TIME: Almanac of the 20th Century

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<text> <title> (1960s) China-Soviet-U.S. Relations </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1960s Highlights </history> <link 08149> <link 07774> <link 06884> <link 00179><link 00180><article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> China-Soviet-U.S. Relations </hdr> <body> [The Soviets' unhappiness about political innovation and the potential crack in the defensive solidarity of the Warsaw Pact arose at least in part from the parlous state of their relations with the Chinese. The formerly solid partnership had deteriorated over the years into outright hostility. By 1969, the Soviets and Chinese were shooting at each other at several points along their 4,000-mile frontier.] (March 14, 1969) The Chinese call it Chen Po, or Treasure. The Russians call it Damansky. Both claim the tiny, uninhabited island, located in the mist of the frozen Ussuri river that forms the common border of Communism's premier countries. Precisely what happened there last week, in the bleak, snow-swept wilderness of eastern Asia, may never be fully known. Only Moscow has offered the world a reasonably detailed--but doubtless in part self-serving--account. Both Moscow and Peking agree, however, that the violence along the Ussuri was for several hours as close to war as the two countries have come in the long succession of border incidents and shootouts since their ideological split in 1960. At least the equivalent of a battalion of men were engaged on either side, and armor, artillery, mortars and heavy machine guns were employed before the battle was over. The Russians claim that 31 Soviet border guards were killed and 14 wounded: the Chinese casualties are unknown. (October 17, 1969) For much of 1969, the threat of a major conflict hovered over the 4500-mile frontier between the Soviet Union and China. In at least two all-out battles this year on the Ussuri and Amur rivers, which separate Siberia and Manchuria, the Soviets called in armor and heavy artillery to pound the Chinese. Tensions rose to the point where the Soviets hinted that they might even launch a preventive strike against China's nuclear installations unless Peking agreed to negotiations aimed at settling the conflict. The war of nerves was threatening to get out of hand. Last week, after months of trying to face down the stronger Soviets, the Chinese blinked first. In a dramatic retreat from past intransigence, Peking agreed to discuss the border issue with the Soviets. At the same time, the Chinese urged that troops massed along the border be pulled back and that no force be used. They also expressed the hope that relations between the two governments could be normalized, despite the nine-year-old ideological rift that has separated them. What caused Peking's retreat? Most Western analysts were certain that the Chinese backed down out of fear. Moscow's hints of preventive nuclear strikes finally convinced at least one faction of Peking's leadership that the Russians meant business and the time had come to face reality and yield before superior Soviet power. As Peking's most notable apostle of flexibility, Premier Chou En-lai is believed to be the guiding effort behind the policy switch. [The breadth and depth of the Sino-Soviet split drove both the Chinese and the Soviets toward the U.S. At decades's end there were new signs of thaw with both countries, as the U.S. and Soviet Union opened negotiations that would result in the first SALT treaty and the ABM treaty of 1972, and contacts between U.S. and Chinese diplomats looked toward the eventual American recognition of the Peking government.] (November 21, 1969) With suitable benedictions from their leaders and the best wishes of peaceable men everywhere, U.S. and Russian negotiators this week meet in Helsinki. They are coming to the Finnish capital to start talks on the most vital and sensitive disarmament issue ever negotiated between the two sides. The object of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) is to find a way for both sides to agree on a plan that will limit, and perhaps some day reduce their vast nuclear arsenals. One reason why both sides were eager to start at this particular time is that the superpowers have reached a delicate balance of terror. After a crash program to install more SS-9 and SS-11 land-based missiles, the Soviets apparently feel that they have reached parity with the U.S. Behind SALT is the urgency to achieve a halt in the development of nuclear weaponry before one side or the other achieves another technical breakthrough that will start a new spiral in the arms race. (December 26, 1969) In the unlikely setting of a fashion show staged early this month by a Yugoslav embassy in the Palace of Culture in Warsaw, U.S. Ambassador Walter Stoessel managed to engage the interpreter of the Chinese embassy in a brief conversation. Between any other two men in the room, the encounter would have gone unnoticed. But as Stoessel and the interpreter chatted, other diplomats in the room looked on in surprise. For the first time in nearly two years, American and Chinese representatives had established direct contact. After a long period of self-imposed isolation, Peking has apparently decided to recommence at least a measure of diplomatic contact with the West. As a result of the fashion-show conversations, Stoessel was invited to the Chinese embassy for a meeting with Charge d'Affaires Lei Yang. The two men talked and sipped tea for more than an hour. Though the content of their discussion is secret, President Nixon's top foreign policy advisers are convinced that Peking may well be on the verge of resuming formal talks with the U.S. The Nixon Administration is anxious to draw China out of its "angry, alienated shell," as Under-Secretary of State Elliot Richardson put it recently. The U.S. fully realizes that it cannot effect any lasting solutions in Vietnam and Southeast Asia without at least some cooperation from China. Also, Washington worries that a lack of contact between China and the U.S. might embolden the Russians to blackmail or attack China. Washington would like to make the Russians less certain of impunity in the event they decided to start a war against the Chinese. </body> </article> </text>