China Briefing, 1984 by Steven M. Goldstein

Author:Steven M. Goldstein [Goldstein, Steven M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Asia, China
ISBN: 9780813302225
Google: xaJ09H5sKtUC
Goodreads: 2363973
Publisher: Westview Press
Published: 1985-08-08T00:00:00+00:00

This is an extraordinary statement that suggests the importance which the Chinese attached to improving Sino-Soviet relations. As Hu suggested, it was repeated to Andrei Gromyko when he met with the Chinese foreign minister at the United Nations in September, and it undoubtedly was repeated when the fifth round of Sino-Soviet talks convened in Beijing during October. The Chinese were clearly seeking to use the promise of an attenuated relationship with the United States to elicit some flexibility from the Russians on the three obstacles. They apparently met with little success.20 Soviet suspicions remained. As Hu put it, the two nations still did not have “much of a shared language on international issues.”

Still, this did not seem to daunt Chinese determination to improve Sino-Soviet relations. As they had done with the Taiwan question in Sino-American relations during the 1970s, the Chinese seemed ready to set major issues aside and push on in those areas where some progress was possible. In regard to China’s relations with the Soviet Union in 1984, this was clearly the economic realm.

During the latter half of the year there was a decided shift in the tone of Chinese reporting on the Soviet economy. Rather than stressing its weak points and crises, the Chinese press began to feature Soviet reform efforts and the growth that was being achieved.21 More specifically, at a time of growing trade difficulties with the United States, there was talk in the press of the complementary nature of the Soviet and Chinese economies. The Soviet Union exported heavy industry, and Chinese exports of food, light industrial goods, and textiles “precisely met the needs of the Soviet Union.” Moreover, after noting that Moscow could assist in the refurbishing of aging Soviet-built factories, it was made clear that China’s Open Door was “applicable not only to the West and the third world but also to the Soviet Union and Socialist countries in Eastern Europe.”22 And as if to highlight the salience of this issue in Sino-Soviet relations, the 1985 trade agreement, which represented an increase of 36 percent over 1984, was signed earlier than usual, in early December.23

As the Chinese press spoke of expanded cultural relations and the promise of greater economic cooperation, Vice-Premier Ivan Arkhipov arrived in China for his visit, postponed from the previous May. Arkhipov had been the head of the Soviet advisors group in China during the 1950s. It was thus natural that his visit should be accompanied by comments recalling these earlier, more halcyon, days of Sino-Soviet relations and containing a strong emphasis on the economic relations between the two countries. Although his Chinese hosts continued to mention the three obstacles as inhibitions to normalization of Sino-Soviet relations, they were equally insistent, as Chen Yun said, that relations “grow and improve in other fields.”24

Not surprisingly, economic cooperation proved to be the most fertile of such fields. Three agreements were signed to further cooperation in the economic, trade, scientific, and technological fields. In addition, the trade figure for 1985, agreed upon

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