Skip to content

Results:

1 - 6 of 6

Documents

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.

April 3, 1964

Cable from the Chinese Foreign Ministry, 'Reporting the Contents of Premier Zhou's Talks with the Ambassadors of Arab Countries in China'

Zhou discusses China's relationships across the Middle East, including PRC policy toward Israel. He also reviews the proposed nuclear-weapons-free-zones in Africa and Latin America, as well as developments concerning the Non-Aligned Movement and the Second Asian-African Conference.

March 30, 1965

Cable from the Chinese Delegation in Algeria to the Foreign Ministry, 'Main Points of Conversation with Ben Bella '

Ben Bella shares his views on the revolutionary situation in Africa, particularly developments in the Congo.

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.

May 13, 1969

Telegram from Romanian Ambassador in Beijing Aurel Duma to Foreign Minister Corneliu Manescu Regarding Conversations with Representatives of Chinese Ministries of Trade, Foreign Affairs, and Defense

Telegram from Romanian Ambassador to China, Duma, to Romanian Foreign Minister, Manescu, focusing on Duma's talks with China's Deputy Foreign Minister, Guanhua. Guanhua sees the USSR's building of relations with Mongolia and the DPRK as an attempt to encircle China. He also believes that American and Soviet aid are what is keeping anti-Chinese propaganda in circulation in India, although the Kashmir issue means there is no need to fear an Indo-Pakistani alliance. Additionally, he notes the anti-Chinese sentiment apparent in the European socialist bloc countries, and asserts that, although it wishes no harm to the Israeli people, China does not recognize Israel as a legitimate state.