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Sino-Soviet split
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== After Mao == === Transition from idealism to pragmatism (1976–1978) === [[File:Lin Biao.jpg|thumb|right|The elimination of Marshal [[Lin Biao]] in 1971 lessened the political damage caused by Mao's Cultural Revolution and facilitated the PRC's transition to the ''[[Realpolitik]]'' of the Tri-polar Cold War.]] In 1971, the politically radical phase of the [[Cultural Revolution]] concluded with the failure of [[Project 571]] (the ''coup d'état'' to depose Mao) and the [[Lin Biao incident|death]] of the conspirator Marshal [[Lin Biao]] (Mao's executive officer), who had colluded with the [[Gang of Four]]—[[Jiang Qing]] (Mao's last wife), [[Zhang Chunqiao]], [[Yao Wenyuan]], and [[Wang Hongwen]]—to assume command of the PRC. As reactionary political radicals, the Gang of Four argued for regression to Stalinist ideological orthodoxy at the expense of internal economic development, but soon were suppressed by the PRC's secret intelligence service.<ref name="Yao Wenyuan">{{Cite news|url=http://www.economist.com/node/5381892|title=Yao Wenyuan|newspaper=The Economist|issn=0013-0613|access-date=22 May 2016|archive-date=1 May 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180501231531/https://www.economist.com/node/5381892|url-status=live}}</ref> The re-establishment of Chinese domestic tranquility ended armed confrontation with the USSR but it did not improve diplomatic relations, because in 1973, the [[Soviet Army]] garrisons at the Sino-Soviet border were twice as large as in 1969. The continued military threat from the USSR prompted the PRC to denounce "Soviet [[social imperialism]]", by accusing the USSR of being an enemy of [[world revolution]].<ref>{{cite journal|first1=Albert|last1=Szymanski|title=Soviet Social Imperialism, Myth or Reality: An Empirical Examination of the Chinese Thesis|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41035250|journal=Berkeley Journal of Sociology|date=n.d.|issn=0067-5830|pages=131–166|volume=22|jstor=41035250|access-date=7 August 2021|archive-date=2 June 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210602214218/https://www.jstor.org/stable/41035250|url-status=live}}</ref> Mao's statement that "the Soviet Union today is under the [[dictatorship of the bourgeoisie]], a dictatorship of the big bourgeoisie, a dictatorship of the [[Nazism|German fascist]] type, a dictatorship of the Hitler type." was also repeated by China's state press many times in the 1970s, reiterating the diplomatic position.<ref>{{Cite book|title=China and the three worlds : a foreign policy reader|date=2018|others=King C. Chen|isbn=978-1-351-71459-4|location=London [England]|chapter=13|oclc=1110226377}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|last=Salisbury|first=Harrison E.|date=3 May 1970|title=Peril to Chinese-Soviet Talks Is Seen in Diatribes|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/05/03/archives/peril-to-chinesesoviet-talks-is-seen-in-diatribes-chinasoviet-talks.html|access-date=29 September 2021|issn=0362-4331|archive-date=29 September 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210929034352/https://www.nytimes.com/1970/05/03/archives/peril-to-chinesesoviet-talks-is-seen-in-diatribes-chinasoviet-talks.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Soviet Union today: socialist or fascist?|url=https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-5/cpml-soviet-fascists.htm|access-date=29 September 2021|website=www.marxists.org|archive-date=12 August 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210812111904/https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-5/cpml-soviet-fascists.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> Sino-Soviet relations would slowly and gradually improve during the 1980s. Soon after [[Death and state funeral of Mao Zedong|Mao's death]] in September 1976, the Gang of Four were arrested, putting an end to the Cultural Revolution. [[Hua Guofeng]] succeeded as the [[paramount leader of China]], but only briefly.<ref name=":27">{{Cite news |last=Faison |first=Seth |date=1997-02-20 |title=DENG XIAOPING IS DEAD AT 92; ARCHITECT OF MODERN CHINA |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/20/world/deng-xiaoping-is-dead-at-92-architect-of-modern-china.html |access-date=2021-01-12 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> At the [[11th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party]] in summer 1977, the politically rehabilitated [[Deng Xiaoping]] was appointed to manage internal modernization programs, and in December 1978, Deng replaced Hua as the new paramount leader at the [[3rd plenary session of the 11th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party]].<ref name=":27" /><ref>{{Cite news |date=2021-12-07 |title=40 years ago, Deng Xiaoping changed China — and the world |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/12/19/40-years-ago-deng-xiaoping-changed-china-and-the-world/ |access-date=2024-03-14 |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |language=en-US |issn=0190-8286}}</ref> Avoiding attacks upon Mao, Deng's political moderation began the realization of [[Chinese economic reform]] by way of systematic reversals of Mao's inefficient policies, and the transition from a [[planned economy]] to a [[socialist market economy]].<ref name="Modern Thought 1999. pp. 349">''The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought'', Third Edition, Allan Bullock, Stephen Trombley editors. HarperCollins Publishers:London:1999. pp. 349–350.</ref><ref name="Political Terms 1983. pp. 127">''Dictionary of Political Terms'', Chris Cook, editor. Peter Bedrick Books: New York: 1983. pp. 127–128.</ref> === From confrontation to thaw (1978–1989) === {{see also|Boluan Fanzheng|Chinese economic reform|New political thinking|Glasnost}} [[File:Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon and Deng Xiaoping during the state dinner for the Vice Premier of China. - NARA - 183214.tif|thumb|In January 1979, [[Deng Xiaoping]] met with Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter, whom he informed of China's intention to [[Sino-Vietnamese War|attack the Soviet-backed Vietnam]].<ref name=":23">{{Cite web |title=China Policy |url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1977-1980/china-policy |url-status=live |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20250101023730/https://history.state.gov/milestones/1977-1980/china-policy |archive-date=2025-01-01 |access-date=2025-01-11 |website=United States Department of State |language=en}}</ref>]] In 1978, the United States and the PRC began to [[China–United States relations#Normalization|establish diplomatic relations]]. On January 1, 1979, the two countries formally established diplomatic relation, soon followed by [[Visit by Deng Xiaoping to the United States|Deng Xiaoping's visit to the United States]], when Deng met with US President [[Jimmy Carter]] and discussed the relations among PRC, USSR and the US.<ref name=":23" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=The Establishment of Sino-U.S. Diplomatic Relations and Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping's visit to the United States |url=https://www.mfa.gov.cn/mfa_eng/zy/wjls/3604_665547/202405/t20240531_11367534.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250111222605/https://www.mfa.gov.cn/mfa_eng/zy/wjls/3604_665547/202405/t20240531_11367534.html |archive-date=2025-01-11 |access-date=2025-01-11 |website=[[Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China]]}}</ref> During the visit, Deng informed Carter of China's intention to attack Vietnam, who was backed by the Soviet Union, in response to the [[Cambodian–Vietnamese War#Invasion of Kampuchea|Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia]] which ended the rule of [[Khmer Rouge]] backed by the PRC.<ref name=":23" /><ref>{{Cite web |date=2025-01-13 |title=The Chinese Communist Party's Relationship with the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s: An Ideological Victory and a Strategic Failure |url=https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/the-chinese-communist-partys-relationship-the-khmer-rouge-the-1970s-ideological-victory |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241225015718/https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/the-chinese-communist-partys-relationship-the-khmer-rouge-the-1970s-ideological-victory |archive-date=2024-12-25 |access-date=2025-01-11 |website=[[Wilson Center]] |language=en}}</ref> The Soviet Union provided intelligence and equipment support for Vietnam during the 1979 [[Sino-Vietnamese War]], meanwhile Soviet troops were deployed at the Sino-Soviet and Mongolian-Chinese border as an act of showing support to Vietnam. However, the Soviet Union refused to take any direct action to defend their ally.<ref name=":16" /> In December 1979, the [[Soviet invasion of Afghanistan]] led the Chinese to suspend the talks on normalizing relations with the Soviet Union, which began in September of the same year.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Levine |first1=Steven I. =|date=1980 |title=The Unending Sino-Soviet Conflict |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/45314865 |journal=Current History |volume=79 |issue=459 |pages=70–104 | doi=10.1525/curh.1980.79.459.70 |jstor = 45314865| s2cid=249071971 |access-date=28 March 2022|url-access=subscription }}</ref> China also declared no intention to renew the expired ''[[Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance]]'' in 1979'','' and over the next several years, China trained anti-Soviet [[Afghan mujahideen]] forces and provided them with millions of dollars of weaponry.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Girard |first=Bonnie |title=How 1980 Laid the Groundwork for China's Major Foreign Policy Challenges |url=https://thediplomat.com/2018/09/how-the-1980-laid-the-groundwork-for-chinas-major-foreign-policy-challenges/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241203024229/https://thediplomat.com/2018/09/how-the-1980-laid-the-groundwork-for-chinas-major-foreign-policy-challenges/ |archive-date=2024-12-03 |access-date=2025-01-11 |website=[[The Diplomat (magazine)|The Diplomat]] |language=en-US}}</ref> The PRC also joined the [[1980 Summer Olympics boycott|US-led boycott]] of the [[1980 Summer Olympic Games]] in Moscow.<ref>{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=2008-05-08 |title=The Olympic Boycott, 1980 |url=https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/qfp/104481.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090205234313/https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/qfp/104481.htm |archive-date=2009-02-05 |access-date=2025-01-11 |website=United States Department of State |language=en}}</ref> In the Soviet–Afghan War, China covertly supported the opposing guerillas;<ref>{{cite book |last=Kumar |first=Satish |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gsBcCgAAQBAJ |title=India's National Security: Annual Review 2013 |publisher=Routledge |year=2015 |isbn=9781317324614 |access-date=6 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210625221111/https://books.google.com/books?id=gsBcCgAAQBAJ |archive-date=25 June 2021 |url-status=live}}</ref>{{page needed|date=August 2020}} even before the Soviet deployment, Moscow had accused Peking of using a newly built highway from [[Xinjiang]] to [[Hunza District|Hunza]] in Pakistan to arm Afghan rebels, which China denied.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Phillips |first=James |title=The Heritage Foundation |url=https://www.heritage.org/europe/report/afghanistan-the-soviet-quagmire |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170603073650/http://www.heritage.org/europe/report/afghanistan-the-soviet-quagmire |url-status=unfit |archive-date=3 June 2017 |access-date=2023-01-09 |website=The Heritage Foundation |language=en}}</ref> The KGB and Afghan [[KHAD]] cracked down on many prominent pro-China and anti-Soviet activists and guerillas in 1980.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Afghanistan |url=https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft7b69p12h;chunk.id=0;doc.view=print |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210813153023/https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft7b69p12h;chunk.id=0;doc.view=print |archive-date=13 August 2021 |access-date=5 August 2021 |website=publishing.cdlib.org}}</ref> [[File:Mikhail Gorbachev in the White House Library (cropped).jpg|thumb|270x270px|Soviet leader [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] normalized USSR's relation with the PRC in 1989.]]On the other hand, the US-China military cooperation began in 1979 and in 1981 it was revealed that a joint US-China listening post had been operated in [[Xinjiang]] to monitor Soviet missile testing bases.<ref>{{cite web |author=Philip Taubman |date=18 June 1981 |title=U.S. and Peking Join in Tracking Missiles in Soviet Union |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/18/world/us-and-peking-join-in-tracking-missiles-in-soviet.html |access-date=28 March 2022 |work=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref> In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the PRC under Deng went through the ''[[Boluan Fanzheng]]'' period and started "[[Reform and Opening]]" after the Cultural Revolution, pursuing ''[[Realpolitik]]'' policies such as "[[seek truth from facts|seeking truth from facts]]" and the "[[Socialism with Chinese characteristics|Chinese road to socialism]]", which withdrew the PRC from the high-level abstractions of ideology, [[polemic]] as well as the [[Revisionism (Marxism)|revisionism]] of the USSR, therefore diminishing the political importance of the Sino-Soviet split.<ref name="Modern Thought 1999. pp. 349" /><ref name="Political Terms 1983. pp. 127" /> In March 1982, then Soviet leader [[Leonid Brezhnev]] delivered a speech in [[Tashkent]], in which he made an appeal for improved relations with the PRC, saying <nowiki>''We remember well the time when the Soviet Union and People'</nowiki>s China were united by bonds of friendship and comradely cooperation."<ref name=":24">{{Cite news |date=1982-11-11 |title=BREZHNEV ATTEMPTED TO ADVANCE SOVIET GOALS THROUGH DETENTE; SOVIET LEADER USED CONSENSUS IN POLITBURO ON DOMESTIC ISSUES |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1982/11/11/obituaries/brezhnev-attempted-advance-soviet-goals-through-detente-soviet-leader-used.html |access-date=2025-01-11 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Joshi |first=Nirmala |date=1987 |title=The Sino-Soviet thaw |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23001454 |journal=India International Centre Quarterly |volume=14 |issue=1 |pages=57–69 |jstor=23001454 |issn=0376-9771}}</ref> In the autumn of 1982, the Sino-Soviet negotiations resumed.<ref name=":24" /> In March 1985, [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] "reaffirmed that the Soviet side would like to have a serious improvement of relations with the PRC".<ref>{{Cite news |last=Mydans |first=Seth |date=1985-03-16 |title=GORBACHEV HINTS TO OPENING TO CHINA |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/16/world/gorbachev-hints-to-opening-to-china.html |access-date=2025-01-12 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> Deng Xiaoping pointed out three major obstacles to normalizing the relation with the USSR: the Soviet Union's support over Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia, the Soviet's massive military buildup along Sino-Soviet as well as Sino-Mongolian border, and Soviet's armed occupation of Afghanistan.<ref>{{Cite web |title="End the past and open up the future"-the normalization of relations between China and the Soviet Union |url=https://www.mfa.gov.cn/eng/zy/wjls/3604_665547/202405/t20240531_11367539.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241210035555/https://www.mfa.gov.cn/eng/zy/wjls/3604_665547/202405/t20240531_11367539.html |archive-date=2024-12-10 |access-date=2025-01-11 |website=[[Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China]]}}</ref><ref name=":25">{{Cite web |title=Meeting between Mikhail Gorbachev and Deng Xiaoping (Excerpts) |url=https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/meeting-between-mikhail-gorbachev-and-deng-xiaoping-excerpts |url-status=live |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20240529030054/https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/meeting-between-mikhail-gorbachev-and-deng-xiaoping-excerpts |archive-date=2024-05-29 |access-date=2025-01-11 |website=[[Wilson Center]] |language=en}}</ref> The Sino-Soviet relations were finally normalized after [[1989 Sino-Soviet Summit|Mikhail Gorbachev visited China in 1989]] and shook Deng's hand.<ref name=":25" /><ref>{{cite book |last=Lüthi |first=Lorenz |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NRfWxeBOQ3MC |title=Cold War: The Essential Reference Guide |publisher=ABC-CLIO |year=2012 |isbn=9781610690041 |editor1-last=Arnold |editor1-first=James R. |pages=190–193 |chapter=Sino-Soviet Split (1956–1966) |access-date=19 August 2020 |editor2-last=Wiener |editor2-first=Roberta |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210509164443/https://books.google.com/books?id=NRfWxeBOQ3MC |archive-date=9 May 2021 |url-status=live}}</ref> The meeting took place right before the [[Tiananmen Square Massacre]] in June 1989, for which the Soviets expressed diverging opinions at many levels, from the official rhetoric, to media coverage and to the public reaction.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Lukin |first=Alexander |date=1991 |title=The Initial Soviet Reaction to the Events in China in 1989 and the Prospects for Sino-Soviet Relations |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/654480 |journal=The China Quarterly |issue=125 |pages=119–136 |doi=10.1017/S0305741000030332 |jstor=654480 |issn=0305-7410|url-access=subscription }}</ref>
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