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This paper reconstructs the ways in which the Hungarian People's Army Performing Arts Ensemble arranged its repertoire to perform socialist Hungary in the autumn of 1956, during the Ensemble's tour in the People's Republic of China. The paper performs a close reading of a single archival document, the program of the Ensemble's début performance before non-European socialist audiences that took place in Shenyang on September 21, 1956. The repertoire featured a simple chronological, quasi-historical overview of musical and dance traditions from Hungary. It offered a vague, highly stylized set of references to Hungary's military traditions. It attempted to realize the triple formula of a new, 'modern, Magyar, European,' art form, and foregrounded a plebian ('peasant-') progressive-patriotic theme with hints of ethnic nationalism. The program provided the absolute minimum of the standard Stalinist fare, resolutely avoided any reference to the USSR or Russia, and, most fascinating, closed with a self-ironical dance piece featuring a powerful allegorical story of socialism with a 'Hungarian face,' something that represented a resolute break with the Stalinist aesthetic canon and reinforced the group's political commitment to a socialism that is 'modern, Magyar and European.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fu Binchang, the last ambassador General Chiang Kai-shek sent to Soviet Russia was stationed in Moscow from 1943 to 1949. During his more than six-year residency in Moscow, Fu recorded the details of his political and operational dealings as a full and active participant of the diplomatic corps on the very doorstep of the Kremlin. This paper analyses Fu's role in the gathering of intelligence and timing of information leaked to the Chinese embassy about the Far Eastern Agreement - a secret agreement concluded by China's Big Three allies at the Crimea Conference of 1945. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses new archival and other documents in analysing the interactions between Chinese domestic politics and international politics and the impacts on Sino-Soviet relations from early 1962 to July 1963. The article proposes a more coherent theoretical approach to the study of the Sino-Soviet split and in particular the role of ideology during the split. This paper concludes that the dynamics of an ideological dilemma were in full play during this period. Mao, the paramount leader in the Chinese political system, intentionally linked his foreign and internal political ideological struggles and, to a large extent, manipulated and escalated Sino-Soviet ideological disputes for his domestic political purposes, namely pushing for his domestic radical programs, asserting his own ideological supremacy, and perhaps most importantly, checking the power and influence of his political rivals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Editors of the journal Cold War History have the pleasure to present this paper as the winner of the Best Paper Award at the last Graduate Conference on the Cold War, jointly organised every year by the University of California, Santa Barbara, the George Washington University, Washington DC, and the London School of Economics and Political Science, London. It is not often that a paper, as was the case with this one, won unanimous endorsement from prominent Cold War scholars from all three institutions, present at the Conference. The last Conference was organised in April 2009, at LSE, in London and the host of the next one to be held on 22-24 April 2010 will be the George Washington University. By continuing with the practice we inaugurated last year, we wish to underline our commitment to promoting and encouraging new and substantive research of the Cold War by young scholars. As the colonial system collapsed quicker than anticipated in the post-Second World War period, the Soviet Union found itself unprepared, and it hurriedly tried to build the institutions necessary to conduct an active foreign, economic and military policy in the newly emerging states. The development of the Sino-Soviet split triggered a Chinese challenge to this Soviet push for influence, with Beijing portraying the USSR as another white, imperialist power that valued relations with the West over the cause of national liberation. Moscow was consequently forced to adapt its policy, particularly by taking a more militant approach, in order to neutralise the Chinese threat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyse the evolution of Sino-Italian relations from the foundation of the PRC to the end of the Cold War, with a special focus on the construction of the official relationship from 1970 to 1992. The article has been divided into three parts: a critical reflection on the historical context that set the ground for the evolution of Sino-Italian relations between the 1950s and the 1970s; an assessment of the historical impact of normalisation; and a reconstruction of the main dynamics in bilateral relations between 1970 and 1992. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 1949 and 1950, three ethnic Korean divisions of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) returned to North Korea. While some historians have cited their return in terms of Chinese and Soviet encouragement for Kim Il Sung's invasion of South Korea, this article argues that this was simply an attempt to enhance North Korea's self-defence capabilities, rather than to invade South Korea. The rationales behind the Soviet and Chinese decisions are analysed here. The Soviet Union's viewpoint will be explained, taking into account the high degree of tension on the Peninsula in early 1949. The Chinese perspective will be examined vis-à-vis the close Sino-Korean relationship, China's domestic economic pressures, and requests by the Korean soldiers themselves. Furthermore, this paper argues that at no time did North Korea dispatch troops to Northeast China in order to help Chinese communists in the Chinese Civil War, showing the limits of both reciprocity and fraternal socialism in the Sino-North Korean relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is clear that any work dealing with the United States and China during the 1960 s and 1970 s must make reference to the Vietnam War, and likewise any work dealing with Chinese involvement in the Vietnam War cannot overlook China's burgeoning relationship with the United States. However, since the release of documents from the Nixon administration and the publication of recent Chinese-language scholarship, there has been no systematic study of the connection between these two political processes. This paper charts the impact of Sino-American rapprochement on Beijing's attitudes towards the Vietnam War, and to what extent it caused China to alter its Vietnam policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using Foreign Ministry Archives and memoirs from China, this article explains the nature and the development of Chinese policy in the Congo Crisis, in particular, Beijing's support of two Lumumbist movements in Kwilu and eastern Congo in 1963–5. While initially loyal to the Soviet Union, China sought to position itself as the leader of the newly independent 'Third World', sympathetic to – and able to provide experience, training and weaponry for – rural guerrilla struggles. However, China's military assistance to opposition movements in Congo had to make sure not to provoke direct conflict with the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1950s and 1960s, the Republic of China on Taiwan (ROC) not only distrusted, but also feared, the People's Republic of China (PRC)'s assertion to be peace-loving. The reason was that the PRC used its peacefulness claim to negotiate whether the ROC or the PRC should represent 'China' in the United Nations, based on a specific definition of 'peacefulness' and on the socialist World Peace Movement as a platform of public diplomacy and international networking. This explains a function of the PRC's peacefulness claim in the Cold War and rewrites the chronology of the PRC's gradual United Nations entry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article, by exploring the complex interaction among domestic politics, foreign policy, and the Cold War in Africa, analyses Kenya's relations with Communist China between 1964 and 1970. As newly independent Kenya sought foreign aid and trade opportunities, the Sino-Soviet competition for influence in the 'Third World' enabled limited bargaining power for the Kenyan nation, commonly perceived as 'weak'. Through an analysis of the factional political struggles within the Kenya African National Union (KANU) as well as Oginga Odinga's overtures to China, this article emphasises the significance of local dynamics and forces in determining the unfolding 'local' Cold War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After obtaining its independence in 1948, Burma established a welfare state and a national economic development plan (Pyidawtha), but foreign aid was required to facilitate the implementation of this plan. The United States and the United Kingdom did not provide the required financial assistance to Burma during the post-war years, even though Burma urgently needed assistance to advance the Pyidawtha plan and was unexpectedly facing a drastic decrease in paddy export income. Following the instability and crisis in socioeconomic reform and development, Burma requested additional assistance from China and other sources. Although Burma faced pressure from the left wing, particularly from the Burmese Communist disturbance, Burma became increasingly interested in cooperating with China. China established a policy giving Burma a Chinese diplomatic exit and provided, along with the Soviet Union, timely economic aid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the Reform and Opening-up in the late 1970s, the second generation of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership, led by Deng Xiaoping, worked towards a breakthrough in the development of strategic nuclear weapons and employment policy. By the middle 1980s, the Chinese military had successfully developed China's first generation of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM), and communication satellites, which provided China with an elementary and limited second-strike capability. These technological advances were complemented by advances in Chinese nuclear strategy as well. Despite retaining the basic principle of no-first-use of nuclear weapons, the Chinese military leaders, such as Deng and General Zhang Aiping, gradually accepted the concept of nuclear deterrence. Meanwhile, they put forward China's own concepts, including 'da gou gun' ('dog-beating stick'), 'huan shou zhi li' ('the power to strike back'), 'xia hu ren' ('bluff'), and 'di you wo you, di yong wo yong' ('we have whatever the enemy has; we use whatever the enemy uses'). All of these new strategic weapons and concepts, which came from the 1980s, have been playing a key role in ensuring that China enjoyed limited nuclear deterrent since the late 1980s. Zhang devoted most of his attention to these achievements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of the introduction of the Chinese reform and opening up policy in 1978, the Beijing leadership paid special attention to the Hungarian experience with its reform of the economic management system. This article argues that although it is hard to identify single measures within the complex system of Chinese economic reforms that can be labelled as Hungarian in their origins, reference to a reform community proved to be an effective tool for Beijing's leaders to emerge from isolation in the socialist bloc, rally international support, and strengthen domestic legitimacy for their reform agendas throughout the 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue of Cold War History looks at Sino-European relations during the Reform and Opening period in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from the late 1970s onwards. In different ways, the PRC’s connections with states in both Eastern and Western Europe helped shape Beijing’s reform policies under Deng Xiaoping, which laid the basis for China’s economic rise. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article argues that the deep political, economic, and social crisis in Poland in 1980–1981 served as a vehicle for China to pursue its political and ideological agenda towards Eastern Europe, which it previously treated as marginal in its economic modernization efforts. The article also shows that while the Polish leadership used China economically to help with its survival, it did not go beyond the constraints laid out by the framework dictated by the Sino-Soviet split. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The argument that the US army’s crossing of the 38th parallel compelled China’s intervention has been widely accepted in the West. However, as the US manoeuvre posed a major threat to the political and ideological foundations of the CCP regime in the early period of the Korean War, Mao Zedong wanted to send troops to assist North Korean’s quick victory. However, this was not realised because of Stalin’s negative position. Mao’s stance shows that his overriding criteria for intervention was not whether US forces would cross the 38th parallel, but whether their dispatch helped to solidify the CCP regime and if the preconditions for victory existed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article provides the historical explanation for Nordpolitik, which built the foundation for Roh Tae-woo's China policy and the end of Cold War in East Asia. It first discusses Roh's China policy with the process for South Korea and China's diplomatic relationship as well as other factors that affected the rapprochement between the two countries in the early 1990s. Then, the article makes a brief evaluation of current South Korean-Chinese relations and policy suggestions for the future development of the relationship between the two countries. Based on newly discovered archival resources and political records in South Korea and China, this article provides a more exact picture of international relations between the two states in the early 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article will explore the evolution of China's border policy through the 1950s and 1960s. Drawing on newly available archival sources and recent secondary literature, it will argue that during the early Cold War, the PRC leadership lacked a clear sense of the concept of national sovereignty, and often attempted to use territorial negotiations with China's neighbours to bargain for broader foreign policy objectives. The article will also examine the historical and political assumptions underlying Mao Zedong's approach to border questions, suggesting that Mao combined longstanding imperial assumptions about universal emperorship with the modern, Marxist idea of a world revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Through a narrative retelling of a little known but incredible journey from Xinjiang to New York City made by a group of ethnic Russians in the mid-twentieth century, this article shows how some of the earliest and most poignant manifestations of the Cold War, including nuclear rivalry and espionage, were made evident in Chinese Central Asia. Wrapped up within an intense competition for resources, information, and influence between the United States, the Soviet Union, and two Chinese regimes, the Russians at the heart of this article reveal how the Cold War was a truly global conflict which was intimately experienced by ordinary peoples and often times in the places most far removed. This episode is furthermore a reminder that even if the Cold War did produce stability at the macro-level, the outcomes of the strategic rivalry and competition between the Soviet Union and the United States were violent and tragic, not necessarily or exclusively for these countries but especially for their allies and accomplices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article attempts to shed additional light on one of the most sensitive aspects of China's Cold War legacy – its support for Pol Pot's Democratic Kampuchea (DK) between April 1975 and January 1979. Drawing on field interviews with former Khmer Rouge cadres and official DK records, it examines how the terms of the Sino-DK entente were understood by the parties and affected Chinese influence on the ground. The evidence shows that despite providing important technical guidance, China developed little influence over high-level Khmer Rouge policies, even when such policies put China's own interests at risk. The Sino-DK relationship illustrates the capacity of weak states to exercise considerable autonomy in asymmetric alliances and some of the dangers of relatively unconditional great power assistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using newly available East German and Chinese sources, this article sheds light on how East Germany actively defied Moscow's objections to expand relations with China in the early 1980s. Amidst increasing East German-Soviet tensions, East German leader Erich Honecker actively sought relations with China not only for reasons of prestige but also to gain a potential market for East German goods. This interest was initially reciprocated on the Chinese side, as Beijing looked towards East Germany as a leading industrial state for potential economic lessons during Deng Xiaoping's Reform and Opening Process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's re-entry into the international community in the 1970s created important opportunities for trade-dependent European states such as the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). At the same time Bonn did not want to risk the gains of Ostpolitik by openly collaborating with the Soviets' arch-enemies in Beijing. The following article argues that while never questioning the priority of détente in Europe, the FRG eventually succeeded in forging close relations with China by focusing on areas of cooperation that were below the radar of Cold War politics, such as small-scale projects of technical assistance, student exchange, and regional cooperation through the German Länder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 1956 crisis in Hungary had a profound impact on China's domestic politics. It played a formative role in the evolution of Chinese policy as top officials critically reviewed the Stalinist experience of governance. Intellectuals and students began to doubt the efficiency of the party's rule, while Mao Zedong rejected meaningful reforms of institutional socialism in favour of ‘soft’ means of conscripting the intellectuals and ‘remoulding’ popular thought. Having opened up the party to criticism from outside, Mao cited the risk of domestic opponents fomenting a Hungarian-style crisis in China in terminating the Hundred Flowers campaign and moving to a programme of ideological purges in the summer of 1957, which paved the way for a massive economic campaign in 1958.1 [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

New discovery of some previously unknown documents from the major Yugoslav/Serbian archives has brought forward some of the long forgotten facts about Yugoslavia's early engagements with certain Asian countries. The leading event among all these was the clandestine recognition of the Republic of China in June 1947 (with the full backing of the USSR), in the light of which special ties with Chinese, Indian, and some Burmese communists were established. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Relying on so far untapped Vietnamese archival sources, this article examines the impact of China's gradual curtailment of its economic assistance to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam's (DRV) war and economic recovery efforts and its implications for Sino-Vietnamese relations between 1972 and 1975. While Beijing's gradual reduction of aid to the DRV during this period was primarily motivated by the declining importance of North Vietnam to China's strategic security combined with the reality of China's domestic economic hardship which largely resulted from the disastrous Cultural Revolution of 1966–69, Hanoi's reactions and policy responses were driven by their deep-rooted perception of Beijing's insincerity and hidden intention to keep Vietnam weak. The Sino-Vietnamese conflict that ensued after 1975 was not inevitable; Hanoi's leaders launched concerted diplomatic efforts to improve economic relations with Beijing throughout 1975 because they clearly recognised the importance of China's continued economic assistance and preferential trade agreements to its first five year plan (1976–80). However, Beijing's unchanged position and hasty decision to totally cut off aid to Vietnam and additionally take punitive economic measures against Vietnam's first five-year plan in late 1975 while at the same time increasing economic and military aid to the Democratic Kampuchea compelled Hanoi to tilt closer towards Moscow. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Zhou Enlai's shuttle diplomacy in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in January 1957 was an important link between Liu Shaoqi's visit to the Soviet Union in October 1956 and Mao Zedong's attendance at the Moscow Conference of World Communist and Workers' Parties in November 1957. Based on recently available Chinese and Eastern European archival sources, this article argues that Zhou's shuttle diplomacy achieved certain degree of success because it helped to consolidate socialist unity and strengthen the socialist bloc after the Polish-Hungarian Crises. For a brief period of time, Beijing became a second parallel 'center of world revolution'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article attempts to resolve the historical controversy over Stalin's attitude and action toward the Chinese Communist Party in early 1949. It specifically deals with the question of whether Stalin had indeed persistently tried to persuade the CCP not to cross the Yangtze River, a move that would have resulted in a divided China. With the aid of newly discovered telegrams sent to Moscow by the Soviet embassy in China, this article reinterprets the telegrams exchanged between Stalin and Mao Zedong in January 1949. On the basis of these, this article proposes a new analysis as to whether or not Stalin actually dissuaded the river-crossing; asserting that Stalin's telegram and the so-called 'coalition government' urged by Anastas Mikoyan in late January 1949, lend strong support for the argument in favour of Stalin's dissuasion of the river-crossing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the height of the Vietnam War, Communist China repeatedly lodged diplomatic protests with the British government about US naval visits to Hong Kong. Believing that the Chinese protests were nothing but propaganda and were as much about the Sino-Soviet split as about Sino-American and Sino-British relations per se, British officials decided that the visits of US servicemen for rest and recreation should continue, albeit within the framework of new Anglo-American guidelines. By examining the British handling of the question of US naval visits, this article reveals the interactions of the four Cold War powers concerned as well as a broader global phenomenon in the mid-1960s - the growth of anti-Americanism. The case of Hong Kong suggests that the 'Vietnam War tourists', who were well disciplined and economically valuable, were not 'ugly Americans' but 'beautiful imperialists'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The attack by several thousand, mostly East Asian, students on the American embassy in the Soviet Union on 4 March 1965 was one of the most violent assaults on a diplomatic mission in the 1960s. It occurred in the wake of the deterioration of Sino-Soviet relations, the US escalation of the Vietnam War, and massive Soviet aid offers to North Vietnam. The attack was very likely organized and supported by the Chinese authorities and designed to damage the international reputation of the Soviet Union while deflecting from Chinese government attempts to limit and obstruct Soviet military aid to North Vietnam. It also set a precedent for the subsequent violence against foreign missions in China during the Cultural Revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Communist China's relationship with the Warsaw Pact Organization (WPO) was dependent on its alliance with the Soviet Union. As the Sino-Soviet pact deteriorated over the late 1950s and early 1960s, Beijing's loose institutional links to the WPO collapsed. In 1955, China committed itself to the aims of the WPO without becoming a full member. Against the background of Mao's domestic radicalization, military and political cooperation between the pact system and the Chinese observer faltered from 1957 to 1961. In an afterlude, the Soviet Union-unsuccessfully-tried to reorient the WPO from Europe to Asia in 1963. Afterwards, China and the WPO did not maintain any formal or informal links. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the heyday of the Cold War, China remained confrontational toward the United States and other Western powers but at the same time seemed conciliatory toward Asian nations. This was largely reflected in Beijing's diplomacy of 'peaceful coexistence' and 'united front' at the Geneva and Bandung conferences. Based on recently declassified archives and material in China and probing into the insights of China's foreign policy calculations in the mid-1950s, this article argues that, through actively participating in multilateral diplomacy, the Chinese leaders expected to construct an image of a 'normal state' and play a leading role in normalizing international politics in Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the history of Sino-American rapprochement under Richard M. Nixon and Mao Zedong in 1969. Foreign policy priorities of the U.S. under President Nixon in 1969; Discussion on the Sino-Soviet border conflict; Implications of the intensified war preparations of China.