Enver Hoxha’s assessments of the “Romanian factor” against the backdrop of Sino-Albanian relations, 1969-1978

Abstract

The article explores the assessments of Romania’s place and role in regional and international politics in the context of developing Sino-Albanian relations in 1969-1978 in the analysis of Party of Labor of Albania’s (PLA) first secretary, Enver Hoxha (1908-1985). The author concludes that the main interest of the Albanian leader was to determine possibility of informal alliance between the PRC, Romania and Yugoslavia in the Balkans to resist against the USSR, as well as to change the close relations between Tirana and Beijing to similar between latter and Bucharest. Judging by the evolution of Hoxha’s assessments, all of his analyses, in one way or another, actually questioned the establishment of such a tandem that was important to him when the Sino-Albanian relation were permanently coming down.