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After the collapse of the Kouminating in the civil war following Japan's surrender to the US in 1945, the People's Republic of China emerged, with Mao Zedong as its leader. Although they were in many ways anti-traditionalist, Mao Zedong and his CCP were, nonetheless, notably influenced by China's long history and classical traditions. Mao appeared to be a staunch anti-Confucian, however, finding his most obvious ancient analogies instead in the totalitarian traditions of Legalist philosophy and the Machiavellian bingjia literature of statecraft. With its curious mix of Marxist-derived class analysis and virtue-centric Sinic moralism in dialectical materialist clothing, Maoism was both nationalist and internationalist. Perhaps the most remarkable development of the post-1949 period was China's initial acceptance of a relationship of subservience to the Soviet Union. Apparently, this was simply a decision of expediency, rooted in Mao's understanding of the fact that a weak and battered China needed assistance to restore its vigor and global stature. However, their relationship would be strained by the growing Chinese discomfort with its subservient role and the Soviet's distrust of Mao. When the Sino-Soviet alliance finally ended, Chinese Communist officials began a highly organized effort to promote the People's Republic of China as the moral and political center of the dawning socialist universe. Using aggressive diplomacy aided by large-scale propaganda and an influencial campaign, China competed with the Soviets for the hearts and minds of revolutionary movements and postcolonial governments around the world, especially in the developing countries of Asia. The CCP began to foster a relationship with the Third World that could be characterized by a sort of tribute system psychology.

Aside from being an important tool in the CCP's efforts to reunite and develop China, antiforeign sentiment also was an essential component of the party's political personality. The CCP came into power with a self-image as one with the struggle of China's people throughout history to defend their land from foreign invaders. The antiforeign themes during the Communist era seemed to have clear connections to long-standing assumptions about moral and civilizational gradients and the general depravity of barbarian societies remote from the Sinic culture core. In relating to foreigners, the CCP developed the waishi system, which implied “diplomacy with Chinese characteristics.” While the waishi system was revised in the 1990s to stress open economic relations and promoting interactions with foreigners in the interest of development, its focus on cultivating a sense of the foreigner as a fundamentally different and at least potentially threatening Other with whom one must deal warily remains unchanged through the years. In dealing with superpowers, Communist ideologists focused on the fundamental difference between China's disinterestedly virtuous motivations and those of the superpowers struggling for world hegemony. Under such terms, China could never regard itself as a superpower because its motivations were axiomatically noble and in no way self-interested. Nevertheless, China over time has began to show increasing reengagement in regular diplomatic relations, paying more attention to developing an actual foreign policy, particularly its relationship with the former Soviet Union and the US, especially at the end of the Cold War.

This chapter examines two intrawar deterrence failures in Korea in late summer and fall 1950, both of which were related to alliance politics. It shows that lack of coordination and mistrust in the communist camp rendered the alliance incapable of sending clear and timely signals of resolve to the United States that might have deterred the Americans from crossing the 38th parallel in the crucial three weeks following Douglas MacArthur's successful Inchon landing. This same lack of coordination undercut communist efforts at coercive diplomacy. U.S. policies in the early weeks of the Korean War had a powerful impact on strategic thinking in the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China about the long-term implications of the military defeat of the North Korean communist regime and the unification of the Korean peninsula under a government friendly to the United States.

This is the first of three chapters that analyse the connections between legitimacy and power, and seek to demonstrate the erosion of international and domestic support for America’s China policy. It presents an analysis of the evolution of the American position on the representation of China at the UN. This started as a determination to exclude the People’s Republic of China (PRC) when it was first proclaimed as an independent state in 1949, in favour of retaining the pro-American Republic of China (Taiwan). The period from 1951 to 1960 was one when the US managed to block debate on the question of PRC representation; after this, until 1971, the UN gradually enlarged and US interests became less guarded, so that in 1971 the PRC was finally admitted to the UN. The different sections of the chapter examine, in turn, the PRC’s objectives in becoming a member of the UN, the American attitude to the PRC and the impact on this of the Korean war, and shifts in international attitudes to the US position on the PRC. The final section discusses the impact of China’s entry to the UN on America, and notes that while Washington’s PRC exclusion policy had first led the US to suffer serious erosion of its international legitimacy, that erosion did cease, and the presence of the PRC in the UN began to bolster certain American interests.

This chapter examines how, in the post-Cold War era, the United States' alignment with Taiwan and alliance with Japan again have figured prominently among issues affecting U.S.-China security relations. While they are far from being allies, the United States and the People's Republic of China (PRC) are not enemies either, but rather major economic partners who have also cooperated to some degree in addressing an increasing range of international problems. But there are still security tensions between the two sides over issues such as relations across the Taiwan Strait, and both nations practice coercive diplomacy toward the other, sometimes tacitly, sometimes less so. The chapter considers how the legacies of these Cold War alliances—particularly the U.S.–Taiwan relationship and the U.S.–Japan security treaty—have affected U.S.–China relations since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

This chapter examines how Sino-Soviet tensions served the United States' regional and global interests and facilitated rapprochement between Washington and Beijing during the period 1964–1972. The competition between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China for the loyalties of the Vietnamese communists would begin in earnest following U.S. escalation in the Vietnam War from late 1964 to early 1965. Ho Chi Minh was able to exploit Chinese and Soviet jealousies of one another to gain maximum support for his revolutionary goals in South Vietnam. From 1965 until early 1968 the rivalry between Beijing and Moscow also served to scuttle multiple Soviet-inspired proposals for peace talks between the Vietnamese communists and the United States. The chapter shows how the intensifying disillusionment and competition between the Soviets and the Chinese rendered the containment of communism through coercive diplomacy more difficult for the United States, particularly in Indochina.

This chapter focuses on a decade dominated by war. Britain's war with Germany in September 1939 overshadowed China's continuing struggle with Japan, and this was not reversed when Britain entered the war in the Far East in December 1941. Meanwhile, the politics of the left in Britain were complicated by the Nazi-Soviet Pact until June 1941. After 1941 the British left contributed to a broad, humanitarian fundraising campaign in support of China (the British United Aid for China Fund). After 1945 the left did not regain interest in China until the Chinese Communists had gained the upper hand in the latter stages of the Civil War with the ruling KMT. The CCC supported the Chinese Communists, but with some reservations, and a new solidarity organisation was created in 1949 to foster relations with the new People's Republic of China (PRC).

This chapter examines the Sino-Soviet split and its implications for the United States' policies in Asia, Europe, and the Americas during the period 1956–1964. Coordination and comity in the communist camp peaked between 1953 and 1957, but alliance between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China (PRC) was relatively short-lived. This was caused by ideological differences, distrust, and jealous rivalries for international leadership between Nikita Khrushchev and Mao Zedong. The chapter explains what caused the strain in Sino-Soviet relations, and especially the collapse of Sino-Soviet military and economic cooperation. It also considers the effects of the Sino-Soviet disputes on third-party communists in Asia, China's foreign policy activism, and the catalytic effect of the Sino-Soviet split on Soviet foreign policy.

This chapter discusses China's condition after the Japanese invasion, after the civil war between the Nationalists and Communists, and after the establishment of the People's Republic of China. In this chapter, the account of the so-called emerging New China is told and narrated through the visit of Stanley Kwan to his native homeland. Embarking on a journey back to his homeland, Kwan saw a stark contrast between the People's Republic of China and the British colony of Hong Kong. While Hong Kong's economic conditions improved after the war, the so-called New China was in stagnation, frozen in time even after the efforts to revive the economic conditions of China. While China had began to forge friendships with other countries, particularly with the U.S. who was in good relations with the government of Taiwan (the ousted China's government), China had on a few occasions struggled to fight the diminished yet still proliferating Cultural Revolution. When the Cultural Revolution was finally contained, China began to pave its path as one of the leading manufacturing places in the world. With Britain's lease about to expire and with the increasing ties of Hong Kong to mainland China, many of the businesses in Hong Kong started to return to their mainland roots. Combining the economic development of China and the China-Britain initiated talks that would return Hong Kong to its motherland, several businesses moved to China. This posed a great problem for the Hang Seng Bank. With its affiliation with the Americans and British and with its “keep China at a distance” policy, Hang Seng was caught in a tug of war; between its relations with foreigners and with its need to forge relations with the now developing China. Despite an uneasy situation between Britain and China, Hang Seng celebrated its Golden Jubilee in 1983.

This chapter examines the mixed blessing of enhanced communist coordination during the mid-1950s. During this period, a relatively well-coordinated and organized communist alliance allowed for more moderation and clearer signaling during the negotiations that ended fighting in the Korean War and the conflict in Indochina. The chapter considers the United States' formation of regional alliances and how the Taiwan Strait crisis erupted in 1954. It shows how a relatively unified allied position on Southeast Asia in the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China (PRC) served as a restraint on the most aggressive members of the alliance, the local communists involved in civil wars: Kim Il-sung and Ho Chi Minh. Aside from Beijing's nationalistic reaction in the Taiwan Strait, Chinese foreign policy would be relatively moderate in the middle 1950s and fully in tune with Soviet designs for a breathing spell in the Cold War.

This is the last of four chapters focusing on America’s perceptions of China’s capabilities, and dwelling on the correspondence between those perceptions and the projected consequences. It focuses on US perceptions of the political economy of China from the 1950s to 1978 and its perceived consequences for China’s capabilities both internally and as a political and economic model for other developing countries. Although the decline in Beijing’s hard and soft power resources did not follow a linear trajectory, the apparent overall weaknesses of its economy eased America’s fears about the Third World impact of its politico-economic model, and also reduced concerns that any contact between Washington and Beijing would raise the prestige of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to the point where its path to development would be revived as a serious source of inspiration in large parts of the developing world. The chapter dwells primarily on China’s perceived soft power attributes. The different sections look at domestic order and advancement in China in the 1950s, the Chinese model under stress from 1959 to 1965, the impact of the early Cultural Revolution in the second half of the 1960s, and restabilization and re-emergence in 1969–78.

Chapter Three discusses the ways in which the communist takeover of the Chinese mainland and China’s involvement in the Korean War shaped Chinese American politics between 1949 and 1951. Leaders of the American KMT sought alternatives to Chiang Kai-shek, while American members of the anti-communist and anti-Nationalist Third Force continued their quest to shape American policy towards China. While the Korean War eventually unified the American KMT, it hardly silenced Chiang Kai-shek’s critics in New York and San Francisco.

Chapter Four explores the rapidly diverging politics of Chinese American New York and San Francisco in the early and mid-1950s. In New York, KMT activists and officials infiltrated almost every Chinese American organization, but their factionalism and disregard for community welfare frustrated many residents. In San Francisco during the same period, Chinese Americans increasingly focused on American domestic politics, which not only proved safer than Chinese politics but also touched their lives more directly. Growing numbers registered to vote, and a group of younger men and women participated in the liberal Democratic club movement, forging valuable ties to regional politicians.

This chapter explores what the new world order would be with the People’s Republic of China at the top of the hierarchy. However, conceptualizing what the world would look like with China in charge isn’t something Party members often think of; clearly, the old model of states subject to a tribute system would not be implemented, but the Party would still demand deference to China. There would be harmony and a strict hierarchy of social order, and China would have greater media control over foreign reporting on China.

Beginning with an account of the accelerated expansion of the penal reformation and thought reform systems under Kuomintang and Communist authorities amid the late 1940s civil war, this chapter argues that the Communist version that became a core instrument in their process of revolutionary advance, conquest and transformation of society was an ultimate extension of the wartime mode of the system. It also presents a dynamic sense of the culminating moment when the thought reform regime proliferated across China as an integral mechanism critical to the disciplining of a rapidly expanding party and military apparatus, a mushrooming prison labor camp system, and campaigns of revolutionary social-political transformation in the early 1950s. Much of the Communist system of thought reform resembled its predecessors and revealed its debts to the foundations laid in the previous decades. Yet it also featured certain distinctive modes and methods unlike those of its predecessors not just in its vast scale, but also in the experience of its disciplinary process. The Communist thought reform regime regularly inverted a disciplinary mode long designed and still often pursued in highly moralistic terms into forms requiring an amoral commitment to absolute loyalty.

A decade before official 'ping pong diplomacy', leaders in the People's Republic of China (PRC) used sports delegation visits to cultivate diplomatic relations with recently decolonized nations. In the early 1960s, the Sino-Soviet split, the rise of various Afro-Asian movements, and decolonization in Africa led to intense Sino-Soviet competition for socialist influence in the Third World. Officially presented to the Chinese public as “friendly” sports exchanges, PRC leaders sought to expand their influence and prove that Chinese socialism under Mao as an alternative (and superior) model to that of the Soviet Union. The chapter, based primarily on declassified official reports from Chinese archives, begins with the first major PRC sports delegation sent to Africa in 1962, a contingent of well-known ping pong athletes. The visit helped Chinese leaders gather knowledge on new allies, officially express shared historical and political solidarities against colonialism and imperialism, and, through sport, demonstrate China's achievements through socialism. These visits sought to build diplomatic ties while promoting and shoring up support - foreign as well as domestic - for a Chinese brand of socialism that professed an alternative, non-Soviet path to socialist modernity.

This chapter examines how the Chinese communists dealt with the booksellers' old problem—piracy—from a socialist perspective as a revolutionary party-state. It explores how Chinese publishers and authors, as seasoned economic actors, adjusted to and coped with the new regime and its reshaping of literary property. Rather than provide a comprehensive study of the development of copyright legislation in the People's Republic of China, the chapter focuses on the decline of the old customary copyright mechanisms and the rise of a new socialist literary system, against the background of the profound structural changes in China's cultural economy in the 1950s. It also discusses the new remuneration system that emerged during the First Five-Year Plan from 1953 to 1957, which aimed to provide Chinese authors with better and fairer treatment. Moreover, it considers the unintended consequences and challenges the communist state faced when they tried to turn authors into workers in the collective planned economy.