Vladimir Putin is an imperialist, but China does not care

TO THE FERVENT revolutionaries who ran China in 1968, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia was a monstrous crime, but not a surprise. Watching from Beijing, Chairman Mao Zedong and his aides saw a vindication of a long-standing suspicion: that the once-proud Soviet Union was now ruled by “socialist imperialists”, on a par with the capitalists in charge of America, the original imperialist superpower. Indeed, Mao’s deputy, Zhou Enlai, accused Soviet leaders of active collusion with America, involving a scheme to divide the world into two spheres of influence, one run from Moscow and the other from Washington. The invasion was evidence of that pact, Zhou charged: Soviet bosses dared to send tanks to roar down Prague’s cobbled streets, because they knew that America would not intervene.