Conclusions

Abstract

Such is the picture to date. Paradoxically, the period of heaviest commercial traffic between the USSR and the PRC coincides with a phase of extensive improvisation in the technical modalities of trade exchange. Experimentation, ad hoc arrangements, short-term solutions mark the modus operandi prevailing at this stage of economic relations between the two countries. Even so, from the very beginning China occupies a special place in the constellation of “people’s democracies” —it receives preferential treatment and unique privileges as compared with the lesser members of the “camp,” insignia designed to convey an impression of near equality of the USSR and the PRC in their mutual dealings, again a comfort consistently denied to the junior “satellite” states. To be sure, some of these concessions only have symbolic significance, but they do have the effect of singling China out from group anonymity and, quite possibly, reflect Peking’s own perceptions of its rightful rank within the official hierarchy of the international Communist system.