scholarly journals Industrial and Chinese: Exhibiting Mao’s China at the Leipzig Trade Fairs

2020 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 845-870
Author(s):  
Jennifer Altehenger
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
People’S Republic Of China ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Economic Significance ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Local Decision ◽  
History Of ◽  
East German

Between 1951 and 1965, the People’s Republic of China regularly exhibited at the international trade fairs in the East German city of Leipzig. One of the major attractions of the fairs, China’s grand pavilion was second in size only to the pavilion of the Soviet Union. This article examines the planning and execution of China’s exhibitions, illustrating how the young communist regime displayed its products and political system abroad and how citizens of other socialist and capitalist countries experienced China through objects, materials, images and narratives. Because the People's Republic of China was a new revolutionary state of enormous political and economic significance and yet also a state that other socialist regimes deemed too poorly developed to transition to socialism, these exhibitions were the site of constant negotiations and tension between Chinese and East German organizers and other local decision-makers and participants. As such, the People's Republic of China’s engagement with the fairs sheds further light on its international activities after 1949 and on the local history of the Sino-Soviet split. It is also a case study that calls attention to the historical significance of materiality that underpinned China’s interactions with the wider world, from minute quotidian things to grand gifts and major export goods.

Recruiting Agents in Industry and Trade—Lifting the Veil on Early People's Republic of China Operational Work

2011 ◽  
Vol 46 (5) ◽  
pp. 1345-1369 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHAEL SCHOENHALS
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
People’S Republic Of China ◽  
Public Security ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Operational Activities ◽  
The Veil ◽  
Economic Espionage

AbstractThis paper is concerned with the operational activities of the public security organs of the People's Republic of China during the immediate post-1949 period of regime consolidation. The main part of the paper is a case-study of a 1950 pilot scheme to recruit agents in critical sectors of industry and trade in the city of Yingkou in Northeast China, a scheme in due course subsumed under a nationwide programme with a similar focus. In the years to follow, the operational recruitment of agents would become one of China's arguably most important operational responses to the twin Cold War threats of economic espionage and—above all—sabotage. This paper's findings suggest, with respect to operational activities, that in order to represent and explain more fully, in Leopold von Ranke's words, ‘how things really were’, social and political historians may well want to shift their focus away from successive highly public Maoist ‘mass movements’ and look instead to what transpired out of the public eye in the interregnum of ordinary times that such movements punctuated. If and when they do, they will discover significant yet hitherto largely unexplored similarities between the work of the early People's Republic of China public security organs and their counterparts in the Soviet Union and other (former) socialist states.

The Maturing of Soviet-Chinese Relations

1985 ◽  
Vol 481 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
YAN MEI
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Principal Axis ◽  
People’S Republic Of China ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
Soviet Policy ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Ideological Differences ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The U.S

It is argued that Soviet policy toward the People's Republic of China since 1960 has been reactive to Chinese initiatives. Both Chinese and Soviet policies are analyzed in the context of the maturation of the Sino-Soviet relationship. The U.S.-Soviet relationship is seen to be the principal axis of conflict within this triangle. China and the Soviet Union now exhibit an increasing realism and tolerance toward each other, with an attempt to minimize their ideological differences and former suspicions. Both countries are committed to normalizing the relationship.

“Playing a Game,” Finding a “Lever”

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Moss
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Nixon Administration ◽  
People’S Republic Of China ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Ping Pong

The Sino-Soviet conflict, which first surfaced in the late 1950s and degenerated into armed border clashes in 1969, proved to be the main catalyst for Sino-American rapprochement. The China question almost immediately entered into the dialogue of the Kissinger-Dobrynin channel. Publicly, the Nixon administration said it would pursue relationships with both the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. Privately, Nixon and Kissinger hoped to play the Soviets and the Chinese off each other—the concept of triangular diplomacy. Triangular diplomacy had less to do with the concrete and crude move of playing the powers off each other than it did with trying to influence the perceptions and emotions of Communist leaders. The documentary record suggests that it was only after Sino-American rapprochement had been set in motion in April-May 1971, with the Chinese Ping Pong diplomacy and the secret traffic through the Pakistani channel, that U.S. policymakers began to talk of playing the Communist powers off one another for American advantage.

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