ACADEMIA Letters

The Importance of Common Interests in Interstate

Conflict: Why American Cold Wars Ended Differently for
China and the U.S.S.R. in 1970s
Diana Clark Gill

Détente attempts with the United States in the 1970s succeeded or failed depending on the
amount of common interests with that country shared by each communist state. This article
argues that the Soviet-U.S. détente failed and hence reinvigorated their Cold War, because
their mutual distrust prevented the U.S.S.R. from tying itself culturally and economically to
the United States. The traumas of Pearl Harbor and Hitler’s 1941 invasion of Russia had made
both countries wary of imminent victimization, leading them to keep their distance while
politicking for peace in tandem with building up armaments to ‘prepare for all eventualities:
preemption, launch-on-warning, and retaliation’1 .
Discussion will then explore how the Sino-American détente avoided the above hazards;
officially ending their Cold War in 1979 and setting the stage for forty years of being bound
by an often contentious but, nevertheless, mutually advantageous association.

Soviet-American Attempts at Detente

With the Soviets’ new status as nuclear equals in the early seventies, American leaders decided
to ‘bring them into the fold’ by having them invest themselves in the innerworkings of the free
world. Nixon and Kissinger believed that establishing common interests with the Soviet Union
would lessen conflict between their two countries by ‘reconciling’ the Soviets to the Western
1
Robert S. Norris & Hans M. Kristensen, “Nuclear U.S. and Soviet/ Russian Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles,
1959-2008,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 65:1, 62-69.

Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Diana Clark Gill, [email protected]

Citation: Clark Gill, D. (2021). The Importance of Common Interests in Interstate Conflict: Why American
Cold Wars Ended Differently for China and the U.S.S.R. in 1970s. Academia Letters, Article 2812.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL2812.
1
system,2 leading to a greater openness between nations. This was not unlike the Verflechtung
(interweaving) of Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik whereby socio-economic interdependence was
thought to be the key to preventing war.3 President Nixon’s letter to Secretary of Defense
Laird made a similar point about mutuality in 1969, observing that ‘the “spirit” that permeated
various meetings [with the Soviets] lacked a solid basis of mutual interest and, therefore, every
summit meeting was followed by a crisis in less than a year’ (emphasis mine).
Interdependence was not, however, the vision of détente as held by the Soviets. They saw
détente as a redistribution of power for which they had long labored; not as a tie into the West’s
political network as a budding capitalist. Soviet-American cultural exchanges did exist, largely
in theater, museum and opera. But trade, for example, was poor between the two countries
in the 1970s and early 1980s. Agricultural produce such as corn and wheat made up almost
two-thirds of U.S. exports to the Soviet Union by the early eighties.4 Brezhnev prioritized
Eastern Europe as its primary trading partner with the U.S being the ‘smallest customer of
Soviet goods than any other country listed except Canada’.5
Such interdependencies with the West by the U.S.S.R. were, therefore, seen by the U.S. as
insufficient for cementing the two countries into a reciprocally beneficial partnership. The ail-
ing Brezhnev, having made a supreme effort at Vladivostok to hammer out an arms agreement,
was unconcerned by such seeming trivialities. The U.S.S.R would continue their independent
operations in Africa and Afghanistan not understanding that, in American eyes, the triviali-
ties of poor cultural and economic ties affected how their actions were perceived. (Note: this
dynamic would repeat itself after the Tiananmen Square massacre in China’s favor). Where
Soviets saw themselves as supporting a fellow communist government in Afghanistan against
rebel attacks, U.S. leaders saw communist imperialism that signaled a broken trust with Amer-
ica which ended détente and triggered a resurgence of the Soviet-American Cold War.
Ultimately, then, the failure of Soviet-American rapprochement came from the U.S.S.R.’s
too heavy focus on what would appear to be détente’s primary topic – arms control. But as
Raymond Garthoff pointed out, ‘arms control cannot stand alone nor sustain a political détente
that does not support itself’.6
2
Raymond L. Garthoff, “American-Soviet Relations in Perspective,” Political Sciences Quar-
terly, Winter 1985-1986, https://www.jstor.org/stable/ 2151540?read-now=1&refreqid=excelsior%3A42
a602535bd6008534672bda2ef9d48d&seq=8#page_scan_tab_contents (26 January 2020).
3
Stefan Meister, “From Ostpolitik to EU-Russia Interdependence: Germany’s Perspective,” in Post-Crimea
Shift in Eu-Russia Relations: From Fostering Interdependence to Managing Vulnerabilities, edited by Kristi Raik
and Andreas Racz (International Centre for Defence and Security, 2019).
4
Abraham S. Becker, “U.S.-Soviet Trade in the 1980s,” A RAND NOTE, November 1987. https://www.
rand.org /content/dam/rand/pubs/notes/2009/N2682.pdf (31 January 2020)
5
Ibid.
6
Raymond L. Garthoff, “American-Soviet Relations in Perspective,” Political Sciences Quar-

Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Diana Clark Gill, [email protected]

Citation: Clark Gill, D. (2021). The Importance of Common Interests in Interstate Conflict: Why American
Cold Wars Ended Differently for China and the U.S.S.R. in 1970s. Academia Letters, Article 2812.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL2812.
2
Sino-American Success at Détente
China’s incentives to adhere to the American vision of détente were well publicized. Prin-
cipally they included China’s fears of the Soviet Union. After the U.S.S.R’s 1968 invasion
of Czechoslovakia, rumors circulated that they might next attack the less-well-armed China,
possibly with nuclear weapons. Additionally, China was economically shaky and needed to
ally itself with a stronger partner, especially one that could provide it new technologies and
access to the global community from which it had long been isolated.
America’s need for a détente with China was equally compelling. Nixon needed an ally
to help influence Hanoi to end the Vietnam War. Nixon also knew that China’s defection to
the U.S. would weaken the solidarity of the ‘communist bloc’ undermining the hegemony of
the U.S.S.R., as well as provide him extra bargaining power when negotiating arms reductions
with the Soviets.
Interdependence (culturally, socially, and even academically) quickly followed between
China and the U.S. once diplomatic relations were established in 1979. But perhaps the most
sudden benefit was economic. The union of ‘U.S. capital, technology, and management exper-
tise with China’s low-cost labor and huge domestic market’7 created an astounding synergy.
By 1980, less than a year since normalization, U.S.-China trade was already accelerating, go-
ing from $5 billion to $231 billion by 2004.8 Now the U.S.’s largest foreign creditor, China is
also its principal trading partner, allowing American goods to be peddled in its domestic mar-
kets while imported-from-Chinese ‘low-cost, high-quality labor-intensive consumer products
saves American consumers roughly $20 billion in consumer spending’.9
Indeed interdependence with China had become so great that by the 1989 Tiananmen
Square Massacre, President George H. W. Bush not only invoked his presidential waiver au-
thority to restrain Congressional sanctions against their Chinese ally, but would soon reversed
many of his own sanctions placed on China immediately after the tragedy. The U.S. was
plainly showing its bias toward inter-reliant allies. With blood barely dried two days after the
massacre, President Bush stated, in response to suggestions of further sanctions, that ‘now is
the time to look beyond the moment to important and enduring aspects of this vital relationship
terly, Winter 1985-1986, https://www.jstor.org/stable/ 2151540?read-now=1&refreqid=excelsior%3A42
a602535bd6008534672bda2ef9d48d&seq=8#page_scan_tab_contents.
7
Shuxun Chen and Charles Wolf Jr., eds. China, the United States, and the Global Economy, San Monica:
Rand Publishing, 2001.
8
“U.S Relations with China 1949-2020,” Council on Foreign Relations, https://www.cfr.org/timeline/ us-
relations-china (1 February 2020).
9
Xianquan Xu, ‘Sino-U.S. Economic And Trade Relations,’ in China, the United States and the Global Econ-
omy edited by Shuxun Chen and Charles Wolf, Jr. Santa Monica: Rand, 2001.

Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Diana Clark Gill, [email protected]

Citation: Clark Gill, D. (2021). The Importance of Common Interests in Interstate Conflict: Why American
Cold Wars Ended Differently for China and the U.S.S.R. in 1970s. Academia Letters, Article 2812.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL2812.
3
for the United States’.10

Conclusion
To the United States in the 1970s ‘détente’ meant establishing a significant political connection
with a former foe; a bond that would be strong enough to discourage future military conflict.
The Soviet Union was incompatible for this role due to its equal strength with the United
States. Not only would its nuclear parity fuel competition constantly between the two, but
the U.S.S.R. was powerful enough to follow its own definition of détente; one not based on
interdependence. In other words, it thought it could walk away from the deal even if that
meant the continuation of its Cold War.
China, however, could not walk away from such an opportunity. It was weaker militarily
than its former ally, the Soviet Union, and it faced a likely, possibly catastrophic, attack from
that quarter. It needed not only an American infusion of technology and political sanction
to become part of the global community, it needed a promise of protection such as it gained
from the Shanghai Communique. In exchange for these assets, Chinese leaders agreed to the
American form of détente, ending the Sino-American Cold War (1949-1979).

10
Human Rights Watch World Report 1989, https://www.hrw.org/reports/1989/WR89/China.htm (2 February
2020)

Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Diana Clark Gill, [email protected]

Citation: Clark Gill, D. (2021). The Importance of Common Interests in Interstate Conflict: Why American
Cold Wars Ended Differently for China and the U.S.S.R. in 1970s. Academia Letters, Article 2812.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL2812.
4