378 { China’s Quest
made war inevitable. But war would produce revolution. It had followed from
this general characterization that the PRC should prepare constantly for war
and support revolutionary movements in the intermediate zone that might
disrupt and divert imperialist forces, making less likely an imperialist attack
on socialist China.
Redefinition of the international situation was part of the essential “theo-
retical work” of the early opening period. It took a while, however. The redef-
inition began about the time of the Twelfth CCP Congress in 1982. According
to the new analysis, the forces favoring peace now so far exceeded the forces
favoring war that the likelihood of a new world war, or of a large-scale attack
on China, was now negligible and was likely to remain so for a fairly long
time. The reinvigoration of US containment policies under the Reagan ad-
ministration had shifted the balance against the Soviet Union, making new
aggression by Moscow unlikely. This allowed China to concentrate on the
urgent task of economic development.^51 Major reductions in the size of the
armed forces allowed the shift of resources to development. And now that
an imperialist attack on the PRC was no longer deemed likely, foreign wars
of national liberation lost their linkage to national security. Deng Xiaoping
rendered an authoritative judgment in March 1985 when he ruled that “Peace
and Development are the Two Outstanding Issues of the World Today.”^52
The de-revolutionization of China’s domestic politics was reflected in the
de-revolutionization of its foreign relations. Since Southeast Asia had been
the focus of CCP revolutionary activism during the Mao era, China’s disen-
gagement from insurgencies in that region after 1978 was the most important.
Deng’s economic development objectives and his concern with countering
Soviet expansion in Southeast Asia were linked, but the key driver in this
process circa 1978 seems to have been considerations of PRC national secu-
r it y.^53 Beijing’s fear of expanding Soviet influence in Southeast Asia, especially
in Indochina, and the consequent need to win the support of the ASEAN
countries in countering Soviet advances impelled Beijing to pull away from
Southeast Asian insurgencies in 1978–1981. The Soviet-backed Vietnamese
invasion of Cambodia in December 1978 led to a struggle in the United
Nations over which regime should represent Kampuchea (then the name for
Cambodia) in the United Nations. Moscow and Hanoi favored the pro-Hanoi
regime that Vietnamese forces had installed in Phnom Penh, while Beijing
and Washington favored a regime led by Sihanouk and including the Khmer
Rouge. Beijing desired the support of ASEAN countries for UN battles.
Thailand’s agreement to provide territorial sanctuary was also vital for pros-
ecution of an armed resistance to Vietnam’s occupation of Kampuchea.
Winning the support of the Southeast Asian nations in this struggle caused
Beijing to pull back from foreign insurgencies.
Regarding the economic development drive, the large communities of
Overseas Chinese (huaqiao) in Southeast Asia were seen as an important