Criticism and bibliography. REVIEWS
Vol. 2, 3. Moscow: Nauchnaya kniga Publ., 2002, 480 p.; 479 p.
(c) 2002
The second volume of selected works by E. P. Bazhanov is devoted to the problems of the Asia-Pacific region and issues of China's foreign and domestic policy in regional and global contexts from the point of view of Russia's interests for the period from the second half of the 1980s to 2000.
Making undoubtedly useful recommendations on Russia's overall strategy in the Asia-Pacific region, the author draws attention to the need for a balanced domestic foreign policy both in the global dimension and in relations within the Asia-Pacific region. At the same time, the book calls not to break the status quo that has developed in this region, gradually unraveling the knots of tension, strengthening the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and contributing to the weakening of the conventional arms race (vol.2, p. 59).
These recommendations, based on the protracted financial crisis that has engulfed a number of Asia-Pacific countries and, as a result, strengthened the dominant role of the United States and increased the role of China, are not only general, but also quite specific: 1) development of Siberia and the Far East with the involvement of funds from foreign partners, but on the basis of a system of economic security; 2) settlement of border issues and issues of territorial demarcation (the Russian Federation with the PRC and Japan, the PRC with Japan, etc.), without postponing them to the next generations, "so that our descendants do not have to suffer", because "it is well known that armaments will become more sophisticated and, accordingly, any dispute will become more dangerous" (vol. 2, p. 46; however, on p. 54, the author, rightly assessing the commitment of the USSR/Russia to conclude a peace treaty with Japan, having solved the problem of the Southern Kuril Islands before 2000, as overstated, suggests " promoting Russian-Japanese relations bypassing territorial integrity." problems"); 3) promotion of the idea of negotiations on a settlement on the Korean Peninsula using the formula " 4 (North Korea, ROK, USA, China) + 2 (Russia, Japan)" without forcing the unification of Korea, because its implementation is fraught with delaying financial resources there to the detriment of Russia's needs (vol. 2, p. 55); 4) maintaining tact and caution in the issue of Taiwan - keeping the conflicting parties (China and Taiwan) from armed conflict, as well as in other territorial issues only mentioned by the author. At the same time, in my opinion, it would be appropriate to add that in accordance with the Cairo (1943) and Potsdam (1945) declarations, our country is a party to the issue of determining the ownership of Taiwan as well as other islands of the southwestern Pacific Ocean (and not just islands in the South China Sea); 5) curbing the nuclear ambitions of India and Pakistan, together with the United States, China and other states, as the most dangerous hotbed of tension near the borders of the Russian Federation; 6) demanding that the DPRK fulfill its obligations to renounce nuclear missiles and join international organizations in joint efforts in this direction; 7) regulating arms trade with the Asia-Pacific countries, especially with the PRC, by state control
page 164
within the Russian Federation and the formation of confidence-building measures through the Asian Regional Forum (vol. 2, pp. 55, 56, 57).
The book focuses on the problems of China. The author carefully analyzes all the main aspects of the transformation of its economy, politics and ideology in the last two decades of the XX century, focusing on the increasing role of the Asian giant in the modern world and on the radical change in Soviet - Chinese and Russian-Chinese relations. The book takes the XII Congress of the Communist Party of the People's Republic of China as a starting point in China's transition from a policy of tough confrontation with other states, primarily with the USSR, to a peaceful, independent and independent foreign policy, since it removed the thesis that since the Soviet Union is supposedly the main source of danger of a new world war, all countries, including the United States, need to create a united front against it on a global scale with the participation of Washington (vol. 2, p. 79).
The author sees the reasons for the radical change in China's foreign policy course in the reforms that were proclaimed by the Chinese leadership headed by Deng Xiaoping and are designed to correct the deformations in the country's politics and economy caused by the lack of democracy and voluntarism, as well as in the positive impact of Moscow's policy on defusing international tensions and reducing nuclear
The scope of the review does not allow for a detailed assessment of the full range of problems in China that the author analyzed. I will focus only on the issues of China's relations with our country, which, in my opinion, are of the greatest interest to Russian readers.
First of all, I would like to note that the book recognizes the mistakes of the Comintern during Stalin's time, which did not take into account the specifics of China, which was manifested in the inherited legist militarism and Confucian egocentrism, as well as in the ideas of national liberation from imperialist domination. The author cites Stalin's confession, which he made in a conversation with Liu Shaoqi in Moscow in 1949, about the Soviet intervention in the past in an "inappropriate way" in the affairs of the Chinese revolution (vol.2, p. 149). This meant, first of all, insistent advice about cooperation with the Kuomintang, while the CCP maintained the line of achieving victory in the revolution, which, in the end, was crowned with success.
Unlike a number of Soviet Sinology historians, the author refrains from negatively assessing Mao Zedong's contacts with US representatives in 1945-1949 and concludes, based on references to documents, that China objectively needed the recognition and assistance of the United States for its formation as a new state. Only Washington's short-sighted focus on the losing Kuomintang undermined the CCP's ability to cooperate with the White House and led to the creation of a military alliance between the PRC and the USSR. And what is especially important, the policy of establishing normal relations between China and the United States with subsequent loans from the latter and developing trade with them in order to restore the economy was supported in principle by Moscow (vol.2, pp. 145-146).
After his imprisonment in 1950. Cooperation between the USSR and the PRC, as the author rightly writes, "was characterized by dynamism, scale, and depth": the Soviet Union assisted China in the construction of more than 250 large industrial enterprises and sent more than 40 thousand specialists there, more than 11 thousand Chinese received higher education in the USSR. education (vol. 2, pp. 154-155). In the 1960s and 1970s, Soviet aid to the PRC was either not mentioned or evaluated biased (although in the 1980s they again returned to its positive assessment), which was due to the general deterioration of relations caused by the dictates of our advisers, the belittling of the role of the PRC in the victory in World War II, and the demands to force agrarian reform, as well as friction on other issues, including the transfer of the CER to joint management. Beijing has also made claims that Moscow allegedly imposed its military bases in Port Arthur (Liushun) and Dalny (Dalian) on it in 1952, although the agreement on them was concluded and later extended, as the author emphasizes, at the request of the Chinese, citing the Korean War and the lack of a peace treaty between the USSR and Japan. The Soviet Union was charged with: export of all industrial equipment from Manchuria after its liberation from Japanese troops; creation of Soviet-Chinese mixed companies in China in violation of its sovereignty and the principle of mutual benefit; imposition of an unequal exchange rate of the yuan against the ruble. The question of Soviet influence in Outer Mongolia was also important
page 165
and the revival in Beijing of its intentions to unite with Inner Mongolia as a province of the People's Republic of China, contrary to the Yalta Agreement on the status quo, i.e., the independence of the MNR (vol. 2, pp. 157-158).
Without denying the existence of negative aspects in the policy of the Chinese leadership, the author at the same time makes a reasonable conclusion that the reasons for the rupture of Soviet-Chinese relations probably lay in their unequal nature, inherent in the Stalinist period, and ideological differences, including competition for leadership in the international communist movement, and mismatch of foreign policy priorities and personal hostility of the leaders of the two powers (vol. 2, p. 167).
Quite reasonably, the author emphasizes the special importance of the territorial issue, which in the first half of the 1960s, in an already tense situation, the Chinese side brought to the fore. A reference is made to a conversation between Mao Zedong and the Japanese delegation on July 10, 1964, when he, in fact, made claims to the USSR for the return to China of 1.5 million square kilometers of its "ancestral territory", "captured" about 100 years ago under the Aigun (1858) and Peking (1860) treaties. In fact, by including not only Khabarovsk and Vladivostok, but also Kamchatka in this "register", Mao Zedong meant that the northern border of China, established by the first Russo-Chinese treaty (1689), according to Chinese historians and politicians, allegedly runs along the Stanovoy Ridge (Outer Khingan) and its branch that goes out to Chukotka, north of Kamchatka.
In 1991, an agreement was concluded on the delimitation of the eastern section of the Soviet - Chinese border (now the Russian-Chinese border), with its drawing not along the Chinese bank of the border rivers, as was done in accordance with the maps attached to the Beijing Treaty, but along their main fairway, in accordance with international law (agreement on joint construction of the Russian-Chinese use of two disputed islands on the Amur - B river. Ussiriysky and Tarabarov-was achieved in 1997). By the end of the 1990s, the demarcation of the Russian-Chinese border was completed with the cession of several larger areas of territory to China than to Russia from China, which caused discontent among the Russian public in the Far East (vol. 2, pp. 438-439, 446-447).
Despite the fact that the settlement of the border problem was in the interests of security, which is necessary for the economic development of both countries, inside the country, Chinese historians and politicians continue to accuse Russia of seizing vast territories from China. In this regard, the author's important and very relevant conclusion is noteworthy: in the future, the Chinese government may once again make territorial claims against our country in order to "repay historical debts and restore justice", if as a result of the observed intensive growth of its economic and military power, great-power and nationalist ambitions prevail again (vol. 2, pp. 448-451).
As a counterbalance to such ambitions, in contrast to the confirmation of agreement with the point of view of Chinese historians that according to the Nerchinsk Treaty of 1689, the border ran along the Stanovoi Ridge (and not from the source of the Gorbitsa River near the confluence of the Shilka River with the Argun River along the Sokhtakan - Tukuringra-Jagdy mountain chain closest to the Amur River, leaving the territory of the to the south of the river. I think it would be appropriate to cite previously published international legal and historical arguments in favor of the concept of purely nominal vassalage of the aborigines of the Amur Region, Primorye and Sakhalin in relation to China in the XVII-XIX centuries. This would show the inconsistency of the Chinese point of view about the unequal nature of the Russo-Chinese treaties of the specified period. How can we talk about the inequality of the Nerchinsk Treaty, for example, if it is known for certain that the Sino-Manchurian side had a huge military advantage, which forced Russia to cede to China the vast territory developed by Russian explorers in the Amur region?
Similarly, in the book under review, it would be desirable to provide an international legal counter-argument against Japan's claims to the Southern Kuril Islands, which the author has repeatedly raised. This refers, in particular, to the recognition by the Government of Japan in a document addressed to the UN Secretary-General, dated April 3, 1987. The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties of 1969, with the presumption of the right of the USSR as a third party to invoke the rights arising from the treaties of other countries, and consequently the right of our country to invoke Japan's renunciation of all the Kuril Islands along with South Sakhalin under the San Francisco Treaty.-
page 166
The Franciscan Peace Treaty (1951) in the presence of the Yalta Agreement of the Allies (1945) on their transfer to the possession of the USSR (Article 36). (This right was confirmed "as indisputable" in the recommendations of the State Duma of the Russian Federation to the Government of Russia of April 18, 2002)
Japan's recognition of the Vienna Convention also implies the illegality of including the Southern Kuril Islands in a separate special legal concept of "Northern Territories", so this document obliges it to specify this issue in the text of the relevant treaty, in this case the San Francisco Peace Treaty, or in a separate agreement, which was not done. In addition, this convention provides for the punishment of the aggressor, which Japan was qualified by the Cairo Declaration of the Allies (1945) recognized by it in accordance with the UN Charter (Articles 107 and 103), including by lawfully depriving it of part of its territory, especially if it was used as a base of aggression (from the Southern Kuril Islands in 1941 it was sent a Japanese squadron for a treacherous attack on Pearl Harbor).
We can agree with the author that in the long run, the rivalry of the United States, China and Japan for the leading position in the world will contribute to inflaming tensions, spinning the flywheel of the arms race, hindering economic cooperation and, I would add, the economic development of the Asia-Pacific countries, creating the danger that Russia, having no opportunities to participate in great-power rivalry, turn into a political card in the hands of these players. If we extrapolate, according to the author's forecast, the foreign policy of China and Japan from the past to the future, then we can expect the greatest danger from these states. Geopolitical pressure will be felt not only in the Far East and Siberia, but also in Russia's foreign policy in the Asia-Pacific region. And in this case, as the author rightly concludes, Russia will need to enter into coalitions with other states and build up its defense potential (vol. 2, pp. 472-473).
Most of the third volume of E. P. Bazhanov's selected works is devoted to Korea - its history, politics, economy, culture, and role in international relations.
First of all, attention is drawn to the use of rare archival documents used by the author to analyze the views of the Soviet and Chinese leadership on the outbreak of the most mysterious war of the XX century-the Korean War of 1950-1953. These include J. V. Stalin's statement (March 1949) that "the 38th Parallel should be peaceful" in response to Kim Il Sung's desire to unite Korea by armed means, as well as Mao Zedong's agreement (April 1950) with the invasion of North Korean troops in South Korea after the victory of the Chinese Revolution and his support for the campaign to the south (vol. 3, pp. 91-93). Unfortunately, the work does not always contain links to an archived source.
Considering the fundamental issues of the history and economy of Korea, E. P. Bazhanov reasonably links the state of the economy of the DPRK with the centuries-old tradition of "seclusion" of the Korean Kingdom, exposes in-depth analysis of the prospect of peaceful unification of Korea in its various aspects, and highly appreciates the role of President Kim Dae-jung in democratic transformations in the Republic of Korea. The author also shows the existence of great potential in cooperation between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Korea, which was initiated as a result of the restoration of bilateral relations in the early 1990s.
After chapters devoted to the economy of Japan and Southeast Asia with an emphasis on the possibility of developing mutually beneficial cooperation with Russia, the author returns to the problem of Korean unification, taking into account the lessons that he suggests to draw from the unification of Germany.
The last two small chapters of volume three are devoted to the United States, the Middle East, and Russia's policy in the region.
New publications: |
Popular with readers: |
News from other countries: |
![]() |
Editorial Contacts |
About · News · For Advertisers |
![]() 2023-2025, BIBLIO.VN is a part of Libmonster, international library network (open map) Keeping the heritage of Vietnam |