Nikita, Fidel, and Mao…
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My latest at the Diplomat surveys some of the latest lit on how the Cuban Missile Crisis affected Chinese domestic politics:
Cuba provided an ideal arena for sparring between Moscow and Beijing. In a developing country long under the thumb of the United States, the Castro brothers’ revolution accorded perfectly with Mao’s vision of conflict between the capitalist and socialist blocs. But China lacked the military and economic power to support the Cuban Revolution; only the Soviets had the means to protect the Castro regime.