By Robert Farley
China’s successful entry into the international scene after the Cultural Revolution bears lessons for other pariah states.
How did China work its way out of the diplomatic isolation that ensued during the Cultural Revolution? A recent article in International History Review by Martin Albers traces the course of Beijing’s establishment of relations with France, the United Kingdom, and West Germany in the years immediately after the Cultural Revolution. The process holds important lessons for the re-entry of other pariah states into the good graces of international society, including Iran and North Korea.
While the diplomacy of Kissinger and Nixon looms large in the American mythology of the “opening” of China, Albers establishes that the diplomatic re-emergence of China began well before the Sino-American rapprochement of 1972. Even prior to the Cultural Revolution, the People’s Republic of China had pursued a revolutionary foreign policy posture. However, few countries abided by the same restrictions as the United States (and the United Nations) regarding the primacy of the Nationalist regime in Taiwan; even during the PRC’s periods of diplomatic belligerence, it enjoyed a wide range of diplomatic relationships with the Communist and developing worlds. Nevertheless, Beijing struggled to make inroads in Western Europe.
Read the full story at The Diplomat