China's Diplomacy through Art: a Discussion. on Some of the Archaeological and Art Finds in the Peoples'

For over two decades the Peoples' Republic of China was isolateq from most of the world. It was an isolation that was even more intensified by the raging hostility between her and her former ally the USSR. · The situation began to change in the late sixties and ties when attitudes and relations throughout the world have eroded most of the barriers that kept China apart. Hence when she finally took her seat in the UN in 1971, it was already a long anticipated fact. From China's point-of-view, her entry into the UN was the culmination of a long, period of introspection, of laborious internal preparations for her final re-emergence in international diplomacy. Indeed it can be said that China put to good account her forced isolation from most of the world by carrying out fundamental reforms called "The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution." In conjunction with these reforms, total re-examination of China's national heritage was carried out that entailed systematic investigations into all aspects of her past including that of archaeology and the history of art. These tions carried out even during the most turbulent period of the Cultural Revolution bear witness to the great pains the Chinese took to make . the ·past ·meaningful· to the ·present.