USSR - Relations with China

In 1949 the Soviet Union fully recognized the Communist government of China under Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung), became allied with it, and continued to demand that it be seated in the UN in place of the government of Chiang Kai-shek on Taiwan. A 30-year treaty was signed in 1950, including provision for Soviet loans to China at 1 per cent interest. Both countries supported North Korea in the Korean War (1950-1953). At the end of the 1950s relations still seemed close, and Soviet trade with China reached a value of $2 billion annually. In the 1960s, however, relations between the two countries gradually deteriorated. On the surface was an ideological disagreement over the interpretation of Marxism, especially with regard to revolutions in the developing countries. Underneath, however, was the old-fashioned rivalry and mutual fear of two empires, the leaders of which, despite their vaunted communism, were intensely nationalistic, jealously guarded every inch of their vast territories, and strove for leadership in the rest of the Communist world. This rivalry surfaced in the Soviet refusal after 1959 to assist the Chinese in developing their nuclear power, in Chinese resentment that the Soviet Union still retained territories that had been considered Chinese before a series of treaties in 1858 and 1860, and in the perhaps inevitable squabbling between neighbours sharing a long common border in Manchuria. As it grew in intensity, the conflict even threatened a rift in the peace between the two countries. The clashes of border brigades in 1969 cast a new shadow over all Soviet policies. The 1972 visit to China by US president Richard M. Nixon further alarmed the USSR at the possibility of a realignment of power. Despite Soviet efforts to calm relations after Mao's death in 1976, Soviet-Chinese rivalry increased. The Chinese encouraged the East European states to seek more independence, recognized the European Common Market, and turned towards the West for military and economic aid. Sino-Soviet talks on improving mutual relations, begun in late 1979, were broken off in early 1980, but were resumed in 1982.