Historical Timeline Of East West Relationship Essay

When the Chinese and Europeans first came into contact with each other, there was a mutual fascination for the other's culture, or way of life. The Chinese began to look at the European culture. They became interested in Western thinking. They were also beginning to look at the religion that the European missionaries were preaching about, Christianity. On the other end, the Europeans who came in contact with the Chinese were fascinated by their culture and their philosophy, mainly the philosophy of Confucius. While the two cultures seemed to be a good match, each respecting and admiring the other, it came to an abrupt halt. The end result was China and Europe both rejecting the other culture.

King Afonso I was king of Kongo during the 1520s. Qianlong was emperor of China during the Qing dynasty, during the 1790s. In the kingdom of Kongo, there were many Portuguese merchants whom had established close political and diplomatic relations with the king. These relations brought much wealth and recognition to Kongo, but it also brought problems that led to its inevitable destruction. Portuguese merchants embarked on slaving expeditions. Their tactics undermined the authority of the kings, who appealed repeatedly to the Portuguese to cease or at least to limit their trade in slaves. During the Qing dynasty, global trade brought much

Over the past several decades, there have been great tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union which continue into what is known today as Russia. Suspicions and tensions between these two countries increased greatly during and directly after World War II, particularly between 1941 and 1949.

There were two main causes of tension between Russia and the West from 1941 and 1945. One cause, according to historians was the disagreements over a Second Front being opened. Tensions arose due to the West’s perceived delay in opening a front, the front being used as a political tool by Stalin and the perceived lack of supplies and materials being sent to the soviets as aid. A more significant cause of tension, however, is believed by some to be Stalin’s attempts to create a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe and his actions in Poland.

Russia fought on the Allied side in the war and suffered sever damages and loss. More that three million lives were lost and the country became broke. After Tsar Nicholas II was overthrown and the Russian Revolution ended, the Communists took over power and Russia pulled themselves out of the war two months later. Russia became renamed as the Soviet Union and fought alongside Germany and the United States in World War II. After the war, the Soviet Union turned on the United States and faced off against them in the Cold War which ended at the fall of Communism in 1991. Russia then became a democracy under the President Vladimir Putin. Now, he is the prime minister but has turned back democratic reforms to reassert influence over neighbors. Russia then invaded Georgia. Many civilians of the United States saw the attack. This sparked new tension with the United States. Although the Presidents, Obama and Dmitri Menvedev agreed to move past the Cold War, many believe it will be not as easily done and

Russia was upset that the US had not opened a second front in Germany, considering they had been attacked by Germany at least twice in 40 years. Russia argued that not opening a second front caused millions of casualties of Russian soldiers. They also felt that the Lend Lease Act, which provided military aid to nations fighting in WWII, had favored Britain and France over them. When the war ended, war material shipments from America to the USSR ceased immediately after the surrender of Germany. Russian politicians in Moscow, pointed to this as proof that the US would not support the USSR post-war. Another cause of tension was Russia’s hatred of capitalism, which was the basis of the US economic system. The Soviet Union accused the U.S. of supporting and interfering in the politics of other

Second, Joseph Stalin ruled Communist Russia and led them into war. Stalin took over Communist Russia in 1924. He exiled most of the government officials and made himself dictator. Stalin made many of the peasants into serfs because of his power. In his later years, he started setting the country into a rapid industrialization, which proved to be a great success for the economy. As World War II began, he signed a nonaggression pact with Adolf Hitler. That meant that Germany would never attack Communist Russia and the Soviet Union. However, other countries thought that this was a horrible idea. “Prime Minister Winston Churchill and American President Franklin D. Roosevelt argued that such an action would result in heavy casualties. This only deepened

During World War II, the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) were allies, fighting side by side. With the defeat of Hitler in Germany in 1945, the two superpowers rose: the Soviet Union and the United States. It led to a long struggle for supremacy, known as the Cold War that last about 44 years.

With Europe firmly divided into communist and capitalist, Germany became the new battle ground. There was the Berlin Blockade this was aimed at bluffing the Allies into renegotiation the division of Germany in his favor. This act did work, the allies just called his bluff by flying over Russian airspace. Stalin did not retaliate and risk war. In nineteen-forty nine with the Berlin Blockade in full effect and the threat of conflict with Russia, the Western powers signed the NATO treaty creating a military alliance.

Russia and the United States began their relationship as allies when Russia disregarded the non aggression pact they signed with Germany in 1939, effectively sealing Germany’s fate in World War II.

Before the nation of Russia became the international powerhouse that we knew as the USSR, it was first the small backwater country, whose economy ran on the use of serfs, Czar 's ruled every aspect, and the chance of growth was limited; however, once the year 1917 came along, the entire aspect of what was to be the Russia nation changed into a very strange and new one, called the United of Soviet Socialist Republics. The Soviet Union was, at one point, second only to the United States of America and had the power to destroy the entire planet with the single acknowledgement of their leader, because of their nuclear capabilities and their political power. The Russian country became the great Communist powerhouse after a great revolution in

The association between the Soviet Union and the Western powers were prompted by a complicated interplay of ideological, political and economical factors, this leading to the shifts in weary cooperation and often discontented superpower rivalry as the years went on. The Soviet Union went through different phases of relations between the Western Powers depending on their political standings at the time. There was initial hostility between the Soviet leaders and the government of the United States, when the Soviet was taken out of World War 1, along with the US being against their communist based ideologies. Despite the negotiations and aid that the US provide the Soviet Union with no diplomatic relation was created between the two until much

War Communism was in favour of Lenin being able to consolidate power as the Bolsheviks used terror effectively. There was a six week period known as the Red Terror that saw any remaining aristocracy (most begun to flee the country after February revolution). Monarchists and riches middle class, were arrested, executed, exiled or stripped of their power, estates and privilege. Additionally, in March, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk signed with the Germans, was the Bolsheviks ending the war. Russia lost the Ukraine, its Polish and Baltic territories, and Finland. The treaty was hugely unpopular in Russia but necessary if the Bolsheviks were to establish control of Russia. Lenin believed that the revolution would soon spread to Germany and this would reduce the effect of the Treaty.

The First World War became the Tsars worst nightmare. Russia joined the war in many ways to keep peoples minds of Russia’s backwardness and badly run government, and onto the war effort itself. But within the first year of the war people’s minds began to wander away from troop moral and toward the Tsar and his control.

The history of Sino-Soviet relations can be traced back hundreds of years, starting with the initial Mongol invasion and devastation of the Kievan Rus’ principalities in the mid-thirteenth century. With time, the rise of the Russian Empire and Czarist rule reversed the infrastructural and cultural destruction caused by the Mongol hordes; by the advent of the twentieth century, the reformed Russian state had begun encroaching on Chinese territory while holding a very strong, influential grasp on the slowly collapsing Imperial Chinese regime. However, with the success of the Russian Revolution in 1917, the creation of the Soviet Union, and the institution of a communist government and administration, the nature of