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.

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.

Premier Zhou and Prime Minister of Pakistan, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, debrief about the Bandung Conference. They discuss their views regarding international tensions in Asia and the rest of world. Suhrawardy praises Zhou on his attitude during the conference which gave Pakistan more clarity about China's position on international issues. Suhrawardy also says that he felt Zhou's sincerity and enthusiasm in getting along with other countries. Zhou says that he understands why other countries fear China and explains that China's goal at the moment is industrialization, not colonial expansion. Zhou tells Suhrawardy that the current generation of Chinese political leaders will make sure that future generations will not commit war and aggression. Suhrawardy disagrees with Zhou that current generation can control future political leaders decisions. Zhou calls for countries that are skeptical of China to engage with China to see for themselves China's intentions.

This issue begins with an announcement from Mao Zedong to end the state of war between China and Germany. It then features several reports about the Bandung Asian-African Conference in Indonesia, including a statement about the bomb explosion that sought to target Zhou Enlai on the way there. Other sections cover topics such as Sino-Indian relations, the creation of a Third Ministry of Machine Building to oversee developments in aviation, and the establishment of ethnic autonomous areas.

Zhou Enlai and Kawawa discuss the diplomatic competition between Taiwan and the PRC, political conditions in Tanzania and Zanzibar, and plans for the Second Asian-African Conference.

The conversation was about the domestic incidents within Algeria. Zhou expressed China's standpoints on these incidents. Zhou and Bouteflika also discuss the fate of the Second Asian-African Conference.

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

Zhou, Ayub Khan, and Zulfikar Bhutto discuss the Vietnam War, China's relations with the US and the Soviet Union, the Second Asian-African Conference, and the Non-Aligned Movement.

Zhou Enlai and Alhassane Diop discuss prospects a second Asian-African Conference as well as Soviet policy toward the Vietnam War.

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.