At The Third Plenum in 1978, Deng Xiaoping became the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China (PRC), definitively ending Maoist rule and beginning the reform era of Chinese history.

During his speech at the plenum, he outlined a new Chinese foreign policy, whereby the Soviet Union—not the United States, as in the past—was identified as the main national security threat to China.

[1] and thus established relations with the United States, China also supported American Operation Cyclone actions in Communist Afghanistan and leveled a military expedition against Vietnam, America's main antagonist in Southeast Asia.

One agreement that was unilaterally terminated by President Jimmy Carter upon the establishment of relations with the PRC was the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty.

[9] However, the decision about the nature and quantity of defense services that America will provide to Taiwan is to be determined by the President and Congress.

Successive U.S. administrations have sold arms to Taiwan despite demands from the PRC that the U.S. follow Three Joint Communiqués and the U.S. government's proclaimed One-China policy.

The TRA's passage caused Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping to begin viewing the United States as an insincere partner willing to abandon its previous commitments to China.

[10] The PRC aligned itself with the Third World countries rather than with the United States or the Soviet Union, engaging itself in various movements such as nuclear non-proliferation that would allow it to critique the superpowers.

However, it also declared that it would not formally recognize PRC's sovereignty over Taiwan, as part of the Reagan administration's Six Assurances offered to Taipei in 1982.