About the Wise Monkey Who Came Down from the Mountain

... following metaphor, "a wise monkey sitting on top of the mountain to watch the two tigers fight in the valley below.” The tigers in the Great Helmsman’s formulation were, of course, Moscow and Washington, and Beijing was the wise monkey. And China was able to play the role of “wise monkey” in its foreign affairs quite successfully for a number of years, skillfully manoeuvring in the background of the global confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States. It carefully and ...