| Popis: |
The 50th Anniversary of the signing of the Sino-Soviet Alliance went unnoticed in most Asian capitals. This included Tokyo, where ironically the Russian Foreign Minister, Igor Ivanov, was concluding an official visit. In February 1950, however, all eyes had focused upon Moscow, where Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong were concluding a 30-year pact to unite the strategic ‘heartland of Eurasia’.1 A ‘Communist bloc’ now stretched from Berlin to Beijing. Little more than a decade later, however, as the outside world watched in astonishment, this ‘eternal and indestructible’ alliance slowly crumbled under the weight of its internal contradictions.2 |
