Mao ordered attack on Soviet border guards, say scholars

One of the mysteries of the Cold War may have been solved. New research shows Mao Zedong ordered troops to launch a surprise attack on Soviet border guards in March 1969, an event which brought the two nuclear powers close to war.

After Soviet and Chinese troops fought a battle for Damansky or Zhenbao Island, China mobilised the population to dig fallout shelters and prepare to survive a nuclear attack.

The then US secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, encouraged Chinese fears. He warned Beijing that the Soviets were preparing to target China and that they had more forces on the border facing China than on the border facing Western Europe, which was untrue.

The apparent evidence of aggressive Soviet expansionism in the Russian Far East soon brought China and the United States together in an alliance.

Now an article in the China Quarterly journal by American scholar Lyle Goldstein says new evidence made available in Moscow and Beijing makes clear that Chairman Mao secretly ordered the attack to bolster his regime as he tried to bring the Cultural Revolution to an end.

The article cites Chinese historians including Yang Kuisong, of the Institute of Modern History in Beijing, as saying the attack in which more than 30 Soviet troops died was a deliberate ambush and not a clash. According to Li Danhui, of the Modern History Research Centre at Beijing University, China had begun preparations in 1968 to start a small war on the border, but the Soviets did not respond to provocation.

In books and articles published over the past two years, Chinese historians have begun labelling the incident a 'self-defence counter-attack' and said Mao did not want a war but he did want 'a large-scale clash'.