306 { China’s Quest
toyed with either Soviet revisionism or US imperialism, or both. Even more
egregiously, Yugoslavia wanted to annex Albania into Yugoslavia, or so
Hoxha believed, while oppressing ethnic Albanians in Yugoslavia’s Kosovo
region. Nor did China deign to discuss with Albania’s leaders the idea of a
Balkan tripartite alliance before publicly promulgating that proposal.
Further differences with Tirana arose over Zhou’s airport summit meeting
with Kosygin in September 1969. Hoxha felt that an easing of tension with
Moscow would facilitate Moscow’s efforts to keep the people of Eastern
Europe (including potentially Albania) under Soviet control, while opening
the door to expanded collaboration between Soviet and Chinese revision-
ists. Many revisionists were still “hidden” within the Chinese Communist
Party, Hoxha feared, and would respond to the reduction of tensions with
the Soviet revisionists by intensifying their schemes. Many of the “Chinese
allies [of Soviet revisionism] ... Liu Shao-chi and company” had been exposed,
Hoxha wrote in his diary. But “despite the victories achieved, a great deal of
work is still needed to consolidate these victories, and first of all, to ensure
that the Communist Party of China is re-organized and consolidated on the
Marxist-Leninist road. Has this been achieved? Regrettably, we doubt this.”
Many “vacillators” were still in power within the CCP but “keeping quiet,”
waiting for the “storm” of the Cultural Revolution to pass. “One of these may
be Chou En-lai,” Hoxha wrote.^33
Albanian criticism of the Zhou-Kosygin summit stung Chinese repre-
sentatives. “You are extremist,” Zhou said “angrily, in an uncomradely way”
to Albanian Politburo member Rita Marko when Zhou briefed him on the
Zhou-Kosygin airport summit the day after it occurred and Marco rejected
Zhou’s justification of the airport meeting. PRC Ambassador Geng Biao in
Tirana explained to Albanian leaders that China was merely using diplomacy
to gain time to better prepare to resist a Soviet attack. The Soviet revisionists
would attack China, but those preparations were not yet complete. The Soviet
Union had marshaled troops on China’s borders to attack China, but was not
yet in a situation to act, Zhou explained. The Soviet leadership was also di-
vided into “hawks” and “doves.” Diplomacy would strengthen the “doves,”
giving China more time to arm itself. This is what Stalin had done with Hitler
in 1939, Geng Biao explained.
Zhou’s displeasure was manifest in a number of slights, at least as perceived
by Hoxha: failure to invite Rita Marko to an exhibition, dispatch of an un-
communicative Li Xiannian (whom Hoxha took to be one of Zhou’s “revi-
sionist” supporters) to head a Chinese delegation to Albania, and so on. “The
unfriendly stand of Li Hsien-nien, dictated by the group of Chou En-lai,” was
intended, Hoxha wrote, to let the ALP know that they were not in agreement
with the activity of Chen Boda and Albanian leader Haki Toska, who had been
the “warm and comradely” interlocutor of Chen Boda during an earlier visit.^34
Actually, there was a good deal of substance to the Albanian view that Chen