Sino-Soviet relations and arms control/ edited by Morton H. Halperin

Arthe control and security leaves have been at the heart of much of Russian Chiness desgreement since the opening of the it in the 1980's. This book which offers the work of a group of distin guished contributors, is designed to clar ity the bearing of the ante control inque on the Sino-Soviet dispute and to suggest future policy directions for the United States. Specifically, the contributors seek to illuminate the security problems facing the United States and to examine the prospects for arme control as they are affected by conflict within the Com munist world.

Sino-Soviet Relations and Arms Con trol begins with the observation that the Soviet Union and Communist China use disarmament talk as a way of pointing out issues of major importance in their dispute, of competing for support within the third world and the Communist bloc, and of expressing genuine disagreement over the fundamental causes of the Sino-Soviet rift.

The first section of the book deals with the impact of the Sino-Soviet dispute on the arms control policies of the Soviet Union, China, and the United States. The authors argue that arms control is pos sible without China, that the Chinese are unlikely to be interested in arms control agreements in the near future, and that arms control could be of paramount im portance to relations among the three countries. Part II of the book is a histori cal exploration of the interrelation be tween specific arms control measures and the Sino-Soviet dispute. The authors give the most detailed account yet avail able of Sino-Soviet nuclear relations between 1957 and 1960 and document the extent to which the quarrel has cen tered on military and security issues. The role of the test ban in widening the Sino-Soviet rift is explored. In Part III each author poses the same question: what would be the nature of Sino-Soviet relations during a Washington-Peking crisis? The first three chapters in this section answer the question from the viewpoint of each country concerned; the last examines these relations during the 1958 Quemoy crisis.