ABSTRACT
The completion of the Long March and the fall of Zhang Guotao left Mao in a strong position. His military strategy had proved correct, he had chosen the route that saw the March through to ultimate success, and in the course of the journey he had overcome the various challenges to his authority and imposed himself on the party. Yet Mao was well aware of what a close-run thing the whole affair had been and how much was owed to chance and to Japan. He was wholly serious in 1972 when he told Kakuei Tanaka, the Japanese prime minister, that, far from being ill-disposed towards Japan, he looked upon her with gratitude since it had been the Japanese presence in China in the 1930s that had diverted and weakened the Guomindang and so saved the Communists from destruction.
