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rd Poet THE ROLE OF CHINA 31 is an intermediate zone around her borders consisting of gen- erafly friendly or at least neutral countrics. Such a zone would not necessarily be contrary to the interests of the United States. It would continue to be an area in which Western and Chinese influ- ense would complete, but not through subversion or military conquest. But what about Peking’s general warlike attitude, its supposed denial of the principle of co-existence, and its espousal of, revolu- tionary wars of liberation as a means of isolating and weakening “the imperialist” nations? This again needs to be examined carefully, especially since, as one of the main components of the Sino-Soviet dispute, the Chinese position in regard to co- existence has tended to be twisted by both the Soviet and Western spokesmen. First, the Chinese maintain that they adhere to the principle of co-existence of states with different social systems, and re- peatedly assert that they are for peace. But they insist that this does not require any people to accept domination by imperialists or reactionaries or to accept outside aggression. In other words, wars of liberation and wars resisting aggression are “just” wars. Furthermore, they maintain that co-existence applies in diflerent ways to different countries and that different policies must be adopted toward different types such as other socialist countries, ponsocialist countries that have recently attained independence, ordinary capitalist countries, and imperialist countries. The United States falls in a category by itself as the superimperialist power bent on world empire through the establishment of military bases and control of puppet governments throughout the world. With it, the Chinese maintain, no co-existence is possible as long as the United States maintains what they now regard as being a policy of “imperialism and aggression.” They criticize the Soviet Union's attempt to obtain peace with the United States through negotiation because they say a lasting peace can only be assured through uni- versal disarmament. Anything short of this, especially in the field of nuclear weapons, simply perpetuates a military monopoly of the big powers. But, they say, universal disarmament is com- pletely unthinkable for the United States at this point for two basic reasons. First, according to their anulysis, its economy is based