China embraced Communism when in 1949 Mao Tse-tung led the People's
Liberation Army to victory over American-funded nationalists.
Within seven years, though, Tse-tung's "Great Leap Forward" - collectivist reforms designed to make China a world economic power - had brought mass famine to the country. Russia withdrew aid, and Sino-Soviet relations deteriorated further in 1963 when Nikita Khrushchev signed the first nuclear test-ban treaty with the USA. In 1949 a young Richard Nixon had denounced the governing Democrats for losing China to the Communists, and in 1972, as president, his visit to Beijing ushered in a new Cold War era.
Narrated by Kenneth Branagh.
Series producer Martin Smith
Executive producers Jeremy Isaacs and Pat Mitchell
(Digital widescreen)
LECTURES: tickets remain for two lectures. entitled Cold War: the Making of a Television History, in Glasgow and Cardiff on 8 and 10 March. For details of venues and ticket prices, ring [number removed] (calls cost 10p per minute maximum)