"Clean Up the House Before Entertaining the Guests”

On January 31, 1949, Mao Zedong first put forward a diplomatic policy in his talk with Mi Gaoyang, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. Mao Zedong compared China to a family and thought that its house was too dirty, with firewood, garbage, dust, fleas and lice. After liberation, the house should be cleaned carefully and the dirty things should be wiped out thoroughly. When the house became clean and orderly, and the furnishings were ready, then guests could be invited again. Mao Zedong said that true friends could come in early and help us in the clean up, but other guests had to wait and we should not let them in for the time being. He stressed that there are some people who wanted to explore China, but we should not pay attention to them for the time being; and imperialists had ulterior motives for China, and we cannot welcome such people.

In March of the same year, at the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Party, Mao Zedong specifically talked about the question of the recognition of China by the imperialist countries. He believed that there was no need not be in a hurry to solve this question even for a fairly long period after countrywide victory. China was willing to establish diplomatic relations with all countries on the principle of equality, he added: but the imperialists, who have long been hostile to China will never be able to treat us on equal footing soon, as long as the imperialist countries do not change their hostile attitude, we should not grant them legal status in China.

On April 30, 1952, Zhou Enlai gave a detailed explanation on the policy of "cleaning up the house before entertaining the guests”. He pointed out that the imperialists still wanted to retain some privileges in China in the hope of sneaking back in. He said: a few countries intend to negotiate with China on establishing relations, but we are not in a hurry and prefer to wait for a time. The remaining privileges of imperialists in China must be eradicated first, otherwise they will have some room to continue their activities. Although the military power of imperialism is driven out, the economic power they have built up in our country for more than a century is still quite strong, and their cultural influence in particular is still quite deep-rooted. All this would undermine our independence. We should therefore, adopt the policy of “cleaning up the house before entertaining the guests”, that is, we should be fully prepared before establishing diplomatic relations with them.

The policy of "cleaning up the house before entertaining the guests” did not mean that New China refused to establish diplomatic relations and rejected developing economic and cultural exchanges with the Western countries, but it aimed to clean up the social foundation, residual forces and ideological influence of imperialism in China, so that these decadent factors would not become the soil for the hostile forces to instigate trouble and destruction. This policy was of positive significance for preventing subversion of the new regime, safeguarding national sovereignty and security, for stabilizing social order and promoting economic and social development.

"Cleaning up the house" meant abolishing all unequal treaties signed between the old China and imperialism and all their privileges in China; vigorously destroying and eliminating the social foundation of imperialism in China; adopting appropriate policies and treating foreign cultural, educational, press and publication, religious, charitable and other institutions in China differently. For example, “When they invaded Korea, U.S. imperialists adopted hostile policies towards us and froze our property, we should freeze their assets in China and take over cultural institutions subsidized by them, especially in the movement to resist U.S. and aid Korea, we have denounced worship of the U.S. and pro-U.S. sentiment and dispelled the fear of the U.S.”

Zhou Enlai commented that after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the two measures of "building a new stove" and "cleaning up the house before entertaining the guests” has “put us in a proactive position strategically.”