Chinese Foreign Policy after the Cultural Revolution, 1966-1977 by Robert G. SutterReview by: Donald S. ZagoriaForeign Affairs, Vol. 57, No. 1 (Fall, 1978), p. 230Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20040097 .

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230 FOREIGN AFFAIRS 67 period, the author sheds considerable new light on Sino-Soviet relations, Soviet foreign policy, matters of internal Soviet politics such as the ouster of

Shelepin, and on the way in which East European diplomats gathered and evaluated information. The account is particularly detailed on various Polish and Hungarian interventions in the relationship between Washington and Hanoi which, in the author's view, were not sanctioned by the North Vietnamese but were designed to encourage U.S. concessions and to enhance the prestige of the East European diplomats. There is little evidence that the Russians were

prepared to play the role of honest broker in these years. Rather, Moscow's central objective was to wean Hanoi away from Peking by making the North Vietnamese increasingly dependent upon sophisticated Soviet weapons supplies. Finally, what emerges from this intriguing account is the supreme confidence of the Hanoi leaders that they could defeat the United States, no matter how many

American troops were sent, because of American inexperience in fighting a

jungle war.

CHINA AND JAPAN: THE SEARCH FOR BALANCE. Edited by Alvin D. Coox and Hilary Conroy. Santa Barbara (Cal.): ABC-Clio Press, 1978, 468 pp. $19.75. U.S.-JAPAN RELATIONS AND THE SECURITY OF EAST ASIA: THE NEXT DECADE. Edited by Franklin B. Weinstein. Boulder (Colo.): Westview Press, 1978, 318 pp. $14.00 (Paper, $7.00).

The first collection of essays will be of interest primarily to historians; the second contains a number of excellent articles on the contemporary strategic situation in East Asia. But only one of the essays in either book ?the final

chapter in Coox and Conroy ?makes a stab at analyzing the two triangular relationships involving the two superpowers: China-Japan-United States and

China-Japan-Soviet Union. As that essay points out, power politics in East Asia

today is closely integrated into the larger international system in which the

controlling relationship remains that between the two superpowers. There can be no adequate understanding of East Asian international relations today without studying the impact of these two triangles.

CHINA-WATCH: TOWARD SINO-AMERICAN RECONCILIATION. By Robert G. Sutter. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1978, 155 pp. $10.95.

Drawing heavily on the analyses of Chinese Communist communications

during the past 30 years by the FBIS (Foreign Broadcast Information Service), Sutter throws fresh light on several aspects of Chinese policy, particularly on the dialogue with Washington in 1955-57 over Taiwan. The chapter on the ambassadorial talks in Geneva suggests that Peking demonstrated much greater flexibility on the Taiwan issue at that time than is generally assumed. It is

particularly relevant to current discussions about the prospects for U.S.-China normalization.

CHINESE FOREIGN POLICY AFTER THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION, 1966-1977. By Robert G. Sutter. Boulder (Colo.): Westview Press, 1978, 176 pp.

$15.00. Flawed by pedestrian writing and the lack of a conceptual framework, this

volume is nevertheless one of the most detailed studies of the critical changes in Chinese foreign policy during the past decade. It is another example of the value of the recently declassified FBIS series of weekly reports on communist

media. By using these reports, Sutter has been able to pinpoint the origins of the Sino-Vietnamese conflict several years before it broke out into the open, to trace the recent evolution of the Sino-Soviet relationship in considerable detail, and to show how Chinese policy toward the United States began to change in the late 1960s.

THE UNITED STATES AND THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA.

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