Die wirtschaftlichen Beziehungen der Volksrepublik China zur Sowjetunion (1949-1974)

Abstract This paper attempts to show that the reasons for the rift between the People’s Republic of China and the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics were at least partly based on a difference in the attitudes towards economic development and large-scale economic cooperation, the Russians aiming at an international “socialist division of labour” while the Chinese stressed independence and self-reliance. It can be shown that the granting and withholding of economic aid soon became on the donor’s part a way of expressing pleasure or displeasure with the recipient’s policies. After a survey of the main stages of economic relations between the two countries the questions of material, technical and financial aid as well as the development of trade are treated separately.