Latent common interests between China and the United States and a Russian threat to China are leading to increasingly improved Sino-American relations, prominent historian Harrison E. Salisbury told a Fogg-Norton Lecture Hall audience last night.

Salisbury, an associate editor of The New York Times and an expert on China and the Soviet Union, said antagonism between the two nations in the past was only "skin deep," and there has always been a two-sided interest for the other country.

Power Struggle

The Chinese, however, are presently also concerned with a possible domestic power struggle, Salisbury said. Chairman Mao Tse Tung and most of the other top Chinese rulers are extremely old, he explained, and will be creating vacancies in the near future that will throw governmental rule up for grabs.

The Chinese fear that Russian interests may filter into the government that gains control, Salisbury said, and a friendship with the United States could buffer China from Russian influence.

Salisbury, who visited China last year, said Mao and President Nixon are moving towards a Sino-American detente primarily to put a lid on the arms race. "China is the number three nuclear power in the world, and agreements between the U.S. and Russia are useless without including China," he said.