The Fragile Entente: The 1978 Japanchina Peace Treaty In A Global Context

Between early 1978 and late 1980, power relationships in the Pacific region underwent historic transformation. Deng-Xiaoping, re-emerging as a key leader in the People’s Republic of China, demonstrated pragmatism in domestic and foreign policy. Beijing negotiated a Peace and Friendship Treaty with Japan, apparently opening an era of Sino-Japanese economic cooperation. Moscow viewed this development with alarm, fearing it would lead to a three-way alliance including the United States. Meanwhile, Japan foreswore any military significance in closer links with the PRC, but by succumbing to the Chinese demand for inclusion of a treaty clause denouncing Soviet hegemony, became an involuntary participant in the Sino-Soviet conflict.

In this environment, the Sino-Japanese treaty– which might have been an innocuous footnote to postwar history–became an event marking a new phase in East Asian affairs. Dr. Bedeski draws on Chinese, Soviet, and Japanese sources to clarify the relationships among the wide range of events ensuing from the treaty and points to its relevance to a new era of Sino-Soviet relations. The irony of the Peace and Friendship Treaty, he concludes, is that_it probably was a catalyst of insecurity and hostility in the region and that it became an important event leading to the participation of non-Communist actors–Japan, the U.S., and NATO– in the Sino-Soviet conflict.