Mao Zedong warned, “You piss on my head, and I shall retaliate!” The Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev called Mao “treacherous.” An alliance that Moscow and Beijing previously billed as unbreakable quickly unraveled.
So Mao reached out to his avowed foe the United States.
Mao, a scathing critic of what he called American imperialism, suddenly referred to President Richard Nixon as “the No.
1 good fellow as the two countries make common cause against the United States.
Mao’s abrupt turn to the United States showed just how quickly Chinese loyalties can crumble when the usefulness of a strategic partner wanes.
Persons:
Mao Zedong, Leonid Brezhnev, Mao, Richard Nixon, Nixon, Vladimir Putin, Xi, —, Wagner, Mikhail Kapitsa
Organizations:
Communist
Locations:
China, Soviet, Moscow, Beijing, United States