Throughout the Kennedy years, the Soviet Union and Communist China competed for influence over Communist nations in the Third World. Khrushchev faced domestic pressure to increase Soviet military spending and criticism from the Chinese for allegedly being soft against the West. PRC was also developing a nuclear weapons program despite Khrushchev’s preference to keep Beijing under the Soviet nuclear umbrella. Sino-Soviet tension soon caused hostile rhetoric between the two nations and sporadic fighting along shared borders. Initially, however, the Kennedy administration assumed a gingerly public approach toward the split, and did not seek an alignment with Moscow. This was due to uncertainty about the scope and endurance of Sino-Soviet friction. At the end of 1961, indicators of the deepening rift combined with the Thanksgiving Day reshuffle to increase the influence of those American watchers who pronounced the split profound. After the Sino-Indian war and the Cuban Missile Crisis, the administration was certain about the perpetuation of the split. By 1963, Kennedy recognized that Sino-Soviet tension meant there was a split in international communism, and so the Kennedy administration sought to play the strategic triangular game. The administration tried to use test ban treaty to prevent the Soviets from giving nuclear technology to Beijing. In this way, the Kennedy administration drove Moscow and Beijing further apart.
