China–Japan Relations after World War Two
Empire, Industry and War, 1949–1971

A rich empirical account of China's post-war foreign economic policy towards Japan, drawing on recently declassified Chinese sources.

Amy King (Author)

9781107579569, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 21 December 2017

277 pages, 8 b/w illus. 8 tables
23 x 15.3 x 1.5 cm, 0.42 kg

'This is a valuable contribution to the study of Sino-Japanese and international relations of the early People's Republic … King's study benefits in no small measure from her timely research at China's foreign ministry archives, which have been closed to researchers since 2014.' Joyman Lee, The China Quarterly 

A rich empirical account of China's foreign economic policy towards Japan after World War Two, drawing on hundreds of recently declassified Chinese sources. Amy King offers an innovative conceptual framework for the role of ideas in shaping foreign policy, and examines how China's Communist leaders conceived of Japan after the war. The book shows how Japan became China's most important economic partner in 1971, despite the recent history of war and the ongoing Cold War divide between the two countries. It explains that China's Communist leaders saw Japan as a symbol of a modern, industrialised nation, and Japanese goods, technology and expertise as crucial in strengthening China's economy and military. For China and Japan, the years between 1949 and 1971 were not simply a moment disrupted by the Cold War, but rather an important moment of non-Western modernisation stemming from the legacy of Japanese empire, industry and war in China.

1. Introduction
2. Empire, industry and war in the China-Japan relationship
3. Trading with the enemy, 1949–52
4. Revolution through industrialisation, 1953–7
5. When ideas collide, 1958–July 1960
6. Comparing ourselves with Japan, August 1960–5
Conclusion: on the eve of diplomatic normalisation, 1966–71
Appendix
Note on sources
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ], International relations [JPS], Postwar 20th century history, from c 1945 to c 2000 [HBLW3], Asian history [HBJF]