China and Asia

Abstract

The foreign policy of Communist China was born in the loess caves of Yenan during the period 1935–45. For the first time after years of fighting, the Communists had leisure for reflection. Their government began to be a magnet for the younger members of the intelligentsia who repudiated the Kuomintang because the Kuomintang had proved unable to defend China's national interests; they were willing to try Communism as the cure for Imperialism. Already the Communist leaders were confident that in the long run they would come to power. In Yenan, in lectures and seminars, they built up concepts and the world picture which, with surprisingly little modification, have governed their foreign policy ever since.