China is by no means as stable as foreign visitors have been claiming. The uncertainties are likely to affect its new relations with the West.

In a rare interview, Mao Tse-Tung conversed on topics ranging over what he himself called shan nan hai pei, or “from south of the mountains to north of the seas.”

“The war will be decided elsewhere by men who have never waded waist-deep in fields of paddy.”