Re-examining the Cold War: U.S.-China Diplomacy, 1954–1973

Download or read book Re-examining the Cold War: U.S.-China Diplomacy, 1954–1973 written by Robert S. Ross and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-03-23 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The twelve essays in this volume underscore the similarities between Chinese and American approaches to bilateral diplomacy and between their perceptions of each other’s policy-making motivations. Much of the literature on U.S.–China relations posits that each side was motivated either by ideologically informed interests or by ideological assumptions about its counterpart. But as these contributors emphasize, newly accessible archives suggest rather that both Beijing and Washington developed a responsive and tactically adaptable foreign policy. Each then adjusted this policy in response to changing international circumstances and changing assessments of its counterpart’s policies. Motivated less by ideology than by pragmatic national security concerns, each assumed that the other faced similar considerations.