One of the basic assumptions of this study is that the Chinese have always been concerned with developments in the Middle East not merely as an important centre of international activity in its own right but primarily as a part of the general historical development of the world which affected and involved China's own interests. The Chinese communists’ interest in the Middle East, which had long preceded the actual establishment of relations, has been closely associated with their perception of the world situation. In Mao Tse-tung's view the world has been undergoing significant changes since World War n. The traditional ‘old-colonialist’ powers, such as Germany, Italy, Britain and France, began to decline, having been forced to abandon their overseas possessions. Instead, two antagonistic great powers emerged, the United States and the Soviet Union which aimed at overcoming each other. Both realised that this would not be possible before gaining control over the vast area lying between them, to which Mao referred in 1946 as the ‘intermediate zone’. The competition between the superpowers (the First World) over the intermediate zone (the Second and Third Worlds), according to Mao, has been the essence of post-war international relations.

In the late 1940s and 1950s, while the Soviets were on the defensive, it was the United States which started its ‘aggressive’ expansion in an attempt to ‘fill the gap’ created by the withdrawal of the traditional powers. In the 1960s, the post-Stalin Soviet revisionist leadership, instead of concentrating on driving the Americans out of the intermediate zone, began to expand and compete with the United States over the control of this area.