Taiwan and the Soviet Union during the Cold War: enemies or ambiguous friends?

Abstract

The article questions Michael Share's thesis concerning the reasons behind the continued hostility between the Soviet Union and Taiwan during the Cold War, irrespective of re-established contacts in the late 1960s-early 1970s. It argues that the newly emerged evidence concerning Soviet-Taiwanese relations during the Cold War validated John Garver's conclusions, published in 1977, while Share fails to provide sufficient evidence to support his major argument. Moscow and Taipei remained hostile to each other for geopolitical, rather than ideological, reasons. Taiwan's anti-Sovietism stemmed from its awareness that closer relations with the Soviets would have affected the US commitment to the ROC's defence, scared off foreign investors and possibly provoked military action by China.Moscow, for its part, being aware that any collaboration with the ROC would have been counterproductive to its efforts to mend fences with the PRC and could have accelerated a Sino-American rapprochement, consistently supported the 'one China' principle. © 2005 Taylor & Francis Ltd.