US China Cold War Collaboration, 1971-1989

After more than four decades the Cold War ended with the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union. Almost simultaneously China emerged as the new potential disruptor of international stability, with Beijing replacing Moscow as the key source of Western insecurity.

Drawing upon extensive primary resources, Ali questions the logic behind this perception, reflected both in popular and academic literature. Disclosing hitherto unknown aspects of the Soviet Union’s disintegration, the text reveals a secret strategic alliance between the USA and China during the Cold War’s final decades. Presenting an in-depth analysis of the relationship between the two countries, the book identifies the bases on which the alliance emerged; the growing mutual concern of a ‘Soviet threat’.

Using documentation from the three capitals, Ali presents a compelling tale of intrigue and conspiracy at the highest level of the international security system. The text brings a new dimension to the current literature and deepens our understanding of a key aspect of the Cold War – its end.

Following the collapse of the USSR, the future shape of Europe and the US role in it became the subject of considerable speculation. Almost simultaneously, China emerged variously as a pariah state, a likely peer-rival to the sole superpower, the USA, and a potential disrupter of international stability and almost instantaneously, Beijing replaced Moscow as the key source of Western insecurity. In this book, Mahmud Ali questions the logic behind this perception, reflected in both popular and academic literature, and highlights an often unacknowledged and largely unknown aspect of the Cold War - that a covert and intimate collaboration between the US ad the PRC took place in the closing decades of the war.

In the first part of US-China Cold War Collaboration Ali underscores the dominant themes in post-1990 analyses of reasons behind the demise of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War in relation to the increased US commentary about the potential threats perceived in an emerging China. In part 2 the author makes extensive use of US, Chinese and Soviet documentation and explores the true nature of the US-PRC relationship with a view to demonstrating the impact of that relationship on the Soviet Union. The final part of the book focuses on one of the most prominent geographical theatres if US-PRC covert collaboration - Soviet occupied Afghanistan - and highlights the extent and depth of secret collusion between the two intelligence services.

S. Mahmud Ali works for the BBC World Service and is author of Cold War in the High Himalayas (RoutledgeCurzon, 2000).