Sino-Soviet relations (; , sovetsko-kitayskiye otnosheniya), or China–Soviet Union relations, refers to the diplomatic relationship between China (both the Republic of China of 1912–1949 and its successor, the People's Republic of China) and the various forms of Soviet Power which emerged from the Russian Revolution of 1917 to 1991, when the Soviet Union ceased to exist.
In 1921, the Soviet Russia played an important role in supporting the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) through the Communist International (Comintern), and decided to support the Kuomintang. The Soviet Union, established in 1922, ordered the CCP to enter into an alliance with the Kuomintang in 1923. The resulting First United Front launched the Northern Expedition, aiming to united China. In 1927, Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek turned against the CCP, leading to the start of the Chinese Civil War; the Soviets offered some aid to the CCP. The Republic of China and the Soviet Union had a brief border conflict in 1929. The Soviet Union also invaded the Chinese province of Xinjiang in 1934, as well as another intervention in 1937 to support the pro-Soviet governor Sheng Shicai. After the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with China and provided military help. In 1944, the Soviet Union sponsored the Ili Rebellion in Xinjiang. The Soviet Union eventually launched an invasion of Manchuria in 1945, which at the time was under Japanese occupation.
The two countries signed the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance, leading to ROC recognition of the Mongolian People's Republic, though the ROC later revoked the treaty. With the resumption of the Chinese Civil War and increasing success of the CCP, the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin decided to aid the CCP against the Kuomintang. CCP leader Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China on 1 October 1949, followed by an immediate recognition by the Soviet Union, which emerged as the PRC's closest ally. The two countries signed the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance in 1950. The Soviet Union sent significant military and economic aid to the new People's Republic, and the two countries backed North Korea during the Korean War. Relations began to deteriorate under Nikita Khrushchev, with Mao opposing Khrushchev's pursuit of closer relations with the West as well as what Mao called "Soviet revisionism", while Khrushchev opposed Mao's political and economic policies.
The deterioration eventually led to the Sino-Soviet split in 1961. This was followed by a rivalry between the two nations. including fighting in the Sino-Soviet border conflict in 1969 where the Soviet Union considered a preemptive nuclear strike on China; the border conflict led China to not renew its friendship treaty with the Soviet Union. The two countries also competed for the leadership of the international communist movement. The worsening of the relationship led China to improve relations with the United States in the 1970s. After Mao died in 1976, he was succeeded by Deng Xiaoping who initiated the reform and opening up. Though the relationship initially improved, China invaded Soviet ally Vietnam in 1979 after Vietnam had invaded Cambodia to oust the pro-Chinese Khmer Rouge from power. The relationship improved further under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev, who took office in 1985 and initiated economic and political reforms in the Soviet Union, with Gorbachev visiting Beijing in 1989 for the first summit between the two nations in since 1959. The Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, leading China to establish diplomatic relations with the Russian Federation.
Republic of China The Beiyang government in North China joined the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, sending forces to Siberia and North Russia beginning in 1918.
Mongolia and Tuva became contested territories. After being occupied by the Chinese General Xu Shuzheng in 1919, they came under the sway of the Russian White Guard General turned independent warlord, Roman von Ungern-Sternberg in 1920. Soviet troops, with support from Mongolian guerrillas led by Damdin Sükhbaatar, defeated the White warlord and established a new pro-Soviet Mongolian client state, which by 1924 became the Mongolian People's Republic.
Grigori Voitinsky played an important role in the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in July 1921 through the Communist International (Comintern). Moscow Sun Yat-sen University served as a training camp for Chinese revolutionaries from both the Kuomintang (KMT) and the CCP. In 1921, Soviet Russia began supporting the Kuomintang (KMT), and in 1923 the Comintern instructed the CCP to sign a military treaty with the KMT. On 31 May 1924, the two governments signed an agreement to establish diplomatic relations.
Sun Yat-sen welcomed the Soviet support, which assisted the KMT in fighting the northern warlords. From the Soviet perspective, its aid was consistent with the Soviet commitment to help revolutionary parties in other countries engage in national revolutions.
Sun's Soviet advisor Mikhail Borodin and his aides started Whampoa Military Academy in May 1924. The academy provided training for commanders who would be significant in both the KMT and the communist armies and provided a military edge over the less professionalized Chinese warlord armies. Soviet advisors were the academy's primary instructors.
In 1926, KMT leader Chiang Kai-shek abruptly dismissed his Soviet advisers and imposed restrictions on CCP participation in the government. By 1927, after the conclusion of the Northern Expedition, Chiang ended the First United Front between the CCP and Kuomintang, resulting in the Chinese Civil War which would last until 1949.
Sino-Soviet conflict of 1929
Second Sino-Japanese War
In 1931, Japan invaded Manchuria and created the puppet state of Manchukuo (1932), which signaled the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War. In August 1937, a month after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, the Soviet Union established a non-aggression pact with the Republic of China. The Republic of China received credits for $250 million for the purchase of Soviet weapons. There followed big arms deliveries, including guns, artillery pieces, more than 900 aircraft and 82 tanks. More than 1,500 Soviet military advisers and about 2,000 members of the air force were sent to China. Soviet aid to the Nationalist government was halted after the signing of the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact in April 1941. The CCP stated that the pact was "a great victory for Soviet diplomacy" and "was beneficial to liberation throughout China." Joseph Stalin viewed Japan as a potential enemy, and as a result offered no help to the CCP between 1937 and 1941, in order not to weaken efforts of the Nationalist government.
While the Republic of China was concentrating on the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Soviet Union supported Uyghur nationalists in their uprising in Xinjiang and set up Second East Turkestan Republic against the Kuomintang. After the CCP defeated the Kuomintang in 1949, the Soviet Union terminated support for the Second East Turkestan Republic. The Soviets tried to spread anti-Chinese propaganda among minorities in Xinjiang, but this backfired when Uyghur mobs attacked White Russians and called for them to be expelled from Xinjiang.
On 8 August 1945, three months after Nazi Germany surrendered, and on the week of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States, the Soviet Union launched the invasion of Manchuria, a massive military operation mobilizing 1.5 million soldiers against one million Kwantung Army troops, the last remaining Japanese military presence. Soviet forces won a decisive victory while the Kwantung suffered massive casualties, with 700,000 having surrendered.
In late August 1945, Stalin proposed to Mao that the region north of the Yangtze river be ruled by the CCP and that the region south by ruled by the KMT. According to Wang Jiaxiang, China's first ambassador to the Soviet Union, Stalin was concerned by the independent streak of communist China and was concerned about the prospect of future competition with the Soviet Union. In September 1945, the CCP dispatched soldiers to Soviet-occupied Manchuria. The CCP obtained Japanese arms with Soviet help. The Soviet stance regarding the CCP and the KMT oscillated during this period, and in November 1945 the Soviet Union requested that the CCP withdraw from major cities in Manchuria.
After 1946, the CCP was increasingly successful in the Civil War. Until the late 1940s, the Soviet Union had hedged and supported both the CCP and the KMT. In late 1948, the Soviet Union committed fully to supporting the CCP. In May 1948, the Soviet Union had advised the CCP not to cross the Yangtze river with its army, but in April 1949 the CCP ignored this advice, and the People's Liberation Army launched a crossing of the Yangtze river and captured the KMT's capital city, Nanjing, in only a matter of days. On 30 June 1949, Mao stated that China would "lean to one side" in the Cold War era and favor the socialist camp over the capitalist camp. Mao announced that China must ally "with the Soviet Union, with every New Democratic Country, and with the proletariat and broad masses in all other countries".
People's Republic of China On 1 October 1949, the People's Republic of China was proclaimed by Mao Zedong, and by May 1950 the KMT had been expelled from Mainland China, remaining in control of Taiwan. With the creation of the People's Republic of China, the supreme political authority in the two countries became centred in two communist parties, both espousing revolutionary, Marxist–Leninist ideology: the CCP and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The day after the PRC's founding, the Soviet Union terminated its diplomatic relations with the KMT and recognized the PRC.
In late 1949, Mao went to Moscow to seek economic help. Stalin kept him waiting for weeks, humiliating Mao in treatment worthy of a minor vassal. Stalin was focused on European matters and sought Mao's assistance in supporting the Vietnamese Communists against France in the First Indochina War. Mao accepted Stalin's view of a "worldwide communist revolution" and agreed to share "the international responsibility" and support the Vietnamese communists. After Mao's return to China, the country began sending military advisors and military aid to the Vietnamese. In the early PRC, Gao Gang and the Northeast People's Government had major roles in conducting the China's relations with the Soviet Union.
After the establishment of the People's Republic of China, a sensitive issue emerged. As a condition of fighting the Kwantung Army at the end of World War II, the Soviet Union received usage rights of the Chinese Eastern Railway, the South Manchuria Railway, Lüshun (also known as Port Arthur) and Dalian. These privileges were significant in the Asian strategies of the Soviet Union because Port Arthur and Dalian were ice-free ports for the Soviet Navy, and the Chinese Eastern Railway and the South Manchuria Railway were the essential arterial communications which connected Siberia to Port Arthur and Dalian. As Mao Zedong thought that the usage rights of the Chinese Eastern Railway, the South Manchuria Railway, the Port Arthur and Dalian were part of Chinese state sovereignty, he required the Soviet Union to return these interests to China, and this was a crucial part of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship. Joseph Stalin initially refused this treaty, but finally agreed with this treaty. However, the ports were not returned until after Stalin died.