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moral ones. For a country reorienting its strategy and redesigning its forces, "confidence building measures" (which have now been specifically proposed by Moscow in the Sino-Soviet connection) would be just as unwelcome a constraint as negotiated force reductions. So far China has been able to watch its neighbours - Soviet Union, Vietnam, Mongolia - cutting and withdrawing their forces without having to lift a finger itself. It would no doubt prefer to keep things that way. Generally speaking I can only imagine the Chinese supporting regional or global arms control measures which would hamper their rivals far more than themselves.
POLITICAL PATTERNS
7.
If the expected declaration on the future principles of Sino- Soviet relations is signed during Gorbachev's visit, it will have secured for the Chinese - at little or no cost to themselves - a pledge of Soviet non-interference and non-aggression and a recogni- tion of their equal status as a free country with its own legitimate road to socialism. While not binding in an international law sense and not a waterright political guarantee (since Gorbachev might fall or go back on his policies and has probably still not fully persuaded the Soviet military), this should set the seal on the transition from a state of confrontation to one of wary tolerance and occasional cooperation between the two great socialist powers in Asia. Some of the effects are clear already, eg:
the high degree of Sino-Soviet cooperation achieved already over a Cambodian settlement. In crude terms, China has managed to swing Soviet influence on to its side for the immediate purpose of getting Vietnamese forces out, and to a remarkable degree also for its longer term aim of containing and "drawing the sting" from Vietnam. (This case has been seen by some as demonstrating also how China and the USSR together may be able to dominate the solution of Asian problems, virtually marginalising the US and other Western powers. But that is too sweeping a generalisation to make from an instance where the problem had been, in fact, for several years mainly a Soviet/Chinese/Vietnamese one: there is no other obvious case where the socialist powers would hold so many of the strings in their hands. And it is still possible that the outcome will prove to have owed more to Soviet/Vietnamese/ASEAN than to Sino-Soviet collu- sion.)
the blurring of the old Sino-Pakistan, Soviet-Indian alignments in the subcontinent, allowing China and India to rebuild bridges without necessarily damaging Pakistan, and reducing China's interest in deliberate mischief-making in Afghanistan. (There may even be an element of common Chinese and Russian interest in avoiding an extreme Islamic successor regime);
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the tacit coincidence for some time now of Soviet and Chinese policies towards both the Koreas. Here, though, the potential importance of US rapprochement with and aid for North Korea makes it
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