Happy Youth Of China. China And The Cold War.

First edition, first printing, presentation copy, inscribed on the front free endpaper in Chinese by the Chinese delegation to the Fifth World Festival of Youth and Students, "Presented to our dear young friend from America - China Youth League Delegation, Warsaw, August 1955". Convened by the World Federation of Democratic Youth, the festival took anti-imperialism as its theme. More than 30,000 people from 114 countries participated, and the programme of events included parades, speeches, performances, and sports meets. The proceedings gave everyday Poles an unprecedented opportunity to peek behind the Iron Curtain and ironically helped lay the foundations for the Pozna Protests. Sino-American relations remained strained amidst the fallout from the Korean War. One year earlier, at the Geneva Conference, John Foster Dulles had famously refused to shake hands with Premier Zhou Enlai. In Warsaw, to protest American hard power, China's representatives joined Russian and Japanese young people in a spirited rendition of the song "Never Let the Atom Bomb Explode Again". Building bridges with left-wing Americans sympathetic to Beijing was likewise an important part of the Chinese delegation's strategy. Below the presentation inscription is another reading (in Chinese) "Long live friendly relations between Chinese and American youth! Liu Meiqing". Martin Parr & WassinkLundgren, The Chinese Photobook: From the 1900s to the Present, second edition, 2016, p. 160-1. Quarto. Original green boards, tan cloth backstrip, spine lettered and decorated in black, front cover lettered in black, blue and white decorative endpapers. Illustrated throughout in colour and black and white; floral vignette on title page. Text in Russian, English, and French. Boards sunned, one tip worn, occasional staining and foxing in text: a very good copy.