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3. Nor will the Chinese soon forget the way in which China was
eated by the Soviet Union during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Ine formal alliance between China and the Soviet Union created by the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance of 14 February, 1950, led to a relationship which was quite unsatisfactory for China. The Soviet Union under Khrushchev attempted to treat China very much as the Soviet Union had become accustomed to treating its client states in Eastern Europe. On top of this, the Soviet Union let China down, as the Chinese perceive things, during the Taiwan Straits crisis of 1958 and the Sino-Indian border war of 1962 and left China in the lurch economically when she refused to toe the Soviet line on important political issues. When the relationship between the two countries finally broke down, it turned quite quickly into military confrontation.
4. The chief conclusion which the Chinese have drawn from all this is that China must never again be vulnerable to bullying by any outside power or group of powers. The corollary is that they must make China rich and strong as quickly as possible. From a low starting point, China's prosperity and strength may have to be built partly by borrowing resources and ideas from abroad. But such borrowing must never again create, or even risk, a situation of dependence; and it must never become more than a means to an end.
5. Also of importance in determining behaviour. are some sentiments and attitudes which ante-date China's modern historical experience. I do not believe, as some still profess to do, that today's Chinese leaders still in some sense see China as being the centre of the world and/or regard foreigners as being barbarians. Modern technology has put an end to all that. But I have no doubt that they, like their Imperial predecessors, have a strong feeling for the territorial integrity of China, a strong sense of how greatly China differs in culture from the rest of the world (even those parts of it which acquired their civilisations from China) and great pride in the splendour of much of Chinese history.
An educated Chinese tends to know the history of China far better than an educated non-specialist at home though he or she is often rather weak on the geography of China.
6.
The feeling for the integrity of China expresses itself in a powerful ambition for the reunification of the country. The Chinese definition of what belongs "inside" is, however, a fairly precise one, lacking the ambivalence between defence and expansion which is so often attributed to Soviet policy: Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and at least some of the disputed Sino-Indian territories are to be recovered, but Outer Mongolia is no longer claimed, Only in the South China Sea, where there are claims which affect a large number of other States, is a grey area allowed for the moment to remain.
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7. The other sentiments lie behind much, including the attitude of China towards the ethnic Chinese communities which live in most countries of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Members of these communities are not regarded as "compatriots" - that is to say as citizens living temporarily beyond the walls of the city as are the Chinese inhabitants of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao.
Nor are they any longer expected to owe their first political loyalty to China. But they are expected to take pride in the Chinese cultural tradition and in the achievements of the new China. They are also expected to contribute in hard cash to China's economic development.
CONFIDENTIAL