E-Books →The ABCs of Cold War History Anglo–America, Bloc Sovietique, China, 1919–1994

From 1979 to 1994, the U.S. government attempted to use its relations with China to exert diplomatic, economic, and military pressure on the USSR. Beginning in the late 1970s and continuing through the 1980s, China began to import high-technology equipment from the United States to fill key sensor and weapon roles. With the end of the Cold War, in particular, the Soviet navy was eliminated almost overnight as the world's second most powerful naval force; Russia's Pacific fleet is now so poorly supplied and equipped that it rarely leaves port.
This unprecedented reversal of fortunes has created a maritime vacuum throughout East Asia that China hopes to fill. In recent years, however, the former Sino-U.S. cooperation has changed as rising Chinese-sponsored tensions in the South China Sea have led to many possible points of alliance between Beijing and Moscow. Joint Sino-Russian Naval Exercises are just one example. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping appear to once again be combining against the Anglo-American-led West. Will history "rhyme" as Mark Twain says, allowing the Anglo-American West to win Cold War II, or will events turn out differently this time.