was Mao’s faith in the power of ideology created a
fatal impediment.
It is remarkable that one branch of technology
nevertheless held its own during the decade when
intellectuals were most fiercely persecuted: that
was the missile and atomic-bomb sector. After
Russia’s withdrawal from the nuclear programme,
Chinese scientists went ahead on their own, and
in October 1964 China exploded its own atomic
bomb, becoming the fifth nuclear power in the
world. Two years later guided missiles provided a
delivery system. By 1967 China had built the even
more terrible hydrogen bomb. Three years later
it sent up its first satellite and in 1975 launched
a retrievable model. Chinese missiles are among
the most reliable.
One of the most startling developments of
Mao’s last years was the reorientation of China’s
foreign policy. Relations with the Soviet Union
had gone from bad to worse after Khrushchev’s
fall, and in March 1969 there was actually hand-
to-hand fighting over an insignificant island in the
middle of the River Ussuri claimed by both the
Russians and the Chinese. But the border dispute
on the Soviet Pacific along the Amur and Ussuri
rivers was less a cause than a symptom of Sino-
Soviet hostility, with Brezhnev in the 1970s sta-
tioning some of Russia’s best divisions on the
border, complete with nuclear-missile installa-
tions. The Chinese anyway knew that they were
no match for the Russians. Mao interpreted Soviet
foreign policy as entering a new imperialist era,
and he could cite as evidence the Brezhnev
Doctrine, which was used to justify the invasion of
Czechoslovakia in 1968. The US by contrast had
in Mao’s view become overstretched and in the
early 1970s was looking for a way out of Vietnam.
Mao saw in the American–Soviet rivalry a contra-
diction that China might exploit: he was now pre-
pared to seek agreement with the country that had
hitherto been China’s main antagonist – the US.
In Washington, President Nixon and Henry
Kissinger also saw a chance to create a better bal-
ance of power against the Soviet Union by playing
the China card.
It began in a characteristically Chinese fashion
with an agreement early in 1971 for a US table-
tennis team to visit China. This was the first direct
link between the two countries. The US still recog-
nised Chiang Kai-shek’s regime in Taiwan as the
legitimate Republic of China, and its representa-
tives occupied China’s place on the UN Security
Council. In July, Kissinger, President Nixon’s
national security adviser, journeyed secretly to
Beijing. This paved the way for one of the most
momentous U-turns in the history of international
relations.
President Nixon, Mrs Nixon, William Rogers,
the secretary of state, and Kissinger flew to Beijing
for discussions and negotiations with Mao and
Zhou Enlai in February 1972. The outcome was
incorporated in a joint US–Chinese communiqué
published in Shanghai on 28 February in which the
American and Chinese signatories declared that
they wished to normalise relations between the
two countries. They reviewed the world situation,
and the Americans and Chinese each issued a state-
ment of their own. Despite different ideologies,
the US document declared, no country was infalli-
ble. The US stressed its commitment to freedom
and to support for South Vietnam and South
Korea. The Chinese countered that oppression
bred resistance, that strong nations should not
bully the weak: ‘China will never be a superpower
and it opposes hegemony and power politics of any
kind.’ The Chinese expressed their firm support for
the peoples of Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia (here
the Chinese took the opposite side to the US), but
declared they both wished to reduce the danger of
international conflict and did not seek hegemony.
The touchiest and most crucial difference was over
the future of Taiwan, so long allied to the US. The
Chinese uncompromisingly declared Taiwan to be
an internal question and insisted that Taiwan as a
province of China should return to the mother-
land. They also demanded that US forces be with-
drawn from the island. The Americans agreed that
there was but one China – a point, they added
tartly, that Taiwan and Beijing had in common.
The US wanted to see a peaceful settlement and
gave a momentous if somewhat vague undertak-
ing: ‘it affirms the ultimate objective of the with-
drawal of all US forces and military installations
from Taiwan’.
In December 1978 full diplomatic relations
were resumed between Beijing and Washington.