Hey everyone, Lhasa Montgomery again, Joe and Lie, part six.

Let's get right on it.

Part five ended with Joe and Lie's return to Beijing

after a historically good performance at the Geneva Conference, April 26th to July 20th, 1954.

Joe and Lai sure made China look good in front of the Americans, British and French, made the most of his time to try and create some

semblance of a diplomatic relationship with these Western allies.

With the case of the United States, he walked away from the conference quite pleased with himself.

Although official relations would have to wait until Deng Xiaoping's time, January 1979,

President Jimmy Carter, Joe made the most of the opportunity in Geneva.

He had created Bechtor channels to keep an unofficial dialogue going with the United States,

which was better than nothing.

With the country only formally established in October 1949,

Joe and Lai had his hands full,

trying to get the framework put in place to manage a government.

He quietly did this and groomed a lot of people along the way in the foreign ministry, especially

and in other ministries under the State Council.

This was a tall order to lead this effort to lift China up from the ruins, going back

to the opium war practically, and get a working government in place

to handle the needs of 540 million people, most of them poor and living in rural areas.

China's per capita income was about half of India's.

That wasn't some 9 to 5 job.

Joe and Lai had to juggle a lot of balls and wear a hundred hats to get it done.

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