Abstract
At the height of the Cold War a dispute between the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union nearly escalated into an all-out war that could have enveloped the entire globe. A border conflict between the two nations over disputed territories served as a flash point in the Cold War similar to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Amid growing tensions between the two nations, the border conflict severed ties and shifted the bipolar power paradigm. After severing ties with the Soviet Union, China looked towards rapprochement with United States. The significance of the conflict during the Cold War is far reaching considering the ideological shift that has led China to becoming the global power it is today. Examining what led to the conflict and the conflict itself, various international relations theories can be applied. A theoretical analysis of the conflict supports the successful use of deterrence by each nation and provides evidence to the clash of civilizations theory as causation for the conflict.
Highlights
At the height of the Cold War a dispute between the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union nearly escalated into an all-out war that could have enveloped the entire globe
A border conflict between the two nations over disputed territories served as a flash point in the Cold War similar to the Cuban Missile Crisis
A theoretical analysis of the conflict supports the successful use of deterrence by each nation and provides evidence to the clash of civilizations theory as causation for the conflict
Summary
At the height of the Cold War a dispute between the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union nearly escalated into an all-out war that could have enveloped the entire globe. Russian and Chinese border conflicts first began in the 1600s as both empires sought expansion. It was at this time that the Russians began to renew their colonization of the Amur River basin They were met with no resistance and after advancing further into the Chinese territory created by The Treaty of Nerchinsk; the Russians demanded new boundaries be drawn. Afterwards the Soviets revoked the declaration to return this land to China and, “for the Chinese, the boundary became the physical incarnation of China’s failure to fend off the predations of European civilization, while for the Russians their expanded boundary enshrined their country’s great power status. While no formal settlement was reached until 1991 the border dispute of 1969 between China and the Soviet nearly erupted into a nuclear conflict and possibly WWIII
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