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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.

November 10, 1958

Premier Zhou Enlai’s Report on the Current Situation of Conflict and Our Current Tasks in the Taiwan Straits Region

An internal speech given by Zhou Enlai during the 1958 Taiwan Straits Crisis.

November 11, 1958

Premier Zhou’s Report on the Current Situation and Conflict in the Taiwan Region and the Chinese People’s Tasks in the Anti-Imperialist Fight

An internal speech given by Zhou Enlai during the 1958 Taiwan Straits Crisis.

September 28, 1970

Conversation between Comrade Mao Zedong and Other Chinese Leaders with Comrade Abdyl Këllëzi and Other Comrades on 28 September 1970

Mao Zedong and a visiting delegation from Albania discuss the history of the Albanian Party, Albania's relations with Italy, US-China relations, and other developments in Cuba, Brazil, Turkey, and Greece.

October 2, 1963

Conversation of Comrade Mao Zedong with Delegation of the People’s Army of Albania Haded by Comrade Beqir Balluku (2 October 1963)

Beqir Balluku holds a discussion with Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi, and Luo Ruiqing. The Chinese side reviews their country's revolutionary history and many years of struggle against the Kuomintang.

April 14, 1969

Record of Furui-Zhou Enlai Meeting

Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai and Japanese Diet member Furui Yoshimi discuss bilateral relations between China and Japan. Zhou is critical of both the Soviet Union and the United States. The two sides pay particular attention to Japan's relations with Taiwan.

June 21, 1971

Transcript of Conversation between Zhou Enlai and William Attwood

American journalist William Attwood asks Premier Zhou whether the primary obstacle between the U.S. and China is Taiwan, how China plans to reunify with Taiwan, and how China plans to address differences in living standards after reunification. Zhou says that China's stance on the Taiwan issue is that Taiwan belongs to China and the U.S. should not to interfere in China's domestic matters, withdraw its armed forces from the Taiwan straits, and respect China's sovereignty. Zhou believes that living standards will only be improved when Taiwan reunifies with the mainland.

April 14, 1971

[Zhou Enlai's] Conversation with the U.S. Table Tennis Delegation

Zhou Enlai speaks with President of the U.S. Table Tennis Association, Graham Steenhoven, after the 31st annual World Table Tennis Championships. Steenhoven thanks Premier Zhou for inviting the U.S. ping-pong team and U.S. journalists to China. U.S. journalists ask Zhou to comment on the American hippie movement. Steenhoven extends an invitation to the Chinese ping-pong team to visit the U.S.

November 30, 1965

Transcript of Conversation between Zhou Enlai and Jean Chauvel

Premier Zhou and a representative from the French foreign ministry, Jean Chauvel, talk about the Vietnam War. Zhou voices China's support for Vietnamese people's requests for U.S. troops to withdraw from Vietnam and not interfere in Vietnamese internal issues. Zhou says that the U.S. has not comply to Vietnam's request and has on the contrary expanded the war. Chauvel agrees with Zhou that the final decision about the Vietnamese War should be made by Vietnamese people. Chauvel says that the priority should be to stop the current war and calls for a ceasefire to solve the issue. Zhou cites the U.S. expansion of troops and continued involvement in Vietnam as the cause of heightened tension in Vietnam War.

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.

Pagination