Forging new meanings of Europe. The cross-ideological logic of Western Business Interest Associations (BIAs) promoting trade with Mao’s China

Valeria Zanier

Business History, 2024, vol. 66, issue 6, 1580-1601

Abstract: This paper explores the role of BIAs in the promotion of trade across the Cold War divide during the 1950s, when the creation of a new political and economic ensemble in Western Europe intertwined with the re-elaboration of imperialist entanglements and the emergence of Socialist economies. The focus on everyday business practice allows us to identify the nature and the purpose of these BIAs, revealing a great variety of logics, but a unifying interest: creating a new role for their national economies in China’s nascent economic progress. In the absence of full diplomatic relations, these organisations were identified in many cases as main reference points by the Chinese authorities and were, thus, in a privileged position to change the image of West European countries from colonisers into viable partners at a time when the PRC was shaping a new national narrative.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00076791.2022.2154340 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:bushst:v:66:y:2024:i:6:p:1580-1601

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/FBSH20

DOI: 10.1080/00076791.2022.2154340

Access Statistics for this article

Business History is currently edited by Professor John Wilson and Professor Steven Toms

More articles in Business History from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().