Sino-Soviet Economic Relations, 1959-1962

Abstract

The peak in Sino-Soviet trade was reached in 1958-1959, when it accounted for half of China's total trade. It declined heavily in 1960-1962, as did China's trade with Eastern Europe. The decline reflected China's economic crisis as well as the Sino-Soviet conflict. Apart from the recall of Soviet experts in 1960, there is no clear evidence of overt So viet economic warfare. The Soviet Union exerted severe eco nomic pressure, but did so in the businesslike guise of cutting exports to China, in response to China's reduced ability to pay. However, the Soviet Union has tempered this closefisted atti tude with a few semicharitable gestures. Commercial rela tions, although visibly strained by the political dispute, have remained formally correct. But the collapse of China's trade with the bloc, the severe curtailment of imports other than grain from the West in 1961-1963, and poor prospects of ob taining long-term credits in the West have deprived China of the opportunities she had prior to 1960 of harnessing foreign trade to the needs of her industrialization drive. Peking's all- round intransigence, for the time being, makes China virtually the only underdeveloped country not receiving economic aid from any source.