When Mao Zedong announced the establishment of the People’s Republic of China on October 1,1949, China received for the first time in over a hundred years a unified government that was not beholden to any foreign power. Indeed, it was the first time in centuries that a unified China was governed by a leadership that was truly Chinese and one that was truly dedicated to the interests of the common people.And at the moment of its founding, the People’s Republic was not receiving much aid from countries abroad. Most of those countries in the West which had had a connection to China were among those that had received the benefits accorded the colonial powers during the “100 years of humiliation” prior to the founding of the People’s Republic. And although the United States under Franklin Roosevelt had come to the assistance of China in its fight against the Japanese, including establishing contact with the forces of the Communist Party in Yenan, this contact ended with the conclusion of hostilities. Only the Soviet Union was the single major power that was supportive of the new People’s Republic.But the Chinese Communist Party had won the overwhelming support of the Chinese people and therefore possessed that single most important factor - the Mandate of Heaven. Even many Chinese intellectuals who did not identify with the Communist cause were prepared to serve their nation in whatever capacity that would be deemed most appropriate. For the purpose of bringing these forces together to help rebuild the nation, China had already in 1948 established the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, which brought together representatives of other democratic parties, people with no party affiliation, representatives of people’s organizations and overseas Chinese, as an advisory body to the Central Government.In the initial phases of the reconstruction of the war-torn economy, Soviet assistance was of paramount importance. At the same time, China relied a great deal on the Soviet model of industrialization, which helped to build the heavy industrial complex in northeast China. But this model was not always suitable to the Chinese situation with its largely rural population. The Cold War and the hotter war in Korea had ended the once cordial relationship between the United States and the Communist leaders. And America’s decision to continue to provide the forces of Chiang Kai-shek logistical and material support during the subsequent civil war put the US relationship with China on hold for another thirty years after the establishment of the PRC. And in Korea, the two countries faced each other as enemy combatants.When the Soviet Union abruptly decided to withdraw its advisers in 1960, China was left entirely to its own devices. And the attempts to rely on a totally autarchic economic structure in the isolated Chinese economy led to many errors and catastrophes. But a basis had been laid that would help pull the country out of its dilemma under the appropriate circumstances. Already in 1963, Premier Zhou Enlai was calling for the “four modernizations” in industry, in agriculture, in defense, and in science and technology, and this call would become the leitmotif for China’s rejuvenation.Indeed, China with its largely agricultural economy and an overwhelmingly rural population had already succeeded in creating a rocket industry by the 1960s as well as exploding its first atomic bomb in 1964. But it was only with the gradual opening of the outside world to China, and China to it, that the development of these “modernizations” could really take off.