140 { China’s Quest
assist the Arab people’s revolutionary struggle by forcing the United States to
deploy forces to the western Pacific. Waves from Egypt’s Nasserite revolution
and the 1956 Suez War continued to shake the Middle East in 1958.^57 In July
1958, a Nasserite coup had overthrown Iraq’s British-backed monarchy. The
day after the Iraq coup, Lebanon requested US intervention to uphold the
government. Washington agreed, and a US force of 14,000 was put ashore to
defend the Lebanon government, while a fleet of seventy ships with 40,000
sailors maneuvered offshore.
Mao saw Middle East events of 1958, like the Suez crisis of 1956, as manifesta-
tions of the global struggle against US imperialism. The intensifying struggle
of the Arab people against US imperialism had transformed the Middle East
into a key focus of the global struggle against the United States. The tyranny
of distance limited China’s ability to directly assist the Arab struggle. But by
opening another front of struggle in the Taiwan Strait, China would provide
practical Chinese assistance.^58 Mao would tell a visiting Palestine Liberation
Organization delegation in 1965: “Our artillery shelled [Jinmen] to engage
the imperialists during the revolution in Iraq and the American landing in
Lebanon.... The enemy should be engaged on all fronts.”^59 Mao further elabo-
rated the logic of the 1958 crisis to Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko,
who rushed secretly to Beijing on September 6–7 for consultation about the
crisis in the Taiwan Strait. The United States had military bases and troops
scattered all over the world, creating vulnerability, Mao explained. Causing
problems for US imperialism off Taiwan while it was engaged in Lebanon
was a way of “hanging” (jiaosuo) the United States. Increased tension would
also mobilize the people of various regions to struggle against US bases while
increasing the burdens born by the US people, Mao explained.^60 Ch i na’s ob-
jective was to “shake up the Americans,” whose people feared war with China,
Mao explained to Gromyko. Mao did not make it explicit, but implicitly he
was showing Khrushchev and the international communist movement how
the socialist camp should deal with US imperialism.
As noted earlier, Mao had not given Khrushchev warning about the bom-
bardment during their August meeting in Beijing. According to Wu Lengxi,
the first Chinese communication with the Soviet Union regarding the bom-
bardment came on the evening of September 5 (two weeks after the shell-
ing began, and the day before Gromyko arrived) when Zhou Enlai briefed
a counselor of the Soviet embassy on the situation. Zhou assured the Soviet
representative that China’s aims were limited and that it did not intend to at-
tack Taiwan. Moreover, if the United States launched a war, China would take
complete responsibility. The Soviet Union would absolutely not be involved; it
would not be pulled into the water, Zhou averred.^61
The next day, September 6, Zhou proposed resumption of US-PRC ambas-
sadorial talks to find a peaceful solution to the problem. This move marked
a shift in approach by Beijing and signaled the easing of tension. The same