Abstract
In his book The World and China, 1922–72, published in the early 1970s, John Gittings claimed that ‘how the Chinese have managed to extricate themselves from their isolation in the early 1960s to attain a central position in world affairs must be counted the diplomatic success story of the century’.1 By making this claim, Gittings actually asked, rather than answered, two questions which he must have also marvelled at. First, how could China, a recent pariah in international society, become so significant a player in world politics in such a short time? And second, what was the successful diplomacy that helped the Chinese achieve this? If so, Gittings has asked the right question in the first instance, but misdirected his question in the second. The reason for this is simple. Whatever success story the Chinese diplomacy was, China’s changing role and position in international society were determined not only by the diplomacy of the People’s Republic of China. They were also predicated on changes in the international system and on interactions between Chinese diplomatic initiatives and responses to them from other members of international society. In other words, the dramatic ‘ascendancy’ of China in world politics cannot simply be attributed to the success of Chinese diplomacy.
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Notes
J. Gittings, The World and China, 1922–1972, p. 260.
R. Nixon, US Foreign Policy for the 1970s, p. 2.
B. Tuchman, ‘If Mao Had Come to Washington: An Essay in Alternatives’, Foreign Affairs, 51, 1 (Oct. 1972) 44–64.
S. Goldstein, ‘Sino-American Relations, 1948–1950: Lost Chance or No Chance?’ in Harding and Yuan (eds), Sino-American Relations, pp. 119–42.
See Xue Mouhong et al, Dangdai Zhongguo Waijiao. In this most recent publication of the official history of China’s diplomacy from 1949 to 1986, it is forcefully stated that ‘It is the possibility of an armed intervention in the Chinese Revolution by the imperialist powers that dictated the necessity [for the PRC] to unite with other socialist countries’ (p. 4).
R. Nixon, ‘Asia after Vietnam’, Foreign Affairs, 46, 1 (1967), 121.
Nixon, US Foreign Policy for the 1970s, p. 2.
Quoted in L. Bloomfield, ‘China, the United States and the United Nations’, International Organisation, XX, 4 (1966), 654.
Pollack, ‘The Opening to America’, in Cambridge History of China, vol. 15, p. 402.
Renmin Ribao, 27 Sept. 1979.
New York Times, 31, Oct. 1971.
M. Witunski, ‘Epilogue’, in G. T. Hsiao, (ed.), Sino-American Détente and Its Policy Implications, p. 272.
See Chen Dunde, Mao Zedong he Nikesong zai 1972, pp. 258–61. See also H. Jacobson and M. Oksenberg, China’s Participation in the IMF, the world Bank and GATT, p. 61.
J. D. B. Miller, ‘The Third World’, in Miller and Vincent (eds.), Order and Violence, p. 81.
China established full diplomatic relations with Spain on 9 March 1973.
Miller, ‘The Third World’, Order and Violence, p. 81.
Han Nianlong (ed.), Diplomacy of Contemporary China, p. 283.
C. Mackerras, Modern China — A Chronology from 1842 to the Present, p. 565.
Shi Lin et al, Dangdai Zhongguo de Duiwai Jingji Hezuo (China Today: Economic Cooperation with Foreign Countries), pp. 55–7. Before 1971, 30 countries had received China’s aid. For China’s aid to Africa from 1976 to 1966, see Larkin, China and Africa, pp. 93–103.
The phrase from Jonathan Pollack. For a short and interesting discussion of personalities in Sino-American relations, see Pollack, ‘The Opening to Amereica’, in Cambridge History of China, vol. 15, pp. 404–7.
From 1970 to 1976, Mao had come out more than 50 times to receive visiting foreign heads of state and government. He was also frequently seen on TV meeting with other visiting foreign dignitaries.
See Mackerras, Modern China, p. 576.
The foreign dignitaries received by Mao in the five months before 15 May 1976 include Mr and Mrs David Eisenhower (31 Dec. 1975), Mr and Mrs Richard Nixon (Feb.), Laotian Party and government leaders and the Vice-President of Egypt (April), and the Prime Ministers of New Zealand, Singapore and Pakistan (May). See Yearbook on International Communist Affairs, 1977, p. 278.
The speech was made at the Sixth Special Session of the UN General Assembly on the problems of raw materials and development. In fact it is in this speech that Deng first expounded Mao’s theory of the three worlds. For the full text of Deng’s speech, see Peking Review, Supplement, 15 (1974).
See Xue Mouhong et al, Dangdai Zhongguo Waijiao, pp. 330–1; and Shi Lin et al, Dangdai Zhongguo de Duiwai Jingji Hezuo, pp. 496–534. Shi Lin’s book contains sections with detailed descriptions of China’s early participation in and cooperation with, in particular, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and the United Nations Committee for Transnational Corporations (UNCTC).
See G. Chan, China and International Organisations, p. 16. A pioneering study on China’s participation in international organisations before its entry into the United Nations has a slightly different figure. It claims that the PRC was a member in 2 out of 193 IGOs outside the UN system as of December 1966; and that as of December 1968, the PRC’s membership in NGOs was around 60 out of a total of 2188. See also B. S. J. Weng, ‘Some Conditions of Peking’s Participation in International Organisations’, in J. Cohen (ed.), China’s Practice of International Law: Some Case Studies, p. 322.
W. R. Fenney, ‘China’s Global Politics at the United Nations’, in J. C. Hsiung, and S. S. Kim (eds), China in the Global Community, p. 160.
See A. D. Barnett, China’s Economy in Global Perspective.
Zhongguo Duiwai Jingji Maoyi Nianjian, 1989, pp. 299–302. The ratio of the basis growth rate per annum is calculated on the current US dollars.
S. S. Kim, ‘Chinese Global Policy: An Assessment’, in Hsiung and Kim (eds), China in the Global Community, p. 222.
See Kapur, Distant Neighbours, pp. 149–50. From December 1978 to October 1980, China signed bilateral trade agreements with all the EEC countries, except Ireland.
Mackerras, Modern China, pp. 602–16.
For details of the Chinese proposals and the Japanese replies, see Lee, Chae-Jin, China and Japan: New Economic Diplomacy, pp. 113–20. For a brief round-up of Sino-Japanese economic relations by Japanese scholars, see Tomozo Morino, ‘China-Japan Trade and Investment Relations’, in F. J. Macchiarola and R. B. Oxnam (eds), The China Challenge: American Policies in East Asia, pp. 87–94.
See Barnett, China’s Economy in Global Perspective, pp. 122–48.
Kapur, Distant Neighbours, p. 62.
Liu Suinian and Wu Qungan, China’s Socialist Economy: An Outline History 1949–1985, pp. 383–4.
Barnett, China’s Economy in Global Perspective, p. 193.
Liu Suinian and Wu Qungan, China’s Economy in Global Perspective, p. 384.
Barnett, China’s Economy in Global Perspective, p. 190.
According Harry Harding, total investment envisaged at the time was $300 billion between 1976 and 1985, with $70–80 billion for the import of foreign equipment and technology.
A. Whiting, China Eyes Japan, p. 96.
See Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), Daily Report — PRC, 9 April 1980, p. L2.
International Herald Tribune, 19 Jan. 1973.
Li Qiang, Foreign Trade, 1 (July 1974) 1–5.
According to the figures of the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations and Trade (MOFERT), whereas in 1970 China’s import and export total amounted to $4.586 billion, in 1979, it was $29.33 billion. See Zhongguo Duiwai Jingji Maoyi Nianjian, 1989, pp. 299–302.
Pollack, ‘The Opening to China’, in MacFarquhar and Fairbank (eds), The Cambridge History of China, vol. 15, p. 470.
Guangming Ribao (Guangming Daily), 25 June 1986.
See Deng Xiaoping, ‘Speech at Special Session of UN General Assembly’, Peking Review, 15 Supplement (1974).
Hsiung and Kim (eds), China in the Global Community, p. 34.
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© 1998 Yongjin Zhang
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Zhang, Y. (1998). Mutual Legitimation. In: China in International Society since 1949. St Antony’s Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230373921_4
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