Acting in accordance with the above-mentioned
principles, China established diplomatic relations with 19
countries in the 19 months between October 1949 and May
1951. Between the second half of the 1950s and the late
1960s, a large number of newly independent nations
established diplomatic relations with China. By the end of
1969, the countries having diplomatic relations with China
had increased to 50. In the 1970s, the door was opened,
allowing normal relations between China and the United
States, and China’s legitimate seat in the United
Nations and the Security Council was restored. These
developments allowed China’s foreign relations to
enter a new stage. Japan, the United States and other
Western countries joined a great number of Third World
countries in establishing diplomatic relations with China,
raising the total number of countries having diplomatic
relations with China to 121 by the end of 1979. In the
1980s, even more countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America
and Oceania established diplomatic relations with China.
Since the beginning of the 1990s, China has established
diplomatic relations with still more countries, such as
Israel, the Republic of Korea and South Africa, as well as
with the newly independent republics that emerged from the
former Soviet Union. By the end of 1999, 161 countries had
diplomatic relations with China.
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