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November 18, 1967

Asian Affairs Bureau [Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan], 'The Chinese Communist Problem'

Ahead of a visit by Chiang Ching-kuo to Japan, the Japanese Foreign Ministry reviews the political situation on Mainland China.

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 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.

January 14, 1962

Ambassador Reis Malile, ‘Information on the Meeting of the Government-level Economic Delegation led by Comrade Abdyl Kellezi with Comrade Mao Zedong’

Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, and Abdyl Kellezi discuss revisionism, relations with the Soviet Union, and the Communist Party of the USA.

January 20, 1951

Report from P. F. Yudin to I. V. Stalin on Meetings with the Leaders of the Communist Party of China, including Mao Zedong on 31 December 1950

Yudin recounts his meetings with Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, and Zhou Enlai. In three meetings, Yudin learned more about China's relations with other communist parties in Asia, economic conditions in China, and developments in the Korean War.

April 28, 1964

Record of President Liu’s Meeting with Pak Se-chang,the New Korean Ambassador to China

Liu greeted New North Korean diplomat in Beijing 1964. They talked about China-DPRK alliance and relations with Japan.

August 23, 1958

Memoir by Wu Lengxi, 'Inside Story of the Decision Making during the Shelling of Jinmen'

Wu Lengxi, a member of the CCP Central Committee, recalls events in August 1958 when Chinese Communist forces along the Fujian coast began an intensive artillery bombardment of the Nationalist-controlled Jinmen Island. He recalls a Politburo Standing Committee meeting in which Mao states that the bombardment was in part motivated by events in the Middle East.

June 3, 1954

Telegram From Zhou Enlai to Mao Zedong and Liu Shaoqi, on the Issue of the US Asking China to Release Convicted US Nationals in China

Zhou Enlai gave a brief overview of the situation, in which he pointed out that there seemed to be disagreements between the US delegation in Geneva and the State Department over whether to talk directly with the PRC delegation. Zhou outlined what the PRC should do if either case materialized.

May 19, 1965

Liu Shaoqi, 'Speech at the Reception of the Comrades of the Central Military Commission War Planning Meeting'

Speech on China's state of preparations for war with the United States.

May 1, 1954

Cable from Zhou Enlai, 'Regarding a Meeting with British Foreign Secretary Eden'

Zhou Enlai, Molotov, and Eden discuss the Korea issue, the Indochina issue, Sino-British relations, British-American relations, and the issue of five powers.

Pagination