 Gorbachev had also been attempting to ease cold war tensions by signing the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with the U.S. in 1987 and withdrawing the troops from Afghanistan, whose presence had garnered so much international condemnation.Gorbachev regarded confrontation with China and resulting military build ups on that border as one of Brezhnev's biggest mistakes.Beijing had stipulated that a normalization of relations would have to wait until Moscow withdrew its army from Afghanistan (among other things), and in 1989 the first Sino-Soviet summit in 30 years took place.