The Strategic Triangle } 407
insignificant, but taken together can add up to something substantial. One
Chinese negotiating tactic was to assert to American negotiators, who often
were new to the issues and whose understanding of earlier negotiations might
be weak, that earlier US negotiators had committed the United States to things
that had not, in fact, been agreed to. In response, the US government com-
missioned an authoritative study of the PRC-US negotiating record regarding
Taiwan along with typical Chinese negotiating ploys for the familiarization
of neophyte US diplomats with China’s methods of “diplomatic combat.”^13
Returning to the 1978 negotiations, the issue of US arms sales to Taiwan
emerged as the most contentious issue and came close to deadlocking the
process. Huang Hua maintained that since the United States had committed
itself to a “one China policy” in the 1972 Communiqué, this required that the
United States stop selling weapons to Taiwan as soon as Sino-US relations
were normalized.^14 The United States found no such obligation in the 1972
Communiqué. US negotiators in 1978 agreed that the United States would
not sell arms to Taiwan during 1979, the year immediately after normal-
ization, in order to avoid highlighting the issue and embarrassing Beijing.
Washington was also willing to agree that the United States would handle
arms sales to Taiwan in a cautious and prudent manner and transfer only
defensive weapons. But beyond that US negotiators would not go. A discus-
sion between Brzezinski and PRC ambassador in Washington Chai Zemin,
only two days before the normalization communiqué was set to be issued,
left Brzezinski surprised that Chai thought the United States had agreed to
end all arms sales to Taiwan.^15 This led to urgent instructions to Woodcock to
seek a meeting with Deng to clarify the US stance on this crucial issue. Upon
hearing Woodcock’s clarification, Deng became very angry and did not calm
down for ten minutes. “We cannot agree,” Deng said. Deng maintained that
continued US arms sales were contrary to a peaceful solution of the Taiwan
question because they would dissuade Taipei from entering into negotia-
tions with Beijing, making use of force the only way to incorporate Taiwan
into the PRC. After spending almost an hour objecting to the US position,
Deng said the Taiwan problem was the one problem remaining unresolved
and asked, “What shall we do about it?” Ambassador Woodcock opined that
with normalization and the passage of time the American people would come
to accept that Taiwan was part of China. The important first task was nor-
malization. Deng answered “hao” (OK), and the impasse over arms sales to
Taiwan was overcome—for several years.^16
Scholar Ezra Vogel termed Deng’s decision to normalize with the United
States while US arms sales to Taiwan continued “one of the most crucial deci-
sions of his life.”^17 While countering Soviet moves in Southeast Asia (where
China was preparing its pedagogic war with Vietnam) was one immediate
reason for this decision, another longer-range objective was gaining access
to the Western capital, technology, and know-how that China needed for