134 { China’s Quest
the south China coast to communicate with submerged Soviet submarines
operating in the South Pacific. (Long radio waves penetrate water better than
waves of other frequencies.) Talks on such a joint effort proceeded. It was
agreed that Moscow would provide substantial and majority funding for the
project. Mao insisted on full Chinese ownership of the projected facility, a
demand that the Soviet side accepted.
Soviet leaders concluded from these interactions that Beijing was ready
to substantially enhance the military capabilities of both countries in the
Pacific Ocean via expanded cooperation.^43 China would get Soviet assistance
in building modern submarines, and Soviet submarines would get improved
communication via a Chinese-owned but jointly operated radio station on
the south China coast. The two countries were close ideological partners; rec-
ognized a common enemy, the United States; and were bound by the 1950
military alliance. Expanded military cooperation would benefit both, Soviet
leaders probably calculated.
That’s where matters stood on July 21, 1958, when Soviet ambassador Pavel
Yudin briefed Mao and other top CCP leaders on recent Soviet policies. After
covering the situation in the Middle East and Yugoslavia, Yudin turned to
the idea of a Soviet-Chinese joint submarine fleet. Yudin did not get very far
into his exposition before Mao interrupted with astonishment, according to
Wu Lengxi, “What! Are you proposing a ‘joint company’?” “Joint company”
was an allusion to the jointly owned companies set up at Soviet insistence in
1950 to exploit resources in China’s northeast and Xinjiang. Mao became ex-
tremely agitated (again according to Wu Lengxi) and said that when request-
ing Soviet assistance in construction of submarines, he had never imagined
that the Soviet Union would propose setting up a “joint company” with China.
Mao then let Yudin finish his presentation, but returned to the joint fleet issue
and, according to Wu, “wouldn’t let it go.” Yudin continued his exposition
the next day, explaining that access to the high seas by Soviet submarines
was dominated by Western powers, which monitored key straits. Given this,
the Soviet Union very much needed ports beyond those straits, and a south
Chinese port would be ideal. Mao would have none of it. Was the implication,
Mao asked Yudin, that unless China accepted the joint fleet proposal, Soviet
assistance in the construction of submarines would not be forthcoming? Did
Moscow want to “control China?”^44
The swiftness and highly emotional nature of Mao’s response raise ques-
tions about Mao’s rationality at this juncture. He apparently reached a very
quick and firm judgment. Later Mao told his medical doctor that the Soviet
purpose was indeed to “control China.”^45 This judgment was later publicly
affirmed in an authoritative CCP statement of September 1963: Moscow’s
“joint fleet” proposal embodied “unreasonable demands designed to bring
China under Soviet military control.”^46 This judgment was almost certainly
wrong. The Soviet proposal was designed not to “control China,” but to