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China Europe
Although it had been the European powers that precipitated the
opening of China to the West in the nineteenth century, by 1949 the
European presence was limited to Hong Kong and Macao. Europe
exerted a strong intellectual influence on modern Chinese leaders
(Marxism and Leninism of course originated in Europe), and some
leaders, including Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping, studied in Europe
early in their careers. Nevertheless, China's geographic distance
from Europe, its preoccupation with the superpowers, and the
division of Europe after World War II have meant that China's
relations with European nations usually have been subordinate to
its relations with the Soviet Union and the United States.
East European nations were the first countries to establish
diplomatic relations with China in 1949, following the Soviet
Union's lead. In the early 1950s, through the Sino-Soviet alliance,
China became an observer in the Council for Mutual Economic
Assistance (Comecon), and Chinese relations with Eastern Europe
included trade and receipt of limited amounts of economic and
technical aid. The Sino-Soviet dispute was manifested in China's
relations with certain East European countries, especially China's
support for Albania's break with the Soviet Union in the late
1950s. After the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s, the only East
European nations maintaining significant ties with China until the
late 1970s were Albania, Romania, and Yugoslavia. By the late
1980s, however, as Beijing's relations with Moscow improved and
relations with governments and parties on the basis of "mutual
respect and peaceful coexistence" were renewed, China's ties with
the other nations of Eastern Europe also had improved noticeably,
to include communist party ties.
China's ties with Western Europe were minimal for the first two
decades of the People's Republic. Several West European nations,
mostly in Scandinavia, established diplomatic relations with China
in the early 1950s, and Britain and the Netherlands established
ties with China at the charge d'affaires level in 1954. In the late
1950s, Britain became the first Western nation to relax the trade
embargo against China imposed during the Korean War. The
establishment of diplomatic relations between China and France in
1964 also provided an opening for trade and other limited Chinese
contacts with Western Europe until the 1970s.
China's relations with Western Europe grew rapidly in the
1970s, as more nations recognized China and diplomatic relations
were established with the European Economic Community in 1975. In
the second half of the 1970s, China's emphasis on an international
united front against Soviet hegemony led to increased Chinese
support for West European unity and for the role of the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization. Ties with Western Europe also were
featured prominently in Beijing's independent foreign policy of the
1980s. Furthermore, China's opening up to foreign trade,
investment, and technology beginning in the late 1970s greatly
improved Sino-European ties. One of the few major problems in
China's relations with Western Europe in the post-Mao era was the
downgrading of diplomatic ties with the Netherlands from 1981 to
1984 over the latter's sale of submarines to Taiwan.
Data as of July 1987
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