The Evolution of Chinese Thinking, 1985-2025, about the Cold War in Asia

Since the end of the Cold War, historical memory has come to occupy a central place in thinking about international relations. Under the mindset of the postwar polarized order, communists dismissed the past as a bygone stage of history, replaced by socialism with the communist utopia ahead. In turn, the “Free World” fixated on winning the struggle for the future, proving the superiority of free markets and democracy for a single, globalized world. If those dizzy with optimism as the Cold War wound down talked of the “end of history,” the actual impact of its conclusion was a revival of historical memory in pursuit of vengeance.

While many in the West treated the end of the Cold War as a gamechanger, overcoming the more than four decades of Cold War tension that had failed to disseminate the ideals of free peoples and free markets world-wide, elite establishments in China and Russia soon dismissed this supposed turning-point as a blip in the trajectory set at the end of World War II and the initial world order constructed soon afterwards. Three building blocks of their overlapping worldview gradually came into focus. First, the results of the war had to be reinterpreted to glorify the contribution of the communist system and its leadership, along with the supposed understandings reached with other world powers. Second, the perceived spheres of influence established in the late 1940s needed to be confirmed as still applicable for the foreseeable future. Third, the Korean War regained its significance as a touchstone for interpreting the entire Cold War era, not as an aberration that should have been avoided by North Korean restraint, but as a test of resistance to the aggressive designs of the United States that showed the mettle of opposing an agenda rooted in spreading the power and values of the West, even if later by “peaceful evolution.”

Mixed together in this worldview were four assumptions of the leadership in both China and Russia: (1) preservation of their regimes depended on a view that glorified their past and constructed an insurmountable barrier with the West; (2) they are two parts of a shared communist movement, which (renamed or not) is vital to national identity; (3) defense of North Korea’s autonomy and viability is critical to their standing or goals in Northeast Asia; and (4) US support of Taiwan and Japan’s revival as a great power are anathema to the Cold War order they were upholding and will continue to support. Keeping North Korea hostile to South Korea, preventing Japan from reviving as a great power, and pursuing Taiwan’s return to the control of the PRC all serve these well-established, shared legacies of the Cold War.

The loathed order of the post-Cold War decades resulted not just from the skulduggery of the United States and its allies but also from the treachery of Mikhail Gorbachev and the wariness of later leaders in Russia and China to suppress centrifugal forces and resist the West with sufficient vigor. With communist dogma in disarray, more vigilant leadership had to reconstruct national identity around symbols of unity, sacrifice, and victorious struggle. By commemorating World War II as a success of the communist system in the global fight against fascism, loosely construed, leaders counted on rallying their nations vs. the West. As symbols of this struggle, the recovery of Taiwan and Ukraine served not as stand-alone targets but also as reminders of historical “rights” and the enduring significance of World War II. On October 25, 2025, China drove home this point by commemorating the 1945 “restoration” of Taiwan. Moscow cites the Yalta Agreement; Beijing cites the Cairo Declaration. It also refers to the Potsdam Proclamation and Japan’s acceptance of it as an affirmation of this outcome, leading to the October “restoration of the exercise of sovereignty over Taiwan.”

On September 3, 2025, at the 80th anniversary celebration of the end of World War II, Xi Jinping explained Chinese reasoning about the significance of victory in the “war against fascism.” Four months earlier, Vladimir Putin, commemorating victory in that war, likewise articulated his thinking about its significance. Instead of obsessing over the statement of Japan’s prime minister on August 15, as had been the case at other anniversaries of the end of the war, how China and Russia view the past has now taken center stage. This was not an abrupt change. Rather, the worldviews expressed in 2025 represented the culmination of reconstructing the past over forty years. Country by country, views of history grew harsher.

History has returned with a vengeance after seemingly being swept aside with the end of the Cold War. It has become the subject of internal crackdowns and censorship as well as of justifications for assertive foreign policies. In China and Russia, history has gained more salience for regime legitimacy and the transformation of bilateral relationships. Here, I focus on Chinese views of the histories of countries deemed most significant for the worldview of China’s leadership, and in a companion piece, I examine key Russian views of Asian history.

Looking back at Chinese writings (as well as Russian ones) about the history of Asia, we can distinguish five themes central to the evolution of shifting thinking: (1) the lessons of Japan’s defeat and its obligations as a defeated power; (2) the enduring role of the postwar world order (for territorial and sphere-of-influence determinations); (3) the significance of the Korean War; (4) the legitimacy of US alliances and military presence in the Asia-Pacific; and (5) the relevance of the end of the Cold War for decisions through the postwar period.  

The Lessons from Japan’s Defeat and Its Obligations as a Defeated Power

The Confucian tradition, reaffirmed in dynasty after dynasty, placed great emphasis on correct thinking about the past. Traditional communist writings were similarly preoccupied with the lessons drawn from the past, expanding from the evolution of one country to paradigmatic stages applied to all countries, with special interest in key partners and adversaries. In the case of China, labels about significant others rooted current dangers in historical legacies: American imperialism, Soviet revisionism, Japanese revanchism, and South Korean betrayal. In each case, undesired recent behavior is traced to wrong choices made in the past.

Through characterizing these histories, writers reconstructed Chinese national identity, legitimized a Sinocentric regional order, and conveyed a futuristic vision of regional and global order. In the late 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, this reconstruction started with Japanese history.

While Japanese counted on winning the trust of China for their aspirations as a great power in Asia, they faced an ingrained outlook from the Cold War that Japan had no right under the postwar settlement to become a political or military great power. Its hopes were viewed as threatening to both the perceived natural order and to Sinocentric ambitions, especially its alliance with the United States. Accepted as a partner for economic purposes, Japan, by the late 1980s, was deemed a rival for other purposes. In 1986, 1989, and 1993, the outlook on Japan hardened: Hu Yaobang was blamed for blurring boundaries essential for carving out a separate path for China’s modernization and identity; Japan was treated as a threat for “peaceful evolution” from 1989; and Japan was perceived as a rival to lead regionalism and a catalyst for strengthening Chinese historical identity. Critical to such reasoning was the notion that the verdict in 1945 was that Japan had forfeited the right to be a great power, as concern rose over it capitalizing on a strong economy to achieve regional power projection. In the background loomed the assumption that Japan fell into China’s sphere of influence.

Let us recall the atmosphere of the 1980s. Japan was on the rise. Its modernization was seen as a model or inspiration for “Confucian capitalism,” thriving across China’s eastern periphery. Chinese translations of Japanese and English writings on development—allowed to find an economic pathway forward—heralded Japan’s social structure and its relevance across East Asia. Tightened censorship to deny such a model put Japan in a new light.

The Chinese debate over Japan extended from a backlash to Hu Yaobang’s 1984 outreach to Nakasone Yasuhiro to resistance to Chinese “new thinking” in 2003, with sharp reversals in 1998 and 2005 after some softening. Positive shifts proved short-lived, such as affirming a shared Eastern civilization, as Hu Yaobang appeared to do at Nara in 2007; recognizing that postwar Japan was fundamentally different from pre-1945 Japan, as “new thinking” had suggested; treating regionalism as a shared endeavor; and crediting Japan as a model from which China was learning and a generous source of assistance. None of these moves gained traction. Instead, the historical narrative vilifying Japan gained momentum. It served
to legitimize the CCP, galvanize patriotic fervor, and pressure Japan against resisting Sinocentrism, China’s militarist and authoritarian drift, and ever-wider territorial demands.

As China grew more assertive over Taiwan, the South China Sea, and a blue-water navy, it targeted Japan as an obstacle, both on its own and as a US ally joining in an Indo-Pacific strategy. To delegitimize Japan, historical arguments intensified, linking new behavior to recalled aggression. The word “remilitarization” captured this intensified line of attack. To discredit Japan, Chinese dwelt on its history to 1945 and on a polarized view of the Cold War.

Summarizing Jin Linbo’s view in The Asan Forum, I wrote that “a dark picture of brutal militarism was so deeply rooted in Chinese memory that even under completely new circumstances marked by fast-growing positive elements…there was little transformation in China’s negative image of Japan. The negative wartime memory of a militaristic Japan became the predominant element forming China’s national image…in the first two decades of the 21st century.” Jin cites a narrative of China as a victim of militarism, pointing to five manifestations: 1) an extremely rightist regime in control over Japan’s fate; 2) the social foundation for militarism tied to the historical spirit of Shinto and Bushido having permeated the hearts of contemporary Japanese, as China’s economic dynamism vis-à-vis Japan’s economic stagnation provided social conditions for neo-militarism; 3) the implementation of Japan’s new security law has broken the postwar international order; 4) Japanese media are right-leaning and highly consistent with the intentions of the Japanese government; and 5) education within the SDF continues to prepare for militaristic forces to control the army. It is assumed that historical thinking—not anything China is doing today—keeps arousing anti-China sentiment. Bilateral relations are deteriorating because of historical memories. 

Historical messaging on Japan paved the way to a broader narrative on history. If hardline views could prevail on this easy target for Chinese public opinion, they could be expanded to other, harder targets. Japan led the way in historiography on the end of the war and, by extension, on the Cold War as well. At the 2025 80th anniversary victory day parade, Japan continued to serve as the centerpiece for negativity about the history of states targeted as hostile, some of which had been partners of China in that war or fellow victims of that era.

On September 3, Xi Jinping reasserted his view of the importance of the victory over Japan eight decades earlier, expanding on the message he had conveyed on May 9 in Moscow. For three decades, Chinese publications had railed against the thinking of LDP rightists, linking it to pre-1945 militarism and the danger of remilitarization. Xi’s message, heard loud and clear, is that Japanese alignment with the United States on Indo-Pacific security represents an intensification of such thinking, containing China and contradicting the postwar order. If Japan looms as an obstacle to Sinocentrism for its ongoing responses, those are portrayed not as defensive in nature but as indicative of a historical predisposition against China.

The Meaning of the Postwar World Order

Chinese views of the world order established after the end of World War II were mixed. On the one hand, China had been recognized as a permanent member of the Security Council, i.e., a leading great power, and its sovereignty over Taiwan was seen as revived. Recognition of the Soviet Union and its sphere of influence in Europe also drew praise, serving China’s own Communist Party in a world split between two camps. On the other hand, colonialism still required revolutionary movements to alter the status quo, the San Francisco Treaty put the United States uncomfortably close in Asia, and rebuilding a Sinocentric sphere would take time. Later, turning against Moscow and even abnegating revolutionary interventions, Beijing did not reconsider support for communist control in states once under the Soviet Union or part of its sphere. It was also wary of questioning Soviet foreign policy outside of encroachment on China’s sphere, realizing that CCP legitimacy was inseparable from that of the CPSU. China hitched itself, after a time, to the Soviet perspective on the Cold War. 

The end of the Cold War occurred after Beijing had called for “equidistance” between the two superpowers. Despite benefits for Sinocentrism from Moscow’s loss of Central Asia and a sphere of influence in Asia, China’s response was largely negative, not welcoming the unipolar, US-led order and the blow to international communism. Having perceived a Grand Strategic Triangle inclusive of China during the later Cold War era, despite obvious weakness as the third power, Chinese pressed to reconstruct that legacy of the old order.

While in the 1960s-70s hostility to the Soviet Union reverberated in denunciations of Tsarist imperialism and Soviet social imperialism, accompanied by ideological revisionism, the crux of Cold War analysis remained more positive for the state that brought socialism forward than for the United States. In the uncertain reevaluation of the history of socialism through the 1980s, China sided mostly with Stalin, not Khrushchev. The collapse of the socialist bloc and the Soviet Union did not elicit more than tentative doubts about the Cold War narrative.

Three objectives of China prevailed in the 1990s and 2000s: (1) to boost its comprehensive national power to fulfill the unrealized expectations of the prior era; (2) to support as well as encourage Russia to reclaim its great power status and Soviet-era thinking versus the West; and (3) to undermine US power in Asia to make space for China’s ambitions or Sinocentrism. Curiously, this made a country most anxious to alter the status quo a claimant to being a status quo power, versus supposed Japanese, South Korean, and US moves to boost their regional presence, even if they meant holding the line against China’s behavior. All three of these rivals were criticized for designs to overturn the order China only feigned to protect. In contrast, Russia was treated as a country readily inclined to share China’s grievances.

Turning assessments of Soviet history on a dime started with the joint moratorium of 1982 on criticisms and the battle over coverage of that history, which peaked in internal sources (neibu) over the next decade. Criticism of Stalin could reverberate to Mao. Blaming Soviet behavior for the Cold War with the United States or for divisions in East Asia, such as with Japan and South Korea, would tarnish China’s foreign policy through parts of the Cold War. If the abiding challenge were the recovery of Taiwan and the advance of Sinocentrism, then the focus had to be kept on the United States and its allies, not on a reemerging partner. 

In the 1980s, there was some openness in seeking lessons from Soviet history for reform. In the 1990s, more exploration proved possible in explaining the causes of the Soviet collapse. In the 2000s, the fruits of archival research in Russia enabled revelations about the trajectory of socialist development. Yet, these forays into history always aroused criticism, which in the 2010s grew so intense that unpublished manuscripts piled up. Findings that systemic problems caused the collapse faded in favor of explanations that Gorbachev personally betrayed the Soviet cause, abetted by the peaceful evolution interference of the United States. Soviet foreign policy, apart from China, looked a lot better as Chinese urged its revival.

Historical coverage of the Soviet Union and the postwar world order grew more rigid as avenues of analysis were closed one by one: in 1987, shutting down the field of comparative socialism; in the late 1990s, centralizing publications with a focus on how they offered lessons for China to follow what leaders deemed the correct path; in the 2010s, more deliberate defense of the Stalinist model; and in the early 2020s, attacks on serious scholarship as “historical nihilism” and defense of the Soviet socialist system as inseparable from China’s model and lacking fundamental problems that could not be corrected. Support of an alternative viewpoint did not die out, faulting prolonged adherence to the Stalinist system, but censorship tightened.

For the Soviet Union and China alike, the Cold War—not only before normalization of their bilateral relationship with the United States—signified a struggle against containment to prevent their rise and encroach on their natural spheres of interest. If Chinese muddied the message at the apogee of the Sino-Soviet split and allowed some debate into the 2010s, the narrative hardened under Xi Jinping. Insistence that US policies are nothing short of containment these days is reinforced by tracing this mindset back to the Cold War period.

Setting aside the vitriolic exchanges over history during the Sino-Soviet split, Chinese kept quiet about lingering criticisms in favor of showing a common front at commemorations.
Disagreements about Tsarist expansion and the Soviet role in China to 1949 have quieted. On September 3, their joint stance reflected the degree to which histories now overlapped. They converged on faulting the United States for the Cold War, including the Korean War. Nefarious intentions toward China’s “rise” derive from alleged motives for the Korean War.

The legacy of historical diatribes from the Sino-Soviet split lies just below the surface. The “unequal treaties” pressed by “Tsarist imperialism” are remembered in museums closed to foreigners and in on-line outrage sparked by still smoldering cinders, such as commemoration on the other side of the border of the anniversary of Vladivostok. Tensions over the revolutionary movement in China and Soviet intervention—as well as over “big brother’s” interference in the 1950s, deemed threatening to China’s sovereignty—lurk in the shadows. However, the Communist Party leadership has no intention of complicating the narrative against current adversaries by allowing a mixed message of the Cold War to gain credibility among the Chinese public.

The Significance of the Korean War

The Cold War on the Korean Peninsula, unlike in Europe, was seen in China as a temporary divide that would rightly end with unification under North Korea. Despite recognizing the South Korean government in 1992, after agreeing to participate in the Seoul Olympics and to trade, Beijing never seriously reconsidered its view of the Cold War or even the Korean War, which remained rife with misinformation. It regretted Pyongyang’s angry reaction to its normalization with South Korea, refused to sanction the North, and continued to supply vital resources. If Beijing at times pressured Pyongyang to join in talks, facilitating Sino-US relations, it never agreed to what it considered US objectives for these talks. Maintaining a solid front at home increasingly took precedence: censoring debate on the origins of the Korean War and the behavior of North Korea that could cast doubt on the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party; blaming South Korea for negative views of China and dubious intentions toward the North while restricting its appeal to Chinese citizens; and misstating US policy toward North Korea, as if it were not primarily about peace and security vital for regional stability.

Serious scholarship on both South and North Korea appeared in the 1990s and lingered for a time. It grew more difficult as bilateral relations with both sides shifted. Objections by North Korea played a role, as in the closing of a journal in 2004. Improved ties reinforced censorship, preventing historical issues from damaging relations. In contrast, history became a force arousing distrust in South Korea: in 2004 over the Koguryo dynasty; in 2010 over the clear affirmation of a hardline position on the Korean War; and in “culture wars” rooted in historical pride or censorship of K-dramas about history. Most importantly, China traced the justification of its preference for North Korea over South Korea to the years 1945-1953.

Chinese referred to the situation on the Korean Peninsula as the “trap of the Cold War,” as if the end of the Cold War would not come to the peninsula until a negotiated settlement was reached, entirely different from the outcome elsewhere.  Unlike what had occurred on other fronts, Washington as well as Seoul bore the burden of changing course: they had to join in a system of regional cooperation approved by China. For South Korea, the priority was to respect the North’s system, boosted by economic cooperation, not some sort of political transformation or de-militarization. As for peace, that depended on US assurances of security for North Korea, the nature of which Chinese at times left vague but at other times depicted as the removal of US troops and a diminished US-ROK alliance. For Beijing, the priority was to rebuild trust with North Korea after the breakdown in 1992 and to forge a desired “balance” between North and South, to which Seoul, as well as Washington, would accede. Barely obscured in this reasoning were Sinocentric designs on both Koreas. Given North Korean wariness of such designs, China pressured it despite siding with it. Keeping up pressure on the North coexisted with ensuring that its regime could survive.

Insisting that the Cold War persisted in Asia, Chinese put the onus on South Korea to end it. In contrast to the flux in debates over Japan and the Soviet Union, views of Korean history had been fixed throughout the Cold War and were only weakly challenged afterwards. Most visibly, Chinese in the aftermath of the THAAD deployment in 2016, drew linkages to the Korean War and the Cold War. Above all, South Korea was tarnished by its alliance with the United States. Pretenses that it was balancing between the two powers gave it a reprieve at times, but in 2016, 2021, and 2023, China deemed that Seoul shared a “Cold War mentality.” Its history since 1945 and dependency on the United States defied accommodating China.

Whereas Japan and the United States never enjoyed much of a reprieve from criticisms of their history, South Korea, over a quarter century to 2016, appeared to show more promise for balancing against the United States, showing hostility to Japan, and accommodating its powerful neighbor. Its history also remained in limbo, more cooperative with imperial China and appreciative of its cultural sphere. Chinese vacillated on how to treat the progressive South Korean administrations. The arrival of conservative Lee Myung-bak in 2008 and the decision to give up on Park Geun-hye by the start of 2016 (before her THAAD deployment decision) resulted in harsher verdicts on South Korean history. Yet the handwriting was on the wall throughout the post-Cold War era, given judgments about the Korean War and the importance of a polarized assessment of the Cold War period as well as of CCP legitimacy.

Introducing Jin Linbo’s review of Chinese views of South Korea, I wrote, “As part of China’s tribute system, Korea was expected to express gratitude for its good fortune to be situated next to a benevolent neighbor, who seeks neither rapacious expansionism nor religious and other value-laden imperialism (pursued by the West). This came to matter more to Chinese as they glorified their own central role in a ‘harmonious world,’ bringing history to the forefront in ‘neighboring relations’ and articulating ideals for an exclusive Asian community. Ingratitude, therefore, lies at the core of their criticisms. Koreans should feel grateful for inheriting a superior culture and enjoying a harmonious order. South Koreans should also be indebted to China for its role in the most important event in their history—the removal of the Japanese occupation. In communist tradition, the anti-fascist struggle (now transposed into an anti-hegemonic, anti-militarist struggle) takes priority over other themes of bilateral relations. Koreans, it follows, should focus on this and be grateful for China’s assistance.”

I added, “During the Cold War, Seoul, imbued with anti-communist thinking, was blamed more than Pyongyang for the failure to improve relations. The Cold War context serves as a blanket explanation for trouble on the peninsula without any effort to take notice of North Korean belligerence. The Korean Peninsula is treated, then and now, as an arena of competition between great powers—it has little capacity to affect its own destiny. China’s 2015 writings depicted South Korea as at a crossroads, highlighting two themes: 1) balancing Sino-Japanese relations in the context of a historical dispute that spills over to security and territorial issues; and 2) balancing Sino-US relations in the context of South Korea’s reliance on the United States, which shifted slightly under Roh but remained unable to find equilibrium. Total dependency on Washington is deemed a product of the Cold War era and inconsistent with Seoul’s national interests today. Park at first stood strong, but in 2015 she shifted to separate history and security, to emphasize cooperation with Japan, and to accept the US push for trilateral security. Abe’s August 14 statement did not meet Korean demands, but Park swallowed it for the future. Disappointment with how she is handling relations with Japan is treated as a matter of historical injustice by China.”
Finally, I wrote, “Comments on Park’s betrayal on the history issue with Japan indicate that Beijing and Seoul had very different objectives in mind when they found common cause on this issue in 2013-15. For Xi, it was a matter not so much of responding to Abe’s extremism as of making Japan a pariah and putting history at the center of thinking about foreign policy—an approach that also applies to Korean affairs. The entire history of East and East versus West is at stake as South Koreans consider their place in the emerging world. Three historical judgments shape Chinese writings on South Korea: 1) the Cold War has not ended due to US mentality, China is the target along with Russia, and the Korean Peninsula is on the front lines with South Korea as a weak link for the United States; 2) the natural order in Asia is Sinocentric, and nothing China has done suggests that it should not be trusted ; and 3) the history of national liberation and revolution proved that China was a victim itself as well as a supporter of other victims, and Koreans should still oppose Japan—intent on glorifying and reviving its role— in solidarity with China.” Chinese authors demand that South Korea has a correct view of history. On Japan, this is not just about pre-1945 imperialism but also its legacy for resurgent militarism. On China, this is not just gratitude for past Sinocentrism but also for how China handled the Cold War and North Korea, justifying its current policies too.

In comparison to Chinese coverage of Japan’s history, South Koreans could find hope in the dual message of shared victimization with China and joint participation in a rebuilt regional order. Driving a wedge between Seoul and Tokyo remained a goal for a quarter century, and holding up the allure of South Korea’s “diplomatic diversification” through a “balanced” role in Sino-US relations endured even longer. After all, Chinese conveyed far greater optimism over Sino-ROK-US relations than over Sino-Japan-US relations, but another triangle muddied the picture. Tested over North Korea, China left South Koreans no less wary than Japanese.

The Legitimacy of US Alliances and the US Military Presence in the Asia-Pacific

Just as CCP legitimacy and identity rest on claims about defeating Japan in 1945, serving as the rightful companion to Soviet socialism from 1949, and making the choice in the Korean War from 1950 to save China and North Korea, a foreign policy of resisting containment by the United States after the collapse of the Soviet Union buttresses CCP authority. The US side is faulted for its postwar Japan, South Korea, and Soviet policies, making it complicit. Rather than crediting US policy with maintaining the status quo and regional stability, the United States draws sharp criticism for obstructing the natural regional order as China resumed its centrality.

In the 1980s, following decades of deriding imperial history, Chinese were more apt to blame their own history for problems than to draw a contrast claiming superiority over Western history. Through the 1990s, the contrast between the two histories remained obfuscated. Criticism of US unilateral policies toward China tended to leave out previous US history. As the verdict on China’s imperial-era history and Confucianism became more positive, so too did the treatment of Western history grow more negative. One staple of this disparagement was the charge that a “Cold War mindset” remained in the post-Cold War era. The US invasion of Iraq under false pretenses gave credibility to this critique, transposing US hostility toward the Soviet Union to its current thinking about China. No reason for the US hostility in the Cold War was traced to Soviet or Chinese conduct, nor was leadership in Beijing or Moscow blamed for the ongoing, nefarious behavior of the US and its allies. The downward slide in Chinese accusations centered on US history accelerated in 2009-10 with the global financial crisis, again with Xi Jinping’s emphasis on history from 2013, and even further with the tightening ideological message from the late 2010s. Qualifying words typical of the 1980s-2000s, when a positive message about the US economy prevailed, had scant relevance after confidence had risen and reverberated in contrast over the past.

Chinese views of the US military presence in the Western Pacific followed a similar course. In the 1980s, this was generally accepted as a bulwark against the Soviet Union. Through the 1990s, the US-Japan alliance was not much targeted, serving to keep Japan from its ambitions to become a military great power. The US military presence in South Korea or the South China Sea had not risen to the forefront in China’s regional coverage. Such hesitation grew rarer in the 2000s and was altogether missing under Xi Jinping’s rule. Sinocentrism grew blatant and could not be reconciled with US military activity in China’s sphere. A polarized view of spheres of influence spread, while Chinese feigned to blame the US for such polarization.

The source of US distorted thinking toward international relations is traced back in Chinese writings to the absence of Eastern civilization’s harmonious thinking in Western thought. In giving rise to internecine wars in Europe and by European states elsewhere, this worldview morphed into imperialism, manifest in cultural intolerance and missionary zeal abroad. In anti-communism, Chinese perceive the extension of deeply embedded Western outlooks.
Chinese attribute a zero-sum outlook to an engrained Western attitude that resulted in long periods of internecine wars, a Cold War containment strategy against the Soviet Union and China, and repeated rejection of Chinese win-win proposals in preference for containment since the end of the Cold War. Taking one-sided credit unfairly for the victory in 1945, the United States proceeded to fight a war of aggression in Korea, to lay siege to China, and to sign the San Francisco Treaty, which divided East Asia and undermined Japan’s obligations.

Chinese communists not only claim credit for defeating Japan, saving North Korea, and preventing the US from plans to advance in Asia and imperiling China’s sovereignty, they treat the Cold War as an extension of these virtuous causes. Further, the post-Cold War decades, in their view, saw the US double down on its hegemonic behavior in Asia, putting priority on the containment of China. Washington should have normalized ties with Pyongyang and encouraged Seoul to accept it as is. It also should have posed no barrier to Taiwan’s reunification with the PRC. Moreover, it stirred trouble with Japan and in Southeast Asia.

US advocacy of human rights is just a smokescreen for planting alien values and undermining civilizations. It starts with arrogance about cultural superiority. During the Cold War, such thinking led to efforts to undermine the Soviet Union, and peaceful evolution remains the strategy to overthrow Chinese communist leadership. US and US-allies’ support for China’s modernization from the 1980s is obscured. This bleak viewpoint is dominant in writings.

Relevance of the End of the Cold War for Arrangements from the Early Postwar Period

In many ways, China was a huge beneficiary of the end of the Cold War. The United States let its guard down, welcoming China as a partner in globalization. The Soviet Union was no longer a rival, but rather a supplicant for China’s support, while Central Asia had separated in a manner that gave China increasing leverage over the five new states. The shift away from security to economics gave China breathing room to concentrate on its economy, too, while building its military without attracting great attention. However, the main message from as early as 1987 and especially from the time the Soviet Union collapsed was that the negative impact was greater than the positive effects. All the above themes were relevant.

Chinese leaders had counted on a strategic triangle and a communist bloc. Moscow had become too weak to help balance Washington; Tokyo was in danger of breaking out of its restraints; Seoul threatened to overwhelm Pyongyang; and Washington was assumed to be preparing to undermine Beijing’s political order through “peaceful evolution.” Recovery of Taiwan now appeared more distant. The threat of “universal values” loomed much closer.

Downplaying the significance of the end of the Cold War became a feature of Chinese publications, while resuscitating the memories of the first Cold War decade served the new narrative. This meant treating Japan as a defeated country that had to remain apologetic and demilitarized. It also required reinforcing ties to North Korea, including the message that China had fought against US aggression there in a glorious struggle with enduring significance for China’s security and Sinocentric objectives. Rebuilding ties with Moscow as if the 1950s were the essence of their Cold War relationship served to overcome the legacy of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the communist bloc. Demonizing the United States became an essential step in reconstructing the atmosphere of a bygone period.

China’s rapid rise over four decades has put it in a much more favorable position in foreign relations. Boasting comprehensive national power far greater than Russia’s and gaining economic leverage over the United States, it was the pivot in the new grand security triangle. In the second half of the 1950s, it had been marginalized in this triangle, left exposed as a secondary force as Moscow had prioritized “peaceful coexistence” with Washington and ties with the “Third World” in the global bipolar competition. Hopes for reviving the triangle, beginning to take root in the 1980s, were temporarily dashed, but by the mid-1990s they were revived. After four decades, when China had little leverage on this triangle, it grew increasingly optimistic that time was on its side. The only other period of such optimism—through the mid-1950s—served as a touchstone for moving ahead again. The interval of the Sino-Soviet split and China’s leaning to the US side in great-power affairs is shunted to the sidelines through selective emphasis on the decade right after World War II.

Conclusion

The Chinese view of history in the decade following Mao Zedong’s death, which lingered haphazardly through another decade and even popped up during the following one, threatened the legitimacy of the Communist Party of China and national solidarity in the advancing confrontation with the United States. Even at the peak of Sino-US relations and open debate about history, it was severely challenged. Negativity toward Soviet history did not filter through censorship in the mid-1980s without serious pushback, from insistence that Khrushchev’s “thaw” was wrong to quick rejection of Gorbachev’s “new thinking.”  As a small number of informed think tank specialists tested “new thinking” toward Japan and a negative image of North Korea, a firm line was being drawn by the late 2000s. The image of South Korea deteriorated throughout the 2000s, fueled by “culture wars.” The tightened censorship over Soviet history accelerated through the 2010s. Historical writings on the United States and the West were not immune to this trend. History served as a weapon in reconstructing Chinese national identity and a forerunner of hardening foreign policy.

As in Confucian historiography to 1911 and communist guidebooks into the 1980s, there was no period in the past neglected in the historical narrative solidifying by the 2010s. The resistance to Sinocentrism in Japan and Korea in imperial times drew new notice. The betrayal of China in the century of “humiliation” was not overlooked. Positions countries took over the Cold War era, from the Korean War to the 1970s, resonated anew. The post-Cold War era further served as a test of “containment” versus “alignment,” setting economics aside. Across the broad sweep of history, nothing mattered more than the early Cold War years.

Ambivalent policies toward the United States and Japan from 1972 and South Korea from 1992 were overshadowed by alleged continuities between policies in the first decade of the postwar era and those assumed to exist in the post-Cold War era. Moscow regained its position as the partner of choice, Pyongyang as an ally under siege, Tokyo and Seoul as betrayers of East Asian regionalism, and Washington as an irreconcilable antagonist. The generation of able and empirical historians who had emerged in the 1990s found reduced opportunities to conduct professional research on their areas of specialization. Readers in China found it harder to gain a balanced view of the past and the present. Hope for deeper mutual understanding as a foundation for international relations suffered a decisive blow.

*This article and the companion piece on Russia are written without endnotes. They draw largely on earlier postings in The Asan Forum by me or summarized by me.