Mao y el Che

Según la biografía ya canónica de Mao Tse Tung, Mao. The Unknown Story (2006) de Jung Chang y Jon Halliday, las relaciones políticas entre el Che y Mao pasaron, entre 1960 y 1965, de la afinidad al despego. No abundan estos autores en los vínculos teóricos entre ambos líderes, ni entran en detalles sobre los vaivenes geopolíticos que determinaron aquellos giros del afecto. No deja de ser curioso que justo en el momento de mayor distanciamiento entre La Habana y Moscú, luego de la Crisis de los Misiles, la simpatía entre ambos líderes no creciera más de lo que prometió en un inicio.

En un primer pasaje, señalan los biógrafos: "In Latin America, Peking made a beeline for Cuba after Fidel Castro took power in January 1959. When Castro's colleague Che Guevara came to China in November 1960, Mao doled out US$60m as "loan", which Chou told Guevara "does not have to be repaid".

Cinco años después, en 1965, cuando Guevara se preparaba para lanzar su guerrilla latinoamericana y antes de que Fidel Castro iniciara ataques sostenidos a la posición antisoviética de China, las cosas habían cambiado notablemente. En contra de corrientes historiográficas que han interpretado el rechazo de Mao a Guevara, por una supuesta expectativa de entendimiento chino con Estados Unidos desde entonces, Chang y Halliday sostienen que el motivo de la distancia era la debilidad del antisovietismo de Guevara. Otra cosa a dilucidar sería si esa debilidad era más reflejo de la lealtad de Guevara a Castro que de una posición política propia:

"Mao had placed high hopes on Castro's colleague Che Guevara. On Guevara's first visit to China in 1960, Mao demonstrated uncommon intimacy with him, holding his hand while talking eagerly to him, and fulsomely praising a pamphlet of his. Guevara had reciprocated, recommending copying Mao's methods in Cuba. And he had proved the closest in the Havana leadership to Mao's position during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. But in the end, Mao could not get Guevara to take his side against the Russians. When Guevara returned to China in 1965, just before going off to try to launch guerrilla ventures in Africa, and then Bolivia, Mao did not see him, and a request from Guevara in Bolivia for China's help to build a radio station that could broadcast worldwide was refused. When Guevara was killed in 1967, Peking privately expressed delight. Kang Sheng told Albania's defense minister in October 1968: "The revolution in Latin America is going very well, especially after the defeat of Guevara; revisionism is being unmasked"