The transformation of foreign policy of People’s Republic of China in 1949–1976

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (04-1) ◽  
pp. 122-133
Author(s):  
Ilya Kolesnikov ◽  
Konstantin Kasparyan ◽  
Elena Malyshkina ◽  
Jordan Gjorchev

The article is devoted to the comprehension of changes in foreign policy of Communist China during Mao Zedong's rule - in late 1940s - mid 1970s. The authors investigate the causes and consequences of fundamental changes in the Chinese foreign policy doctrine, taking into account the whole range of objective and subjective factors that led to the deterioration of the Soviet-Chinese relations and the beginning of rapprochement between China and the USA.

Author(s):  
Anatoliy V. Goncharenko ◽  
Lybov G. Polyakova

The article researches the US foreign policy towards the PRC during Gerald Ford presidency in 1974-1977. It describes the reasons, course and consequences of the intensification of the US foreign policy strategy in the Chinese direction during the investigated period. There was explored the practical realization of the “Pacific Doctrine”by Washington. The role of various groups in the American establishment in the question of the formation of the Chinese White House policy has been analyzed. The specific foreign policy actions of the administration of the US president Gerald Fordon the PRC in 1974-1977 are analyzed. The chief results of the foreign policy of the administration of the President of the United States Gerald Ford (1974-1977) concerning the PRC, which resulted from the real political steps taken by the leaders of both countries, was the establishment of systematic and reliable channels of bilateral ties, expansion of economic, scientific and cultural contacts, the beginning of a systematic exchange of views on the most important issues of international relations. In the second half of the 70’s of the twentieth century this dialogue ensured the continuity of China’s policy in Washington, which was based on the concept of a “balance of power”, while China played a complementary role in the foreign policy strategy of the White House. These factors formed the “Pacific Doctrine” of G. Ford, which gave Beijing the status of an American partner in maintaining a balance of power in the Asia-Pacific region and consolidated a positive assessment of the place and role of the People’s Republic of China in Asian politics in the United States of America. The return of American political thought to the ideas of the combination policy occurred in the formation of US-Soviet strategic parity and awareness of the ruling circles in the United States, due to the defeat in Vietnam, the limited resources of force influence on the international situation. Started in the United States the study of China’s behavior in the international arena and its power parameters made it possible then to draw a preliminary conclusion that the People’s Republic of China can fill the place of the missing link in the “triangle” of the global scheme – a place of counterweight to the USSR; this required the removal of a US-Chinese confrontation. However, the socio-political and ideological contradictions that were pushed to the foreground on the initial stage of the Chinese policy of the administration of G. Ford and the process of normalization of bilateral relations, again made themselves felt at a later stage. Their injection was promoted by the logic of the development of bilateral US-China relations, as well as by a number of internal objective and subjective reasons, as in the People’s Republic of China (a sharp increase in the struggle for power connected with the illness and death of Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong), and in the United States (Gerald Ford made certain curtseys towards the American right-wing conservative forces and began to intensify approaches to Beijing and Moscow, and also the presidential campaign of 1976). Keywords: the USA, PRC, China, foreign policy, American-Chinese relations, “Pacific Doctrine”, Gerald Ford, Henry Kissinger , Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping.


1974 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 299-330 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel S. Kim

After having suffered from the self-inflicted wounds of internal convulsions and diplomatic isolation during the Cultural Revolution, the People's Republic of China (PRC) has returned to the world diplomatic scene with a new, vigorous, and imaginative foreign policy. To appreciate its dimensions fully, one must recall that China's foreign policy was left largely unprotected from the disruptive spillovers of the domestic quarrels during the Cultural Revolution. The Red Guards not only sacked the British chancery in Peking, but also seized their own Ministry of Foreign Affairs in August 1967. By November 1967, forty-four out of forty-five ambassadors were called home for “rectification,” leaving the durable Huang Hua in Cairo as the PRC's sole representative abroad. China's trade also suffered; by the end of September 1967, Peking had been involved in disputes of varying intensity with some thirty-two nations. However, the transition from revolutionary turmoil to pragmatic reconstruction came through a series of decisions made by Mao Tse-tung and his close advisors beginning in late July 1968 and culminating at the First Plenum of the Ninth Party Congress held in April 1969, ushering in a new era in Chinese foreign policy. toward the United Nations may be characterized as one of “love me or leave me, but don't leave me alone,” evolving through the stages of naive optimism, frustration, disenchantment, anger, and lingering envy and hope, the PRC's support of the principles of the United Nations Charter had remained largely unaffected from 1945 to 1964. However, the Indonesian withdrawal on January 7, 1965, triggered off a process of negative polemics against the United Nations. Indeed, Peking's bill of complaints against the United Nations was broad and sweeping: that blind faith in the United Nations had to be stopped because the organization was by no means sacred and inviolable; that by committing sins of commission and omission, the United Nations had become an adjunct of the U.S. State Department; that the United Nations had become a channel for United States economic and cultural penetration into Asian, African, and Latin American countries; and that the United Nations in the final analysis was a paper tiger.


1978 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-49
Author(s):  
William Minter

Mozambique “switched from a pro-Chinese to a pro-Soviet stance during the Angolan civil war,” writes a commentator in the influential U.S. quarterly Foreign Policy of Fall 1977. “Mozambique said to Cool on Soviets, Turn West,” headlines a Washington Post dispatch of December 15, 1977. The Economist’s Foreign Report claims in its advertising to have been the first to describe the ideological infighting within FRELIMO and the swing to Russia. The commentators seemed to have missed Mozambique’s 1977 trade fair in September, at which the People’s Republic of China won first prize for an exhibit corresponding to Mozambique’s needs, but if they had been there one might well have seen headlines proclaiming Mozambique’s shift back to China.


2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 173-188
Author(s):  
Lloyd Andrew Brown

On 1 January 2019, following a presidential order confirming its adoption by the Fifth Session of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Soil Pollution and Control 2019 (SPC) was introduced into law. Succinctly, the SPC was enacted to deal with the vast amount of soil pollution that currently exists in China. This article’s central thesis is that, following a comparative analysis of the regulatory regimes in the USA and UK, the law creates environment-related risks for lenders. In particular, the article is concerned with the risk of lender liability, that is, where the lender itself is made directly liable for the costs of soil pollution remediation. In light of the USA and UK regimes, risk management advice is provided for obviating any prospective lender liability that may be forthcoming from the SPC. As with the regulations in other countries, it appears that the degree of ‘control’ that lenders exercise over their clients must be limited to mitigate the possible transference of any direct liability under the PRC’s principles of property rights law.


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