Normalization of U.S.-China Relations

An International History

Edited by William C. Kirby

Edited by Robert S. Ross

Edited by Gong Li

    Relations between China and the United States have been of central importance to both countries over the past half-century, as well as to all states affected by that relationship--Taiwan and the Soviet Union foremost among them. Only recently, however, has the opening of archives made it possible to research this history dispassionately. The eight chapters in this volume offer the first multinational, multi-archival review of the history of Chinese-American conflict and cooperation in the 1970s.

    On the Chinese side, normalization of relations was instrumental to Beijing's effort to enhance its security vis-à-vis the Soviet Union and was seen as a tactical necessity to promote Chinese military and economic interests. The United States was equally motivated by national security concerns. In the wake of Vietnam, policymakers saw normalization as a means of forestalling Soviet power. As the essays in this volume show, normalization was far from a foregone conclusion.

  • Cover: Normalization of U.S.-China Relations

William C. Kirby is Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Edith and Benjamin Geisinger Professor of History at Harvard University.

Robert S. Ross is Professor of Political Science at Boston College and a Research Associate at the John King Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, Harvard University.

Gong Li is Professor of International Relations at the International Strategic Research Center, Central Party School of the Chinese Communist Party.