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Notes
1 An earlier version of this article in Chinese appeared in Shehui kexue [社会科学 / Journal of Social Sciences].
2 Before serving as the second PRCLO director and also the first PRC ambassador in Washington, Chai Zemin had been the Chinese Ambassador to Egypt from June 1970 to August 1974. In 1973, after the October Arab-Israeli War, Chai was injured in a car accident on his way to the Suez Canal to visit Israeli army positions at the request of the Egyptian government. Chai Zemin, ‘Shouren zhu mei dashi: huainian de ersan shi’, Zhongguo baodao 1 (2009), 103.
3 ‘Memorandum of Conversation’ 19 September 1978, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977-1980/XIII/135. Hereafter, documents from the Foreign Relations of the United States series are identified as FRUS/date range (i.e., 1977-1980)/volume number/document number.
4 Thomas L. Friedman, ‘Obama on the World’, The New York Times, 8 August 2014,; Author interview with James Steinberg, Beijing, 22 March 2019; Mike Pence, ‘Remarks by Vice President Pence at the Frederic V. Malek Memorial Lecture’, 24 October 2019, https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-vice-president-pence-frederic-v-malek-memorial-lecture/; Brett McGurk, ‘China’s Risky Middle East Bet,’ The Atlantic, April 2019,; For the latest accusations against Beijing being a ‘free rider’ in the Middle East since the Hamas-led attack on Israel in October 2023 in general, and regarding the more recent Red Sea crisis in particular, see Isaac Kardon and Jennifer Kavanagh, ‘China Is Trying to Have It Both Ways in the Middle East’ The New York Times, 26 January 2024, .
5 Shao Jie, ‘“luanzhong yuli” zhongdong meiguo zi chang kuguo’, Xinhua News Agency, March 2018; Xia Wenxin, ‘US Failure in “Having it both Ways” in Middle East Demonstrates Unappealing “Leadership”’, China Military, 1 February 1 2024,.
6 For example, some scholars contend that China, with its primary goal of ‘reaping economic benefits while shelving political entanglement’, proactively chose to become a ‘bystander and free rider’ in the region at the beginning of Reform and Opening-Up policy. See Degang Sun and Yahia Zoubir, ‘China’s Economic Diplomacy towards the Arab Countries: Challenges Ahead?’, Journal of Contemporary China 25.:91 (2015), 903-21; For more discussion on China and the ‘Free Rider Problem,’ see also Martina Ponížilová, ‘Foreign Policy Activities of China in the Middle East: Establishing Energy Security or Being a Responsible Emerging Power?’, Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies 21: 6 (2019), 643-62; Amitai Etzioni, ‘Is China a Responsible Stakeholder?’, International Affairs 87: 3 (May 2011), 539-53; Andrew Kennedy, ‘China and the Free‐Rider Problem: Exploring the Case of Energy Security’, Political Science Quarterly 130:1 (2015), 27-50.
7 John Calabrese, China’s Changing Relations with the Middle East (London: Pinter, 1991), 82-130; Lillian Craig Harris, China Considers the Middle East (London: I. B. Tauris, 1993), 125-244; Mohamed Bin Huwaidin, China’s Relations with Arabia and the Gulf 1949-1999 (New York: Routledge, 2002), 104-18, 213-27.
8 Yitzhak Shichor, ‘The Importance of Being Ernst: Ernst David Bergmann and Israel’s Role in Taiwan’s Defense’, The Asia Papers 2 (2016), 1-35.
9 Jeremy Friedman, Shadow Cold War: The Sino-Soviet Competition for the Third World (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2015); Gregg Brazinsky, Winning the Third World: Sino-American Rivalry During the Cold War (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2017); Jodie Yuzhou Sun, ‘“Now the cry was Communism”: the Cold War and Kenya’s Relations with China, 1964–70’, Cold War History 20:1 (2020), 39-58.
10 For studies on China’s policy toward the Middle East before Reform and Opening-Up, see Yitzhak Shichor, The Middle East in China’s Foreign Policy, 1949–1977 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979); Hashim S.H. Behbehani, China’s Foreign Policy in the Arab World, 1955-75 (London: Routledge, 1981); Mohammed Turki Alsudairi and Tingyi Wang, ‘A Near-Normalisation? Sino-Saudi Diplomatic Flirtations between 1955 and 1957’, Asian Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies 14:4 (2020), 567-580; Gangzheng She, ‘The Cold War and Chinese Policy toward the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1963–1975’, Journal of Cold War Studies 22:1 (2020), 125-74.
11 Enrico Fardella, ‘The Sino-American Normalization: A Reassessment,’ Diplomatic History 33: 4 (2009), 545–78; Chen Jian, ‘China and the Cold War after Mao’, in Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad, eds., The Cambridge History of the Cold War, Volume 3: Endings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 181-200; Robert S. Ross, ed., China, the United States and the Soviet Union: Tripolarity and Policy Making in the Cold War (New York: Routledge, 2016).
12 William B. Quandt, Peace Process: American Diplomacy and the Arab–Israeli Conflict Since 1967 (Washington, DC: Brookings, 2005); Galen E. Jackson, ‘Strategy and Two-Level Games: U.S. Domestic Politics and the Road to a Separate Peace, 1977–1978’, Journal of Cold War Studies 19:3 (2017), 160–95.
13 Nigel Ashton, ‘Taking Friends for Granted: The Carter Administration, Jordan, and the Camp David Accords, 1977–1980’, Diplomatic History 41: 3 (2017), 620-45; Craig Daigle, ‘Sadat’s African Dilemma: Libya, Ethiopia, and the Making of the Camp David Accords’, Cold War History 19: 2 (2019), 295-313.
14 ‘Sulian baquan zhuyi zai aiji de pochan’, People’s Daily, 16 March 1976; ‘Aiji renmin de nuhou’, People’s Daily, 19 March 1976.
15 FRUS/1977-1980/VIII/27.
16 Ibid.
17 FRUS/1977-1980/I/4; FRUS/1977-1980/I/44.
18 Ismail Fahmy, Negotiating for Peace in the Middle East (Abingdon: Routledge, 2014), 190-1.
19 FRUS/1977-1980/XIII/49.
20 FRUS/1977-1980/XIII/70.
21 FRUS/1977-1980/XIII/49; FRUS/1977-1980/XIII/109; ‘Aiji jieguan xinai bandao de abukudisi youtian deng di’, People’s Daily, 5 December 1975.
22 ‘Balesitan renmin de tiequan’, People’s Daily, 1 July 1977.
23 FRUS/1977-1980/XIII/50.
24 FRUS/1977-1980/XIII/48.
25 FRUS/1977-1980/XIII/49.
26 FRUS/1977-1980/XIII/70.
27 ‘Abu jiehade tuanzhang shuai balesitan gemin daibiaotuan dao jing. Huang hua Waizhang juxing yanhui relie huanying balesitan zhanyou’, People’s Daily, 28 June 1977.
28 ‘Balesitan renmin de tiequan’, People’s Daily, 1 July 1977.
29 FRUS/1977-1980/XIII/48.
30 Ibid.
31 As early as 1974 to 1975, when serving as the First Vice Premier, Deng had already made clear to the Americans his opinion about such shared Sino-US interests in the Middle East. See FRUS/1969-1976/XVIII/122.
32 FRUS/1977-1980/XIII/49.
33 FRUS/1977-1980/XIII/48; See also Cyrus Vance, Hard Choices: Critical Years in America’s Foreign Policy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), 78-9.
34 ‘Dayan Tells UN Assembly Israel Has Changed Its View on Territorial Concessions’, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 11 October 1977; Marvine Howe, ‘Syrian Insists PLO Attend Geneva Talk’, The New York Times, 11 October 1977.
35 FRUS/1977-1980/VIII/141.
36 Ibid.
37 FRUS/1977-1980/XIII/109.
38 Yehuda Lukacs ed., The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Documentary Record (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 466-9.
39 FRUS/1977-1980/VIII/176.
40 Congress and the Nation, 1977-1980, Volume V: The 95th and 96th Congresses (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1981), 63-4.
41 FRUS/1977-1980/XIII/106.
42 FRUS/1977-1980/XIII/108.
43 Ibid.; FRUS/1977-1980/XIII/109.
44 FRUS/1977-1980/XIII/108.
45 Ibid.
46 FRUS/1977-1980/XIII/40.
47 FRUS/1977-1980/XIII/196.
48 FRUS/1977-1980/XIII/109.
49 Ibid.
50 FRUS/1977-1980/XIII/138; ‘Jingti sulian pohuai alabo tuanjie’, People’s Daily, 8 November 1978.
51 FRUS/1977-1980/XIII/138.
52 An Huihou, ed., Silu xinyun: Xin Zhongguo he Alabo guojia 50 nian waijiao licheng (Beijing: Shijie zhishi chubanshe, 2006), 107.
53 Ibid.; See also ‘Jingti sulian pohuai alabo tuanjie’, People’s Daily, 8 November 1978.
54 Quoted in Yitzhak Shichor, ‘“Just Stand” and “Just Struggle”: China and the Peace Process in the Middle East’, The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 5 (January 1981), 44-5. In addition to Beijing’s stance on regional affairs that frightened the Palestinians into believing that they were losing a long-term strong ally, the other courses of action, including the unleashing of the market, also alienated quite a few Arab left-wing intellectuals who had been familiar with the Maoist features of Chinese society. See Othman Fadlallah, ‘min maw tsi tungh ‘iilaa shi jin bingh: alearab walsiyni. ealaqat rasikhat ealaa mibadi “bandungh”’, Al-Bayan, 13 December 2015; Mohammed Turki Alsudairi, ‘Arab Encounters with Maoist China: Transnational Journeys, Diasporic Lives and Intellectual Discourses’, Third World Quarterly 42: 3 (2021), 503-524.
55 ‘Mei, ai, yi daiweiying huiyi jieshu. Aiji renmin zhichi Sadate zongtong wei zhongdong heping zuo nuli’, People’s Daily, 19 September 1978.
56 ‘Communiqué of the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China’, in Alan Lawrance, ed., China Since 1919: Revolution and Reform: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2008), 217-9.
57 FRUS/1977-1980/XIII/204.
58 Ibid.
59 Ibid.
60 Yaakov Katz and Amir Bohbot, The Weapon Wizards: How Israel Became a High-Tech Military Superpower (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2017), 222-3.
61 FRUS/1977-1980/VIII/53.
62 Abba Gefen, Israel at a Crossroads (Jerusalem: Gefen Books, 2001), 183.
63 Zhongyang junwei bangongting, ed., Deng xiaoping guanyu xin shiqi jundui jianshe lunshu xuanbian (Beijing: Ba yi chubanshe, 1993), 88, 155-6.
64 FRUS/1981-1988/III/90; See also Sun zhaoqing, ‘Jian-7M yanfa ji chukou jingyan zongjie’, Hangkong dang’an 5 (2007), 26-9.
65 See Shichor, ‘The Importance of Being Ernst’, 21-3.
66 ‘Junzizu zuzhang Wen haxiong yu yiselie feiji zhizao gongsi zhumei daibiao jiu youshi zhandouji shou wo youguan shiyi zhi tanhua jilu’, 2 June 1978, Guoshiguan dang’an shiliao wenwu (Taiwan), 005-010202-00168-001, 2-9.
67 ‘Yiselie hangkong gongye zongcai G. Gidor zeng Jiang jingguo shengjing’, 25 November 1978, Guoshiguan dang’an shiliao wenwu, 005-010504-00049-001, 2; For Jiang’s rejection, see FRUS/1977-1980/XIII/151.
68 Yitzhak Shichor, ‘My Heart Is in the West and I Am at the Ends of the East: Changing Israeli Perceptions of Asia’,in Alfred Wittstock, ed., The World Facing Israel - Israel Facing the World: Images and Politics (Berlin: Frank & Timme, 2011), 253-4.
69 Katz and Bohbot, The Weapon Wizards, 222-4.
70 Ibid., 224-5. This trip was a closely guarded secret and many in the US State Department, at least for a while, were also kept in the dark. See FRUS/1977-1980/XIII/249; FRUS/1977-1980/XIII/258.
71 Li Zhoushu, ‘Zhongguo zhanji junshou diyi dan——cong wuchang yuanwai dao junshou’, Hangkong dang’an 1 (2005), 47-9.
72 Ibid.
73 Ibid.
74 FRUS/1977-1980/XIII/109.
75 ‘Cujin alabo he feizhou hezuo, zengqiang kangji qinlue de nengli, shate alabo xiang disan shijie guojia tigong daliang jingji yuanzhu’, People’s Daily, 22 September 1978.
76 FRUS/1977-1980/XVIII/177.
77 Zeng Qiongye, ed., Tieyi xiongying: damo jihua koushu lishi (Taipei: Guofangbu shi zheng bianyishi, 2010).
78 Luo Tianbin, Shiluo de damo zhongdui: zhonghua minguo kongjun de zhongdong mimi renwu (Taipei: Maitian chubanshe, 1999).
79 Ibid.
80 Although Saudi Arabia was not interested in political dialogue with Beijing during this period, Riyadh took a quite positive, but not without reservation, attitude towards the PRC’s resumption of its Hajj convoys at the end of 1970s. Jasser Alsagri, ‘alealaqat alsueudiat - alsiynia … 80 eaman min alshirakat walmasalih alkubraa,’ Al Riyadh, 23 February 2019.
81 ‘1979: Israel and Egypt Shake Hands on Peace Deal’, BBC [accessed 18 March 2024 at http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/26/newsid_2806000/2806245.stm].
82 Gregory Gause III, ‘The Foreign Policy of Saudi Arabia’, in Raymond Hinnebusch and Anoushiravan Ehteshami, eds., The Foreign Policies of Middle East States (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002), 206-7.
83 An Huihou, Silu xinyun, 107; ‘Deng xiaoping fu zongli huijian alabo yemen pengyou’; ‘Ji Pengfei zai huanying Fahumu zhuxi de yanhui shang chongshen zhongguo jianjue zhichi balesitan he alabo renmin de zhengyi douzheng’, People’s Daily, 20 November 1979.
84 ‘Waidian baodao: Teluduo tan Deng fu zongli tong ta de tanhua’, Cankao xiaoxi, 27 September 1979.
85 Ibid.
86 Li Zhoushu, ‘Zhongguo zhanji junshou diyi dan’, 49; ‘Mubalake fu zongtong dao wo guo fangwen. Deng xiaoping fu zongli, Wulanfu fu weiyuanzhang deng dao jichang Yingjie’, People’s Daily, 6 January 1980.
87 ‘Seli neiren de xingdong’, People’s Daily, 5 August 1980.
88 Xin Yi, ‘Kate zhengfu de dui hua jishu zhuanrang yu junshou zhengce’, Meiguo yanjiu 5 (2016): 142-4.
89 Michael Schaller, ‘Reagan and Asia,’ in Andrew Johns, ed., A Companion to Ronald Reagan (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015), 413-7.
90 Compilation Team of ‘the Biography of Li Xiannian’ and Editorial Department of the Revolutionary History of the Eyu Border Region, Li xiannian nianpu (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 2011), 163.
91 Ibid., 135.
92 Leng Rong and Wang Zuoling, eds., Deng xiaoping nianpu (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 2004), 711-2.
93 Deng Xiaoping, Deng xiaoping wenxuan, di er juan (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1994), 19-20.
94 Leng Rong and Wang Zuoling, Deng xiaoping nianpu, 858-9.
95 ‘Alafate shuai daibiaotuan di beijing. Zhao ziyang juxing yanhui relie huanying’, People’s Daily, 8 October 1981.
96 ‘Ji pengfei xiang Zhang baoyu tongzhi mu xian huaquan’, People’s Daily, 12 October 1981.
97 ‘Bixu liji ezhu beijing de xue shou’, People’s Daily, 20 September 1982.
98 Xiaoping, Deng xiaoping wenxuan, 415.
99 Ibid., 415-7.
100 Ibid., 416.
101 Ma Xusheng, ‘Jiemeng duikang jun bu kequ—Yi bashi niandai zhong su guanxi shixian zhengchang hua de guocheng’, Dongou zhongya yanjiu 2 (2001), 64.
102 ‘Suimu mantan meiguo waijiao’, People’s Daily, 26 December 1981.
103 ‘Jiju dongdang de yinian: dui zhongdong xingshi de huigu’, People’s Daily, 28 December 1982.
104 ‘Nianzhong mantan meiguo waijiao’, People’s Daily, 28 December 1982.
105 ‘Wei jiejue lishi sanshi san nian de alabo—yiselie chongtu shate alabo tichu shixian zhongdong heping qidian jianyi’, People’s Daily, 12 August 1981.
106 ‘Jiangqiang tuanjie Jianding fangxiang Fenyong qianjin’, People’s Daily, 12 September 1982.
107 An Huihou, Silu xinyun, 172-3.
108 Ibid., 174.
109 ‘Zhao ziyang huanyan a qifang daibiaotuan binzhu juxing huitan’, People’s Daily, 7 December 1982. The trade volume between China and the entire Arab world witnessed a drastic increase from around US$ 850 million in 1977 to more than US$ 3.3 billion in 1982. Author interview with Beijing-based expert specialising in foreign trade and economy of West Asia and Africa, 1 December 2022.
110 An Huihou, Silu xinyun, 175-9.
111 Wu Zhifei, ‘Shi yanchun he ta de sishi nian zhongdong qing’, Guancha yu sikao 4 (2007), 95-7.
112 An Huihou, Silu xinyun, 177.
113 Ibid., 248.
114 The second half of 1980s witnessed rapid development in Beijing’s connections with both Saudi Arabia and Israel, and the PRC eventually established diplomatic relations with the two countries in 1990 and 1992.
115 Different interest groups in China at the time, including the propaganda sector and, in the case of dealing with the Israelis, the military, clearly had their own agendas respectively. See Gao Qiufu, He Beijian and Yao Zhenxian, eds., Women he nimen: zhongguo he yiselie youhao gushiji (Beijing: Wuzhou chuanbo chubanshe, 2014); Liu Yazhou, Emo daoyan de zhanzheng (Beijing: Jiefangjun wenyi chubanshe, 1984).
116 Stephen Walt, ‘The Death of American Competence,’ Foreign Policy, 23 March 2020.
117 For some of the suggestions on how Washington could call on Beijing to politically cooperate in the Middle East, see McGurk, ‘China’s Risky Middle East Bet’; Chas W. Freeman Jr., ‘The United States, the Middle East, and China,’ Middle East Policy Council, 5 June 2013, [accessed 18 March 2024 at https://mepc.org/speeches/united-states-middle-east-and-china].