ABSTRACT
The period started with the Civil War in Jordan in September 1970, later called Black September by the PRM, when the Jordanian army successfully curtailed the PRM’s military and political presence in Jordan. This, ironically, led to the further growth of the PRM — mainly Fatah — presence in Lebanon. Sino-Soviet rivalry became so significant a factor in relations between the Palestinians and the Chinese that Fatah had to readjust its priorities in the changed circumstances. This, of course, resulted from the importance China had attached to the Palestinian cause in its foreign policy priorities in the Arab-Israeli conflict. China’s view of the Palestinian struggle, as indicated by Chou En-lai, within its complex Arab surroundings, was that it was one element of a ‘unified world-wide’ bloc against the USA and, to a lesser extent, ‘Soviet Revisionism’; this was at the time, in 1970, of the ominous developments in Cambodia and the escalation of the Vietnamese war.
