170 { China’s Quest
to Soviet organizations in Moscow and other Soviet cities. Chinese students
studying in Moscow distributed copies to academic organizations. Copies
were left in the hotel rooms for delegates to meetings in Moscow. These activi-
ties prompted a Soviet deputy foreign minister to call in Ambassador Pan Zili
and protest. Pan rebuffed the Soviet complaint; he did not care whether the
Soviet side agreed or disagreed with Chinese actions. Outraged, the Soviet
representative warned the Chinese diplomat “not to forget that you are in
the Soviet Union and you must respect the regulations ... One could get the
impression that the Ambassador is in charge of this country and can make
whatever laws he wants.”^14
For Khrushchev, the CCP Proposal, together with the extensive effort to
publicize that manifesto even before the two sides sat down to talk, was the last
straw. The Soviet leader became convinced that Chinese leaders did not want
reconciliation but in fact wanted a split. The conciliatory proposals prepared
by Moscow were scrapped, and the CPSU began bracing for a protracted and
sharp struggle with Beijing. According to CPSU Central Committee member
Yuri Andropov, the CPSU should prepare for “serious and possibly long ide-
ological struggle” with the CCP.^15
Several days before the July meeting, CCP leaders met to determine guide-
lines for the Chinese delegation. It was decided that the delegation should
be prepared for a split and not back down from it.^16 Once talks began, Deng
Xiaoping elaborated point by point the twenty-five “points of principle” stated
in the Proposal. The Soviets replied with rebuttals. In the middle of the talks,
on July 15, the CPSU issued an “Open Letter to All Communists in the USSR”
in response to the CCP. Like the CCP Proposal, Moscow’s Open Letter was
in fact directed toward communists worldwide. It addressed a number of the
ideological points raised in the Proposal, as well as the illegal and provocative
ways (in the Soviet view) in which the CCP had distributed that document
in the Soviet Union. With Moscow’s issue of the Open Letter, argument be-
came even more acrimonious and bitter. Finally, after several weeks, Deng
proposed bringing the meetings to a close, and the Soviet side agreed. The
Sino-Soviet alliance was dead and now buried. When the Chinese delega-
tion led by Deng Xiaoping returned to Beijing, they were welcomed at the
Beijing airport by Mao, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, and other top Chinese lead-
ers. Propaganda posters of this airport reception are still widely available in
antique markets in Chinese cities.
According to the CCP’s Proposal, there was a global struggle underway
between US imperialism and the laboring classes and exploited nations
oppressed by the United States. Revolutionary struggles against the United
States were sweeping the intermediate zones of Asia, Africa, and Latin
America lying between the imperialist countries and the socialist countries.
Peaceful coexistence of socialism with the “imperialist countries” was per-
missible, the CCP Proposal said, but “No one should ever demand in the