Article: A friend in need. (China's economic assistance to the Soviet Union)

THE irony must be bitter to the diehards of the Kremlin, and correspondingly sweet to the gerontocrats in Beijing. Forty years ago China depended for its economic survival on Soviet aid and Soviet experts; 31 years ago the Soviet Union ended its aid, withdrew its experts and forced its former protoge into economic, as well as ideological, isolation. The resulting schism between communism's biggest powers scarred the political memories of every one of today's leaders in the Soviet Union and China.

Yet on March 14th China, whose 1.1 billion people are among the poorest in the world, agreed to give the Soviet Union "a favourable commodity loan" worth some $733m. ...

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