Jimmy Carter and China - Multilateral Competition in the Global Cold War

In the late 1970s, with relations between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China strained, the Carter administration saw an opening. The United States and its allies embarked on military and dual-use technology transfers to China as a counterweight to the USSR, transforming rapprochement into full-blown cooperation. Carter's decision to pivot away from the United States's traditional ally, the Republic of China on Taiwan, and embrace the People's Republic redefined the Cold War from a struggle against communism to one against the Soviet Union. It not only complicated a variety of American objectives--from the security of Taiwan to US-Soviet détente--but also sowed the seeds of future tensions between China and the West.

This book is an international history of the Carter administration's intricate relations with the two competing Chinese regimes, emphasizing the geopolitical significance and lasting implications of this crucial moment. Drawing extensively from previously untapped archives in several countries and languages, Sheng Peng uncovers the internal governmental debates across world capitals that affected Carter's China policy. He examines how the Carter administration attempted to balance relations with both Chinese governments as well as how Chinese and Taiwanese leaders navigated global rivalries. Revealing how the Carter years profoundly reshaped the course of the Cold War, this book sheds new light on the strategic, technological, and ideological competition that continues today.

About the author

Sheng Peng is a postdoctoral fellow at the Research Center for the History of Transformations at the University of Vienna and an associate fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

Product details

• Authors: Sheng Peng
• Publisher: University Presses
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 20.02.2026
• EAN: 9780231211949
• ISBN: 978-0-231-21194-9
• Illustrations: 20 b&w illustrations
• Series: A Nancy Bernkopf Tucker and Warren I. Cohen Book on American–East Asian Relations
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Regional and national histories; Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; China, Postwar 20th century history, from c 1945 to c 2000, Asia, POLITICAL SCIENCE / International Relations / Arms Control, POLITICAL SCIENCE / World / Asian, HISTORY / Asia / China, Asian History, The Cold War, c 1945 to c 2000 (Post-war period), c 1945 to c 1990 (the Cold War period), Cold wars and proxy conflicts, Arms negotiation & control, Arms negotiation and control, HISTORY / Modern / 20th Century / Cold War