Chapter 16: Reagan’s Resolute Anti-Communism and the Collapse of the Soviet Union, 1980–1988 (Part II)

As the saying goes, “when a wall begins to crumble, everyone pushes.” President Reagan merely took advantage of his rhetorical skill and acting talent to achieve great results with minimal force, going with the tide of history. Reagan came from an acting background, and some commentators have remarked that he was a “third-rate actor but a first-rate president.” Before entering politics, he played a number of relatively obscure roles in Hollywood films. His political career began when he served as president of the Screen Actors Guild in Hollywood. This coincided with the early Cold War, when fear of communism swept across the United States. The most prominent figure of this period was Senator Joseph McCarthy, who launched a nationwide crusade against communism, later known as McCarthyism. The House Un-American Activities Committee investigated anyone suspected of having ties to the Soviet Union or the Communist Party. In the hunt for these supposedly “pro-Soviet elements,” informant culture flourished—something reminiscent of the Anti-Rightist Movement and the Cultural Revolution in Communist China.

As a staunchly anti-communist Republican, Reagan secretly served as an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation—what people commonly call a “snitch.” Interestingly, in public Hollywood settings, Reagan opposed the FBI’s establishment of blacklists targeting communist sympathizers. Yet privately, he met with FBI agents on multiple occasions and provided them with the names of actors he considered suspicious. His early experiences amid America’s anti-communist atmosphere reinforced his firm anti-communist convictions. At the same time, years of navigating grassroots politics tempered and shaped his flexible, adaptive “political personality.”

Reagan’s eight years in office, from 1980 to 1988, are widely seen as culminating in his greatest political achievement: bringing an end to the Soviet communist regime. Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher attributed the end of the Cold War to the Reagan Doctrine. She said, “The Reagan Doctrine proclaimed that the ceasefire with communism was over. From that moment on, the West would no longer abandon freedom in any region of the world simply because the Soviet Union claimed it lay within its sphere of influence. We would wage a psychological war, and we would provide material support to those struggling to regain their freedom from tyranny.” Reagan made major contributions to confronting communism. However, his attitude toward the Chinese Communist Party during his presidency was inconsistent. He began with a firm anti-communist stance, later shifted toward accommodation, and eventually sought rapprochement with Beijing. This suggests that he was not an unwaveringly anti-communist politician.

Before running for president, Reagan consistently regarded Taiwan as the legitimate government of China. After winning the election, he invited Chiang Yen-shih, then secretary-general of Taiwan’s Kuomintang, to attend his inauguration. He planned to allow Taiwan to establish additional branches of its “Coordination Council for North American Affairs” in the United States. In his China policy, Reagan actively implemented the Taiwan Relations Act and approved the sale of defensive weapons to Taiwan.

In response to Reagan’s stance toward China, the Chinese Communist leadership adopted a hardline counterstrategy. Deng Xiaoping stated, “In fighting the United States, we must not fear a deterioration in relations. If we do not adopt a tough policy, problems will certainly keep arising in the future. We must be prepared to retreat to the level of the liaison office period in 1973, or even to before 1972—that is, before Nixon’s visit to China. If we do this, Reagan will eventually have to come to us.”

From Deng Xiaoping’s harsh words, it is clear that he viewed himself as a communist warrior engaged in struggle against the United States, with a strong sense of friend-versus-foe. By contrast, neither Carter nor Reagan displayed the resolve to confront communism head-on. Their willingness to struggle against communism was ambiguous, and the distinction between enemy and ally was blurred.

Reagan’s anti-communism focused primarily on the Soviet Union, while China—the second-largest communist state after the USSR—was largely spared. In 1984, Reagan visited China. In August 1987, China and the United States issued the August 17 Communiqué, in which “the United States pledged not to increase arms sales to Taiwan.” Wang Jisi, a China–U.S. relations expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, observed: “At first, Reagan viewed China as an ‘evil empire’ similar to the Soviet Union. After visiting China, his thinking changed. For strategic reasons—seeking to align with China against the Soviet Union—the two countries gradually drew closer.” Many in China have commented that if Nixon opened the door to Sino–U.S. relations, Reagan at least took a significant additional step forward.

From this perspective, the foundation of Reagan’s foreign policy was “anti-Soviet rather than anti-communist.” The Soviet Union became America’s principal enemy because of a series of crises beginning in the Stalin era—the Berlin Crisis, the Cuban Missile Crisis—along with the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and various regional conflicts, as well as the prolonged confrontation between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. These experiences led the United States to conclude that “so long as the Soviet Union remained, the world would not know peace.” Seen this way, making the USSR the primary target was understandable. At that time, Communist China had not yet embarked on reform and opening up; its economic strength fell far short of that of a major power. Moreover, Deng Xiaoping’s policy of “keeping a low profile” in foreign affairs concealed China’s ambitions for global dominance and proved highly deceptive. U.S. think tanks and successive administrations did not take the Chinese Communist regime seriously.

Deng Xiaoping’s low-profile diplomatic strategy was completely reversed in the era of Xi Jinping. The Chinese Communist state now brands itself as a “great power,” promotes the Belt and Road Initiative, and expands outward. It builds artificial islands, threatens regional security, conducts aggressive air operations in the East China Sea with Taiwan in its sights, and imposes comprehensive control over Hong Kong, destroying the “one country, two systems” framework. Communist China has become a major threat to world peace. Reagan’s decision thirty years ago to go easy on Communist China was not due to ignorance, but rather a strategic calculation. While his anti-Soviet strategy proved effective, it objectively left behind the Chinese Communist “dragon.” After three decades of reform and opening up, this dragon has become the world’s second-largest economy. Using high technology, it has erected an “electronic Berlin Wall” that prevents information from flowing out or in, enclosing 1.4 billion people within the so-called “great power.” Reagan left the United States with the lingering problem of Communist China.

Zhong Wen concludes: As former U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk said in 1961, “Walls should not be a permanent feature of Europe. I do not understand why the Soviet Union would even contemplate their existence. From their point of view, it is undoubtedly the construction of a monument advertising the failure of communism.” The failure of East Germany and communism was already sealed at the very moment the Soviet Union built the Berlin Wall there. Today, the physical Berlin Wall has fallen, but an invisible “internet wall” still stands between civilized societies and totalitarian ones. Only when this digital wall collapses will humanity truly be liberated from authoritarian rule. As long as there is even one unfree country in the world, no country can claim to be truly free. Reagan made great contributions by opposing communism and hastening the collapse of the Soviet empire, but his struggle against the Chinese Communist Party was insufficient—earning him a score of 85 out of 100.