the effects of diversionary actions in maoist china

Ben Black The Effects of Diversionary Actions in Maoist China

“Political power,” declared Mao Zedong, the leader of the People’s Republic of

China (PRC) from its founding until his death in 1976, “grows out of the barrel of a

gun.” (Columbia.edu). This extreme ideology acutely described Mao’s approach to

governance and his thought process in undertaking the challenge of maintaining the

Chinese Communist Party power. Under the leadership of Chairman Mao, the

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) maintained its public support by enacting a wide

range of campaigns to mobilize the population and to keep the middle kingdom in a

constant state of revolution. In the process, he created one of the starkest examples

of the “rally-round-the-flag effect” in human history. In critiquing the theory,

particularly in light of the events and effects of the latter, this paper will analyze two

such campaigns in the context of the diversionary theory: the Korean War and the

Cultural Revolution.

When considering the Maoist Era of China (roughly 1949-1976), it is

essential to first examine the effect that Mao Zedong, as an individual, had on the

course of the entire country. In the study of international relations, bargaining

theory operates under an often-faulty unitary actor assumption. This means that

when identifying a range where potential bargains could be found between two

states, it is assumed that the ‘state’ as a whole has a unitary set of preferences. In

truth, this is hardly ever the case; the populations of most states hold a multitude of

preferences. However, in Maoist China, the unitary actor assumption is largely

accurate. First, the Chinese population had little to no means of conveying their

preferences to the leaders of China. Most important, however, Mao Zedong - a single

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actor on the international stage-set the domestic and foreign policy of China, and the

people unquestioningly followed his lead. Either by fear or honest agreement, Mao

held incredible sway. Michael H. Hunt, Professor Emeritus of International History

at the University of North Carolina wrote of Mao: “He is central to understanding the

CCP story… in the influence of foreign-policy institutions and procedures, and the

impact of contemporary intellectual and political currents, he is still likely to occupy

an important, even dominant place” (Hunt 204).

In 1949, the People’s Republic of China remained in its infancy, having been

founded only within the year. The CCP was transitioning from fighting a civil war to

governing a country. The two goals of the newly founded government were to

squash remaining domestic dissent and revive the war-torn economy (Saich 39).

According to former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, Mao assured Joseph Stalin

(who was hesitant to support the ‘liberation’ of South Korea) that if Kim Il-Sung’s

North Korea invaded, the Americans would not intervene (Jian 87). Mao’s sentiment

rested on the grounds that it would be an ‘internal conflict’ in Korea and the United

States would have no reason to intervene. Interestingly, this policy of internal

conflict being a strictly domestic concern remains a cornerstone of Chinese foreign

policy and forms the PRC’s present stance on Tibet and Xinjiang (as well as the

rationale for their neutrality regarding Crimea). This lingering policy towards

internal conflicts is a vivid example of Mao’s influence over the formation of the

Chinese dogma.

In order to achieve the CCP’s first goal of eliminating dissent, several

campaigns were enacted to accompany China’s involvement in the Korean War.

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These included the Campaign for the Suppression of Counterrevolutionaries in

addition to mobilization between 1950 and 1953 against corruption, private

businessmen, and landowners. Additionally, Mao took many diversionary actions

during this period, including implementing a Soviet-style five-year plan to focus the

entire country on a clearly defined set of goals and expectations (Saich 44).

All of these actions, coupled with the People’s Liberation Army crossing the

Yalu River and joining the Korean War, effectively focused the population’s attention

away from the brewing economic catastrophes and social changes. The vast

majority of the Chinese population was focused on Mao’s anti-western campaign,

which united the country against the United States and other U.N. forces advancing

through the Korean Peninsula. Jack S. Levy of the University of Minnesota describes

diversionary theory as when a leader takes actions meant to “distract popular

attention away from internal social and economic problems” (Levy 259). While the

Korean War and the concurrent domestic campaigns accomplished Levy’s definition

of diversionary actions, dissent to Mao’s decisions arose within the leadership, and

held an unexpected amount of clout in the government. The most powerful organ of

the Chinese Communist Party, and therefore the PRC as a whole, is the Politburo,

which collectively disagreed with Mao’s decision to repel the United Nation’s forces

(Goncharov 180).

The Politburo (which consists of 25 members), as well as the military leaders

of the People’s Liberation Army, strongly felt that China was no match for the U.S.

military-particularly so soon after the end of the revolution. Those who argued

against intervention also held that it could leave room for increased dissent from a

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war-weary population. Mao argued that a Sino-American confrontation was

inevitable and that Korea was a far more advantageous theater for it to occur than

Taiwan. Although Mao eventually chose to intervene and that decision was his

alone, the dissent that it created amongst his closest advisers and fellow party

officials set a precedent in the young nation. For example: Zhou Enlai, the Premier of

the PRC, warned the United States in early October 1950 that advancing passed the

38th parallel would mean a Chinese intervention (Goncharov 182). Zhou was against

Chinese involvement in Korea, and went to great lengths to prevent it without

directly coming into conflict with Mao.

Although there is no public opinion data on the PRC in the 1950s, the lack of

organized opposition lends to the conclusion that Mao’s use of diversionary conflict

and campaigns eliminated or silenced most public dissent. However, the Chairman’s

policies and decisions fermented an unexpected amount of disagreement amongst

the party leadership. Mao took countless other actions to keep China in a constant

state of revolution, including land reforms and the Hundred Flowers Campaign of

1956. During the latter campaign the CCP allowed citizens to publicly express their

grievances regarding government policies. This lasted less than a year until the

Anti-Rightist Campaign began, which saw nearly all of those who spoke out killed or

imprisoned (Chung). Lewis Coser, a prominent sociologist, hypothesized that:

“Disintegration of the group, rather than increase in cohesion, will be the result of

outside conflict (Levy 272).” Maoist China seems to run awry of traditional

diversionary theory, perhaps due to the fact that Mao also utilized domestic conflicts

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as opposed to solely employing outside conflicts as diversionary actions; thus,

making Coser and Levy’s findings possibly inapplicable.

Further evidence of China’s unorthodox displays of the diversionary theory

occurred more than a decade after the Korean War. Beginning in 1966, Mao and the

CCP embarked on an unprecedented social and political upheaval of the PRC. The

Great Cultural Revolution aimed to oust many of Mao’s political enemies from the

party and the government, in addition to creating a resolute support base in the

students and youth of China. By focusing on youth, Mao molded what is known as

his ‘personality cult,’ which consisted of people who knew nothing but Communist

rule, and were willing to turn against their superiors in his name. In July of 1966

Mao addressed the importance of youth in the movement: “I say to you all; youth is

the great army of the Great Cultural Revolution! It must be mobilized to the full”

(Schram). Amy Oakes, Associate Professor of Government at the College of William

and Mary, argues that the key to understanding the “relationship between domestic

and international conflict” is found through the use of policy substitutability,

meaning that international conflict is only one potential option for leaders who face

domestic unrest (Oakes 13). In beginning the Cultural Revolution, Mao chose an

alternative option to respond to civil unrest and a growing number of political

enemies: domestically mobilizing the masses to combat those whom he saw as

creating the dissent.

In August of 1966, Mao and the CCP’s Central Committee authorized the “Red

Guard,” a group of students that were steadfastly loyal to Mao Zedong Thought. Red

Guards were willing to turn against their family, friends, and even their parents if

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they thought those individuals harbored reservations in regards to the CCP’s

governance of China (Saich 57). Wang Rongfen, then a student at Beijing’s Foreign

Languages Institute said: “The Great Cultural Revolution is not a mass movement,

but one man moving the masses with the barrel of a gun” (Schoenhals). Initially, the

campaign was highly successful. Dissenting intellectuals were arrested, children

even reported their parents if they overheard them speaking ill of the CCP, and

Mao’s political enemies were ousted. In 1968 Liu Shaoqi, who had been President of

the PRC since 1959 and earned the title of ‘Mao’s policy nemesis,’ was labeled a

rightist traitor and removed from his post, soon after which he died while under

house arrest (Dir. Williams).

The Cultural Revolution resolved Mao’s domestic problems without the need

to initiate a costly, and possibly more volatile foreign conflict. In this way, war was

not, as Oakes described, the ‘option’ that the CCP chose; instead, Mao initiated

another sequence of domestic diversionary actions to quell dissent and build

support for his regime. In an interview that he gave in 1969, Chris Milton talked

about the three previous years he had spent studying in China at the onset of the

Cultural Revolution; “We (students at the university) wanted to have public

denunciations (sessions where people would violently lambast a suspected

‘rightist’) of some playwrights and newspaper editors who were being criticized for

reactionary writings (Milton 7).” The eagerness of students who formed the Red

Guard to defend the CCP and pursue with violent intentions those who would

question its’ legitimacy further exemplifies the initial successes of the Cultural

Revolution.

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After roughly four years of successful undertakings by Mao’s Red Guards,

previously trusted high-level officials of the PRC and CCP, began to become the focus

of Mao’s purges. Most famously, Lin Biao was accused of plotting to assassinate

Mao, and Lin and his family became the unfortunate victims of a plane crash in

Mongolia. This came as a surprise because Lin had been announced as Mao’s self-

declared successor and was considered to be his closest advisor (Knight).

Furthermore, the Red Guards had expanded to the point where their leaders no

longer responded to direction from Mao or the CCP leadership, requiring the

People’s Liberation Army to restore order. The end of the Cultural Revolution is

traditionally associated with Mao’s death in 1976. A series of power struggles

between the Gang of Four and various other prominent CCP officials ensued until

Deng Xiaoping emerged as the ‘paramount leader’ in 1978 (Dir. Williams).

Despite its initial successes in uniting the country and diverting the

population from socio-economic problems, the Cultural Revolution proved

disastrous for CCP authority and in ensuring clearly defined leadership of the PRC.

In this case, diversionary action eventually decreased public support for the regime

and increased internal power struggles. It also further depressed the social and

economic conditions, with three years of negative Gross Domestic Product growth

occurring between 1966 and 1976 (UNdata.org). Although any data from the PRC is

highly unreliable during this time period, a reported negative growth represents

extremely poor conditions for the majority of the Chinese People.

Several scholars, including Michael Hunt, argue that Maoist China (mostly

attributed to the efforts of Premier and diplomat Zhou Enlai) practiced a uniquely

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realist or rationalist foreign policy. Although it is now known that the Politburo

often disagreed, the PRC appeared to make only carefully calculated and unitary

foreign policy decisions under the leadership of Chairman Mao (Hunt 246). It could

be argued that this was a direct result of the diversionary actions that the PRC chose

to take being most often domestic campaigns. China benefited from a rational actor

foreign policy due to the absence of a need for diversionary international conflict to

increase support and eliminate dissension, as these outcomes were achieved by

domestic campaigns and mobilization of the masses to the same political ends. A

rally-round-the-flag effect was also successfully achieved through careful calculation

of who would be the target of a campaign. Specific political adversaries, wealthy

(and therefore powerful) land and business owners, and ‘rightist’ members of the

intelligentsia all became the enemy against which the masses could rally around the

CCP’s leadership.

In order to properly analyze these events, it is particularly essential to

identify the findings of Dr. Oakes: that international conflict is only one option

available to leaders who face domestic unrest. The Diversionary Theory of war is

also applicable to internal actions and campaigns, or a combination of international

conflict and domestic propaganda. Maoist China is a prime example of the use of the

Diversionary Theory to control the population and ensure its support - perhaps in a

more secure way than engaging in international conflict. Despite its successes, Mao

Zedong’s use of domestic maneuvering of the masses as opposed to diversionary

international war resulted in countless leadership challenges and instances of

dissent. It is also paramount to recognize that the actions taken by the PRC between

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1950 and 1976 would be staunchly rejected by the international community and

viewed as a ghastly display of human rights violations by 21st century international

norms.

Time period and other circumstantial information must be taken into

account when analyzing the precursors and outcomes of diversionary actions. Levy

writes, “Diversionary actions are more likely to occur under some domestic and

internal conditions than others, but these conditions have yet to be analyzed” (Levy

282). Mao’s use of a perpetual proletarian revolution may be a hallmark of

Communism, but the CCP utilized these ideals to remain in power and eliminate

nonconforming voices. Although Maoist China ultimately exposed flaws in the

Diversionary Theory, it also exemplified that there remain unexplored uses of

diversionary actions. Among several is the use of domestic conflict to serve the

diversionary purpose of international conflict in the early decades of the People’s

Republic of China.

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Work Cited

China - A Century of Revolution. Dir. Sue Williams. Zeitgeist, 1989 - 1997. DVD.

Chung, Stephanie. "Hundred Flowers Campaign." Berkshire Encyclopedia of China:

Modern and Historic Views of the World's Newest and Oldest Global Power. Vol.

3. Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire Publishing, 2009. 1124-1125. Gale Virtual

Reference Library. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.

"GDP Growth (annual %)." UNdata. The World Bank, n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.

<http://data.un.org/Data.aspx?q=GDP&d=WDI&f=Indicator_Code

%3aNY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG>.

Goncharov, S. N., John Wilson Lewis, and Litai Xue. Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao,

and the Korean War. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1993. Print.

Hunt, Michael H. The Genesis of Chinese Communist Foreign Policy. New York:

Columbia UP, 1996. Print.

Jian, Chen. China's Road to the Korean War. New York: Columbia UP, 1994. Print.

Knight, Nick, and Colin Mackerras. "Cultural Revolution—China." Encyclopedia of

Modern Asia. Ed. Karen Christensen and David Levinson. Vol. 2. New York:

Charles Scribner's Sons, 2002. 221-225. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 30

Mar. 2014.

Levy, Jack S. "The Diversionary Theory of War: A Critique." Handbook of War Studies.

Ed. Manus I. Midlarsky. Ann Arbor: Michigan, 1993. 259-88. Print.

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"Mao Zedong on War and Revolution." Asia for Educators. Columbia University, 2009.

Web. 28 Mar. 2014.

<http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/china_1900_mao_war.htm>.

Milton, Chris. Cultural Revolution in China. San Francisco, CA: Students for a

Democratic Society, 1969. Print.

Oakes, Amy. Diversionary War : Domestic Unrest and International Conflict. Palo Alto:

Stanford University Press, 2012. Ebook Library. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.

Saich, Tony. Governance and Politics of China. 3rd ed. Houndmills, Basingstoke,

Hampshire: Palgrave, 2011. Print.

Schoenhals, Michael. China's Cultural Revolution, 1966-1969: Not a Dinner Party.

Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1996. 149-50. Print.

Schram, Stuart R. Mao Tse-tung. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974. 271. Print.

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