American relations with the PRC neither improved nor deteriorated during the Ford Administration (p. 321). Part of the reason for this static situation related to other foreign policy preoccupations of the Americans and the political weakness of the Ford administration. It was faced with a resurgent Congress anxious to strengthen its prerogatives in the foreign policy area and even more importantly with the political instability associated with the succession struggle in China after the death of first Chou and then Mao.
Ford kept Kissinger on as Secretary of State. The United States was preoccupied during Ford's rump term as President with the deteriorating situation in Indochina which finally led to the fall of both Cambodia and South Vietnam to communist forces in 1975 and its resolve to pursue further detente with the Soviet Union. It achieved arms control and other agreements with the Soviets during the fall of 1974 and the Helsinki Accords of 1975. According to Garson (1994), "the Chinese leadership regarded with suspicion the continuing process of detente in Europe, especially the Vladivostok summit of 1974" (p. 153). With Congress intent on passing the War Powers Act and sharply critical of the administration's efforts to shore up anticommunist regimes in Southeast Asia, Ford essentially decided to let China policy drift. Garson says that "the Ford administration was not going to risk a domestic backlash by abandoning Taiwan . . . He [Ford] was happy to see relations with China stagnate for a while" (p. 153). Trade between the two countries fell from $921 million in 1974 to $336 million in 1976 (Garson, 1994, p. 153). Ford visited the PRC in December 1975 but ran into intransigent attitudes on Taiwan. According to Hsu, Ford "heeded conservative sentiment [on the Taiwan issue and] made no moves toward recognizing China" (1990, p. 785).
During this period, the PRC leaders insisted on three things relative to Taiwan: (1) the...