Mao Zedong and the Third National Security Conference

Written by Yin Shusheng 

(Former Executive Deputy Director of Public Security Bureau, Anhui Province,

also worked in Public Security Bureau, Qinghai Province)

Translated by Jianglin Li

(Author of Tibet in Agony: Lhasa 1959)

Edited by Matthew Akester

*All notes and square brackets added by translator*

 

A page from the Third National Security Conference

Partial instructions of Mao Zedong to Huang Jing[1]

In the 17 years prior to the Cultural Revolution, the Ministry of Public Security held a total of 14 national public security conferences. Most of these conferences were directly guided by Mao Zedong.  The Third National Public Security Conference in particular, held in Beijing from May 10 to 15, 1951, was under the direct leadership of Mao Zedong, to which he devoted great energy. The first draft of the Resolution of the Third National Public Security Conference passed at the conference was penned by Peng Zhen (彭真)[2] and Luo Ruiqing （罗瑞卿）.[3]  However, dissatisfied after reading it, Mao Zedong personally revised the document four times, making so many changes in the manuscript that the original became virtually unrecognizable. In a sense, this resolution was actually written by Mao Zedong himself.

The Third National Public Security Conference was originally planned in June and July 1951, with the agenda of reporting and summarizing situation regarding theSuppressing Counter-revolutionaries Campaign throughout the country since the “Double Ten Directives” [4] were issued, summing up and exchanging experiences, and deploying tasks for the second phase of the campaign. However, at the beginning of May, Mao Zedong called Luo Ruiqing and made it clear to him that the Third National Public Security Conference could not wait till June or July, it must be held immediately. Following Mao Zedong’s instructions, the conference time was shifted to an earlier date to May 10th, during which the resolution was passed.  On May 16th, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CCP) approved the resolution and forwarded it to provincial party secretaries, requesting that  "the entire party and the entire army must resolutely and completely implement [the resolution] as such."

At the Ninth National Public Security Conference in 1958, Luo Ruiqing summed up the public security work in the past nine years since the founding of the People's Republic of China: "The Third National Public Security Conference is an meeting with great significance not only in the history of our public security work, but also in the history of our party.   This conference played a decisive role in consolidating the achievements of the first large-scale Suppressing Counter-revolutionaries Campaign, enabling us to prevent and timely correct mistakes. This meeting is also the key that allowed us to eliminate remnants of the counter-revolutionaries in a short period of time without making mistakes of proliferating the movement.”

Luo Ruiqing spoke highly of the Third National Public Security Conference because it was directly related to the content of the " Resolution of the Third National Public Security Conference" (hereinafter referred to as the Resolution) drafted by Mao Zedong himself. Let us take a look at the main content of the "resolution", you will have a better understanding.

The Resolution issued a clear order that the large-scale Suppressing Counter-revolutionaries Campaign must be pulled back and recuperate immediately. Within the next four months, with the exception that the counter-revolutionaries who had carried out sabotaging activities must be arrested and sentenced, all other arrests and killings must be temporarily suspended ;  and that the number of  counter-revolutionaries to be killed must be limited to certain population ratio, that is, around 0.5 to 1‰ of the total population, the highest ratio could not exceed 2‰. Authority of approving arrests should be taken back from the county level to prefecture and commission level; authority of approving killings should be taken from the prefecture level back to the level of province, autonomous region and directly governed cities. 

In addition to these regulations, the Resolution also stipulated that future arrests and executions must be in accordance with the following principles: make sure not to arrest those who could or could not be arrested, to arrest them would be considered as committing an error; making sure not to kill those who could or could not be killed, to kill them would be considered as committing an error. Principles of killing counter-revolutionaries were as the following: those who had blood debts or had committed other serious crimes (such as rape) and had to be killed to assuage the people's anger, and those who had caused serious damage to national interests must be given death sentence and execute immediately. For those who did not have blood debts and no public resentment, and those who had caused serious damage to the national interest but had not yet reached the most serious level, but whose offences were serious enough for capital punishment,  the policy of death penalty with a two-year execution suspension and forced labor to observe the aftereffects should be adopted.

The Resolution specifically requested that execution of the counter-revolutionaries swept up from the Communist Party, the people's government, and the People's Liberation Army systems and the cultural and educational circles, the business sector, the religious circles, the democratic parties and people's organizations whose offenses were serious enough for death penalty should follow the principle that  in general 1 or 2 in every ten should be executed, the other 8 or 9 should adopt the policy of death penalty with a two-year execution suspension and forced labor to observe the aftereffects. The resolution also contains contents of sorting out accumulated cases, organizing prisoners into reform-through-labor camps in order to create national wealth, etc.

Why did the Resolution urgently put on the brakes to the large-scale Suppressing Counter-revolutionaries Campaign that was in full swing? The reason was that since the campaign started, in a short time of just a few months, more than 2 million people had been arrested, and more than 500,000 killed.  Mass arrests and killings continued into May, and the momentum did not show any signs of weakening. Instead, the pervasive feeling among party, government, and military cadres at all levels, the ones who were responsible of leading the campaign, especially the local and county-level cadres, was to make more arrests and killings. They conducted hasty arrests and killings. In many places some of the “borderline” people were arrested and killed (investigations showed about one-third in each category) , some were even mistakenly arrested or killed. If no emergency brake was put, more would have been arrested and killed, and the consequences would be unimaginable.

Regarding the number of  arrests and killings in the Suppressing Counter-revolutionaries Campaign, Xu Zirong, executive deputy minister of the Ministry of Public Security, said in a report in January 1954: Since the beginning of the Suppressing Counter-revolutionaries Campaign, more than 2.62 million arrests were made nationwide, among those, 712,000 were executed, more than 1,290,000 imprisoned, 1,200,000 successively placed under surveillance, and more than 38,000 released after education. What Xu Zirong said was the general number of arrests and killings in the first large-scale Suppressing Counter-revolutionaries Campaign. This campaign, however, lasted for three years and was divided into three phases. The first phase was from October 1950 to September 1951; the second phase from October 1951 to September 1952; the third phase from October 1952 to the end of 1953.

According to the statistics from public security department, the number of killings in the first phase accounted for about 75% of the total killings in the campaign. Taking the killings as 712,000, more than 543,000 killings took place in the first phase, mainly in the months of February, March, April and May of 1951. Since the first phase of the campaign was initiated after the “Double Ten Directives” were issued, there was a process of communication, organization, and implementation. The actual implementation began in January 1951, and the climax was in the four months of February, March, April and May. Only a small number of arrests and killings occurred before January 1951. The four months from June to September were period of restriction and recuperation, the requirement was to suspend arrests and killings (except for current offenses). Therefore, the 500,000 plus killings executed in the first phase mainly took place in the four months of February, March, April, and May. In just a few months, more than 500,000 people were killed, surpassing the total number of deaths in the three major battles (Liaoshen, Pingjin and Huaihai) in the civil war. This was truly astonishing. (According to the Full History of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, during the four years of the Liberation War, death toll in our army was about 300,000, that of the Kuomintang army was 400,000, added up to 700,000. Combined death toll in both the Kuomintang and Communist armies in the three major battles of Liaoning, Pingjin and Huaihai was more than 400,000.)

At that time, the party, government, and military leaders in the entire country were busy with executions, and were rushing to kill. Some people were arrested the day before, and were shot to death in the next day or even in the same day, some were arrested at night and shot in the daytime. If situation continued in this way, big trouble was ensured!  More importantly, the left-wing sentiment prevailed among the party, government, and military leading cadres commanding the Suppressing Counter-revolutionaries Campaign,  they demanded more arrests and killings. If this ideological tendency was not corrected in time, the campaign would develop toward the wrong direction. Mao Zedong saw the seriousness of the problem and gave clear instruction: "Do not overkill, too many killings will cost us social sympathy and lose labor power."

The question is: how did the storm of hastiness, of mass arrests, mass killings, wrong arrests and wrong killings started? Fundamentally it started from the Central Committee. In the early days of the campaign, some leaders were timid and hesitant and failed to render effective strikes on current Counter-revolutionary activities. Mao Zedong criticized the tendency of "leniency without boundary." In the “Directives on Correcting the Right-wing Bias in Suppressing Counter-Revolution Activities” [i.e., “Double Ten Directives”] ，the CCP Central Committee made this point: “A serious right-wing bias exists on the issue of suppressing counter-revolutionaries. As a result, a large number of ringleaders and wicked counter-revolutionary elements who continued to do evils after the Liberation and even after being leniently treated have escaped the punishment they deserve.”  However, at the same time, the "Double Ten Directives" also made it clear that in order to prevent the "left-wing" tendency, it is necessary to insist on emphasizing evidence, investigation and research; confession under duress and torture were strictly prohibited.

On the issue of how to implement such a large-scale campaign and how to ensure its healthy development, the Central Committee and Mao Zedong did not put forward effective and operable measures. They continued to use the methods of the revolutionary war and mass movement instead of the legal approach. At the beginning of 1949, the CCP Central Committee announced the abolition of the "Six Codes". [5] Since then, no new laws have been enacted to replace them. Although the Government Administration Council later introduced “Regulations on Punishing the Counter-Revolutionaries," they are all substantive and difficult-to-grasp principals without procedural regulations. Therefore, the large-scale Suppressing Counter-revolutionaries Campaign was in fact in a state that there was no law to abide by, relying entirely on the documents issued by the Central Committee and the instructions from the top leaders, mainly from Mao Zedong.

To lead the campaign, Mao Zedong used the same methods he used to command war in the revolutionary war era. On the issue of arrests and killings, quotas, fixed tasks and deadlines were imposed. He fell on subjective judgment and was eager for quick results by constantly issuing instructions,[6] demanding certain number of arrests and killings at certain places must be done by certain time.  Although the "Double Ten Directives" required "laying stress on evidence and not too ready to believe confession " in the campaign, and  "death penalty must been approved by provincial, municipal, district and the commissioned local committees" , when pressed by deadlines, task requirements and quotas imposed by Mao Zedong, it was impossible to follow these regulations,  not to say that the authority to arrest and kill had been transferred by Mao Zedong the supreme leader to lower level.

Let us take a closer look at how the Central Committee, mainly Mao Zedong, led the campaign by issuing orders.

On January 17th, 1951, Mao Zedong received a suppressing Counter-revolutionaries report of the 27th Army stationed in western Hunan province submitted by the South-Central Bureau. The report stated that in the 21 counties of western Hunan the garrison troops alone had executed more than 4,600 bandit leaders, local bullies and spies, and prepared to let the local government to kill another batch. Mao Zedong penned the following comment: "This move is very necessary," and stressed that "it is necessary to kill a few more big batches, especially in the places where bandits, bullies and spies are congregated, " demanding that "all the localities must be quick to follow this example without fail."

On January 22nd, Mao Zedong telegraphed the South China Bureau and the leaders of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee: "You have killed more than 3,700, which is very good, kill 3,000 or 4,000 more," "You can set killing 8 or 9 thousand as the goal for this year." On January 29, the Ministry of Public Security reported to the Central South Military and Political Committee [7] that Hubei Province had made 19,823 arrests, including 160 within the provincial government. The Ministry of Public Security made this remark on the report: " Making arrests without internal and external distinguish may easily cause panic and ideological fluctuations among cadres." Mao Zedong saw this remark, and criticized the Ministry of Public Security: "Hubei is doing very well, don't dump cold water on them."

On February 5th, the Northwest Bureau of the CPC Central Committee reported that more than 5,000 had been arrested in two months and more than 500 had been killed. In general, the killings were not strong and powerful enough, and the procedure was slow.  However, it was required that the implementation of the suppressing counter-revolutionaries plan must be stable and steady, and all killings must be approved by the province (this is the requirement of the "Double Ten Directives” - the author). After reading the report, Mao commented: "Regarding the death sentences, execution of mild cases can be approved by prefectural level." Subordinates followed the example set by their superiors, thus in many places, the authority to approve killings was transferred from the prefectural level further down to the county level.

In the Suppressing Counter-revolutionaries Campaign, whether a criminal should be killed was not decided in accordance with his crime, but was based on the quota set on population proportion, which required that certain number of people must be killed in a certain place or city.   This is the biggest absurdity. Mao Zedong originally demanded that the proportion of execution should reach 0.5 ‰ of total local population; in a place where the situation was more serious, it should reach 1 ‰ of total local population. Later, he said that some places can exceed this quota, but not more than 1.5 ‰, and the most should not exceed 2 ‰.

In mid-February 1951, Mao Zedong directly telegrammed the heads of the Shanghai and Nanjing party Committees: "Shanghai is a big city with a population of 6 million. Based on the situation that in Shanghai, more than 20,000 arrests have been made but only over 200 were killed. I think that in the year of 1951, at least around 3,000 bandit ringleaders, professional brigands, bullies, spies, and superstitious organizations and secret society leaders should be killed. At least about 1,500 should be killed in the first half of the year. Please consider whether this number is appropriate.  In Nanjing, according to the February 3^rd telegram sent by Comrade Ke Qingshi[8] to Comrade Rao Shushi,[9] 72 had been killed and the plan was to kill another 1,500. This number is too small. Nanjing is a big city with a population of 500,000 and the capital of the Kuomintang. Reactionary elements should be killed seem to be more than 2000.” “Nanjing kills too few people; more should be killed in Nanjing!"

On February 2, 1951, the Administrative Council issued “Regulations on Punishing Counter-Revolutionaries". Mao Zedong immediately instructed [leaders of] Beijing, Tianjin, Qingdao, Shanghai, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Chongqing and other provincial capitals, saying that these places were “important nests of counter-revolutionary organizations. Reconnaissance and arrests must be arranged in a planned manner. Within a few months, a large number of counter-revolutionaries with serious crimes and well-found evidence must be killed."

On February 17th, 1951, under the direct leadership and command of Luo Ruiqing, 675 arrests were made overnight. On the second day (February 18), 58 were publicly executed. At the night of March 7th, another 1050 were arrested, and 199 were publicly executed on 25th. Mao Zedong gave Beijing his full affirmation. To implement Mao Zedong’s instructions, the CCP Tianjin Municipal Committee reported in early March that on top of the 150 executions already done, another 1,500 executions had been planned. Mao Zedong commented: "I hope that Shanghai, Nanjing, Qingdao, Guangzhou, Wuhan and other big and medium-sized cities will have an operable suppressing counter-revolutionary plan for the next few months to the end of this year. The masses have said that killing the counter-revolutionaries is more exciting than enjoying a thorough rain. I hope that every big and medium-sized city will kill a few large batches of counter-revolutionaries."

In accordance with Mao Zedong’s repeated urge and instructions to “kill a few large batches of counter-revolutionaries”, the CCP Shanghai Municipal Committee reported to the Central Committee: “Shanghai is determined to give a free hand in making another  10,000 arrests, 3,000 executions, 4,000 imprisonments and 3,000 supervisions on top of the 1,068 arrests and the more than 100 executions already made.  " Mao Zedong fully affirmed the Shanghai Party Committee's attitude of correcting the overcautious approach on making arrests and executions, and the action-plan of major arrests and executions. He immediately cabled the Shanghai Party Committee: "If you can arrest more than 10,000 and kill 3,000, it will play a great role in promoting the suppressing counter-revolutionaries work in other cities. You should take note to rapid trial after arrests were made, the first batch to be killed ought to be set in about half a month, sentencing and execution should be done every couple of days after that.” Following Mao’s instructions, the Shanghai Party Committee arrested 8,359 people in one day on April 27, only 3 days later, 285 were executed in one day on April 30, and 28 more were executed on May 9. After the "Resolution" was released, due to the inertia, Shanghai’s mass arrest and executions did not stop right away. On June 15th, 284 more were executed, and every few days, a group of people, sometimes a couple of dozens, sometimes 140 or 150, were shot to death after that.

Due to Mao Zedong’s supervision and encouragement, arrests and killings went out of control. Some localities requested to break through the arrest and killing quotas set by the Central Committee, especially the killing quotas. The Guizhou Provincial Party Committee proposed that unless the number of killings reached 3‰ of the total population, problem would not be solved. Southwest and South China [bureaus] also requested to break through the quotas. By the beginning of May 1951, Guangdong and Guangxi provinces had made 188,679 arrests and 57,032 executions, among the executions, 10,488 were made in Guangdong in April alone. By the end of April, more than 358,000 arrests were made in the region of East China, and more than 108,400 were executed, accounting for 0.78‰ of the total population. In the southern central regions, in early May, more than 200,000 people were executed, close to 1.5‰ of the total population.  

The situation of unorderly arresting and killing had drawn the attention of some local party committees. On the eve of the Third National Public Security Conference, the CCP Shandong Branch issued a notice stipulating that “the proportion of killings in Shandong, regardless in the city or in the country, should be less than 1‰.” (This is due to the fact that Shandong had already finished land reform, during which many landlords and local bullies had been killed, killings in both campaigns added up had already exceeded the quota of 1‰ - the author).

On the 23rd of March, Huang Kecheng, secretary of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee, reported to the Central Committee and Mao Zedong: "There have been cases where the scope of arrests has been expanded and the handling is sloppy - and it has begun to involve internal (underground party branches, enterprises, governments and institutions), and the struggles with the hidden counter-revolutionaries needs to be more refined. " “We intend to hold back immediately – to limit the scope of killings, and the struggle is to be carried out in a planned and step-by-step manner." He was the first provincial party committee leader to propose holding back the campaign and limit the scope of arrests and killings. But Mao Zedong ignored it.

Meanwhile, in mid-April, the South-Central Bureau ordered Hunan, Henan, Jiangxi, and Hubei provinces to stop mass arrests and executions, and to return the authority of approving executions to provincial party committees. However, the result had been minimal. After the order was issued, in less than one month, from late April to mid-May, more than 50,000 people were executed in these four provinces, and majority of them did not go through the approval procedures. It was clear that the problem could only be solved by the person who started it. To correct the disorderly situation of mass arrests and executions, Mao Zedong had to attend to the matter personally and issue instructions to effectively halt it.

Mao Zedong began to worry that the number of killings was getting bigger and bigger and that the situation had gone out of control. On April 20, he cabled secretaries of all CCP regional bureaus, requesting them to control the execution proportion: "Although the Central Committee meeting in February had decided that the standard of execution number was temporarily set as 0.5‰ of the total population,  but now the Southwest has reached 1‰,  and some provinces in South Central and the East China have reached 1‰, and some places have already exceeded [1‰]. Generally speaking, it seems that to solve the problem the three regions of East China, South Central and Southwest all have to exceed 1‰. However, it does not seem to be appropriate to exceed too much. The Liuzhou prefecture[10] wanted to kill 5‰, which is obviously wrong. Guizhou Provincial Party Committee has requested to kill 3‰, that I feel is too many. I have the idea that 1‰ can be exceeded, but not too much. Don’t set 2‰ in general as a standard.   It should be a norm to list many prisoners as life sentence, take them away from their hometown to be concentrated by government in batches, and put them in productive work to construct roads and dams, cultivate wasteland, and building houses. For example, of the 60,000 more prisoners the southwestern region has planned to kill, just kill about 30,000 to assuage popular indignation, and gather the remaining 30,000 in batches to do production work.” “Take at 0.5‰ of the population, there are more than 150,000 people in the three regions of Southwest, South Central and East China [to be killed], that is a big labor power" (that is, if the three regions followed their original plan and keep the execution ratio at 0.5‰, they would kill 150,000 less. In fact, all [three regions] have exceeded 1‰. If 1.5‰ ratio is reached, 300,000 more will be killed - the author); "Guizhou Provincial Party Committee requested to kill another 22,000 to 25,000. We can allow them to kill a little more than 10,000, leaving more than 10,000 not to kill. This already exceeds the 2‰ ratio.  To handle the situation in accordance with Guizhou’s special circumstance, it will be considered as [striking] hard and on target. “ ( Using special circumstances as an excuse to allow Guizhou to break through the quota of 2‰, this means that it does not matter for other places to break through the quota and kill more. There is no determination to correct the mistake. - the author).

He then telegraphed leaders of the South China Bureau: "Based on the situation that more than 57,000 have been killed in South China, and there are still more than 160,000 imprisoned, the two provinces and one city in South China (Guangdong, Guangxi provinces and Guangzhou City - the author) should stop arresting for four months starting from June 1, focusing on sorting out accumulated cases, summing up experience and educating cadres.  The same is also applicable to Henan, Hubei, Human and Jiangxi [provinces].” Since Mao gave Guizhou permission to break through the quota, his instruction will not be implemented resolutely by the two provinces and one city of South China.

At this time, Mao Zedong felt that his instructions and telegrams alone were not enough to halt this powerful storm of mass arrests and killings. He must immediately call a meeting, summoned the “local vassals" and make arrangements to step on the brakes in person, otherwise more heads will roll on the ground. 

Once the "Resolution" was passed, the Central Committee immediately forwarded it by telegram to local authorities, and the mass arrests and killings took initial restraint. However, due to inertia, some places continued to make unnecessary arrests and killings. For example, in East China, the May 1951 statistics showed that a total of 358,000 people were arrested and 100,840 were killed; in October, the statistics showed 468,385 arrests made and 139,435 killed. This means that in the few months following the Third National Public Security Conference, another 110,000 were arrested and 40,000 executed. It was a big discount in the so-called “stop arresting and killing for four months”. However, with the gradual implementation of the Resolution of the Third National Public Security Conference, the momentum of arresting and killing people was held back to a certain extent. The actual number of arrests and killings nationwide in the second and third phases of the campaign in the following two years had relatively large decline. The total number was only about a quarter of the arrests and killings in the first few months of 1951. No doubt that the Resolution played its roll.

Sixty years have passed since the first large-scale Suppressing   of Counter-revolutionaries Campaign took place, and many lessons can be summed up. After years of war, people needed to recover.  When the new regime was established, those in power should adopt a policy of leniency, trying best to fill the social rift and win support from all walks of life. Unless those who have to be killed, do not take killling lightly . The 1,107 war criminals captured from the Japanese aggression against China, each one of them caused unprecedented disasters to the Chinese people. However, they were well treated in the War Criminal Management Centre. After a few years, they were granted amnesty and were back to Japan. The ordinary counter-revolutionaries in China, those who had no blood debts, and no serious current sabotage activities, why can't they be given a chance to live and must be killed?! 

Take the 81county magistrates in Guizhou Province during the Kuomintang era as an example, when the People's Liberation Army liberated Guizhou, some of them changed sides, some surrendered, some were arrested and released, a few of them were given jobs, and majority of them had already been handled in accordance with their specific situation. However, in the killing frenzy of Suppressing Counter-revolutionaries Campaign, every single one of them was killed. Can it be that their crimes were bigger than that of the Japanese war criminals?

Regarding the death penalties, why were they handled so sloppy and lightly?  Tongcheng County (桐城县), Anhui Province planned to kill 16 counter-revolutionaries and submitted the cases to the Anqing Prefecture Party Committee for approval. The party committee reviewed the cases and disapproved all of them. Related documents were sent back to the county.  Without so much as opening the envelop to check the content, officials in the county public security department assumed that the death penalties were approved. All the 16 people were dragged to the execution field and shot to death. Among them, 5 were baozhang,[11]  4 were Youth League of the Three Principals of the People[12]  district branch members, 3 were gendarmes, 2 were local branch heads of the Persistent Way, a religious sect, and 6 were landlords. None of the 16 individuals had blood debts or committed rape. Later those cases were reviewed and it turned out that 11 out of the 16 should not even be arrested and would have to be released immediately. When several bully landlords were executed in the Fuyang (阜阳) area, a few women who had slept with them were also killed together with them. Their crimes were "disgraceful behavior that brought shame to the laboring people." There were also innocent people who had been killed by mistake, including many people who risked their lives to engage in underground work [for CCP]. They had managed to escape numerous assassination attempts by Kuomintang spies, only to be killed by people of their own side, This is truly unimaginably ridiculous. 

Since the experience and lessons of the first large-scale Suppressing Counter-revolutionaries Campaign have never been carefully summed up, these mistakes have been repeated in successive political campaigns after that, causing enormous disasters for the Chinese people. The first Suppressing Counter-revolutionaries Campaign was followed by the Campaign of Eliminating Counter-revolutionaries,  Agricultural Cooperative Movement and the Socialist Transformation in Industry and Commerce Movement, the Anti-rightist Struggle, the Great Leap Forward Movement, and the “Four Clean-ups” Movement. Following the requests from the CCP Central Committee, local public security bureaus had to make arrangement for struggle against the enemies, suppressing the counter-revolutionaries was used as an important means to ensure the smooth progress of those political campaigns. That was the reason that before 1976,[13] China's suppressing counter-revolutionaries movement has not really stopped, and it continued all the way to the Cultural Revolution when "Six Regulations of Public Security" was issued. Movements like Clean-up Class Ranks，One Hit and Three Antis, Special Case Investigations, etc. were continuation of suppressing counter-revolutionaries, and all carried out in the same manner. No legal procedure was followed, completely lawless.  The Chinese people have been greatly devastated and hurt again and again.

Source:  Yin, Shusheng, “Mao Zedong and the Third National Public Security Conference”. Yanhuang Chunqiu, No. 5 (2014). Internet version: http://www.yhcqw.com/36/9484.html

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[1] Huang Jing (黄敬，1912-1958), the first mayor of Tianjin City. For the complete document,  See Mao, Zedong. Jianguo yilai Mao Zedong wengao. Volume 2 (1951. 1 – 1951. 12) [Beijing]: Zhong yang wen xian chu ban she, 1987. Semi-classified.

[2] Peng Zheng (October 12, 1902 – April 26, 1997)，deputy director of Commission of Politics and Law of the Government Administration Council and mayor of Beijing. [All notes added by translator]

[3] (May 31, 1906 – August 3, 1978) ，first Minister of Public Security from 1949 to 1959.

[4] Referring to “Central Committees’ Directives on Correcting the Right-wing Bias in Suppressing Counter-Revolution Activities”, one of the key documents in the Suppressing Counter-revolutionaries Campaign. It was issued on October 10^th, 1950, thus popularly known as “The Double 10 Directives”.  

[5] “Six codes refers to the six main legal codes that makes up the main body of law in the Republic of China, including the  Constitution, Civil Code, Code of Civil Procedure, Criminal Code, Code of Criminal Procedure and Administrative Laws.

[6] In  Jiaguo yilai Mao Zedong wegao Volume 2 (1951. 1 – 1951. 12) [Manuscripts of Mao Zedong since the Founding of the Country: 1951. 1 – 1951.12] collected 79 instructions on Suppressing Counter-revolutionary Campaign from January to May. See Mao, Zedong.  

[7] The author probably made a mistake here. Should be the other way around, i.e, the Central South Military and Political Committee reported to the Ministry of Public Security.

[8] Ke Qingshi (柯庆施;  1902 –  1965), then mayor of Nanjing.

[9] Rao Shushi (饶漱石；1903—1975) ，then Chairman of Military and Political Committee of East China and General Secretary of East China Bureau and First Secretary of CCP Shanghai Municipal Committee.

[10] Today’s prefecture-level city in north-central Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

[11] Baojia system, a form of local political organization. A jia was composed of 10 households, a bao was composed of 10 jia. Jiazhang was the head of a jia, baozhang was the head of a bao. Both were unpaid positions.

[12] A youth organization of the Kuomintang era.

[13] Mao Zedong died in September 9^th, 1976.

“Command of Mind”: China’s Stealthy Invasion to Destroy Freedom and Democracy

In the past few years, in Chinese universities there have been more than a dozen cases of students reporting their professors to authorities for “improper remarks” in classroom. The accused professors were subsequently punished, varying from issuing apologies to losing teaching positions. In March this year, such case occurred inTaiwan. Zhao Mingwei, an associate professor at Chung Yuan Christian University, was reported by a student from mainland China for making remarks in his class that the new coronavirus pneumonia originated in Wuhan, China. Pressured by the university authorities, Professor Zhao had to apologize twice.

Similar incidents have happened in the United States too. For example, in 2017, the Chinese students in the University of California, San Diego pressured the school to cancel an invitation to the Dalai Lama for the commencement speech. In November 2019, Columbia University’s Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) protested a panel discussion on the human rights situation in China and its overseas infiltration, forcing the school to cancel it at the last minute, citing security reasons.

Such incidents were generally considered to be gross interferences of freedom of speech and academic freedom. However, things may not be as simple as they seem to be. In fact, there is a hidden agenda behind these phenomena. First of all, it should be understood that such behavior, whether inside or outside China, is encouraged by the Chinese government. In China, the “student informants” system has been publicly implemented in colleges and universities. It is supposedly a student organization responsible for “providing teaching and learning information to school authorities".Setting up this kind of student organization means that such behaviors as students’ reporting their teachers and spying on each other have been institutionalized.

To understand why Chinese government encourages such behaviors, we need to begin with the “Command of Mind” concept.

It has been twenty years since the publication of Unrestricted Warfare: Thoughts on War and Tactics in the Age of Globalization. Inspired by this book, China’s younger generation military theorists, mostly born in and after 1970s, have brought some of the ideas proposed in this book further by carefully following new technological trends.  These military theorists are well-educated, many have doctorate degrees, and have had exchanges and visits with the military of other countries. Compared with their redecessors, they have broader views and are more aggressive with "theoretical innovations".

Talking about war, one cannot avoid the idea of "commanding power, that is, the “complete control in certain aspects of warfare”. In the so-called “old warfare” or "traditional warfare”, military operations are carried out in physical spaces, mainly sea, land and air. Therefore, “commanding power" means "command of the sea", "command of the land" and "command of the air".  On November 11, 1949, less than six weeks after Mao Zedong announced the establishment of the People’s Republic of China on October 1, the PLA Air Force was formally founded. It soon participated the Korean War. Lack of "command of the air”  led to PLA’s tremendous casualties, even Mao Zedong's eldest son died of incendiary bombs dropped by a US Douglas A-26 Invader.  Due to technological disadvantage, so far PLA is unable to overtake command of the air and the sea from the US which is perceived as China’s ultimate enemy. 

As the “Unrestricted Warfare” has subverted the “commanding power” concepts of traditional warfare, in the "new warfare" of the information and globalization era, CCP will not exhaust its national power to compete with the US military in commanding the air and the sea so as to avoid the fate of being dragged down by an "arms race" like the USSR. Instead, they are trying to seize the commanding powers of the “future warfare”.

In 2010, Guo Jiwei, author of Biotechnology Supremacy Warfare: Reconstructing Military Strategy for the New Era, proposed the concept of “biotechnogy supremacy”, namely, the commanding power in biological warfare. Four years later, the People's Liberation Army Publishing House published a book entitled Command of Mind: The Law of War and the National Security Strategy in the Global Media Era, proposing the concept "command of mind” as a “law of war”.

This book was written by two military authors. Zeng Huafeng, one of the two authors of this book, is dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences of National University of Defense Technology, and the director of the Joint Institute of Political Theory Teaching Collaboration of the military academies. The other author, Shi Haiming, is associate professor and deputy director of Center for National Defense Technology and Social Development, National University of Defense Technology. He also serves as an editorial board member of National Defense Science and Technology magazine. In the same year of its publication, this book was selected for the recommended reading list for cadres of CCP Central Committee and government offices. It also won the university’s 2014 Award of Major Scientific Development.  In 2017, the book won the first prize of the Fourth Outstanding Achievement in Political Theory Research of the People’s Liberation Army issued by the Political Work Department of the Central Military Commission, an indication that the “command of mind” concept is highly valued by CCP’s high level leaders.

What is “command of mind”? Simply defined, it means “commanding power in the national cognitive space”. In essence, it is the power to manipulate and control the way of thinking and cognition of individuals and groups. Authors of the book believed that the battlefield of "future warfare" included not only "physical space", namely natural spaces such as sea, land, air and outer space, but also "virtual space" or "cyber space" and "cognitive space" , a space composed of human emotions, thinking, will, psychological activities, beliefs and values. "National cognitive space" refers to the cognition of the majority of the people of a country regarding their own culture, history, collective memory, social awareness, etc. As one of the battlefields of the new war, "national cognitive space" can be understood as collisions and conflicts between cultures, political systems, and values of different countries. The result is the same as that of a “real” war; the only difference is that the winner will be able to subdue the enemy without a fight. Therefore, the CCP's "command of mind" is essentially a war between totalitarianism and democracy, freedom and repression in a different form.

After the Soviet Union disintegrated, the CCP thoroughly studied the failures of Communist Party of Soviet Union (CPSU) that led to its collapse. Ultimately, it was the people’s anger and hatred at the regime that led to USSR’s downfall. This was the reason when the crisis broke out, "not a single man", as Xi Jingpin said, came to its rescue. However, in the view of the two authors, CPSU was the victim of a silent “cognitive attack” by the United States. “The United States has carried out a subtle attack in the Soviet Union’s cognitive space," the authors claimed. As a result, "the meanings of such concepts as state, nation, politics, etc. were deconstructed and subverted. People’s thoughts and consciousness gradually fell into chaos. Under America’s perceptive manipulation and control, national heroes and historical memories used to be held noble, great, and glorious were finally deconstructed or subverted.” To avoid repeating CPSU’s mistakes, the CCP must firmly control “command of mind” and “defend national cognitive space”.

Since "command of mind" is a war in the national cognitive space, like traditional wars, one of the key points is to stabilize the home front, this is to say, “command of mind” must be applied to the Chinese people first. To this end, the CCP formulated the “four matters of confidence” ---- “confident in our chosen path, confident in our guiding theories, confident in our political system, and confident in our culture." Known as the “conficence doctrine”, it is used to resist “universal human values” and excessive punishment to curb “history nihilism”, that is, any question regarding the official narrative of history of China, CCP and PRC. In colleges and universities, the CCP has established an informant system to punish teachers making “inappropriate remarks”, and banned US social media networks and major newspapers, rigorously censors all forms of publications, etc. All these are actions to "defend the national cognitive space". 

The essence of these actions is to manipulate and control Chinese people’s mind, especially that of children and adolescents, by manipulating their way of thinking and shaping their perceptions about themselves and the world. As a result, “education” in China has been reduced to “mind training”, the goal is to train students to blindly accept official discourses and historical narratives. Saturated with official language and discourses, people have developed “conditioned reflections” to certain terms. For example, when it comes to Taiwan, their direct response is "liberation"; talking about the Dalai Lama, they immediately blurt out "separatist". This makes it difficult for many students to fit into the learning atmosphere in the West that requires independent and critical thinking. This is even more so on the Internet. When faced with different vies, many of them repeat what they were taught or just curse, rarely engage in meaningful discussions. In fact, Chinese people are the first victims of CCP’s “command of mind" tactic.

Meanwhile, CCP has launched a "command of mind” offensive by taking advantage of the basic values ​​such as freedom of speech, academic freedom, and market economy in Taiwan, Europe and the United States. This “invisible war” is taking place at this moment. For example, in the name of "promoting the Chinese culture", China has

established "Confucius institutes" in universities and "Confucius classrooms" in middle schools around the world, quietly exporting "red culture", acquired influential media through “trusted sources” and helped funding Chinese media in more than 60 countries to spread its propaganda, infiltrated European and American universities and cultural institutions through “Thousand Talents Program” and other pro-China organizations, funded think tanks in Europe and the United States to carry out research projects in line with Chinese discourses in order to influence their China policies.

For years CCP has been stealthily imposing censorship on any criticism on its policies and human right violations. In this way, CCP is slowly and steadily invading America’s "cognitive space" to influence and distort people's perception. On the other hand, CCP is taking every opportunity to “tell the China story” through their “great outreach programs”.  What is the "Chinese story"? Zeng Huafeng, one of the authors of the book, explains: "it is necessary not only to answer the question whether socialism China has a superior development advantage over the West at the moment, but also to answer from historical point of view that the Chinese socialist road is superior to the Western capitalist road."

The Wuhan pneumonia virus has caused great harm to the Chinese people, it also spread to the whole world, causing unprecedented damages to world economy. Faced with criticism from the whole world, the CCP has launched “command of mind” offensive disguised as “(dis)information campaign” at all levels.  As we can see, the offensive started from home front. In just a couple of weeks, the Chinese people overwhelmingly accepted the CCP’s claim that China was an anti-epidemic model, and "has won two months for the rest of the world”. Some experts and elites in other countries danced to CCP’s tune by praising its way of handling the virus.

People in the free world generally believe that freedom of speech and press is the best weapon to fight against propaganda. The worst propaganda we can think of is Goebbels's "a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth." The free world believes that as long as we uphold freedom of speech and press, we will defeat the Goebbel-style lies. However, now that the CCP has employed advanced scientific research results from modern psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science and other disciplines to take “command of mind", can we still be so confident? The CCP is studying our freedom of speech and take every opportunity to use it as a weapon against us. They have used a whole set of methods, not just repeating lies for a thousand times. They know the importance of freedom of speech to the system of free and democratic countries, and they attack the foundations of our constitution and force us into a passive and disadvantageous situation. How to establish a countermeasure against the CCP's "command of mind" under the premise of upholding the principle of free speech is a challenge that we have to face.

Chinese version: https://www.upmedia.mg/news_info.php?SerialNo=87910

“Suppressing Rebellion in Tibet” and the China-India Border War

Written by Jianglin Li

Edited by Matthew Akester

From June to August 2017, a prolonged standoff between Chinese and Indian soldiers took place in the Droklam grassland in Bhutan, bordering the strategic Chumbi valley in occupied TIbet. Video clips circulated on social media showing soldiers from the two sides pushing and shoving each other, but eventually the status quo was restored without resort to arms.

On June 29^th, senior Colonel Wu Qian, deputy director of the Defence Ministry’s Information Bureau and the Ministry’s press spokesman, warned “certain persons in Indian army to keep historical lessons in mind”.[1] Dai Xu, former senior colonel in the PLA air force and a well-known hawk, wrote in his blog that in 1962 “China only used a knife to kill a chicken [part of an idiom - “no need to slaughter a chicken with the knife used to slaughter an ox”] to deal with India the ox, and that was enough to make it run like a mad cow. This is enough to show that both sides are not at the same level.”[2] Dai’s implication: India will certainly be defeated in another border war.

No doubt the 1962 border war was a big defeat for India. In the decades since, numerous books and articles have been published dealing with its cause, process and result. In this article, I would like to present a few historical details from Chinese sources that may have gone unnoticed. These concern the eastern sector of the conflict, on which some documentary sources are available.  

A war for which China was “unprepared”?

In 2005, Military History, a magazine produced for the PLA’s Academy of Military Science, published an interview with Yin Fatang, former first secretary of the Tibet Autonomous Region Party Committee and a veteran of the 1962 war. During the interview, Yin claimed that the PLA had gone into the war unprepared.[3] 

Ding Sheng, who served as the commander of the 54^th Army and led PLA forces on the Walong front of the eastern sector, echoed Yin in his 2008 memoir. He explained that in October 1962, the 130^th division of the 54^th army, one of the main PLA forces involved, was stationed in Sichuan, and scattered in a dozen locations for agricultural work. On October 28^th, he received the order to fight the Indian army at Walong. These troops were hastily mobilized, issued warm clothing and rushed to Tibet for the battle at short notice.[4] Both Yin and Ding gave the impression that all was well along the China-India border until October 1962, when war suddenly broke out.

The China-India border dispute came about after China occupied Tibet, bringing the two Asian giants suddenly face to face. The PRC government learned about the McMahon Line in 1952, after the newly formed branch office of China’s Foreign Ministry absorbed the former foreign office of the Kashag government and acquired its archival documents.[5]

In the early 1950s, China needed India’s help to send supplies into Tibet, so that the PLA could consolidate the occupation. India was quite generous in providing this help. In 1952, Beijing “used diplomatic channels” to ship 2,500 tons of rice from Guangdong province to Calcutta, and transport it up to Tibet through Yadong (Dromo). By April 1953, all the rice had arrived. This basically solved the food supply problem for PLA troops, and enabled them to establish a preliminary footing in Tibet.[6]  

Zhou Enlai’s 1954 directive on the border issue is recalled by Wang Gui, former director of the Tibet Military Command Political Department’s liaison office:

China’s Indian policy should be striving for co-existence with India based on the Five Principles, striving to make it anti-US aggression and anti-war. India is still under British and American influence, so we want to win it over. As for the border issue, issues regarding areas such as Tawang ，Lhoyul that had been excluded by the McMahon Line, and issues regarding the ownership of other places, should be solved in future at the appropriate time due to insufficient documents now. The stronger China is, the more solid national unity is, the more India’s attitude will change.^[7]

However, less than three months after the signing of the Panchsheel Agreement in August 1954, China and India began to exchange notes, memos and letters on border disputes.[8] Over the following years, the border issue gradually intensified, leading to the first armed clash in August 25^th 1959, and eventually developed into a border war between the two countries.

In March 1959, a series of critical events played out in Lhasa. From March 25th to April 5^th, the CCP Central Committee held an enlarged politburo meeting, and the seventh plenary session of the Eighth Central Committee in Shanghai. “Pacification of rebellion in Tibet” and relations with India were two of the issues discussed.  Wu Lengxi, who was then head of Xinhua News Agency and chief editor of the People’s Daily, revealed a glimpse of Mao’s thinking on the China-India relationship in his memoir: “Let the Indian government commit all the wrongs for now. When the time comes, we will settle accounts with them.”[9]

Mao was brooding on “settling accounts” with India as early as March 1959, yet on May 15^th, he added the following words to a letter from the Chinese foreign ministry to the Indian foreign ministry:

China’s main attention and principle of struggle is focused on the east, the West Pacific region, on the ferocious American imperialism, not on India, the southeast or south Asian countries at all. …China will not be so stupid as to make enemies with the US in the east, and make enemies with India in the west. Pacification of rebellion and implementing democratic reform in Tibet would pose no threat to India whatsoever.[10]

This letter was sent the next day. Probably this assurance from Mao himself made the Indian government believe that China would not take border disputes to the level of military confrontation. It is not clear whether Indian intelligence knew that at the time Mao made this statement, infantry division 11 was fighting Tibetan resistance forces in the Chamdo area. Less than four years later, this battle-hardened division would fight at the Namka Chu, the first battle of the border war with India.  

Over the next few months, both sides were quite vocal in accusing each other of “expansionism”, meanwhile thousands of PLA troops were dispatched to Tibet to wage a war of considerable scale, bloodily suppressing Tibetan resistance. From March 1959 to March 1962, the PLA fought 12 major battles in central Tibet, targeting resistance forces and refugees from Kham and Amdo. PLA combat forces included troops under the Tibet Military Command as well as the 54^th Field Army commanded by General Ding Sheng and troops under the Lanzhou, Kunming and Chengdu Military Commands. The 130th Division of the 54th Army played a key role in the war, only returning to Chengdu in December 1961 to take up agricultural production. In other words, at the time when the border war with India broke out, it had been less than a year since Ding’s troops pulled back from Tibet after three years of fighting.

In early April 1959, the PLA launched the battle of Lhoka. In his memoir, Wang Tingsheng, then the assistant director of the 54^th Army Division 134’s scout unit and a veteran of the battle of Lhoka, published a sketch map indicating PLA movements during the battle. It shows that PLA soldiers crossed the McMahon Line at three locations in pursuit of escaping Tibetans.[11] He also recalled that on April 16^th PLA soldiers occupied the Tsona pass (north of Bum-la). A couple of days later, some Indian soldiers showed up with a sign reading “this is Indian territory”, and the two sides had a standoff.[12]

The first phase of the Lhoka campaign lasted about three weeks. By the end of April, PLA troops started the second phase: to clear up the rebel remnants, which took over two months. Once PLA troops closed up the “line of actual control”, i.e. the McMahon Line, the next phase of the campaign, “democratic reform” and the establishment of local government organs, could begin. 

It is not clear how much the Indian government knew of the PLA’s intense military activities in Tibet, but given the impact on the Himalayan regions of India, it is little surprise that tensions escalated in 1959, and remained high until the outbreak of war three years later.

 

A “knife to slaughter a bull” in Tibet?  

If the PLA used a “chicken knife” to deal with the Indian army, as Dai claims, this was certainly not the case with the army’s treatment of resisting and escaping Tibetans.

In order to understand the scale of the war waged on Tibetans in Kham, Amdo and central Tibet from 1956 to 1962, I was able to gather various statistics, including participating PLA military commands, branches involved, numbers of combat forces and logistical support units, amount of supplies, etc. I also analyzed a number of major battles. Chinese official sources indicate that seven of the twelve military commands were directly involved, and another two of them provided logistic support. The cumulative total of combat forces reached over 200,000, not including logistics personnel, local militia and civilians drafted for transportation, road building, etc. The Central Military Commission sent nearly all PLA military branches to fight in Tibet, even the newly-formed chemical warfare unit.

The question is: why? From the memoirs of PLA commanders and soldiers, it is quite clear that they knew that their enemies were groups of disorganized civilians, including women, children, the elderly and monks. Less than half the members of these groups were “combat capable”, meaning young and middle-aged men having no unified command, using backward weapons and lacking experience of modern warfare. Why did the PLA mobilize such a large combat force to fight a war of considerable scale? Even to fight the standing Tibetan army of the Kashag government, which had a little military training, such a force was unnecessary.

To find the answer, I continued digging into the available sources. Apparently, between 1959 and 1961, the Central Military Commission sent not only combat troops into Tibet, but also representatives from all major departments, including the General Political Department, General Staff Department, General Logistics Department and major military academies, to conduct research on high-altitude warfare. In addition, military commands not involved in the battles also sent inexperienced young officers to Tibet to “be trained and tested”. In 1960, Guangzhou Military Command alone sent over 300 young officers to Tibet for first-hand battle experience.[13] This led me to pose the question: did the so-called “suppression of the counter-revolutionary rebellion” in Tibet have purposes other than overthrowing the Tibetan government and forcefully implementing “democratic reform”?

   Openly published sources show that from January 22^nd to February 19^th 1959, Mao Zedong added written instructions to four reports on the situation in Tibet, in which he pointed out that “rebellion is a good thing”, as it could be used to “train the troops and the masses”, and to “harden our troops to combat readiness”.[14] All these instructions show that even before the March 10^th uprising, Mao had the idea of using “suppressing rebellion” to train PLA troops. All these instructions were transmitted to Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping, Defence Minister Peng Dehuai and Chief of Staff Huang Kecheng. It is worth noting that Mao sent the “army training” instruction dated February 19^th 1959 not only to Peng Dehuai, but specially ordered that it be “sent to the Tibet Work Committee and Tibet Military Command down to regiment level by clandestine cable”. This means that by mid-February 1959, about three weeks prior to March 10^th, everyone from the defence minister all the way down to the regimental commanders of combat troops understood Mao’s intention to use the opportunity of suppressing Tibetan resistance as a training exercise.

The perfect opportunity?

By analyzing many memoirs, autobiographies and biographies, openly published, classified or semi-classified, I found out that the 12 large scale battles fought in central Tibet from March 1959 to early 1962 were in fact conducted as a thoroughly organised military training, beyond the actual requirements of a counter-insurgency operation: individual soldiers were expected to train for combat on the high plateau, commanders were testing the battle strategies best suited to the terrain. After each battle, participating PLA units wrote reports summarizing what they practised and learned from the battle. For example, General Ding Sheng’s comment on the battle of Mitika (August 27^th – September 15^th 1959) was this:

This battle not only ensured the safety of transportation on Qinghai-Tibet Highway, it  also gained us experience of fighting with the large unit encircling tactic and carrying out policies in pastoral regions.[15]

The “large unit encirclement” tactic was first used in the battle of Lhoka (April 2^nd – 28^th 1959), but failed. It was used again, successfully, in the battle of Namtso (July 6^th – 29^th 1959), and in a few other battles, and eventually became the most common tactic used in Tibet. When Infantry Division 11 summarized the tactical lessons learned from these battles, the first one was “encirclement”: “…It has been proved by many experiences that carrying out encirclement is the most effective method to wipe out large numbers of rebel bandits.”[16] When it summarized the effective tactics used in the border war, “encirclement” was the first mentioned.[17]

Xu Yan, a professor at the Chinese National Defence University, believed that the biggest difference between the Chinese and Indian armies in the border war was the “combat quality of officers and soldiers”. “Most of the troops of the [People’s] Liberation Army who fought at the China-India border have a glorious history”, he commented, “Besides that, they had also acquired rich combat experience in high and cold mountain regions in the five years from the Khampa rebellion in 1956 to the end of the suppression of Tibetan rebellion in 1961.”[18]

In addition to combat units, the General Political Department took the opportunity to find out how to spread propaganda and how to mobilize the masses, the General Logistics Department wanted to find out what equipment was needed in Tibet, field hospitals conducted research on how to avoid and treat altitude sickness, and so on.

The PLA also took the opportunity to test newly developed weapons, such as the Type 56 rocket launcher copied from the Soviet model. As Xu Yan, wrote in an article published in 2008, “troops gained valuable experience of using various weapons in combat on the high plateau”.[19] During the three-year war in central Tibet, the Tibet Military Command familiarized itself with the terrain, learned about the special needs of high-altitude combat, and mastered battle tactics best suited to the plateau.

From these facts emerged the reason why the CCP deployed such a powerful military force, and all branches of the army, to fight farmers and herders in Tibet. Behind all the superficial reasons given by the CCP to justify its military action, there is another unmentionable reason: on the instructions of Mao Zedong, the PLA took the opportunity of “suppressing the Tibetan rebellion” to train its soldiers using Tibetans as a live target, in order to have a battle-hardened army stationed in Tibet.

What was the target of this battle-hardened army? Immediately after the battle of Lhasa (March 20^th-22^nd 1959), the CCP disbanded the Tibetan standing army. Shortly after that, it launched the battle of Lhoka, the second of the 12 battles. This battle targeted the ‘Chushi Gandruk’ guerilla army, the only semi-military Tibetan resistance force, whose headquarters was in Lhoka. As a matter of fact, the battle of Lhoka failed to meet the goal of wiping them out. In April 1959, the main force of Chushi Gandruk escaped the PLA net and retreated into India.

However, the CCP did not call off the war. Active military engagement followed straight on from the battle of Lhoka. The last major battle was launched in September 1960 and ended in April 1961. Even after this, a number of small-scale military actions continued to clear the remnants of the Chushi Gandruk and sporadic local resistance up to March 1962.[20]

The “Suppression of Tibetan rebellion” and “Democratic Reform” were carried on at the same time. In CCP history, this is referred to as “fight and reform”. The way it was implemented was called “clean up one area, reform one area”.[21] The standard of “cleaning up” was called the “three all-clears”, meaning “all rebels cleared up, all weapons cleared up, all counter-revolutionary documents cleared up.”[22] After the “three all-clears” was achieved, the third and final phase of the campaign would begin by sending work teams to villages and nomad areas to start the actual “reform” work. It was at this time that former PLA officers and soldiers released from military duty and organized into “work teams”, accompanied by military support, reached the border region.

The well-known “Longju incident” of August 25^th 1959, the first armed clash between Chinese and Indian soldiers, took place under such circumstances. The “strong Chinese detachment” (mentioned in the “Note to the Foreign Office of China by the Indian Ambassador”  dated August 28^th 1950)^[23] with which Indian soldiers clashed south of Migyitun was Company 2 of Regiment 1, Shannan (Lhoka) Military sub-Command. This company’s mission was to escort the work team that was to be stationed in Migyitun “for work with the masses”:^[24] their presence was part of the final phase of the campaign following the battle of Lhoka.[25]  

During the “reform” movement, not only firearms were “cleared up”, even knifes, spears and horses were confiscated. Large-scale arrests took place during this time as well. Based on the requirement issued by Tibet Work Committee, at least 2% of the total Tibetan population was arrested and interred.[26] After “suppression” and “reform”, Tibetans were effectively deprived of the ability to launch another armed rebellion. There was no need for a “battle-hardened” army to put out the flames of resistance. So what was the purpose?

Z419  

In the same February 2005 interview, General Yin Fatang revealed that on June 11^th 1962, the Tibet Military Command constituted a special organ called “Tibet Military Command Advance Command Post for China-India Border Self-defence Counter-attack”, commonly known as “Advance Command Post”, code-named Z419 (“Z” stands for “Xizang”=Tibet, also known as T419). Yin was appointed its political commissar.[27]  

Wei Ke, director of Z419’s political department, recalled that in May 1962, Beijing decided to “create conditions for peacefully resolving the border dispute” by “resolutely fighting back” against the advancing Indian army. It was also decided that the main front would be the eastern sector, namely the Tawang and Walong areas.[28] He revealed that on June 7^th 1962, General Tan Guansan, the commander of the battle of Lhasa in March 1959, chaired a military meeting and transmitted directives from the CCP Central Committee and Central Military Commission regarding preparation for combat with the Indian army on the border. It was at this meeting that Z419 Command was formed.

Regiments 154, 155 and 157 and a few supporting units were under the direct command of Advanced Command Post Z419, code-named “Z419 army”, with a combat force of around 8,000.

In October, some troops belonging to infantry division 11, artillery regiment 308 and engineers regiment 136 were also commanded by Z419 Command Post, a total of 10,300 men, responsible for fighting in Kejielang (Nyamjang valley) and Tawang.[29]

On June 18^th, the PLA General Political Department issued a Directive on Political Work regarding the Campaign against Military Provocation by Indian Reactionaries. “Z419 army” immediately started political education to “make commanders and soldiers understand the origin and nature of the China-India border issue, and see the true color and essence of the Nehru government as collaborator with anti-China imperialists”, as a way to “arouse soldiers’ patriotic passion and sense of political responsibility.”[30] 

From mid-June 1962, Z419 Command Post started to collect intelligence in the battle zone and work on a battle plan. Meanwhile, it started intensive military training, from individual soldiers’ battle manoeuvers, coordinating training for each unit all the way to “real battle exercises” at regimental level. At the same time, based on the lessons learned from fighting the Tibetan resistance, Z419 replaced physically unfit officers and soldiers. A group of well-trained rocket launcher operators were dispatched to Tibet from Wuhan, and artillery personnel were sent from several military commands. Beijing Military Command sent communications equipment and operators. Over one hundred English, Hindi and Tibetan interpreters from different areas were sent to Tibet for the coming “self-defence counter-attack”.[31]

In early October, Z419 Command Post moved from Lhasa to Tsona, and a location close to the Lhatse pass (Thag La of the Indian maps), a short distance from the Dhola post where the first armed encounter had taken place on September 20^th.[32]

On October 8^th 1962, Mao Zedong called a meeting to discuss the conflict on the border. Attendants included Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, Liu Shaoqi, Zhu De, He long, Nie Rongzheng and Luo Ruiqing.[33]  The next day, Z419 received the pre-order for battle.

On October 13^th, Zhang Guohua, one of the commanders in the eastern sector, flew back to Lhasa from Beijing. He held a meeting to transmit the Central Military Commission’s directive on the upcoming battle. The instruction was to “be prudent in the first battle, and once started, it must be successful.”[34] Zhang also organized a “Frontline Command Post” to replace Z419 Command Post. In the afternoon of the same day, Zhang Guohua brought the Frontline Command Post up to Tsona, ready to command the upcoming battle from there.[35]

This sequence of activity suggests that the decision to fight was taken at the October 8^th  meeting, but the date was not yet fixed.

The day after Zhang Guohua took up his commander role, the Tibet Work Committee set up a “Front Support Leadership Group” responsible for coordinating and organizing logistical support for the combat troops.

At 1:30 pm in the afternoon of October 17^th, Mao called and chaired another meeting to discuss the situation,[36] and it was at this meeting that the final decision was made.

That same day, the Central Military Committee issued a Battle Order for Annihilating the Invading Indian Army.[37] By this time, Zhang Guohua had already drafted his battle plan which was approved by the Central Military Commission and Mao himself.[38]  

Three days later, the border war with India broke out. It started with heavy artillery bombardment of Indian posts, before infantry soldiers pressed down onto the enemy, much the same tactic employed in the battle of Lhasa a few years earlier, by the same units.

The main PLA forces fighting this war were the troops that had been “trained” for several years in the battles to suppress Tibetan rebels, including Infantry 11 under the Lanzhou Military Command, and Division 130 of the 54^th Army. Z419 was composed of troops under the Tibet Military Command that had fought in all the major battles from March 1959 to early 1962. 

Newly-developed weapons tested against the Tibetans were put into use. The eastern sector commanders were General Ding Sheng and General Zhang Guohua, both commanders of the war of suppression. By the time the border war broke out, transportation routes, field hospitals, civilian support teams etc. had been readied and trained.  

During the conflict with India, the Tibet Work Committee dispatched 1,280 cadres to lead civilian workers functioning as logistical support teams. 32,237 Tibetans and 1,057 pack animals were drafted to load, unload and transport supplies, carry wounded soldiers back from battlefront, clear up battle fields, etc. Over 10,000 civilians were drafted to repair and construct roads.[39]  

It is no surprise that the PLA won the border war, because the two PLA commanders had to hand not a “knife used to slaughter a chicken”, but a battle-hardened army that had been trained in live combat in Tibet for three years.

Until 1951 when the PLA occupied Tibet, it was for the Chinese a faraway, foreign land full of hardship and danger. The locations where the China-India border conflict took place are high plateaux where no Chinese army in history had set foot. The so-called “pacification of Tibetan rebellion” was a war waged on Tibetans in a land of which Chinese commanders and soldiers had no previous knowledge or experience. Only after the war of suppressing Tibetan resistance did the PLA gain the confidence to fight in the Himalaya. From this point of view, the PLA’s “suppression of Tibetan rebellion” was an important causal link in the outbreak of war in 1962.  

Bibliography

Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun bubing dishiyi shi junzhanshi [History of and battles fought by Infantry Division 11] . Compiled and edited by Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun bubing dishiyi shi junzhanshi bianxiezu. [Semiclassified?] [Urumchi?]: Xinjiang renmin chubanshe, 1987.

Deng Xiaoping nianpu 1904-1974 [The Chronology of Deng Xiaoping 1904-1974]. Vol. 3.  Compiled by Zhonggong zhongyang wenxian yanjiushi. Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 2009.

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[1] PCR Defense Ministry: http://www.mod.gov.cn/info/2017-06/29/content_4784003.htm

[2] Dai Xun’s weibo: http://weibo.com/1571497285/FaYOf8GVZ?type=repost

[3] Yin, Fatang, 756. For the complete interview see Yin, Fatang,  pp. 745-762.

[4] Ding Sheng, Jin Guang, and Yu Ruxin. Luonan yingxiong: Ding Sheng jiangjun huiyilu [A disgraced hero: Memoir of General Ding Sheng],  pp.  315-316.

[5] Zhou Enlai yu Xizang [Zhou Enlai and Tibet], p. 374.

[6] Details see Yang Yizhen (ed.), Xizang jiyi – Jinjun Xizang jiefang Xizang huiyi wenxuan (Remembering Tibet – Collected Recollections of Advancing and Liberating Tibet). Vol. 2, 433-

[7] Ibid.

[8] India. Notes, memoranda and letters exchanged and agreements signed between the Governments of India and China, 1954-1959. New Delhi, India:  Ministry of External Affairs, 1960.

[9] Wu, Lengxi. Yi Maozhuxi: wo qinsheng jingli di ruogan zhongda lishi shijian pianduan [In memory of Chairman Mao: Some major historical events I witnessed], 121.

[10] Jianguo yilai Mao Zedong wengao Vol. 8 January 1959 – December 1959. [Mao Zedong’s manuscripts after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Vol. 8].  268-269.

[11] Wang, Tinsheng, Wangshi huimou [Looking back at the past], p. 149.

[12] Ibid, p. 146.

[13] Liu, Wenqiao. Suiyue ruliu wei cuotuo [A life not wasted], vol. 2, 109.

[14] See Mao, Zedong，Vol. 8. 11, 12, 46, 47.

[15] Deng, Sheng, p. 305.

[16] Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun bubing dishiyi shi junzhanshi [History of and battles fought by PLA Infantry Division 11], p. 256.

[17] Ibid, p. 278.

[18] Xu, Yan, Taojin baizhan pingshuo gujin [Comments and discussions on battles past and present, Chinese and foreign], p. 296. PLA’s suppression of Tibetan rebellion actually started in 1956 in Kham and finished in central Tibet in March 1962. Major battles ended at the end of 1961, but sporadic battles continued for a few more months.

[19] Ibid. p. 282.

[20] Yin, Fatang, p. 748.

[21] Pingxi Xizang panluan [Pacifying Rebellion in Tibet], 102.

[22] Jiefang Xizang shi, p. 399.

[23] Notes, memoranda and letters exchanged and agreements signed between the Governments of India and China 1954-1959P. 44.

[24] “Langjiu shijian” [The Longju Incident]. Baidu baike: https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%9C%97%E4%B9%85%E4%BA%8B%E4%BB%B6

[25] Shannan Sub-Military Command was established in July 1959, after the battle of Lhoka, commanding 3 infantry regiments, designated as regiments #1, #2 and #3.

[26]  Zhonggong Xizang dangshi dashiji 1949-1994 [Chronicle of Events in the History of the CCP in Tibet 1949-1994], p. 127. 

[27] Yin, Fatang, p. 749.

[28] Shijie wuji fengyunlu [Storms on the roof of the world].  Vol. 3, p. 325.

[29] Zhang, Zhiyu, Che Junhui, ed. Zhanli yanjiu. [Studies on battle examples], P. 126.

[30] Jiefang Xizang shi [History of Liberating Tibet], p. 477.

[31] Yin, Fatang, p. 750.

[32] Zhao, Shengyin, Zhang Guohua jiangjun zai Xizang [General Zhang Guohua in Tibet], p. 134.

[33] Deng Xiaoping nianpu 1904-1974 [The Chronology of Deng Xiaoping 1904-1974]., Vol. 3, p. 1728.

[34] Zhao, Shengyin,   p. 134.

[35] Ibid.

[36] Deng Xiaoping nianpu, Vol. 3, p. 1730.

[37] Jiefang Xizang shi, p. 478.

[38] Zhao, Shengyin, p. 135.

[39] Jiefang Xizang shi, pp. 487-488.