“Threat and Opportunity in the Communist Schism”

In 1963, Zbigniew Brzezinski was a young academic, 14 years away from becoming U.S. national security adviser. In Foreign A airs, he took note of China’s growing frustration with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and called on the United States to exploit the widening Sino-Soviet split—an opportunity Washington would wait nearly a decade to seize. Today, the power dynamic between Moscow and Beijing has flipped, but the relationship between them—with conflicting signals of convergence and tension—is once again top of mind.

The Chinese have made it clear that they regard Khrushchev’s Cuba misadventure as a negative confirmation of the soundness of their line. In their view, because he overestimates the importance of nuclear weapons and assumes that they have a decisive importance, he recklessly involved himself in the export of nuclear weapons to Cuba, i.e. he was tactically an adventurist.And again, because he attaches such importance to these weapons, he then allowed himself to be intimidated by U.S. nuclear power; he pulled back and settled for a “compromise,” i.e. he was strategically a “capitulationist.” In other words, Khrushchev’s short-range gambles are reckless, while his long-range policy involves the abandonment of revolutionary struggles by the masses.

In contrast the Chinese presumably see their recent policy toward India as a positive confirmation of their strategy. By exercising restraint in capitalizing on their military advantage, they prevented direct Western involvement on India’s behalf, thereby displaying “tactical” respect for imperialism. At the same time, the long-range effect of their military victory over India in their view showed the other nations of Asia that China is the number-one power in the region, that it cannot be defied effectively, that it has the ability “to slight imperialism strategically.” As the revolutionary Communism gains in strength, the Chinese may eventually expect to be able to “slight” imperialism tactically as well, thereby precipitating a major threat to peace.