In my last Yonder, I mentioned the gigantic yet inelegant Nanjing Bridge, finished in 1968, at the peak of Maoism in China and abroad. Regardless of its remarkable 1576m length, the double-deck truss bridge was a political construction. Paradoxically, without the Soviet-China split in the late fifties, the Nanjing Bridge would have been built much later without a railway deck. This, at least, was what we were told by our Chinese mentors when, in the early autumn of 1977, we, the group of international students, were loaded on the bus and driven to the ramp of the bridge where we were to be illuminated about the first authentic Chinese construction. As of today, the words of our Chinese 负责人 (“fuzeren”person in charge) were prophetic: they were telling us that the bridge we were admiring was the first sight of a China that, half a century later, may lead the world. Mao’s calligraphy on the right side of the bridge (see the photo in the previous posting) was even more visionary and direct; it was a request for the Chinese people to catch up and surpass the most developed countries. In Mao’s mind, the Soviet Union was undoubtedly the one to catch up to. Our guides and teachers were in tune with the same Mao thought. It was over a year since the great helmsman was deposited in the newly built mausoleum on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. But Mao thought he was still very much alive. The Chinese believed now that they had built the double-sized bridge without the help of the Soviets, they were capable of doing more wonders. I remember that period of transition when the mindset of the Deng Xiaoping reforms started to prevail across the country. It was one Sunday, sometime in 1977, that People’s Daily published a drawing over the entire back page illustrating the future appearance of Beijing, packed with skyscrapers, helicopters, airplanes, bridges, and highways; in short, it was a vision that became carved in every Chinese mind. The drawing looked surreal, as a child’s hand would draw an imaginary Blade Runner megalopolis.

Instead of being imaginary, today’s Beijing is all that and more, all built and changed in less than half a century. But back then, we could only laugh and muse. Even for those of us who spent years in China, a project of such speedy development seemed impossible.

I am not the only person who remembers the dreams of poor and Maoist China. In recent meetings with foreign leaders, Xi Jinping, the almighty leader of China, mentioned the crisis in the 1960s when Soviet experts left Mao-era China, taking their know-how (including nuclear expertise) with them. That turned out to be an “opportunity,” Xi averred. It obliged China to build its industries. He predicted that American export curbs would be an opportunity for the same reason. Translated into language from half a century ago, Xi Jinping cited the existing tariff war with the United States as an opportunity for China to advance even further. However, using the example of the Soviet Union abandoning China almost 70 years ago may not be a simple repetition of a Maoist thought – despite Xi Jinping being a big fan – but a more complex message to Moscow. Xi could use a variety of other slogans, so why did he choose to use an example from the 60s, marked by the Soviet-China split? Whichever, it is my opinion that Xi Jinping did not evoke Russia without reason. 

Two or more reasons indicate that the Russian-Chinese friendship may not be as good as they have been claiming for the last couple of decades. The 1960 Soviet-China split mentioned above was not the only disagreement in the history of the relationship of the two communist parties. The disagreements started right at the beginning when China needed to build the United Front to fight back the Japanese invasion. There were times and situations when Moscow backed Chian Kai Shek’s nationalists instead of the communists, as it would be logical to do. 

This was because the CCP was admitted to the Comintern with distrust; many members doubted the Chinese communists were mentally equipped for the socialist revolution. The CCP was closely monitored and led by ideological guidance from Moscow. When Mao took over the leadership of the CCP in 1945, he refused to follow Moscow’s directives, underlining China’s specific situation in which the peasants representing the revolutionary class were capable of leading the revolution to victory. 

When Mao declared the independence of the People’s Republic of China in October 1949, he finally visited Moscow and met Stalin. They signed the Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Assistance and the Treaty of Military Assistance, similar to the “fifth article of NATO that guarantees military defense to any member of the Alliance. 

However, Mao returned from his first visit to Moscow with many gifts. Russia approved a loan of $300 million for China and sent thousands of scientists, technicians, and experts to Beijing to transplant the Soviet model of industrialization to China. However, despite the gifts and glossy appearances, Mao felt that Stalin disrespected and undervalued him. When Stalin died in 1953, Nikita  Khrushchev’s fondness for China was even less. In 1956, the relationship boiled over when Khrushchev, in a “secret meeting,” criticized Stalin for the cult of personality, despotism, purges, political trials, and violence. While Mao had grudges against Stalin because of their bad personal relationship, he firmly believed in the cult of personality and was convinced that revolution could not succeed without it. Consequently, Mao could not support the new jovial Soviet leader, who believed in more charismatic leadership.

At that time, Mao embarked on a program to develop nuclear weapons. In October 1957, the Russian and Chinese governments signed the New Defense Technical Accord, with Russians supplying Chinese prototypes of atomic bombs, missiles, and valuable technical data.

According to Khrushchev’s memories, a month after the agreement was signed, the leaders of the world Communist parties gathered at a summit in Moscow. At the meeting, Mao gave a speech on nuclear war. According to the Soviet leader, the substance of Mao’s speech was: “We shouldn’t fear war. We shouldn’t be afraid of atomic bombs and missiles. No matter what kind of war breaks out―conventional or thermonuclear―we’ll win.”  After he returned to China, Mao reportedly said, “We may lose more than three hundred million people. So what? War is war. The years will pass, and we’ll get to work producing more babies than ever before.” 

These Mao quotes are known worldwide. They apparently scared the Russians, who later claimed that nuclear weapons are for deterrence and not a threat to be used to start a war. The Soviet Union blocked the delivery of the prototype of the atomic bomb and other weapons and data to China.

In July 1958, when Khrushchev visited Beijing, Mao demonstrated reluctance towards him and denied him the usual hospitality. The dialog between the two leaders did not go any better. Consequently, the Soviets started to recall their experts and stopped all projects with China by 1960.

The rest is a history of spying and deep Cold War silence. The Russian embassy in Beijing reduced its staff, but there were still about one thousand employees in the Russian embassy compound. As a student with my contacts, I knew that the Soviets had their moles in the politburo and other high places. Then, the China-America rapprochement after 1979 completely changed the geopolitical picture. As China developed quickly and opened more, even small countries like mine (Slovenia) exchanged ideas with the growing Asian dragon. 

By 2002, Hu Jintao had emerged as the heir apparent to President Jiang Zemin. Preparing to become number one in China in the forthcoming CCP Congress, Hu Jintao made himself unavailable to the public. He not only refused to give interviews, but he also declined meetings with foreign leaders. After six months of absence from the public, Hu suddenly decided to receive a Slovenian foreign minister. This would be an exciting meeting, an occasion for many questions to be asked, to exchange notes, and to measure the pulse of new Chinese leadership. The meeting took place in the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse on June 6th. Two journalists, including me, were waiting for the briefing with the Slovenian foreign minister. When he entered the vast conference room, we first asked him how it went, considering that he was the first foreign dignitary to meet the future Secretary of the CCP.

What we got was like a cold shower. “Oh, unfortunately, they are still behind and entangled in the Marxist-Leninist language and ideology,” the minister answered. But we insisted; there had to be some reading of the dialog that lasted a long time. Not that Slovenia is an important international figure, but perhaps a messenger? The discussion with the Slovenian minister did not move much further until he mentioned the strategic relationship between China and Russia. I mentioned that there was no such thing. There was nothing in the official documents, not until last year when Xi visited Moscow when a new agreement was signed. Still, yes, it is true China and Russia have had the fear of America in common and were not happy with the expansion of NATO, which bombed Serbia two years earlier. But does this make the two countries strategic partners that blend in with each other, as my minister believed it was, trusting the world’s Marxist-Leninist leader? So, we talked about NATO a bit, and I asked a few questions since the minister was a big promoter in Slovenia of joining the Alliance. It was funny when the head of the foreign ministry asked me how I knew so much about the mechanism of NATO’s functioning. I told him he could read my dispatches from Rome when I reported on relationships between NATO and sovereign governments, a hot topic in Italy.

My friend, an expert on foreign affairs, used to say that many embassies are full of wishy-washy diplomats. This time, my minister joined those unknowledgeable wishy-washies. And I learned the lesson that any kind of patriotic loyalty never extends to a journalist. 

But then the Ukraine war happened. One just cannot believe how much time the media and diplomats spend following Russia’s talking points like: “So, this was all the fault of the West. It was the inappropriate expansion of NATO eastward. The U.S. was pushing it, compromising the security realm for Russia, and it was justifiable for Russia to expect it to have a security space.” 

It has been more than two years that I was, mostly in private discussions with experts, discussing my doubts that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was the consequence of American expansionism. The theory that Putin, in the “special operation,” was following his killer instinct towards the western Slavs, like Ukraine, Poland, and yes, Slovenia too, was more likely (see Yonder from 2 years ago). Putin, even in his speech before the invasion, talked about Western Slavs with profound disrespect; he does not recognize their capacity to build a proper and centralized state, and he accuses them of being corrupted by Western democracies. 

But there is the third and, to my mind, the most relevant reason for Putin’s attack on Ukraine. Russia is the weakest of the three superpowers that will decide the globe’s destiny. A country that does not have a much bigger GDP than Spain or Italy cannot exercise any type of hegemony or, let’s say, more politely, global leadership. So, Russia is the last in the troika of superpowers to have a say when the time comes to define the new world order. The other two are America and China. Besides the military industry (which, even in the war with Ukraine, indicated quite a few shortages), Russia possesses natural resources like gas and petrol, as well as substantial unexploited natural resources in the vast Siberia. Japan has set its eyes on this vast, rich land for decades. Joining the interest in exploiting Siberia is now fast-growing China, the biggest manufacturer in the world with a very modest supply of natural resources. This is where future interests will dance, the dance that Putin opened first. He wanted to gain the positions, but he put China, the best of his friends, in a very embarrassing position with the attack on Ukraine. Beijing has always maintained that China does not approve of interference in another country’s domestic affairs. Now, if it is true that China and Russia are more than best friends, then Russia’s attack on Ukraine invalidated China’s respect for territorial sovereignty and territorial integrity. Some people doubt that Xi Jinping was informed about Putin’s intentions but could he miss the accurate reports of American intelligence about the gathering of Russian troops on Ukraine’s borders? We may never know whether Xi knew about it or not.

It was not as though China and Russia had no reason to be strategic partners. Yet I could write a long list of reasons that deeply separate the two countries. Some of them I mentioned in this essay. Let’s say that all that Russia does now is a cruel sideshow of what is on the table for the future: the China-US relationship. Putin is just an impostor, a capable and vicious former KGB agent who, to some extent, manages to further polarize an already dangerously divided world. But someone is telling me that this Yonder is already too long. So, some other time. And in a shorter format.