The Soviet collectivisation campaign of 1929–30 and the Chinese campaign of 1955–56 were similar in that both turned out to be attempts at achieving nationwide breakthroughs in agriculture. Both régimes attempted in the course of about six months to make the radical transition from small-producer to collectivised agriculture. The plans and forecasts that had been formulated by both the Soviet and the Chinese leaders had not called for such a breakthrough. These plans had envisaged the completion of collectivisation at a fairly slow pace.i The following graph indicates the rapidity and scope of the changes that actually took place, as well as the dramatically different outcomes of the two campaigns.

Since the ousting of Khrushchev in October 1964, North Korea's relations with her neighbours have undergone a radical change. The warmth that the North Korean leaders demonstrated towards Communist China earlier has all but evaporated. The staunch anti-revisionism which used to characterise North Korean speeches and statements has given way to increasingly frequent warnings about the dangers of left opportunism, dogmatism and sectarianism. The economic and political ties between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Soviet Union which were seriously damaged during the Khrushchev era have now been more or less re-established.

Ever since the conquest of the mainland by Communist forces, the foreign policy of the Republic of China has revolved about a single goal: recovery of the mainland. Recovery of the mainland is, in fact, the reason d'être of the Chiang Kai-shek régime; should the government ever admit doubts about its ability or desire to return, the entire basis for KMT rule would be irrevocably undercut. It is therefore not surprising that, in the last two years no less than in the more distant past, the theme of an imminent return has dominated the pages of Formosa's newspapers, with new evidence being brought forward regularly to demonstrate that the mainland régime is on the verge of collapse. The cultural revolution has brought about important changes in the “return” theme. It has not reduced its relevance, but seems to have induced recalculations in ROC official circles over the timing and nature of the mainland recovery operation.

The Afro-Asian Conference held in Bandung in April 1955 presented a rare occasion for diplomatic contact between the People's Republic of China and Thailand, and represents a milestone if not a watershed in China's Asian relations, including those with Thailand. According to one well-informed commentator on the conference, a mutual educative process for both communist and anti-communist participants lay behind the purposes set forth by the sponsoring Colombo Powers, a process which “would serve both to enlighten the Chinese as to the realities of their international environment and to educate leaders of those non-communist Asian and African states which had little or no contact with Communist China as to the actual attitudes of Peking's leaders towards both non-communist Asia and the West.” It was assumed that although China was genuinely devoted to a policy of peace for a number of years to come, a genuine and not entirely unfounded fear of China as a threat to national independence existed among certain Asian powers.

There was nothing particularly out of the ordinary about the facts of Miss Chao's suicide. It happened this way. Miss Chao Wu-chieh, of Nanyang Street, Changsha, was engaged to marry Wu Feng-lin, of Kantzuyuan, on November 14, 1919. As a matter of course the match had been arranged by her parents and the matchmaker. Although Miss Chao had had only the brief ritual encounters with the fiancé, she disliked him intensely and was unwilling to marry him. Her parents refused both to undo the match and to postpone the wedding date. On the day of the wedding, as Miss Chao was being raised aloft in the bridal chair to be delivered to the home of the groom, she drew out a dagger which she had previously concealed in the chair and slit her throat.

Chiang Ch'ing was born Li Yun-ho in 1913 in Chiucheng, Shantung Province. When she was very young her parents separated and her mother took her with her elder sister to the provincial capital of Tsinan. At the end of her primary education Chiang was sent to the Provincial Vocation School for Performing Arts in Taian, a boarding school with tuition provided free by the government as her father was no longer contributing to the support of the family. In Teturn for free education the students were obliged upon graduation to join the experimental troupe as unpaid apprentices for an unspecified period. While a student at the school Chiang had an affair with the principal, Chao T'ai-mou, who in 1930 took her to Tsingtao when he went to teach in the newly-founded National Tsingtao University. Unqualified for acceptance as a student, Chiang found a post in the university library as a junior assistant copying index cards.