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.

This issue first discusses the problem of the Suez Canal in Egypt. It also addresses Sino-Nepalese relations, the establishment of Sino-Yemeni relations, and whether the Sino-American ambassadorial talks should consider the US-China trade embargo. Other sections cover domestic topics such as disaster relief and student dropouts.

This issue begins with a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about American efforts to delay and obstruct the Sino-U.S. ambassadorial talks. It also announces and discusses a Sino-Lebanese trade agreement. Other sections cover the organization of local People's Committees, the socialist transformation of rural private businesses, wholesale and retail improvements for department stores, and the transfer of six "natural villages" (自然屯) from Hebei Province to Liaoning.

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.

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.

Zhou and Enlai and Ali Sabry discuss developments in Algeria, prospects for the Second Asian-African Conference, Egypt's tenuous food situation and trade relations with countries such as Argentina, Canada, and the US, and the latest news from Vietnam.

Zhou and Nasser discuss developments in Algeria, the Second Asian-African Conference, oil in the Middle East, US foreign policy, and the economic situation in Egypt.

Ben Bella and Zhou Enlai discuss a range of issues, including the Vietnam War, the Sino-Soviet split, the Second Asian-African Conference, China's status at the UN, Algerian foreign policy, and developments in the Congo and elsewhere in Africa.

Ji Denggui and Ilie Verdeț discuss bilateral relations between China and Romania, nuclear proliferation and diarmament, Soviet-American relations, Comecon, European security, US policy toward Taiwan, Japan-Soviet relations, and economic development in China and Romania, among other topics.

Minutes of a meeting, on April 20, 1961, between Algerian representatives, Boussouf, Benaouda, and Belhocine, and a Chinese ambassador. In the meeting, which was called to discuss issues regarding weapons supplies from the Chinese, both sides discuss ensuing negotiations between Algeria and France. Also mentioned is Algeria's meeting with a United States ambassador, and the United States desire for compromise between Algeria and France.