Convened in cooperation with the Hopkins China Forum, this talk deals with the evolution of Soviet public diplomacy in China, its main techniques and mechanisms, and its efficiency with respect to changing political goals. This was an important aspect of relations between China and the USSR, where similar ideologies and conflicting national interests were at the core of the bilateral relationship. Drawn from doctoral research making use of recently declassified Chinese and Russian archival documents, memoirs and interviews, this talk will shed light on social processes in both China and the Soviet Union, communication between the state and its citizens, and the role that the latter played in the formation of foreign policy.

Alsu Tagirova is an Assistant Research Fellow at the Institute for Studies of China’s Neighboring Countries and Regions, East China Normal University. She has been Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Cold War International History Studies at East China Normal University, and a Visiting Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, DC. She earned her BA from Kazan State University, and MA and PhD from Sun Yat-sen University. Her research interests include Sino-Soviet history and the Cold War, and her dissertation was on the history of Soviet Propaganda in China. Her current project is on the history of Sino-Soviet Border negotiations.