Strategic Thinking of "Three Worlds" Partition

Mao Zedong's strategic thought based on the new situation of the change of international strategic pattern after the World War II.

In February 1974, when Mao Zedong met with President Kenneth David Kuanda of Zambia, he first raised the question of the three worlds. He said, "Who is the First World?... I see the United States and the Soviet Union as the First World. The middle ground, Japan, Europe, Australia, Canada, is the Second World. We are the Third World.” Mao replied him by saying that "Asia is the Third World except Japan. Africa as a whole is the Third World, and Latin America is the Third World.”

Kuanda said: “Hope the Third World will unite! The Third World has a huge population!" And he pointed out that "there is imperialism in this world. Russia is also called social-imperialism, and this system breeds war. Mao Zedong said that “China belongs to the Third World.”

Mao Zedong's thought on the "division of the three worlds" laid the theoretical foundation for the establishment and development of an international united front against hegemony under new historical conditions.

Deng Xiaoping made an open declaration of Mao's strategic thinking on the division of the three worlds at the United Nations General Assembly in April 1974.

He said: “In this situation of ‘great disorder under heaven,’ all the political forces in the world have undergone drastic division and realignment through prolonged trials of strength and struggle. A large number of Asian, African and Latin American countries have achieved independence one after another and they are playing an ever greater role in international affairs. As a result of the emergence of social-imperialism, the socialist camp which existed for a time after World War II is no longer in existence. Owing to the law of the uneven development of capitalism, the Western imperialist bloc, too, is disintegrating. Judging from the changes in international relations, the world today actually consists of three parts, or three worlds, that are both interconnected and in contradiction to one another. The United States and the Soviet Union make up the First World. The developing countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and other regions make up the Third World. The developed countries between the two make up the Second World.”

He further pointed out: “The two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, are vainly seeking world hegemony. Each in its own way attempts to bring the developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America under its control and, at the same time, to bully the developed countries that are not their match in strength.” He stressed that the Chinese government and people firmly support all oppressed peoples and oppressed nations against colonialism, imperialism and hegemonism, which is a bounden internationalist duty.

Later, Deng Xiaoping further pointed out that Chairman Mao Zedong had carefully studied the changes in the international situation in recent years and raised the issue of regulations on world strategy and the division of forces. Our concept of the division of the three worlds is in fact our definition of world strategy. The relationship between the First World and the Second World is complex. The relationship between the Second World and the Third World is also complex. However, in the struggle against the two hegemons, the Third World as the main force has at some point the basis for a united front with the Second World.