How do you assess Mao 's foreign policy? Explain the logic, successes and failures

After years of Civil War between the Communists and Nationalists, Mao Zedong proclaimed the People‘s Republic of China (PRC) on October 1, 1949. Thereby, the Communists replaced the Republic of China (ROC) which was under the sovereignty of Chiank Kai-shek, leader of the Kuomintang. The government of Chiank had to flee from Chinese mainland to Taiwan.

The transition of power in China changed the dynamics of post-World War II relations. For the United States, the so-called “Loss of China” was a a catastrophe, not only because the US supported Chiang Kai-shek in the last few years, but also because it seems to be a victory for the Soviet Union and the global Communism.

For China, in 1949 started for the first time in its history the possibility to build foreign relations without being “suppressed by unequal treaties” by western powers. But China‘s relations to other countries remained very complicated and complex. With the Soviet Union, China had found an ideological partnership which changed in the following decades into rivalry. The relationship with Taiwan was and still is very complex. And finally, the Sino-American relations, which are best described with the transformation from being enemies and becoming friends.

In the following essay, I try to highlight the three main foreign relations of Mao‘s China, firstly with the United States, secondly, with the Soviet Union, and thirdly with