Political Transformation of Communist States: Impact on the International Order in East Asia

The appearance of reform leadership in China and Russia, the dominant communist powers of East Asia, was the major factor in the sweeping transformation of regional international relations from the 1970s onward. In both countries, the reform leaders rejected much of the outlook and practice of the past, and undertook new domestic and international policies. Their actions first modified and then virtually eliminated the international order inherited from the years of the Cold War and the Sino-Soviet conflict.