War will bring no benefit to us. We must carry out construction, and war
will only devastate our ongoing construction. The Kuomintang started the civil
war and fought with us for many years. Then we fought against Japan for eight
years. We did not go to Japan to fight; Japan invaded China. Going further
back, foreign countries committed aggression against China. China has been
at war with Britain several times, such as the Opium War,®' which started in
Guangdong in 1840, and the war with the allied forces of the eight powers.®®
The troops of the eight countries, including Britain, occupied Tianjin and
attacked Beijing. The Sino-Japanese War from 1894 to 1895®" was fought in
places such as Liishun and Dalian. Later the Japanese occupied China's
northeast. Before that tsarist Russia and Japan fought a war on China's land
near Liishun, Liaoyang and Shenyang.®® The last was the Second World War,
when Japan occupied almost the whole of China. Among all those wars we
never fought in other countries; it was always foreign countries which invaded
China. There were times Chinese went to fight in foreign countries, but those
were in ancient times when Chinese emperors sent expeditionary forces to
Vietnam and Korea. Later Japan occupied Korea, and France occupied Viet
nam.
In 1911 we overthrew the Qing emperor. Then the war among different
factions of warlords took place. At that time there was no Communist Party
in China. When the Communist Party came into existence, there were
revolutionary wars. But it was not we who wanted to fight; it was the
imperialists and the Kuomintang who wanted to fight. In 1921 the Communist
Party was founded in China and I became a member. At that time we never
prepared for war. I was an intellectual, a primary school teacher. I never
learned military affairs, so how could I know how to fight? The white terror
This is the main part of Mao Zedong's talk with a Chilean journalist delegation.
of the Kuomintang wiped out trade unions and peasant associations and killed
or arrested large batches of our 50,000 Communist Party members; that made
us take up guns and go to the mountains to fight guerrilla wars. Then, after
the ten-thousand-// Long March, we maneuvered to the north. Previously we
had had a 300,000-strong army, but at that time only a little more than 20,000
were left. Just at the time we had fewer men, we corrected our mistakes and
took the correct road. Later our forces grew. When Chiang Kai-shek came to
attack us after the Japanese had been driven away, our enemies were doomed
to lose. We, therefore, won the victory of revolution. So far we have had only
15 years of construction. We cannot change China's backwardness in a short
period of time. It will take us at least several decades to accomplish it.
China needs peace. Whoever wants peace will get our support. We don't
approve of war, but we shall support wars of the oppressed people against the
imperialists. We support the revolutionary wars in Cuba and Algeria. We also
support the people in southern Vietnam in their struggle against American
imperialists. These revolutions are initiated by the people themselves. In Cuba,
for instance, we never asked Castro^^^ to wage revolution; he himself rose to
revolution, and, believe it or not, it was the United States that brought him
to revolution; it was American lackeys who brought him to revolution. Take
Algeria, for another example. Did we ask Ben Bella^'"' to go to revolution? We
never knew this man before, and I've never seen him. They themselves rose
to revolution. They set up a provisional government, which we recognize. If
they ask for support, we shall give them our support. The imperialists label us
"bellicose elements," which is true to some extent, because we support Castro,
Ben Bella and people in southern Vietnam in their fight against the United
States.
One other time, when the U.S. invaded Korea from 1950 to 1953, we
supported the Korean people in their struggle against U.S. imperialists. We
openly declared this policy and will never give it up. That is to say, we support
the wars against imperialism by people of various countries. If we didn't, we
would be committing a mistake and no longer be Communists. Nasser,"'
president of the United Arab Republic, is not a Communist, yet he support
ed the Algerian revolution. Shouldn't we Communists support Algeria? A
hundred eighty years ago, when Washington^^^ rose against Britain, France
supported Washington; were the French communists then? At that time there
was no Communist Party in China or in the world. The Communist Party
came into being in the 19th century. Probably our label of "bellicose element"
will continue to exist.
One main point is our domestic issue. In China we drove the American
stooge Chiang Kai-shek as well as the American forces away, so the Americans
are not happy with us. I don't mean the American people; I mean American
capitalists. We have some Americans living in Beijing, and they are friendly
to us.
The United States would make Latin America its colony economically
and, in many cases, politically. The party of the former Brazilian president
Goulart, whom I met, was a labor party, not a Communist Party, but the
United States couldn't tolerate him, so it overthrew him. Even Ngo Dinh
Diem,'^^ who was slightly disobedient to the U.S., was killed by it. It is not
very peaceful within the United States. Ngo Dinh Diem was killed by the
Kennedy^”® government, but only months later Kennedy himself went to see
his God.
The United States labeled us "aggressors," but we say they are the
aggressors. They allege that we are "bellicose elements," but we say the big
capitalists of the American government are bellicose elements. It is up to the
world's people to judge who are the real aggressors and bellicose elements. The
United States has military bases all around China; it even occupied China's
Taiwan. We never occupied a single island of the United States and never
invaded any Latin American and African countries. We "invade" only one
country in Asia—China. We were at war with the imperialists for several
decades and drove them away. This made the U.S. very unhappy; other
imperialists were unhappy too, but there is no way they can help. Just as they
cannot move Chile away, they cannot remove us from the earth. It's impos
sible for them to move Cuba away or even very small countries, such as
Albania.
The Americans predict our government will collapse either this year or
next year. I'm afraid it's not true. In my view we won't collapse this year or
next year. What about the year after next? I say we won't collapse. To topple
our government would require the U.S. and Chiang Kai-shek combined
attacking us. Yet even if they did, they couldn't necessarily achieve what they
expected. They once came, but they lost. Southern Vietnam has only a 14
million population, but the U.S. finds itself in a dilemma, difficult to advance
or to retreat, and is bogged down in a mire. The U.S. also has a headache in
Latin America. We are optimistic on this point. People all over the world are
bound to stand up; they want to be masters of themselves, not allow the
capitalists to be their masters. Because we believe this, we publicly point it out,
so the capitalists are not so fond of us. Then why do so many of them, except
the U.S., come to do business with us? Because they don't meddle in our
internal affairs. We won't do business with the Americans even if they so wish.

We shall not accept their journalists here. We believe that before the major
issues are solved, it's not so urgent to solve these minor and special issues. The
Chilean journalist delegation can visit China, but American journalists cannot,
although they will someday. The relationship between the two countries will
eventually be normalized. In my view it will take another 15 years. Because
15 years have already passed, 15 more years mean 30 years all together. If these
are not long enough, just add more years.
(From the verbatim record)