IMPLICATIONS OF CHINESE MILITARY AID TO PAKISTAN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00826A001100010034-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 13
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 15, 2006
• Sequence Number: 34
• Publication Date: August 16, 1966
• Content Type: IM

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16 August 1966 25X1
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INTELLIGENCE MEMORANDUM
IMPLICATIONS OF CHINESE MILITARY AID TO PAKISTAN
25X1
j DIRECTORATE OF INTELLIGENCE
State Dept. review completed
GROUP I Excluded from automatic
downgrading and
declos~iFication
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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Directorate of Intelligence
16 August 1966
Implications of Chinese Military
Aid to a1a.stan
Summary
Communist China in the past year became Paki-
stan's major supplier of military hardware. So far,
Peking has provided perhaps a dozen IL-28 Beagle jet
light bombers, about 50 MIG-19 Farmer jet fighters,
and roughly 100 tanks. Artillery, small arms, and
ammunition have also been sent. More deliveries ap-
parently are still to be made.
China's willingness to provide some of its slim
stock of relatively modern aircraft and armor demon-
strates the value Peking puts on its ties with Rawal-
pindi. The Chinese see this aid as the price they
must pay to keep alive a marriage of convenience
based largely on a common antipathy to India. The
Chinese recognize that tteir military assistance will
lead to increased tension between Pakistan and India
and will force New Delhi to split its forces between
the front facing Pakistan and that facing China. The
Chinese also know that their support causes strains
between Pakistani President Ayub and the US and com-
plicates Moscow's efforts to increase its influence
in the subcontinent.
*Prepared by the Office of Current Intelligence and
coordinated with the Office of Research and Reports
and the Office of National Estimates.
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Pakistan turned to Peking for military assist-
ance because of a need to rebuild its armed forces
as quickly as possible after the border war with
India in the fall of 1965.
Although hopeful it can diversify its sources
of arms and avoid dependence on any one power, Paki-
stan is determined to improve its armed forces to
the point where it will be able to defend at least
West Pakistan in any future hostilities. As long as
this is true and meaningful amounts of hardware are
not obtainable elsewhere, Pakistan will have to rely
heavily on the Chinese.
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Pakistan Seeks Aid
1. The basis for the Chinese military aid
program to Pakistan was laid in the fall of 1965
during the war along the Pakistan-India border.
The war was a sobering experience for Pakistan.
Nourished by years of hatred and contempt for the
Indians, the Pakistanis entered the fight with
high hopes. Their military resources were not up
to the job, however. Losses in equipment were
extremely high for a country which could do very
little to replace it after the US shut off mil__-
tary aid to both sides.
2. The Pakistani armed forces emerged from
the war critically short of military equipment,
arms, and ammunition. For example, the air force
lost 10-15 percent of its aircraft, leaving a force
of roughly 100 jet fighters and 20 jet light bombers,
and the remainder of its inventory was crippled by a
lack of spare parts. Battle losses cut deeply into
the tank force, and all services were short of am-
munition.
3. Even as the fighting went on, the Ayub
government was making frantic efforts to obtain,
from whatever source possible, the arms it could no
longer get from the US or the UK. There is evidence
that Communist China provided some military assist-
ance during this period, including antiaircraft guns,
smaller weapons, and ammunition. Some also came in
from Turkey, Indonesia, and Iran.. Failure to get
more doubtless contributed to Pakistan's willingness
to sign a cease-fire.,
4. The end of the war did not end the Pakistani
search for arms. The first imperative in Pakistani
policy remained: the country must keep pace mili-
tarily with the Indians. Shut off from the usual
suppliers and determined because of their wartime
experience to diversify sources of supply, the Pa-
kistanis began to shop around. Their general at-
titude was summed up by Ayub when he told the US am-
bassador that he would take the needed weapons "even
from the devil himself," The search turned up a num-
ber of countries willing but not able to fill Pakistan's
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needs, while those that could, would not. The
Pakistanis did, however, find a receptive audi-
ence in Peking.
5. Arrangements for the military aid pro-
gram now unfolding were probably worked out during
a visit to Peking in early October 1965, by Ayub's
defense coordinator, Ghulam Faruque. He later
stated that the Chinese offered to ship tanks to
Pakistan and claimed they offered to construct a
tank factory in Pakistan. They also offered to sup-
ply an unspecified number of MIG-19 Farmer jet
fighters and to provide technical assistance to in-
tegrate them into the Pakistani Air Force.
The Chinese Come Through
6. Deliveries of major items of military hard-
ware negotiated by the Faruque mission began early
in 1966. Tank deliveries by sea were made in Febru-
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8. The Chinese appear to have delivered about
1.00 T-34 and T-54 tanks to Pakistan,
9. Other Chinese assistance includes artillery
weapons and equipment, small, arms. and ammunition
10. The Pakistanis may be seeking additional
Chinese military assistance,
at least two Pakistani military e ega ions, which
included high-level army and air force officers,
have visited Communist China during this summer,
Ghulam Faruque was again in Poking in late July, and
the subject of arms assistance probably figured prom-
inently in his mission. It is possible that the main
concern of these delegations was with maintenance and
replacement of equipment the Chinese have already con-
tracted to deliver, but the subject of further aid may
well have come up.
11. The Pakistanis, however, have continued their
attempts to develop other sources, The US decision in
February to resume shipments only of nonlethal mili-
tary equipment does not, the Pakistanis argue, meet
their needs. The U.K resumed sales of lethal weapons
to the subcontinent in February, but this has not
proved as helpful to Pakistan as to India, which has
a large inventory of UK equipment. The Pakistanis
have bought some small arms and ammunition from West-
ern European sources
Pakistlan may so be acquiring from
Iran most of the 90 Canadian-made jet fighters Tehran
purchased from West Germany earlier this year.
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I las many as 60 of these have probably
a ready reached Pakistan. Talks with the USSR have
not yet gone beyond the exploratory phase.
12. President Ayub does not view the accept-
ance of Chinese aid as in any way limiting Pakistan's
freedom to carry out an independent foreign policy.
Foreign policy pronouncements
from Rawalpindi also suggest an attempt to maintain
an independent foreign policy. Chinese moral and
material backing in Pakistan's struggle against In-
dia has, however, improved relations between the
two countries,
Peking's Motivations
13. The military aid delivered to Pakistan is
the largest China has ever provided a non-Communist
state, which amply demonstrates the value Peking
places on its relations with Rawalpindi. In the
past year the Chinese have suffered a number of
serious setbacks in their foreign relations, and they
may see assistance to Pakistan as assuring them at
least one important friend in the non-Communist world.
There are other more tangible advantages. From China's
point of view, a militarily strong Pakistan poses a
continuing threat to the common adversary India, re-
quiring New Delhi to divert forces that could other-
wise be deployed along the ever-sensitive Sino-Indian
frontier.. The Chinese also know that their support
causes strains between Ayub and the US and complicates
Soviet efforts to follow up the Tashkent declaration
and to increase Moscow's influence in the subcontinent,
14. The assistance to Pakistan in part reflects
Peking's increased capacity to produce relatively
modern military equipment. The Chinese are believed
to be manufacturing 15 to 20 MIG-19s a month and at
least 300 T-54 tanks a year. The Chinese do not yet
make IL-28s, but they have about 250 which were re-
ceived from the Soviet Union more than seven years
ago.
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15. The Chinese may also see longer term
benefits to be derived from their aid program.
They may reason. that the helping hand extended to
Pakistan in its hour of greatest need will be re-
membered long after Ayub has gone. In more prac-
tical terms, the Chinese, by becoming the major
supplier of military hardware, may have a continu-
ing role as a source of replacements and spare
parts. Furthermore, about 200 Pakistani military
personnel, including pilots, have already been
sent -to China to be trained in the use of Chinese
equipment. The Chinese probably hope to gain some
residual good will from this training, even if
government-to-government relations change.
16. The provision of this assistance to
Pakistan supports other recent indications that
the Chinese do not regard a Sino-US war as imminent.
They seem considerably less nervous now than they
appeared to be a year ago over the possibility of
an early US attack. Civil defense and psychological
preparations in China have subsided, and
Peking tends to discount the
possibility of an early war.
Implications for India
17. The Indian reaction has been predictably
shrill. New Delhi has already voiced serious con-
cern over Pakistan's acquisition of arms from China,
and many Indian officials see it as confirmation of
their long-standing suspicions that there has been
far-reaching Sino-Pakistani plotting against India.
Indian military leaders profess to believe that
Chinese deliveries, together with equipment from
other sources, have actually boosted Pakistani armed
strength above levels existing before fighting broke
out last September.
18. Substantial Chinese assistance to Pakistan
will almost certainly increase Indian pressure on
the Soviet Union for additional military hardware.
New Delhi will also point to the deliveries from
China in an effort to dissuade the US from providing
any additional aid to Pakistan.
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19. India has also voiced fears that Sino-
Pakistani military collaboration goes beyond the
military aid program. Officials in New Delhi,
for example, claim that Peking has secretly agreed
to assist Rawalpindi in a nuclear weapons program.
So far, there is no confirmation of these rumors.
Conclusions
20. Despite Chinese aid and the outwardly
cordial ties which bind Peking and Rawalpindi, both
doubtless regard their relationship as a marriage
of convenience, tactically expedient but of doubt-
ful durability. In Chinese eyes, Ayub is a Western-
educated bourgeois nationalist who cannot be trusted
over the long pull. Peking's doubts about the
Pakistanis were increased when US economic aid was
resumed and Ayub fired left-leaning Foreign Minister
Bhutto, long an advocate of close relations with
China. Even the long-range prospects of advancing
Chinese interests in Pakistan once Ayub is gone must
be recognized in Peking as chancy business.
21. The Pakistanis, for their part, clearly
have reservations about the Chinese.
s a in military Leaders in particular probably recog-
nize that the aircraft obtained from China are in
some respects inferior to those which are supplied
to foreign powers by the US and the USSR. The
Pakistanis have made it clear that they do not want
ever again to become overly dependent on any one
supplier and will probably continue to shop around,
hoping to limit the degree to which they must rely
on Peking. Pakistan, however, will undoubtedly feel
compelled to turn to China as long as the arms race
with India continues and no alternative sources of
meaningful amounts of military hardware are available.
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15 August 1966
Talking Paper on "Implications of Chinese Military
Assistance to Pakistan"
1. This memorandum was prepared in response to a
request from the DDI.
a. That Pakistan was and will remain willing
to accept arms from "the devil" in order
to keep abreast with India.
b. China--wishing to keep Pakistan alive as a
military threat to a common enemy, India--
has undertaken its largest nonbloc military