What Were the Turning-Point Events That Kept Relations Between the Soviet Union and China Hostile for over 20 Years?

In 1972, President Richard Nixon was quoted as stating that his visit to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) “changed the world…to build a bridge across sixteen thousand miles and twenty-two years of hostilities.” By meeting with Chairman Mao Zedong in Beijing, Nixon took groundbreaking first steps to opening relations and formally recognizing the People’s Republic of China. The history of the aforementioned hostilities between the United States and the PRC dates back to the Chinese Communist Party’s takeover of mainland China following its civil war in the

While Mao’s interpretation of Marxism included using peasants as the basis for revolution, Stalin felt that workers were meant to lead an urban-based class war. This led to Stalin’s view that the revolution in China was not genuinely Marxist and his refusal to support the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). However, Stalin also feared Mao as a rival, did not want the Cold War to spread to Asia, and favored the Guomindang over the CCP. These personality clashes and Stalin’s instinct for self-preservation convinced Mao that Stalin wished for a divided and weak China that would be unable to

This really made the Chinese angry, and so a revolution was sparked. The Communist party was founded some two years after the success of the Bolsheviks in neighboring Russia inspired many. [WSJ] However, this was just a brief summarization; the reality would be far too complicated to incorporate and would better off be in its own essay. Although World War II is often thought to be the cause of the half-century Cold War between the Allies and the Soviets, its

Prior to Communism in China, it was known to be a chaotic country on the brink of self-destruction. With the emergence of the party leader Mao Zedong, came a new hope, which filled its inhabitants with the belief that China would return to its former historical greatness. American and Chinese relations before 1971 were in simple terms described as “uneasy”, due to the American, Soviet Cold War. It was not until President Richard Nixon visited China and realized the high value of having China as a ally that relations between the two powers began to become positive. Unknown at the time, it is assumed in the book Chinese Lessons written by John Pomfret, that the relationships he formed with the people he met in China would change his outlook on life and Communist China forever.

In foreign relations, trade had a marginal value and foreign investment both inwards and outwards were essentially absent. One of the greatest failures of Mao’s notable project ‘Great Leap Forward’ in 1958 turned out to be one of the greatest failures as it was intended to collectivize all agricultural, industrial and service life under people's communes and militias’ control . The first consequence of this measure was an economic autarky that led to one of the worst famines of the twentieth century. Developments in international policy pushed China towards a gradual isolation and growing conflicts. Eventually China's international political and economic relations degenerated and led to a serious military confrontation with its main ally, the Soviet Union and fighting a border war with India in the 60s. Isolation, political and economic, reaches its highest levels with the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution in 1966 until 1976 .

the Soviet Union fought as allies during World War II, postwar there was tension and distrust.

To achieve this diplomatic strength, Richard Nixon first turned toward China. For decades, China had posed unique opportunities to America. However, these opportunities shriveled when in 1949, Mao Zedong established the People’s Republic of China, a communist republic aligned more with the USSR than with the United States. Given America’s animosity towards the Soviet Union, this animosity extended itself to the People’s Republic of China and to Mao Zedong. Just over twenty years later, though, even though Mao still held considerable power, the USSR and China began to drift apart.

This demonstrates that nationalism had a role in the change because each nation wanted to be the strongest and the most

Fear was a large part of this as a fear of world domination by communists or nuclear holocaust, especially because the Soviet Union exploded its first A-Bomb in 1949 and China became communist.

In Mao's era, there was also little room for free speech due to the immense censorship that pervaded the period. Individual thinking and Confucian philosophy were renounced with a youth movement, The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, to criticize everything and to revive the spirit of the revolution. Until his death in 1976, when Deng Xiao Ping took control of the Communist Party, Mao accentuated maintaining the revolutionary ideals of communal 'freedom' and the ultimate sacrifice of the individual for the enhancement of China.

The analysis of knowledge as, “ S knows that p if and only if (i) p, (ii) S believes that p and (iii) S has adequate evidence that p” is subject to a platonic objection for it to be true. Because when “has adequate evidence” does not entail “know of adequate evidence” problems with the analysis arise that defeat its claim of producing knowledge. The problem entails the inability to actively utilize evidence for verification. Verification is necessary, because if not provided no knowledge can be produced.

The Cold War, a period of sustained political and military tension between the USA and the USSR, resulted in various viewpoints concerning the cause of the tension emerging. Until today the question remains unresolved, even after the 1991 release of Soviet archives. The main point of disagreement relates to the roles that ideology played in the events between 1945 and 1949. Was it the strongly opposing ideologies, capitalism and communism, or power and material interest that drove both superpowers to the decades of struggle for global supremacy.

Almost all parts of the world did not expect such meeting to happen and some did not want this friendly meeting to happen. In fact it came as complete shock to most of Soviet leadership (MacMillan, 290) Since the Soviets was not in good relations with China Soviets were irritated that this impossible meeting took place to improve the Sino-American relationship. The U.S. and China had been enemies for too long and also the war in Vietnam remained to keep them apart. (MacMillan, 289)The KGB, the Soviet secret police, had planned a campaign of disinformation to keep Americans and Chinese apart. (MacMillan, 289)

The history of Sino-Soviet relations can be traced back hundreds of years, starting with the initial Mongol invasion and devastation of the Kievan Rus’ principalities in the mid-thirteenth century. With time, the rise of the Russian Empire and Czarist rule reversed the infrastructural and cultural destruction caused by the Mongol hordes; by the advent of the twentieth century, the reformed Russian state had begun encroaching on Chinese territory while holding a very strong, influential grasp on the slowly collapsing Imperial Chinese regime. However, with the success of the Russian Revolution in 1917, the creation of the Soviet Union, and the institution of a communist government and administration, the nature of

China and the Soviet Union relationship began to collapse after the death of Stalin. After their infamous leader passing, China became skeptical of the Soviet Union for three reasons. First, Khrushchev gave a speech talking about the late Stalin’s policies. Then, Khrushchev also dismissed the idea to work with Beijing on trying to settle the disagreement with India’s border. Lastly, Khrushchev spoke of peace with the West. In conclusion, China suspicion with the Soviet Union cause a separation in their relationship.