Sarah Paine

We're Bolsheviks.

We're going to return all the lands from those unequal treaties and be your friend from evermore.

Unlike all the other evil imperialist powers, we're not like that anymore.

And so the Chinese are looking at this and thinking, wow, here are the Bolsheviks who've gotten rid of their imperialistic government.

They're putting together their shattered land.

And so this offers hope to the Chinese that they can do likewise.

And it's a model potentially to follow and a mentor who might help them.

Except here's the detail.

When the Bolsheviks started doing better in their civil war, they really dialed back what their offer was.

The original offer was, tear up treaties, China gets all territory back, no payments necessary.

Under the new version of the Karakhan Manifesto, which the Russian foreign ministry goes in and telegraphs to the Chinese foreign ministry, I've seen the document, or at least a certain copy of it in the archives in Taiwan, they send it back and say,

We're willing to talk about these things.

We're going to hold some negotiations.

Well, the facts are they didn't return these concessionaries to the mid-20th century, 1950s, after the Westerners had returned almost all of their concessionaries.

And this is not trivial.

And when we think of concessionaries in the age of imperialism in China...

You think of British ones, right?

Hong Kong.

Well, Hong Kong isn't actually very big.

The reason you know about Hong Kong is it makes lots of money, or at least it used to.