Hostage Diplomacy: Britain,China, and the Politics of Negotiation, 1967–1969

During the radical phase of the Cultural Revolution in 1967–1969, China's violation of the diplomatic norms of the international community reached an unprecedented level. Two dozen British diplomats and private citizens on the mainland became de facto hostages of their host government. In response to China's hostage-taking, the British government preferred quiet diplomacy to extreme retaliation such as a rupture of diplomatic relations and economic sanctions. It focused on negotiations through minimal publicity and reciprocal gestures. But in China, the British found a culturally different negotiating partner that was obsessed with principles rather than details. Through a step-by-step negotiating approach recommended by the Sinologists in the British Mission, London was finally successful in securing the release of its detained nationals. The lesson of Britain's quiet diplomacy was a culture-sensitive approach to negotiation and the ability to separate the hostage question from the wider political and economic relationship that would facilitate the resolution of future hostage crises.     

G. Johnson (Ed.) (2010). Peacemaking,Peacemakers and Diplomacy, 1880–1939. Essays in Honour of Professor Alan Sharp

He [Wilson] was more than just an idealist: he was the personification of the heritage of idealism of the American people. He brought spiritual concepts to the peace table. He was a born crusader.

Herbert Hoover

¹ 1 Herbert Hoover, The Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson (rev. ed. Baltimore, 1992) ix.

The issue of the Japanese plea for race equality at the Paris Peace Conference is generally seen as a secondary issue for American delegates. Most accounts see Wilson as being bullied into rejecting the proposal by the Dominion delegates — most notably Australia’s Billy Hughes. Analyzing his views on race and its intricate connection with immigration and examining his own and his advisers response to political allies and opponents at home and in Paris over these issues, this piece will argue that Wilson responded as much to domestic pressures as external forces in his eventual compromise with the Japanese in Paris.     

Moore,R. (2010). Nuclear Illusion,Nuclear Reality Britain the United States and Nuclear Weapons, 1958–64

W.N. Medlicott, Douglas Dakin and M.E. Lambert (eds.), Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919–1939, First Series, Volume XX. German Reparation and Allied Military Control 1922. Russia, March 1921‐December 1922 (London, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1976). 970 + lxx pp. £23. ISBN 0–11–591553–2

W.N. Medlicott and Douglas Dakin (eds.), assisted by Gillian Bennett, Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919–1939, First Series, Volume XXII. Central Europe and the Balkans 1921. Albania 1921–2 (London, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1980). 885 + cxii pp. £45. ISBN 0–11–591555–9

David S. Newhall, Clemenceau. A Life at War (The Edwin Meilen Press: Lampeter, 1991). 682 + xv pp. £35.95. ISBN 0–88946–785–4

J. Calvitt Clarke III, Russia and Italy against Hitler. The Bolshevik‐Fascist Rapprochement of the 1930s (Contributions to the Study of World History No. 21, Greenwood Press: Westport, Connecticut, 1991). 218 + xvii pp. £59.95. ISBN 0–313–27468–1

David Dutton, Simon. A political biography of Sir John Simon (Aurum Press, 1992). 364 + viii pp. £25. ISBN 1–85410–204–4

Peter Neville, Neville Chamberlain. A study in failure? (Personalities and Power Series, Hodder and Stoughton, 1992). £5. ISBN 0–340–56308–7