Informed by discussions and interviews with more than fifty seasoned foreign and American negotiators, this landmark study offers a rich and detailed portrait of the negotiating practices of American officials. Including contributions by eleven international experts, i assesses the multiple influences—cultural, institutional, historical, and political—that shape how American policymakers and diplomats approach negotiations with foreign counterparts and highlights behavioral patterns that transcend the actions of individual negotiators and administrations.

For most Americans, the “exit” from Indochina occurred in 1973, with the withdrawal of the U.S. military from South Vietnam. In fact, the final exit did not occur until two decades later, after the collapse of the Republic of Vietnam in 1975, the Cambodian revolution, and a decade of Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia. Only in the early 1990s were the major powers able to negotiate a settlement of the Cambodia conflict and withdraw from the region.

This book recounts the diplomacy that brought an end to great power involvement in Indochina, including the negotiations for a UN peace process in Cambodia and construction of a “road map” for normalizing U.S.-Vietnam relations. In so doing, this volume also highlights the changing character of diplomacy at the beginning of the 1990s, when, at least temporarily, an era of military confrontation among the major world powers gave way to political management of international conflicts.

After two decades of hostile confrontation, China and the United States initiated negotiations in the early 1970s to normalize relations. Senior officials of the Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan administrations had little experience dealing with the Chinese, but they soon learned that their counterparts from the People’s Republic were skilled negotiators.

This study of Chinese negotiating behavior explores the ways senior officials of the PRC—Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, and others—managed these high-level political negotiations with their new American “old friends.” It follows the negotiating process step by step, and concludes with guidelines for dealing with Chinese officials.

Originally written for the RAND Corporation, this study was classified because it drew on the official negotiating record. It was subsequently declassified, and RAND published the study in 1995. For this edition, Solomon has added a new introduction, and Chas Freeman has written an interpretive essay describing the ways in which Chinese negotiating behavior has, and has not, changed since the original study. The bibiliography has been updated as well.