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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.

December 20, 1963

Transcript of Conversation between Zhou Enlai and Reporters in Cairo

Premier Zhou and Chen Yi answer questions from reporters in Cairo. Zhou and Chen were asked about issues such as their visit to Arab and African countries, China's support for national liberation movements in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, the United Arab Republic (Egypt) and Sri Lanka's perspective of the Sino-Indian border conflict, the purpose of the Chinese delegation's visit to Arab and African countries, issues that will be discussed in potential second Bandung Conference, the Sino-Soviet split, and the Pakistani national movement. Zhou also explains why China opposed the ban on nuclear test treaty.

January 27, 1965

Record of Premier Zhou and Vice Premier Chen Yi's Third Conversation with Subandrio

Zhou and Subandrio discuss Indonesia's withdrawal from the United Nations, non-alignment, the Soviet Union, and the Second Asian-African Conference.

December 19, 1963

Record of the Third Conversation between Premier Zhou Enlai and President Nasser

Zhou Enlai describes the state of Sino-American relations and Sino-Indian relations. Zhou and Nasser also discuss the Egyptian economy and Sino-Egyptian relations.

December 19, 1965

Record of Conversation from Premier Zhou's Reception of UAR Deputy Prime Minister Aziz Sedky

Zhou Enlai criticises the developmental aid policies and practices of the United States and the Soviet Union. He and Sedky also discuss Chinese aid to Egypt.

April 2, 1965

Record of Conversation between Premier Zhou Enlai and Pakistan's Foreign Minister Bhutto

Zhou and Bhutto discuss the Second Asian-African Conference, as well as the potential for a rapprochement between China and the Philippines.

December 17, 1963

Record of the Second Meeting between Premier Zhou Enlai and President Nasser

Zhou and Nasser discuss developments in and relations with Libya, Tunisia, Israel, Palestine, Morocco, Yemen, and Mauritania, as well as the Non-Aligned Movement and the proposed second Asian-African Conference.

June 15, 1965

Record of Conversation between Premier Zhou Enlai and Chairman Ho Chi Minh

Zhou Enlai and Ho Chi Minh discuss preparations for the second Asian-African Conference and the potential participation of countries such as the Soviet Union, Malaysia, and India.

February 25, 1964

Record of Conversation between Chen Yi and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto

Chen Yi and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto conversation, focusing mainly on the Soviet Union's current foreign policy regarding India. Both Chen Yi and Bhutto criticize the Soviet Union's support for India. Bhutto complains that China and Pakistan are the "only countries that expose India" for their behavior. Both agree that Pakistan and China must work hard together to prevent India -- with its support from the US and Soviet Union -- from strengthening its influence over the Security Council, UN and Afro-Asian politics.

November 18, 1963

Record of Conversation between Zhou Enlai, Chen Yi, and Head of Pakistan’s Delegation Participating in the PRC’s National Day Celebration, Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani

Conversation between Zhou Enlai and Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani, representing Pakistan. The two discuss, at length, their criticisms of United States imperialism, pointing to, among other things, Algeria and French Indochina as examples of imperialism's impending fall. Zhou then explains to Bhashani the importance of holding an Afro Asian Conference before the upcoming Non-Aligned Conference, which Zhou views as an attempt by Nehru and Tito to "destroy the Afro-Asian Conference." Conversation concludes by discussing the Kashmir conflict.

Pagination