ABSTRACT
The security policy of the People’s Republic of China has experienced frequent and dramatic changes since 1949. During the Cold War Chinese security policy moved from close alignment with the Soviet Union, through the “dual adversary” period in the 1960s, when it simultaneously confronted Soviet and U.S. hostility, to realignment with the United States against the common Soviet threat in the 1970s and 1980s. Following the Cold War and into the twenty-first century, Chinese policy has continued to evolve, despite China’s commitment to a peaceful international environment conducive for the rise of China. In the past 20 years China’s Taiwan policy and its security relations with the great powers and its many neighbors have all experienced considerable change.
