Nixon and Kissinger had established a direct relationship with Mao and Chou, and had ended the 20-year confrontation between the United States and China. The Chinese leaders accepted the change because they were afraid of a Soviet attack on China and wanted American support. But the Americans also wanted better relations with the Russians: Nixon and Kissinger would not adopt the hard anti-Soviet line taken by the Chinese. Relations between Washington and Peking were not fully normalised until the Soviet-American Detente had broken down. Reagan's concern for Taiwan interrupted their development, but his crusade against what he called ‘the Evil Empire’ brought the two countries into line, until Gorbachev came to power in Moscow.

Trade and cultural relations between America and China grew rapidly in the mid-80s, when China was seen by some Americans to be ‘going capitalist’, but the new ties created new tensions. So did growing American concern about human rights. As the Soviet threat faded, these issues loomed larger, but American public attitudes towards China went on improving until 1989. The Tiananmen incident reversed the trend of the last twenty years, and opened another round of confrontation. It became clearer in retrospect that the American-Chinese partnership had been based on hostility to the Soviet Union: it was essentially an anti-Soviet coalition.

During the 60s China had kept its distance from both the Superpowers: it was equally hostile to the Soviet Union and the United States. Mao clearly did not want to depend on any foreign power. But he defeated his own purpose by launching the Cultural Revolution. That convulsion aroused Russian fears, and hopes, and led to the build-up of Soviet forces along the Chinese border. The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia made Mao realize that those forces might be used against him, and he needed American support to avert the danger. By pushing radicalism so far, Mao had made himself dependent on the United States, and lost his freedom of action, even in internal affairs.