ABSTRACT
Each country had alliances and also exercised control, to one degree or another, over satellite states around the world. After 1946, which is sometimes marked as the beginning of the Cold War, foreign policy in the United States was driven by a theory of "containment," or an effort by the US to halt or roll back Soviet or communist influence around the world. In the meantime, the communist government of the People's Republic of China sought to modernize the country and to do so without any outside influence, especially from the Soviet Union, which the Chinese regarded with deep suspicion. A civil war between communists and the legitimate Kuomintang government in China had begun in 1927 and paused during the Japanese occupation and World War II. The Great Leap Forward was meant to revolutionize the Chinese economy through quick-paced, forced industrialization, collectivization, and land reforms.
