# Romania in China's People's Daily: eighty years of Romania–China relations in 16,793 articles

The People's Daily, the newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, named Romania in 16,793 articles between 1946 and 2025. Counted month by month, they show when Romania mattered to the paper in Beijing, how much, and since when it has mattered little.

In August 1969 Richard Nixon flew to Bucharest, the capital of communist Romania, and told its leader, Nicolae Ceaușescu, that America would not join any bloc to fence off China. He was speaking to Beijing through the one Warsaw Pact government on good terms with it. In 1969 no People's Daily article that names Romania or Bucharest reported the visit. In that whole year the paper named Romania in 40 articles.

Nine years later it named Romania in 602: one article in every 22. In 2023 it was one in 1,236.

The curve in brief: in the 1950s Romania is one of eight “fraternal” countries of Eastern Europe; in the first years of the Cultural Revolution it almost disappears from the paper; between 1970 and 1978 it gets the most space and is, year after year, first or second of the eight. After 1978 the space shrinks. The eighty years hold a diplomatic note signed in 1949, five students stepping off a train in Beijing, a year of near silence, a message from Zhou Enlai to the White House, sent by way of Bucharest, and an execution reported in 90 characters.

You can roll through the eighty years below and stop at any of them, the year you were born for instance.

## The eighty years, month by month

Drag the chart or press “Roll the years”. The red line marks the year you are on, and the card beneath changes with it. The red squares mark the moments explained further down.

Behind, in grey, is Albania, the East European state the paper wrote about most from 1962 to 1974; you can add the other six East European states counted here: Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Yugoslavia. Below the ground line, in blue, is the view from the other side: how often an issue of Scînteia (“The Spark”), the Romanian party's daily, mentioned China.

## The first report devoted to Romania was a death sentence (1946–1949)

A paper called the People's Daily first appeared on 15 May 1946 in the Communist-held region of north China, three years before the Communists won the civil war; in 1948 it merged with another regional paper, and in August 1949 it became the organ of the party's Central Committee. On 19 May a survey of the world's communist parties gave Romania one sentence. On 24 May, on the front page, a report of 52 characters announced that Ion Antonescu, Romania's wartime “fascist dictator”, had been sentenced to death. On 8 June another, of 53 characters: Antonescu had been shot.

*1946–1950. Articles naming Romania per thousand articles in the paper, by month.*

On 1 October 1949 the People's Republic of China was proclaimed. Two days later in Bucharest the foreign minister, Ana Pauker, signed the note by which Romania decided to establish diplomatic relations. Zhou Enlai, the new China's premier and foreign minister, replied on 5 October, and on 6 October the paper printed both texts on its front page. Romania was the third state to take the step, after the Soviet Union and Bulgaria.

> 罗马尼亚人民共和国政府在研究了中国中央人民政府十月一日的公告中的建议之后，已决定建立罗马尼亚人民共和国与中华人民共和国之间的外交关系。 / “Having studied the proposal in the proclamation of 1 October by the Central People's Government of China, the Government of the Romanian People's Republic has decided to establish diplomatic relations between the Romanian People's Republic and the People's Republic of China.”
> — Ana Pauker's note of 3 October 1949, as printed in the People's Daily on 6 October 1949, page 1. Translated from the Chinese.

Three days later came a report from Shanghai: the president of the city's Romanian association said that relations with the new China were “the wish of the Romanian people”. In 1949 enough Romanians lived in Shanghai to have an association.

## One brother among several (1950–1959)

In the 1950s Romania appears in roughly 20 articles in a thousand: delegations, telegrams for 23 August (Romania's national day under communism), harvests, oil rigs. The word that goes with it is 兄弟, “brother”: in 1959 it is in 135 articles about Romania. Among the eight socialist states of Eastern Europe, Romania ranks fourth, fifth or sixth; Poland and Czechoslovakia get more space in almost every year.

*1950–1959. About 20 articles in a thousand name Romania.*

On 30 November 1950 five Romanian students arrived in Beijing by train. The paper names them on its front page and says that more than 200 people met them at the station and that they would study at Tsinghua University. Two of them, Romulus Budura and Anna Szász (later Budura), recalled in 2015 the day, 4 December 1950, when they walked through the university gate; they stayed in China for six years. Budura later edited the volumes of diplomatic documents from which the history of these relations is now written. Another, Toni Radian, led the first Chinese-language section at the University of Bucharest from 1956.

In August 1953 the first Romanian film dubbed into Chinese reached Chinese cinemas: “Viața învinge” (为了美好的生活, “Life Triumphs”), about a metallurgist who defeats American spies. The Romanian Film Week was held in 20 Chinese cities, starting on 30 December 1954; according to the researchers Tan Hui and He Yuan, the 95 screenings in Beijing drew 57,900 spectators.

## When Moscow and Beijing quarrel, Romania moves up to second place (1960–1966)

In the years of the split between China and the Soviet Union, the paper writes less and less about Eastern Europe. Between 1960 and 1966 Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and East Germany, which stayed with Moscow, drop from several hundred articles a year to a few dozen. Albania, which chose Beijing, passes 500. Romania falls too, until 1963.

*1960–1966. Behind, in grey: Albania (yearly mean).*

In March 1964 a party delegation led by the prime minister, Ion Gheorghe Maurer, comes to Beijing proposing that the polemic between the two great parties should stop. Nicolae Ceaușescu is a member. On 10 March Mao Zedong receives them. The Chinese leaders decline, and a written appeal sent from Bucharest on 25 March gets no reply. The historian Mihai Croitor argues, from the transcripts, that the talks dealt little with mediation and much with bringing Bucharest and Beijing closer. From that year to 1966 Romania is the second East European country in the paper, after Albania.

On 19 March 1965 Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, Romania's communist leader, dies. The paper gives him its front page for several days, and Zhou Enlai leads the Chinese delegation to the funeral. In June 1966 Zhou returns for eight days: Bucharest, Constanța on the Black Sea, Craiova, Slatina, Pitești. The paper writes of “more than a hundred thousand people” in the streets of Constanța.

It does not write about the disagreement that ran through the talks. Zhou wanted to condemn Moscow's policy in public; Ceaușescu asked him not to. The historian Ioan Scurtu, who quotes the transcripts published by Romulus Budura, writes that the rally in Bucharest's Palace Hall, announced for 5pm, began at 9.20pm; the People's Daily puts the leaders' entrance “shortly after seven in the evening”. Neither account reports any mention of the dispute with Moscow at the rally.

## The year with 22 articles (1967–1969)

When Zhou came to Romania the Cultural Revolution had already been launched in China. For the rest of 1966 Romania keeps about a dozen articles a month; in 1967 it falls to a handful, and in July 1967 to none. Romania appears in 59 articles in 1967, 22 in 1968 and 40 in 1969. In 1968 it is the last of the eight states; Albania has 475.

*1966–1970. Romania almost disappears; Albania (grey) stays above 450 articles a year.*

It was in 1968 that the Chinese gesture best remembered in Romania was made. On the night of 20–21 August the troops of the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact states entered Czechoslovakia; the next day Ceaușescu condemned the invasion from the balcony of the party headquarters in Bucharest. On 23 August Zhou Enlai came to the Romanian embassy's national day reception in Beijing. The ambassador had planned no speeches; the evening before, the Chinese side had let him know that the premier wished to speak:

> 罗马尼亚目前正面临着遭受外来的干涉和侵略的危险。罗马尼亚政府正在动员人民为捍卫自己的独立和主权而斗争。在无产阶级文化大革命中锻炼得更加坚强的中国人民支持你们。 / “Rumania is now facing the danger of foreign intervention and aggression. The Rumanian Government is mobilizing the people to wage struggles in defence of their independence and sovereignty. The Chinese people, who have grown even stronger through the tempering of the great proletarian cultural revolution, support you.”
> — Zhou Enlai, 23 August 1968; People's Daily, 24 August 1968, page 1. English as published in Peking in 1968 by the Foreign Languages Press.

The ambassador, Aurel Duma, cabled Bucharest that the diplomats of the states that had sent troops walked out at the first words about “the Soviet revisionist clique”, and that Zhou, in private, promised cannon if Romania needed them. The paper printed the speech the next day on its front page. Then it fell silent again: by the end of the year Romania had appeared in 10 more articles.

In August 1969 the American president, Richard Nixon, came to Bucharest. He told Ceaușescu that the United States would not join a bloc to “fence off” China and that it would welcome Romania as a go-between. In 1969 no People's Daily article that names Romania or Bucharest mentions the visit; one from December 1973, on Ceaușescu's trip to Washington, does. In September Maurer stopped twice in Beijing, on his way to Ho Chi Minh's funeral and on his way back, and passed Nixon's wish on to Zhou. Zhou's answer was cool: the Americans had taken Taiwan, and the debt was theirs. The paper notes only that “the two sides had a friendly conversation”.

## A loan in the paper and a message that was not printed (1970–1972)

In May 1970 floods cover a large part of Romania. Zhou Enlai sends a telegram, the Chinese Red Cross gives 500,000 yuan, and on 29 June a protocol on grant aid is signed in Beijing. The paper lists what is going to Romania: cotton, cotton yarn, coke, frozen pork, soya beans, frozen fish and salted fish, milk powder, egg powder, pigskins and goatskins.

*1970–1972. June 1971 has the highest share of all eighty years: 102 of 868 articles.*

In October 1970, in Washington, Nixon tells Ceaușescu that his role as a peacemaker is “very useful” in relations with China. In November the deputy premier Gheorghe Rădulescu comes to Beijing. The paper reports his talk with Zhou on its front page and, on 26 November, the signing of a long-term, interest-free Chinese loan. Something else goes unprinted: Zhou gives Rădulescu an answer for Nixon. The Romanian ambassador, Corneliu Bogdan, delivers it to Henry Kissinger at the White House on 11 January 1971:

> “The communication from the U.S. President is not new. There is only one outstanding issue between us—the U.S. occupation of Taiwan. […] If the U.S. has a desire to settle the issue and a proposal for its solution, the PRC will be prepared to receive a U.S. special envoy in Peking.”
> — Zhou Enlai's message as recorded by Henry Kissinger in his memorandum to Nixon of 12 January 1971 (Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, vol. XVII, doc. 102).

An almost identical message had reached Washington a month earlier through the president of Pakistan. Kissinger wrote to Nixon that the message the Romanians brought confirmed the Pakistani one. Historians speak of a “Romanian channel” and a Pakistani one. Between August 1969 and January 1971 Romania twice carried Nixon's messages to Beijing and twice came back with an answer: in December 1969 nothing specific, in January 1971 the invitation of a special envoy. Kissinger's secret visit to Beijing in July 1971 was prepared through Pakistan.

From 1 to 9 June 1971 Ceaușescu visits China. June 1971 is the month with the highest share of all eighty years: 102 of the month's 868 articles name Romania. On 3 June Mao receives him, with Lin Biao, his designated successor, at his side; three months later Lin died in a plane crash in Mongolia. Among the members of the delegation the paper names Ion Iliescu, the future president.

On his return Ceaușescu launched the “July Theses”, which tightened ideological control. That the theses were brought home from China is a widespread idea which historians treat with caution. Cezar Stanciu shows from party transcripts that the first steps had been taken as early as the autumn of 1968; he judges it more plausible that the change was determined by Romania's relations with Moscow and that the Asian journey only hastened it, even though the methods chosen were partly inspired by the Chinese model.

## Four years in first place (1972–1979)

From 1970 to 1978 the paper writes about Romania five times as much as, on average, about each of Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary and Poland. In five of those years Romania alone has more articles than Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary and Poland put together. From 1975 to 1978 it is first of all eight, ahead of Albania.

*1972–1979. Albania (grey) falls from 243 articles in 1976 to 16 in 1978.*

The historian Cezar Stanciu sums up Bucharest's policy in those years: Romania challenged Moscow's domination of the Soviet bloc, kept a neutral stance in the Sino-Soviet split and cultivated good relations with China. Albania, the ally of the 1960s, broke with China after Mao's death: from 243 articles in 1976 it went to 112 in 1977 and 16 in 1978.

The peak year is 1978. In May Ceaușescu is in China again. On 16 August Hua Guofeng, Mao's successor, lands in Bucharest; it is his first journey to Europe, and the paper writes of “nearly 200,000 people” in the streets. On 18 August the People's Daily prints 20 articles naming Romania, the most on any single day: besides the news of the visit, a page of Romanian literature, an article on the Carpathians, one on Romania's salt mines and one on a “library on wheels”.

After 1978 China opens to the United States, Japan and western Europe. Articles naming Romania fall from 602 in 1978 to 335 in 1979 and 310 in 1980.

## Gymnastics, decorations and an execution in 90 characters (1979–1989)

Between 1979 and 1989 Romania's share falls from 19.1 to 6.5 articles per thousand; in number, from 335 to 196, while the corpus grows from 17,554 to 30,049 articles a year. The subjects change too: in 1981 the word for gymnastics (体操) appears in 36 articles naming Romania. The visits go on: Ceaușescu comes to China in 1982, 1985 and 1988. In August 1984, at the fortieth anniversary of 23 August, China's president, Li Xiannian, is in Bucharest, and Ceaușescu decorates Deng Xiaoping by decree.

*1979–1990. From 19.1 to 5.2 articles per thousand.*

In November 1989, two weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Qiao Shi of the Chinese party leadership attends the Romanian Communist Party's 14th congress, and Jiang Zemin congratulates Ceaușescu on his re-election. On 18 November the paper publishes an interview with Ceaușescu. Less than six weeks later, on 27 December, on page four, comes this report:

> 新华社布加勒斯特12月25日电　罗马尼亚电视台当地时间25日20时30分（北京时间26日凌晨2时30分）宣布，罗特别军事法庭25日判处尼·齐奥塞斯库和埃列娜·齐奥塞斯库死刑并已执行。 / “Xinhua, Bucharest, 25 December. Romanian television announced at 8.30pm local time on the 25th (2.30am on the 26th, Beijing time) that a special military tribunal had on the 25th sentenced N. Ceaușescu and Elena Ceaușescu to death and that the sentence had been carried out.”
> — The whole report, minus its headline: People's Daily, 27 December 1989, page 4. Translated from the Chinese.

In the same issue, on the front page, under the headline “China respects the choice of the Romanian people”, a Chinese deputy foreign minister receives the Romanian ambassador and announces Red Cross aid. The issue of 28 December prints the telegrams of congratulation that China's president and premier had sent the day before to the new leaders in Bucharest. The reports of those days contain no comment on the man whose name had stood, in 1978 alone, in 219 of the articles naming Romania.

## Fewer words, more goods (1990–2012)

Ion Iliescu, whom the paper had named in the delegation of 1971, comes to Beijing as president in January 1991. In July 1994 the premier, Li Peng, arrives in Constanța and Bucharest in the very days in which Romania plays its World Cup quarter-final; the issue that announces his arrival also carries an article headed “Hagi, soul of the Danube”, about Romania's captain, Gheorghe Hagi. That year the word for football (足球) appears in 38 articles naming Romania.

*1990–2012. The scale is enlarged compared with the charts above: the peak of July 1994 stands at 21.3 per thousand.*

In July 1995, receiving the Romanian prime minister Nicolae Văcăroiu in Beijing, President Jiang Zemin says that in the early 1970s he worked in Romania for a time as head of a group of specialists sent by China's machine-building ministry. In 1996 he comes to Bucharest on a state visit. In June 2004 Hu Jintao comes, and the two countries announce a “comprehensive friendly and cooperative partnership”. Beside Romania's name the paper writes 北约 and 欧盟 more and more often: NATO, which Romania joins in 2004, and the European Union, which it joins in 2007.

The connection moves from the newspaper to the markets. In the 1990s thousands of Chinese traders settle in Bucharest. Imports from China, 1.3% of Romania's total in 2000, reach 5.5% in 2010.

## One article in a thousand (2013–2025)

In November 2013 Bucharest hosts the meeting of the heads of government of China and 16 states of central and eastern Europe. The premier, Li Keqiang, comes, and a report of 123 characters announces that a Chinese company has signed an agreement to develop nuclear power in Romania. The whole year yields 59 articles.

*2010–2025. The same enlarged scale: one or two articles per thousand.*

Reactors 3 and 4 at Cernavodă, Romania's nuclear plant on the Danube, were not built with China General Nuclear as a partner: the memorandum of 2015 was abandoned in 2020 at the request of the Romanian state. A law of 2021 made suppliers of 5G equipment subject to government authorisation; in February 2024 Huawei's application was refused. In the articles naming Romania the paper mentions neither decision. It simply writes less. In 2023 there are 22 articles, the lowest share of all eighty years: as many articles as in 1968, out of nearly three times as many. In 2024 Hungary has 189 articles and Serbia 177; Romania, 35.

On 24 May 2025, on the front page, 226 characters: the report that on 22 May Xi Jinping had congratulated the president-elect, Nicușor Dan. On a single day in August 1978 the paper had printed 20 articles.

## What Romania stood for, word by word

Romania's name sits beside other words in the paper, and they change. Each chart shows, year by year, how many of the articles naming Romania contain the word; the red line is the peak year. Each chart has its own scale. For NATO and the EU the words counted are 北约 and 欧盟.

In the 1950s Romania is a “brother” (兄弟) and an oil country (石油). From 1964 to 1966, and again from 1970 to 1978, it is the country defending its “independence” (独立自主). Of the articles naming Romania, 219 carry Ceaușescu's name in 1978 and 37 in 1989; from 1990 to 2025, eight altogether.

After 1980 gymnastics (体操) rises, peaking in 1981, and then football (足球), peaking in 1994, when Romania reached the World Cup quarter-finals. Between 1997 and 2008 Romania is mentioned alongside NATO and the European Union (北约, 欧盟). From 2015, alongside the Belt and Road (一带一路), Xi Jinping's infrastructure and trade programme.

## Romania among the eight East European states, 1949–1989

The same count for Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Yugoslavia shows where Romania stood. Each square is a year: the stronger the tint, the more the paper wrote about that country. Red marks the first of the eight in that year.

Romania is first four years running, from 1975 to 1978. In 1968 it is last. In 1970, 1971, 1972, 1974 and 1978 it has more articles on its own than Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary and Poland put together.

Hungary is first in 1956 and 1957, the years of the Budapest uprising; Poland in 1981 and 1982, the years of Solidarity and martial law. Albania, China's ally against Moscow, holds first place from 1962 to 1974 and almost vanishes after the break of 1978.

## The view from the other side: China in Scînteia

The Romanian party's daily was called Scînteia, “The Spark”; in Beijing it was 火花报, and the People's Daily quoted it in hundreds of articles. No open full text of it was found, but the county library at Deva, in western Romania, has scanned its run, with machine-read text from 1962 onwards. A sample of 2,282 issues (one in four, 1962–1989) shows how often China appears in an ordinary issue.

Scînteia's curve has the same shape as the Beijing paper's. In 1965 an issue mentioned China 6.9 times on average; in 1968, 1.6 times. The silence was on both sides. The two peaks are the same: 1971, with 15.7 mentions an issue, and 1978, with 13.3. In the 1980s each of the two papers goes on writing about the other's country at about half its peak level: Scînteia at 42% of its mentions per issue; the People's Daily at 49% of its number of articles (as a share of all articles, 21%).

The two series cannot be compared in size: one counts articles, the other counts words in machine-read text that contains errors. Their shapes can be compared.

## What is left: goods, people, films

The newspaper's curve falls after 1978; the trade curve climbs. In 1980 China bought 4.4% of Romania's exports and supplied 4.7% of its imports. In 2025 Romania imported goods worth $10.3 billion from China, 7% of all it imported, and sold it goods worth $0.8 billion, 0.7% of its exports. From 1958 to 1989 Romania sold China slightly more than it bought from it ($7.5 billion against $6.7 billion); in 2025 it bought 12.7 times what it sold.

At the end of 2025, 8,408 Chinese citizens held residence permits in Romania (the figure leaves out those who have been naturalised). For 1999–2000 the researcher Pál Nyíri estimated between 14,000 and 20,000. The wholesale complex Dragonul Roșu (“Red Dragon”), on the north-eastern edge of Bucharest, has traded since 2003.

Chinese people who went to the cinema in the 1960s and 1970s remember Romania through its films. Between 1953 and 1963, 26 Romanian films were dubbed into Chinese, and a few of them, Tan Hui and He Yuan write, stayed among the handful of foreign films still shown during the Cultural Revolution. New ones followed in the mid-1970s: “Explozia” (爆炸), which the paper reviews in December 1974, “Ștefan cel Mare” (斯特凡大公, June 1977) and “Zile fierbinți” (沸腾的生活, January 1978). A rhyme about the cinemas of those years, still quoted in the Chinese press in several versions, says that Vietnamese films are planes and cannon, Korean films are tears and laughter, Albanian films make no sense, and Romanian films are hugs and embraces. Among its articles that name Romania, the People's Daily quotes it once, in 2013, in a version where the hugging belongs to the Albanian films. In 2014, receiving the Romanian prime minister Victor Ponta, Xi Jinping said of his own youth:

> 那时候，罗马尼亚的优秀影片在中国家喻户晓。 / “In those days, the best Romanian films were household names in China.”
> — Xi Jinping, 2 September 2014; People's Daily, 3 September 2014. Translated from the Chinese.

In the other direction, the Transilvania film festival speaks of “no fewer than 140” Chinese films distributed in Romania between 1951 and 1994. Chinese has been taught at the University of Bucharest since 1956, and Romanian at Beijing Foreign Studies University since the same year. Since 30 November 2024 Romanians with ordinary passports can enter China without a visa for up to 30 days, for business, tourism, visits or transit; the measure runs to 31 December 2026.

## The moments marked on the chart

### 24 May 1946: the first report devoted to Romania

On the front page, 52 characters: Ion Antonescu, “fascist dictator of pre-war Romania”, has been sentenced to death by a people's court. The paper was nine days old.

### 5 October 1949: diplomatic relations

The next day the paper prints on its front page Ana Pauker's note of 3 October and Zhou Enlai's reply of 5 October. Romania is the third state to establish relations with the People's Republic of China.

### 3 December 1950: five Romanian students

“Five Romanian students come to Beijing to study”, on the front page. They had arrived by train on 30 November and were to study at Tsinghua University.

### 22 August 1953: the first Romanian film dubbed into Chinese

“Viața învinge” (为了美好的生活), directed by Dinu Negreanu, opens in Beijing on the eve of 23 August.

### April 1961: the table tennis world championships in Beijing

Romania's women reach the final group with China and Japan. In 1961 the word for table tennis (乒乓) appears in 93 articles naming Romania.

### 10 March 1964: Mao receives the delegation led by Maurer

Its members include Emil Bodnăraș, Nicolae Ceaușescu and Chivu Stoica. The talks with Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping ran from 3 to 10 March.

### 16–24 June 1966: Zhou Enlai in Romania

Bucharest, Constanța, Craiova, Slatina, Pitești. The paper reports each day on its front page. From 1967, at the height of the Cultural Revolution, Romania almost disappears from the paper.

### 23 August 1968: Zhou Enlai's speech

At the Romanian embassy's national day reception in Beijing, Zhou Enlai condemns the invasion of Czechoslovakia and says the Chinese people support Romania. The report is one of 22 articles in the whole year.

### 7 and 11 September 1969: Maurer in Beijing

On his way to Ho Chi Minh's funeral and on his way back, Maurer talks with Zhou Enlai and passes on Nixon's wish to normalise relations. The paper says only that there was “a friendly conversation”.

### 29 June 1970: aid after the floods

The protocol signed in Beijing covers cotton, coke, frozen pork and fish, soya beans, milk powder, egg powder and hides. In November a long-term, interest-free loan follows.

### 1–9 June 1971: Ceaușescu in China

Beijing, Nanjing, Shanghai. On 3 June Mao Zedong and Lin Biao receive him. June 1971 is the month with the highest share of all eighty years.

### 23 August 1974: thirty years since 23 August

The vice-premier Li Xiannian attends the anniversary in Bucharest. In Beijing, meetings are held at Peking University and at a machine-tool plant.

### March 1977: the earthquake

Hua Guofeng sends a telegram on 6 March; on 18 March a delegation of Chinese earthquake specialists leaves for Romania. In 1977 the word for earthquake (地震) appears in 41 articles naming Romania.

### 16–21 August 1978: Hua Guofeng in Romania

Hua Guofeng's first journey to Europe; Romania is the first European country he visits. On 18 August the paper prints 20 articles naming Romania, the most on any single day.

### 23 August 1984: Li Xiannian in Bucharest

At the fortieth anniversary China's president is in Bucharest, and Ceaușescu decorates Deng Xiaoping by decree. That year Ceaușescu's name appears in 127 of the articles naming Romania.

### 27 December 1989: the execution, in 90 characters

On page four, the report of the sentencing and execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu. On the front page: “China respects the choice of the Romanian people”.

### July 1994: Li Peng and the World Cup

The Chinese premier reaches Constanța, then Bucharest, where he is received on 11 July. In the same days the paper writes about Hagi and the quarter-final Romania lost on penalties.

### 13 June 2004: the partnership

During Hu Jintao's state visit the two countries announce a “comprehensive friendly and cooperative partnership”; the paper prints the declaration on 14 June.

### 26 November 2013: the Bucharest summit

Li Keqiang meets the heads of government of 16 central and east European states in Bucharest. The whole year has 59 articles naming Romania.

### 24 May 2025: a telegram

The paper reports that on 22 May Xi Jinping congratulated the president-elect, Nicușor Dan: 226 characters on the front page. In 2025 Romania appears in 31 articles.

## How the count was made, and what it cannot show

The corpus. The full text of the People's Daily from 15 May 1946 (the first issue of the regional edition out of which the central paper was formed) to 31 December 2025, in the transcription published as an open dataset (Papersnake/people_daily_news, part of CialloCorpus): 1,991,747 articles. It is not an official edition: it draws on several digital archives, and the dataset does not say which article comes from which. Exact repeats of an article on the same day (22,299 in all, most of them in 2004 and 2007) were counted once. January 1971 is missing; 1951 has 347 days.

The rule. An article counts if the name 罗马尼亚 (Romania) appears at least once in its headline or text. That gives 16,793 articles. The same rule was applied to the names of the other seven states. For Czechoslovakia both 捷克斯洛伐克 and 捷克 were counted; for East Germany 民主德国, 德意志民主共和国 and 东德. Shares are taken against all articles of the same month or year, because the paper's size changed a great deal.

What it cannot show. The People's Daily is the voice of the party leadership, not of the Chinese public; what people thought of Romania is not visible here. An article that lists Romania among a row of delegations weighs as much as a full-page feature. And the paper's silence does not mean there were no relations: in 1969, when it named Romania in only 40 articles, the Romanian prime minister talked twice with Zhou Enlai.

The ranking of the eight stops in 1989, the last full year in which all eight states existed. After 1990 the names change (捷克 comes to mean the Czech Republic), East Germany disappears and Yugoslavia breaks up.

Scînteia. The sample is every fourth issue of each year in the Deva library's scanned run, among those that have a machine-read text layer. In each issue's text the Romanian forms of “China”, “Chinese”, “Peking” and “Beijing” were counted. Machine reading garbles letters and breaks words at line ends, so the number of occurrences is undercounted.

The headlines. The three headlines of each year were chosen by the author, with a preference for news about the two countries' ties. They are reproduced exactly from the corpus; the translations are by Marius Comper.

### Every year, in a table

| Year | Articles in corpus | Naming Romania | Per thousand | Rank among the eight states (1949–1989) | First of the eight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1946 | 5,954 | 34 | 5.7 | – | – |
| 1947 | 10,773 | 57 | 5.3 | – | – |
| 1948 | 8,246 | 81 | 9.8 | – | – |
| 1949 | 18,967 | 253 | 13.3 | 5 | Poland |
| 1950 | 20,008 | 364 | 18.2 | 4 | Poland |
| 1951 | 13,762 | 273 | 19.8 | 5 | Czechoslovakia |
| 1952 | 13,385 | 342 | 25.6 | 4 (level with East Germany) | Poland |
| 1953 | 12,795 | 308 | 24.1 | 5 | Czechoslovakia |
| 1954 | 13,973 | 371 | 26.6 | 5 | Poland |
| 1955 | 15,613 | 415 | 26.6 | 4 | East Germany |
| 1956 | 23,721 | 437 | 18.4 | 6 | Hungary |
| 1957 | 25,402 | 470 | 18.5 | 5 | Hungary |
| 1958 | 28,065 | 425 | 15.1 | 5 | Poland |
| 1959 | 22,854 | 366 | 16.0 | 6 | East Germany |
| 1960 | 23,449 | 370 | 15.8 | 6 | East Germany |
| 1961 | 21,993 | 382 | 17.4 | 6 | Poland |
| 1962 | 17,349 | 245 | 14.1 | 6 (level with Bulgaria) | Albania |
| 1963 | 15,204 | 220 | 14.5 | 6 | Albania |
| 1964 | 16,636 | 287 | 17.3 | 2 | Albania |
| 1965 | 16,244 | 359 | 22.1 | 2 | Albania |
| 1966 | 12,197 | 185 | 15.2 | 2 | Albania |
| 1967 | 9,290 | 59 | 6.4 | 3 | Albania |
| 1968 | 9,219 | 22 | 2.4 | 8 | Albania |
| 1969 | 10,129 | 40 | 3.9 | 3 | Albania |
| 1970 | 10,572 | 191 | 18.1 | 2 | Albania |
| 1971 | 10,425 | 424 | 40.7 | 2 | Albania |
| 1972 | 14,336 | 398 | 27.8 | 2 | Albania |
| 1973 | 14,850 | 406 | 27.3 | 2 | Albania |
| 1974 | 12,838 | 360 | 28.0 | 2 | Albania |
| 1975 | 13,365 | 403 | 30.2 | 1 | Romania |
| 1976 | 12,266 | 305 | 24.9 | 1 | Romania |
| 1977 | 12,720 | 376 | 29.6 | 1 | Romania |
| 1978 | 13,436 | 602 | 44.8 | 1 | Romania |
| 1979 | 17,554 | 335 | 19.1 | 2 | Yugoslavia |
| 1980 | 27,246 | 310 | 11.4 | 3 | Yugoslavia |
| 1981 | 28,382 | 362 | 12.8 | 3 | Poland |
| 1982 | 28,353 | 303 | 10.7 | 3 | Poland |
| 1983 | 31,156 | 328 | 10.5 | 2 | Yugoslavia |
| 1984 | 31,978 | 428 | 13.4 | 2 | Yugoslavia |
| 1985 | 34,351 | 300 | 8.7 | 4 | Yugoslavia |
| 1986 | 33,579 | 272 | 8.1 | 7 | Yugoslavia |
| 1987 | 32,703 | 217 | 6.6 | 7 | Poland |
| 1988 | 33,551 | 226 | 6.7 | 7 | East Germany |
| 1989 | 30,049 | 196 | 6.5 | 7 | Poland |
| 1990 | 31,719 | 166 | 5.2 | – | – |
| 1991 | 33,827 | 218 | 6.4 | – | – |
| 1992 | 37,372 | 215 | 5.8 | – | – |
| 1993 | 36,514 | 156 | 4.3 | – | – |
| 1994 | 34,004 | 247 | 7.3 | – | – |
| 1995 | 37,633 | 215 | 5.7 | – | – |
| 1996 | 37,139 | 199 | 5.4 | – | – |
| 1997 | 34,327 | 206 | 6.0 | – | – |
| 1998 | 33,706 | 173 | 5.1 | – | – |
| 1999 | 34,830 | 157 | 4.5 | – | – |
| 2000 | 34,716 | 127 | 3.7 | – | – |
| 2001 | 35,627 | 98 | 2.8 | – | – |
| 2002 | 34,811 | 99 | 2.8 | – | – |
| 2003 | 43,227 | 128 | 3.0 | – | – |
| 2004 | 46,092 | 132 | 2.9 | – | – |
| 2005 | 39,384 | 97 | 2.5 | – | – |
| 2006 | 39,253 | 98 | 2.5 | – | – |
| 2007 | 37,156 | 75 | 2.0 | – | – |
| 2008 | 33,384 | 166 | 5.0 | – | – |
| 2009 | 26,908 | 71 | 2.6 | – | – |
| 2010 | 27,934 | 33 | 1.2 | – | – |
| 2011 | 27,021 | 41 | 1.5 | – | – |
| 2012 | 26,963 | 40 | 1.5 | – | – |
| 2013 | 28,814 | 59 | 2.0 | – | – |
| 2014 | 29,506 | 44 | 1.5 | – | – |
| 2015 | 29,311 | 41 | 1.4 | – | – |
| 2016 | 29,426 | 49 | 1.7 | – | – |
| 2017 | 27,956 | 45 | 1.6 | – | – |
| 2018 | 28,106 | 44 | 1.6 | – | – |
| 2019 | 24,852 | 48 | 1.9 | – | – |
| 2020 | 25,929 | 35 | 1.3 | – | – |
| 2021 | 23,846 | 40 | 1.7 | – | – |
| 2022 | 25,187 | 36 | 1.4 | – | – |
| 2023 | 27,188 | 22 | 0.8 | – | – |
| 2024 | 28,423 | 35 | 1.2 | – | – |
| 2025 | 30,718 | 31 | 1.0 | – | – |

## Sources

- [Papersnake/people_daily_news: People's Daily full text, 1946–2025 (dataset, CialloCorpus)](https://huggingface.co/datasets/Papersnake/people_daily_news)
- [Hunedoara-Deva County Library: scanned run of Scînteia](https://www.bibliotecadeva.ro/periodice/scanteia.html)
- [Correlates of War, Trade v4.0 (Barbieri and Keshk): bilateral trade, 1870–2014](https://correlatesofwar.org/data-sets/bilateral-trade/)
- [UN Comtrade: Romania's trade with China, 2000–2025](https://comtradeplus.un.org/)
- [Eurostat, migr_resvalid: valid residence permits, Chinese citizens in Romania](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/migr_resvalid/default/table)
- [FRUS 1969–1976, vol. XXIX, doc. 183: Nixon–Ceaușescu memorandum of conversation, Bucharest, 2 August 1969](https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v29/d183)
- [FRUS 1969–1976, vol. XXIX, doc. 199: Nixon–Ceaușescu memorandum of conversation, Washington, 26 October 1970](https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v29/d199)
- [FRUS 1969–1976, vol. XVII, doc. 102: Kissinger to Nixon on the message brought by Ambassador Bogdan, 12 January 1971](https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v17/d102)
- [FRUS 1969–1976, vol. XVII, doc. 100: Zhou Enlai's message through Pakistan, 9 December 1970](https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v17/d100)
- [FRUS 1969–1976, vol. XVII, doc. 118: Zhou Enlai's reply of 21 April 1971](https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v17/d118)
- [Wilson Center Digital Archive, doc. 113289: telegrams of the Romanian embassy in Beijing, 22–24 August 1968](https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/113289)
- [Wilson Center Digital Archive, doc. 117758: Maurer–Zhou Enlai conversation, 7 September 1969](https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/117758)
- [Total Bankruptcy of Soviet Modern Revisionism, Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1968 (Zhou Enlai's speech of 23 August 1968, in English)](https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/china/bankruptcy.pdf)
- [Peking Review, 1970, nos 22 and 28: flood aid](https://www.marxists.org/subject/china/peking-review/1970/PR1970-28.pdf)
- [Luo Ming (Romulus Budura) and Sa Anna (Anna Budura): recollections of Tsinghua, 2015](https://www.tsinghua.edu.cn/info/1182/41633.htm)
- [China–Romania joint statement of 14 June 2004 (Chinese foreign ministry)](https://www.mfa.gov.cn/gjhdq_676201/gj_676203/oz_678770/1206_679426/1207_679438/200406/t20040614_9343467.shtml)
- [Nuclearelectrica: memorandum with China General Nuclear, 9 November 2015](https://nuclearelectrica.ro/snn/en/2015/11/10/the-signing-of-the-memorandum-of-understanding-regarding-the-development-construction-operation-and-decommissioning-of-units-3-and-4-of-cernavoda-npp/)
- [Mircea Munteanu, “Romania and the Sino-American Rapprochement, 1969–1971”, CWIHP Bulletin 16](https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/media/documents/publication/CWIHPBulletin16_p4.pdf)
- [Mihai Croitor, “From Moscow to Beijing: Romania and the Mediation of the Sino-Soviet Split”, Transylvanian Review 21, suppl. 3 (2012)](https://dspace.bcucluj.ro/handle/123456789/181245)
- [Ioan Scurtu on Zhou Enlai's visit of June 1966, quoting the transcripts in Budura's volume (2005)](https://ioanscurtu.ro/vizita-lui-zhou-enlai-in-romania-17-23-iunie-1966/)
- [Cezar Stanciu, “The End of Liberalization in Communist Romania”, The Historical Journal 56/4 (2013)](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/historical-journal/article/end-of-liberalization-in-communist-romania/E19F5D89FB1D076FE51EA59B53D4614F)
- [Tan Hui and He Yuan, “Romanian Films in China”, Studii și Cercetări de Istoria Artei, 2018](https://www.scia.istoria-artei.ro/resources/2018/Art%2006-Tan_Hui_He_Yuan_Romanian_Films_in_China.pdf)
- [Dorottya Nagy, “Fiery Dragons: Chinese Communities in Central and Eastern Europe”, 2011](https://update124test.asienhaus.de/upload/pdf/materialien/RCTC_2011-1.71-86_Nagy_Fiery_Dragons.pdf)
- [Cao, Bălan and Zhou on Chinese-language teaching in Romania, Sinologia Hispanica 16 (2023)](https://revistas.unileon.es/index.php/sinologia/article/download/7679/6634/36446)
- [Southern People Weekly (via Sina), 31 January 2008: the rhyme about foreign films](https://news.sina.com.cn/c/2008-01-31/162614873052.shtml)
- [Transilvania International Film Festival 2019: posters of Romanian films in China](https://tiff.ro/expozitii/eveniment/afise-de-filme-romanesti-china)
- [HotNews, November 2024: visa-free travel to China for Romanians](https://hotnews.ro/oficial-romanii-pot-vor-putea-calatori-fara-viza-in-china-din-30-noiembrie-1842424)
- [Chinese foreign ministry: China's relations with Romania](https://www.mfa.gov.cn/web/gjhdq_676201/gj_676203/oz_678770/1206_679426/sbgx_679430/)

## More on Romania and China

- [Romania–China ties: dates and documents since 1949](https://mariuscomper.uk/relatia-ro-cn/en/): Eleven dates, each with its official document.
- [The tsar's envoy to the emperor of China was a Moldavian](https://mariuscomper.uk/milescu-in-china/en/): Nicolae Milescu from Moldavia to Beijing, 1675–1678.
- [Dragonul Roșu: Bucharest's Chinese wholesale city](https://mariuscomper.uk/dragonul-rosu/en/): Three decades of Chinese trade in Romania.
- [Romania–China dashboard](https://mariuscomper.uk/ro-cn-dashboard/): The latest trade figures.
- [December 1989](https://mariuscomper.uk/decembrie-1989/): The days in which the Ceaușescu regime fell.
- [Marco Polo reached China. Who made the journey the other way?](https://mariuscomper.uk/exploratori-chinezi/en/): Seven travellers who set out from China between 399 and 1433.
- [Romanian books in Chinese](https://mariuscomper.uk/carti-in-chineza/en/): Editions checked one by one.

Text, count and graphics: Marius Comper. The data may be reused with credit.