powers and Japan also were building forces and taking firm positions against
the USSR. Meanwhile, increased complications and weaknesses affecting the
power of the Soviet Union included problems of leadership succession, eco-
nomic sustainability, and tensions in Poland and elsewhere in the Warsaw
Pact. Faced with such adverse circumstances prior to his death in 1982,
Brezhnev reached out with positive initiatives toward China, attempting to
improve relations. 55
Rapprochement and Normalization
81
Against this background, Chinese officials saw an ability to exert a freer
hand in foreign affairs and to position China in a stance less aligned with the United States. The priority to stay close to the United States in order to
encourage resolute US positions against Soviet expansion was no longer as
important as in the recent past. Also, there were new opportunities to nego-
tiate with Soviet leaders calling for talks. Beijing moved by 1981 to a posture more independent of the United States and less hostile toward the USSR.
China’s new “independent foreign policy” also featured a revival of Chinese
relations with developing countries and in the international communist
movement, which had been neglected in favor of emphasis on the anti-Soviet
front in the 1970s. 56
However, the shift in Chinese policy away from the United States and
somewhat closer to the Soviet Union did not work very well. Chinese leaders
continued to speak of their new independent foreign policy approach, but
they seemed to change their international calculations based on perceptions
of shifts in the international balance of power affecting China. By 1983,
Chinese leaders showed increasing concern about the stability of the nation’s
surroundings in Asia at a time of unrelenting buildup of Soviet military and
political pressure along China’s periphery, and of serious and possibly pro-
longed decline in relations with the United States. They decided that the
foreign policy tactics of the previous two years, designed to distance China
from the policies of the United States and to moderate and improve Chinese
relations with the Soviet Union, were less likely to safeguard the important
Chinese security and development concerns affected by the stability of the
Asian environment. 57
The Chinese leaders appeared to recognize in particular that Beijing
would have to stop its pullback from the United States for fear of jeopardiz-
ing this link, so important for maintaining its security and development inter-
ests in the face of persistent Soviet pressure in Asia. Thus, in 1983 Beijing
began to retreat from some of the tactical changes made the previous two
years under the rubric of an independent approach to foreign affairs. The
result was a substantial reduction in Chinese pressure on the United States
over Taiwan and other issues; increased Chinese interest and flexibility in
dealing with the Reagan administration and other Western countries across a
broad range of economic, political, and security issues; and heightened Sino-
Soviet antipathy. Beijing still attempted to nurture whenever possible the
increased influence it had garnered by means of its independent posture
among developing countries and the international communist movement, but
it increasingly sided with the West against the USSR in order to secure basic
strategic and economic interests. 58
A key element in China’s decision to change tactics toward the United
States was an altered view of the likely course of Sino-American-Soviet
relations over the next several years. When China began its more indepen-
82
Chapter 4
dent approach to foreign affairs and its concurrent harder line toward the
United States in 1981–82, it had hoped to elicit a more forthcoming US
attitude toward issues sensitive to Chinese interests, notably Taiwan. Beijing
probably judged that there could be serious risks of alienating the United
States, which had provided an implicit but vital counterweight serving Chi-
nese security interests against the USSR for more than a decade and was
assisting more recent Chinese economic development concerns. But the Chi-
creased because
• The United States had reasserted a balance in East-West relations likely to
lead to a continued major check on possible Soviet expansion. Chinese
worries about US “appeasement” of the USSR seemed a thing of the past.
• The Soviet ability to pressure China had appeared to be at least temporari-
ly blocked by US power, the determination of various US allies to thwart
Soviet expansion, and Soviet domestic and international problems. China
added to Soviet difficulties by cooperating with the United States in clan-
destine operations supporting fighters resisting the Soviet occupation of
Afghanistan.
• At least some important US leaders, notably Secretary of State Alexander
Haig and his subordinates in the State Department, continued to consider
preserving and developing good US relations with China as a critically
important element in US efforts to confront and contain Soviet expan-
sion. 59
By mid-1983 China saw these calculations upset. In particular, the United
States under Secretary of State Shultz adopted a new posture that was seen to
publicly downgrade China’s strategic importance. The adjustment in the US
position occurred after the resignation of Haig, perhaps the strongest advo-
cate in the Reagan administration of sustaining good relations with China as
an important strategic means to counter the USSR. Secretary Shultz and such
subordinates as Paul Wolfowitz were less identified with this approach.
Shultz held a series of meetings with government and nongovernmental
Asian specialists in Washington in early 1983 to review US Asian policy in
general and policy toward China in particular. The results of the reassess-
ment—implicitly but clearly downgrading China’s importance to the United
States—were reflected in speeches by Shultz and Wolfowitz later in the
year. 60
US planners now appeared to judge that efforts to improve relations with
China were less important than in the recent past because
• China seemed less likely to cooperate further with the United States (e.g.,
through military sales or security cooperation against the Soviet Union at a
Rapprochement and Normalization
83
time when the PRC had publicly distanced itself from the United States
and had reopened talks on normalization with the USSR).
• At the same time, China’s continued preoccupation with pragmatic eco-
nomic modernization and internal development made it appear unlikely
that the PRC would revert to a highly disruptive position in East Asia that
would adversely affect US interests in the stability of the region.
• China’s demands on Taiwan and a wide variety of other bilateral disputes,
and the accompanying threats to downgrade US-China relations if its de-
mands were not met, seemed open-ended and excessive.
• US ability to deal militaril
y and politically with the USSR from a position
of greater strength had improved, particularly as a result of the large-scale
Reagan administration military budget increases and perceived serious
internal and international difficulties of the USSR.
• US allies, for the first time in years, were working more closely with
Washington in dealing with the Soviet military threat. This was notably
true in Asia, where Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone took positions and
initiatives underlining common Japanese-US concerns against the Soviet
danger, setting the foundation for the close “Ron-Yasu” relationship be-
tween the US and Japanese leaders.
• Japan and US allies and friends in Southeast Asia—unlike China—ap-
peared to be more important to the United States in protecting against
what was seen as the primary US strategic concern in the region—safe-
guarding air and sea access to East Asia, the Indian Ocean, and the Persian
Gulf from Soviet attack. China appeared less important in dealing with
this perceived Soviet danger. 61
Western press reports quoting authoritative sources in Washington alerted
China to the implications of this shift in the US approach for PRC interests.
In effect, the shift seemed to mean that Chinese ability to exploit US interest in strategic relations with China against the Soviet Union was reduced, as
was US interest in avoiding disruptions caused by China and other negative
consequences that flowed from a downgrading of China’s relations with the
United States. Chinese ability to use these facets in order to compel the
United States to meet Chinese demands on Taiwan and other questions
seemed less than in the recent past. Underlining these trends for China was
the continued unwillingness of the United States throughout this period to
accommodate high-level PRC pressure over Taiwan, the asylum case of Chi-
nese tennis player Hu Na, the Chinese representation issue in the Asian
Development Bank, and other questions. The Reagan administration publicly
averred that US policy would remain constant whether or not Beijing decided
to retaliate, or threatened to downgrade relations by withdrawing its ambas-
sador from Washington, or some other action. 62
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Chapter 4
Moreover, Chinese commentary and discussions with Chinese officials
suggested that Beijing perceived its leverage in the United States to have
diminished at the time. Chinese media duly noted the strong revival in the US
economy in 1983 and the positive political implications this had for President
Reagan’s reelection campaign. China also had to be aware, through contacts
with leading Democrats, notably House of Representatives Speaker Tip
O’Neill, who visited China that same year, that Beijing could expect little
change in US policy toward Taiwan under a Democratic administration. As
1983 wore on, the Chinese saw what for them was an alarming rise in the
influence of US advocates of self-determination for Taiwan among liberal
Democrats. In particular, Senator Claiborne Pell took the lead in gaining
passage of a controversial resolution in the Senate Foreign Relations Com-
mittee that endorsed, among other things, the principle of self-determination
for Taiwan—anathema to Beijing. 63
Meanwhile, although Sino-Soviet trade, cultural, and technical contacts
were increasing, Beijing saw few signs of Soviet willingness to compromise
on basic political and security issues during vice-ministerial talks on normal-
izing Sino-Soviet relations that began in October 1982. And the Soviet mili-
tary buildup in Asia—including the deployment of highly accurate SS-20
intermediate-range ballistic missiles—continued. 64
In short, if Beijing continued its demands and harder line against the
United States of the previous two years, pressed the United States on various
issues, and risked downgrading relations, it faced the prospect of a period of
prolonged decline in Sino-American relations—possibly lasting until the end
of Reagan’s second presidential term. This decline brought the risk of cutting
off the implicit but vitally important Chinese strategic understanding with the United States in the face of a prolonged danger to China posed by the USSR.
The Chinese also recognized that a substantial decline in Chinese rela-
tions with the United States would have undercut their already limited lever-
age with Moscow; it probably would have reduced Soviet interest in accom-
modating China in order to preclude closer US-China security ties or collab-
oration against the USSR. It also would have run the risk of upsetting Chi-
na’s ability to gain greater access not only to US markets and financial and
technical expertise but also to those of other important capitalist countries.
Now that the Chinese economy was successfully emerging from some re-
trenchments and adjustments undertaken in 1981–82, the Western economic
connection seemed more important to PRC planners. Yet many US allies and
friends, especially Japan, were more reluctant to undertake heavy economic
involvement in China at a time of uncertain US-China political relations. The
United States also exerted strong influence in international financial institu-
tions that were expected to be the source of several billions of dollars of
much-needed aid for China in the 1980s.
Rapprochement and Normalization
85
China also had to calculate as well that a serious decline in US-China
relations would likely result in a concurrent increase in US-Taiwan relations.
As a result, Beijing’s chances of using Taiwan’s isolation from the United
States to prompt Taipei to move toward reunification in accord with PRC
interests would be set back seriously.
The deliberations of Chinese policy makers regarding maneuvers between
the United States and the Soviet Union during this period remain shrouded in
secrecy. Given the upswing in Chinese public as well as private pressure
against the United States during the early years of the Reagan administration
over Taiwan arms sales and many other areas of dispute, any backing away
from a firm line toward the United States on Taiwan and other sensitive
issues almost certainly represented a difficult compromise for those leaders
who had pushed this approach in 1981–82.
Unlike in the case of the United States, there was no concurrent major
change in China’s foreign affairs leadership, which ultimately depended on
the attentive direction of strong-man ruler Deng Xiaoping. Deng appeared to
have a freer hand to shift policy in foreign affairs than in the complicated mix of domestic politics at the time. Thus, for example, he was able to decide to
shelve the sensitive territorial dispute of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands during
negotiations with Japan over a peace treaty in 1978 and he allowed the
agreement on normalization of relations with the United States to go forward
that year despite the US intention to continue arms sales to Taiwan. Deng
endorsed the most sensitive clandestine Chinese arms sale on record—the
transfer of more than thirty intermediate-range nuclear-capable ballistic mis-
siles to Saudi Arabia in the ear
ly 1980s, at a time when China also was
transferring nuclear weapons technology and assistance that allowed Paki-
stan to develop and test a credible nuclear deterrent in the 1990s. Against this background, Deng seemed to have the domestic political standing to carry
out the adjustment and moderation in China’s approach to the United States
without serious negative implications. No matter what might have taken
place behind the scenes in Chinese decision making with regard to policy
toward the United States and the Soviet Union at the time, Chinese officials
did in fact pull back from pressing American leaders. The routine harangues
on Taiwan and other differences that greeted senior Reagan administration
visitors on the initial meetings in Beijing dropped off. Chinese leaders
worked harder to curry favor with President Reagan and his associates. 65
Moderation toward the United States
Appearing anxious to moderate past demands and improve relations with the
United States, the Chinese responded positively to the latest in a series of
Reagan administration efforts to ease technology transfer restrictions—an-
nounced by Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldridge during a trip to China
86
Chapter 4
in May 1983. The Chinese followed up by agreeing to schedule the long-
delayed visit by Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger in September, and
to exchange visits by Premier Zhao Ziyang, a Chinese senior leader, and
President Reagan at the turn of the year. Not to appear too anxious to im-
prove relations with China, Reagan administration officials were successful
in getting Premier Zhao Ziyang to visit Washington for a summit in January
1984, before the US president would agree to go to China later that year.
Beijing media attempted to portray these moves as Chinese responses to
US concessions and as consistent with China’s avowed “independent” ap-
proach in foreign affairs and its firm stance on US-China differences over
Taiwan and other issues. But as time went on, it became clear just how much
Beijing was prepared to moderate past public demands and threats of retalia-
tion over Taiwan and other issues for the sake of consolidating Sino-