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March 26, 1965

Palestine Delegation in Peking

Formed in 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was not the first Palestinian organization after the nakba (catastrophe), the escape from violence and the Israeli expulsion of a good half of Palestinians in 1948. The two most important earlier organizations were Harakat al-Qawmiyyin al-‘Arab (Arab Nationalists Movement [ANM]) and Harakat al-Tahrir al-Watani al-Filastini (Palestinian National Liberation Movement [Fatah]).

Founded in 1951 in Beirut, ANM became committed to Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918-1970) and his version of pan-Arab nationalism, which it saw as the means to liberate Palestine, opening a separate Palestinian branch in 1959. (In 1967, it would give rise to the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which split in 1968, one wing forming the Popular Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PDFLP)).

Rejecting Arab states’ tutelage, Fatah was officially born in 1959, though organizational activities began in 1956 and though it built on military cells operating from Egyptian-ruled Gaza from the early 1950s. After Arab armies’ crushing loss against Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967 killed any remaining hopes, weakened since the early 1960s, that Arab armies would liberate Palestine, Fatah grew in strength. In 1969, it took command of the PLO. The latter had been founded in 1964 for several reasons. Nasser hoped to weaken Fatah and Syria, a state then in competition with him. Also, the PLO served (upper) middle class Palestinians some of whom—like Ahmad al-Shuqayri (1908-1908), Palestine’s representative to the Arab League and the PLO’s founder and first chairman—had played a Palestinian political role until 1948 and wished to do so again. And these men and women believed Palestinians needed their own statist entity, as Yezid Sayigh’s monumental Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949-1993 (1997) notes.

In 1965, PLO delegates led by Shuqayri for the first time visited the People’s Republic of China (PRC), as reported in the English issue of the multi-language international organ Peking Review. Already in 1964 a small Fatah delegation led by Yassir Arafat (1929-2004) had accepted an invitation to visit Beijing, founding an office there. Sure, upon its establishment in 1949 the PRC had de jure recognized Israel, following the lead of the Soviet Union that acted as its older brother in the communist camp. (Israel in turn was the first Middle Eastern state to recognize the PRC, in 1950.) But after the PRC and the USSR split in 1960, Beijing amplified its anti-imperialist rhetoric and policies versus the Soviet Union and the United States, as Gregg Brazinksy’s Winning the Third World: Sino-American Rivalry during the Cold War (2017) has shown. It was in this context that it from the mid-1960s delivered arms especially to Fatah and the PLO—it soon also would train fighters—and that it politically embraced the Palestinian cause. The PRC framed this policy as that of one “revolutionary people” helping another one, a story strand in Paul Chamberlin’s The Global Offensive: The United States, the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the Making of the Post-Cold War Order (2012). By the early 1970s, however, Chinese support became more lukewarm. Moreover, after the death of Chairman Mao Zedong (1893-1976), relations with Israel cautiously warmed, though remaining surreptitious until the establishment of full diplomatic ties in 1992.

October 5, 1968

Conversation between the Party of Labor of Albania Delegation, Headed by Comrade Beqir Balluku, and Comrade Mao Zedong on 5 October 1968, at 19:00-20.30

Mao Zedong provides a survey of how the Cultural Revolution is unfolding in localities across China.

January 24, 1967

Conversation between Hysni Kapo and Kang Sheng in Beijing on 24 January 1967, at 10:00 am

Hysni Kapo and Kang Sheng discuss the Cultural Revolution, the Red Guard movement, and purges inside the Chinese Communist Party.

May 5, 1966

Meeting with Comrade Mao Zedong on 5 May 1966

Mao Zedong, Mehmet Shehu, Hysni Kapo, and others have a conversation, coincidentally, on Marx’s birthday. They discuss Khrushchev’s legacy, the history of the Chinese Communist Party, and the story of Liri Belishova.

October 2, 1963

Conversation of Comrade Mao Zedong with Delegation of the People’s Army of Albania Haded by Comrade Beqir Balluku (2 October 1963)

Beqir Balluku holds a discussion with Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi, and Luo Ruiqing. The Chinese side reviews their country's revolutionary history and many years of struggle against the Kuomintang.

April 30, 1956

Gazette of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, 1956, No. 16 (Overall Issue No. 42)

This issue includes congratulatory telegrams from Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, and Zhou Enlai, which applaud the establishment of a Preparatory Committee for the Tibet Autonomous Region. It also features instructions to prevent forest fires and improve the working conditions of intellectuals. One section discusses admitting new students into summer normal (pedagogical) schools via exams; other reports address provincial administrative concerns.

September 20, 1952

Report, Zhou Enlai to the Chairman [Mao Zedong], Comrade [Liu] Shaoqi, and the Central Committee

Zhou and Stalin discuss potential meetings with representatives from Vietnam, Indonesia, and Japan.

July 26, 1952

Cable, Zhou Enlai to the Chairman [Mao Zedong] and Comrades Liu [Shaoqi], Zhu [De], Peng [Dehuai], [Li] Fuchun, and Su Yu

Zhou Enlai shares a draft telegram with Mao Zedong.

1965

Lê Thanh Nghị, 'Report on Meetings with Party Leaders of Eight Socialist Countries'

North Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Politburo member Le Thanh Nghi recounts his discussions with socialist leaders in the summer of 1965, just as the war in the south was heating up.

February 28, 1952

Cable from Nie Rongzhen, 'Report on American Invaders Using Bacteriological Weapons and Our Responsive Action'

Pagination