1. See for example, Pitao, Zhao, Waishi gaishuo (Outline of Foreign Affairs) (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue chubanshe, 1995), p. 19Google Scholar. The phrase nei jin wai song is sometimes used in a negative sense, when it comes to security matters. In this case waishi cadres are told they should follow the principle of wai jin nei song, meaning that certain information should not be given to “outsiders,” in other words foreigners. See Yincai, Zhan, Shewai mishuxue (An Introduction to International Secretarial Studies) (Hangzhou: Hangzhou daxue chubanshe, 1993), p. 317.Google Scholar

2. The Commercial Press Chinese English Dictionary (1979)Google Scholar translates waishi as “foreign affairs; external affairs”; both terms express the broadness of the Chinese meaning. I have chosen to translate it as foreign affairs, since I feel this best captures the ambiguity of the term. However, because the waishi system is unique, I have mostly chosen to use the Chinese term rather than the English. It should be noted that in Chinese texts the term waishi is also used interchangeably with the phrase shewai, which the Commercial Press Chinese English Dictionary translates as “concerning foreign affairs or foreign nationals.” For the relationship between waishi and shewai see Pitao, Zhao, Foreign Affairs, p. 2Google Scholar

3. Ibid. p. 1.

4. For an understanding of how xitong fit into the Chinese bureaucracy, see Lieberthal, Kenneth G., Governing China: From Revolution to Reform (New York: W.W. Norton, 1995), pp. 192–208Google Scholar. Carol Lee Hamrin has provided a provisional outline of some of the structure of the waishi xitong in “The party leadership system,” in Lieberthal, Kenneth G. and Lampton, David M. (eds.), Bureaucracy, Politics, and Decisionmaking in Post-Mao China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), pp. 95–124Google Scholar; see also Barnett, Doak A., The Making of Foreign Policy in China: Structure and Process (Boulder, CO: Westview PressGoogle Scholar; and the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, Foreign Policy Institute: SAIS Papers in International Affairs, 1985).

5. Liaowang (ed.), Guowuyuan jigou gaige gailan (An Overview of Reforms in the Organizations of the State Council) (Beijing: Xinhua chubanshe, 1998), p. 262Google Scholar. The two foreign affairs offices maintain separate nameplates, but are one and the same body, see Pitao, Zhao, Foreign Affairs, p. 5.Google Scholar

6. See Yincai, Zhan, International Secretarial Studies, p. 316.Google Scholar

7. One of the primary duties of the CCP's earliest formal foreign ministry, established in 1934, was to manage relations with foreigners in the Chinese Soviet Republic. See Hunt, Michael H., The Genesis of Chinese Communist Foreign Policy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), p. 227.Google Scholar

8. See Zhixiang, Shao (ed.), Shewai gongan zhishi wenda (Foreign Affairs Public Security Knowledge: Questions and Answers) (Beijing: Zhongguo fangzheng chubanshe, 1994), pp. 28–29Google Scholar; Zhonggong Guangzhou shiwei dui wai xuanchuan xiaozu bangongshi, Shewai renyuan shouce (Foreign Affairs Worker's Handbook) (Guangzhou: Xinhua shudian, 1985), pp. 67–69.Google Scholar

9. Caute, David, The Fellow Travellers: A Postscript to the Enlightenment (London: Wiedenfeld and Nicholson, 1974)Google Scholar; Hollander, Paul, Political Pilgrims: Travels of Western Intellectuals to the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981)Google Scholar; Passin, Herbert, China's Cultural Diplomacy (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1963).Google Scholar

10. Leys, Simon, Chinese Shadows (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978)Google Scholar; Marcuse, Jacques, The Peking Papers (London: Arthur Baker, 1968)Google Scholar; Schell, Orville, In The People's Republic (New York: Vintage, 1978)Google Scholar and Watch Out for the Foreign Guests! (New York: Pantheon, 1980)Google Scholar; Terrill, Ross, China In Our Time: The epic saga of the People's Republic of China from the Communist Victory to Tiananmen Square and beyond (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993).Google Scholar

11. Hooper, Beverley, China Stands Up: Ending the Western Presence 1948–1950 (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1986).Google Scholar

12. This article forms part of my doctoral thesis on China's waishi “Making the foreign serve China: managing foreigners in the People's Republic of China,” Australian National University, 2000. I first began researching the topic of China's foreign friends in 1990, focusing on the New Zealander Rewi Alley. See my forthcoming book, Brady, Anne-Marie, Friend of China – The Myth of Rewi Alley (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 2001)Google Scholar. My current research is based on nine years' scouring of libraries and bookshops (most of the Chinese language material is neibu, or restricted access material) and numerous interviews in seven different countries. I can only indicate a marginal amount of these sources in this article and I cannot always reveal their provenance.

13. Foreign expert is a polite term used by the Chinese to describe all foreign technicians and workers. It has both a general and specific meaning. In its specific sense, it is the highest rank of the sliding pay scale for foreigners who work for the Chinese government.

14. “Tan yinjin zhili” (“Discussing importing intellect”), Duiwai xuanchuan cankao (Foreign Propaganda Reference Material), No. 12 (1994), pp. 6–8.Google Scholar

15. “Foreign experts awarded,” China Daily, 30 09 1997.Google Scholar

16. Huaiyuan, Qi, “Deng Xiaoping de minjian waijiao sixiang yu shixian (“Deng Xiaoping's people's diplomacy, theory and practice”), in Taiping, Wang (ed.), Deng Xiaoping waijiao sixiang yanjiu wenji (Collected Research on Deng Xiaoping's Diplomatic Thought) (Beijing: Shijie zhishi chubanshe, 1993), p. 180Google Scholar; Muzhi, Zhu, “Guanyu duiwai xuanchuan de jige wenti” (“Some points regarding foreign propaganda”), 10 09 1981Google Scholar, Zhu Muzhi lun duiwai xuanchuan (Zhu Muzhi Discusses Foreign Propaganda) (Beijing: Wuzhou chuanbo chubanshe, 1995)Google Scholar, hereafter ZMZ, p. 23.

17. Interview with former waishi cadre, 12 1998.Google Scholar

18. Muzhi, Zhu, “Duiwai baodao yao wei shehuizhuyi xiandaihua jianshe fuwu” (“Foreign broadcasts should serve socialist modernization”), 12 04 1978Google Scholar, in ZMZ, pp. 1–13.Google Scholar

19. For a consideration of some of the debates involved see Anagnost, Ann, National Past-times: Narrative, Representation, and Power in Modern China (Durham & London: Duke University Press, 1997).Google Scholar

20. “Zhonggong zhongyang guanyu jianli duiwai xuanchuan xiaozu jiaqiang duiwai xuanchuan gongzuo de tongzhi” (“CCP Central Committee directive regarding setting up a foreign propaganda group and strengthening foreign propaganda work”), 16 09 1980Google Scholar, bangongting, Zhongyang xuanchuanbu. Dang de xuanchuan gongzuo wenjian plan 1949–1993 (Party Policy Documents 1949–1993), Vol. 1–4, hereafter DDXC (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1994), Vol. 2, p. 714.Google Scholar

21. See for example maoyijingjihezuobujiaojishi, Duiwai (ed.), Shewai liyi ABC (Foreign Etiquette ABC) (Beijing: Zhongguo renmin chubanshe, 1997), p. 8Google Scholar; Pitao, Zhao, Foreign Affairs, p. 136Google Scholar; Zhonghua renmin gongheguo gonganbu waishi ju (ed.), Libin gongzuo shouce (Protocol Work Handbook) (Beijing: Jingguan Jiaoyu chubanshe, 1997), p. 9.Google Scholar

22. As part of these efforts to make Chinese citizens keep a distance between themselves and foreigners rather ironically, a handbook for senior cadres warns of foreigners offering “friendship.” See Lawrence, Susan V., “Even paranoids have enemies,” U.S. News & World Report, Vol. 112, No. 21 (1 06 1992), p. 14.Google Scholar

23. Muzhi, Zhu, “Guanyu duiwai xuanchuan de ji ge wenti” (“A few points on foreign propaganda”), ZMZ, 10 09 1981, p. 30Google Scholar; and Muzhi, Zhu, “Ba duiwai zuanchuan gongzuo tigao yibu” (“Make some improvements in foreign propaganda work), ZMZ, 22 06 1986, p. 74Google Scholar. These Deng-era handbooks were virtually identical to those of the Mao era in their strategies and approach, if not their policies; see Quanguo renmin daibiao dahui changweiyuanhui dianliju, Jiedai waibin xuzhi (Points for Hosting Foreign Guests) (Beijing, 1956).Google Scholar

24. Many non-official books on how to deal with foreigners have been appearing in recent years; see for example Xinshi, Li (ed.), Ruhe yu waiguoren zuo shengyi (How to Do Business with Foreigners) (Beijing: Dizhen chubanshe, 1993)Google Scholar. Li Xinshi informs his readers the basic rule in doing business with foreigners is not to forget that they themselves are the foreigner (p. 1).

25. Rihua, Wang (ed.), Shiyong shewai changshi shouce (Beijing: Renmin Zhongguo chubanshe, 1993), pp. 51 and 50Google Scholar. See also Pitao, Zhao, Foreign AffairsGoogle Scholar; and Zhonggong Guangzhou shiwei duiwai xuanchuan xiaozu bangongshi. Handbook.Google Scholar

26. Rihua, Wang, p. 48.Google Scholar

27. Meitian, Hao (ed.), Shiyong libinxue (Shantou: Shantou daxue chubanshe, 1996), pp. 77–85.Google Scholar

28. In the mid-1980s the journal's name was changed to Duiwai xuanchuan cankao (Foreign Propaganda Reference Material), hereafter cited as DWXCCK (Beijing: Xinhuashe duiwai xinwen bianji bu, 1981–).Google Scholar

29. “Qian tan neiwai you bie” (“An elementary introduction to insiders and outsiders are different”), DWXCCK, No. 9 (1985), p. 14.Google Scholar

30. See Jun, Niu, Cong Yan'an zou xiang shijie – Zhongguo gongchandang duiwai guanxi de qiyuan (From Yan'an to the World – the Origins of CCP Foreign Relations) (Fuzhou: Fujian renmin chubanshe, 1992).Google Scholar

31. Muzhi, Zhu, “Zai quan guo duiwai xuanchuan gongzuo huiyi shang de jianghua” (“Talk at the national conference on foreign propaganda”), 13 10 1990, in ZMZ, p. 266.Google Scholar

32. Muzhi, Zhu, “Fahui neizai dongli, zuohao duiwai xuanchuan” (“Do effective foreign propaganda and give free rein to internal forces”), 29 08 1986, ZMZ, p. 82.Google Scholar

33. Duiwai bianji jiagongde ABC” (“The foreign propaganda editor's ABC”), DWBDCK, No. 2 (1983), p. 29.Google Scholar

34. The Beijing National Library holds more then 250 books on the subject of public relations, all published from the 1980s to the 1990s.

35. Sifabu Zou Yu fubuzhang tan zhengzhi gongzuode duiwai xuanchuan” (“Vice-Director Zou Yu of the Ministry of Justice discusses foreign propaganda political work”), DWBDCK, No. 8 (1983), pp. 2–4.Google Scholar

36. “Zhu Muzhi tan duiwai wenhua jiaoliu he xuanchuan gongzuo” (“Zhu Muzhi discusses cultural exchanges and foreign propaganda work), DWBDCK, No. 9 (1983).Google Scholar

37. Kaizhan you Zhongguo tese de duiwai xuanchuan” (“Develop Chinese-style foreign propaganda”), DWBDCK, No. 14 (1983), pp. 4–6.Google Scholar

38. Muzhi, Zhu, “Zai quan guo duiwai xuanchuan gongzuo huiyi shang de jianghua” (“Talk at the national conference on foreign propaganda”), ZMZ, 26 11 1986, pp. 121–23.Google Scholar

39. “Zhongyang xuanchuanbu zhuanfa ‘guanyu gaijin feimaoyi duiwai wenzi xuanchuanpin chuban faxing gongzuo de yijian’ de tongzhi” (“CCP Central Committee Propaganda Department forwarded directive ‘Regarding Suggestions for Improving the Work of Publishing of Non-Trade Related Foreign Propaganda Materials’”), 22 02 1990 DDXC, Vol. 4, p. 1956.Google Scholar

40. See footage of the tour in Chuntian de gushi (Spring Story), CCTV, 01 1998Google Scholar, the 12-part series that charts Deng's personal Party history.

41. See Xiaoping, Deng, “Gist of speeches made in Wuchang, Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Shanghai,” Beijing Review, 7–20 02 1994, pp. 9–20.Google Scholar

42. Waishi cadres, interview, 12 1997.Google Scholar

43. On the impact of technology and China's propaganda system see “President calls for further propaganda work to enhance China's image abroad,” Reuters, 28 02 1999Google Scholar. The main PRC website for internet propaganda is http://www.china.org.cn.

44. “Guanyu liyong waili wei wo xuanchuan” (“On using foreign strength to propagandize China”) DWXCCK, No. 23 (1985), p. 4.Google Scholar

45. See forexample Liancheng, Duan, Duiwai chuanboxue (literally, Foreign Propagandizing, official English title How to Help Foreigners Know China), Chinese-English bilingual edition (Beijing: Zhongguo jianshe chubanshe, 1988)Google Scholar; “Guanyu liyong waili wei wo xuanchuan” (“On using foreign strength to propagandize China”), DWXCCK, No. 23 (1985)Google Scholar; and Muzhi, Zhu, “Talk at the national conference” (1986), p. 124.Google Scholar

46. The latest project to be promoted of such Sino-foreign collaborations is a film by director Xie Jun (best known for his big budget epic Opium War) based on the diaries of John Rabe, who witnessed the 1937 Nanjing massacre. See “Nanjing diaries to be film,” South China Morning Post (hereafter SCMP) Internet edition, 12 01 1999Google Scholar and Linyong, Zhu, “Rabe's diary hits big screen,” China Daily, 15 01 1999.Google Scholar

47. Norman Bethune (1890–1939) was a Canadian doctor and Communist Party member who worked in China in the 1930s with the Red Army and died there. Mao immortalized him in the famous article “In memory of Norman Bethune,” 21 12 1939Google Scholar, Selected Works of Mao Tse-Tung (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1965)Google Scholar. Alley, Rewi (1897–1987)Google Scholar arrived in Shanghai in 1927 and gradually became involved in “progressive” causes. After 1949, he stayed on in China and became one of the PRC's most prolific foreign propagandists.

48. Snow, Helen Foster (1907–1997)Google Scholar, with her then husband Edgar Snow, was involved in assisting the 9 December student demonstrations in Beiping in 1935. She also travelled to the Communist base at Yan'an in 1936 and conducted a series of interviews, which resulted in a number of books. She never achieved the fame of her estranged husband, a subject on which she was extremely bitter. Her role as a “friend of China” was not fully recognized by the PRC until very late in her life, one suspects because, unlike many other “friends,” Foster Snow was frequently critical of the myth-making nominating foreigners as friends of China often necessitates.

49. Pitao, Zhao, Foreign Affairs, pp. 166–67.Google Scholar

50. “Zhong gong zhongyang guanyu jiaqiang xuanchuan, sixiang gongzuo de tongzhi” (“CCP Central Committee directive on strengthening propaganda and ideological work”), 28 07 1989Google Scholar, DDXC, Vol. 4, pp. 1812–13.Google Scholar

51. See http://www.dashan.com.

52. On Soviet assistance in setting up the PRC foreign affairs system see Ledovsky, Andrei, “The Moscow visit of a delegation of the Communist Party of China in June to August 1949,” Far Eastern Affairs, No. 5 (1996), pp. 92–95.Google Scholar

53. An alternative non-official usage of tongzhi since the early 1990s is “gay.”

54. “The foreign propaganda editor's ABC,” p. 29.Google Scholar

55. Ibid.

56. On the subject of the importance of guanxi and ganqing in Chinese society see Mayfair Mei-hui Yang, Gifts, Favors, and Banquets: The Art of Social Relationships in China, and Kipnis, Andrew, Producing Guanxi: Sentiment, Self, and Subculture in a Northern China Village (Durham: Duke University Press, 1997)Google Scholar. Here I draw both on my understanding of Yang and Kipnis' work and on instructional material for waishi cadres.

57. Yonghua, Wang, “Zhou Enlai de waijiao yishu” (“Zhou Enlai's diplomatic art”), DWXCCK, No. 7 (1994), pp. 5–8.Google Scholar

58. “Jin yi bu gaige waishi baodao” (“Further reform in external affairs broadcasts”), DWBDCK, No. 7 (1983), p. 3.Google Scholar

59. Guest ritual formed an important aspect of China's historical foreign relations. In the imperial court “guest” had a different meaning from the usual sense in English. Guests were not invited; they had to request permission to visit the Chinese empire. The guest was not equal with the emperor, nor was the emperor a “host.” For more on the topic of binli see Hevia, James L., Cherishing Men From Afar: Qing Guest Ritual and the Macartney Embassy (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995), p. 117.Google Scholar

60. See Rihua, Wang, Shiyong shewai changshi shouce, pp. 100 and 40Google Scholar, and Zhonggong Guangzhou shiwei duiwai xuanchuan xiaozu bangongshi, Handbook, pp. 5–7.Google Scholar

61. “Extensive contact with foreigners” was one of the accusations made against a founding member of the China Democratic Party, Xu Wenli. See “China defends dissident arrest,” SCMP, Internet edition, 3 12 1998Google Scholar. In 1999, a Hebei worker was sentenced to three years imprisonment for writing to the U.S. news service Voice of America; “241 ‘still paying’ for Tiananmen,” SCMP, Internet edition, 29 04 1999Google Scholar. Chinese dissidents are warned by police not to contact foreign journalists or organizations, if caught, those who ignored such warnings tended to face much harsher sentencing; Presse, Agence France, “Drop meeting plan, activists told,” 15 02 1999Google Scholar; and also “China defends dissident arrest,” SCMP, Internet edition, 3 12 1998.Google Scholar

62. Interview with waishi cadres, 12 1997.Google Scholar

63. Xiannong, Pei, Zhou Enlai de waijiaoxue, p. 272Google Scholar; interview with waishi cadres, 12 1997.Google Scholar

64. Interview with waishi cadres, 12 1997.Google Scholar

65. For example the Peace Committee and the Beijing-based African-Asian Writers Association both closed down in 1966, and, unlike other people's organizations, were not revived in the 1970s.

66. Interviews with waishi officials, 03 1997.Google Scholar

67. For a full list of NGOs in China see http://www.mca.gov.cn/statistics/shujul.html.

68. “Ba chuanghu dakai nanmian hui you cangying wenzi pao jinlai,” Xiaoping, Deng, 10 1983.Google Scholar

69. Zhonggong Guangzhou shiwei duiwai xuanchuan xiaozu bangongshi, Handbook, p. 100.Google Scholar

70. Zhenxiang, Shao, Shewai gongan zhishi wenda (Questions and Answers on Foreign Affairs Public Security Matters) (Beijing: Zhongguo fangzheng chubanshe, 1994), p. 209.Google Scholar

71. Ibid. p. 104.

72. “Bu guli shewai hunyin” (“Don't encourage Sino-foreign marriages”), Waishi tiandi, No. 2 (1994), p. 18.Google Scholar

73. Zhonggong Guangzhou shiwei duiwai xuanchuan xiaozu bangongshi, Handbook, p. 101.Google Scholar

74. Ibid.

75. Qi, Fang, “Zenmeyang jiedai waiguo jizhe” (“How to treat foreign journalists”), DWXCCK, No. 14 (1985), pp. 6–7.Google Scholar

76. See for example, “Purged aide silenced after talk with media,” SCMP, Internet edition, 5 06 1998.Google Scholar

77. Zhonggong Guangzhou shiwei duiwai xuanchuan xiaozu bangongshi, Handbook, p. 100.Google Scholar

78. This slogan appears prominently in locations frequented by foreigners in China, such as the lobby of the Beijing Hotel. It originates from Mao Zedong's speech to the first meeting of the Chinese People's Consultative Conference on 21 September 1949, published in Renmin ribao the following day. The full version of this quotation is “Our revolution has already gained the sympathy and acclaim of all the people in the world, we have friends all over the world.” Excerpted in Zui gao zhishi (Important Instructions) (Beijing, n.p., 1969), p. 286.Google Scholar

79. Tse-tung, Mao, “The role of the Chinese Communist Party in the national war,” Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Vol. 2 (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1961), p. 196.Google Scholar

80. “Sinuo furen shuo keneng cong Beida yizou zhangfu guhui” (“Mrs Snow says she might move her husband's ashes from Beijing University”), Chinesenewsnet.com, 5 April 2000.

81. Zhongxue wei ti, Xixue weiyong.” For the Mao quotation see “Talk on Music Workers,” translated in Schram, Stuart, Mao Tse-tung Unrehearsed (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974), p. 87.Google Scholar