ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on height of the cold war and the isolation policy during the Mao era. It discusses the general atmosphere during the cold war when Sino-American relations were marked by fear. The chapter analyzes US policy toward China in terms of a strategic triangle which will explain the tenuous relations among the United States, China, and the Soviet Union. The thrust of cold war strategy, which denoted an important phase in the international political economy, was backed by a sufficient amount of economic endowments in the United States. The US perception of China was a combination of fear of the spread of communism and the change in perception of American decision makers toward the world economy. China’s overall perception of the Soviet Union was heavily shaped by the ideological inclination of Chairman Mao Zedong. By a wide margin, the Cultural Revolution witnessed the disillusionment of the socialist dream in the realistic intransigence of Communist China’s politics.
