Lorenz M. Lüthi

Beyond Betrayal: Beijing, Moscow, and the Paris Negotiations, 1971–1973

Contrary to later Vietnamese allegations, China did not sell out the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) during the last two years of the Paris negotiations (19711973). North Vietnamese, Chinese, Soviet, East European, and American sources show that Hanoi could have gotten from Washington an agreement similar to the final Paris Agreement (January 1973) as early as the spring of 1971. Sino-American rapprochement did not help the United States in the negotiations, as claimed by the North Vietnamese, because the Chinese side made no concessions at all on Vietnam. In fact, China increased military aid to the DRV. Similarly, U.S.-Soviet detente did not damage the North Vietnamese effort, although Moscow unsuccessfully tried to mediate between Hanoi and Washington. In the end, U.S. success in rebuffing the DRVs Easter Offensive and Hanois miscalculations about U.S. domestic developments in 1972 prolonged the Vietnam War unnecessarily.

The Vietnam War and China’s Third-Line Defense Planning before the Cultural Revolution, 1964–1966

This article traces the origins, development, and demise of the Third-Line Defense project in the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) from 1964 to 1966. Responding to the U.S. escalation of the Vietnam War, Chinese leaders decided to transfer strategic military and civilian assets from the vulnerable coastal and border provinces to the countrys interior. Following the dispatch of U.S. Marines to Vietnam in March 1965, the PRC proceeded with the construction of provincial Third-Line Defense projects. In the end, the Third-Line Defense project fell victim to Mao Zedongs ideological radicalization in the lead-up to the Cultural Revolution. The article uses documentary evidence from Chinese provincial archives as well as published collections of Chinese documents.

Restoring Chaos to History: Sino-Soviet-American Relations, 1969

Sino-Soviet-American relations during 1969 followed a chaotic course. Scholars have asserted in the past that the Sino-Soviet border conflict in March led to Sino-American rapprochement in December. However, evidence from China, the former socialist world and the United States undermines the interpretation of a purposeful and planned policy of any of the three actors to the others. None had a formulated policy or strategy in place. China lacked the governmental ability to chart a clear course, the United States underwent a presidential transition, and neither it nor the Soviet Union had meaningful diplomatic relations with the Peoples Republic. In this context, the border clashes, intended by China to reassert territorial claims on a small island, led to a complex web of actions and interactions between the three countries that was based on mutual misunderstanding, lack of communication, exaggerated threat perceptions and improvised decision making. Thus the outcome at the end of the year, the start of a friendly relationship between Beijing and Washington, was by no means the result of well-formulated and implemented policies.

The People's Republic of China and the Warsaw Pact Organization, 1955-63

Communist Chinas relationship with the Warsaw Pact Organization (WPO) was dependent on its alliance with the Soviet Union. As the Sino-Soviet pact deteriorated over the late 1950s and early 1960s, Beijings loose institutional links to the WPO collapsed. In 1955, China committed itself to the aims of the WPO without becoming a full member. Against the background of Maos domestic radicalization, military and political cooperation between the pact system and the Chinese observer faltered from 1957 to 1961. In an afterlude, the Soviet Union–unsuccessfully–tried to reorient the WPO from Europe to Asia in 1963. Afterwards, China and the WPO did not maintain any formal or informal links.

FORUM: Mao, Khrushchev, and China's Split with the USSR: Perspectives on The Sino-Soviet Split

This forum includes six commentaries on Lorenz M. Lthis book The Sino-Soviet Split: Cold War in the Communist World, published by Princeton University Press in 2008. Drawing on recently declassified documents and memoirs from numerous countries, Lthi explains how and why the close alliance between the Soviet Union and the Peoples Republic of China fell apart in a remarkably short time, dissolving into fierce mutual enmity. Amassing a wealth of evidence, Lthi stresses the role of ideology in the split, lending support to the arguments put forth nearly five decades ago by analysts like Donald Zagoria in his pioneering book on the Sino-Soviet rift. Six leading experts on Chinese foreign policy and Sino-Soviet relations discuss the strengths of Lthis book but also raise questions about some interpretations and omissions. The forum includes Lthis reply to the commentaries.

Drifting Apart: Soviet Energy and the Cohesion of the Communist Bloc in the 1970s and 1980s

The focus of this chapter is on multinational oil, gas, and electricity projects within CMEA that were initiated to satisfy the increasing energy needs of the socialist states in Eastern Europe but largely failed to do so because of a drop in Soviet energy deliveries during the 1980s. The Soviet Union started large-scale energy shipments to the fraternal states in socialist Eastern Europe in the early 1960s. Given the relative scarcity of energy resources in Eastern Europe, the dependency increased over the period from the early 1960s to the early 1980s to such a degree that the Soviet Union found it increasingly difficult to supply the quantities needed or even requested. The economic development, and by extension the internal social peace, of the Socialist countries of Eastern Europe depended on annually increasing Soviet energy deliveries. Subsidized Soviet supplies of energy to a certain degree formed the glue that kept the CMEA together. Once the Soviet capabilities of increasing energy deliveries had become exhausted in the early 1980s, the economic integration of the CMEA reversed itself until its collapse in 1991.

The Non-Aligned Movement and the Cold War, 1961–1973

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) tried to transcend the Cold War, but the NAM ended up as one of the Cold Wars chief victims. During the movements first dozen years (1961–1973), four Cold War developments shaped its agenda and political orientation. East Germanys attempt to manipulate it started with the so-called construction of the Berlin Wall less than a month before the first NAM conference in Belgrade. Nuclear disarmament issues imposed themselves the day before that conference, with Nikita Khrushchevs sudden announcement that the USSR would resume nuclear testing. The war in the Middle East in June 1967 brought the NAM close to an association with the Soviet bloc—at least until the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia the following year. Finally, the overthrow of Cambodias Prince Sihanouk in 1970 split the movement over the question of that countrys standing. The NAM again moved closer to the Soviet camp once the movement decided in 1972 to award representation both to the exiled Sihanouk, who lived in Communist China and was allied to Pol Pots Khmer Rouge, and to the Communist insurgents in South Vietnam.

How Udo Wanted to Save the World in ‘Erich's Lamp Shop’: Lindenberg's Concert in Honecker's East Berlin, the NATO Double-Track Decision and Communist Economic Woes

The concert given by the West German rock star Udo Lindenberg in East Berlin on 25 October 1983 links cultural, political, diplomatic and economic history. The East German regime had banned performances by the anti-nuclear peace activist and musician since the 1970s, but eventually allowed a concert, hoping to prevent the deployment of American nuclear missiles in West Germany. In allowing this event, however, East Germany neither prevented the implementation of the NATO double-track decision of 1979 nor succeeded in controlling the political messages of the impertinent musician. Desperate for economic aid from the West, East Germany decided to cancel a promised Lindenberg tour in 1984, causing widespread disillusionment among his fans in the country.

Reading and Warning the Likely Enemy – a Commentary: Signalling Across Four Continents

The article is a commentary to a 2005 International History Review article written by James Hershberg and Chen Jian on Chinese signalling on Vietnam to the United States in early 1965. It adds an important element to the original article, as China also signalled to the United States via Tanzania and Canada and received a reply via Tanzania. The article is based on archival documentation from China, Canada, and the United States.

The origins of proletarian diplomacy: The Chinese attack on the American Embassy in the Soviet Union, 4 March 1965

The attack by several thousand, mostly East Asian, students on the American embassy in the Soviet Union on 4 March 1965 was one of the most violent assaults on a diplomatic mission in the 1960s. It occurred in the wake of the deterioration of Sino-Soviet relations, the US escalation of the Vietnam War, and massive Soviet aid offers to North Vietnam. The attack was very likely organized and supported by the Chinese authorities and designed to damage the international reputation of the Soviet Union while deflecting from Chinese government attempts to limit and obstruct Soviet military aid to North Vietnam. It also set a precedent for the subsequent violence against foreign missions in China during the Cultural Revolution.