China and America in the Persian Gulf } 563
Beijing also launched active “peace diplomacy” at this juncture to differen-
tiate itself from the United States for Third World audiences. Beijing implicit
message was that while the United States was an aggressive, war-prone coun-
try, China was a peace-loving country. Beijing was careful not to overplay
its peace-diplomacy hand, however. When the Iraqi deputy prime minister
arrived in China, just before the beginning of Allied ground operations, to
discuss the conditions under which Iraq would withdraw from Kuwait, Li
Peng urged Iraq to “take immediate and concrete measures and actions” to
quit Kuwait.^13
The Gulf war demonstrated new structural weaknesses in China’s interna-
tional position. The strategic triangle crucial to Chinese diplomacy from 1971
to 1989 was dead. The decline in Soviet power that underlay this transforma-
tion had been developing for years. But the alacrity of Soviet cooperation with
the United States during the war spotlighted the change. No longer would
Beijing be able to invite Moscow and Washington to vie for China’s favor.
Chinese commentary during and just after the 1991 war stressed the rivalry of
Japan, Britain, France, or a revived Soviet Union with the US for domination
in the Gulf. That rivalry was, however, more of a hope than a reality—far less
useful to Beijing than the bitter Soviet-American rivalry of the Cold War era.
The dramatic superiority of US conventional weaponry demonstrated how
far behind China was militarily—thirty years, estimated one ex-PLA chief of
staff. The notion that Third World countries, including China, could rely on
their large populations and vast armies to defend themselves against Western
power was severely undermined.
The 1991 Gulf War and China’s Awareness
of Its Increased Vulnerability
The quick, decisive, and low-casualty victory by US forces in early 1991 deep-
ened the CCP’s sense of insecurity and made China’s leaders more acutely
aware of China’s own military weakness. The awesome technological supe-
riority of US military power, plus the willingness of US leaders to use that
power in so decisive a fashion, altered Chinese calculations regarding the
possibility of a US decision to use military force against China. China’s lead-
ers were already convinced that the United States was pursuing a strategy of
attempting to topple communist governments from Eastern Europe to China
to the USSR. US leaders were showing increased concern with Tibet and en-
couraging dangerous political changes underway in Taiwan. The decisive
military superiority the United States displayed in January–February 1991
might lead it to exploit China’s military backwardness.
Before US military actions against Iraq began on January 17, many Chinese
commentators believed the United States would become bogged down in a