Question

How did The Cold War impact on different regions of the world such as Cuba and China?

Answer 1

China, after it allied itself with the Soviets and became a communist nation, was subjected to a series of "containment" moves by the United States. Alliances were forged with a recovering Japan, Australia, and other nations in the Pacific to establish bases from which the US could keep an eye on China and its activities.

Cuba was also isolated. A trade embargo restricting business dealings with Cuba continues to be enforced by the United States since the early 1960s, even after the Cold War was over.

One other thing that Cuba experienced during the Cold War was the Cuban Missile Crisis. Because Cuba was seen as a friendly ally, the Soviets decided to put nuclear missiles on the island nation. This escalated into a confrontation with the United States who didn't like nukes parked 90 miles off of the coast. Eventually, the Soviets backed down and the missiles were removed from Cuba.

Answer 2

Captain, this is very useful, but I think you have your timeline with China a little backwards. China started off an ally of the USSR, and signed a treaty with them in 1950, but relations soured pretty quickly, and by 1961 the PRC formally denounced the Soviets as "revisionist traitors" to Marxism. It was this famous split between the Communist giants that opened the door for Nixon's policy of rapprochement with China in the 1970s.

"Containment" was applied by Truman to China in Korea, to be sure, more or less because Truman was a haberdasher who hated foreign policy, and always sought to finish things off and go home to Bess as fast as possible. So he wanted the Korean War over without conflict with China -- which is what led to MacArthur's firing (although big Mac was also a showboating clown, so that helped) and the armistice in Korea at the 38th parallel. But after Korea, the PRC turned inward and declined further foreign adventures. Contrariwise, the Soviets continued their energetic policy of exporting communism -- in Vietnam, Burma, Cambodia, Cuba, and Central America. Hence "containment" remained a lively policy against the Soviets.

It's actually pretty likely that the only reason Nixon's rapprochement with China was successful was because of the Cold War with the USSR. It served to largely neutralize the biggest possible threat in the Pacific, which would be the development by a hostile Communist China of a blue water navy, particularly with anti-submarine capability. Recall a vital leg of the American strategic triad of nuclear deterrent were submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Without an ASW threat from China, ballistic missile subs could hide out in the Pacific near Asian coasts without much fear or detection or interdiction.

After all, look at what has happened since the Cold War ended: without the strong motivation on both sides to stay reasonably friendly, to balance the hostility of the USSR, relations between the PRC and the United States have deterioated considerably, and there is now a bit of a sotto voce naval arms race in the Pacific between the two.

Answer 3

Not backwards, only glossed over to get to the more salient point in that China was essentially isolated in as much as the USSR was. I'm cognizant of the Sino-Soviet split which occurred later, though with the theory of the domino effect and the urgency to bolster the US presence within the Pacific as a bulwark against Comintern interests, containing it was still a necessary evil whether it was politically or militarily. There's a reason why we wanted bases in the Philippines and Japan and why the US refused to recognize the PRC as a legitimate nation for several decades (and why Taiwan enjoyed the privilege instead).

There's no doubt that the specter of the USSR hovered over these calculated moves, but US Cold War policy had also wished to stem the tide of its proxies whether it was China or Cuba eventually making any friend of the Soviets to be considered a potential enemy to democracy.