xiPR E FAC E
In teaching university courses on PRC foreign relations over the years, the
need for a chronologically organized, synthetic overview of that topic in a sin-
gle volume frequently struck me. There existed literally hundreds of first-rate
studies of particular slices of PRC foreign relations: books and articles dealing
with China’s various bilateral relationships, the making of key Chinese deci-
sions, various functional aspects of China’s international quest, and so on.
But a synthetic, historical narrative overview was lacking. A plethora of solid
but narrow studies drew on materials declassified from former Soviet and
East European communist archives plus rich memoir and archival materials
that became available in China after 1978. Many of these materials have been
made easily available by the International History of the Cold War Project
(IHCWP) of the Smithsonian Institution. But a narrative mosaic combining
and summarizing the insights from all these sources in a single volume was
simply not available. It is such a narrative mosaic that this work undertakes
to provide.
The increasing historical distance of the students in my classes from the
events described made me realize how much a historical understanding of
PRC foreign relations was necessary. They simply did not have any historical
knowledge of the ancient (i.e., Cold War and early post–Cold War) events
that had shaped the PRC: the powerful magnetic power of the communist vi-
sion of a post-capitalist society, Stalinization and de-Stalinization, the schism
between Chinese and Soviet Communists, the nature of the Cold War, the
global wave of liberal revolutions from 1987 to 1991, the nature of a Leninist
state and its legitimization in relation to public opinion and elite conflict,
and so on. In my courses I would attempt to address these gaps in histor-
ical knowledge by assigning as readings relevant journal articles and book
chapters. Reading lists became longer and longer. I understood as a practical
matter that the longer a reading list became, the less likely students were to
engage or master it. Again I felt the need for a single-volume overview of PRC
foreign relations from 1949 to the present (2015).
The profound importance of China’s growing power made the absence of a
comprehensive history of PRC foreign relations even more peculiar. Already in
1949, the PRC ranked as a major power—a permanent member of the Security
Council and a country whose strategic weight as friend or foe was recognized
by the United States and the Soviet Union. It soon showed itself willing to
willing to go to war with the United States, with India, with the USSR, and