OIL AND ASIAN RIVALS SEPTEMBER 12, 1973; JANUARY 30, FEBRUARY 6, 20, AND MARCH 6, 1974 Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE States is rich in mineral wealth and may be the key to Russia's greatness in the future. In any case the tense relations between the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union are a threat to world peace that must be understood in the United States if we wish to avoid being entangled in a conflict between two of the greatest nations in the world. China's population approaches a billion. The Soviet Union's population is at least 240 million. We will begin today a lengthy set of hearings that will continue into 1974 because no greater issue faces the world today. Our first witness is Prof. Harold C. Hinton of the Institute of Sino-Soviet Studies, George Washington University, Washington, D.C. Professor, we are very happy to have you. You may proceed, Professor Hinton. STATEMENT OF HAROLD C. HINTON, PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY Mr. HINTON. Thank you very much, sir. I am going to make an oral statement and submit for the record, if I may, a slightly longer statement. Mr. Nix. Without objection it is so ordered. Mr. HINTON. I have been asked to testify on the Sino-Soviet border confrontation, a subject I have worked on for the last few years quite considerably. Without going into the origins of it in detail, let me suggest that it is an outgrowth of the general political quarrel between the Chinese and Soviets, which goes well back into the 1950's. The dispute is not really over territory in the strict sense. It is, however, a very serious dispute which obviously has the possibility of escalating to the level of war. The Soviet Union has assembled what is probably the greatest single collection of firepower, both conventional and nuclear, ever in a theater of operations. Why? I suggest in the first place, a racial, not necessarily wholly rational, fear of the Chinese, including a fear of the growing Chinese nuclear weapons capability and a presumed irrationality on the part of the Chinese leadership. Also, there is on the Soviet side, I believe, a desire to apply pressure to the Chinese for political effect, probably after the death of Mao rather than before. Third, I think that at least some of the elements of the Soviet leadership find the Chinese useful, even though rather disturbing, as an adversary. On their side, the Chinese also find the Soviets useful at home and abroad, but they are genuinely afraid of them, even though they seem to believe at the present time that the risks of their confrontation which the Soviet Union have become manageable as a result of the strengths of the military and political position of China combined. Now, this mutual obsession between the Chinese and Soviets has, I think, helped to calm the atmosphere in Europe, by diverting Soviet pressures in an easterly direction toward China, and also in the Far East, except of course along the Sino-Soviet border itself. |