Abstract
The purpose of this chapter is to consider China’s African policy within Zhongnanhai’s internal investigation during Mao Zedong’s regime, with a focus on Mao’s misconception of Zhou’s pragmatic policy implementation and Zhou’s unchangeable loyalty to Mao. Furthermore, Mao’s counter offensive towards Zhou during the Geneva and Bandung Conference, illustrated his worries re Zhou’s power challenge. In addition, Zhou’s surging appearance on the international stage and brewing conflict during the Sino-Soviet foreign relation was further analysed in line with the radical political movement (Ultra-Leftist) in China, alongside the Great Leap Forward Movement. Did Mao regard Zhou as a potential threat to his rule? Was Mao therefore attempting to remove him as he did with Liu Shaoqi—thus was Zhou attempting to illustrate his loyalty to Mao by trying to implement Maoism in Africa? Ultimately, what does Zhou’s dream tell us about Xi’s ‘New Silk Road’ project, and the intricacies behind it?
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Notes
- 1.
In Chinese culture, ‘brotherhood’ is the foundation for a Guanxi relation. Post-independence, China used to refer to the Soviet Union as being their ‘Big Brother’.
- 2.
Under the Beijing Consensus, Chinese ‘Soft Power’ foreign policy followed Nye’s view, which stated that a country’s culture, political values, foreign policies, and economic attraction are essential components of national strength, as those values provide the capacity to persuade other nations to willingly adopt the same goals and adhere to the same principles (Nye 2005).
- 3.
According to Kissinger, Zhou was a compelling figure with short, elegant and expressive face—with luminous eyes dominated by exceptional intelligence and the capacity to intuit the intangible of the psychology of his counterpart. (Kissinger 2012, 241)
- 4.
The US and Soviet political manifestations could be described as a duopoly of political systems at that stage.
- 5.
Mao stated this was the reason behind appointing Chen Yi as the foreign minister to replace Zhou from the international theatre.
- 6.
Since 1918, most of intellectuals in China left for Europe for ‘Work & Study program’. Mao decided to go to France, but dropped out at the last minute.
- 7.
Mao trusted the foreign affairs information from PLA field marshals, who were, he believed, front line soldiers that represented Mao style Chinese revolution.
- 8.
They were members of ‘five golden flowers’ and engaged in several issues on Chinese foreign affairs. Mao refused to read or to listen to what Zhou made, and enjoyed listening to the reports of the interpreters instead.
- 9.
It was rare case that Zhou was praised, as Mao strongly criticised him as being a surrender of US imperialism.
- 10.
One of the most symbolic figures from this group was Ji Dengkui, who followed Mao since Hunan and was one of the ‘old and trusted friends’ for Mao and Mao discussed Lin’s issue with him before he died. (Salisbury 1993, 300)
- 11.
When China declared the independent Mao as their leader, Liu was considered as his right-hand man and Zhou was considered third in command.
- 12.
Ernest and his wife Martha met three key figures while they were in China, H.H. Kung, Chiang Kai-shek with their wives, and Zhou made very critical comments of both leaders and predicted that ‘the communists would take over China after the war’ (Barnouin and Yu, 89).
- 13.
The Five Principles was initially designed by Mao during the Yan’an period, however it was implemented by Zhou in line with the Third World foreign policy.
- 14.
According to James and Zhang (2005), the notion of crisis in China embeds two levels of meanings; threat/danger as well as opportunity. In dealing with international crises, four bimodal attitude pairs provide mental readiness and useful heuristics for management of long-term Chinese foreign policy ‘strategies’ as well as short-term ‘tactics’ regarding immediate actions. (p. 36)
- 15.
With Marshal Zhu De, Chen Yi was one of the most important generals for Mao before Lin Biao. During the Cultural Revolution, Chen tried to balance Chinese foreign policy between the ‘Ultra-Leftists’ and the ‘pragmatic way’ which was led by Zhou. (Short 1999)
- 16.
Although it was an appropriate choice in international relation’s perspective, the pragmatic soft power diplomacy was criticised and Zhou made self-personal critics on Chinese foreign policy between the years 1954–58 in the Chengdu conference in 1958 and then stepped down from the position of foreign minister.
- 17.
It is his last official engagement as Foreign Minister. After the 11th Plenum of the Central Committee meeting in 1957, Marshal Chen Yi had the job till 1972; therefore, most of Zhou’s international roles till his death in 1976 were working alongside the Premier.
- 18.
According to Short (1999), at Xian in 1936 and in Manchuria in 1945, all that had been at stake were the political interests of a Chinese Party still struggling for power. But now (during the Korean War) China was a sovereign state, and Russia a treaty ally. ‘Lean to one side’ or not, the Soviet Union, Mao concluded, would never be a partner Chinese could trust (p. 430).
- 19.
Wang is lifelong friend of Zhou, who served as the ambassador to the Soviet Union and helped to convince Stalin of Mao’s claims to the leadership. Although he left Wang Min and converted to Mao, he was categorised as being a pro-Soviet at the first stage of his job as Deputy Foreign Minister. Later, he was purged in the Cultural Revolution, and re-emerged at the tenth Party Congress in 1973.
- 20.
In comparison to Taiwan and Russia, China’s aid in Africa was relatively small and thus it was difficult to persuade leaders to support China among the African countries.
- 21.
Author’s interview with several participants from ‘The Chinese in Africa/Africans in China Conference’ in Jinan University, Guangzhou, China 12–14 December 2014.
- 22.
Deng’s personal acknowledgment about Chiang Ching-kuo during his stay in France where he tried to avoid direct war between the two countries.
- 23.
However, China suspended the medical aid and support and even withdrew them completely when the recipient countries proceeded to form diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
- 24.
Nye J. and Wilson E. (2008) developed a new concept of ‘smart power’ which combines elements of soft power and hard power to achieve a nation’s foreign policy goal. From Chinese view, it is relatively different view that of Zhou’s ‘soft power’, since China became a super power.
- 25.
PBOC stated that those swap agreements were intended not only to ‘stabilise the international financial market’, but to facilitate bilateral trade and investment deals (PBOC news released Dec. 2014).
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Kim, YC. (2017). ‘Safari Tour’ and Zhou’s Dream of Mao’s Land in Africa. In: Kim, YC. (eds) China and Africa. The Palgrave Macmillan Asian Business Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47030-6_2
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