|
|
|
|
|
|
Resources |
|
|
|
Sino-Soviet Relations in the 1990s
| Article
# : |
15829 |
|
|
Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
|
| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1989 |
2,854 Words |
| Author
: |
Herbert J. Ellison
Herbert J. Ellison is chairman of Russian and east
European studies at the University of Washington. He was
formerly secretary of the Kennan Institute for Advanced
Russian Studies in Washington, D.C. |
Deng Xiaoping's recent announcement of a summit meeting with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1989 signals a further step in Sino-Soviet reconciliation, a process under way for about six years but infused by Gorbachev with a new dynamism for the past three years.
The relationship is already greatly changed. Only a decade ago, China sought security cooperation with Japan and the United States against Soviet military encirclement extending from Mongolia and the Sino-Soviet border to Afghanistan and Vietnam. Japan began rearming in earnest--perceiving a growing threat to its national security--and the United States was poised for a vast rebuilding of its regional military power, which had declined after the Vietnam War.
The Soviet Union's enormous buildup of its Asian land, naval, air, and strategic forces had resulted in growing defensive cooperation among the threatened Asian countries and its nearly complete diplomatic isolation. The Soviets were described as "as Asian power but not a power in Asia," a state with huge regional military power but lacking constructive intercourse with the area's dynamic political and economic currents.
China is the central focus of sweeping changes in Soviet East Asian policy, and for good reason. A hostile China had presented major challenges: a threat to Soviet security in central Asia and the Far East, a major block to the expansion of Soviet East Asian power, and hostile competition to Soviet leadership within world communism. Hence, the eager pursuit of reconciliation with China followed the death of Mao in 1976. Mao had heretofore been the main obstacle in improved Sino-Soviet
... (1987 of 18154 Characters)
Read Full Article
|
|
