As we all know, after the founding of New China, Sino-Soviet relations experienced a honeymoon period of ten years. At that time, the Western powers, led by the United States, imposed a total economic and technological blockade on China. The helping hand extended by the Soviet Union, the big brother of socialism, was undoubtedly invaluable to China, which was still very weak at that time.
However, there are no eternal enemies in the world, no eternal friends, only eternal interests. After Khrushchev came to power, he was keen to promote great power chauvinism, and in just a decade, Sino-Soviet relations moved from cooperation to confrontation.
The battle for the defense of Zhenbao Island in 1969 brought Sino-Soviet relations to a freezing point. China has suffered its worst crisis since the founding of the People's Republic of China. Behind the defense of Zhenbao Island, the United States is unusual, and it has actually helped China behind its back.
What are the causes and consequences of this? In this issue, we will deeply interpret the game behind the defense of Zhenbao Island between China, the United States and the Soviet Union.
The international background of the outbreak on Treasure Island
After World War II, the establishment of the Yalta system formed a Cold War pattern in which the United States and the Soviet Union competed for hegemony. The capitalist camp led by the United States and the socialist camp led by the Soviet Union are the pinpoint of The Mai Mang.
The Big Three of the Yalta Conference: Stalin, Roosevelt, Churchill
In other words, in an international pattern in which the United States and the Soviet Union competed for hegemony, the interests of the United States and the Soviet Union were to be guaranteed on a priority basis. And a big country cannot stand alone, either growing into a towering tree, or it can only be sent to the fence and attached to the United States and the Soviet Union.
Therefore, after the founding of New China, China chose a "one-sided" pro-Soviet foreign policy. On the Korean battlefield, China, with the support of the Soviet Union, beat the world's number one military power, the United States, to the point of utter defeat, and finally had to sign an armistice.
After that, China and the Soviet Union joined forces to promote the global national liberation movement, which made the United States exhausted.
By the 1960s, although Sino-Soviet relations had broken down, they maintained a consistent attitude in Vietnam's war against the United States. In the nearly 20 years of the Vietnam War, the American people were not happy, inflation was serious, and social contradictions were reborn, and a generation without hope in the United States was even more defeated.
Anti-war demonstrations in the United States in the 1960s
It was also at this time that the Soviet Union also committed the mistake of imperialism, engaged in hegemonism in the international arena, and was criticized by our Prime Minister as "social imperialism".
Not only that, but the Soviet Union also wanted to dominate Asia and extend its hand to the whole world. This is undoubtedly a serious threat to China's security.
It was in such an international context that the defense of Zhenbao Island broke out.
The Battle for The Treasure Island breaks out
From 1967 to March 1969, Soviet troops had deliberately invaded the continent's treasures 16 times, from scolding each other to shoving and shoving, and finally to stick fighting. In the face of serious warnings from the Chinese side, the Soviet side turned a deaf ear and still went its own way.
To this end, our people at the helm have formulated a series of guiding ideologies for border defense struggles and action guidelines for the anti-aggression struggle, such as "tit-for-tat confrontation and contention for every inch of land," "no one offends me, I do not offend, and if people offend me, I will offend."
Battle for the Defence of Treasure Island
The Chinese Border Guards also selected martial arts masters from all over the country to engage the invading Soviet army with sticks. However, as the momentum of Soviet provocations intensified, the confrontation between the two sides gradually escalated, and in the end, there was even a vicious incident of shooting and killing border people, and the Chinese side had to start a counterattack.
On March 2, 1969, more than 70 heavily armed Soviet troops in four military vehicles brazenly invaded the mainland treasure island. After landing on the island, the Soviet army deliberately shot at our soldiers and civilians, killing and wounding 6 of our soldiers and civilians. In accordance with the instructions of the central authorities, our army counterattacked on the spot and drove out the invading Soviet army.
On March 15, the Soviet army once again invaded Zhenbao Island on a large scale, followed by more than 100 Soviet troops, and marched towards Zhenbao Island. After 9 hours of heroic fighting, the Plake General Army finally repelled the Soviet army.
Two days later, the Soviets made a comeback again. More than 70 Soviet troops, under the cover of tanks, invaded the mainland treasure island for the third time. The People's Liberation Army fought back heroically, repelled the invading Soviet troops, and defended China's territorial sovereignty.
The three Soviet invasions were the ins and outs of the entire battle to defend Treasure Island.
During the defense of Zhenbao Island, our army captured soviet T62 tanks
The clouds of nuclear war
All three invasions ended in failure, much to the chagrin of the Soviet hierarchy. Brezhnev immediately increased his troops on the Sino-Soviet border, and the Soviet union's strength on the Sino-Soviet border quickly increased to 1.44 million.
Not only that, Soviet Defense Minister Marshal Grechko, Assistant Minister of Minister Trikov and other hardliners directly suggested to Brezhnev that the Chinese threat be eliminated once and for all. They used their nuclear weapons deployed in the Far East to carry out "nuclear surgery" on China.
For a time, the dark clouds of nuclear war once again hung over the heads of Chinese people, and the Treasure Island incident was likely to become the fuse that triggered a full-scale nuclear war after the Cuban Missile Crisis.
A torrent of millions of steel from the Soviet army
However, waging a nuclear war is not a small matter, and there is another supernuclear power in the world, the United States, which is watching from the sidelines. Therefore, the Soviet Union ostensibly clamored for a nuclear strike against China, but if it did not get the support of the United States or let the United States remain neutral, the Soviet Union did not dare to act rashly.
Immediately afterward, the Soviet ambassador to the United States held talks with the then US Secretary of State Kissinger and informed Kissinger of the Soviet Union's strategic intention of planning to carry out "nuclear surgery" on China.
The Soviet Union was initially more confident about the attitude of the United States. On the Korean battlefield, China and the United States fought each other for nearly two decades, and in 1964, the United States and the Soviet Union prepared to jointly destroy China's nuclear industrial facilities in the northwest.
Therefore, the Soviet Union believed that even if it did not have the support of the United States, it would be the worst that would make the United States stand idly by. In this way, the Soviet Union was able to let it go.
The Americans' little abacus
However, Nixon was a knowledgeable politician after all, and his insight into the international situation should not be underestimated.
Then-U.S. President Richard Nixon
At this time, China dragged the Soviet Union's 1.44 million troops to the Far East, greatly alleviating the military pressure of the US-led NATO in Europe.
In the eyes of the United States, the Soviet Union was still its greatest rival. At this time, the United States was deeply mired in the quagmire of the Vietnam War, and the domestic economy had begun to decline, the domestic people were not happy, and inflation was serious. At this time, the Soviet Union was already vaguely suppressing the United States.
Once China was hit by the Soviet Union, so that the Soviet Union had no worries in the Far East, then in the European region, the Middle East and the Vietnamese battlefield in the Far East, the United States was bound to be subjected to greater military pressure from the Soviet Union, and it was likely to drag the United States into a situation of no return.
From the perspective of nuclear war, once the Soviet Union first uses nuclear weapons, then China is bound to fight back strongly, so it is likely that there will be a third world war, or even a global nuclear war. Not only can the United States not stay out of the matter, but it is also an unprecedented disaster for all mankind.
Soviet KGB
Moreover, at this time, the United States had realized the important role played by China in the Cold War pattern of the United States and the Soviet Union competing for hegemony. And if China, the world's most populous country, can be integrated into the world market system dominated by the United States, then it will be beneficial and harmless to the United States, which is in an economic crisis at this time.
Therefore, from any point of view, the United States should be on China's side.
Small moves behind the United States
At this time, although the United States intends to send a signal of goodwill to the Chinese side, after all, the sword between China and the United States has been raging for nearly two decades because of the Korean War and the treasure island issue, and the two sides have not established formal diplomatic relations. So how to let the Chinese side get the goodwill signal released by the United States is a problem.
U.S. President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
Subsequently, on August 28, 1969, the Washington Star, a small newspaper in the United States, prominently published a message entitled "The Soviet Union Wants to Carry Out a Surgical Nuclear Strike on China." The message mentions:
"The Soviet Union wanted to carry out a surgical nuclear strike against China: the Soviet Union wanted to use medium-range ballistic missiles, carrying nuclear warheads of several million tons equivalent, to carry out surgical nuclear strikes against some of China's important military bases such as the Xichang Missile Launch Base, the Jiuquan and Lop Nur Nuclear Test Bases, and important industrial cities such as Beijing and Changchun."
On the one hand, it has played a warning role for China; on the other hand, it has also deliberately created international public opinion and put pressure on the Soviet Union, so that the Soviet Union has to carefully consider the consequences of using nuclear weapons.
Not only that, the Soviet ambassador to the United States Dobrynin reported to Brezhnev: Kissinger has made it clear that once our side conducts a nuclear strike against China, then the United States believes that the third world war will begin, and the United States will also participate in the war first.
Leader of the Soviet Union at the time: Brezhnev
Brezhnev was angry after listening to the report, angry that the United States leaked his secrets to China, and he had no choice but to take the United States. What is even more infuriating is that his plan to carry out nuclear surgery on China was completely disintegrated by this small action of the United States, and he also pushed himself to the cusp of international public opinion.
China facing a nuclear threat
Of course, our helmsman also attached great importance to this news, and after listening to the report, he said: Isn't it necessary to fight a nuclear war! The atomic bomb is very powerful, but the contemptible people are not afraid.
Why do our people at the helm have the courage to say such words?
It turned out that as early as 1964, when our helmsman was faced with the joint efforts of the two great powers of the United States and the Soviet Union to destroy the nuclear industry facilities in northwest China, he ordered the cessation of the Third Five-Year Plan with astonishing boldness and instead formulated a great project - "the construction of the Great Third Line.".
Schematic diagram of the construction of the third line
To put it simply, the construction of the Third Line is to re-establish a complete industrial system in the southwest region far from the Sino-Soviet border and the southeast coast.
In this way, even if New China encounters the steel torrent of the Soviet Union and the nuclear threat of major powers such as the United States and the Soviet Union, after the industrial facilities on the periphery are completely destroyed, China still has a complete industrial system to fight back.
It is precisely because of the achievements of the construction of the great third line that China has been given the confidence to argue in the face of the Soviet nuclear threat.
By October 20, 1969, the border negotiations between the two countries were held in Beijing, and the Zhenbao Island incident ended.
In the Treasure Island incident, China also learned of the goodwill released by the United States, and this incident has also become an inflection point in the transformation of Sino-US relations. Three years later, Nixon visited China, and Sino-US relations gradually returned to normal. Nixon's strategy of United China was also the basic reason for the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union.