ABSTRACT
Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, between 1949 and 1976, China was capable of wide swings in the conduct of foreign policy. China was alienated from most of its foreign supporters and stood in direct opposition to both the United States, which was deepening its military involvement in Southeast Asia, and the Soviet Union, which was building its military power along China’s northern border as a defensive measure and possible lever to press China. China’s relationship with the superpowers, and especially the Soviet Union, remained at the heart of its foreign policy through much of the late cold war period. The China-United States accommodation that emerged during this period was restricted largely to strategic factors. Because of ongoing leadership struggles, China remained unwilling to break away from Maoist development policies emphasizing Chinese “self-reliance.” Chinese suspicions of many multilateral efforts center on the role of the United States and the other industrialized nations.
