AH challenge: Sino-Soviet rapprochement, during Cold War

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
In OTL, the USSR and PRC began a rapprochement only in the late 1980s, nearly 30 years after the Sino-Soviet split. This only resulted in geopolitically signifiicant cooperation after the USSR's demise between *Russia* and the PRC.

Here's the challenge, engineer a Sino-Soviet rapprochement while the Soviet versus West Cold War is still going strong, any time in the three decades between 1959 and 1989.

Qualifying answers to the challenge will at a minimum include a far less tense and expensive military situation on the Sino-Soviet border and far less rhetorical critcism of each other's communist parties. If the rapprochement happens after 1963, double your points.
 
If Mao died at anytime between the late 1950s and 1966 he would be succeeded by Liu Shaoqi, a moderate and known Soviet style planned economy advocate. In fact he was denounced as the "Chinese Khrushchev" for his views.

Liu should get along quite well with Khrushchev, but I don't know if Sino-Soviet relations could survive the Brezhnev Doctrine.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
Liu Shaoqi and Soviet relations -

I think this is workable one, especially the earlier it happens.

By inclination, Liu would not try to outflank Khrushchev in leftism or militancy. He won't mind rapprochement with Yugoslavia. He may even be less inclined to fight India on the scale Mao did (but he would doubtless defend the road in Ladakh that was built in 1957).

The later Mao dies and Liu takes over, perhaps he more there's a risk of a serious leftist threat to him from Lin Biao and those interest groups in Chinese society that like the Cultural Revolution.

It would be hardest for Liu to walk back from confrontation in the years 1962-1964, because Khrushchev's name was so much mud in China. If the transition happened in 1964-1965, although bitterness increased even in the intervening time, it could be easier for Liu to get along, because the ouster of Khrushchev could give Liu the excuse to say the Soviets turned a page.

The Chinese can just assert themselves gradually. Like Castro, Liu could decide to not make that big a deal out of Czechoslovakia, especially with the Vietnam War going on. If a truly bitter divorce does not occur earlier, Liu could use the negotiations for the renewal of the Sino-Soviet 1950 treaty, which I believe would have been scheduled for 1975 to 1980, to press for a much higher Chinese status in the relationship.


As for the U.S., Liu may not be opposed to rapprochement over the very long run, but he'll be supporting the Hanoi government, and he'll be in less of a security pickle than Mao, who by 1969 managed to get himself in both American *and* Soviet nuclear crosshairs.
 
Top