As early as 1972 the Chinese government started negotiating a purchase of up to 200 Harrier aircraft. Due to internal political issues, China put the negotiations on hold. In 1977 Li Chiang, the Chinese Minister of Foreign Trade, visited the UK and British Aerospace organised a Harrier flying demonstration. In November 1978, the Harrier-demonstration was repeated for the Chinese Vice-Premier Wang Chen during his UK visit. The Harrier deal would have meant British Government ignored United States laws that prohibited such sales to communist countries. The Soviet Union was also actively opposed to the UK selling weapons to the Chinese. In spite of that, British Aerospace convinced China that the Harrier was an effective close-support fighter and was good enough to act in a defensive role. In 1979, the Anglo-Sino deal was almost done before being cancelled by the Sino-Vietnamese War.