Constructing the U.S. Rapprochement with China, 1961–1974

Abstract

With Nixon's historic reconciliation with China in 1972, Sino-American relations were restored, and China moved from being regarded as America's most implacable enemy to a friend and tacit ally. Existing accounts of the rapprochement focus on the shifting balance of power between the USA, China and the Soviet Union, but in this book Goh argues that they cannot adequately explain the timing and policy choices related to Washington's decisions for reconciliation with Beijing. Instead, she applies a more historically sensitive approach that privileges contending official American constructions of China's identity and character. This book demonstrates that ideas of reconciliation with China were already being propagated and debated within official circles in the USA during the 1960s. It traces the related policy discourse and imagery, and examines their continuities and evolution into the early 1970s that facilitated Nixon's new policy.

Geopolitics and the Vietnam War: Pyrrhic Victory's Antonym

“…37 Other such scholarship describes the effects of the 1965-1968 Sino-Soviet competition for influence in Hanoi: the growing rift in SinoVietnamese relations, the beginning of the Russo-Vietnamese alliance, Soviet encirclement of China on China's northern and Vietnamese borders, and the movement of China from dual hostility to the superpowers to the beginning of the Sino-American rapprochement. 38 To summarise, during this three-year period, the Soviet Union became the predominant influence in Hanoi due to the inability of China to provide the weaponry needed to fight the intensified big-unit warfare required by the new North Vietnamese strategy.…”

Realism Redux: Investigating the Causes and Effects of Sino-US Rapprochement

“…3 The author utilizes a 'constructivist, discourse-based approach', to investigate how ideas of reconciliation 'affected the ultimate policy outcome of [Sino-American] rapprochement'. 4 Goh traces the evolution of discourse on US policy toward China from that of a 'red menace' in 1961 to that of 'tacit ally' by 1974.…”

“…She argues that the realist balance of power account is problematic because even though the Sino-Soviet split was clear in 1962, it was only after the Sino-Soviet border conflict in 1969 that a Sino-US rapprochement emerged. 12 The second critique relates to the process of Sino-US rapprochement. Goh points out that the realist account focuses on why China shifted in the American view from being its worst enemy to a tacit ally.…”

“…Fourth, it is not the case, as Goh argues, that orthodox realist approaches do not adequately explain how rapprochement occurred. 17 Fifth, since she is making a broad critique of realism, it is surprising that a systematic evaluation of a new variant of realism, neoclassical realism, is absent in the author's review of realist theory.…”

“…Goh states this to be her 'informal' dependent variable. 22 The author focuses on dissecting and analyzing how the US settled on a rapprochement policy with China. Significantly, the almost exclusive focus on the US side in explaining the Sino-US rapprochement is inadequate precisely because it misses the element of strategic interaction that, ironically, is often touted as a forte of constructivist theory.…”