Mending Fences

Mending Fences illuminates the forces driving Moscow’s China policy, from the Ussuri River clashes in 1969 to the "strategic partnership" of the 1990s. Elizabeth Wishnick analyzes the efforts of Soviet leaders simultaneously to maintain their supremacy in the international communist movement, defend their borders from a perceived Chinese threat, and ensure the compliance of regional authorities in enforcing China policy.

[Wishnick] brings to this important subject a mastery of Russian and Chinese sources, an impressive command of the relevant scholarship, much new material from Soviet state and party archives, and extensive interviews with Russian policy makers and with leading Russian specialists on China., Wishnick provides the first detailed account of Russia's policy toward China from 1969 to 1999, based on thorough research in Russian sources and some recently released U.S. government documents. . . . A reliable reference source., A terrific book..Wishnick, by reason of her knowledge, perceptiveness, discernment, and linguistic skills in both Russian and Chinese, is highly qualified to narrate, conceptualize, and comment on a topic somewhat sidelined these days by more immediately dramatic international preoccupations, but on of immense importance to the evolving world order..Everyone wishing to be well informed should read this valuable work., A solid and fascinating analysis of Moscow's China Policy from Brezhnev to Yeltsin..From its political discussion, Mending Fences opens and new and important perspective on Soviet-Chinese relations in the 1970s-1990s, a period that has seldom attracted historians' attention.

Elizabeth Wishnick is associate professor of political science at Montclair State University and adjunct associate research scholar at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University.