Join together to safeguard peace

Artist: Zhang Huaijiang and Zhang Cizhong

Year: 1952

Publisher: People's Fine Art Publishing House

Size (mm): 536x770

Condition: Very good, creasing and small tears to margins, pinholes in corners causing small losses, foxing to lower margin

The text on the centre banner reads Yazhou ji Taipingyang quyu ge guo renmin tuanjie qilai jiaqiang he kuoda baowei heping yundong (people of all the countries of the Asia-Pacific region unite together, strengthen and expand the movement for the safeguarding of peace)

Between 2 October and 12 October 1952 the Asia-Pacific Region Peace Conference was held in Beijing. Attending delegates, the majority of whom were associated with communist parties in their own countries, arrived from 37 different nations. Mao Zedong gave a number of speeches. Soong Ching Ling, wife of Sun Yat-sen, led the Chinese delegation at the conference and was elected as president of the Liaison Committee in 1952. There was a signed declaration from the Pakistani and Kashmiri delegates to announce the intention of settling differences between the two parties. 

With the signing of the Sino-Soviet Treaty in 1950, the early part of the decade marked the high point in relations between China and the Soviet Union. The wide-scale economic and military cooperation continued until the 1960s when the friendship began to thaw considerably, leading to the Sino-Soviet split.