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China and Asia
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2009
Extract
The foreign policy of Communist China was born in the loess caves of Yenan during the period 1935–45. For the first time after years of fighting, the Communists had leisure for reflection. Their government began to be a magnet for the younger members of the intelligentsia who repudiated the Kuomintang because the Kuomintang had proved unable to defend China's national interests; they were willing to try Communism as the cure for Imperialism. Already the Communist leaders were confident that in the long run they would come to power. In Yenan, in lectures and seminars, they built up concepts and the world picture which, with surprisingly little modification, have governed their foreign policy ever since.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © The China Quarterly 1960
References
1 This formative first period of the Communist régime was described vividly by the first American journalist who made contact with the Communists, Edgar Snow. He is not an academic, and his books are sometimes treated too lightly as impressionistic sketches by a newspaperman. They will remain one of the indispensable documents for the history of that time.
2 Their going was watched and commented on by an historian of contemporary Asia, the Indian diplomat, Sardar K. M. Panikkar. In the preface to his book, Asia and Western Dominance, he says that he saw in the departure of the American warships from Shanghai the end of the period of the harrying of Asia by sea which had begun with the voyage of Vasco da Gama in 1498.
3 A dual nationality treaty dealing with the status of Chinese in Indonesia was signed by Chou during the course of the conference.
4 The Chinese Premier rejected the idea that the Thai autonomous area in Yunnan province had been established with ulterior motives and compared it with the Shan states in Burma. He invited the Thai Government to send a delegation to see for themselves.
5 These were (1) Mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty; (2) non-aggression; (3) non-interference in each other's internal affairs; (4) equality and mutual benefit; (5) peaceful coexistence and economic co-operation. These principles were written into the Sino-Indian treaty on Tibet, concluded in April 1954.