15 “Emancipate the Mind, Seek Truth from Facts and Unite As One in Looking into the Future: December 13, 1978,” in Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, vol. 2, 152.

  16 Ibid., 154.

  17 Ibid.

  18 “Uphold the Four Cardinal Principles: March 30, 1979,” in Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, vol. 2, 181.

  19 Ibid., 181.

  20 Ibid., 182–83.

  21 Until 1983, Deng was Vice Premier and Chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Congress. From 1981 to 1989, he was Chairman of the Central Military Commission and Chairman of the Advisory Commission.

  22 Evans, Deng Xiaoping and the Making of Modern China, 256.

  Chapter 13: “Touching the Tiger’s Buttocks”: The Third Vietnam War

  1 “Touch the tiger’s buttocks” is a Chinese idiom popularized by Mao, meaning to do something daring or dangerous. The occasion of this remark was my meeting with Hua Guofeng in Beijing in April 1979.

  2 During the Cultural Revolution, then Defense Minister Lin Biao abolished all ranks and insignia and ordered extensive ideological training for Chinese troops using the “Little Red Book” of Mao’s aphorisms. The PLA was called on to play social and ideological roles far outside the mission of an ordinary military. A penetrating account of the toll these developments took on the PLA during the conflict with Vietnam may be found in Edward O’Dowd, Chinese Military Strategy in the Third Indochina War (New York: Routledge, 2007).

  3 “Zhou Enlai, Kang Sheng, and Pham Van Dong: Beijing, 29 April 1968,” in Odd Arne Westad, Chen Jian, Stein Tønnesson, Nguyen Vu Tung, and James G. Hershberg, eds., “77 Conversations Between Chinese and Foreign Leaders on the Wars in Indochina, 1964–1977,” Cold War International History Project Working Paper Series, working paper no. 22 (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson International History Project, May 1998), 127–28. (Brackets in original.)

  4 See Chapter 8, “The Road to Reconciliation,” page 205.

  5 I have always believed that having been willing to force the—to Mao—ideologically correct Khmer Rouge into a compromise, unnecessarily as it turned out, contributed to Zhou’s fall. See also Kissinger, Years of Upheaval (Boston: Little, Brown, 1982), 368.

  6 Robert S. Ross, The Indochina Tangle: China’s Vietnam Policy, 1975–1979 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 74, quoting Xinhua news report (August 15, 1975), as translated in Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily Report, People’s Republic of China (August 18, 1975), A7.

  7 Ibid.

  8 Ibid., 98, quoting Xinhua news report (March 15, 1976), as translated in FBIS Daily Report, People’s Republic of China (March 16, 1976), A13.

  9 In April 1978, the Afghan President was assassinated and his government was replaced; on December 5, 1978, the Soviet Union and the new government of Afghanistan entered into a Treaty of Friendship, Good-Neighborliness and Cooperation; and on February 19, 1979, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan was assassinated.

  10 Cyrus Vance, Hard Choices: Critical Years in America’s Foreign Policy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983), 79.

  11 “President Carter’s Instructions to Zbigniew Brzezinski for His Mission to China, May 17, 1978,” in Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Adviser, 1977–1981 (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1985), Annex I, 2.

  12 The five principles were: affirmation of a one China policy; a commitment not to offer American support to Taiwan independence movements; American discouragement of a hypothetical Japanese deployment into Taiwan; support for any peaceful resolution between Beijing and Taipei; and a commitment to continued normalization. See Chapter 9, “Resumption of Relations: First Encounters with Mao and Zhou,” page 271.

  13 “Memorandum of Conversation, Summary of the President’s Meeting with the People’s Republic of China Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping: Washington, January, 29th 1979, 3:35–4:59 p.m.,” Jimmy Carter Presidential Library (JCPL), Vertical File—China, item no. 270, 10–11.

  14 “Summary of Dr. Brzezinski’s Meeting with Foreign Minister Huang Hua: Beijing, May 21st, 1978,” JCPL, Vertical File—China, item no. 232, 3.

  15 Ibid., 6–7.

  16 Ibid. Sadat served as President of Egypt from 1970 until his assassination in 1981. The “bold action” referred to included Sadat’s expulsion of over twenty thousand Soviet military advisors from Egypt in 1972, the launching of the October 1973 War, and the subsequent entry into a peace process with Israel.

  17 Ibid., 4.

  18 Ibid., 10–11.

  19 “Memorandum of Conversation, Meeting with Vice Premier Teng Hsiao P’ing: Beijing, May 21st, 1978,” JCPL, Vertical File—China, item no. 232-e, 16.

  20 Ibid., 5–6.

  21 “Summary of Dr. Brzezinski’s Meeting with Chairman Hua Kuo-feng: Beijing, May 22nd, 1978,” JCPL, Vertical File—China, item no. 233c, 4–5.

  22 “Memorandum of Conversation, Summary of the President’s Meeting with Ambassador Ch’ai Tse-min: Washington, September 19, 1978,” JCPL, Vertical File—China, item no. 250b, 3.

  23 “Memorandum of Conversation, Meeting with Vice Premier Teng Hsiao P’ing: Beijing, May 21st 1978,” JCPL, Vertical File—China, item no. 232-e, 6.

  24 In recent years, Chinese leaders and policy analysts have introduced the phrase “peaceful rise” to describe China’s foreign policy aspiration to achieve major-power status within the framework of the existing international system. In a thoughtful article synthesizing both Chinese and Western scholarship on the concept, the scholar Barry Buzan raises the prospect that China’s “peaceful rise” began in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as Deng increasingly aligned China’s domestic development and foreign policy to the nonrevolutionary world and sought out common interests with the West. Deng’s trips abroad offered dramatic proof of this realignment. See Barry Buzan, “China in International Society: Is ‘Peaceful Rise’ Possible?” The Chinese Journal of International Politics 3 (2010): 12–13.

  25 “An Interview with Teng Hsiao P’ing,” Time (February 5, 1979), http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,946204,00.html.

  26 “China and Japan Hug and Make Up,” Time (November 6, 1978), http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,948275-1,00.html.

  27 Henry Kamm, “Teng Begins Southeast Asian Tour to Counter Rising Soviet Influence,” New York Times (November 6, 1978), A1.

  28 Henry Kamm, “Teng Tells the Thais Moscow-Hanoi Treaty Perils World’s Peace,” New York Times (November 9, 1978), A9.

  29 “Excerpts from Talks Given in Wuchang, Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Shanghai: January 18–February 21, 1992,” in Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, vol. 3, trans., The Bureau for the Compilation and Translation of Works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin Under the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1994), 366.

  30 Lee Kuan Yew, From Third World to First: The Singapore Story—1965–2000 (New York: HarperCollins, 2000), 597.

  31 Ibid., 598–99.

  32 Fox Butterfield, “Differences Fade as Rivals Mingle to Honor Teng,” New York Times (January 30, 1979), A1.

  33 Joseph Lelyveld, “‘Astronaut’ Teng Gets New View of World in Houston,” New York Times (February 3, 1979), A1.

  34 Fox Butterfield, “Teng Again Says Chinese May Move Against Vietnam,” New York Times (February 1, 1979), A16.

  35 Joseph Lelyveld, “‘Astronaut’ Teng Gets New View of World in Houston,” A1. For consistency with the main text of the present volume, the quoted passage’s original spelling “Teng Hsiao-p’ing” has been rendered as “Deng Xiaoping.”

  36 Twenty-two years represented the interval between the two world wars. Since more than twenty-two years had elapsed since the end of the Second World War, Chinese leaders were nervous that a certain historical rhythm was moving events. Mao had made the same point to the Australian Communist leader E. F. Hill a decade earlier. See also Chapter 8, “The Road to Reconciliation,” page 207; and Chen Jian and David L. Wilson, eds., “All Under the Heaven Is Great Chaos: Beijing, the Sino-Soviet Border Clashes, and the Turn Toward Sino-American Rapprochement, 1968–69,” Cold War International History Project Bulletin 11 (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Winter 1998), 161.

  37 “Memorandum of Conversation, Summary of the President’s First Meeting with PRC Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping: Washington, January 29th, 1979,” JCPL, Vertical File—China, item no. 268, 8–9.

  38 “Memorandum of Conversation, Meeting with Vice Premier Teng Hsiao P’ing: Beijing, May 21st, 1978,” JCPL, Vertical File—China, item no. 232-e, 14.

  39 “Memorandum of Conversation, Summary of the President’s Meeting with the People’s Republic of China Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping: Washington, January 29th, 1979, 3:35–4:59 p.m.,” JCPL, Vertical File—China, item no. 270, 10–11.

  40 “Memorandum of Conversation, Carter–Deng, Subject: Vietnam: Washington, January 29th, 1979, 5:00 p.m.–5:40 p.m.,” JCPL, Brzezinski Collection, China [PRC] 12/19/78–10/3/79, item no. 007, 2.

  41 Ross, The Indochina Tangle, 229.

  42 “Memorandum of Conversation, Carter–Deng, Washington, January 29th, 1979, 5:00 p.m.–5:40 p.m.,” JCPL, Brzezinski Collection, China [PRC] 12/19/78–10/3/79, item no. 007, 2.

  43 Ibid., 5.

  44 Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 410.

  45 “President Reporting on His Conversations with Deng: January 30th, 1979,” JCPL, Brzezinski Collection, China [PRC] 12/19/78–10/3/79, item no. 009, 1.

  46 Henry Scott-Stokes, “Teng Criticizes the U.S. for a Lack of Firmness in Iran,” New York Times (February 8, 1979), A12.

  47 The lower figure appears in Bruce Elleman, Modern Chinese Warfare, 1795–1989 (New York: Routledge, 2001), 285. The higher figure is the estimate of Edward O’Dowd in Chinese Military Strategy in the Third Indochina War, 3, 45–55.

  48 O’Dowd, Chinese Military Strategy in the Third Indochina War, 45.

  49 Deng Xiaoping to Jimmy Carter on January 30, 1979, as quoted in Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 409–10.

  50 “Text of Declaration by Moscow,” New York Times (February 19, 1979); Craig R. Whitney, “Security Pact Cited: Moscow Says It Will Honor Terms of Treaty—No Direct Threat Made,” New York Times (February 19, 1979), A1.

  51 Edward Cowan, “Blumenthal Delivers Warning,” New York Times (February 28, 1979), A1.

  52 Ibid.

  53 One of the few scholars to challenge this conventional wisdom—and to emphasize the conflict’s anti-Soviet dimension—is Bruce Elleman, in his Modern Chinese Warfare, 284–97.

  54 For a review of various estimates of PLA casualties, see O’Dowd, Chinese Military Strategy in the Third Indochina War, 45.

  55 “Memorandum of Conversation, Summary of the President’s First Meeting with PRC Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping: Washington, January 29th, 1979,” JCPL, Vertical File—China, item no. 268, 8.

  56 “Memorandum, President Reporting on His Conversations with Deng: January 30th, 1979,” JCPL, Brzezinski Collection, China [PRC] 12/19/ 78–10/3/79, item no. 009, 2.

  57 “Memorandum of Conversation with Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping: Beijing, January 8th, 1980,” JCPL, NSA Brzez. Matl. Far East, Box No. 69, Brown (Harold) Trip Memcons, 1/80, File, 16.

  58 “Memorandum of Conversation with Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping: Beijing, January 8th, 1980,” JCPL, NSA Brzez. Matl. Far East, Box No. 69, Brown (Harold) Trip Memcons, 1/80, File, 15.

  59 “President Carter’s Instructions to Zbigniew Brzezinski for His Mission to China, May 17, 1978,” in Brzezinski, Power and Principle, Annex I, 4.

  60 By one estimate, as of 1986 Vietnam stationed “700,000 combat troops in the northern portion of the country.” Karl D. Jackson, “Indochina, 1982–1985: Peace Yields to War,” in Solomon and Kosaka, eds., The Soviet Far East Military Buildup, as cited in Elleman, Modern Chinese Warfare, 206.

  61 “Memorandum of Conversation, Summary of the Vice President’s Meeting with People’s Republic of China Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping: Beijing, August 28th, 1979, 9:30 a.m.–12:00 noon,” JCPL, Vertical File—China, item no. 279, 9.

  62 “Memorandum of Conversation Between President Carter and Premier Hua Guofeng of the People’s Republic of China: Tokyo, July 10th, 1980,” JCPL, NSA Brzez. Matl. Subj. File, Box No. 38, “Memcons: President, 7/80.”

  63 As quoted in Chen Jian, China’s Road to the Korean War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 149.

  64 “Memorandum of Conversation, Summary of Dr. Brzezinski’s Conversation with Vice Premier Geng Biao of the People’s Republic of China: Washington, May 29th, 1980,” JCPL, NSA Brzez. Matl. Far East, Box No. 70, “Geng Biao Visit, 5/23–31/80,” Folder, 5.

  65 Lee, From Third World to First, 603.

  Chapter 14: Reagan and the Advent of Normalcy

  1 George H. W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), 93–94.

  2 Taiwan Relations Act, Public Law 96-8, § 3.1.

  3 Joint Communiqué Issued by the Governments of the United States and the People’s Republic of China (August 17, 1982), as printed in Alan D. Romberg, Rein In at the Brink of the Precipice: American Policy Toward Taiwan and U.S.-PRC Relations (Washington, D.C.: Henry L. Stimson Center, 2003), 243.

  4 Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, Strait Talk: United States–Taiwan Relations and the Crisis with China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009), 151.

  5 Ibid.

  6 Ibid., 148–50.

  7 John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History (New York: Penguin, 2005), 213–14, note 43.

  8 Hu Yaobang, “Create a New Situation in All Fields of Socialist Modernization—Report to the 12th National Congress of the Communist Party of China: September 1, 1982,” Beijing Review 37 (September 13, 1982): 29.

  9 Ibid., 30–31.

  10 Ibid.

  11 Ibid.

  12 Charles Hill, “Shifts in China’s Foreign Policy: The US and USSR” (April 21, 1984), Ronald Reagan Presidential Library (hereafter RRPL), 90946 (Asian Affairs Directorate, NSC).

  13 Directorate of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, “China-USSR: Maneuvering in the Triangle” (December 20, 1985), RRPL, 007-R.

  14 “Memorandum to President Reagan from Former President Nixon,” as appended to Memorandum for the President from William P. Clark, re: Former President Nixon’s Trip to China (September 25, 1982), RRPL, William Clark Files, 002.

  15 George P. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1993), 382.

  16 Ronald Reagan, “Remarks at Fudan University in Shanghai, April 30, 1984,” Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1986), book 1, 603–8; “Remarks to Chinese Community Leaders in Beijing, April 27, 1984,” Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, book 1, 579–84.

  17 Donald Zagoria, “China’s Quiet Revolution,” Foreign Affairs 62, no. 4 (April 1984): 881.

  18 Jonathan Spence, The Search for Modern China (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), 654–55.

  19 Nicholas Kristof, “Hu Yaobang, Ex-Party Chief in China, Dies at 73,” New York Times (April 16, 1989), http://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/16/obituaries/hu-yaobang-ex-party-chief-in-chinadies-at-73. html?pagewanted=1.

  20 Christopher Marsh, Unparalleled Reforms (New York: Lexington, 2005), 41.

  21 Richard Baum, Burying Mao: Chinese Politics in the Age of Deng Xiaoping (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 231–32.

  Chapter 15: Tiananmen

  1 Jonathan Spence notes that 1989 represented a convergence of several politically charged anniversaries: it was “the two hundredth anniversary of the French Revolution, the seventieth anniversary of the May Fourth movement, the fortieth birthday of the People’s Republic itself, and the passage of ten years since formal diplomatic relations with the United States had been reinstituted.” Spence, The Search for Modern China (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), 696.

  2 Andrew J. Nathan, “Preface to the Paperback Edition: The Tiananmen Papers—An Editor’s Reflections,” in Zhang Liang, Andrew Nathan, and Perry Link, eds., The Tiananmen Papers (New York: Public Affairs, 2001), viii.

  3 Richard Baum, Burying Mao: Chinese Politics in the Age of Deng Xiaoping (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 254.

  4 Nathan, Introduction to The Tiananmen Papers, “The Documents and Their Significance,” lv.

  5 An example of one such attempt to implement conditionality was the Clinton administration’s policy of conditioning China’s Most Favored Nation trade status on changes in its human rights record, to be discussed more fully in Chapter 17, “A Roller Coaster Ride Toward Another Reconciliation: The Jiang Zemin Era.”