38 { China’s Quest
allied with the Soviet Union, whose independence had been accepted by the
ROC in 1945 under the terms of the Yalta settlement and as a quid pro quo
for Soviet support for China’s ROC government. To the end of his life (he
died on Taiwan in 1975), Chiang Kai-shek believed that his 1945 accession to
Soviet-American demands that he abandon China’s claim to Mongolia was
the major reason for his loss of popular support during the 1946–1949 contest
with the CCP. This explanation was, of course, self-serving and covered up
serious shortcomings in Chiang’s KMT regime. On the other hand, Chiang
was an ardent Chinese patriot and may have had a good sense of popular
sentiment on this issue. His minister of foreign affairs, T.V. Soong (Madame
Chiang’s brother), resigned that office rather than affix his signature to an
agreement “selling out the national territory” (chumai guo tu). CCP propa-
ganda during the postwar struggle used this charge of chumai guotu quite
effectively against Chiang.^24
From the perspective of CCP (and KMT) leaders, Mongolians were one of
China’s national minorities and the large territory they inhabited was part of
China. During the thirteenth through nineteenth centuries, Mongolia had
frequently been part of the Chinese empire—or vice versa. But Mongolia
had been directed down the socialist path circa 1921 when the Bolshevik
Red Army occupied that country in the course of the Russian Civil War.
Mongolian communist leaders, put in power by the Soviet Red Army at that
time, saw a close relation with the Soviet Union as protection against an-
nexation by China. Whatever other complaints Mongolia might have about
Soviet policy (Stalin purged Mongolian leaders in 1937 and 1941 for criticizing
his policies), at least Moscow posed no threat to Mongolian independence.^25
Rather than approach Mongolian leaders directly with the proposal that
Mongolia “return to China,” CCP leaders pursued the issue with Moscow in
1949, 1950, 1954, and 1956. The CCP argument to Moscow was that Mongolia
had historically been part of China, that its current independence was a great
historic injustice, and that Soviet assistance in undoing that injustice would
create a solid foundation for the new, fraternal relation being formed between
the PRC and the USSR. Moscow declined the CCP request. Mao delivered to
Anastas Mikoyan, Soviet foreign minister and Stalin’s special envoy on this
occasion, the first CCP request about “uniting the two parts of Mongolia”
Stalin’s terms were clear: if new China wanted Soviet support, it would have
to recognize Mongolia’s independence. Zhou and Vyshinsky exchanged notes
recognizing the independence of the People’s Republic of Mongolia.^26 The
PRC established diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of Mongolia
on October 16, 1949. Figure 2-1 shows the situation of Mongolia and Soviet
special rights in China’s Northeast.
After Stalin’s death in 1953 and Khrushchev’s denunciation of him in 1956,
CCP leaders again raised the issue of Mongolia’s “return to China,” this time
phrasing it as part of Stalin’s “mistakes” that needed to be rectified. The Soviet