Prof. Yafeng Xia
Email: yafeng.xia@liu.edu
Affiliation: Department of Liberal Arts, Long Island University, New York, United States
Research Interests: Chinse Foreign Relations during the Cold War; Cold War History
Prof. Zhi Liang
Email: zhiliangroy@163.com
Affiliation: Department of History, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
Research Interests: Chinse Foreign Relations during the Cold War; Cold War History
Much of the existing scholarship on Chinese diplomatic negotiation has concentrated on U.S.–China rapprochement in the early 1970s, inadvertently narrowing our understanding of the People’s Republic of China’s broader diplomatic repertoire during the Cold War. This Special Issue redirects attention to China’s establishment of diplomatic relations with non-socialist countries between 1949 and 1979, situating these negotiations at the intersection of ideology, realpolitik, and historical memory. Employing an international history approach, the contributors—senior and mid-career Chinese historians—examine how Beijing navigated the tension between revolutionary principles and pragmatic state interests across diverse bilateral settings. Each article critically engages existing scholarship while drawing on extensive multi-archival research, including underutilized Chinese Foreign Ministry archives alongside Russian, English, and a wide range of Asian and
European sources. Collectively, the studies analyze diplomacy not merely as a policy instrument, but as an institutionalized practice shaped by bureaucratic culture, accumulated experience, and shifting international constraints. By tracing both continuities and adaptations in China’s negotiation strategies from the early Mao period through the late 1970s, this Special Issue contributes to the historiography of Cold War diplomacy and advances a more historically grounded understanding of the PRC’s foreign policy behavior and diplomatic institutions.
the PRC, negotiations, diplomatic relations, non-socialist countries, ideology, realpolitik, the Cold War, historical memory
