Editing Zhou Enlai (section)

===Diplomatic situation of the PRC in 1949===
[[File:Zhou Enlai at Geneva.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Zhou Enlai at [[Geneva]], April 26th 1954]]

Following the establishment of the [[China|People's Republic of China]] (PRC) on 1 October 1949, Zhou was appointed both Premier of the Government Administration Council (later replaced by the State Council) and Minister of Foreign Affairs. Through the coordination of these two offices and his position as a member of the five-man standing committee of the Politburo, Zhou became the architect of early PRC foreign policy, presenting China as a new, yet responsible member of the international community. Zhou was an experienced negotiator and was respected as a senior revolutionary within China.<ref name="EarlyPRC1" />

By the early 1950s, China's international influence was extremely low. By the end of the [[Qing Dynasty]] in 1911, China's pretensions of universalism had been shattered by a string of military defeats and incursions by Europeans and Japanese. By the end of [[Yuan Shikai]]'s reign and the subsequent [[Warlord Era]], China's international prestige had declined to "almost nothing". In World War II, China's effective role was sometimes questioned by other Allied leaders. The 1950–1953 [[Korean War]] greatly exacerbated China's international position by fixing the United States in a position of animosity, ensuring that Taiwan would remain outside of PRC control and that the PRC would remain outside of the United Nations for the foreseeable future.<ref name="EarlyPRC1">Spence 524</ref>

Zhou's earliest efforts to improve the prestige of the PRC involved recruiting prominent Chinese politicians, capitalists, intellectuals, and military leaders who were not technically affiliated with the CCP. Zhou was able to convince [[Zhang Zhizhong]] to accept a position inside the PRC in 1949, after Zhou's underground network successfully escorted Zhang's family to Beijing. All of the other members of the KMT delegation that Zhou had negotiated with in 1949 accepted similar terms.<ref>Barnouin and Yu 128–129</ref>

[[Sun Yat-sen]]'s widow, [[Soong Ching-ling]], who was estranged from her family and who had opposed the KMT for many years, readily joined the PRC in 1949. [[Huang Yanpei]], a prominent industrialist who had refused offers of a government post for many years, was persuaded to accept a position as vice premier in the new government. [[Fu Zuoyi]], the KMT commander who had surrendered the Beijing garrison in 1948, was persuaded to join the PLA, and to accept a position as the minister of water conservation.<ref>Barnouin and Yu 129</ref>