by the Peking leaders. In the Vietnam War, China (and the United States) did not publicize the presence of Chinese troops in North Vietnam and the occasional casualties suffered by both sides in the American air raids. Conflict signalling in this case required adroit manipulation to serve several purposes simultaneously: to communicate to the U.S. leaders the credibility of the Chinese threat to intervene in the conflict if the U.S. escalated the war to North Vietnam; to undermine the position of radical groups in the U.S. and China who might favor an escalation of the conflict; and to avoid the possibility of North Vietnamese leaders taking the Chinese threats as carte blanche to escalate the conflict, thereby actually prompting the American counterescalations that these threats were intended to deter.

⁴⁵ Whiting (fn. 3) reports that Mao used the term “trap” even in the Quemoy conflict.

⁴⁶ Unilateral military disengagement might have produced exactly the opposite effect in the Korean War. According to George and Smoke, the Chinese action led MacArthur to believe that Peking was merely bluffing. It also diminished the “acute concern that all Truman's advisers had felt during the first week of November over the riskiness of MacArthur's military strategy.” George and Smoke (fn. 16), 229.

⁴⁷ Bobrow, “Peking's Military Calculus” (fn. 8), 52.

⁴⁸ Bobrow, Davis B., “Activity, Purpose, and Performance”, in Hsueh, Chun-tu, ed., Dimensions of China's Foreign Relations (New York: Praeger 1977), 1–9.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Bobrow, Davis B., Chan, Steve, and Kringen, John A., “Understanding How Others Treat Crises: A Multimethod Approach”, International Studies Quarterly, XXI (March 1977) 199–223.CrossRefGoogle Scholar