Mobilizing for War: China`s Limited Ability to Cope with the Soviet Threat

Abstract

This essay examines the consequences of the Sino-Soviet border conflict in the light of new materials. It shows that the clashes of March 1969 made China`s security situation worse. It demonstrates that China`s defense industry was incapable of being mobilized to prepare of a Soviet attack, and that domestic mobilization was also significantly hobbled by the continuing effects of the Cultural Revolution. China was roughly prepared for an American invasion in South or East China, but in the Northeast, North, and Northwest, China`s troops were hundreds of miles from the border, and showed limited levels of readiness. More importantly, it appears that as late as 1969-70, China lacked a secure nuclear deterrent. As is well known now, Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai turned to four top military leaders to examine the international situation, and it is also well known now that they suggested China make limited contacts with the United States. However, they did not propose that a grand rapprochement should take place, nor would such a grand rapprochement have been credible or possible in the fall of 1969. U.S. policy in late 1969-1970 was to avoid taking sides in the event of a Sino-Soviet conflict. Thus, China was lucky, rather than skillful, in coping with a possible Soviet invasion, an invasion Chinese actions made more likely.