The Sino-Albanian split was the gradual worsening of relations between the People's Socialist Republic of Albania and the People's Republic of China in the period 1972–1978. Both countries had supported each other in the Soviet–Albanian and Sino-Soviet splits, together declaring the necessity of defending Marxism–Leninism against what they regarded as Soviet revisionism within the international communist movement. By the early 1970s, however, Albanian disagreements with certain aspects of Chinese policy deepened as the visit of Nixon to China along with the Chinese announcement of the "Three Worlds Theory" produced strong apprehension in Albania's leadership under Enver Hoxha. Hoxha saw in these events an emerging Chinese alliance with American imperialism and abandonment of proletarian internationalism. In 1978, China broke off its trade relations with Albania, signalling an end to the informal alliance which existed between the two states. Origins In September 1956, Enver Hoxha headed a delegation of the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania (PLA) at the 8th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. Writing years later of his impressions of the country before the visit, he noted that: Khrushchev's rehabilitation of Josip Broz Tito and the Yugoslavia and his "Secret Speech" denouncing Joseph Stalin in February 1956 put the Soviet leadership at odds with its Albanian counterpart. According to the Albanians, the "Khrushchev group's approaches to the Yugoslav revisionists and its open denigration of Joseph Stalin were the first open distortions of an ideological and political character, which were opposed by the PLA." After arriving in Beijing on September 13, Hoxha held his first (and only) meeting with Mao Zedong in between sessions of the party's congress. Mao's first two questions concerned Yugoslav-Albanian ties and the Albanians' opinion on Stalin. Hoxha replied that Albania's relations with Yugoslavia were "cold" and he gave Mao "a brief outline, dwelling on some of the key moments of the anti-Albanian and anti-Marxist activity of the Yugoslav leadership." On the subject of Stalin, Hoxha stated that the Party of Labour considered him "a leader of very great, all-round merits, a loyal disciple of Lenin and continuer of his work." Mao argued that the 1948 Information Bureau decision to expel Yugoslavia was incorrect, and also stressed what he considered to have been Stalin's mistakes in regard to China. Hoxha later recalled that "our impressions from this meeting were not what we had expected... We were especially disappointed over the things we