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Velio Spano was an important member of the Italian Communist Party, who visited Communist China in the crucial period of Autumn 1949 and wrote the first book in Italian about the Chinese revolution. Often mentioned in works dedicated to the history of Sino-Italian relations, this event has never been thoroughly studied. The recent availability of Spano’s personal archives offer the possibility to better investigate his visit to China and to place it in the complex political environment of that period. This paper is a first attempt to use Spano's personal records about his stay to explore the actual reality of his experience and the implications of his presence in 1949 China.

The Hong Kong Riots and the Sterling Empire Last Stand

The years 1966 and 1967 are crucial for British Crown’s Colony of Hong Kong and for United Kingdom’s economic relation with the People’s Republic of China. Few studies on the subject addressed this reality only partially, whereas a thorough vision remains to be achieved. The 1967 left-wing riots marked a point of no return in UK’s perception of the Hong Kong issue from a political standpoint as the events showed the British the exact measurement of their weakness in the area. But while agreeing that UK’s decolonization strategy might have an earlier start, we have to point out that the years 1966 and 1967 need to be studied as crucial dates, which marks the acquisition of a new consciousness by the Hong Kong financial and industrial milieus: from then on, the economic future of the colony will look towards the Mainland and not anymore towards the United Kingdom, thus acknowledging the strong, though not problem-free, links built over the years by the Hong Kong capitalists with the People’s Republic of China establishment.

Italy’s Communist Party and People’s China (’50s-early ’60s)

In the ’50s and early ’60s the Italian Communist Party (ICP) was one of the main actors involved in informal and unconventional diplomacy between Italy and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). In the absence of diplomatic relations between the two countries, the presence in Italy of the largest Communist party in Western Europe undoubtedly acted as an important channel for unofficial Sino-Italian exchanges. This paper tries to trace the development of ICP-CCP relations focusing in particular on the Italian Communists’ views and analysis of the CCP’s historical experience. It also would like to show that ICP leaders generally viewed the CCP’s revolutionary in a positive way, an evaluation which largely stemmed from the ICP’s own national experience and its search for a more autonomous international role.

Between Economic Interests and Political Constraints

This article deals with the relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and the People’s Republic of China during the early Cold War decades. The traditional historiographical paradigm of the East-West confrontation assumes that any form of cooperation was impossible between the two countries. However, a shift of focus from the political sphere to the economic one reveals how pattern of conduct predating 1949, as well as purely economic reasons, brought actors from both sides to agree on a set of rules for bilateral exchange, and to improve the trade performance despite the highs and lows of the political climate and the bloc allegiance of both countries.

Italy's Attention Turns to China Between the ’50 and the ’60

It is surprising that the very existence and recognition of China had significant repercussions on domestic policy in Italy, which was the country with the strongest Communist party in the West. In the ’50s the Italian official policy was compelled by membership in Atlantic alliance and relations with United States, to refuse economic exchanges with China. According to documents found in “Ministero degli Affari Esteri” and in “Aldo Moro” archives, even in the same years political characters such as the Socialist Pietro Nenni, the Christian Democrats Giovanni Gronchi and Amintore Fanfani worked to favour China-Italy exchanges and economic actors like Dino Gentili and Enrico Mattei organised economic Italian missions to China. Since 1960, thanks to trade relations set up in the ’50s, and to political events (December 1963 the first centre-left government with Aldo Moro president, Pietro Nenni vicepresident and Giuseppe Saragat to foreign affairs, and at the beginning of 1964 the French political recognition of China), the process was accelerated. Thus, in December 1964 the first commercial agreement between Italy and China was concluded and commercial offices were opened in Rome and Beijing. After 1964 the Chinese question entered Italian foreign policy and was included in parliamentary debates and government programmes. The American diplomacy, dominated by the Vietnam war, opposed any initiative to Chinese recognition but Italy anticipated the better reported, more celebrated US recognition.

International political activism in the ’50s

This paper examines the role played by adult-led youth groups in providing avenues for early encounters between Italian and Chinese Communists in the ’50s. In particular, it focuses on the links built up within international organisations linked to the Soviet-sponsored peace movement at a time when direct exchange between the Italian and Chinese Communist parties had yet to start. Relying on a large variety of primary and secondary sources, some of which have never been used before, I provide evidence of how participation in Soviet-led international organisations made early political contacts and interactions possible. The focus is on Bruno Bernini, whose personal experience in China is examined within the context of the World Federation of Democratic Youth’s policies and initiatives in the early and mid-’50s.

The Research on China’s Foreign Policy in the Cold War Period

China was a very important regional power that influenced the fundamental pattern of confrontation and détente between the two blocs. With the emergence of new historical documents and the adoption of new methods, Chinese scholars have conducted a few discussions on China’s foreign policy during the Cold War period since 2001. Their research activity is important for at least three reasons: first, thanks to the analysis of new historical material Chinese scholars have opened up many new research questions; second, it has constantly enlarged the field of analysis focusing on high level external contacts and lower strata grassroots exchange; third, a research team characterised by a reasonable age distribution is being formed in China. Moreover, China has already created two major institutions for scientific research and documentary collection located in the south and the north of the country: the Centre for Cold War International History Studies at East China Normal University and the School of History at Capital Normal University. Certainly, there are still shortcomings in Chinese research on China’s foreign policy during the Cold War and Chinese scholars themselves are attempting to address the problems.

France Facing the People’s Republic of China (1949-1964): a Policy of Economic Relations Under Control

This contribution brings to light a French policy widely subjected to the Indo-Chinese interests, to the multilateral system of control of the exchanges and, more globally, to the American politics. The attitude of the French government is marked with the seal of the opportunism, and by the will to create de facto economic relations with the Chinese, in the biggest possible discretion. The Gaullist decision of January 1964 to create diplomatic relations with the PRC takes place in a phase of intensification of the economic, technical and commercial relations.

Living in Mao’s China

During the Mao era a small number of Europeans lived in the PRC – most of them for two or three years, a few for the whole period. This article focuses on those who, unlike diplomats and a handful of foreign correspondents, worked or studied in Chinese institutions: ‘foreign comrades’ (both long-term residents and sojourners), ‘foreign experts’ and students. The article shows how the everyday lives of these Europeans were strongly influenced both by Mao era’s ‘politics in command’ environment and by PRC policies that utilised them for political and pragmatic purposes while at the same time marginalising them from everyday Chinese life. It also illustrates the divisive impact of Maoist politics on each group. The Cultural Revolution brought a temporary halt to both the foreign expert and student presences in China, as well as being a traumatic period for the foreign comrades.