Sarah Paine

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.

And the Russian concessionaries were huge, didn't make money, what else is new?

But the Russians had by far the largest concession area of any other country.

But from the Karakhan Manifesto is the origin of the myth of Sino-Soviet friendship, that the Russians somehow treated the Chinese nicely.

And the foreign ministry officials who have known better, their government is overthrown within the decade, and presumably these documents just gather dust in the archives.

All right, my fourth example of derailing China's rise concerns the first united front between the Chinese Nationalist and Chinese Communist Party.

Here's the leader of the

nationalist party and also leader of its armies, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek.

Well, he led the northern expedition reunifying China, at least nominally, by either defeating or co-opting all those warlords there.

You can see the different colors of where the major warlords were.

And previous South China attempts to do this or to secede from China, one or the other, had failed for lack of a proficient military.

But Russia changes that.

It provides aid, arms, and expertise and structures and things to found the Huangpo Military Academy, which is in Canton or Guangzhou.

And that institution is going to...

educate the officers, both communists and nationalists, who would lead not only this, but some of their civil war area officers that make this reunification of China possible.