ABSTRACT
The Beijing massacre seared the psyche of Chinese and China-watchers alike. And yet those who watch Chinese foreign policy more than domestic events are also struck by the ironies of the crisis. In the pre-Maoist period, China, as a continental economy, had rarely sought economic prosperity through close contact with the outside world. The most serious unreformed legacy left by Mao in foreign policy was the attitude towards the Soviet Union. Sino-Soviet detente also allowed China to use force in the South China Sea in March 1988 and made it easier for the Soviet Union to open new relations in East Asia, most notably with South Korea and Taiwan. Although Sino-Soviet relations have been the most dramatic new feature of Chinese foreign policy, it cannot be denied that the most important of the initial reforms of Chinese foreign policy was the detente with the United States in the 1970s.
