DOWNGRADING OF RELATIONS BETWEEN THE US AND THE PRC

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83T00951R000100070016-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 12, 2007
• Sequence Number: 16
• Publication Date: July 9, 1982
• Content Type: MEMO

A~pr`ov-" eTFor Release 2007/04/12 : CIA-RDP83T00951 8000100070016-3
 Approved For Release 2007/04112 :CIA-RDP83T00951 8000100070016-3
9 July 1982
MEMORANDUM FOR: David D. Gries
STAT
SUBJECT Downgrading of relations between the US and the PRC
If Deng Xiaoping declines Reagan's final proposal and decides to
downgrade relations, that will mean that he sees no possibility of further
progress on the Taiwan arms sales issue so long as Reagan is in office. I
doubt that he and his advisers would have concluded that they could provoke a
groundswell of opposition to Reagan on the China issue that would force him to
reverse himself, Consequently, they would have to anticipate a minimum of two
and one-half years of downgrading relations before a new administration could
take a new look at the issue.
My guess is that downgrading would take the following form:
(1) Diplomatic -- Here there are two possibilities: one, that they would
withdraw Chai and either ask Hummel to leave or sharply reduce his
access to senior Chinese officials; the second is that they would
demand the formal reduction of the Embassies in Beijing and
Washington to the "Office of the Charge d'Affaires" level, as they
did with the Dutch. I think the former is slightly more likely than
the latter, as it is much easier to resume normal relations from that
position than from the second. In addition, they probably would not
send top level officials (head of state, premier, ministers) to
Washington or receive comparable US officials in Beijing.
(2) Military relations -- these would be frozen at the present level in
order to avoid giving the impression that they might be willing to
trade continuing l1S arms sales to Taiwan for access to US arms for
themselves.
(33 Economic relations -- the substance of economic relations would not
be much affected, but the Chinese would try to give the impression
that trade would improve if the l1S were more "reasonable" on the arms
sales issue. ~iJhen they made a big purchase from the French or the
Japanese they would imply to the US competitor that the state of
political relations bet-,~een Washington and Beijing had made the key
difference.
 Approved For Release 200/04112 :CIA-RDP83T00951 8000100070016-3
(4) Government-to-government technical cooperation and exchange -- those
agreements from which the Chinese felt they were deriving important
benefits would continue without change, but there might be a slowdown
in areas they had found not too productive.
(5) Student and scholar exchanges -- Important to the Chinese and
unlikely to be much affected.
In propaganda to the American people the downgrading would be presented
as the result of a serious mistake in judgment by the Reagan administration
which was costly to the United States in terms of its efforts to mobilize a
united front against Soviet expansionism.