China’s status as a great power at that time was not measured by the number of warships it possessed, but by its ability to alter the global balance of power.
In that era, China had an army of several million men and an H-bomb-backed nuclear deterrent. Its navy was indeed weak, its industry was far from mature, and its overall military modernization still had many deficiencies. Yet its land power, strategic depth, manpower reserve, and nuclear capability were already enough to make it a decisive factor in world politics.
The Soviet Union had to deploy massive forces along the Sino-Soviet border. That alone proves the point. A country that can force one superpower to divert such enormous strategic resources cannot be dismissed as a “weak country” simply because its navy lacked blue-water strength.
To put it another way: if China and the Soviet Union had remained united as close allies, with the Soviet Union free from any eastern strategic pressure, could the United States have held Europe so comfortably? NATO would have faced far greater pressure, and the European balance might have looked completely different.
This was precisely why Nixon’s opening to China mattered. It was not charity, nor was it merely about markets or cheap labor. It was a geopolitical move: the United States sought to use China to contain the Soviet Union, while China used the opening to ease strategic pressure and expand its diplomatic space.
Therefore, reducing China’s position at the time to “a few torpedo boats” is a shallow equipment-list mentality. Great power status is not determined by counting ships alone. It is determined by whether a country can force other great powers to adjust their deployments, reshape their strategies, and recalculate the global order. By that standard, China was already a major strategic power.
【 在 chunzai 的大作中提到: 】
: “硬撑起一方强国”根本不是一方强国，当时美苏在欧洲咬在一起，不暇顾及东大。几艘鱼雷快艇是海军主力，有什么鸟用？嘴炮是让自己的老百姓听的。当时与印度一仗明明赢的，还是退回原地，因为再搞下去自己将精皮力竭
: ※ 修改:·chunzai 于 Jun 4 17:44:49 2026 修改本文·[FROM: 117.143.136.* (上海 上海市 移动)]
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修改:chunzai FROM 117.143.136.*
FROM 223.104.40.*