The Sino-US Detente: How Durable?

Abstract

The rapprochement between the People's Republic of China and the United States, ending a generation during which their relations were frozen in hostility, has given rise to a host of questions. Perhaps the most intriguing question concerning the present detente is that regarding its durability. On the Chinese side, the policy of rapprochement with the United States bears the hallmark of Chou En-lai, but its adoption unquestionably required the approval of Mao Tse-tung. It should also be noted that the policy evidently was not one on which the leadership had been united. Rather, it assertedly had been a subject of contention during the struggle which led to the purge of Lin Piao, with his group advocating as the alternative an effort to mend relations with the Soviet Union. With Mao Tse-tung now in his eightieth year it is pertinent to ask whether a change from his leadership is likely to bring a significant alteration of present Chinese foreign policy and behavior. In speculating on this question, it would obviously be helpful to know who is likely to play the dominant role within the post-Mao leadership of China. Since the fall of Lin Piao, however, the political stage has been void of avowed aspirants to the succession. Indeed, the fate suffered by Lin Piao and the earlier purge of Liu Shao-ch'i, the chief of state, have demonstrated all too clearly the dangers inherent in the role of heir presumptive. Moreover, Chairman Mao evidently is unwilling to fill those posts which provided major power bases from which he has been challenged in the past. Nobody has been chosen, insofar as we know, to succeed Lin Piao in his posts of deputy party chairman and of defense minister; the position of general secretary of the party was dropped in 1969; and Mao Tse-tung is said to have insisted that the office of state chairman should be abolished. In discussing the problem of the succession, Premier Chou En-lai has indicated that he and Mao Tse-tung should be followed by a collective leadership. The obvious inference is that Chou does not hope to outlive and succeed Chairman Mao. In view of Chou's well-earned reputation for tact, one would scarcely expect him to suggest the contrary. At the same time, it must be recognized that the time of Mao's passing may be some way off, that Chou En-lai is himself already seventy-five, and that the responsibilities of his office place heavy and wearing burdens on its incumbent. In addition, it