Establish Friendly Relations with All Countries¹
(August 29, 1956)

China’s revolution and China’s construction are both based on giving play to the strength of the Chinese people themselves as the mainstay and on striving for foreign aid as a supplement—this point must also be made clear. The kind of thinking that loses confidence, believes one can do nothing by oneself, holds that the destiny of China is not decided by the Chinese people themselves, and therefore relies entirely on foreign aid in all matters is completely wrong. However, after affirming this point, we must also affirm another point, namely, we should continue to strive to unite as one with the Soviet Union and all fraternal countries, continue to strive to unite as one with all fraternal parties, people’s revolutionary parties, and the broad masses of the people throughout the world, and win their sympathy and aid. If we do not affirm this point, that would also be completely wrong.

Our country’s foreign policy is based on the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. In order to ease international tensions and support the anti-colonialist national liberation movements, our government and people have already done much useful work. In the future, we should do even more work to win over all peace forces in the world and enable them to develop further, so as to benefit lasting world peace, and thereby also benefit our country’s construction. For the sake of peace and construction, we are willing to establish friendly relations with all countries in the world, including the United States. We believe that this point will one day be realized.

¹ These are two paragraphs added by Mao Zedong when reviewing the draft of the political report of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China to the Eighth National Congress of the Party.