Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-21T22:04:15.475Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Circumventing the Cold War: The parallel diplomacy of economic and cultural exchanges between Western Europe and Socialist China in the 1950s and 1960s*: An introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2016

ANGELA ROMANO
Affiliation:
Department of History and Civilization, European University Institute, Italy Email: angela.romano@eui.eu
VALERIA ZANIER
Affiliation:
Department of International History, London School of Economics and Political Science, United Kingdom Email: v.zanier@lse.ac.uk

Extract

This special issue brings together historians with expertise on China and Western Europe who have the explicit intent of bridging the existing gap between two parallel strands of scholarship, that is, Europe in the Cold War and the history of Socialist China, and combining the different perspectives and approaches of international, diplomatic, business, and cultural historiographies. The contributors’ lively interaction and close collaboration has been the key to the conceptual development of a broader view of the relations between West European countries and Socialist China in the early decades of the Cold War, as well as of China's policy towards the capitalist world before the Reform and Opening era.

Type
Introduction
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

We would like to thank both the University of Padua and the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice for funding the group's research We are grateful to the colleagues who discussed our work-in-progress papers on the occasion of two international academic conferences organized in Padua and Venice in 2013 and 2014 respectively: Lorenzo Capisani, Nicola Casarini, Laurent Cesari, Li Danhui, Shen Zhihua, Elisa Giunipero Stephanie Palladini, and Mario Filippo Pini. Finally, we also thank the editors of Modern Asian Studies and the anonymous reviewers for their useful remarks and comments.

References

1 Hamilton, K. A. (2004). ‘A “Week that Changed the World”: Britain and Nixon's China Visit of 21–28 February 1972’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, vol. xv, no. 1, pp. 117135 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Among those who have more closely analysed Mao's contribution to China's economic growth, see: Bramall, C. (1993). In Praise of Maoist Economic Planning: Living Standards and Economic Development in Sichuan Since 1931, Clarendon Press, Oxford Google Scholar. Among those who more vocally deny any merit to Mao's centrally planned economy, see: Deng, K. (2012). China's Political Economy in Modern Times: Changes and Economic Consequences, 1800–2000, Routledge, Abingdon and New York Google Scholar. Other scholars have taken a more balanced approach by highlighting the successes as well as shortcomings of Mao's Socialist-planned economy. See: Brandt, L., Ma Debin, Rawski, T. G. (2013). ‘From Divergence to Convergence: Re-evaluating the History Behind China's Economic Boom’, IDEAS Working Papers Series, No. 175/13; Naughton, B. (2007). The Chinese Economy. Transitions and Growth, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts Google Scholar.

3 Pollack, J. (1991). ‘The Opening to America’, in MacFarquhar, R. and Fairbank, J. K., The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 15, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Google Scholar; Yahuda, M. (1983). Towards the End of Isolationism: China's Foreign Policy after Mao, MacMillan, London CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 On the European Community's China policy, see Chenard, M. (2012). ‘Seeking Détente and Driving Integration. The European Community's Opening Towards the People's Republic of China 1975–1978’, Journal of European Integration History, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 2538 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chenard, M. (2012). ‘The European Community's Opening to the People's Republic of China, 1969–1979: Internal Decision-making on External Relations’, PhD thesis, The London School of Economics and Political Science.

5 The two joint projects were: ‘At the roots of European recognition of the PRC, 1960–1974. National and transnational actors and strategies’, coordinated by Carla Meneguzzi Rostagni, and funded by the University of Padova; and ‘Italy, Europe, China. Economic, political, and cultural relations in the Cold War years (1954–1971)’, coordinated by Guido Samarani, and funded by Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.

6 Amatori, F. (2011). ‘Entrepreneurial Typologies in the History of Industrial Italy: Reconsiderations’, Business History Review, 85 (Spring), pp. 151180 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Cold War constraints also directly affected the democratic life and domestic politics of the country. Until the end of the Cold War, an unwritten agreement—the so-called conventio ad excludendum—existed among Italian political parties to keep the PCI out of government by means of coalition building. The coalitions, however, were opportunistic and unstable, which in turn led to continual governmental crises. The historiography, especially in Italian, is vast. For a political science approach, see, for example, Pridham, G. (1988). Political Parties and Coalitional Behaviour in Italy, Routledge, London and New York Google Scholar.

8 Samarani, G. (2014). ‘Roma e Pechino negli anni della Guerra fredda: il ruolo del Centro studi per le relazioni economiche e culturali con la Cina’, in Meneguzzi, Rostagni C. and Samarani, G. La Cina di Mao, l'Italia e l'Europa negli anni della Guerra fredda, Il Mulino, Bologna, pp. 93117 Google Scholar.

9 Godley, M. (1985). ‘Lessons From an Italian Connection’, in Fung, E. and Pong, D. (eds), Ideal and Reality. Social and Political Change in Modern China, 1860–1949, University Press of America, London, pp. 93123 Google Scholar.

10 The most extensive account of relations between Italy and China during the twentieth century is Samarani, G. and De Giorgi, L. (2011). Lontane, vicine. Le relazioni tra Cina e Italia nel Novecento, Carocci, Roma Google Scholar. See also Andornino, G. and Marinelli, M. (2013). Italy's Encounters with Modern China, Palgrave, London Google Scholar, which combines historical contributions with cultural studies, economics, and accounts of public servants and advisers spanning over 150 years from the establishment of the Kingdom of Italy (1861) to date.

11 Dobson, A. P. (2012). US Economic Statecraft for Survival 1933–1991: Of Embargoes, Strategic Embargoes, and Economic Warfare, Routledge, London Google Scholar; Cain, F. (2007). Economic Statecraft During the Cold War: European Responses to the US Embargo, Routledge, London Google Scholar; Førland, T. E. (1991). ‘Selling Firearms to the Indians: Eisenhower's Export Control Policy, 1953–1954’, Diplomatic History, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 221249 Google Scholar; Jackson, I. (2001). The Economic Cold War: America, Britain, and East–West Trade, 1948–1963, Palgrave, New York CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Shambaugh, D., Sandschneider, D. and Zhou, Hong (eds) (2007). China–Europe Relations. Perceptions, Policies and Prospects, Routledge, London and New York Google Scholar; Yahuda, M. (1994). ‘China and Europe: The Significance of a Secondary Relationship’, in Robinson, T. and Shambaugh, D. (eds), Chinese Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice, Oxford University Press, Oxford Google Scholar.

13 Cui, Pi (2000). Meiguo de lengzhan zhanlve he Bali tongchou weiyuanhui, Zhongguo weiyuanhui 1945–1994 [U.S. Cold War Strategy, COCOM and CHINCOM], Dongbei Shifan Daxue Chubanshe, Changchun; Feng, Deng (2001). ‘U.S. Trade Control Policy Toward China and Sino-Japanese Trade Relations, 1948–1958’, Dongbei Luntan, no. 3, pp. 2933 Google Scholar; Xuping, Gong (2004). ‘On the Minor Modifications of U.S. Trade Embargo against China During the Johnson Administration’, Dongbei Shida Xuebao, no. 3, pp. 6470 Google Scholar.

14 Chen, Jian (2001). Mao's China and the Cold War, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill Google Scholar.

15 Zhang, Shuguang (2014). Beijing's Economic Statecraft During the Cold War, 1949–1991, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore Google Scholar.

16 Mitter, R. and Major, P. (eds) (2004). Across the Blocs: Cold War Cultural and Social History, Frank Cass, London CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mooney, J. E. P. and Lanza, F. (eds) (2013). De-centering Cold War History: Local and Global Change, Routledge, New York Google Scholar; Vu, Tuong and Wongsurawat, Wasana (eds) (2009). Dynamics of the Cold War in Asia: Ideology, Identity and Culture, Palgrave Macmillan, New York CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Zheng, Yangwen, Hong, Liu and Szonyi, M. (eds) (2010). The Cold War in Asia: The Battle for Hearts and Minds, Brill, Leiden Google Scholar.

17 Volland, N. (2008). ‘Translating the Socialist State: Cultural Exchange, National Identity, and the Socialist World in the Early PRC’, Twentieth-Century China, vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 5172 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Brady, A. (2003). Making the Foreign Serve China: Managing Foreigners in the People's Republic, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Oxford Google Scholar; Passin, H. (1962). China's Cultural Diplomacy, Frederick A. Praeger, New York Google Scholar.

19 Schenk, C. R. (2001). Hong Kong as an International Financial Centre: Emergence and Development, 1945–1965, Routledge, London CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schenk, C. R. (2005). ‘Economic Relations Between Hong Kong and China, 1945–51’, in Tak, Lee Pui (ed.). Colonial Hong Kong and Modern China, Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong, pp. 199218 Google Scholar.

20 Loh, C. (2010). Underground Front: The Chinese Communist Party in Hong Kong, Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Soeya, Y. (1998). Japan's Economic Diplomacy with China, 1945–1978, Oxford University Press, Oxford Google Scholar.

22 Robin, T. (2013). Le Coq face au Dragon, 1944–1964. Deux décennies de relations économiques franco-chinoises, Droz, Geneva Google Scholar.

23 Martin, G. (2008). ‘Playing the China Card? Revisiting France's Recognition of Communist China, 1963–1964’, Journal of Cold War Studies, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 5280 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Albers, M. (2015). ‘All Paths Leading to Beijing? Western Europe and Détente in East Asia, 1969–1972’, The International History Review, vol. 37, no. 2, pp. 219239 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Di Nolfo, E. (2010). La normalizzazione delle relazioni diplomatiche tra la Repubblica italiana e la Repubblica popolare cinese. Atti e documenti, (Italian and Chinese edition), Rubbettino, Soveria Mannelli Google Scholar.

25 Mitcham, C. J. (2005). China's Economic Relations with the West and Japan, 1949–79: Grain, Trade, and Diplomacy, Routledge, London and New York Google Scholar.

26 Li, Hua-yu (2006). Mao and the Economic Stalinization of China, 1948–1953, Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham Google Scholar; Lardy, C. and Lieberthal, K. (1983). Chen Yun's Strategy for China's Development: A Non-Maoist Alternative, Sharpe, New York and London Google Scholar; Howe, C. et al. (2006). ‘High Tide Symposium’, Special mini-section, The China Quarterly, Vol. 187 Google Scholar.

27 Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi is the National Hydrocarbon Holding in English.

28 Westad, O. A. (2012). Restless Empire: China and the World since 1750, Bodley Head, London, p. 441 Google Scholar.