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November 11, 1965

Record of Second Conversation of Premier Zhou Enlai and Vice Premier Chen Yi with Foreign Minister Pak Seong-cheol

Chen Yi, Zhou Enlai, Pak Seong-cheol, and Ri Ju-yeon have a detailed conversation about the situations in Indonesia, Algeria, Uganda, Mali, Guinea, and members of the Third World.

February 1, 1964

Cable from the Chinese Foreign Ministry, 'Situation of the Premier's Visit to Three West African Countries'

The Chinese Foreign Ministry summarizes Zhou Enlai's conversations with Kwame Nkrumah, Modibo Keita, and Ahmed Sekou Toure. Emphasis is placed on the revolutionary conditions in Ghana, Mali, and Guinea, relations with the Soviet Union, and the Non-Aligned Movement and the Second Asian-African Conference.

July 1963

D.B., 'To the New Comer'

While in 1947 the Indian organizers of the First Asian Relations Conference invited a Yishuvi delegation, eight years later the Bandung Conference organizers did not invite Israel. At the same time, the second half of the 1950s signaled the start of Israel’s long “African Decade,” which would end only when many African states cut their diplomatic ties with the Jewish State after the 1973 October War. The first two countries to establish diplomatic ties with Israel were Ethiopia, in 1956, and Liberia, in 1957; in the 1960s, many others followed, including Benin, Burkina Faso, Congo, Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Uganda, and Tanzania.

Thousands of Africans studied in Israel, as illustrated by this document, an anonymous article published in 1963 in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’ African Students journal that provides a glimpse of experiences Africans had, including racism but also feelings of superiority. Moreover, thousands of Israeli engineers, agronomists, architects, geologists and others who had participated in nation-state building in Israel worked often for years in development projects in Africa and also, though less so, in Asia and Latin America. And as Ronen Bergman’s 2007 PhD thesis “Israel and Africa: Military and Intelligence Liaisons” shows, Israel exported weaponry and Israeli officers shared with the militaries of recently decolonized African countries their expertise in warfare and in controlling civilians. After all, Israel blitzed through the Egyptian Sinai in 1956, had won its first war back in 1948-1949, and from then until 1966 kept its own Palestinian citizens under military rule.

In fact, the Israeli Defense Forces and the foreign intelligence agency Mossad were central to Israel’s involvement in Africa. The core reason for Israel’s interest in Africa was political and strategic. Israel needed allies in the United Nations, where postcolonial Asian countries were turning against it. And it wished to minimize the dangers of postcolonial Arab-African alliances and to extend to parts of Africa its “periphery doctrine” of honing relations with Middle Eastern countries that neighbor Arab states, like Iran and Turkey. As it did so, Israel at times shared some contacts and information with the US government; becoming a US asset was a boon to the Israeli government, though it remained fiercely independent-minded.

July 25, 1963

Work Summary for Training Malinese Agricultural Technical Personnel related to Tea

A report on Chinese training of Malian experts in the tea industry.

July 25, 1963

Cable from the Commercial Attaché, Chinese Embassy in Mali, to the General Bureau for Economic Relations with Foreign Countries

A coversheet for several reports on Chinese economic assistance to Mali.