The Strategic Triangle } 411
wealth and power. Washington facilitated China’s smooth entry into the insti-
tutions of the global market economy. Early in 1980, China entered both the
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Over the next thirty-two
years, China would receive over $50 billion in funding for 349 infrastructure
projects in China—making China one of the largest recipients of World Bank
loans. In mid-1980, Washington delinked most favored nation (MFN) status
for China and the Soviet Union. MFN status was essential for rapid expan-
sion of Chinese exports to the United States. It greatly slashed import duties
on Chinese goods coming into the United States, making those goods com-
petitive. Without MFN, the market for Chinese goods in the United States
would be very small. Until mid-1980, US policy had been that granting of
MFN for the USSR and the PRC should proceed in tandem. Under the new
policy, Chinese exports to the United States would grow steadily and rapidly
over the next thirty years. The USSR, in contrast, never received MFN status
from the United States. The Soviet Union posed security challenges to the
United States. The PRC posed no such threats but was a partner of the United
States in dealing with Soviet threats.
In terms of Chinese military power, the strategic partnership between
Beijing and Washington convinced the Carter administration that more gen-
erous US support for development of Chinese military power would serve
US interests. Thus, in mid-1980, Washington adopted a policy of “benign
neutrality” toward weapons sales by its West European allies to the PRC.^26
Several West European states were interested in such sales, but feared legal
problems under COCOM restrictions. Breaking with previous US policy, the
Carter administration informed relevant countries that the United States
no longer opposed these sales. A short while later, China was moved from
the “Warsaw Pact countries” category under COCOM to an exclusive cate-
gory of its own with much wider access to military technology. By the end of
1980, a wide array of previously forbidden military-use items were available
to China: radars, electronic countermeasure equipment, radio and commun-
ications systems, and so on. This was the beginning of active US support for
China military development, which would continue all the way to the Beijing
Massacre of 1989. The key point here is that the basis of this new US support
for China’s military modernization was strategic triangular partnership.
In terms of shaping US public opinion in a direction supportive of assis-
tance to China’s new long march toward modernization, Deng’s 1979 visit to
the United States was a masterful display of public diplomacy comparable
to his 1978 visit to Japan. Public and media attention focused on the visit.
As in Japan, Deng’s visit became a moment of virtual national catharsis,
expressing hope for a better future. As in Japan, Deng’s simplicity and direct-
ness struck a chord. At the end of a gala program at the Kennedy Center in
Washington during which American children sang some songs in Chinese,
Deng and President Carter together mounted the stage to congratulate the