Neither for, nor against Mao: PCI-CCP interactions and the normalisation of Sino-Italian relations, 1966-71

This paper explores the Italian Communist Party (PCI)’s interactions with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the years immediately preceding the normalisation of Sino-Italian relations. The present work highlights three aspects of this dynamic: the PCI’s rewriting of its identity as a foreign policy making actor independent of the US, the USSR, and neither dismissive nor laudatory of Mao; the PCI’s establishment of partnerships with actors at home and abroad to allow for its China-policy blueprints to come to fruition; and the efforts of PCI-affiliated intellectuals toward making a rapprochement between the PCI and the CCP possible.