4 - Revolutionary Diplomacy: Celebrating Cameroon Day in Beijing in 1959

Presentation Abstract
On February 18th, 1959, a crowd assembled in snow-covered Beijing to mark Cameroon Day.
Red banners decorated an auditorium with slogans in Chinese: “Imperialists get out of Cameroon
and Africa!” “Long live the solidarity of Afro-Asian people!” Cameroon Day occurred at the
behest of the Union des populations du Cameroun (UPC), the leftist anticolonial party, as part of
a coordinated international effort to support the UPC’s demands in the United Nations ahead of a
crucial vote on the independence process for the Cameroon Trust Territories. Taking place
during the worst moments of the Great Leap Forward famine, Cameroon Day in Beijing was also
part of the Chinese government’s attempt to salvage some international relations success at a
moment of dire domestic political challenges for CCP leadership.

This paper tells the story of how the UPC-China alliance arrived at Cameroon Day, its zenith.
What I term the UPC’s “revolutionary diplomacy” was highly legible to the CCP, who I argue
had itself practiced a very similar form of diplomacy before coming to power. While the UPC
and China were drawn together in part through a similar understanding of imperialism and anti-
imperial praxis, the UPC was not a communist — much less a Maoist — party. The two parties
understood their ideological differences, and in allying with each other, each followed their own
interest. Examining the UPC’s alliance with China demonstrates that Africans exercised far more
diplomatic power than is evident in histories of decolonization focused solely on relations with
the West.