China opened up long before 1978 reforms

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By Xiong Lei (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-12-22 07:44

People have become used to associating China's opening up with reforms and thinking it all began in 1978.

While the Chinese government did list opening-up as a major part of its official policy that year, it is a mistake to assert that the People's Republic of China was self-closed throughout its first three decades. That is not true to history.

In fact, the first generation of the PRC leaders was willing to reach out to the world ever since the founding of New China in 1949. That desire, however, was dashed by the embargo and blockade imposed by Western powers, primarily the United States.

In blaming China for "not opening up" earlier, many people seem to forget the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls, or COCOM. This product of the Cold War, set up in 1947, specialized in putting embargo on exports to countries with a different social system from those in the West.

After the Communist Party took power in the country, China became a major target of the COCOM embargo. This organization continued to function and lay trade obstacles well after 1978. While it was dissolved in March 1994, its impact or idea has lingered on with its successor, the Wassenaar Arrangement.

It was the Western powers that attempted to fence China off. Yet they created the impression that China was locking itself up.

Sure, we cannot neglect that there was a closed mindset among quite some Chinese people in the first 30 years of the PRC, and at times like the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) there was even xenophobia.

Nor can we neglect the role this embargo played in creating such an absurdity, although we should also mention our own leftist frenzy.

Despite that, we cannot forget the tremendous efforts the first generation leaders of New China, headed by Chairman Mao Zedong, made to breach the embargo. The success in their endeavor laid the foundation of China's opening-up today.

The efforts to breach the embargo actually featured New China's foreign policy in its early years.

One of the efforts is evidenced in the retaining of Hong Kong under British control. In 1949, when the People's Liberation Army swept to liberate almost the entire of China's mainland, it stopped short at the border with Hong Kong.

Many veterans recall that a regiment of the PLA, or at most one division, would have been capable of seizing Hong Kong back. They were puzzled when the PLA stopped its advancement.

The decision to leave Hong Kong as it was, made by Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, was of strategic significance.

In a talk in 1955, Zhou Enlai, the first premier of PRC, explained that given the blockade against New China, Hong Kong could serve as an "international channel" between China and the outside world if it remained intact. This would be conducive to China's socialist construction.

Noting that Hong Kong under British control was purely a capitalist market, Premier Zhou instructed that the enterprises owned by New China in Hong Kong should be of a "socialist nature but operated in the capitalist mode." This could be the prototype of the "one country, two systems" policy.

This stance was once a target of criticism by some international left-wingers. A foreign Communist Party denounced China in 1963 on the ground that it, although a socialist country, allowed part of its territory to be colonized.

To this, China responded that the Chinese people did not have to demonstrate their prowess on Hong Kong and Macao to prove their courage and firmness against imperialism. China insisted that it would keep Hong Kong's status quo "until the conditions are ripe" for a peaceful settlement through negotiation.

While keeping Hong Kong as an access to the outside world, New China's forerunners tried every possible means to expand ties with the international community. The Chinese delegation to the 1954 Geneva Conference on Indochina, for instance, included foreign trade officials. It was a deliberate move to launch business relations with the West.

Noticeably, John Foster Dulles, the then US Secretary of State, refused to take the suggestion by British Foreign Secretary Anthony Robert Eden to exchange greetings with Premier Zhou Enlai.

Nevertheless, following the independent foreign policy and Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, New China extensively made friends all over the world in spite of the blockade and embargo.

With the ever-reinforced support from these friends, China's legitimate seat in the United Nations was restored at the 26th UN Assembly in 1971, 22 years after China had been excluded from the global association of governments. This marked a major event in the history of New China's foreign affairs, as well as a victory "unexpected" to many Chinese leaders, including Mao himself.

A parallel milestone was Richard Nixon's visit to China in February 1972. He went down in history as the first US Chief Executive to visit a country which had no diplomatic relations with the United States. This admirable initiative would not have been possible without the desire to reach out on the Chinese side.

Of the over 160 countries which have diplomatic relations with China today, more than 100 set up such ties leading up to 1978. These hard-won achievements not only show China's desire and efforts to reach out, but also worked to make the world open to China.

The opening-up policy is not water without a source or a tree without roots. When we celebrate the opening we enjoy today, we cannot afford to forget its origins.

The author is a council member of the China Society for Human Rights Studies

(China Daily 12/22/2008 page4)