ABSTRACT
The leaders of the Chinese Communist party viewed the anti-Japanese War of Resistance against the backdrop of their continuing, bitter struggle for power within China and saw foreign policy as a means to strengthen their own position vis-à-vis that of their domestic political rival, the KMT. During the war, the CCP developed a foreign policy of opposition that was shaped by the exigencies of the international environment as seen through the prism of the party’s domestic political needs. Party leaders developed two major, fully articulated perspectives on foreign affairs—the united front and the Teheran paradigms—that undergirded their foreign policy of opposition. Party leaders also enunciated a series of principles and prescriptions for China’s foreign policy that not only provide insights into the party’s domestic revolutionary strategy but also help one understand the roots of PRC foreign policy.
