Chengdu, Sichuan Province
AFTER MAO’S COMMUNIST FORCES took over China, they were heavily dependent on their Soviet comrades to help them establish the new Peoples’ Republic. The blueprints for how to build a state apparatus, how to organize industry, the genius of the five-year plans for economic development, the rhythm of how often to hold Communist Party Congresses, etc.–all of this came from their Soviet brethren, who were clearly the senior partners in the Sino-Soviet alliance. The old joke in Beijing was that when the Soviet masters passed gas, the Chinese leaders of the day would say “oh, how fragrant.”
This robotic mimicry of the Russian way ended decades ago, and under Deng Xiaoping economic development took on a decidedly non-Soviet “make money first and worry about communist ideology second” bent that led to China’s becoming the exporting powerhouse it is today. Now there is scarcely a single consumer product not made in China, (other than military hardware). Russia, on the other hand, exports almost no manufactured products. Russia’s major sales abroad are of raw materials and metals–more or less the export profile of a third-world country.
