Many of China’s top politicians were educated in the West
It did not endear them to it
In the early 20th century thousands of Chinese Communist Party members went to Russia to learn how to stage a revolution and build a socialist state. The Russians, in turn, hoped the study programmes would give them lasting influence over their Chinese comrades, many of whom would rise to positions of great power. But within a decade of becoming communist, China began squabbling with the Soviet Union. In 1961 leaders in Beijing denounced Soviet communism as the work of “revisionist traitors”.
This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline “Learning skills, not values”
From the March 11th 2023 edition
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