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.

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.

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.

Chen Yi briefs diplomats from the Soviet Union and elsewhere in Eastern Europe on the overseas Chinese crisis in Indonesia.

Soviet record of conversation between delegations from the Communist Parties of the Soviet Union and China. They argue over China's policy toward India and toward Taiwan, and assert that China is pursuing a path that will hurt its Communist allies and risk war. Also notes the extent of Mao's personality cult in China.

Chen Yi, Zhou Enlai, Pak Seong-cheol, and Ri Ju-yeon have a detailed conversation about the situations in Indonesia, Algeria, Uganda, Mali, Guinea, and members of the Third World.

Four Chinese marshals examine recent Sino-American-Soviet relations. They recommend that China remains firm in negotiating with the two powers, both of which may be looking to strategically exploit China.

Four Chinese Marshals examine Sino-American-Soviet relations and analyze the possibility of an upcoming war. They assert that China must continue to develop as a strong proletarian country and an active player in the international arena, allying itself with neither the Americans nor the Soviets.

An extensive report from the Chinese Foreign Ministry on the Soviet Union's policies vis-a-vis the Sino-Indian Border War.

Martin, the Hungarian ambassador to China, is involved with several conversations with Chinese officials before returning to Hungary, and the three highlighted conversations are with Zhu De, Chen Yi, and Zhou Enlai. Among other international issues, Zhu De discusses imperial attempts to restore capitalism in socialist countries and references “revisionism” in Hungary, to which Martin responds defensively. Chen Yi discusses Chinese industrial and economic development. Zhou Enlai discusses recent Chinese struggles, and interprets Martin’s reaction as distrust.