Irina Grigorova
Institute for Historical Studies
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
Sofia, Bulgaria
Absract. Through critical analysis of the existing publications, based on historical documents, and primary archives sources, printed memories and oral history this research explores how special the relationship between France and PRC during the Cold war was. The study discovers that Paris sought to promote its own foreign policy, ignoring the American blockage and due to the match with the Beijing anti-bipolar world stance it managed to engage a French-Chinese partnership that contested the core of the East-West division status quo and the intra-bloc subordination system. France became a major technology deliverer but never the most important one and its cultural diplomacy was embarrassed by the communist ideological distrust. Nonetheless, China has been grateful to the Western state that was the first to dare to fully recognize the PRC (1964) after the enforcement of the American isolation policy following the Korean War.
Keywords: Cold War; French-Chinese relations; independent foreign policy; national strategic interests
Log in to read the full text