I’m finishing the last episode of S5 now, and I’ll be fully caught up on this series. Between Afghanistan and Cambodia, China’s willingness to play ball with the US and its agenda is frustrating to learn.
It leaves me wanting to learn more about the Sino/Soviet split. The way this division manifested really aligned China with some dark forces, it would seem.
I also imagine the process of “normalization” with the US plays a huge role in the way this history unfolds as well.
It makes me wonder what they knew about The Khmer Rouge’s operations. I was left with the impression, based on how the history was laid out, that China was aware of just how aggressive and bloody the Khmer Rouge’s policies were.
Something about that stretch of time between 79 and 89 seems to have resulted in a bunch of weird geopolitical stuff.
Need to finish this episode, I guess.
I don’t think this is quite fair, the Chinese communists spent over two decades of struggle fighting US, nationalist, and japanese imperialism to establish the PRC. The USSR didn’t do the heavy lifting for them in any of that.
You’re discounting the funding, training, supplies, dispatched agents, diplomatic maneuvering etc. that the CPC and KMT had received through out the history of the communist movement in China from the USSR. The CPC without the USSR at their back would’ve been most likely would have been significantly hamstrung to the point I doubt they would have enough cohesion to survive past 1925. The KMT without the USSR would’ve been most likely smothered by one of the southern warlords and would not have been, for the short time it was, united with the CPC and grow and nurture each other until the death of Sun Yat-sen. China would have been easy prey for the Japanese imperialists to pluck apart in such a manner that would make the British subjugation of India pale in comparison to the barbarity that would’ve been emplaced on the Chinese people.
The Chinese revolution succeeded because of the blood they had shed, but without the Soviets to help nurture the spark that was born of the May 4th movement there would most likely not been such a revolution in the first place.