Economic Cold War: America's Embargo against China and the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1949– 1963

Abstract

This is a fine book, rich in new materials from recently accessible Chinese archives and memoirs and United States government documents. I recommend it to scholars of the Cold War, particularly the Sino-Soviet dispute and U.S.-China relations, and to comparativists interested in the efficacy of sanctions, alliance politics, and bureaucratic politics. The volume is most appropriate for graduate-level courses and will be of interest to historians, political scientists, and international relations specialists. Economic Cold War tells in clear, alternating, and interactive chapters how the United States and its allies, and Beijing and its principal ally, Moscow, reacted to Western attempts greatly to curtail economic relations with mainland China in the early stages of the Cold War (1949–1963). Beyond providing new detail of the intricacies of each nation's policies, their implementation, and their effects in China, Shu Guang Zhang self-consciously speaks to several important comparative issues. One such issue concerns the utility of economic sanctions as a tool of foreign policy. Contrary to much of the literature, such as Economic Sanctions and American Diplomacy edited by Richard N. Haass (1998), Zhang comes to the net conclusion that “the use of economic sanctions in pursuit of foreign-policy goals, though difficult to implement, can have major utility.” The author asserts that the embargo had its effect by increasing Chinese dependence on Moscow to unsustainable levels; with its needs unmet, Beijing became progressively more alienated from Moscow. Further, Zhang argues that, by forcing China into the Soviet economic orbit and the planned economy model, the embargo thereby gravely distorted the allocation of resources in China and greatly reduced economic performance below what it otherwise would have been. In short, the sanctions fueled the Sino-Soviet split and weakened Beijing.