Abstract
On 24 March 1982, Leonid Brezhnev delivered a speech on Soviet policy toward China. In the summer of that year, the Chinese leadership decided to take steps to improve Sino-Soviet relations but only under certain conditions. On 5 October, the two sides started political discussions at the vice-ministerial level. The most important development in this new round of “normalization” negotiations was that the Chinese side made a number of demands. It wanted to remove the “three major obstacles” to normalizing the Sino-Soviet relationship, including the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the Sino-Soviet and Sino-Mongolian borders, the departure of the Soviet Army from Afghanistan, and persuading the Vietnamese leadership for withdraw from Cambodia. The reorientation of the Sino-Soviet state relationship thus entered a phase of geopolitical competition, which was the main reason behind their protracted “normalization” negotiations.
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Notes
- 1.
Xinhua, “On Leonid Brezhnev’s Speech in Tashkent,” 26 March 1982, in FBIS-China, 29 March 1982, p. C1.
- 2.
Qian Qichen, Ten Episodes in China’s Diplomacy (New York: HarperCollins, 2005), p. 2.
- 3.
Huang Hua, Memoirs (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2008), p. 499.
- 4.
Ibid.
- 5.
Deng Xiaoping, “The Present Situation and the Tasks Before Us,” 16 January 1980, Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping 1975–1982 (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1984), pp. 224–25.
- 6.
Deng Xiaoping, “Our Principled Position on the Development of Sino-American Relations,” 4 January 1981, at https://dengxiaopingworks.wordpress.com/2013/02/25/our-principled-position-on-the-development-of-sino-u-s-relations/. Accessed 7 January 2019.
- 7.
Qian, Ten Episodes in China’s Diplomacy, pp. 3–4.
- 8.
“Message to Compatriots on Taiwan,” 1 January 1977, Beijing Review 22, no 1 (5 January 1979): 16–17.
- 9.
Huang, Memoirs, p. 501; Qian Qichen, Ten Episodes in China’s Diplomacy, pp. 5–6.
- 10.
Qian, Ten Episodes in China’s Diplomacy, p. 11.
- 11.
Ibid., pp. 7–12.
- 12.
Huang, Memoirs, pp. 502–503.
- 13.
Ibid., p. 504.
- 14.
Ibid., p. 505.
- 15.
Ibid., p. 506.
- 16.
Qian, Ten Episodes in China’s Diplomacy, p. 14.
- 17.
Huang, Memoirs, p. 509.
- 18.
Ibid., pp. 514–15.
- 19.
Qian, Ten Episodes in China’s Diplomacy, pp. 5–7.
- 20.
Ibid., pp. 9–10.
- 21.
Huang, Memoirs, pp. 512–16.
- 22.
New York Times, 2 March 1983.
- 23.
“China-Eastern Europe Relations,” in Wilson Center Digital Archive: International History Declassified, at https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/collection/501/china-eastern-europe-relations. Accessed 13 January 2019.
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Niu, J. (2020). Embarking on “Normalization”. In: Shen, Z. (eds) A Short History of Sino-Soviet Relations, 1917–1991. China Connections. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8641-1_21
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