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China PERCEPTION OF THREAT
In the late 1980s, China viewed the Soviet Union as its
principal military opponent. Simmering border disputes with Vietnam
and India were perceived as lesser threats to security. China's
burgeoning opening up policy, its claims to the Xisha (Paracel) and
Nansha (Spratly) Islands, and the presence of offshore oil deposits
made the South China Sea an area in which Beijing saw potential
threats to its interests. Finally, although it did not regard
Taiwan as a military threat, China nevertheless refused to rule out
the use of force as a means of achieving reunification with Taiwan.
The Soviet Union
Despite common ideological roots, considerable Soviet
assistance in the past, and warming relations since 1982, China in
1987 regarded the Soviet Union's military strength and foreign
policy as the major threat to its security. Tensions in relations
between the two countries had begun to escalate in the mid-1950s
(see Sino-Soviet Relations
, ch. 12). The 1968 Soviet invasion of
Czechoslovakia and the buildup of Soviet forces in the Soviet Far
East raised Chinese suspicions of Soviet intentions. Sharp border
clashes between Soviet and Chinese troops occurred in 1969, roughly
a decade after relations between the two countries had begun to
deteriorate and some four years after a buildup of Soviet forces
along China's northern border had begun. Particularly heated border
clashes occurred in the northeast along the Sino-Soviet border
formed by the Heilong Jiang (Amur River) and the Wusuli Jiang
(Ussuri River), on which China claimed the right to navigate
(see
fig. 3). Border provocations occasionally recurred in later
years--for example, in May 1978 when Soviet troops in boats and a
helicopter intruded into Chinese territory--but major armed clashes
were averted.
In the late 1970s, China decried what it perceived as a Soviet
attempt to encircle it as the military buildup continued in the
Soviet Far East and the Soviet Union signed friendship treaties
with Vietnam and Afghanistan. In April 1979 Beijing notified Moscow
that the thirty-year Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual
Assistance--under which the Soviets aided the PLA in its 1950s
modernization--would not be renewed. Negotiations on improving
Sino-Soviet relations were begun in 1979, but China ended them when
the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan late that year. In 1982 China
and the Soviet Union resumed negotiations on normalizing relations.
Although agreements on trade, science and technology, and culture
were signed, political ties remained frozen because of Chinese
insistence that the Soviet Union remove the three obstacles to
improved Sino-Soviet relations. Although Chinese leaders publicly
professed not to be concerned, the Soviet base at Cam Ranh Bay in
Vietnam, Soviet provision of MiG-23 fighters to North Korea, and
Soviet acquisition of overflight and port calling rights from North
Korea intensified Chinese apprehension about the Soviet threat.
Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Mikhail S. Gorbachev's
1986 offer to withdraw some troops from Afghanistan and the
Mongolian People's Republic (Mongolia) were seen by Beijing as a
cosmetic gesture that did not lessen the threat to China.
In the mid-1980s the Soviet Union deployed about one-quarter to
one-third of its military forces in its Far Eastern theater. In
1987 Soviet nuclear forces included approximately 171 SS-20
intermediate-range ballistic missiles, which China found
particularly threatening, and 85 nuclear-capable long-range
Backfire bombers. Approximately 470,000 Soviet ground force troops
in 53 divisions were stationed in the Sino-Soviet border region,
including Mongolia. Although 65 percent of these ground force
divisions were only at 20 percent of full combat strength, they
were provided with improved equipment, including T-72 tanks, and
were reinforced by 2,200 aircraft, including new generation
aircraft such as the MiG-23/27 Flogger fighter. Chinese forces on
the Sino-Soviet border were numerically superior--1.5 million
troops in 68 divisions--but technologically inferior. Although the
PLA units in the Shenyang and Beijing military regions were
equipped with some of the PLA's most advanced weaponry, few Chinese
divisions were mechanized. The Soviet Union held tactical and
strategic nuclear superiority and exceeded China in terms of
mobility, firepower, air power, and antiaircraft capability.
Chinese leaders reportedly did not consider a Soviet attack to be
imminent or even likely in the short term. They believed that if
the Soviets did attack, it would be a limited strike against
Chinese territory in north or northeast China, rather than a fullscale invasion
(see Doctrine, Strategy, and Tactics
, this ch.).
Data as of July 1987
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