Sino-Soviet Split and Nixon in 1960

Hello there!

I'm considering a timeline inspired by SargentHawk's A Man is Finished When He Quits and Gonzo and Nofix's No Southern Strategy. As I've been doing research, I've come up with a question that I'm unsure if it has been answered or not. This specific question is the fate of the Sino-Soviet split that completed IOTL's mid-1960s.

While the U-2 incident in 1960 was a major point, am I wrong for being under the impression that the Cuban Missile Crisis was the last straw for the Sino-Soviet "alliance" or would they take a longer amount of time (I imagine with Nixon most likely intervening in Cuba in 1961 a la Hungary in 1956) to finally break the Sino-Soviet bloc? Furthermore, how would this impact Nixon's attempts at a 1960s Cold War détente?
 
Okay, I understand what you're looking for now.

So, if anything, Nixon in '60 will likely accelerate the Sino-Soviet Split. To understand the split, you have to understand Nikita Khrushchev's nature, and his relationship with good ol' Dick Nixon. Khrushchev's general negotiating pattern was all about catching the other guy off guard, and generally went as followed: before meeting face-to-face, he would send happy friendly letters about how he looked forward to meeting you, etcetera. Then, when you got there, he would start with some outlandish demand or statement. In the case of the Vienna Summit, he demanded total NATO/American withdrawal from West Berlin, and threatened nuclear war if he didn't get it. After the initial threat, he would see how the other side would react. If they began to leave the table or threatened him back (as Eisenhower and VP Nixon did respectively) then he switched gears to compromise. If they tried to compromise, then he would push the envelope and stand by his outrageous demand for as long as he could. This was the trap that Kennedy fell in to at the Vienna Summit, that in turn led to the Berlin Crisis and the Cuban Missile Crisis, because Khrushchev saw Kennedy as weak for not having bluster. In reality, Khrushchev wanted peace too, he just had a machismo, round-about way of getting to the negotiating.

Khrushchev and Nixon had met before during the Kitchen Debate, and Khrushchev knew from experience that Nixon was no push-over. That's why Khrushchev tipped the scales against Nixon by holding the captive U-2 pilot, Francis Gary Powers, until after the Election of 1960. He figured he could do it to weaken Nixon, then earn Kennedy's favour by releasing him afterward. In many ways, it was a earlier, smaller scale version of the Iran Hostage Crisis that would sink Jimmy Carter twenty years later.

So, Nixon is President in 1960. Chances are that Cuban Missile Crisis doesn't happen, either because Nixon invades Cuba, or because Khrushchev knows that Nixon won't take his guff. Berlin might not become a crisis following a more successful (for the Americans) Vienna Summit, and if it does become a crisis, Khrushchev may well back down. The reason Mao didn't like Khrushchev was because Khrushchev denounced Stalin, and considered him a revisionist who wanted to co-exist with the West. If Khrushchev lets Castro go under and comes to a peaceful resolution on Berlin, then chances are Khrushchev is removed from power sooner for being a pushover from the Soviet perspective, and Mao will try and position himself and China as the new leaders of international communism, since obviously the Soviets have gotten soft.
 
Hello there!

I'm considering a timeline inspired by SargentHawk's A Man is Finished When He Quits and Gonzo and Nofix's No Southern Strategy. As I've been doing research, I've come up with a question that I'm unsure if it has been answered or not. This specific question is the fate of the Sino-Soviet split that completed IOTL's mid-1960s.

While the U-2 incident in 1960 was a major point, am I wrong for being under the impression that the Cuban Missile Crisis was the last straw for the Sino-Soviet "alliance" or would they take a longer amount of time (I imagine with Nixon most likely intervening in Cuba in 1961 a la Hungary in 1956) to finally break the Sino-Soviet bloc? Furthermore, how would this impact Nixon's attempts at a 1960s Cold War détente?

I might be biased from the fact I did my academic research in Undergrad on the Sino-Soviet Split, some of which I want to expand on and maybe break some new ground, so be warned It it as much what I know and what I believe.

The Sino-Soviet Split I would say was largely set in motion from the '30s and '40s, I would argue. Mao Zedong had basically built a Communist Party that was in several ways radically different from the Soviet-line in politics and origin, there was more of emphasis on the power of the peasantry seen as unreliable by mainstream Marxism, and unlike the Soviets the Chinese Communists had to win on their own terms because the Soviet emphasis on both coalition governments and friendly units in the army either when belly up, or in the case of the latter not possible. Think of China as Yugoslavia, Communist nation but they won their own revolution and were not established by the Soviets, or even were like the Soviets themselves, another revolutionary model, but that went against both Orthodox Marxism and Marxist-Leninism.

Stalin supported the Nationalists and only backed the Communists fully when they were winning. When the Communists won the Civil War Mao and company were still forced to endure Stalin's exploitative attitude. Stalin, would only seek an alliance with Communist China if they received privileges, and let Mao pick up the slack in the Korean War, and that saw his only stable and alive son Mao Anyang killed. Not to mention I'm trying to research a more emotional argument since Soviet advice, tactics, and allies got a lot of people around Mao, especially his close family killed.

I feel that Khrushchev never really cared to resolve the issue the Soviets dictating what was Communism, or at least seemingly did so clumsily. Peaceful Coexistence became a sore point because China had unfished business with Taiwan, and it seemed to be that the Soviets were still calling all the shots in the Second World, even if the Warsaw Pact did bring freedom of issues to be raised between members. Peaceful co-existence did not really alay the fears the that North Korea, Albania, China, and what would be North Vietnam had against foreign invasion Repudiating Stalin was less out of affection and more it benefited their own internal politics and could be seen as the Soviets again trying to dictate what China should do. The Cuban Missle Crisis was more both backing down and Soviet hypocrisy in Chinese eyes they were ones pushing for peace, yet when with recklessly putting nuclear weapons so close to the U.S, but you can always expect Khrushchev to do something stupid in some fashion or another.

More to the question I would not look at the idea of a Sino-Soviet bloc as a thing. Yes, the Soviets had dealings with the Chinese but both nations had different political, domestic and foreign considerations anyway, even Stalin wanted to keep the Chinese separate and have them basically be responsible for revolutions in East Asia, there was also the fact the Warsaw Pact only extended to the European nations. I'm willing to argue peaceful coexistence was for Europe only, as nothing would stop the U.S from intervening in Vietnam and trying to do so in Cuba, or the Soviets in Afghanistan. In this case, there was a U.S threat that seemed more real to China than the Soviets realized. Sure Europe would be safe at least, but this same ignorance with reconciliation, but with Yugoslavia did bring Albania into the Chinese sphere, not that anyone really liked Enver Hoxha anyway.
 
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