IB History Consolidation and Maintenance: Mao's Foreign Policy Notes

The Sino-Soviet Alliance and Early Cold War Alignment

1. Mao travelled to Moscow in December 1949 and signed the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship (February 1950) - China received a $300 million loan and a mutual defence pact
2. The treaty aligned China firmly within the Soviet bloc - Mao declared China would 'lean to one side' in the Cold War
3. Stalin initially treated Mao with suspicion and the loan terms were unfavourable - far less than Marshall Plan aid to Western Europe
4. Soviet advisers helped build industrial infrastructure - over 10,000 Soviet experts worked in China during the 1950s
5. Mao accepted a junior partner role temporarily - but privately resented Soviet dominance over the communist world
6. The alliance gave the PRC diplomatic recognition and military protection against the US at a time when China was internationally isolated
7. Soviet nuclear technology transfer began in the mid-1950s - this would later become a major point of contention in the split
8. The alliance demonstrated Mao's belief that revolutionary solidarity required pragmatic compromises - ideology shaped but did not dictate foreign policy

The Korean War and Taiwan Strait Crises

1. China entered the Korean War in October 1950 after UN forces crossed the 38th parallel and approached the Yalu River border
2. Mao sent approximately 3 million Chinese 'volunteers' - suffering an estimated 180,000-400,000 deaths including Mao's own son Mao Anying
3. The war boosted domestic legitimacy - the 'Resist America, Aid Korea' campaign fuelled nationalism and justified repression of internal enemies
4. China fought the US to a stalemate by 1953 - this was a propaganda triumph for a state barely one year old
5. The First Taiwan Strait Crisis (1954-55) saw PLA shelling of Quemoy and Matsu - testing US commitment to Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government
6. The Second Taiwan Strait Crisis (1958) erupted during the Great Leap Forward - Mao used the crisis to mobilise domestic support and test Soviet reliability
7. Eisenhower's threat to use nuclear weapons during both crises reinforced Mao's determination to develop China's own atomic bomb
8. The Taiwan issue remained unresolved throughout Mao's era - reunification was a stated goal but military action risked direct confrontation with the US

Bandung Conference and Third World Leadership

1. Zhou Enlai represented China at the Bandung Conference (1955) in Indonesia - the first major Afro-Asian summit of 29 newly independent nations
2. Zhou promoted the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence - mutual respect for sovereignty, non-aggression, non-interference, equality, and peaceful coexistence
3. Bandung positioned China as a leader of the anti-imperialist movement - offering an alternative to both US capitalism and Soviet-dominated communism
4. Mao later developed the Three Worlds Theory - placing the US and USSR as the 'First World' and China alongside developing nations in the 'Third World'
5. China provided foreign aid to Africa - most notably the TAZARA railway (1970-75) linking Tanzania to Zambia built with Chinese labour and finance
6. Support for revolutionary movements in Vietnam, Malaya, and Africa aimed to spread Maoist ideology and challenge superpower hegemony
7. China's Third World diplomacy helped win enough votes for PRC admission to the UN in October 1971 - replacing Taiwan on the Security Council
8. Third World leadership served both ideological and strategic aims - undermining US containment while building an alternative power base independent of Moscow