Foreign Policy 1966 -1976 (1): General Development

The momentary eclipse of Chinese foreign policy between 1966 and 1969 was due mainly to the urgency and importance of internal problems. From the summer of 1966 until just before the Ninth Congress in April 1969, Chinese foreign policy was to a large extent paralyzed by the Cultural Revolution. As was to be expected, the Cultural Revolution produced criticisms of the foreign policy of Liu Shao-ch&s;i and his supporters. The first important declaration on foreign policy was made by Chou En-lai, speaking at the Albanian Embassy on November 29, 1968. China put up ceaseless opposition to the sharing of power between the two states and to Soviet-American collusion, which had been worrying Chinese leaders since the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The revival in Chinese foreign policy at the end of 1968 was also due to various new factors, or factors that had come to the fore again.