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September 1982

Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, 'Taiwan after Chiang Ching-kuo: A Speculative Analysis: An Intelligence Assessment'

The CIA's Office of East Asian Analysis evaluates possible successors to Chiang Ching-kuo and the implications of potential new leaders for Taiwan, the United States, and 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.

April 18, 1964

Transcript of Conversation between Zhou Enlai and Kenzo Matsumura

Zhou Enlai speaks with the spokesman for Japan's conservative party, Kenzo Matsumura. The two sides reached an agreement on the mutual establishment of non-governmental resident offices and the exchange of resident journalists. Zhou also discusses China's stance on the Taiwan issue. Both sides agree to work together toward normalization of Sino-Japanese relations.

September 30, 1962

Record of Talks from the Premier’s Meeting with the Delegation of the National Front for the Liberation of Southern Vietnam

Zhou Enlai meets with the head of a Vietcong delegation, Nguyen Van Hieu. The two discuss the Vietcong's struggle inside of Vietnam and the organization's international ties, as well as disarmament and Afro-Asian politics.

September 28, 1972

Telegram 10353 from the American Embassy in Tokyo, 'Mao-Tanaka Meeting'

Mao had a conversation with Tanaka, carrying numerous stories from food to his childhood.

June 25, 1959

The Former Japanese Prime Minister Ishibashi Tanzan Hopes to Visit China to Discuss Sino-Japanese Relations

Ishibashi Tanzan, the former Japanese Prime Minister, gave a letter to Zhou Enlai, claiming that "the two countries have mutual respect for each other's existing relations with the Soveit Union, the United States, and other countries and do not expect immediate changes."

September 14, 1959

Record of the Third Conversation between Comrade Liao Chengzhi and Ishibashi Tanzan

During a conversation with Liao Chengzhi, Ishibashi Tanzan asked him to "for a friendly Sino-Japanese relationship based on the acknowledgment of the established Japanese-American relations."

September 13, 1959

Record of the Second Conversation between Comrade Liao Chengzhi and Ishibashi Tanzan

During a conversation with Ishibashi Tanzan, Liao Chengzhi claimed that "preconditions are needed for further cooperation" to promote Sino-Japanese friendly relations. To eliminate mistrust, Liao Chengzhi asked Japan to abolish the U.S. military bases.

September 12, 1959

Record of Conversation between Comrade Liao Chengzhi and Ishibashi Tanzan

During a conversation with Ishibashi Tanzan, Liao Chengzhi claims that the Japanese Prime Minister "did many things that hurt the feelings of the Chinese people," perhaps the first use of this now famous phrase in Chinese foreign policy discourse.

October 23, 1959

Record of Conversation between Vice Premier Chen Yi and Matsumura Kenzo

Matsumura Kenzo met with Chen Yi, the Vice Premier, and talked about the upcoming United Nations General Assembly and Sino-Japanese trade.

Pagination