This talk draws on new Chinese and Russian archival records to recount the key episodes of triangular diplomacy of the east 1970s. The presenter will explain how and why Brezhnev's perspective on the Cold War differed from that of his US counterparts, why he rejected "linkage," and how China featured in the relationship that he sought - but never managed - to build with the United States.

Sergey Radchenko is Professor of International Relations and Director of Research at the School of Law and Politics, Cardiff University, Wales. He is a historian of the Cold War, having previously authored Two Suns in the Heavens: the Sino-Soviet Struggle for Supremacy (Woodrow Wilson Centre Press & Stanford UP, 2009), Unwanted Visionaries: the Soviet Failure in Asia (Oxford UP, 2014), and co-authored (with Campbell Craig), The Atomic Bomb and the Origins of the Cold War (Yale UP, 2009). His new book, The First Fiddle: a History of the Cold War and After, is scheduled to appear with Cambridge UP in 2021. The talk draws in part on this new book.