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more of a three-sided match, and the Chinese have scored extra points by being the ones to host the incipient US/Pyongyang dialogue;
the new challenges and new diplomatic prospects created for Outer Mongolia, with progressive normalisation of Sino-Mongolian relations one of the more obvious consequences;
the removal of any slight remaining constraint in Sino-East European relations. But since China no longer needs the East Europeans as go-betweens to Moscow, it can deal with them more on their own merits and is likely to discriminate increasingly in practice in favour of the more reform-minded (within limits) and commercially flexible countries. Presentation and rhetoric may however mask this for some time, given the Chinese tradition of courtesy to "old friends" (eg Romania). Even the partial normal- isation of Sino-Albanian relations could be linked with Peking's new relationship with Moscow in the sense that the latter makes relations with Albania no longer particularly "special" or symbolic, in either a geostrategic or an ideological sense.
8. If the pattern set by these cases continues, we might expect to see Soviet and Chinese influence coexisting in future in both the socialist countries of Asia and the non-socialist ones (ASEAN members, South Korea, Japan in a special and limited sense, and even Taiwan): but without, now, any kind of ideological drive to under- mine the latter. The Soviet Union may be more obviously the gainer from the flexibility it will get to develop its diplomatic contacts throughout Asia in the next phase, just as China has gained more obviously in terms of strategic security from the phase leading up to the Summit. But the new modus vivendi will not take the form of a division of spheres of influence. China will want to stay involved in every country alongside the Soviet Union, competing when necessary, perhaps cooperating in some further cases (eg creating coalitions. of influence against Japan?) This balancing effort is almost a natural reflex of Chinese diplomacy, developed for long years past in the Taiwan context, and it can be seen - alongside more obvious economic motives - underlying China's current active diplomacy in several outlying parts of the world, notably Iran, the Gulf and Middle East, and putatively Latin America.
9. China's future relationship with Japan is impossible to analyse in the same structured way because it is an unresolved and thoroughly ambivalent one. Looked at one way, Japanese technology, money and competitive spirit are the ideal counterparts for China's natural and manpower resources. Trade and economic interdependence between the two countries are already at a high level. But to infer a natural, lasting partnership from this would be to ignore political and psychological realities. China also sees Japan historically as disciple turned brutal aggressor: and potentially as its main rival for leadership in an Asia freed from superpower dominance. Japan's economic strength in this sense becomes a provocation as well as a model, and it is a true paradox - though of course not the whole truth to say that China seeks Japan's economic help in order to become strong against Japan.
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/10.