THE WASHINGTON POST, SUNDAY, OCTOBER 2,	198.3
Ronald Reagan will be visiting China in April, and there are those who imagine that, like Richard Nixon before him, lie can open the door to Moscow in Peking. But, in fact, the three-cornered game now plays the other way.</br></br>The United States cannot importantly advance its strategic position through the China connection. But the Russians will resent the attempt, thus ensuring further strain on a Big Two relation that is already worn to the point of clanger.</br></br>China represented an unknown back in L971, when Nixon and Henry Kissinger went to Peking. Revolutionary fervor still gripped, or appeared to grip, the billions. A heroic leader, Mao Tse-tung, was capable of bold, even mad leaps into the void.</br></br>By building mystery and drama around their diplomatic initiative, Nixon and Kissinger made it seem that a basic tilt in world power relations was about to occur, '[Ûªhe Russians were prepared to pay a price for cutting off what looked like an incipient Sino-American partnership. Rightly or wrongly, Nixon and Kissinger settled for detente with Moscow and the prospect of a safe exit from the Vietnam War.</br></br>The terror then inspired by China has long since been rubbed away by familiarity. The Chinese economy is known to be backward and exceedingly hard to improve. Chinese military forces lag way behind the forces of Russia and the United States in weaponry. The Chinese leader, Deng Xiaoping, has explicitly put aside revolution in favor of moderation.