On July 4, 1978, Deng Xiaoping decided to stop all economic and military aid from China to Albania.
When the news came out, Albania was in a national uproar, because in the past two decades, China has almost "covered" this small country with a population of only one million
Withdrawing aid is tantamount to drawing money from the bottom of Albania, whose leader, Hoxha, has directly redefined China as its "main enemy" in public speeches
However, for China, coming to this point is completely an unbearable result of Ah Tole...
Five surnames of domestic slave Albania
If there is one word to describe Albania, it is "small country"; And if there is one word to describe the foreign policy of this small country, it is "five family slaves"
This southern European country on the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea covered an area of less than 30,000 square kilometers and had a population of only 1.2 million in the middle of the last century
Before World War II, Albania was ruled by the Ottoman Empire and fascist Italy, and when the United States and the Soviet Union divided their spheres of influence after the war, most of the Balkan Peninsula where it was located was divided into the Eastern Bloc
In January 1946, the Albanian People's Republic was established, and the country welcomed their third master, Yugoslavia
In World War II, the partisans led by Tito successfully drove the Germans out of Yugoslavia, and this victory established Yugoslavia as a regional power after the war
Because of this, she has always had the idea of "annexing" Albania, which is neighboring herself
Beginning in 1946, Yugoslavia invested heavily in Albania in the form of "economic cooperation" and supported the Yugoslav faction within Albania
It seemed that before long, Albania would become a Yugoslav province, and even Stalin himself acquiesced to Yugoslav actions
In April 1948, the Yugoslav faction of Albania officially proposed to become the seventh member state of Yugoslavia, and Albania's history as an independent state was coming to an end
Yugoslav leader Tito
Almost at the same time, Soviet-Yugoslav relations deteriorated across the board, and the Yugoslav Communist Party was expelled from the Communist and Workers' Party Intelligence Bureau
Compared to Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union was naturally much stronger, so the Albanian authorities decisively stopped the plan to join Yugoslavia and began to seek the full support of the Soviet Union
Albania not only interacted with the countries of the Soviet bloc, but also tried to build its economy by following Stalin's model, and this "lost brother" style eventually impressed Stalin, and in 1949 the Soviet Union approved Albania's accession to the Economic Mutual Association, and in 1955 Albania to join the Warsaw Pact
But for the Soviet Union, Albania's use value was too small, and the poor and weak country had always needed its own blood transfusion
Therefore, in the later years of Khrushchev's administration, the Soviet Union arrogantly told Albania that they should abandon the development of heavy industry and strive for the goal of becoming a "socialist" orchard
Although this proposal made sense from the perspective of the Soviet Union, from the perspective of Albania, it undoubtedly made the Albanian people slaves for life, so the purge of internal Soviet supporters began
Such actions led to a complete rupture in Soviet-Afghan relations, and in 1961 the Soviet-Afghan diplomatic relations were severed, and the Soviet Union withdrew all its experts from Albania
Khrushchev visits Afghanistan
Unlike China, however, Albania was a small country whose economy depended entirely on the Soviet Union, and the latter's withdrawal directly paralyzed the whole Albania
This extremely dangerous situation obviously cannot be obtained by Albania on its own, so they set their sights on their next master, China
China aided Albania
China's assistance to Albania is more of a helpless move in a special period
Cooperation between China and Argentina began with the Sino-Soviet polemic when, when Khrushchev treacherously withdrew all Soviet experts, China, which had been at odds with the Western camp for many years, faced unprecedented diplomatic isolation
At this time, Albania was the only country that openly supported China, which became one of the reasons for the Soviet Union's revenge on the small country and allowed them to gain Chinese friendship
At the same time that the Soviet Union withdrew all its experts in Afghanistan, China announced that it would compensate Albania for the loss of Soviet economic aid
In the decade since, China officially began its all-round assistance to Albania, and in the decade since, China has supplied 1.8 million tons of grain, more than one million tons of steel and tens of thousands of tractors to this micro-country with a population of only 1.6 million, and assisted the small Albania in planning and building 142 industrial projects
China aided Albanian jets
According to statistics, since the founding of the People's Republic of China to 1978, China's total aid to Afghanistan has reached 5.433 billion yuan, in these 20 years or so, the average aid received by each Albanian is equivalent to about 2,700 yuan, in 1978, China's per capita disposable income was only 171 yuan, it can be said that in the nearly two decades of China's comprehensive aid to Afghanistan, the whole Albanian country was supported by the strength of the whole country
What does Albania return to China? The only reward Albania offers to China is political support in a special era
Albania's political support for China has two points, one is to stand on China's side from beginning to end in the era of Sino-Soviet controversy; The second is to play the role of "standard-bearer" for China in the process of New China's return to the United Nations
The Restoration of the Lawful Rights of the People's Republic of China in the United Nations, adopted on 25 October 1971, was initiated by Albania
It can be said that it was precisely because of Hoxha's Albania that China was able to open a window for foreign exchanges from the United Nations in the late sixties and early seventies, when it was at odds with the United States and the Soviet Union at the same time
It is precisely because of this that Hoxha received the title of "old friend of the Chinese people" after his death
"Old friend of the Chinese people" Hoxha
On the other hand, whether Albania has made good use of China's aid and whether it is grateful for China's assistance is a controversial topic
China's goodwill is massively wasted
Objectively speaking, China's aid to Albania is not much in terms of amount, and since the founding of New China, the country that has received the most Chinese aid is Vietnam
By 1978, China's aid to Vietnam amounted to 18.22 billion yuan, more than three times the amount of Albania's aid
However, the size of Albania's population is much smaller than Vietnam's, which dooms China's aid to fundamentally affect the livelihood of the entire Albanian population
With China's strong assistance, Albania's economic level has grown steadily since 1960, and by 1978, the country's per capita GDP exceeded $600, three times that of China during the same period
However, Albania has not used China's aid effectively, for example, the more than one million tons of steel provided by China are mostly used to build bunkers in Albania
According to statistics, there were as many as 750,000 new bunkers built in Albania during Hoxha's reign, and the bunkers alone could meet the living needs of all Albanians
However, such a large number of bunkers turned out to be useless for such a country without any strategic depth, and Albania was simply squandering the resources provided by China
A large number of bunkers built by Albania
But the Albanians themselves did not want to reflect, and when Chinese asked when they would be able to repay the loan, the Albanians replied that there was no repayment plan
And after learning about Chinese's attitude, Albania still cheekily asked China for more loans
In 1974, Albania began its sixth five-year plan, and before the plan began, they opened their mouths and demanded loans of up to 5 billion yuan from China
Although China's own economic situation was not good at that time, it agreed to provide a bailout of more than one billion yuan first
However, Chinese's kindness did not reap Albania's gratitude, and although the amount of aid increased day by day, Albania's attitude towards Chinese became worse and worse
In the era of relative isolation of China's diplomatic environment in the sixties, Albania was indeed one of our few partners and spoke up for China on many occasions in international forums
The two Arab proposals at the United Nations
However, when Sino-American and Sino-Soviet relations gradually eased in the early seventies, Albania began to say some inappropriate things
After Nixon's visit to China in 1972, Albania, which had long maintained hostile relations with the United States, could not sit still
They did not take into account the great significance of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States to break the diplomatic dilemma for China, nor did they consider that Albania is only a small and insignificant country compared to China and the United States
They actually said in public that "those who call themselves the red sun of the people of the world have betrayed the people of the world with extreme shamelessness."
In an unnamed manner, groundless accusations were made against Chairman Mao and the CPC Central Committee
Although China did not take Albania's "criticism" seriously, it did not use this as an excuse to immediately cut off its aid to Albania
In 1976, Albanian hostility to China began to rise sharply after China failed to provide all the aid Albania needed
They not only arrest pro-China factions at home, but also point fingers at China's policy, calling the mainland's "theory of non-aligned countries" and the "theory of three worlds" the two-headed monster of imperialism
This series of actions eventually led to China's decision in 1978 to "suspend all aid to Afghanistan."
Deng Xiaoping eventually had to end his aid to Afghanistan
epilogue
After losing Chinese aid, Albania, the "five-surnamed domestic slaves", began to look for the next master, and they tried to contact the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as to restore economic and trade relations with Yugoslavia
However, no matter who it is, there is little interest in such a small, instrategically important country
Albania, which completely lost Chinese aid, entered a long period of economic recession
Since 1978, Albania's per capita GDP has not risen, but has fallen, and even fell to $200 during the drastic changes in Eastern Europe, ranking among the poorest countries in the world
For this tragic situation, the Albanians blamed it all on China's "treachery"
In 1978, Albanian leader Hoxha was over 70 years old at this time, but despite his age, he comprehensively criticized China's internal and foreign affairs, listed China as a "social imperialist country" along with the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, and even said that China was an enemy more dangerous than the Soviet Union
For Albania's clamour, our side rarely responds, perhaps the Albanian story verifies the old saying "Shengmien, fight Mi feud", the friendship between countries bought with money is still unreliable after all