FRIEDRICH-EBERT-STIFTUNG – CHINA’S INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION DURING THE MAO-ERA: BUILDING SOLIDARITY FOR INTER­NATIONAL RECOGNITION (1949–1978) The PRC started giving aid to other countries almost imme­diately after its founding. First, from 1950 on, it provided military and economic support to communist forces in North Korea and North Vietnam; then, after 1953, it gave support to other Communist countries. After the Bandung Confer­ence of 1955, it began giving to newly decolonised coun­tries in Asia and Africa. Cambodia, Nepal, and Egypt be­came the first non-communist recipients of Chinese aid in 1956. At the same time, China was a recipient of Soviet con­cessional loans and technical assistance from 1950 onward, meaning that it was simultaneously a donor and a recipient. With the exception of ties to the Communist bloc and India, the PRC was initially politically and economically isolated. It was excluded from the UN, where China was represented by the exiled government of the Republic of China in Taiwan, diplomatically recognised by only a few countries, and sub­ject to a US-led total economic embargo following its in­volvement in the Korean War. In this setting, giving aid be­came a tool for China to break through international isola­tion and gain the diplomatic recognition of newly decolo­nised countries in Asia and Africa. The Bandung Conference of 1955 served as a crucial point to start breaking through the diplomatic isolation. Chinese Pre­mier and Foreign Minister Zhou Enlai, who was the architect of China’s early aid approach, argued that China didn’t come to export ideology but to advocate for peaceful coexistence and mutually beneficial aid among developing countries with no political conditionalities attached. The contacts estab­lished in Bandung initiated diplomatic exchanges. Then Chi­na either offered economic and technical assistance, which recipients rewarded with diplomatic recognition – or China rewarded diplomatic recognition with aid. In the years fol­lowing the Bandung Conference, there was a clear correla­tion between initial aid commitments and diplomatic recog­nition. 19 Even if aid giving was economically costly for China, China’s leadership believed that it would ensure stable rela­tions in the long run. This is exemplified by Zhou Enlai’s state­ment made before the National People’s Congress in 1956: China is a country that just recently has been liberated. Our economy is still very backward; we still haven’t achieved full economic independence.[…] But we have understood that economic independence is of major sig­nificance for consolidating political independence. There­fore, while we advance the building up of our own econ­omy, we wish, within the bounds of our possibilities, to contribute our meagre forces to help other countries’ economic development. 20 19 Ibid. 20 Zhou, E. 周恩来 (1956). The Speech of Premier and Minister of Foreign Affairs Zhou Enlai on the Current International Situation, China’s For­eign Policy and the Issue of Liberating Taiwan( 周恩来总理兼外交部 When China’s relations with the Soviet Union started to deteriorate rapidly in 1963 due to an ideological clash be­tween Mao Zedong and Nikita Khrushchev, eventually re­sulting in the Sino-Soviet split and the Soviets’ withdrawal of all their aid to China, China turned its attention to Afri­ca. Accompanied by a delegation of 50 Chinese dignitaries, Zhou Enlai travelled to ten African countries at the turn of the year 1963/1964, where he announced the“Eight Prin­ciples for Economic Aid and Technical Assistance”, which, along with mutual benefit and mutual respect for national sovereignty, also stressed political non-conditionality and self-reliant development. 21 Africa became a strategic bat­tleground where China vied for influence, not just against the West but also against the Soviet Union. In 1964, China accounted for 53 per cent of all loans made to the conti­nent that year, meaning that it was giving more than the West and the Soviet Union combined. 22 Chinese aid and loans to Africa continued to increase even as the Cultural Revolution raged in China beginning in 1966, paralysing the country economically and politically. The 2000km Tan­zania-Zambia Railway(TAZARA), for instance, was con­structed with Chinese assistance at the height of the Cul­tural Revolution. The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and the beginning détente between the US and Viet­nam in 1969, after Richard Nixon came to power, created a window of opportunity for China to further increase its aid efforts for diplomatic recognition, resulting in a final suc­cess. In 1971, the UN General Assembly voted to admit the PRC to the UN and to exclude the Republic of China in Tai­wan in turn. REFORM AND OPENING-UP: IN SEARCH FOR MUTUAL ECONOMIC BENEFIT FOR COMMON DEVELOP­MENT(1978–MID-1990S) When Deng Xiaoping came to power in 1978, two years after Mao’s death, China embarked on a new“Reform and Opening-Up” policy, opening itself to the world and West­ern development assistance. At that time, China was ranked among the 20 poorest countries in the world, which, after the economic devastation of the Mao-led leadership, led China to question whether the country could afford to continue spending on aid. 23 In the end, Deng Xiaoping concluded that China’s international status was inseparable from the support it provided to the Third World, and aid was, therefore, a strategic investment and 长关于目前国际形势、我国外交政策和解放台湾问题的发言 ). People’s Daily( 人民日报 ), 28 June, 1. 21 Zhou, Enlai(1964).“The Chinese Government’s Eight Principles for Economic Aid and Technical Assistance to Other Countries,” 15 Jan­uary 1964, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, Zhong­hua renmin gongheguo waijiaobu and Zhonggong zhongyang wenx­ian yanjiushi, eds., Zhou Enlai waijiao wenxuan(Selected Diplomatic Papers of Zhou Enlai)(Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1990), 388. http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/121560 22 Yu, G.T.(1988). Africa in Chinese Foreign Policy. Asian Survey 28(8), 849–862. 23 Rudyak(2023).“We Help Them, and They Help Us”, 589. 8