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Chinese Foreign Policy in 1970: The Tilt Towards the Soviet Union

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

John Garver
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It has become conventional wisdom that the U.S.–China rapprochement was a result (from the Chinese side) of Beijing's fear of the Soviet Union. Specifically, the Warsaw Pact occupation of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 and the border confrontation which developed rapidly in the months after the clashes at Zhen Bao island on the Ussuri River in March 1969, are seen as exacerbating Chinese fears of Soviet attack.1 These fears had emerged during the Cultural Revolution when Moscow began insinuating that it might intervene in China in support of the anti-Maoist, “healthy forces.” 2 It was in hopes of deterring possible Soviet invasion, surgical strike, or intervention – so the argument runs – that Beijing wanted to improve relations with Washington. By establishing more cordial relations between Beijing and Washington, the risks which Moscow would assume in making a decision to attack China would be increased. Soviet-American détente would, conceivably, be endangered. The possibility of a Soviet-American confrontation arising out of such a Soviet attack on China could not be ruled out. This added increment of uncertainty about the U.S. response to a Soviet attack on China would be useful in preventing such an attack. Thus, it is concluded, in November 1968 Beijing moved to reopen the talks with the U.S. at Warsaw as a first step towards substantially improving Sino-American relations. Two years after the clashes at Zhen Bao the U.S. table tennis team arrived in Beijing in April 1971. A snowballing series of events rapidly unfolded, culminating in the 15 July 1971 announcement of Henry Kissinger's visit to China and President Nixon's impending visit

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 82 , June 1980 , pp. 214 - 249
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1980

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References

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59. Ibid. No. 4762, p. 140. On 13 October Tolstikov presented his credentials to Deng Biwu and “had a talk” with Deng and Vice-foreign minister Jiao Guanhua. SCMP, No. 4764, p. 142.

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87. It is interesting to note that both the Chinese and U.S. governments have an interest in the acceptance of the view that a Soviet threat to China underlies the Sino-American rapprochement. From the vantage point of both capitals such a view helps justify a “U.S. policy” and a “China policy” respectively which has come under attack from certain domestic critics. It also has the advantage of helping to rally diverse forces to the anti-Russian front, both internationally and domestically.