Sarah Paine

The Russians really understand other people's emotional life and what sets them at odds with each other, and they know just how to serve out the propaganda that sets people at each other's throats.

And their propaganda is going to help the Chinese really despise the Japanese and the Europeans, while Russia's even greater predations, the ones you've already seen, go unnoticed.

So here's Lev Karakhan.

He was a deputy foreign minister.

In 1919, he sends a missive, his Karakhan Manifesto to the Chinese foreign ministry.

And he says, hey, we're not imperialists.

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.