Editor's Note

This issue begins with an article by Hugo Meijer regarding U.S. exports of weapons and other military technology to the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the 1980s. Meijer shows that the “China differential” in U.S. export control policy—the relative treatment of exports to China and exports to the Soviet Union—went from harsher treatment of the PRC in the 1950s and 1960s to much more favorable treatment in the 1980s. U.S. military exports to China in the 1980s were encouraged by a shared desire to prevent Soviet expansionism, but the volume and nature of the exports were limited by other key U.S. security interests in East Asia, including the need to prevent the PRC from threatening U.S. allies and friends in the region, concerns about China's behavior on nuclear proliferation (especially its links with and assistance to Pakistan and North Korea), and worries about the possible negative repercussions for U.S.-Soviet...