Remarks Made During an Audience with Trade Union and Women’s Delegations and Representatives from Fourteen Countries and Regions in Latin America and Africa (May 3, 1960)

Chairman Mao Zedong held cordial talks with these friends, expressing the firm support of China’s 650 million people for Cuba and for the national-democratic movement currently being waged by the peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. He thanked them for their support and assistance to New China, and pointed out that our common enemy is U.S. imperialism; we all stand on the same front and must unite and support one another. Chairman Mao stated that the peoples of the entire world, including the American people, are our friends. In his remarks, he also voiced support for the forthcoming Four-Power Summit Conference.

Printed according to the news release in the People’s Daily of May 4, 1960.

Notes  [1] On the afternoon of May 3, 1960, in Jinan, Chairman Mao received trade union and women’s delegations and individual representatives from fourteen countries and regions in Latin America and Africa who were visiting China. They included: a delegation of the Cuban Workers’ Federation; delegations of Brazil’s National Civil Servants’ Union and Brazil’s National Bank Employees’ Federation; women’s delegations from Sierra Leone and Tanganyika, together with a women’s representative from Basutoland; women’s delegations from Cuba, Venezuela, and Uruguay, as well as women representatives from Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Paraguay, Costa Rica, Honduras, Puerto Rico, and Martinique.

[2] On May 16, 1960, the heads of government of the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France convened in Paris to discuss further détente between the Soviet Union and the United States in Europe and ways to resolve major international issues. During the meeting, Nikita Khrushchev demanded that President Eisenhower publicly apologize for the U-2 high-altitude spy plane incident of May 1, 1960, when a U.S. aircraft had violated Soviet airspace. After Eisenhower refused, Khrushchev withdrew from the conference, thereby bringing it to an end.