Sino-American relations, 1969: The Sino-Soviet border war and steps towards rapprochement

Cold War History

Volumn 1, Issue 3, 2001, Pages 73-112

  Burr, William ^a  

^a National Security Archive   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0346640640     PISSN: 14682745     EISSN: 17437962     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/713999930     Document Type: Article

References (137)

1. Kissinger, White House Years (Boston: Little Brown, 1979).
2. For a significant appraisal of Kissinger on China policy, see Allen Whiting, 'Sino-American Detente', China Quarterly 82 (June 1980), pp.334-M.
3. Nixon's memoir has very thin coverage of China policy. See Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1978).
4. Raymond L. Garthoff, Detente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2nd edn 1994);
5. William P. Bundy, A Tangled Web: The Making of Foreign Policy in the Nixon Presidency (New York: Hill and Wang, 1998);
6. Robert S. Ross, Negotiating Cooperation: The United States and China, 1969-1989 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995);
7. Robert Garson, The United States and China Since 1949: A Troubled Affair (Teaneck: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 1994);
8. Patrick Tyler, A Great Wall, Six Presidents and China: An Investigative History (New York: PublicAffairs, 1999).
9. Tyler had access to declassified material on US-China relations collected at the National Security Archive. See also Seymour Hersh, The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House (New York: Summit Books, 1983);
10. and James Mann About Face: A History of America's Curious Relationship with China from Nixon to Clinton (New York: Knopf, 1999).
11. See for example, Garthoff, Detente and Confrontation, pp.227, 245-6;
12. and Bundy, A Tangled Web, pp.109-10.
13. See also Yang Kuisong, 'The Sino-Soviet Border Clash of 1969: From Zhenbao Island to Sino-American Rapprochement', Cold War History 1/1 (2000), pp.21-52.
14. Henry Kissinger, 'The Central Issues of American Foreign Policy', in Kermit Gordon (ed.), Agenda for the Nation (New York: 1968), pp.585-614.
15. See also Mike Bowker and Phil Williams, Superpower Detente: A Reappraisal (London, 1988), pp.50-51.
16. Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), p.126;
17. Richard Nixon, 'Asia After Vietnam', in Hamilton Fish Armstrong (ed.), Fifty Years of Foreign Affairs (New York: 1972), pp.385-99.
18. Robert Sutter, China Watch: Toward Sino-American Reconciliation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), pp.67-75;
19. He Di, 'The Most Respected Enemy: Mao Zedong's Perception of the United States', The China Quarterly 137 (March 1994). pp.145-58;
20. and Garson, The United States and China Since 1949, pp.118-20.
21. For Sino-American signalling and caution during the Vietnam war, see Chen Jian and James Hershberg, 'Informing the Enemy: Sino-American "Signalling" and the Vietnam War, 1965', Paper presented at workshop, 'New Evidence on China, Southeast Asia, and the Vietnam War', January 2000, Hong Kong University/Cold War International History Project.
22. For the Nixon quote, see Public Papers of the President, Richard Nixon, 1969 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1971), p.10.
23. President Nixon Discusses the Vietnam Peace Talks and the ABM Safeguard System', Department of State Bulletin 60/1555 (14 April 1969), p.316;
24. Kissinger to Secretary of State et al, 28 May 1969, enclosing Green's report to Nixon, 'A View of East Asia', 21 April 1969, SN 67-69, POL Asia. In his memorandum, Kissinger wrote that Nixon had read Green's report and found it 'excellent'.
25. 'Communist China', Response to National Security Study Memorandum 9, c. Feb. 1969, copy at NSArchive. For changing perceptions of the Chinese 'model', see Rosemary Foot, The Practice of Power: U.S. Relations with China Since 1949 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995), pp.194-222.
26. State Department Intelligence and Research (INR), Intelligence Note 89, 'Peking's Anti-Nixon Campaign and the Prospects for Warsaw', 14 Feb. 1969, SN 67-69, POL Chicom-US; Chen Jian and David Wilson, '"All Under the Heaven is Great Chaos": Beijing, the Sino-Soviet Border Clashes, and the Turn Toward Sino-American Rapprochement, 1968-69', Bulletin of the Cold War International History Project 11 (Winter 1998), p.161.
27. Kissinger to the President, 'Warsaw Talks', 11 Feb. 1969.
28. Kissinger to the President, 'U.S. Policy Toward Peking and Instructions for the February 20 Warsaw Meeting', 12 Feb. 1969, NSF, box 700, Poland Warsaw Talks Vol. 1. Green quotation from 'A View of East Asia', 21 April 1969.
29. For Nixon's thinking on credibility, see Jeffrey Kimball, Nixon's Vietnam War (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1998), pp.88-9, 380-81.
30. For speculation that some in Beijing may have been disappointed with Nixon's opening approach, see Hong Kong Airgram A-8, 'Communist China's Foreign Policy Since Czechoslovakia', 9 Jan. 1970, SN 67-69, POL CHICOM.
31. INR Intelligence Note 102, 'Communist China/U.S.: Peking Calls off February 20 Warsaw Meeting', 18 Feb. 1969, RG 59, SN 67-69, POL CHICOM US;
32. John Holdridge, Crossing the Divide; An Insider's Account of Normalization of U.S.-China Relations (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997), pp.26-8;
33. INR Intelligence Note 182, 'Communist China/US: Peking Sees Collusion in ABM Scheme', 17 March 1969, SN 67-69, DEF 1 US. Mao himself became worried about US-Soviet collusion against China around 1963.
34. See He, 'The Most Respected Enemy: Mao Zedong's Perception of the United States', p.154.
35. Marvin Kalb and Bernard Kalb, Kissinger (Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1974), pp.254-5;
36. For French Ambassador to the PRC Etienne Manac'h's account of Nixon's efforts to establish a channel through de Gaulle, see his Memoires d'Extreme Asie: La face cachee du monde (Paris: Fayard, 1977), pp.180-81.
37. For Nixon's ABM announcement, see Public Papers of the Presidents, Richard Nixon, 1969, pp.216-19.
38. For useful background on the Sino-Soviet split, see Odd Arne Westad (ed.), Brothers in Arms: The Rise and Fall of the Sino-Soviet Split, 1945-1963 (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1998).
39. For the border conflict, see Thomas Robinson, 'The Sino-Soviet Border Conflict', in Stephen S. Kaplan et al. (eds.), Diplomacy of Power: Soviet Armed Forces as a Political Instrument (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1981), pp.265-313;
40. Kuisong, 'The Sino-Soviet Border Clash of 1969', pp.22-5;
41. Viktor M. Gobarev, 'Soviet Policy Toward China: Developing Nuclear Weapons 1949-1969', Journal of Slavic Military Studies 12/4 (1999), pp.37-47;
42. and Christian Osterman, 'East German Documents on the Border Conflict', Cold War International History Project Bulletin 6-7 (1995/96), pp.186-93.
43. INR Intelligence Note No. 139, 'USSR-China: Soviet and Chinese Forces Clash on the Ussuri River', 4 March 1969. SN 67-69. POL 32-1 Chicom-USSR; CIA Directorate of Intelligence 'Weekly Review', 21 March 1969, copy at NSArchive.
44. Robinson, 'The Sino-Soviet Border Conflict', pp.276-7;
45. Gobarev, 'Soviet Policy Toward China', pp.44-5;
46. R. Kudashev, 'My Meetings with Mao, Jiang, and Others', International Affairs (Moscow) 44/3 (1998), p.200;
47. CIA Directorate of Intelligence, 'Weekly Review', 28 March and 16 May 1969, NSArchive.
48. For INR's reporting and more details, see Intelligence Note 441, 'Sino-Soviet Dispute: Peking Widens Border Polemic', 6 June 1969, NSF, box 710, USSR Vol. IV;
49. Research Memorandum REA-29, 'Communist China: Sinkiang - Weak Spot in the West', 30 July 1969, SN 67-69, POL Chicom.
50. Kalb and Kalb, Kissinger, p.227;
51. INR Intelligence Note 450, 'Peking's Tactics and Intentions Along the Sino-Soviet Border', 13 June 1969;
52. embassy Rangoon airgram, 'Ambassador Marshall Green's Conversation with Burmese Officials, March 31', 7 April 1969;
53. 'Implications of Sino-Soviet Developments: Meeting of June 21', 23 June 1969, SN 67-69, POL 32 Chicom-USSR;
54. and Richard Nethercut to Harry Thayer, 7 July 1969, enclosing 'A Sustained Armed Conflict Between China and the USSR', SN 67-69, POL Chicom-USSR.
55. Memcon, 'Comments of Soviet Embassy Officer on China and Vietnam', 13 June 1969, SN 67-69, POL Chicom-US.
56. 'Implications of Sino-Soviet Developments: Meeting of June 21', 23 June 1969.
57. Ibid. For consideration of the impact of Sino-American rapprochement and Sino-Soviet competition on Vietnam problem, see Kimball, Nixon's Vietnam War, pp.119-23.
58. Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography, p.336.
59. Restrictions Eased on U.S. Travel to Communist China', Department of State Bulletin 61/1573 (18 Aug. 1969), p.126.
60. National Security Study Memorandum 63, 'U.S. Policy on Current Sino-Soviet Differences', 3 July 1969, copy at NSArchive.
61. Tyler, A Great Wall, Six Presidents and China, pp.62-3.
62. Hyland to Kissinger, 'Sino-Soviet Contingencies', 28 Aug. 1969, NSF, box 710, USSR Vol. IV.
63. For the earlier US debates over preventive action, see William Burr and Jeffrey Richelson, 'Whether "To Strangle the Baby in the Cradle": The United States and the Chinese Nuclear Weapons Program, 1960-64', International Security 25/3 (2000), pp.173-215.
64. Public Papers of the President, Richard M. Nixon, 1969, pp.545-56.
65. Marshall Green to Acting Secretary, 'President's Trip', 12 Aug. 1969, SN 67-69, POL US/Nixon; memcon, 'Lahore Advisers Meeting', 1 Aug. 1969, NSF, Country Files, box 624, Pakistan Vol II.
66. See also F.S. Aijjazuddin, From a Head, Through a Head, To a Head: The Secret Channel between the U.S. and China through Pakistan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
67. Address Before the National Press Club, Canberra, Australia, August 8', Department of State Bulletin 161/1575 (1 Sept. 1969), pp.180-81;
68. For Roger's discussions with Chiang, see Thomas Shoesmith to Marshall Green, 'Significance of the Secretary's Trip to Taipei', 3 Sept. 1969, SN 67-69, ORG 7 S.
69. INR Intelligence Note 585, 'Communist China/USSR: Peking Accentuates the Positive', 11 Aug. 1969, SN 67-69, POL 32-1 Chicom-USSR;
70. and Whiting, 'Sino-American Detente', p.336.
71. NIE 11/13-69, 'The USSR and China', 12 Aug. 1969, copy at NSArchive.
72. State Department cable 130100 to embassy Taipei, 'Nur Khan's Meeting with Zhou Enlai', 5 Aug. 1969, SN 67-69, POL Chicom-US.
73. In 1965, Zhou had told the Pakistanis that if a Sino-American confrontation over Vietnam broke out, the resulting conflict would have 'no boundaries'. See Chen and Hershberg, 'Informing the Enemy', p.31.
74. Memcon, 'Conversation with the President Concerning China and U.S.-Chinese Contacts', 9 Sept. 1969, SN 67-69, POL Chicom-US;
75. Arkady Shevchenko, Breaking with Moscow (New York: Knopf, 1985), pp.165-6;
76. memcon, 'Sino-Soviet Relations; Vietnam; SALT', 10 Nov. 1969, SN 67-69, POL Chicom-USSR.
77. Memcon, 'China: US reaction to Soviet Destruction of CPR Nuclear Capability', 18 Aug. 1969;
78. CINCSAC cable to Joint Chiefs, 9 Aug. 1969, Earle Wheeler Papers. In White House Years, p.182, Kissinger mentions a meeting of the Washington Special Action Group (WSAG) but makes no reference to alert measures. Days earlier, SAC's commander-in-chief Bruce K. Holloway reported that he was watching closely a 'lull' in Soviet air operations. If it continued, he recommended alert actions to signal US concern. See National Archives, Record Group 218, Records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, box 80, 323.3 CINCSAC.
79. State Department cables 14208 and 142939 to Hong Kong consulate et al., 21 and 23 Aug. 1969, SN 67-69, POL CHICOM-USSR. During the week of 1 September, Davydov would reprise his approach to Stearman during a talk with a staffer of an obscure thinktank, the Research Analysis Corporation, but details are unavailable. See Sonnenfeldt and Holdridge, 'The US Role in Soviet Maneuvering Against Communist China', 10 Sept. 1969, NSF, box 710, Country File USSR Vol. V
80. Rogers to the President, 'The Possibility of a Soviet Strike Against Chinese Nuclear Facilities', 10 Sept. 1969, SN 67-69, DEF 12 China;
81. State Department cable 143579 to US Mission, NATO, 'Guidance for POLAD Discussion on August 26 of Sino-Soviet Border Incidents', 25 Aug. 1969, SN 67-69, POL 32-1 Chicom-USSR;
82. Helmut Sonnenfeldt and John Holdridge to Kissinger, 'The US Role in Soviet Maneuvering Against Communist China', 10 Sept. 1969, NSF, box 710, Country File USSR Vol. V 10/6.
83. Holdridge, Crossing the Divide, p.34, mentions The Kissinger-Whiting meeting, but Kissinger does not in White House Years.
84. Elliott L. Richardson, 'The Foreign Policy of the Nixon Administration: Its Aims and Strategy', Department of State Bulletin 61/1578 (22 Sept. 1969), p.260.
85. Kissinger leaves the question open. White House Years, p.192.
86. Memcon, 'The President's Meeting with Foreign Minister Schumann in New York', 18 Sept. 1969, SN 67-69, POL Fr-US;
87. INR Intelligence Note 675, 'War Between Russia and China: A Communist Nightmare', 23 Sept. 1969, SN 67-69, POL 32-1 Chicom-USSR;
88. Department of State cable 143440 to Hong Kong consulate, 'ChiCom Officials' Comments on Sino-Soviet Relations', 25 Aug. 1969, SN 67-69, POL Chicom-US;
89. INR Intelligence Note 665, 'Communist China: War Fears and Domestic Politics', 18 Sept. 1969, SN 67-69, POL Chicom.
90. See also Yang, 'The Sino-Soviet Border Clash of 1969', p.37
91. and Sutter, China Watch, pp.86-7.
92. For Nixon and trade policy toward China, see Foot, The Practice of Power, pp.74-5.
93. Holdridge to Kissinger, 'Query from Ambassador to Warsaw on Contacting Chinese Communist Charge', 3 Nov. 1969
94. enclosing copy of letter from Stoessel to Paul Kreisberg, 27 Oct. 1969, NSF, Country File, Poland Warsaw Talks, Vol.I;
95. Nixon, 'Strengthening the Total Fabric of Peace', Department of State Bulletin 61/1580 (6 Oct. 1969), p.300.
96. For Kissinger's annoyance with Stoessel, see Marshall Green, John Holdridge, and William Stokes, War and Peace with China: First-Hand Experiences in the Foreign Service of the United States (Bethesda, MD, DACOR Press, 1994), p.110.
97. For details, see Ostermann, 'East German Documents on the Border Conflict', pp.191-3;
98. and Chen and Wilson, '"All Under the Heaven is Great Chaos"', pp.171-2.
99. State Department Operations Center, 'Afternoon Summary', 12 Sept. 1969, RG 59, Executive Secretariat Afternoon Summary, 1959-71, box 13;
100. INR Intelligence Note, 'Communist China/USSR: Kosygin Meets at Peking Airport', 12 Sept. 1969, SN 67-69, POL Chicom-USSR.
101. Kissinger to the President, 'The U.S. Role in Soviet Maneuvering Against China', 29 Sept. 1969, NSF, Country Files, box 710, USSR Vol. V 1969. Kissinger quotes this document, but does not disclose his advice;
102. Shevchenko, Breaking with Moscow, p.166.
103. London embassy airgram A-1690, 'Victor Zorza Says the Kremlin Has Ordered Military to Move Against China', 3 Oct. 1969, SN 67-69, POL Chicom-USSR.
104. INR Intelligence Note 717, 'Communist China/USSR: Peking Agrees to Resume Border Talks', 7 Oct. 1969, SN 67-69, POL 32-1 Chicom-USSR;
105. Acting Secretary of State Richardson to President, 'Significance of Peking's Agreement to Talk with the Soviets', 8 Oct. 1969, ibid.;
106. memcon, 'Chicom Views on Europe, US, Sino-Soviet Relations, Disarmament', 28 Nov. 1969, SN 67-69, POL Chicom-USSR.
107. For war preparations, see INR Intelligence Note 849, 'Communist China: War Preparations Intensify', 4 Dec. 1969, SN 67-69, POL Chicom;
108. INR Intelligence Note 640, 'Communist China: Increased Curiosity About US Asian Policy', 8 Sept. 1969, SN 67-69, POL 1 Asia-US;
109. Green to Under-Secretary, 'Next Steps in China Policy', 6 Oct. 1969, SN 67-69, POl Chicom-US;
110. Manac'h, Memoires d'Extreme Asie, pp.460-64;
111. Paris embassy cable 14940 to State Department, 30 Sept. 1969, SN 67-69, Pol Chicom-Fr; Green to Under Secretary, 'Next Steps in China Policy', 6 Oct. 1969, SN 67-69, POL Chicom-US. The State Department did not receive a report of the presidential message; undoubtedly, the French gave Nixon a full account of the discussion.
112. Kissinger to the President, 'President Yahya and Communist China', 16 Oct. 1969, NSF, Country Files, box 623, Pakistan Vol.1. As it turned out, the CIA channel was used but not before the White House sent a message through the Pakistani channel. Kissinger's memoir account of Yahya's message differs from the declassified record;
113. CIA Intelligence Memorandum, 'Signs of Life in Chinese Foreign Policy', 11 April 1970, copy at NSArchive.
114. Intelligence Note 824, 'Sino-US-Soviet Relations: Peking's Double Game', 21 Nov. 1969, SN 67-69, POL Chicom-US.
115. See also INR Intelligence Note No. 789, 'Sino-Soviet Talks Reach an Early Impasse', 6 Nov. 1969
116. and Paris embassy cable 17990, 'French View of Sino-Soviet Talks', 20 Nov. 1969, SN 67-69, POL Chicom-USSR.
117. Rogers to the President, 'Next Moves in China Policy', 2 Dec. 1969, SN 67-69, POL Chicom-US.
118. Warsaw embassy cable 3706 to State Department, 'Contact with Communist Chinese', 3 Dec. 1969, SN 67-69, POL 23-8 US.
119. INR Intelligence Note 853, 'Peking "Responds" to the December 3 Initiative', 9 Dec. 1969, SN 67-69, POL Chicom-US;
120. Warsaw embassy cable 3744 to State Department, 'Communist Chinese Request Meeting December 11', 10 Dec. 1969, SN 67-69, POL Chicom-US;
121. Warsaw embassy cable 3760 to State Department, 'Sino-US Meeting', 11 Dec. 1969, SN 67-69, POL Chicom-US.
122. Marshall Green to the Secretary, 'Implication of PRC Agreement to Meet with US Ambassador', 10 Dec. 1969, SN 67-69, POL Chicom-US;
123. Kissinger to the President, 'Warsaw Talks', [10 Dec. 1969], NSF, Poland-Warsaw Talks, Vol. I.
124. Kissinger to the President, 'Proposal on China Policy', 11 Dec. 1969, NSF, box 337, HAK/Richardson Meeting May 1969-Dec. 1969;
125. Kissinger to Richardson, 'Next Move in China Policy', 16 Dec. 1969, SN 67-69, POL Chicom-US.
126. R.T. Davies, Policy Planning Council, to Secretary, 'Helsinki T-1544', 11 Dec. 1969, copy at NSArchive.
127. See also Kissinger to Rogers, 'Ambassador Thompson's Recommendation that We Inform Dobrynin of Talks with the Chinese', 12 Dec. 1969, SN 67-69, POL Chicom-US.
128. R.T. Davies to the Secretary, 'Sino-U.S. Talks: Opening Statement', 12 Jan. 1970, RG 59, Subject-Numeric Files 1970-73 (hereinafter SN 70-73), POL Chicom-US.
129. Rogers to the President, 'Guidance for Sino-U.S. Ambassadorial Meeting, January 20, 1970', 14 Jan. 1970, SN 70-73, POL Chicom-US. In White House Years, p.686, Kissinger argues that it was the White House, not State, that pushed for the proposal to send a representative to Beijing, among other innovations, but Holdridge's account assigns the credit to the State Department.
130. Rogers to the President, 'Sino-US Negotiations in Warsaw', 7 Feb. 1970, SN 70-73, POL Chicom-US;
131. Kissinger to the President, 'The Warsaw Talks', 21 Jan. 1970, NSF, box 700, Poland-Warsaw Talks, Vol I.
132. A year earlier the Foreign Ministry had strongly attacked the United States and said nothing about another meeting. This time, however, the note 'clearly implied a continuing interest in the Warsaw dialogue' and only mildly attacked US actions in Indochina. See Rogers to the President, 'Chinese Cancellation of May 20 Warsaw Meeting', 19 May 1970, SN 70-73, POL Chicom-US.
133. Kissinger for the President, 'Conversation with Ambassador Dobrynin', 27 Jan. 1970, NSF, Country Files, box 711, USSR vol. III.
134. Laurence E. Lynn to Kissinger, 'FY 71 Safeguard ABM Decision', 16 Jan. 1970
135. and Kissinger to President, Alternative Sites for FY 71 Safeguard ABM Deployment', 3 Feb. 1970, NSF, box 840, ABM System Vol. III;
136. Ronald Spiers to Secretary Rogers, 'NSC Discussion of Safeguard', 21 Jan. 1970, RG 59, Policy Planning Council Miscellaneous Records, 1959-72, box 291, MIRV/Verification/Safeguard Jan./Feb.y 1970.
137. William Burr (ed.), The Kissinger Transcripts: The Top Secret Talks with Beijing and Moscow (New York: The New Press, 1999), pp.85, 99-100, 170-73, 209-12.