SINO-U.S. RELATIONS: THE BREAKTHROUGH--A STUDY OF CHINESE POLICY TOWARD THE U.S. 1968-1972 WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO EXTERNAL PRESSURE

The purpose of this study is to explore developments in order to discover some influential factors that might have led to the PRC change of its American policy from that of hostility to that of rapprochement. The rigorous study of Chinese official documents published within the designated period has induced me to venture the following two-part conclusion: (1) the foreign policy of People's China has been a brief history of persistent PRC effort to balance the two superpowers for the purpose of protecting and advancing the primary national interests or external objectives of the PRC; (2) the PRC policy toward the United States during the period under our study varies with the U.S. behavior or policy toward China's adversary, which, during this period, became the Soviet Union.