INTELLIGENCE REPORT ANNEX TEN YEARS OF CHINESE COMMUNIST FOREIGN POLICY SECTION II: SOUTH AND SOUTHEAST ASIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85T00875R001000010027-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 184
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 5, 2010
• Sequence Number: 27
• Publication Date: April 9, 1968
• Content Type: IR

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RSS No. 0026A/68
9 April 1968
DIRECTORATE OF
INTELLIGENCE
Intelligence Report
ANNEX
TEN YEARS OF CHINESE COMMUNIST FOREIGN POLICY
Section II: South and Southeast Asia
(Reference Title: POLO XXVII)
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K
IT
ANNEX
TEN YEARS OF CHINESE COMMUNIST FOREIGN POLICY
South and Southeast Asia
This ANNEX is a detailed review and analysis of
Chinese Communist Foreign Policy in South and Southeast
Asia. It provides the basic datar
an is circulated
for the benefit of those who desire to pursue
ih depth.
the subject
This publication is part of a series of studies of
Chinese Communist foreign policy being produced b the
Special Research Staff .1
Chief, Special Research Staff
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ANNEX
TEN YEARS OF CHINESE COMMUNIST FOREIGN POLICY
Section II: South and Southeast Asia
Contents
I.
Introduction
A. Asian Countries Involved with Mao's
Anti-Americanism
1. Cambodia
2. Indonesia
B. Asian Countries Not Involved with Mao's
Anti-Americanism
Page
1
5
5
30
64
1. Burma
64
2. Nepal
89
3. Afghanistan
101
4. Ceylon
103
An Anti Communist Quasi-Ally: Pakistan
107
III.
Non-Communist Enemies
122
A. A New Enemy: India
122
B. Old Enemies:
1. Thailand
135
2. Malaysia
143
3. Singapore
146
?
4. The Philippines
148
IV,
Imperialist Colonies: Macao and Hong Kong.
.154
?
A. Macao
160
B. Hong Kong
165
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TEN YEARS OF CHINESE COMMUNIST FOREIGN POLICY
Section II ? South and Southeast Asia
Introduction
Revolutionary and national interests always have
been present in Mao Tse-tung's foreign policy as conflict-
ing elements. His revolutionary compulsion (as well as
his craving for adula.,:ion) has been detrimental to national
interests, but he will not (or cannot) abandon this course.
On occasion, however, he has partially suppressed it, the
most important nstance having been the period from 1954-
65 in relations with countries in the Far East.
As early as December 1936, Mao believed that his
revolution should "exert a far-reaching influence on the
revolution in the East as well as in the whole world"
(Strategic Problems of China's Revolutionary War). This
personal desire was later made national policy, and Liu
Shao-chi insisted on 16 November 1949 that Mao's "road"
of guerrilla war should be the model for all Communist-
led revolutions in "colonial and semi-colonial" countries,
his apparent immediate concern having been the insurgencies
in Southeast Asia. (Speech to the Trade Union Conference
of Asian and Australasian Countries in Peking) But side
by side with this policy of openly encouraging revolu-
tion was to be Mao's dawning recognition of the fact that
Communist-led insurrections, so far from spreading like
a prairie fire throughout the area, were making no rapid
progress beyond Vietnam. More importantly, he began to
recognize that an explicitly revolutionary policy could
result in the establishment of a new American presence,
beyond Korea and near Chinese borders in Indo-China. The
advent of a less doctrinaire Soviet leadership after
Stalin's death (March 1953), the end of the Korean war
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(July 1953), the desire to rehabilitate the economy of
his regime, and Washington's clearly expressed determina-
tion to prevent by containment any new Communist aggres-
sion in Asia helped to erode the prospects for a revolu-
tionary advance and to convince him of the need to shift
to a more moderate tand internationally more acceptable)
policy. A new nonrevolutionary strategy was formulated
in order to attract rather than repel the non-Communist
leaders of states on the mainland's periphery, and by
1954 Mao's revolutionary compulsion had been partially
suppressed, displaced by his desire to ensure national
security and attain "great power" status for his regime.
After the spring of 1954, Mao permitted Chou En-
lai to advance a policy of assurance-against-subversion
toward governments which, he believed, might otherwise
have permitted American forces to establish bases near
the mainland's borders. A key principle of Chou 's five
principles of peaceful coexistence (which he set forth
with Nehru in April 1954) was used to try to assure near-
by governments that Peking's policy was one of "non-
interference" in their internal affairs.* "China has no
*In his speech of 1 October 1949, Mao had not given
such an assurance and discussed only the principles of
"equality, mutual benefit, and mutual respect for terri-
torial integrity and sovereignty" in relations among na-
tions. Chou's five principles were
(1) mutual respect for each other's territorial
integrity and sovereignty.
(2) mutual non-aggression.
(3) mutual non interference in each other's
internal affairs,
(4) equality and mutual benefit, and
(5) peaceful coexistence.
Principle (3) was to be cited in 1967 as the one the Chi-
nese leaders had violated 'n trying to impose W,ao's "thought"
on Cambodians. Sihanouk publicly complained on 11 Septem-
ber 1967 that a message from Peking to the Cambodian-Chi-
nese Friendship Association was "an extraordinary inter-
ference in the affairs of a sovereign state," and on 12
(footnote continued on page 3)
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intention whatsoever to subvert the government of its
neighboring countr;es." (Chou 's speech at the Afro-Asian
Conference at Bandung on 19 April 1955) This new strategy
was designed to encourage neutralism, and neutral countries
were, in turn, to become parts of a continuous territorial
buffer preventing "encirclement" of the mainland. The
antidote to the American policy of containment--depicted
at various times as an effort to "encircle and blockade"
(Marshal Yeh Chien ying's phrase of 6 October 1950) or
to "encircle and isolate" the mainland (Mao's phrase re
ported on 23 February 1961)--was to be Mao's implicit
admission that diplomacy could be more useful than revolu-
tion. Mao began to reduce Peking's support for Communist
revolutionaries in these countries in the second half of
1951. Further, he permitted Chou to assure non-Communist
leaders that local Overseas Chinese in their countries
would not be organized and exploited as a subversive wea-
pon against their national regimes and internal (or for-
eign)policies. In short, he permitted Chou to adopt
tactics of considerateness (that is, diplomatically "cor-
rect" tactics) in observing the nationalistic sensitivi-
ties of these leaders.
I, Two Types of Neutral Neighbors
Mao and his aides did not view these governments
as one homogenous or undifferentiated group of neutrals,
and they clearly indicated their preference for the poli-
cies of those countries which were involved in Mao's anti-
(footnote continued from page 2)
September, he stated that Peking's action "is contrary
to the peaceful coexistence principles which you set forth.
in 1955. You claimed that peaceful coexistence means
mutual respect without intervening in the affairs of
others..." On 1 November 1967, Sihanouk announced that
Chou had reassured him (in a message) on precisely the
non-intervention principle.
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Americanism--viz.. Cambodia and Indones'a. Those which
were not involved--viz., Burma, Nepal, Afghanistan, and
Ceylon--were nevertheless treated as if they were part
of an anti-American front, or were on the way to becoming
part of such a common bloc. They viewed Pakistan as a
special case--that is, as a quasi-ally which was useful
in opposing India, the latter having been transformed in
1959 into a major enemy. They treated with va:ying degrees
of contempt their old enemies--viz., Thailand, Malaya, and
the Philippines--but were reluctant to call for the over-
throw of these gcvernments until the 1966-67 period.
Chou was convincing when he repeatedly insisted that,
even toward counilries aligned with the U, S. or otherwise
hostile to Peking, the Chinese Communist leaders had no
interest in the political character of the internal regime
but only in the foreign relations between nearby countries
and the mainland government.
Mao's idea of a "genuinely" neutral country was
one that would not oppose his policies and would not per-
mit LloS bases on its territory. Even after some tensions
had developed in relations with several leaders of nearby
countries, his criteria for considering them as acceptable
neutilAs was sustained. Chen Y made the definitive state-
ment on the mat tee to Japanese newsmen in an interview
of 29 May 1962'
The eountries that truly adopt a policy of
peace and neutrality, maintain peaceful con-
tactE with all countries, maintain friendly
ties with China, and call for peaceful co-
existence with countries which have different
ideologies and social systems, namely, Nepal,
Afghanistan, Cambodia, Burma, and Indonesia,
are not being occupied by the U.S But the
countries that call for opposition to Commun-
ist China are receiving U.S. imperialism,
offering military bases to the U.S., and
consequently are receiving the wolf into
their homes....The genuine peaceful and
neutral countries mentioned above do not
need U.S. 'protection' or occupation be-
cause they abide by the five principles of
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a
peaceful coexistence and because their
internal order is in good shape.
However, the record of his relations with these countries
indicates that he has made a distinction between differ-
ent kinds of neutrals, prefering those wh'ch are involved
with his anti-Americanism and which are assertive in op-
posing Washingtn's policies.
A. Asian Countries Involved with Mao's Anti-Americanism
1. Cambodia
Mao was pleased with Sihanouk for staying out of
SEATO and for opposing a SEATO member, Thailand, and an
old enemy, South Vietnam. He was to become even more
pleased with Cambodia's chief of state for actions to
eliminate the U.S presence in Phnom Penh.* Although
Chou En-lai had been tactful, since his February 1956
discussions, in moving Sihanouk away from the West and
toward neutralism and although he had attained recogni-
tion for the Peking regime (in July 1958, when Sihanouk
was rebuked in Bangkok and felt threatened by Thailand
and South Vietnam), he had warned the Cambodian leader
that Peking would not make problems for him "unless Cam-
bodia permitted the entry of U,S, troops." Sihanouk. in
*Mao is reported to have expressed admiration,
on 31 March
1964, over the way in which Sihanouk had put an end to
U,S, aid and was ready to face the "reactions of the im-
perialists in all their forms." On 10 September 1964,
Mao described Cambodia as a good
example of a "truly" neutral state, and in late September
1965, Mao made Sihanouk an honorary Communist by saying
he was "very, very red" and "my comrade" because "like
me, you are struggling against the imperialists." (Cited
in Sihanouk speech of 17 October 1965)
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his Tokyo press conference in late October 1961, had at-
tributed this remark of Chou's to some unspecified time
"in the past"--apparently a remark made by Chou either
in Cambodia in early May 1960 or in Peking in December
1960, when Sihanouk signed a nonaggress on treaty. In
1960, Sihanouk sent his three sons to study on the main-
land--another sign to the Chinese leaders that he wanted
them to act as his defenders. By that time, it was clear
to the Chinese that Sihanouk looked to Peking rather than
Washington for military support, and Sino-Cambodian rela-
tions centered on the basic matter of whether Sihanouk
was to be given a clear statement of commitment to defend
Cambodia from Thai and Vietnamese incursions. Chou's
task was to string him along with statements which implied
such a commitment, but never explicitly declared it. When,
on 5 November 1962, Sihanouk complained in Phnom Penh that
"some American circles even here" talk of a much harder
US, policy toward Cambodia, he publicly insisted that
this wculd not work because the Chinese Communist ambas-
sador "this morning" had assured him that Cambodia "in
no case would be abandoned" (as Khrushchev had abandoned
Cuba). Actually, Sihanou was aware that the PLA would
not be used to help him. His practice had been to imply,
or even directly claim, that the Chinese would intervene
militarily to defend his regime. But he has also publicly
admitted that on at least one occasion--namely, his diplo-
matic break with Thailand in October 1961--"I made believe
there was someone behind me to support me. Actually, there
was no one at that moment." (Sihanouk speech of late
November 1961)
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Chou /Joined
Mao in waYning Sihanouk of a plot to overthrow him, estab-
lishing a status of credibility with the Cambodian leader?
"Mr, Mao Tse-tung himself asked me to do my best to avoid
being overthrown. Mr. Chou En-lai. ..asked me to be careful
because 'something is being prepared against you.
(Sihanouk speech of 28 February 1963) Sihanouk was sur-
prised and delighted that Mao and Chou would alert him
to a maneuver to Wtich the prestige of the small crypto-
Communist Pracheachon (People's Party) and other left-
ists were committed. But maintenance of an apologist
for Peking, as Sihanouk had then become, was more important
to Mao and Chou than the prospects in Cambodia of leftist
comrades. Liu Shao-chi tried to sustain Peking's influ-
ence, and he visited Cambodia within one month (in May
1963) after Sihanouk had concluded a miljtary aid agree-
ment?his first with a bloc country?wit the USSR.
By the fall of 1963, the Chinese leaders had at-
tained a good understanding of Sihanouk's personality,
appraising him as a leader highly susceptible to flattery
but also emotionally unstable and anxious to involve them
in fighting his battles, political and military. When,
therefore, on 5 November 1963, Sihanouk declared his in-
tention to replace U.S, ass:stance with aid from Peking,
they took their time and calculated the risks they might
incur if they moved too rapidly to defend him during his
political rampage against the U.S. By 21 November, they
apparently believed that a response would not entail
military risks; they belatedly and cautiously pledged
"all-out support" (not direct PLA involvement) in the
event Cambodia were to be invaded* and concluded the first
military aid agreement between the two countries (Peking's
*"The Chinese government hereby solemnly declares that
if the Kingdom of Cambodia which has persevered in its
policy of peace and neutrality should encounter armed in-
vasion instigated by the US, and its vassals, the Chinese
government and people will firwly side with the Kingdom
of Cambodia and give it all-out support." 07,11C statement
(footnote continued on page 8)
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first economic aid agreement with a non-Communist 7overn-
ment was concluded with Phnom Penh in mid-1956) in December
1963. Further, the long-pending Sino Cambodian civil air
agreement was signed on 25 November. Lavish flattery of
Sihanouk and successive military aid agreements--in October
1964 and November 1965--were used by the Chinese leaders
to try to obscure the ambiguity on the precise nature of
their commitment to Cambodia. Sihanouk was useful to
them partly because of his temperamental outbursts against
the U.S. (and later against the USSR), but for this same
reason they were careful to retain some leeway so that
their actions would not be conditioned upon his unstable
temperament
As Sihanouk became aware of this sustained ambi-
guity, they had to work hard to "explain" their unwilling-
ness to use the PLA to defend Cambodian territory. When,
on 10 April, Sihanouk complained about Chou's apparent
reluctance to impell Souvanna Phouma to recognize Cam-
bodia's territorial integrity in the Sino-Laotian communi-
que of 8 April, (Sihanouk having said that now "we cannot
(footnote continued from page 7)
of 21 November 1963) Sihanouk later tried to make Peking's
commitment appear total and unconditionaL "In its Novem-
ber 1963 statement...China...promised that it is ready
to brin7, all necessary assistance to Cambodia...and this
assistance will be unconditional." (Sihanouk speech 15
March 1964) Nevertheless, major Chinese spokesmen held
closely to the vague formulation, as witness Lo Jui-ching's
faithful reiteration of it in his speech of greeting to
the Cambodian military delegation in Peking on 13 March
1964. At the same time, Peking Radio did not report
Sihanouk's 11 March statement that in the event of at-
tack, the PRC "will help us in accordance with her written
promise." At a later date, the Chinese remained silent
about another Sihanoukian exaggeration, namely, his state-
ment on 4 January 1966 that if war is forced upon Cambodia,
Peking "has promised that it will come to Cambodia's aid,
not only w4th arms but with volunteer troops as they
did during the Korean war."
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trust anyone"), the Chinese tried to reassure him. Chen
Yi in mid-April tried to get the Cambodian delegate to
the Afro-Asian conference in Djakarta to believe that he
(Chen) had warned Souvanna in Peking that the PRC would
not allow anyone to trouble Cambodia.
Mr. Chen Yi also warned? 'Take care not to
invade Khmer territory, as People's China will
not permit such an act. I warn you that if
you dare trouble Cambodia, People's China will
surely come to Cambodia's aid.' Then, Prince
Souvanna Phouma asked Mr. Chen Yi what road
China would take to help Cambodia, which is
so far from China. Mr. Chen Yi replied that
he wr,uld send aid to Cambodia through North
Vietnam and that by crossing part of Laotian
territory, the Chinese would be able to reach
Cambodia. On hearing this answer, Prince
Souvanna Phouma found out that things would
not go well for him and that there would be
no hope for him.*
When our military delegation...was visiting
People's China, Mr, Mao Tse-tung, father of
China, clearly stated (on 31 March 1964) that
if someone dared attack Cambodia. People's
China surely w.uld side with the Khmer to
check the enemy. (Sihanouk's speech of 19
April 1964)
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*Chen's statement contains elements of deceit. For
example, he slides quickly over the hypothetical transit
of North Vietnamese territory by PLA troops--an action
which Ho and other Hanoi leaders would have been reluct-
ant to permit.
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On 12 May 1964, Sihanouk again claimed
that "People's China promises us that if the Americans
dare walk into Khmer territory, the Chinese will, in the
Khmer's place, fight the Americans until they are defeated."
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Actually, even Chou's alleged promise of 4 October
did not provide Sihanouk with a significantly greater
degree of protection from Cambodia's traditional enemies,
and the Chinese eaders did not bind themselves (despite
Sihanouk's efforts) to do anything more than they desired
for him. They apparently believed that Saigon vould not
take the risk of launching an all-out attack against Cam-
bod'a and that Sihanouk could be convinced that small
patrol clashes could be handled by his own forces without
PLA intervention. When, therefore, Sihanouk on 26 October
1964 complained t2 the Chinese leaders of alleged ILS,
airstrikes, which he depicted in strong terms as "an open
act o: war against Cambodia" against which he would "strike
back," Liu Shao-chi and Chou En-lai in a joint message
on 31 October (and a People's Daily editorial of 3 November
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1964) side-stepped Sihanouk's more extreme pronounce-
ments on acts of war and went only the same distance they
had gone before in promising ncthing more than "all-out
support" for the struggle" of the Cambodian people."*
At no great cost--i.e., political support for Cam-
bodia's border policy and the provision of military equip-
ment--the Chinese gained from Sihanouk political assist-
ance. At the Colombo Conference in December 1962, he
adopted Peking's position on the border dispute with
India; in May 1963, he sign-3d a "friendship" treaty (but
Mao would not give him a military defense treaty), in
July 1963, he refused to sign and disparaged the nuclear
test-ban agreement, in August and September 1964, he sup-
ported Peking's position on the Gulf of Tonkin incidents,
in October 1964, hr praised the explosion of Peking's
first nuclear device, and in May 1965, he pleased Mao by
breaking diplomatic relations w'th Washington.
More than any other Chinese leader, Chou En-lai
had the job of feeding his ego and retaining his goodwill.
*Even the ebullient Chen Yi chose h's words carefully
in Phnom Penh on 13 November 1964 when he specified pub-
licly that Peking would provide "all-out support" if "the
imperialist aggressors dare to invade Cambodia on a mas-
sive scale," the implication being that anything less
than a "massive scale" invasion, such as an isolated air
strike or patrol clash, would leave the Chinese free to
decide the form and scale of their "supnort."
Later, when the Chinese felt impelled to give the
impression that they were strengthening their vague com-
mitment to Cambodia, responding to Washington's refer-
ence to "hot pursuit" of the Viet Cong over the Cambodian
border, they first cited a strong statement by Sihanouk
(with apparent approval) and then merely repeated their
own position which did not refer to Chinese fighting Ameri-
cans. (People's Daily editorial of 24 December 1965)
Adopting the phrase, "rear shield," used in deterrent
statements on Vietnam in February 1965, they made it
clear to the ILS, that they would not intervene.
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Chou, described by Sihanouk as the "great genius" (speech
of 27 December 1964), handled the details of Peking's
military aid program to Phnom Penh.* He provided him
with advice on uniquely Cambodian problems. For example,
Chou caut oned Sihanouk to be "careful" in deciding whether
to sign an agreement with Hanoi and the Liberation Front
regarding their recognition of Cambodia's frontiers, the
assumed danger for Phnom Penh being the prospective Ameri-
can reaction. Chou referred to the importance of neutrality
for Cambodia which, unlike Algeria and Indonesia, had to
contend with "the Americans and their lackeys in Saigon
nearby." (Sihanouk speech of 27 December 1964) Chou had
to act against his desires in March 1965, expressing
Peking's refusal to support an international conference
on Cambodia (as a venue for possible Hanoi-Washington
talks), but on 20 May 1965, after Sihanouk had severed
diplomatic relations with the US , Chou effusively praised
him, pointing to those parts of Sihanouk's "righteous
and stirring speech" of 17 May w!tich, in fact, complied
with Peking's position on a wide range of issues, 'nclud-
ing an attack on the UN. Chou was joined by other lead
ers during Sihanouk's last visit to the mainland in October
1965, the effort having been to sustain his anti-American-
ism and deter him from looking for aid from Moscow.
Chen Yi met him on the way out in Kunming and in-
sisted that he stand clear of the U.S. Referring to Chen 's
"advice," Sihanouk later stated that
China told us frankly that if we change our
attitude toward the Americans, China will
change its attitude toward us. This is normal.
because the Chinese like us less than they
do their own interests. (Sihanouk speech of
25 October 1965)
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Publicly, Chen Yi praised the Cambodian chief of state's
hostile attitude toward the US,* The Chinese leaders
were delighted that, as a result of Sihanouk's adoption
of several CCP positions in the dispute with the CPSU,
he was rebuked by the Soviet leaders (the Soviet ambas-
sador treated him with designed contempt in Pyongyang
during a side-trip there in early October 1965), and Liu
Shao-chi and Chen Yi professed to him their view that this
behavior reflected the long-term process whereby the
Soviets were "becoming Americans." Mao and Liu warned
him against accepting aid either from the Russians or the
Amerlcans, insisting that "It is not a good solution to
rely on foreign aid and loans for building a country...
we hope that your country...will only have commercial
relations with foreign countries..." (Sihanouk speech
of 17 October 1965, (emphasis supplied). Sihanouk had
seemed to them at the time to accept their advice.**
*"I greatly admire the statement made by Prince Sihanouk
when he was in Peking- that if there were some 15 coun-
tries in the world that followed the line of non-coopera-
tion toward U.S, imperialism, refused to provide it with
military bases, and forbade its aircraft and ships to use
their airfields and ports, this would be enough to force
U.S. imperialism to .etreat. This is a correct appraisal "
(Kunming speech of 13 October 1965 at end of Sihanouk's
visit) Unintentionally, Chen had admitted that the num-
ber of countries which the Chinese leaders could induce
to join Mao's anti-American "united front" was smaller
than 15, and probably far smaller.
**After citing Liu Shao-chi's advice to "Try to advance,
but slowly by relying on your own means," Sihanouk pro-
nounced the Chinese leader to be "correct...1 think we
must surmount the difficulties by ourselves instead of
relying on the aid of the big powers. This is clearly
proven by our relations wj.th the Americans and the Rus-
sians." (Sihanouk speech of 25 October 1965) Mao and
his aides were clearly aware that Mosc^w and Washington
easily could defeat him in a direct competition to provide
enonomic aid to Sihanouk's government and other under-
developed countries, and for several years they had been
(footnote continued on page 15)
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Within six months, however, he discarded it, and
on 18 March 1966, his aides signed in Moscow a Soviet-
initiated protocol for $2.3 million worth of military
materiel. Sihanouk paraded the Soviet aid agreement--"the
world is amazed, but we did it -and he claimed that
Peking had accepted Cambodia's "renewal of friendship'
with the Soviet Union without any comment or interfer-
ence, (Statements Sihanouk made to Singapore's Prime
Minister Lee Kuan Yew on 11 April 1966) While not making
immediate demands on Sihanouk or revealing his contempt
for the independent action of the leader who had acted
as Peking's political toady, Mao apparently began to view
him as a duplicitous and opportunistic trafficker with
the "revisionists." Sihanouk's action had made Mao's
judgment look bad, as Mao had been more effusive in praise
of the Cambodian chief of state than any other Chinese
Communist leader and was suddenly impelled to reconsider
that praise.
The decision of Mao ad his aides following the
signing of the Soviet-Cambodian aid protocol seems to have
been to avoid priming the temperamental leader with special
deference, but to try to pull him back from increased con-
tacts with the Soviets and the Western powers. They ap-
parently were aware that he was beginning to examine the
feasibility of returning to a basic policy of a rapproche-
ment with the West. But tensions began to develop and
when, on 26 April 1966, Vice Premier Li Hsien-nien arrived
(footnote continued from page 14)
trying to persuade leaders in these countries to rely on
their own resources. Even after Chou En-lai expounded
his eight principles of foreign aid (January 1964), the
Chinese continued to suggest that their capability to pro-
vide aid was limited. "Of course, our country's economic
strength is not yet great and our country's foreign aid
is on a limited scale because it was not very long ago
that our country started its own construction." (Nan
Han-chen statement of 20 June 1964 to Asian Economic
Seminar in Pyongyang)
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in Phnom Penh to conclude an economic and cultilral coopera-
tion agreement (initialed on 29 April and designating
factory equipment for Cambodia), he implied that frictions
were present and insisted that Sino-Cambodian friendship
"can stand all tests."
At some point between June and August 1966, Sihanouk
apparently decided that it would be safer than it ever
had been for him to criticize Peking openly and directly.*
He began to complain that in September-October 1965 during
his mainland trip the Chinese leaders had used their pe-
culiar logic on him to keep Cambodia poor, and he stated
sarcastically in August 1966 that "the Chinese policy of
'Let us be as poor as possible as long as possible,' is
not for Cambodia." He ranged over other issues. Speak-
ing publicly, he insisted that "Since even China [at
Warsaw] does not refuse talks, we will not refuse talks
with Harriman"--later, he refused--and he complained that
'China will not intervene physically in our favor' in the
event of outside attack. (Statements of 8 August 1966)**
*He had begun to criticize Peking indirectly in mid-
Ma; 1966 when he quietly published the text of one of his
talks with Mao (October 1965), his apparent intention
being to demonstrate that Mao had made it clear that Pek-
ing would not provide Phnom Penh with significant addi-
tional aid.
**For this boldness, he was rewarded with a demand from
Peking that he refuse to meet with Harriman/
He was
also antagonized by the heavy adivce of the Chinese lead-
ers when they attacked his proposal for strengthening the
IQC--an action which, Sihanouk believed, wuuld reduce the
likelihood of US, and South Vietnamese punitive military
operations across his borders and would limit the size
of Vietnamese Communist forces on Cambodian territory.
In mid. August, the government press in Phnom Penh reflected
Sihanouk's contempt for Peking's position by publishing
his proposal side-by-side with the Chinese depiction of
it as "an American imperialist plot."
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Mao's purge on the mainland had induced in Sihanouk an
attitude of olitspokeness, inasmuch as he believed that
mainland developments were holding the attention oi the
Chinese dictator on internal rather than external policy
to an unprecedented degree. He was even emboldened to
take what he considered to be a form of retaliatory
action.
Although increasingly outspoken, Sihanouk was still
aware that the Chinese leaders could provide the only
counterweight to the American presence in the area, that
their political goodwill was still important even in a
reduced amount, and that they would st411 respond favor-
ably to his anti-Americanism. In October 1966, Sihanouk
reacted to press reports that he was "swinging back" toward
the West, and he sustained public attacks on the U.S.
defending Communist positions on a whole range of issues
including that of the Vietnam war.* When, therefore, in
the fall of 1966, the Mao-Sihanouk relationship became
increasingly cool, appearances of friendship were sus-
tained by both sides. Sihanouk's son, studying in Peking,
was given preferential treatment when, in September 1966,
he was assigned special teachers after most foreign students
had been told to leave the mainland. Mutual adulation
was intended to show that relations had not deteriorated.
On 8 November 1966, Sihanouk's son appraised Mao's purge
as "good" at the reception where Chen Yi described his
*He held to his conviction as enunciated ten years
earlier ? "As long as the feelings of the Government of
Communist China...are not belied by some signs of change,
I cannot, as the present leader of...a small people of
only five million, under any circumstances rebuff the
friendship of the leader of a people of six hundred mil-
lion." (Speech to the Philippine Congress in February
1956)
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father as the leader who "dares to sever diplomatic rela-
tions with the U,S_, dares to reject U.S. aid, dares to
build the country in the spirit of self-reliance, and is
not dependent on foreign aid that has political conditions."
Chen was implicitly advising Sihanouk that he could count
on Peking's good will only so long as his opposition to
Washington was sustained. In line with this policy,
Madame Chen Yi projected an appearance of good will during
her visit to Cambodia in early November. For his part,
Sihanouk returned the flattery of Peking, praising Mao's
purge in mid-February 1967 in Paris and receiving re-
ciprocal flattery from NCNA on 25 February 1967. And when,
in early April 1967, he acted to crush Khmer dissidents
and assured Peking that he would remain "neutral" in his
foreign policy, Peking reported with approval his anti-
American letter to an American newspaper. (NCNA dispatch
of 9 May 1967)
on 9 May, Sihanouk complained publicly about
Communist subversion and insisted that several newspapers
had been supplied with funds from unspecified foreign Com-
munists. On 15 May, he came closer to a charge of sub-
version from the outside (i.e. from Peking). In a radio
speech, he disclosed that certain Chinese in Cambod'a
were guilty of various abuses, particularly concerning
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1,
currency exchange, contraband, and subversion. He said
that Prime Minister Son Sann had just revealed to him the
names of two Chinese residents guilty of these crimes.
One of these had left for the mainland, and he had asked
that he should not return to Cambodia. The second was
involved in the currency black market and was the head
of the contraband movement, and he had decided to expel
him from the country. Sihanouk went on to say that sub-
version by Chinese Communist elements in Cambodia, carried
out from the Cambodian-Chinese Friendship Association and
other academic establishments was a well-known fact. He
said that Minister for National Security Dy Bellong had
provided him with details about this and that he was con-
ducting further investigations. He ended by saying that
there was no proof at all that any Chinese official or
the Chinese embassy was responsible for this subversion,
but the implication of his entire presentation was that
he was not far from acquiring such proof.
Sihanouk's 15 May speech sparked a series of arti-
cles in the Cambodian press critical of Peking and un-
preced(nted in explicitly accusing Chinese Communists of
a whole range of subversive activities in Cambodia. The
revolutionized officials in the Chinese embassy struck
back by publishing two letters (on 22 and 28 May respec-
tively, the latter having been an "open letter" to the
Cambodian press), attacking the anti-Peking articles and
provoking counter-articles. On 30 May, the revolutionized
Chinese embassy was implicated by the Cambodians for shield-
ing pro-Communists and was again publicly accused of
subversion by one publication. Peking did not refer to
this escalating dispute or to the letters of its embassy
in Phnom Penh. However, it began to disseminate tributes
to Mao which were to become offensive to Cambodian nation-
alistic sensibilities. On 31 May. NCNA claimed in a
dispatch that the "Cambodian working class" considered
Mao to be the supreme commander of the world's peoples.
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Sihanouk Iv- 3 later to complain about this export of Mao-
cult fanat.:ism.*
Beyond the embassy-press dispute and the issue of
the dissemination of the Mao-cult (after Sihanouk had
warned Cambodians not to wear Mao buttons they had at-
tained from Chinese Communist sources), a new irritant
developed in relations between the two countries.** Mao
was still piqued by Sihanouk's willingness to accept Soviet
aid and to act more independently of Peking on other issues.
*Re?cting a Chinese demarche that there had been no
interi..,rence in Cambodian affairs, Sihanouk said "How
is it that it has not interfered, when NCNA cabled to Pek-
ing that the Khmer said this or that about Mr. Mao Tse-
tung and sang such and such songs?" (Sihanouk speech
of 13 September 1967)
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In May 1967, the Cambodian government asked "friendly
countries" to declare their recognition of its terri-
torial integrity. The Liberation Front, the USSR, and
North Vietnam complied--on 31 May and on 6 and 8 June,
in that order. (Sihanouk established diplomatic relations
with Ho's regime on 15 June.) Mao was confronted with
the choice of (1) rewarding Sihanouk, who was impeding
dissemination of his "thought" among Cambodians and traf-
ficking with the "revisionists" or (2) punishing Sihanouk
by refusing to comply. His apparent decision was not to
comply. Mao apparently found it particularly difficult
to accept independent (and, on occasion, anti-Chinese)
actions from a man who had been a complete toady for many
years in relations with Peking.* Further, Mao was engaged
in the process of "revolutionizing" his Foreign Miziistry,
having turned Red Guards loose in it, and submission tp
the request of a "feudal" prince (Sihanouk) would have
appeared, at that time, to be a nonrevolutionary act. For
these reasons, Mao apparently rejected the more rational
consideration that he could not for long avoid complying.
His ally, Ho, had complied; his opponents, the Soviet
leaders, also had complied. But he refused despite the
isolated position in which the refusal placed him. Becoming
*Mao's increasing annoyance with Sihanouk's independent
actions against his policies (and against Chinese embassy
activities in Cambodia) was reflected in items printed
in May and July 1967 in a news bul- 25X1
letin, Reference News, Disapproval was implied coacern-
ing Sihanouk's letter of gratitude to Gromyko in early
June on Moscow's decision to "recognize" Cambodian front-
iers, suppression of the revolt in Battambang province,
measures to restrict spread of the Mao-cult in Overseas
Chinese private schools, Sihanouk's criticism of the sub-
versive activities of certain foreign-aid technicians,
and Phnom Penh's concern over excessive influence of the
Chinese embas3y in the Overseas Chinese community. This
material almost certainly would have been used against
Sihanouk if Chou had not convinced Mao in September 19S7
that the prince was still very anti-American.
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increasingly bold and deLreasingly a toady, Sihanouk
used the opportunity of Soviet recognition to criticize
Mao's stand against recognition? he publicly ridiculed
Peking's private explanation for "hesitating"--namely,
because of fear of the Thai and the Vietnamese. (Sihanouk
speech of 7 June 1967) As an additional factor contribut-
ing to Mao's footdragging, he probably had been angered
by Hanoi's independent act of recognition, as it suggested
that Sihanouk had used Ho against him. Moreover, Ho, in
Mao's apparent view, had cooperated with Aloscow and Phnom
Penh, but not with Peking. (For his part, Ho probably
was irritated because Mao was creating political problems
with Cambodia at a time when it was necessary to sustain
Sihanouk's acquiescence in the use of Cambodia's border
areas as military sanctuaries and the country as a logistic
base.)
It should have been clear to Mao--it almost cer-
tainly was clear to Chou En lai--that he could not con-
tinue indefinitely to refuse to take an action which Hanoi
and Moscow had taken and which Sinanouk was using to ri-
dicule his regime. On 13 June, Mao made a small but slip-
pery concession? Peking's Foreign Ministry statement on
that day "reaffirmed" that the PRC "fully respects the
territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Cambodia in her
present borders." This was no more than saying that Mao
"respects" the frontier in physical terms (just as he
"respects" the Sino-Soviet border and will not step over
it) but does not recognize its validity as an interna-
tionally accepted frontier at all points. He was still
punishing Sihanouk and he was refusing to permit the
leader of such a small country to out-maneuver the leader
of such a big one. Mao sustained this attitude until 31
July 1967, when the charge of the Chinese embassy in Phnom
Penh finally was directed to inform the Cambodians that
Peking "recognizes" the present territorial frontiers of
Cambodia. Chou may have been the moving force in this
action, and he may have guided Mao back to rationality by
reminding him that Cambodia was a source of supplies for
the Viet Congg-and a sanctuary for them.* He almost
*The earlier "recognition" of Cambodia's borders by
the Liberation Front had been motivated by the fact that
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certainly alerted Mao to the need to dissociate Peking
from the 10 July U.S. statement of "respect" for Khmer
territorial integrity (as well as from Peking's earlier
position). He almost certainly reported to Mao that
Sihanouk was still anti-American, and it was Cambodia's
struggle against the U.S. which Cnen Yi praised when he
said he was "adhering to Chairman Mao's teachings" in
supporting Phnom Penh. (Chen Yi speech of 18 August 1967)*
The effort of Chou and Chen to retain Sihanouk's
good will was made within the new guidelines of a fanatical
policy derived basically from Mao's insatiable craving
for adulation, In this case, it was a matter of interna-
tional adulation and not only domestic cultist praise for
his "thought," There apparently was a dispute among the
Chinese leaders during Mao's purge regarding disseminat-
ing the Mao-cut and its applicability to revolutionary
movements outside the mainland. Chen Yi seems to have
been irascibly outspoken in opposing Mao's apparent desire
(footnote continued from page 22)
Cambodia had become "a useful strategic and logistic base
area" for ther_Viet Cong, according to the statement on
17 June 1967 in
Phnom Penh. It was intended to mollify Sihanouk.
"Recognition," however, has not provided Sihanouk with
a border treaty which delineates the precise alignment
of the frontier. Hanoi is not willing to provide him
with such a firm acceptance of his territorial claims.
*Chen Yi referred explicitly to the common cause in
opposing the U,S, but avoided mentioning the discarded
principle of mutual non-interference in the internal af-
fairs of each country. Actually, he had joined Chou and
Vice Foreign Minister Han Nien-lung in their effort to
induce the visiting Cambodian foreign minister to gain
Sihanouk's acquiescence in the Chinese embassy's right
to disseminate the symbols of Mao's cult. That is, he
was engaged with Chou in asking for the right to interfere
in Cambodia's internal affairs.
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to spread it abroad, but by February 1967, he seems to
have fallen into line on the matter of external dissemina-
tion.* Chou and Chen had to comply with the decision to
*In the period ranging roughly from February to June
1966 when Peking media made a major effort to "prove"
that Mao's doctrines were being favorably received all
over the world, Chen seems to have refused to accept
export of the Mao-cult as an operational policy of de-
partments in and connected with the Foreign Ministry.
In June 1966, when Chen Yi was discussing the resolu-
tion passed by the Afro-Asian Writers' Meeting, he said7
'The aim of this meeting is to build a united front
against imperialism headed by the ILS, We cannot force
them to accept all this Mao thought and Cultural Revolu-
tion stuff.' In February 1966, he said to members of the
Bureau for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries:
'Don't we want to make everyone love Mao's thought? Mao's
thought is a completely Chinese thing. We do not want
to tae it abroad, If we do, people will say that this
is not our thing and we do not want it. In that case,
what can we do?'" "Even as late as 1967" Chen Yi said
that "I do not agree with reading Mao quotations abroad
and presentAng Mao badges." (Items in Red Guard Newspaper
of 15 September 1967) However, shortly after he had been
impelled to make a self-criticism in January 1967 on var-
ious issues, particularly on his refusal to purge the
Foreign W.nistry and his action in defending some of its
personnel, Chen complied on the issue of exporting the
The nationalistic reactions against the spread of the Mao-
cult in Cambodia, Burma, Nepal, and Ceylon (among other
countries) indicates that Chen had accurately appraised
the prospective attitude of foreign governments as early
as February 1966.
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indoctrinate Overseas Chinese and Cambodians in Mao's
"thought"--a decision which was diplomatically irrational
and which led to an increase in Sino-Cambodian frictions,
That the decision was diplomatically foolish is
indicated by the fact that even Cambodian military per-
sonnel were made the target of Mao-cult indoctrination.
It transgressed the diplomatic practice of keeping a sense
of sobriety in government-to-governme.A contacts and pro-
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Chou had to swim with the tide of Mao-cult export.
// According to Sihanouk (speech of
12 September 1967), Chou asked him to permit Overseas
Chinese to "show their love for Mao Tse-tung.'
Chen Yi (and probably his boss, Chou) apparently
continued '3 include Cambodians among the targets of the
undiplomatic policy, The Cambodian-Chinese Friendship
Association (whose vice-president had met with Chen Yi
in Peking on 5 August 1967) and the Chinese embassy
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apparently continued to disseminate Maoist doctrines and
policies among Cambodians. When, on 1 September, Sihanouk
dissolved the Cambodia-Chinese Friendship Association
for "subversive acti.vities," the Chinese leaders further
angered the Cambodian chief of state by sending a message
to the Association on 4 September referring to "reaction-
aries." Sihanouk reacted vigorously this message was
the PRC's "first attack.,.an official attack" on Cambodia
and was "an extraordinary interference in the affairs of
a sovereign state." "It is possible for a state to cri-
ticize another, but not to order my compatriots to con-
tinue an association which 1, in my capacity as head of
the government and chief of state, dissolved with Parlia-
ment's consent." (Sihanouk speech on 11 September 1967)*
Sihanouk's various statements in mid-September 1967
suggest a sequence of events in which Chou had to imple-
ment two contradictory policies, namely, support for the
continued dissemination in Cambodia of Mao's cult and
support for continued Sino-Cambodian diplomatic relations.
Chou apparently was impelled, by Mao's revolutionization
of foreign policy in the spring of 1967, to break his
*Sihanouk attributed subtlety to Chou and sophistica-
tion to the Chinese Communist intelligence network in Phnom
Penh. He said that Chou apparently felt ronfident that
this message would not cause a diplomatic break because
Chou had been secretly informed that Sihanouk had decided
to retain two of Cambodia's diplomats in the Peking embassy.
"There were surely spies in the Chamcar Mon and in the
Premier's office who immediately informed the Chinese em-
bassy and transmitted the news [that the two Cambodian
diplomats would not be withdrawn] by radio [to Peking]."
(Sihanouk speech of 18 September 1967)
Chou, who had already (by 23 August) put an end to
the activities of the fanatical former charge of the
Djakarta embassy (Yao Teng-shan) within Peking's Foreign
Ministry, nevertheless had had to respond in a revolution-
ary manner to Sihanouk's dissolution of the Cambodian-
China Friendship Ass-ciation,
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"promise" (date unspecified, but probably in October 1965)
to prevent an increase in Chinese Communist subversive
activities among Cambodians, especially as engaged in by
embassy officials in making local contacts. Sihanouk
was angered by security information that "everybody"--that
is, not only Chinese, but also Cambodians--who knocked
at the embassy door (and even those Cambodians who djd
not want to come to the embassy) were targets of indoc-
trination, (Sihanouk speech of 18 SeptembeI. 1967) He
complained that "Chou En-lai does not seem to know" that
embassy officials and pro-Peking local Chinese leaders
were trying to indoctrinate not only Overseas Chinese,
but also Cambodians.
And it was at this point that the 0Thinese
abused their rights because, when Chou En-
lai met me recently, he promised that these
Chinese would stop exercising their influ-
ence on the Khmer. (Sihanouk speech of 12
September 1967) t,emphasis supplied)
Chou had not only failed to order the embassy to stop its
Mao-cult dissemination work, but also had made a special
request of Cambodia's foreign minister during his mid-
August 1967 visit to Peking. "Chou has asked Prince
Phurissara to tell Sihanouk, the chief of state of Cam-
bodia, that China wanted a favor; that is, authorization
for the Chinese to show their love for Mao Tse-tung and
Communism on the grounds that they are Chinese not Khmer,
a request that the Chinese in Cambodia have freedom."
(Sihanouk speech of 12 September 1967) Sihanouk made
it clear that he would not permit Chou the luxury of
mongering Mao's doctrines from the Chinese embassy, on
the one hand, and sustaining Sino-Cambodian diplomatic
ties, on the other hand. He was spurred into action by
Cambodian leftists Chau Seng and So Nem, who published
the text of the insulting 4 September Peking message in
the 9 September issue of La Nouvella Depeche,
He almost certainly surprised Chou by the vigor
of his reaction. On 11 September, he complained that
"Peking had dictated" orders to Cambodians and that the
two men responsible for publishing Peking's derogatory
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message had "betrayed" Cambodia and would be dismissed
from their governmen posts. In his speech of 13 Septem-
ber, Sihanouk stated that it was "now necessary to avoid
an eventual attack by the Chinese on the Cambodian embassy,"
that the wife of the ambassador had returned from Peking
because she "did not know when the Chinese would come to
attack us," and that "I want the personnel of our embassy
to get out immediately...1 want to withdraw at once lest
they come and attack."* This threat to pull out Cambodian
embassy officials--"I will leave only one person, that
is, an official of very low status to keep the house as
a guardian"--appeared to be sufficiently genuine to Chou
and it apparently provided him with the crsis situation
with which to confront Mao and argue him into rationality.
Chou moved quickly to assure the Cambodian ambassador in
Peking (meeting of 14 September) that Sihanouk need not
worry about injury to Cambodian embassy personnel because
only certain embassies had been targeted "mass manifes-
tations against certain embassies had their reasons and
were comprehensible acts because the Chinese people know
*Although in his speech of 13 September, Sihanouk re-
ferred several times to his fear that the Cambodian embassy
would be attacked, he apparently was encouraged by Chou's
assurances of 14 September that such a development would
not occur. Subsequently, he moved against the activities
of the Chinese embassy which, he had been told, included
the dissemination in Phnom Penh of clandestine tracts dis-
tributed in the Overseas Chinese sectors of the city from
0400 onward and which informed local Chinese on how to
react to the Cambodian government's decisions on various
matters, On 16 September, the Cambodian Department of
Information informed NCNA officials that they could no
longer circulate the NCNA daily bulletin without first
giving a copy of their cables to their Cambodian counter-
parts, officials of AKP. On 18 September, the government
announced prohibitive restrictions on social contacts be-
tween Cambodian nationals and embassies in Phnom Penh--an
extension of a restriction which had been selectively
applied in the past only to some Western missions.
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4
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who is their enemy and who is their friend" and "due to
friendship and good relations between our two countries,
the Chinese government and people have, to date, envisaged
nothing against the Cambodian embassy." (Sihanouk quot-
ing Chou in speech of 18 September) (emphasis supplied)
This assurance, and the fact that certain embassies were
not put under siege, suggest that Chou almost certainly
was able to persuade Mao to differentiate between "friendly"
and "non-friendly" missions in considering struggles
against the representatives of various countries. Sihanouk
was mollified, and on 18 September he declared that he
would not withdraw his diplomats from Peking, praising
"my old friend Chou En-lai for having, once again, played
a role in safeguarding this friendship. Regarding the
gauche Pekis) message of 4 September, he did not absolve
Chou of responsibility for it--"a very well-calculated
and well-planned punch" to determine Sihanouk's domestic
"weakness"--but he attributed the sending of it to a
deeper motive. Chou and Chen fi, he said sympathetically,
had had to "save their own skins first." (Sihanouk speech
of 18 September 1967)
Chou presided over the retreat from the confronta-
tion with Sihanouk. He almcst certainly had the major
role in convincing Mao that it would be detrimental to
their Cambodian policy to publish Sihanouk's anti-Peking
speech of 11 September and he clearly was the most active
figure in the subsequent effort to mollify the tempera-
mental prince, who threatened to discard Chinese aid.
(Speech of 17 October 1967) Sihanouk's willingness to
be mollified facilitated Chou's effort. Sihanouk stated
on 1 November 1967 that he accepted Chou's most recent
message of reassurance on the matter of Peking's professed
desire to avoid intervention in Cambodia's domestic affairs.*
*Chou seems to have asked for and attained. in exchange
for a promise "to strictly respect the Bandung principles
in relations with Cambodia," a promise from Sihanouk to
muzzle the Cambodian press and radio. "I beg the Ministry
of Information to forbid OUT radio station and press to
speak of People's China as of tomorrow. If they want to
speak, they must deal only with friendship without criti-
cism or mention of the past affair, which should be for-
gotten from now on. Mi. Chou En-lai has requested it in
(footnote continued on page 30)
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To keep Sihanouk in tow, the PRC Foreign Ministry was
directed to issue a statement (26 November 1967) declar-
ing that Peking "supports" Cambodia's stand against viola-
tion of its borders by American or South Vietnamese forces
and pledging that the Chinese people "stand on the side
of the Cambodian people."/
Chou may not be able to keep Mao convinced that,
so long as Sihanouk is demonstrably anti-American and sup-
ports the Communist position on the Vietnam war, he should
be kept in tow. Cambodian officials are concerned about
the militant activities of pro-Chinese "political commis-
sars" in Battambang and Kompong Cham provinces. and Mao
may shift gradually to a revolutionary-insurrectionist
policy in Cambodia.
2. Indonesia
Before becoming assertively anti-American in the
1960s, the Indonesians had angered Mao and Chou (follow-
ing signing of a Dual Nationality Treaty at Bandung on
22 April 1955), the primary complaint having been persecu-
tion of local Chinese merchants under the Indonesian de-
cree prohibiting alien tradesmen from operating retail
(footnote continued from page 29)
the capacity of an old friend. I cannot refuse and am
obliged to ffer him this gift--that is, let us forget
that affair." (Sihanouk special message to the nation
of 1 November 1967)
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enterprises outside urban areas.* When, in October 1959,
Foreign Minister Subandrio visited the mainland, he re-
ported that Chou was "a changed man" from the reasonable
diplomat of Bandung he threatened Subandrio with economic
sanctions against Djakarta and waved a threatening finger
at him. Chou had adjusted to Mao's policy of subjecting
the Indonesian leaders to strong pressures. and Mao him-
self made Subandrio wait until the middle of the night
before peremptorily summoning him and subjecting him to
a humiliating lecture. Mao had commented derisively on
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the Indonesian anti-Chinese economic decree and had
treated him "like a schoolboy"--that is, like he has
treated his own lieutenants on occasion.
/The Indonesans kafter five years of
*The decree, issued in November 1959, provoked the Chi-
nese leaders to direct the embassy in Djakarta to protest,
but the ineffectiveness of these formal demarches impelled
them to act as champion for the Overseas Chinese in a dif-
ferent way. They decided to start repatriation for those
who wanted to escape to the mainland in December 1959,
and within a year, approximately 96,000 had arrived,
creating a new problem for Mao and his aides. They began
to find that mass repatriation repeatedly involved them
in disputes with Indonesian authorities over details of
Ship schedules and that the repatriated Chinese had to
be subjected to specal indoctrination routines to make
them accept the rigors and disappointments of collectivized
life. They began to restrict the numbers of Chinese they
were willing to repatriate in 1960 and, fortunately for
Peking, the Sukarno leadership began to reduce the severity
of anti-Chinese measures, which had earlier necessitated
repatriation.
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internal debate) ratified the Dual Nationality Treaty in
1960, and Sukarno's action toward the PKI helped promote
a reduction of Peking-Djakarta tensions.*
In the course of trying to consolidate his authority
over the Indonesian military, Sukarno in mid-1960 took
the first step to end recriminations with the Chinese
leaders.** Mao and Chou seized the opportunity, reflected
in Sukarno's decreased anti-Chinese hostility, to reduce
pressures on Djakarta. They seem to have appraised
Sukarno as the man who could replace Nehru as their major
ally and who could defend Peking's position in the Sino-
Indian dispute. Further, internal dislocations on the
mainland had impelled a softening of foreign policy. In
December 1960, Mao agreed to the implementation of the
Dual Nationality Treaty with the Indonesians and on 1
April 1961, Chen Yi in Djakarta, commenting on the new
draft Sino-Indonesian "friendship" treaty, stated that
"the question of Overseas Chinese is not an important
question." Chen's visit and Sukarno's trip to Peking in
**Sukarno's dispute with the military in 1960 included
the issue of suppressing the PKI or permitting its leaders
to attain greater power. According to General Nasution
(statement of 13 February 1967), in 1960 he warned Sukarno
against the PKI threat, particularly against appointing
PKI members to government posts. Sukarno rejected this
advice and cancelled the army's order calling for the
arrest of Aidit and the suspension of the PKI newspaper
as well as Communist activities in various regions. After
that time, "the President advocated indoctrination in
NASAKOM unity and the crushing of Communist phobia."
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June 1961 advanced the process of reconciliation, which
was formalized in the final "Treaty of Friendship," and
Sukarno (like Chen) depicted the Overseas Chinese issue
as a trifle.
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In order to promote further the procedure of re-
conciliation. Mao and hs wife met with Madame Hartini
Sukarno on 29 September 1962--the first time Madame Mao
appeared publicly in a role relevant to a major foreign
policy effort.
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/ Their primary purpose was
to maneuver Sukarno, by flattery and argument, to accept
their position regarding the border dispute. In early
January 1963, they gave Foreign Minister Subandrio a
lavish welcome and worked on h'm to accept their inter-
pretation (rather than Nehru's) of the December 1962
Colombo Conference proposals for Sino-Indian discussions *
They also were working to attain Indonesia's support for
the Afro-Asian (Bandung) Conference as a direct counter
to the Belgrade Conference of non-aligned natioos, which
*The Indonesians were also viewed as prospective major
allies for the Soviet leaders in Asia, and Mao worked to
prevent the heavy Soviet aid commitment from taking Sukarno
into Moscow's camp in the Sino-Soviet dispute. He had
his diplomats appeal to Asian sentiment and his concept
of "self-reliance" to reduce the degree of Soviet influ-
ence which military supplies and support for "confronta-
tion against Malaysia" had attained for Moscow. Chen Yi
in Djakarta in March 1961 appealed to small nations and
Asian sentiment when he told the Indonesian Supreme
Advisory Council that the U.S, Britain, France, and the
Soviet Union had been unable to solve world problems.
/ As this
effort was sustained, the Russians were later impelled
to try to demonstrate that the USSR should belong to the
Asian nations "club," that Moscow is just as revolution-
ary as is Peking, that the Russians (unlike the Chinese)
back up their words with material aid, and that "con-
frontation against Malaysia" had strong Soviet support.
Mikoyan in Indonesia in June 1964 tried to improve Mos-
cow's position and went so far as to say (in Surabaya)
that Soviet soldiers had been prepared to march along-
side Indonesians to take West Irian--a statement which
Gromyko later denied ever seeing
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India would try to use (with Yugoslav and UAR assistance)
to attack Peking's policy regarding the border dispute.
The Yugoslays had been moving at a leisurely pace toward
a non-aligned conference, but the Chinese apparently
urged Djakarta to suggest a Bandung Preparatory Meeting
at an early date. This was welcomed by the Indonesians,
who had become isolated over the Malaysia dispute and
were trying desperately to recoup their prestige among
Afro-Asian leaders, Mao was allowing some "leeway" and
was permitting Chou to be tactically clever at a time
when Peking's and Djakarta's motivations for a Bandung
conference initiative coincided for different reasons.*
*The Indonesians were delighted to be the major new
ally of Mao, replacing Nehru, and were euphoric in view-
ing the relationship as one they could manipulate, But
the Chinese set them strai.hT?about the matter.
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Chou En-lai may have resented Liu 's intrusion into
the arena of Chinese Communist foreign policy--a field
which he and Chen Yi had monopolized in a series of swings
through various countries in the past decade. But there
seems to have been nothing in Liu 's actions in Indonesia
in April 1963 to provide valid cause for disparaging him
as the chief formulator of a moderate foreign policy.
At the time when Liu took a moderate line--foc example,
when he and his new wife woiked together on a major foreign
policy assignment (in September 1962) to strengthen the
Peking-Djakarta rapprochement by receiving cordially Mme.
Sukarno--the entire line was moderate and other Chinese
leaders were giving the Indonesians lavish treatment.
Mme. Mao's first venture in public into a foreign policy
matter was to aid her husband in receiving Mme. Sukarno
on 29 September 1962, and it seems to have been a joint
effort by the Maos and Lius.
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Nevertheless, they were reluctant to openly support
Djakarta's confrontation policy on Malaysia, delaying
their statement backing Indonesia's position on the forma-
tion of Malaysia (established 16 September 1963) until
27 September, and even then the Ta Kung Pao comment was
relatively mild as were subsequent discussions of the
British "colonialists" until 1964.
Sukarno's assertive anti-Americ2nism was a key
unifying factor and when, on 25 March 1964, the Indonesian
leader made his "To hell with your aid speech," Peking
picked it up and began to build anti-Americanism into its
propaganda on Malaysia. Malaysia was a "neo-colonialist
product of British imperialism with the blessing of U.S.
imperialism...confrontation is just" and the North Kali-
mantan "struggle for national liberation is just."
(People's Daily editorial of 27 March 1964) Mao, obsessed
with his idea that the anti-U. S. revolutionary struggle
must be extended wherever possible, apparently decided
to encourage Sukarno with offers of support, but these
fell far short of a commitment to fight the British and
Americans in his behalf.
Mao apparently was informed in mid-1964 that Sukarno
had impelled the army to realign its military policy away
from its anti-Peking focus, Sukarno's "L4ving Dangerously"
speech of 17 August 1964--in which he shifted further to
the left ,)f neutralism, denounced the U.S, in effect as
his main enemy, and aligned Djakarta with all Asian Com-
munist regimes and the PKI's internal program--appar-
ently was viewed by Mao as a further indication that
Sukarno 'S "confrontation" policy had useful anti-U.S, in-
gredients. The Chinese leaders, who earlier had been
cautious on "confrontation,"* made their strongest statement
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of support for this policy after his speech. They professed
to see an anti-Chinese objective in establishing Malaysia
(the first such claim, although Malays.7, had been attacked
by Sukarno since its establishment in September 1963) and
a 'common task" for Peking and Djakarta in struggling
against it, (People's Daily editorial of 9 September
1964) This line probably reflected Mao's decision, after
two years of cautious non-involvement in the matter, to
bolster Sukarno's determination to confront the British.
But Mao likes small wars fought by others, and
Peking's actual military commitment in Ihis case was,
typically, vague. Like other formulations--e g., on
Vietnam and Cambodia--the Chinese depicted their contri-
bution without reference to direct PLA ation. "The Chi-
nese people will not look on with folded arms in the
fac of this sinister scheme of the imperialists. Should
U.S. imperialism dare to launch aggression against Indo-
nesia, the Chinese people will back the Indonesian people
with all their might." (People's Daily editorial of 9
September 1964) Significantly, the real prospect, namely,
British "aggression," was not cited in this context of
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Chinese support.* Primarily because the Chinese desired
to expard trade with the UK, their commentaries in Septem-
ber 1964 did not suggest pleasure over the losses inflicted
on British commercial interests or mob damage to the British
embassy in Indonesia.
*After a decade of observing the Chinese Communist lead-
ers, some Asian leaders seem to have acquired a good under
standing of the degree of deception they have practiced.
Nevertheless, they have found these vague pledges politically
useful and have tried on occasion to keep thei.e own
skepticism compartmentedr
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Economic aid was a safer way to help encourage Sukarno
to intensify "confrontation," and Chen Yi in November-
December 1964 offered it to the Indoresian leaders. This
offer was partly a bribe to keep Sukarno in tow and to
impel him to be more cooperative in blocking Moscow's
effort to gain the right to participate in the Afro-Asian
(Bandung) conference, The $50-million long-term and inter-
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Chou and Chen ha;idled most of the discussions from
23 to 28 January, and wiile avoiding any new public com-
mitment to support "confrontation," they apparently de-
preciated the capability of UK and US. forces and urged
the Indonesians not to be intimidated into stopping guer-
rilla warfare and infiltration.* Their unusually bitter
attacks on the British and unprecedented disparagement
of Malaysia as "utterly detestable' (Chou 's speech of
24 January 1965) were surrogates for the failure to pro-
vide a firm military commitment to Djakarta. The Chinese
leaders apparently believed that they could keep Sukarno
in tow primarily by providing political support. In the
military field, they offered instructions, in the economic
*Chou was short on commitments and long on depreciatory
remarks in his speech of 24 January 1965, He said only
that if the U.S and UK "dare to impose war on the Indon-
esian people, the Chinese people absolutely will not sit
idly by" in the commitment part of his speech. He then
attacked Malaysia in the strongest terms ever used by a
Chinese leader up to that time and, in the depreciatory
part of his speech, said that UK military forces assembled
in the area represent "no more than several tens of thou-
sands of troops and a few dozen warships" and U. S. forces
in South Vietnam are "paper-tigers" and are "miserably
meagre and feeble..,don't be overawed.' Another Chinese
leader was as cautious as Chou, or even ;opre cautious be-
cause the implied Chinese counteraction was made contingent
on American participation in some way in a hypothetical
attack' "if the British imperialists, with the support
of the U.S, imperialists, dare to launch attacks against
Indonesia, then the 650 million Chinese people assuredly
will not stand by idly with folded arms' (Lo Jui-ching
speech of 25 January 1965)
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field, they offered a total of $150 million in credits
--including the $50 million offered by Chen Yi earlier
without interest and a grace period of 10 years, with 10
additional years to repay the principal. f
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This Maoist move to buy more power for a Communist
ally within a non Communist government exposed the hypo-
crisy of Chou En-lai's January 1964 eight principles of
foreign aid, in which he had touted Peking's disavowal
of any effort to attach strings to economic assistance.
More importantly, it seems to have reflected the appraisal
of Mao and his aides of the PKI's strategy of working
within this "bourgeois-nationalist" government as well
as outside it subversively to attain power for the Com-
munists. They probably encouraged Aidit in his sugges-
tion of 14 January 1965 to arm 10 million peasants and
5 million workers to meet a prospective British attack,
as this would have placed considerable military power in
the hands of the PKI, who were at that time the only suc-
cessful organizers of the psants and workers.* At the
very least, Aidit's suggestion was a psychological warfare
deterrent against the British. But in terms of the in-
ternal maneuvering for power between the PKI and the army,
the suggestion was intended to improve the Communists'
domestic image. Sukarno continued to be alert to balanc-
ing PKI with army power and apparently turned down the
proposal .F
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By the summer of 1965, Sino-Indonesian relations
were better than ever and cooperation against the American
and the British position in the Far East was a key unify-
ing factor. Mao encouraged the relationship, receiving
an Indonesian parliamentarian in early July 1965 and per-
mitting a Sino Indonesian shipping agreement to be con-
cluded on 24 July. On 21 August, Chen Yi in Djakarta was
authorized to assure Subandrio that Peking would not
recognize the new nation of Singapore./
/Both
sides exchanged a variety of delegations and the Chinese
sent construction personnel to speed work on Sukarno's
CONEFO site, which embodied his desire to construct build-
ings to serve as a new UN for anti-imperialist nations.*
On 29 September, Chou En lai) /told
Ithat
the Chinese would like to have a special agreement for
economic cooperation among China, Indonesia, Cambodia,
Pakistan, and North Korea and that "special technical
cooperation" (i.e , on nuclear energy) between Peking
and Djakarta would be decided upon with Sukarno sometime
after the Afro-Asian conference.** These were concepts
which the Chinese leaders recognized as being part of
Sukarno's special regional program, and they were anxious
to sustain his hopes by hinting at a regional "axis" and
some degree of nuclear energy technical advice.
*Mao wanted to have his own Afro-Asian solidarity or-
ganization and he apparently intended to use Indonesia
as the front behind which his aides could set up and
dominate a pro-Chinese secretariat.
**Peking officially endorsed Aidit's idea of a "Djak-
arta-Phnom Penh-Hanoi-Peking-Pyongyang axis" on 7 October
1965. Although on that day NCNA attributed the idea to
Sukarno, it had been expounded earlier, in August 1964,
by Aidit.
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The coup which began in the early hours of 1 October
1965 in Djakarta, and had failed by 2 October, led to
events which reduced Sino-Indonesian relations to a state
more miserable than they had been even in 1959. By the
fall of 1967, Mao will have risked a complete break in
government relations with Djakarta and will have introduced
a new innovation in his foreign policy, namely, the hold-
ing of Indonesian diplomats as hostages in Peking by re-
fusing to issue them exit visas) to prevent attacks on
the Chinese embassy in Djakarta.[
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Sukarno's inability to turn the tide against the
army leaders was finally acknowledged by Mao and his lieu-
tenants, and they began to publicize the relaxation of his
efforts to shield the PK1. On 19 October 1965, NCNA in-
dicated Peking's displeasure. On 7 November, NCNA noted
that Sukarno had made a speech in which he mentioned no
more the three-way alliance (which included the PKI) as
the foundaton of Indonesian national political life;
NCNA also noted that Subandrio pledged to be firm not only
with the US., but with "the PRC as well." Subandri
was trying to save himself, and on 2 December he attacked
Peking for attempting to interfere in Indonesian internal
affairs.
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Throughout February and inte late March 1966, the
Chinese waged a "blow-for-blow struggle" with the Indon-
esian army leadership, but they seem to have been unwill-
ing to break relations. They depicted the mutual with-
drawal of diplomatic personnel as "temporary" and tried
to get Djakarta to call a halt. 'We want to say to the
Indonesian government that you have gone far enough in
this direction. If you continue to slide down this road
of worsening relations between our two countries, then
you must be held completely responsible for all the con-
sequences," (People's Daily editrrial of 30 March 1966)
2 Chou may have justified a
policy of trying to hang on by persuading Mao of the need
to avoid total defeat when Maoist policies elsewhere--in
the Congo, Burundi, Ghana, Algeria, and the India-Pakistan
clash--had already badly damaged Peking's prestige. Chou
may also have been the man in charge of justifying to
party and army officials as well as to the populace, the
meaning of these defeats, namely, that they were not Mao's
failure (inasmuch as the revolutionary tide in the world
follows a natural "law" which no mortal can change) and
that they must take heart because the night is darkest
before the dawn.*
*This is the theme of an unusual series of articles,
published in the People's Daily beginning in late Febru-
ary 1966 (following the coup in Ghana on 24 February)
and continuing into April 1966. They contain a more
unrealistic account--including distortions and flat
(footnote continued on page 50)
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The dawn in Indonesia, however, was dark and begin-
ning on 4 April 1966, Mao seems to have conceded that
Sukarno was a lost ally. On that day, NCNA carried an
unusual analysis of the entire coup situation and, for
the first time in Peking's media, depicted Sukarno as a
mere figurehead retained by the army for display. The
analysis referred back to the 12 March 1966 order of
Suharto's banning the PKI and repeated a Japanese view
that a statement of Sukarno's on 16 March 1966 was "his
last act of resistance." The Chinese went on to indict
the new Indonesian government in the strongest terms up
to that time--"a group of petty thugs" (People's Daily
editorial of 16 April 1966) -and while raising the issue
of a diplomatic "rupture," they seem to have preferred
that any such action must come first from Djakarta. In
order to discredit the army leadership and to improve
Peking's image among Overseas Chinese (who were being
subjected to the worst persecution since Indonesia's in-
dependence), the Chinese widely publicized their protests
to Djakarta and their actions to provide ships for those
"patriots" who wanted to move to the mainland, the first
ship arriving in Indonesia in late September 1966.
It was at this time that a new revolutionary factor
was introduced into the dispute, moving Peking's policy
further to the left of normal diplomatic relations. Mao
approved a suggestion to change the "bourgeois" style of
Chinese diplomats abroad and called for "a revolutioniza-
tion" of "all foreign affairs offices abroad." (Mao's
statement of 9 September 1966) Subsequently, Chinese
(footnote continued from page 49)
lies--of the condition of the "revolutionary tide" in
the world than Peking has ever published. They do not
carry the tone of genuine optimism which had marked the
Chinese Communist statements on global strategy in late
1957 and part of 1958. They were designed to rationalize
a detrimental aspect of Mao's revolutionary foreign policy
line, and at those points, where the future is discussed,
the optimism is contrived.
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ambassadors and some charges were recalled to Peking for
indoctrination .\
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Mao's plan to replace a former champion of Peking's
interests (India) with a new champion of these interests
(Indonesia) had been ruined. At the same time, a major
ally in hi.s d'spute with the Soviet leaders, namely, the
PKI, had been destroyed as a national political force.
This double blow, however, did not impel him to adopt a
new and cautious policy of non-involvement in Djakarta's
internal affairs. On the contrary, he turned to a revolu-
tionary and subversive program which apparently was in-
tended, in the short run, to encourage political opposi- 25X1
tion to Suharto and, in the long run, to bring h m down
and to replace him with the PKI./
//Mao's new revolutionized policy toward Djakarta
was praised by a rally of Red Guards and others, and it
was advanced by Chen Yi, who condemned the "rightwing
military clique" and warned that "A reckoning will be
made of the blood debts incurred by the Indonesian reac-
tionaries." (Chen Yi speech of 29 December 1966)1
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Mao and his aides launched a policy of gradually
increasing harassment of the Indonesian embassy and its
officials in Peking in response to anti-Chinese actions.
On 12 April groups of Red Guards were encouraged to demon-
strate against the Indonesian embassy in a manner similar
to the siege directed against the Soviet embassy in early
February, in neither case were embassy grounds invaded.
On 13 April, an NCNA report depicted Suharto as "a lapdog
with human skin.' Chinese officials in Djakarta appar-
ently were directed to intensify their "revolutionary"
actions against the government; as a result, Djakarta ac-
cused them of having shouted anti-government slogans during
a funeral procession for a local Chinese on 20 April.
A demonstration against the Chinese embassy was held on
the 22nd and the Chinese charge and consul general were
declared persona non grata on the 24th. The Chinese
leaders, who apparently wanted to have things both ways
--that is, open harassment of Indonesian diplomats and.
sustained formal relations with Indonesia--were impelled
to increase their retaliation, and on the 24th they ordered
the Indonesian charge and counsellor to leave. They in-
tensified the siege, and on the 25th, Red Guards burned
effigies of Suharto and Nasution in front of the embassy
and openly praised the Indonesian Communists. Mao was
willing to risk a break, on 26 April the PRC government
statement--the highest level in Peking's arsenal of foreign
policy pronouncements--encouraged Chinese in Indonesia
to "struggle" against persecution, This was an official
instruction to interfere in Indonesia's internal affairs
and an open violation of principle (3) of Chou's five
principles of peaceful coexistence of April 1955. The
statement attacked the "out-and-out fascist regime' and
predicted that the "people will eventually overthrow the
reactionary rule.'
Mao apparently decided to permit cruder retaliatory
actions, and after Hsieh Fu-cnih condemned Indonesian
"atrocities" on 27 April, the two expelled Indonesian
diplomats were subjected on the way out to various forms
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of physical abuse.* At their last stop-ovel point, Canton's
airport, they and their families (including small children)
were "pushed, insulted, kicked beaten, spat upon...' (state-
ment released by the Indonesian embassy in iokyo on 30
May 1967). On the other hand, the expelled Chinese charge
and consul general were effusively g:eeted by Chou at the
Peking airport on 30 April. 'You have put up a very good
iight. We welcome you.' fhese men--Yao -;eng-shan and
Hsu Jen--were received on the same evening by Mao and
Lin Piao, and another indication of Mao's favor appeared
in the Peking ?Review of 5 May 1967 which depicted them
as 'Chairman Mao's two red diplomat i. lighters." Beyond
that, Yao was to beeome a fanatieal new membe.. of the
' liaison station" in he Foreign Ainistiy, starting
his short ,.ise-and-fall career in iz vi ?i an on
the film of Liu Shao-chi's Apil 1963 visit to Indonesia
.1'-ao published a joint artiele on tnis subject whieh was
broadcast in Peking on 13 )uly 1967.,
Yao probably helped to organize the Cuald at-
tack on the Indonesian embassy on 5 August 1967 in which
the charge was beaten with iron bats and which resultea
in burning of an office and the destiu.:tion of telecom-
munications equipment of the embassy, rhis was in :-etaiia-
tion to the invasion of the Chinese embassy in Djakarta
*Hsieh also expanded the 26 Ap.:.11 governmen7 statement's
appeal for bringing down the military regime. "fie Icton
esian people will certainly smash the reactiona;y rule
of U?S, imperialism and its 1a. keys in Indonesia. Indon-
esia will certainly become a revolutIonai-y InaoneEia.'
These statements ol late .4p ii 1967 revealed
a small pat t of the Chinese Communists' intention to sup-
port the remnants of the PKI in Indonesia--an intention
which had been privately cxpressed by Chen ii in la ;(2.
April 1966./
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on 5 August The Chinese did not permit other Indonesian
officials to leave the ambassador's residence until 9 August
and they did not take down the PRC flag, which demonstra-
tors had hoisted above the embassy to replace the Indon-
esian flag. until 10 AugustH
/Neither Djakarta or Peking
had publicized the sacking of the Indonesian embassy, and
Foreign Ministry officials told the American ambassador
in Djakarta that should the complete account of the ex-
tFnt of the damage become known to the public, Djakarta
youth would wreck the Chinese embassy and provoke further
Chinese Communist retaliation in Peking. The Foreign
Ministry tried to defend its diplomats from new assaults,
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In an effort to pry their officials in Peking loose
from the hostage policy, Foreign Minister Malik declared
the Chinese charge and second secretary persona non grata
on 14 September, and a Foreign Ministry of told an
American embassy officer at the time that the move was
designed to impel the Chinese to reciprocate by allowing
two Indonesians from the embassy staff to leave. On 25
September, the Chinese complied, declaring two Indonesian
diplomats persona non grata, and were willing to permit
them to leave by the 29th. Chou apparently believed that
this limited retreat from the hostage policy would enable
him to retain a handful of Chinese in the Djakar7.a embassy
and various consulates, thereby avoiding a complete break
in diplomatic relations However, his apparent plan to
retain representatives in Indonesia was to encounter a
decisive blow.
On 1 October, about 200 students. mostly Moslem
and most of whom had been celebrating the second anniver-
sary of the abortive Sukarno Aidit coup, attacked the Chi-
nese embassy in Djakarta, destroying communications equip-
ment and seriously injuring two embassy officers.* Chou 25X1
was impelled to take a harder line while trying to avoid
a complete break.
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Chou had to praise the acts of resist,
ance by Chinese diplomats while working to keep some of
them in place. On 7 October he cabled 'heartfelt con
cern" on behalf of the central committee and the State
Council for the embassy staff whose members were an "ex-
ample" for other Maoist diplomats. (Cable released by
NCNA on 9 October) On the 9th, the Indonesians suggested
a simultaneous withdrawal of embassy staffs, making it
clear that they wanted all of the Chinese (rather than
just the injured officers) to leave the country. Under
considerable domestic political pressure, Malik on the
10th announced that Djakarta was "suspending" relations.*
On the 12th, the Chinese refused the suggestion
for a mutual withdrawal of all embassy personnel ^n each
side and repeated their demand for an end to restrictions
which had been imposed on their diplomats. Pressure on
Malik continued to force his hand on 23 October, Djakarta
asked Peking t pLC.1 out its
embassy and consulates "in the shortest possible time,"
and it stated that the chancery of the Peking embassy
would be c!osed. On the 27th, Chou reluctantly conceded
total defeat' the PRC government statement denounced the
suspension of d'plomatic relations and announced that the
PRC "cannot but announce the temporary closing of the Chinese
*Chou kept this dismal defeat out of Peking's media
until 27 October partly to temporar ly conceal the deci-
siveness of the setback and partly to impress Djakarta
with Peking's reluctance to break completely.
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embassy and consulates in Indonesia and the withdrawal
of all embassy and consular personnel, emphasis sup-
plied) On 31 October, the Indonesian charge and other
embassy personnel were flown tc Djakarta in a Chinese air-
craft, which returned with the expelled Chinese diplomats.
In sum, although Chou apparently had convinced Mao
that it was important for his new revolutionary policy
toward Indonesia to keep diplomatic representatives in
the country, Chou was constantly impelled t take harder
positions and retaliatory action which further intensi-
fied Djakarta-Peking frictions ending in a complete break,
That Chou tried to control the degree Di Peking's retalia-
tion is suggested by the fact that the. I October assault
on the embassy in Djakarta was not answeled with a new
attack on Indonesian embassy personnel oi lodgings in
Peking
Mao and Chou by late October were confronted with
the detrimental results of roughly two years of disputation
with the post-Sukarno Indonesian government, namely, the
loss of strategic assets (the embassy in Djakarta and the
consulates in Djakarta, Medan, Makassar, and Bandjarmasin)
which had provided them with bases of operations to
organize Overseas Chinese and PK1 members for various
forms of "revolutionary" anti-government ativity. Mao's
subversive program was to be impeded, but not stopped.
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Prior to the "suspension' of relations, the revolu-
tionary and subversive program Mao and his aides envisaged
against the military government included tne use of Over-
seas Chinese and encouragement of the remnants of the PK1.
Dissemination of antr-govellIment, propaganda had intensi-
fied in early Deeember 1966 after the Chinese embassy in
Djakarta directed pro-Peking Overseas Chinese there to 25X1
link Suharto with Washington. In East Java, beginning in
early May 1967, Overseas Chinese
increased their activities against the 25X1
government's anti-Chinese decrees in order to create gfeater
economic difficulties in the area.
Regarding eneouragement of the PKI, the remaining
leaders who escaped with their lives have been told that
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they must recast the party along Maoist lines to conduct
a revolutionary struggle. Following publication of the
PKI "self-criticism" in September 1966, PKI leader Adjitorop
told the Albanian party congress on 3 November that the
"three urgent tasks" of the party are reconstruction of
the PKI "on a Marxist-Leninist [i.e., pro-Peking] basis."
preparation "to lead a long armed struggle" which will be
integrated with peasant insurrection, and formation of
a "united front" of all forces opposing the military gov-
ernment. Quoting former leader Aidit, he said that this
was Mao's road--another sign of the open revival of the
concept which Peking had downplayed since late 1951. A
Red Flag editorial in the 9 July 1967 issue insisted that
the Tin had to change from legal and peaceful struggle
to illegal and armed struggle "there is no alternative
for them but to master" armed struggle. It delcared that
the 'CCP and the Chinese people...firmly support the PKI
in leading the Indonesian people's struggle to overthrow
the Suharto-Nasution fascist regime..." Peking's capabil-
ities in the islands is limited but the Chinese leaders
have continued to encourage and support anti-government
uerrilla warfare.
/in early September, army-controlled
newspapers reported that the People's Guerrilla Force of
Sarawak, operating with mainland-trained personnel, was
active in the West Borneo border area. Peking has exag-
gerated the size and importance of the guerrilla elements
in the field, and NCNA's report of 27 September 1967 was
fatuous in its claim that "the prairie fire of revolu-
tionary armed struggle has flared up in the countryside
in Java, Kalimantan. Sulawesi, and Sumatra." Despite the
exaggerations, Mao and his aides seem to be determined
to encourage a long-term revolutionary struggle and will
continue to insist that it must be armed struggle.*
*"From the lesson they paid in blood, they have learned
with profound understanding the incontroveitible truth
of the great leader Chairman Mao that 'political power
grows out of the barrel of a gun' and are determined to
(footnote continued on page 59)
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The basic shift to a revolutionary-insurrection-
ist policy toward Djakarta has impelled Mao and Chou to
use the scapegoat procedure, depicting Liu Shao-chi as
the man who desired a moderate and cooperative policy
toward Sukarno ever since 1960. Liu ('China's Khrushchev)
was accused of having (1) praised the 'leading representa-
tive of the Indonesian bourgeoisie"--the new designation
for Sukarno--during his April 1963 visit to Indonesia,
(2) misled the PKI by dilutjng its "revolutionary vigilance'
with talk of peaceful coexistence, (3) enhanced his own
prestige, and (4) failed to refer to Mao. (People's Daily
article of 13 June 1967) But regarding (1), Liu had re-
jected several of Sukarno's specific requests during the
April 1963 discussions, namely, that Peking should create
a diversion in the Taiwan Strait or against Hong Kong by
the summer. of 1963 and that it should provide Djakarta
with more support on "confrontation,' Regarding '2, it
was Chou rather than Liu who had spoken most frequently
and extensively on peaceful coexistence when discussing
Indonesian policy, It had been Chou (with Mao's apparent
encouragement) who had advanced the policy of the "Bandung
Spirit" in the mid-1950s and early 1960s and at various
times thereafter). When that policy was gradually down-
graded in relations with some neutrals in 1964 and 1965
(although retained with Indonesia until the 1 October 1965
coup), Liu was the most prominent proponent of the new
revolutionary "Bandung Spirit." Liu's version of the
spirit was far more revolutionary than (hou's had been,
as witness Liu 's references to the "militant spirit,..and
(footnote continued from page 58)
follow the road of the Chinese revolution." kPeople's
Daily editorial of 29 October 1967)/
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struggle" in eulogizing the 10th anniversary of the Bandung
conference. kRed Flag on 30 April 1965 carried Liu's eulogy
of 5 April) Regarding (3), Liu in fact had begun to create
an image of himself as a figure of importance at least
equal to Chou 's in foreign policy, and Chou in fact may
hav*_deeply_resented Liu's new role as Peking's interna-
tional troubleshooter with non-Communist governments.
Regarding k4), Liu probably believed that sycophantic
references to Mao (or to his 'thought") during such a
trip would be diplomatically stupid. Chou and Chen Yi
apparently held the same view until the issue of eulogistic
praise for Mao had become an important test of loyalty
to the Chinese dictator in the spring of 1966 (and there-
after,.
Additional charges against Liu's view of policy
toward Indonesia appear to be primarily necessitated by
the scapegoat procedure. For example, Liu has been ac-
cused of having told the PKI at some unspecified time)
that it was a good thing "to have more party members in
ministerial posts in the government." (Broadcast of 4
December 1967 of a Liberation Army Daily article in a
series) But Mao and Chou had not disparaged this policy
when Aid it was advancing it, and they showed their sup-
port for his parliamentary road by welcoming him person-
ally (People's Daily of 4 September 1963) and by having
his 4 September 1963 speech--in which he complained that
Communists were not yet in "responsible government" posi-
tions and insisted that the next step was to include Com-
munists in the Indonesan cabinet--published in the Peo-
ple's Daily on 5 September 1963.
In addition to his shift to a revolutionary-insur-
rectionist line, Mao may have decided to use the Overseas
Chinese more actively as an important subversive asset in
Indonesia. This is a radical change from the earlier
policy which Chou had formulated in 1954 to demonstrate
at the start of the Bandung era the sincerity of Peking's
desire for a relaxation of tension between Asian countries
and for a non-subversive paternalism toward Overseas Chi-
nese. "For our part, we are willing to urge Overseas Chi-
nese to respect the laws of the governments and the social
customs of the countries in which they live." (Chou's
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speech to the first NPC on 24 September 1954)* However,
Chou has not been attacked for having formulated and im-
plemented this early policy of subordinating political
mobilization of Overseas Chinese to the requirements of
foreign policy. Men lower in the organizational hierarchy
of the Chinese Communist leadership have been made the
scapegoats for his earlier policy and it is a measure
of Chou's authority that he is able to shunt the blame
to other men. Chen Yi and Liao Cheng-chih have had to
accept the blame for implementing the relatively softer
line, and the formulation of this line was fatuously at-
tributed to Liu Shao-chi.
*Section XI of the April 1955 Dual Nationality Treaty
adds that Peking and Djakarta will encourage its citizens
in the other country "not to take part in the political
activities of that country." This new principle was an
important departure in Peking's policy toward the Over-
seas Chinese, inasmuch as it reduced their potential to
act as organized opponents of future anti-Peking policies
implemented by Indonesia and other countries. That Chou
was the major advocate of this policy in the Chinese lead-
ership and that he was permitted by Mao to try to extend
it to areas other than Indonesia is indicated by his state-
ment that Chinese citizens living in Singapore should "re-
frain from taking part in political activities" in the
city (statement to David Marshall, former Singapore Chief
Minister made in October 1956), by his reported statement
made in 1957 (precise date not given) that Chinese in Burma
should "not interfere in Burmese politics," and by his
statement that during his tour of Cambodia, India, Burma,
Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, and Ceylon "where there are
a considerable number of Overseas Chinese in most of these
countries...we..,urged upon them to respect the laws and
customs of the country of their residence, work for a
closer friendship with the people among whom they have
come to live, and strive for still more cordial relations
between China and the country in which they reside."
(Chou's report of 5 March 1957)
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Chen was accused of having "hindered" Overseas
Chinese in Indonesia from organizing and defending them-
selves during anti-Chinese outbreaks in 19631-
/He was also accused of having been so "fright-
ened' after the 1 October 1965 coup that "he hastily
ordered three of our consulates in Indonesia temporarily
to stop work and their personnel to assemble in our embassy
in Djakarta." On thr) various occasiomwhen Overseas Chi-
nese were persecuted as a result of Indonesian government
decrees, Chen was said to have declined to "launch a mass
struggle among Overseas Chines.a and simply relied on a
few so-called 'overseas community leaders,' that is, the
bourgeoisie among the Overseas Chinese, to go ana report
to the Indonesian reactionary authorities and to reason
with them, to try to bring about an understanding....0r,
he would urge them to use the method of bribery in an
effort to secure a temporary relaxation in the anti-
Chinese policy.' 'What Chen Yi did was to wholeheartedly
implement the capjtulationist line of Liu Shao-chi. In
contrast to Chen's policy, the new policy was indicated
as one of organized struggie "See how since the second
half of 1966 the Overseas Chinese in Indonesia have al-
ready begun an organized struggle for self-defense,.."
(Extracts from item on Chen Yi's "capitulationism" pub-
lished in joint issue of i'oreign Affairs Red Flag and
Revolutionary Overseas Chinese Newspaper of 12 September
1967)
Liao Cheng-chih was attacked along the same lines
and was accused of having acted contrary to Mao's view
that ''Class struggle must also be carried out in Overseas
Chinese affairs,.'* This Mao quote is not dated, probably
---7kAs In The-C-ase-Of Chen Y1, Liao's view of Overseas
Chinese policy is attributed not to Chou--who apparently
was the most important figure in the formulation af this
policy--but to Liu Shac-chi. "After the founding of New
China, instructed by Liu Shao-chi, he drew up a series
of counter-revolutionary revisionist policies on Overseas
Chinese affairs..." (Criticize Liao Combat Bulletin of
(footnote continued on page 63)
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because the authors of the criticism desire to conceal
its recent origin and to imply that it had been Mao's
view all along. Liao was said to have suppressed mass
movements of Overseas Chinese during the Korean war be-
cause he feared they would "irritate" local governments,
dissolved Overseas Chinese "mass organizations to educate
and organize the broad revolutionary masses" because he
feared they might cause "suspicion," and ordered the dis-
solution of "groups studying Chairman Mao's works and re-
peatedly prevented Overseas Chinese organizations and
schools from conduct ng political studies" because local
governments might suspect "subversive activities" and this
wculd "impair diplomatic relations." Later, presumably
in the mid-1950s, Liao told Overseas Chinese "to mind their
own business," "to stick to their own posts," and "not
to criticize the internal affairs of the local govern.
ments." He was said to have warned them to "obey the
local laws and respect the local customs and habits" and
to carry out all their work publicly and lawfully." Dur-
ing the persecution of rural Chinese tradesmen in Indo-
nesia in 1959 60, Liao was said to have failed to organize
an Overseas Chinese counter-struggle and, "on the contrary,
he suggested the plan of withdrawing 600,000 from Indonesia
in one year." At the same time, he even suggested "'with-
drawal of 3 to 5 million Overseas Chinese from various
parts of the world in 7 or 8 years to come.'" Following
the coup in the fall of 1965, he is said to have objected
to Overseas Chinese efforts to get organized, to have
"screamed that 'it is better to oe Right than to be Left
(footnote continued from page 62)
18 June 1967) Liu had some influence on Overseas Chinese
policy as Mao's deputy in the CCP party machine, in which
he presided over Liao, who had been one of eight deputy
directors of the Central Committee's United Front Work
Department; part of the Department's work was with Over-
seas Chinese. However, Liao seems to have been most active
in Overseas Chinese policy when he worked closely w'..th
Chou and Chen as Chairman of the government-administrative
body, the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission.
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at present,'" and to have instructed his personnel that
they should not intefere because "Overseas Chinese can
protect themselves." The authors of these charges de-
clared that Overseas Chinese "should aid the local people
in their revolutionary cause," (Extracts from Criticize
Liao Combat Bulletin of 18 June 1967)
The prospect seems to be for a revoluti-nary and
subversive policy directed against the Indonesian govern-
ment and open encouragement of guerrilla warfare. Switch-
ing from the "parliamentary road" -the PKI had not taken
Mao's road of armed struggle in the 1940s (the Communist
uprising in 1948 was a debacle for them) or 1950s--to
an insurrectionist policy in the rural areas of the is-
lands, however, the Chinese leaders are competing with
the Soviets for PKI loyalties. They will be at a disad-
vantage, inasmuch as they have lost their embassy and con-
sulates as important channels for contacting PKI remnants.
Further, they have declared open political warfare on the
government and they will not be in a position to profess
to the PKI insurgents with credibility that they have the
power to intercede with Djakarta on their behalf. Never-
theless, because the nine-member politburo is pro-Peking
and in late November 1967 decided to adopt a Maoist policy
of guerrilla warfare (at such time in the future when it
acquires capability), the Soviet diplomatic advantage
may be of small importance in the Sino-Soviet competition
for party loyalty.
B. Asian Countries Not Involved with Mao's Anti-Americanism
1. Burma
Mao apparently believed that the joint statement
he permitted Chou En-lai to issue with Prime Minister U
Nu on 29 June 1954 declaring nonaggression and noninter
ference in each other's affairs would help to sustain
Burma's policy of keeping American forces from establish-
ing bases on Burmese territory. Although he preferred
more anti-Americanism in Rangoon's foreign policy, non-
involvement in SEATO by the first non-Communist government
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to recognize his regime was a sufficient reason for Mao
to act as if he would comply with Burmese requests that
Peking must not support the Communist insurgents or engage
in subversive activities, either over Sino Burmese borders
or through Overseas Chinese or officials in the Chinese
embassy. Although the Chinese Communists have had the
capability to support the insurgent Communists and to con-
duct extensive subversive activities throughout Burma
(among various minority peoples near the border and among
Overseas Chinese), they apparently have kept their opera-
tions restricted in most peziods. Mao seems to have ac-
cepted the advice of his foreign policy aides that Rangoon
might react to extensive anti-government operations by 25X1
requesting American assistance.
Apparently convinced that U Nu would not change
his neutral course and surprise them by joining the anti-
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Communist military alliance in Southeast Asia, Mao and
Chou at various times calculated that psychological pres-
sures could be applied to the Burmese leaders without any
great risk to their policy of keeping them in tow. In
1956, they seem to have been trying to impel U Nu to con-
cede frontier territory which Peking claimed on its maps.
They sent PLA ,,ILt.ols into the Kachin State in mid-1956,
and in October 1956, they hinted to U Nu in Peking that
this PLA 'mistake" was caused by the undemarcated nature
of the border. Following protracted discussions with
Chou for nearly a week, U Nu (temrorarily out of office)
declared on 10 Novemh.?r 1956 that a provisional agree-
ment had been concluded in which Rangoon recognized three
northern Kachin villages as Chinese territory and abrog-
ated Burma's perpetual lease of the strategic Namwan
Assigned Tract in the southern Kachin State. Burmese
troops were to withdraw from the three villages which
commanded importnat border passes and the PLA was to pull
back from territory west of the line in the north established
by the British in 1941. However, Mao and Chou desired
additional concessions and they stalled on implementing
the provisional agreement until the Tibet revolt in 1959
and the open border dispute with India impelled them to
conclude the Sino-Burma border agreement tr "prove" that
they were not the intransigents in the struggle with New
Delhi. (Khrushchev and Nehru had been criticizing the
Chinese leaders for being the intransigent party.) Chou
was the key actician for tne Chinese, and after the Chi-
nese ambassador in Rangoon on 25 September 1959 assured
the Burmese that the authorities in Peking accepted Burma's
definition of the border, Chou personally induced Premier
Ne Win to come to Peking to make final arrangements.
Chou took a very conciliatory line, and on 28 January
1960, Ne Win signed the border agreement--an agreement
"in princi,:le" which Chou immediately used against Nehru's
argument that a prior agreement "in principle regarding
the Sino Indian border was meaningless. The agreement
"returned' the three villages and an area in the Wa ter-
ritory to Peking for the Namwan Assigned Tract and led
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to demarcation of the border, most of which complied with
Burma's map claims.* The conciliatory line was sustained,
and in November 1960, Mao and Chou used PLA units to as-
sist in Burma's campaign against Chinese Nationalist ir-
regulars operating in the border areas. Although they
could easily have supplanted Burmese authority in many
border villages, the units apparently were not given such
a mission--a hypothetical mission which probably would
have stimulated the Burmese leaders to seek aid from the
West.
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Mao and Chou at various critical times, particul.
arly in connection with their dispute with India and their
position regarding the Vietnam war, have probed Ne Win's
determination to move from a neutral to a pro-Peking for-
eign policy. Immediately following the PLA punitive at-
tack on Indian positions in October 1962, Chou asked the
Burmese ambassador in Peking what Rangoon would
turn to for support if its neutrality were threatened.
(New Delhi at the time had turned to the US, and the UK
for sunport.) The Burmese were uncertain about the mean-
ing of Chou's question and conjectured that it may have
been a hint that Peking might want to send PLA troops
across Burmese territory to outflank Indian positions in
the event of a renewal of the border war. However, the
PLA was in fact outflanking Indian troops within Indian
territory with no significant difficulty, and Chou's
intention seems to have been a political probe regard- 25X1
ing Rangoon's basic attitude toward the EJS, and the UK.
*U Nu, who became premier aga'n in April 1960--Ne Win
had been in office from September 1958 to April 1960--
signed the final agreement with Chou in Peking on 1 October
1960 and the demarcation protocol in October 1961.
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Follow ng Peking's apparent decision at the June
1964 work conference ot the CCP central committee to in-
crease support for the Vietnamese Communists, and in the
context of the Sino-Soviet dispute, Ne Win was subjected
to greater pressure to adopt a more anti-U.S, and anti-
USSR position. Ne Win's sensitivities were disregarded
as Chou En lai and Chen Yi descended on Rangoon, uninvited.
in a series of visits reflecting a new stage in Mao's
revolutionary diplomacy, which was to be marked by a
new degree of crude behavior.
Regarding the ant-U.S, part of their basic ef-
fort, Chou and Chen during their visit from 10 to 12 July
1964 tried to commit Ne Win to the old principle that he
would not join a military organization against Peking.*
They induced h'm to republish such a pledge in the joint
communique of 12 July.
*The joint communique reaffirmed Article Three of the
Sino-Burmese Friendship Treaty pledging each country not
to commit aggression or enter into a military pact direct-
ed against the other. This was the major aspect of the
anti-U.S, part of the Chou-Chen visit. They wanted to
determine what Burma's policy would be if "the U.S. ex-
pands the war" in Indochina. (This line was publicized
by the Hong Kong Communist paper Wen Wei Pao on 14 July
1964.)
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Ne Win's neutral position also made him a special
target of New Delhi and Moscow, and as the competition
for gaining his support increased, Mao and his aides
decided to work even harder to move him closef to their
positions. Mao's diplomats engaged him in more govern-
ment-to-government discussions than did the diplomats of
any other national leader, inasmuch as the Chinese leader
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apparently viewed Ne Win as backyard property. Chou was
given the important job of trying to impel Ne Win to
recognize the unique status of Peking's representations
and to impel him to drop his neutral stand and adopt a
whole range of Maoist positions.
The arm-twisting diplomacy (which was used on Ne
Win within a month after the June 1964 work conference
of the CCP central committee) was intensified in April
1965. The Chinese leaders desired condemnation of the
U0S, airstrikes against the North Vietnamese which were
continuing into April. Chou invited himself to Rangoon
three times in one month (visiting from 3 to 4 April, on
16 April, and on 26 and 28 April, in and out of jaunts
abroad) and although Ne Win tried to work out a full cere-
monial schedule which would leave little time for lectures
from Chou on substantive matters, the clever Chinese
premiEr always changed arrangements and managed several
hours of discussion. Chou tried to brainwash Ne Win.
This undiplomatic treatment further antagonized
Ne Win, who was not only worried by White Flag activities
but also by the dissemination of what he believed was a
Chinese Communist anti-government pamphlet./
/He had not taken kindly to Chinese support for
20 White Flag leaders who had come from Peking in the
fall cf 1963 upon invitation from Rangoon to negotiate
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terms for an end to the Communist insurgency. */
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Ne Win was subjected to a new round of undiplomatic
harangues designed to, make him more assertively anti-
American./
*Negotiations over the years had broken down on the
issue of surrendering Communist personnel (and their wea-
pons) to the central authorities. When hard pressed in
an earlier period, Thakin Than Tun had offered to "come 25X1
in" (28 March 1958), but U Nu rejected his bid because
Than Tun refused to renounce the policy of armed struggle.
/ Than Tun rejected U Nu's 31 July
1958 amnesty decree for all insurgents who renounced their
insurgency in advance, aid he wrote to Nu again in January
1961 that he would not surrender and wanted talks without
prior conditions. Agreement for talks was finally reached
in October 1963 when Premier Ne Win was willing to guar-
antee the safety of White Flag negotiators, but the dis-
cussions were broken off by the Premier in November 1963.
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Ne Win, convinced that the Chinese in this way (among
various other ways) were trying to stir his anxiety to
a point at which he would feel impelled to discard neutral
politics, believed that he was on safe legal ground and
that his friendship treaty with Peking did not give the
PLA access to Burmese territory under Article Three. Mao
had a "cordial and friendly conversation" with the General
during his visit, but the substantive talks apparently
were held with Liu and Chou, who discussed matters of
"cooperation...and international questions of common in-
terest." (Sino-Burmese communique of 1 August 1965) Ne
Win resisted their effort to induce him to endorse their
position on Vietnam and conceded only the lesser points,
such as support for Peking's "right" to UN membership.
the Chinese leaders publicly praised his policy of
non-alignment/
The major foreign policy reverses suffered by the
Chinese from the summer of 1965 to the spring of 1966
may have impelled Mao to retreat and take a softer line
toward the few governments which were not openly disparag-
ing Peking./'
Liu was insistent, in his speech of 17 April 1966,
that the essential points of Hanoi's 4-point position
were "immediate withdrawal of all American military forces
in Vietnam and recognition of the Liberation Front as the
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sole legal representative" of the South Vietnamese2
/Although he attacked U.S. "aggres-
sion" in Vietnam in his 17 April speech, he apparently
did not insist that Vietnam should be mentioned in the
communique of 19 April. It was not mentioned, and Liu left
the Burmese leaders with the impression that he was pri-
marily concerned with emphasizing "good relations" with
Burma, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Cambodia at a time
when Peking had suffered major foreign policy reverses
in other countries.
Encouraged by the obvious fact that Mao's attention
was f-)cused on internal matters on the mainland, Ne Win .
began to move faster and more vigorously to suppress anti-
government activity engaged in by the Chinese embassy
which was in contact with Overseas Chinese in the country.*
__/In a speech on 14 November
1966, Ne Win depicted certain Chinese as "rank opportun- 25X1
ists" and warned that certain "foreign elements" were a
potential danger to Burma's economy, Surfacing of the
pledge of Peking-based Burmese Communists to bring down
Ne Win's government reflected Mao's view of Ne Win as
an opponent. This apparent view may have been decisively
formed after Ne Win's trip to the U.S. in August 1966.
*He had taken some steps at an earlier time, even be-
fore Mao became engrossed with the purge, to limit Chinese
propaganda activities among Overseas Chinese in Burma.
For example, he nationalized Chinese schools in the spring
of 1965 and closed down the remaining (and pro-Communist)
Chinese language newspaners in January 1966, apparently
because these papers diu not mention Prime Minister
Shastri's visit to Rangoon in December 1965--a silence
which suggested Chinese embassy guidance. Peking did
not retaliate at the time, but began to respond to his
pressures on local Chinese after Mao's purge was under-
way (in early December 1966).
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Ne Win's hard line in November probably confirmed Mao in
Lhis view (although Ne Win was reacting to Peking's
gaucherie). /
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As Mao's policy toward Ne Win became more revolu-
tionary, the General reacted with increasing irritability
and with firmer anti-Peking actions./
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Sy early February
1967, he had decided to permit a government-owned news-
paper to publicize the actions of about 300 Chinese refugees
who had crossed into Burma to escape Mao's purge and the
abominations of the Red Guards.
By the spring of 1967, when the new revolutionary
line was implemented in Burma by revolutionized Chinese
embassy personnel, Mac had dropped most aspects of the
old policy of avoiding the appearance of indoctrinating
Overseas Chinese. The Chinese embassy, working on young
Chinese residents in Rangoon, began distributing Mao
buttons, showing bi-weekly movies at the embassy, and
organizing groups to perform "voluntary manual labor' 5X1
on embassy premises. They also organized after-hours
Chinese language schools, where Maoist doctrine was in-
cluded in the c.IrricuIum.)
/By mid-June, Ne Win began to act
against Mao's program to create in Burma a network of young
Maoist fanatics antagonistic to his government. On 14
June 1967, when Chinese students in Bhamo who were told
to remove the Mao buttons they were wearing refused to
comply, 64 were expelled from the school. As a result
of the incident, the Ministry of Education issued an
order, which was publicized locally on 19 June, declaring
that students were permitted to wear only badges recognized
by the Burmese government.
It was in reaction to this order that pro-Communist
Burmese and Chinese students at Rangoon University began
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wearing Mao badges, which they had received from the Chinese
embassy. Ne Win apparently was informed that the embassy
encouraged wearing of these badges by pro-Communist
Burmese as well as Chinese students and he almost certainly
was told that, by mid-June, the Chinese embassy was re-
quiring Chinese high-school students to write from memory
15 verses from Mao's works before giving an individual
his Mao button. The Burmese protested to the Chinese
embassy about these activities, but embassy personnel did
not desist. On 22 June 1967, during a demonstration
against the order banning the wearing of Mao buttons which
began at two state-run schools in Rangoon's Chinese sec-
tion, Chine E embassy personnel reportedly drove up in
an embassy car, criticized the headmaster for trying to
have the buttons removed, and then passed out more buttons
and pamphlets to the students. With Ne Win's permission,
the Rangoon press carried this story as well as the pic-
tures showing students mauling Burmese reporters. As a
result, Burmese officials closed the schools. The element
of Burmese-Chinese national hostility became a major factor
in the school demonstrations, and on 26 June, when two
Chinese embassy personnel drove past one of several Chi-
nese schools which students were demanding should be
opened (and at which the students were shouting slogans
praising Mao), the car was stoned by a crowd of angry
Burmese. The subsequent events--viz., the smashing of
Chinese property by Burmese on the eve of the 26th, the
killing of more than 30 local Chinese on the eve of the
27th, and the murder of a Chinese embassy technician on
the eve of the 28th--impelled Mao to escalate his revolu-
tionary policy toward Ne Win into open government-to-gov-
ernment recriminations,
Behind the scenes, since early June, complaints
and counter-complaints were being exchanged between the
Burmese government and the Chinese embassy regarding in-
terference in Burma's internal affairs, the embassy posi-
tion having been that it was justified in disseminating
Maoism in the country as a "necessary step to improve
fraternal relations between socalist countries." The
PRC Foreign Ministry protested the
incidents but left the Burmese some room for a gradual
retreat. However, under pressure from non-professionals
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and in the atmosphere of a "revolutionization" of the
Foreign Ministry, officials in the Ministry may have been
impelled to discard the small degree of restraint in the
note. NCNA issued reports, several hours later on the
28th and early on the 29th of June, attacking Rangoon as
"reactionary and depicting Ne Win as Peking's enemy.
The incidents seem to have stemmed from a combina-
tion of tae spontaneotu, reaction of the Chinese students
and the arrogant ("revolutionary"y contempt which Chinese
diplomats were impelled to display when opposed by a
national leader who tried to prevent the dissemination
of Maoist doctrine and Mao-cult symbols in his country.
In perspective, it was the result of the new missionary
activities which Mao required of recently .:'evolutionized
diplomats. The American embassy in Rangoon reported in
late June 1967 that some members of the Chinese embassy
had recently returned from indoctrination courses in Peking,
Others had returned earlier. Training in new, revoluion-
ary diplomacy was mandatory for all embassy officials.
The two top men in the embassy--i.e., the ambassador and
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the counsellor--left Rangoon for Peking on 9 January 1967.
As of 23 January, 37 di lomats and staff members had left
for the mainland.
/By
late January, Chinese aid technicians were threatening
the Soviets in Rangoon with a revolutionary demonstration
against their embassy. In mid-February, the Red Guard
newspaper, Combat News, was distributed in Peking carrying
an attack on Ne Win for being an associate of Liu Shao-
chi (Liu was indirectly named). In March d April 1967,
Mao's "thought" and Mao-cult symbols were being dis-
seminated in Rangoon and northern Burma by Chinese embassy
officials and couriers.
Dissemination of the Mao-cult was the immediate
cause of the open exchange of recriminations in June and
July--an exchange which Peking's encouragement of subver-
sives (viz., training of insurgents and public support
for the anti-government goal of the Communist Party of
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Burma) had rot in itself produced.* It apparently was
the smuggling of Maoist propaganda tracts and symbols of
the Mao-cult through the Chinese embassy that most inten-
sively stirred resentment against the Chinese leaders.
Even the Chinese Communist aid technicians working in the
Meiktila textile m 11 they had built were primarily en-
gaged, in the spring of 1967, with proselyting Maoist doc-
trine in the mill and among Burmese laborers in earby
villages/
Dissemination of the Mao-cult. reflecting Mao's
contempt for Burmese nationalistic sensitivities, was sus-
tained and justified in early July. Speakers at the Peking
rally of 5 July demanded that Rangoon permit Overseas Chi-
nese and "the Burmese people to study, propagate, and defend
the great thought of Mao Tse-tung," and the People's Daily,
while avoiding in its issue of 10 July the formulation
about the "Burmese people," continued to insist that "The
propagation of Mao Tse-tung's thought is the sacred and
inviolable right of the ChiDese personnel working abroad.
It is absolutely proper and justified for the patriotic
Overseas Chinese to love the great leader Chairman Mao
Tse-tung, study his wori;.s, and wear badges with his profile
Mao's reaction to the events of June was to seek
revenge. His punitive action against the Ne Win govern-
ment was tied directly to ransacking of "the economic
counsellor's office of the Chinese embassy in charge of
China's economic aid to Burma" on 27 June, the murder of
*Open support for the Burmese Communists became a diplo-
matic sin requiring retribution only after recriminations
regarding the dissemination of the Mao-cult and the riots
had been well under way. For example, Rangor.n did not
act until 17 July 1967 to withdraw the stay permit of the
NCNA correspondent, ordering him to leave by 17 July,
for an offense which had occurred on 28 June when he re-
ported in full the statement of the Communist Party of
Burmr which had called for the "complete overthrow" of
Ne Win.
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a
"Chinese expert Liu I" on 28 'June, and the subsequent
Burmese action in asking Chinese aid personnel to stay
in their residences at work sites in order to ensure their
security. Peking claimed that these actions had made it
"very difficult for them to continue working normally."
That is,
the Chinese leaders had ordered the technicians to stop
work. /-
That the
Chinese throughout July and August were not directed by
Peking either to resume work or to leave the country sug-
gested that the Chinese leaders were reluctant to terminate
the aid project because it would end Peking's influence,
which the Soviets might be requested to replace in the
form of a new aid program.**
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**An eight-man Soviet aid delegation had arrived in Ran-
goon on 27 July, and although their piimary mission was
to discuss a technical problem--water leakage at a dam
of the major irrigation project built with Soviet aid--the
Chinese may have believed that they were negotiating a
new agreement at a time of Peking-Rangoon reciiminations,
The Soviets actually were. asking to take over Chinese
aid projects, but they were rebuffed.
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Nevertheless, while desiring to retain their per-
sonnel in the country, the Chinese leaders continued their
recriminatory exchanges with Rangoon, repeating the revolu-
tionary and undiplomatic formulations that Ne Win's govern-
ment was "reactionary" and that it would have to pay a
"blood debt."* The Chinese were refused permission to
send an investigation-consolation delegation
they warned Rangoon
Ludt penaing a satisfactory reply to "five demands" (which
included punishment of persons involved in raids on the
Chinese embassy in late June) "there exists no condition
whatever for the Chinese experts to continue their work."
(Peking Radio broadcast of 4 October) But the Burmese
had no intention of complying; on 4 October, they had
released the only man accused of entering the embassy and
stabbing the aid expert. Ne Win acted to force the Chi-
nese out by having his Foreign Office Executive Secretary
U Ohn Khin summon the Chinese charge, Hsiao Ming, on 6
October and, using as the immediate cause the Peking
Radio broadcast of the 4th, asked that the aid experts
be withdrawn. The Chinese did not comply--they may have
been hoping that prior to the withdrawal deadline of 31
October Ne Win would rescind his request. Finally, in
their statement of 31 October 1967, they announced that
they were pulling out all of their aid personnel and,
for the first time, publicly conceded that (1) Rangoon
hzd demanded such a drastic withdrawal and (2) the Chinese
experts had not been on the job since late June. The state-
ment's warning that Peking will continue to support the
"Burmese people's revolutionary struggle" was merely a
public declaration of a series of concrete actions which
*They refused to tone down their vituperation, and
the Chinese charge transgressed diplomatic usage by tell-
ing the Burma-Chinese Chamber of Commerce meeting in his
speech of 1 October that "the reactionary Burmese govern-
ment is responsible for the recent Sino-Burmese incidents
in this country. The sacrifices of those Chinese who suf-
fered defending Mao's thoughts demand a repayment for the
blood debt owed by the Burmese government."
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the Chinese Communists already had taken to support anti-
government insurgents.
Mao's new revolutionary policy toward Ne Win had
started, in July 1967, to incorporate an effort to sub-
vert tribal minority groups and to enlist them in a general
Communist-led rural insurrection against Rangoon. The
effort was to be aided from the mainland across the Yunnan
border, thereby providing all insurgents with sanctuary
when needed and with equipment and training. Mao's strategy
since the late 1920s had placed a high value on the merits
of operating in border areas, both in China from provinc5xl
to province and, later, along international borders.
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Regarding the White Flag Communists. Mao's new
revolutionary policy included an appeal to them which
was more extensively and openly disseminated than ever
before demanding the overthrow of Ne Win. Peking Radio
on 1 July broadcast a Communist Party of Burma statement.
dated 28 June, calling for the "complete overthrow" of
Ne Win and praising Mao. This appeal was later made in
the name of the CCP itself; in the unprecedented open
message sent by the Central Committee to "Chairman Thakin
Than Tun" on 14 August, the Chinese called for the "over-
throw of the reactionary Ne Win government" and "complete
victory in the revolutionary war in Burma."
On 11 August
1967, NCNA carried excerpts from an article dated December
1966 from the Communist Party of Burma organ claiming that
the Burmese party had adopted Mao's pe,.-ple's war doctri:le
at a central commit-tee meeting in 1964 but had had to wage
a hard struggl.' since then against an opposition line within
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//The
Chinese began to claim in the summer of 1967 that "the
Burmese people's armed forces" were active in the country-
side and that several thousand people in one of the rural
"base areas" had held an anti-government rally "under the 25)(1
leadership of the Communist Part of Burma." (NCNA re ort
of 9 Auo.ust 1967
Mao attributed to another man the responsibility
for a policy which he (Mao) and Chou had changed at an
earlier period. The scapegoat for the restrained policy
toward Rangoon (from mid-1951 to 1966) was Liu Shao-chi.
The public falsification of Liu 's role and the accusa-
tions against him were made by "the first deputy chairman
of the Communist Party of Burma, Thakin Ba Thein Tin,"
a White Flag resident in Peking for six years. He claimed
that
Because of the wrecking [activities] of China's
Khrushchev, the Burmese revolution and the
Chinese people were transformed from close
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friends to distant relatives. China's Khru-
shchev treated Ne Win as a relative but did
not have a good thought for the Burmese Com-
munists. This is not accidental; there is a
reason for it. Twenty years ago [1947] our
party was loyal to Marxism-Leninism and the
thought of Mao Tse-tung. For this reason
it is natural that China's Khrushchev, who
opposes Marxism-Leninism and the thought of
Mao Tse-tung, should treat us badly. Although
China's Khrushchev did not like us, we con-
tinued the struggle for more than 19 years
in accordance with Chairman Mao's teaching
on self-reliance...China's Khrushchev...
already has had his authority swept in the
dust. (Speech given at the Peking memorial
ceremony on 5 July 1967 and published in
People's Daily on 6 Jul;?)
But the record indicates that Chou En-lai and Chen Yl were
far more directly involved in Mao's policy to encourage
neutralism in Burma starting in 1952 than Liu had been.
When Mao's policy required that Ne Win should be further
mollified and that Burmese Communist interests should
be further subordinated to Peking's foreign policy in-
terests, Liu merely complied with Mao's new line. But
compliance has been twisted to mean blame for initiating
a reduction of insurgency.* At a time when Mao and Chou
*The beginning of the low ebb of the insurgency in
Burma was "mid-1951" which resulted from "pressure exert-
ed" by Liu in order to reduce the number of battles
fought and to impose a "strategic withdrawal" from the
cities. (Thakin Ba Thein Tin article published in Peking
Review in two parts, the second appearing in the issue
of 1 September 1967) The article contains statements which
suggest that disputes had arisen among the Burmese Com-
munists (and between the Chinese and Soviets as well as
among the Chinese leaders themselves) on whether armed
struggles could be waged in a "small" country, or on an
island, whether it was necessary to concentrate in 'eve"
(footnote continued on page 87)
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(as well as other Chinese leaders) were trying to rebuild
Peking's image as a reasonable and non-aggressive regime
following the Sino-Indian border war of late 1962 and
the Chinese rejection of the partial nuclear test ban
treaty in mid-1963, the policy was to encourage the Bur-
mese to accept peace talks with Ne Win, and 20 White Flag
leaders resident in Peking were sent to Burma in October
1963 to participate in these negotiations. Liu apparently
was among the Chinese leaders who talked with them (and
with Burma-based Communists who had come to Peking for
instructir.ns), but he would not have encouraged them if
he had not gained Mao's concurrence (if, in fact, he were
not acting on Mao's instruction). The post facto accusa-
tion includes the complaint that
He went so far as to tell the Communist Party
of Burma to lay down its arms, alleging?
'You can do without your weapons or bury
them underground or you can reorganize your
troops into the national defense forces'.
(Talk with a foreigner on 26 April 1963);
and 'cooperate' with Ne Win, 'to what end?'
'To carry out a socialist revolution.'
(Talk with foreign comrades on 20 July 1963).
(Joint Red Flag-People's Daily article of
14 August 1967)
This aspect of the effort to completely disparage Liu
Shao-chi is centered on the charge that he suppressed
armed struggle in Southeast Asian countries--"Whether or
not the countries of Southeast Asia should follow the
(footnote continued from page 86)
battle an "absolutely" superior guerrilla force, and whether
initially small and weak forces could eventually become
big and strong. The answers were, of course, given in
the affirmative and later, on 19 December 1967, Mao per-
sonally and for the first time declared that his protracted
war strategy was applicable to "small" as well as big
countries.
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Chinese revolutionary road or follow the Indian road,
became the fundamental issue between Chairman Mao and the
revisionists." (Leadership speeches of 3 June 1967 printed
in Red Guard Newspaper of 15 September 1967).* In view
of Liu's earlier prestige in the CCP as the man most
closely associated from 1949-1951 with the expansion of
armed struggles in Southeast Asia, the attack also seems
to be intended as a way to deprive him of that prestige
and to transfer it to Mao.
Sino-Burmese relations are formally sustained by
the continued presence of official representatives in the
embassy of each country, but Mao's revived revolutionary
line has significantly reduced (if not completely ruined)
his prospects for ever moving Ne Win from a neutral to
an assertively anti-American position. Any effort to
organize and use pro-Peking Overseas Chinese, particularly
*The 15 September issue of this paper attributes the
"pacifist line" to Liu, Teng Hsiao-ping, Peng Chen, Wang
Chia-hsiang, and others (unspecified), that is, to men
Mao had purged and who were incapable of defending them-
selves by pointing to the early policy role of Mao and
Chou.
Liu Shao-chi has also been made the scapegoat for the
previous cautious policy toward Overseas Chinese in Burma
--a policy which Chou En-lai in fact had implemented in
the period from 1954 to 1966. It was Liu's policy which
Chen Yi was said to have implemented, and it was part of
this policy to "capitulate" to Ne Win. "Chen Yi always
thought in terms of making concessions in order to bring
about a 'normalization' of relations between the two conn-
tries. Ne Win took a mile when given an inch. In June
1967, he started forbidding Chinese students from wear-
ing Mao badges...Chen Yi opposed Mao's thought and did
not regard it as an important force for carrying out world
revolution and aiding the local people's rev-lutionary
struggle." (Item in joint issue of Foreign Affairs Red
Flag and Revolutionary Overseas Chinese Newspaper of 12
September 1967)
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the Fukienese and Cantonese groups in Rangoon, will be
additional reason for Ne Win to sustain the close security
surveillance of Chinese embassy officers and to refuse
to accept any increase in personnel from the mainland.
Armed struggle will become a real problem for the govern-
ment, and the prospect is for (1) increased Chinese material
aid to the guerrillas and (2) strengthening of the contacts
between White Flag and tribal (mainly) Kachin insurgents
and formation of Maoist-type guerrilla base-areas.
2. Nepal
Nepal has been encouraged to remain neutral not
only to prevent it from joining CENTO, but also to detach
it from New Delhi's dominant influence. Mao and Chou moved
cautiously in the mid-1950s, and when Peking was formally
recognized by King Mahendra on 1 August 1955, they st'll
deferred to Nehru's sensibilities, using the Chinese and
Nepalese ambassadors to New Delhi to act concurrently in
that capitol as representatives to each other and avoid-
ing the issue of sending an ambassador directly to Kath-
mandu. But following the Tibet revolt in March 1959 and
intensified Sino-Indian border clashes thereafter, Mao
and Chou apparently viewed closer relations with the Nepal-
ese as a means to help isolate Nehru internationally. They
apparently decided to try to make their charges of Indian
"expansionism" appear credible by treating Nepal as a com-
pletely independent country, intending this to be a con-
trast with New Delhi's depreciatory paternalism.
At the same time, in tne fall of 1959 they continued
to view the U.S. as the real threat in Asia, far greater
than India, and they were worried about the establishment
of military rule in Pakistan. They tried to operate on
Mao's incongruous principle of "uniting with while strug-
gling against" Nehru, that is, to tali.: a hard line on their
territorial claims along the border but to maneuver Nehru
toward a border agreement which would in itself reduce
Sino-Indian frictions. They were alert to the possibility
that a military regime mignt be established in New Delhi
and on 8 October 1959, Mao and Liu Shao-chi trf9d to
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deflect complaints from Indian Communist Party leader
Ajoy Ghosh that Nehru was being pushed by Peking's policy
on the border dispute into the "Anglo-American camp."
Mao and Liu told Ghosh that they were aware of this pos-
sible development, and Liu included India and Nepal among
the countries which the U.S. intended "to capture...to
encircle the socialist camp militarily." Mao made a dis-
tinction between Nehru and his "rightist" advisers, who
wanted to exploit the border dispute to help Washington
"isolate China." Mao professed to believe that Nehru
might still be induced to negotiate a border agreement
with Peking. Characteristically, Liu took a harder line.
He stated that Nehru's attitude was that of "a reaction-
ary who is basically anti-Communist; he is not even like
Sukarno, who has apprec5ated the Indonesian Communist
Party." This was a harder position than Chou En-lai had
taken regarding Nehru at the time.* Chou was used by Mao
to try to advance the "unite-with-Nehru" half of his
policy, and he was sent to New Delhi in April 1960 to
*Teng Hsiao-ping also depicted Nehru as a reactionary
and seems to have preferred the "struggle against Nehru"
half of Mac.s's policy. Teng said that Nehru must be strug-
gled against as well as mollified, otherwise the bloc--he
meant Khrushchev--would "inflate his reactionary arrog-
ance." (Speer.h of 14 November 1960 at the Moscow con-
ference of Communist parties) The image of Liu and Teng
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they were more disparaging of him than Mao and Chou had
been.
Regarding possible differences between Chou's moder-
ate line and the apparent Liu. Teng hard line, Chou's
prestige among CCP officials had been built partly on his
ability to work productively vith Nehru, to keep him non-
aligned and a defender of Peking's "rights" in the UN,
and Chou may have feared that any shift to a harder
"struggle" line would be capitulating to the Liu-Teng
pol:.cy of attacking Nehru as a reactionary. Firefights
on the border and a direct rebuff from Nehru in New Delhi
in April 1960 impelled Chou to comply with the harder
line.
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convince Nehru and his advisers that it was in their inter-
est to negotiate a border agreement. He was rebuffed,
and although he tried, almost desperately, at the press
conference immediately before his return to Peking to
portray his mission as a new advance, Sino-Indian relations
continued to worsen. Mao was impelled to use Chou in the
"struggle-against-Nehru" half of his policy, which in-
cluded a major effort to depict India--in contrast to
Nepal, Burma, Afghanistan, and Pakistan--as the intransigent
party in the border dispute. Nepal was accorded even more
deliberate treatment as a completely independent country
than ever before.
Chou En-lai had the major role in moving the Nepal-
ese away from New Delhi, and he was successful in gaining
their agreement in March 1960 to demilitarize the border
and to start the process of demarcation. He also had the
job of try'ng to mollify Prime Minister Koirala in July
1960 following a Sino-Nepalese firefight near Mustang
(28 June), in the course of which maneuvering he took a
soft line, admitting that the cause had been Chinese "care-
lessness," expressing regret, and accepting Nepalese demands
for compensation--all this in an effort to prevent the
Nepalese from extensively publicizing the Chinese military
action and thereby providing New Delhi with an exploitable
event. In August 1960, the Nepalese had been mollified
and accepted closer ties as indicated by Peking's place-
ment of an ambassador in Kathmandu. The Chinese leaders
later (on 4 October 1961) were able to underscore New
Delhi's intransigence by signing a border agreement with
the Nepalese (Burma already had been moved into Peking's
camp with the agreement in 1960). The agreement, when
finally settled on specific issues, used the "tracP.tional
boundary" and split the difference on ownership of Mt.
Everest by drawing the line through its summit. Chou,
who was impelled to take increasinry hard positions
regarding Nehru, had been the diplomatir.: commander in
Lhis exercise. By the spring of 1962, the Chinese were
exploiting New Delhi's depreciatory pateinalism toward
Nepal openly, and they formally accused India of 'great-
nation chauvinism," claiming that in India's view "Nepal
no longer exists, Sikkim no longer exists, and Bhutan no
longer exists."
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Deferential treatment of the Nepalese was used to
increase the degree of their anti-Indian sentiment, and
several Chinese leaders indicated their awareness of the
power of flattery. They made political gains by convinc-
ing Nepalese officials that only fairminded leaders of a
big country would respect the sensibilities of leaders of
a small country. They also made gains by indirectly dis-
paraging the Indians. For example, implying a contrast
with the courageous Nepalese fighters, Chen Yi in December
1962 disparaged Indian soldiers in the course of a discus-
sion with Nepal's Special Ambassador R. Shaha. Reporting
to Imerican officials about his December 1962 trip to
Peking, Shaha also stated that Liu, Chou, and Chen had
"impressed" him with their "Oriental politeness," citing
as an example Liu's behavior in descending from his office
to the street to hold the car door open for him; he did
not say why he believed this was uniquely Oriental. Chou
handled the important substantive matters with him and
insisted that Shaha ask King Mahendra to agree in writing
to stipulate in the Sino-Nepalese aid agreement that the
Chinese have the permission to bring into Nepal "from
the north" heavy equipment necessary to build the 65-mile
Kodari-Kathmandu road. Chou stated that New Delhi would
not permit this equipment to come to Nepal through India,
and when, on 13 January 1963, a protocol was signed in
Kathmandu concerning the "machinery" as well as the experts
and goods to be provided for building the road, the impli-
cation was that Chou had won his point on moving equipment
into Nepal "from the north." This was an important advance
in the effort to increase Peking's influence and c7.oser
contacts by cutting out New Delhi from Sino-Nepalese rela-
tions and operating from Tibet.
Mao had moved a considerable distance in a common
cause with a "feudal" .v'egime, leaving his doctrinal posi-
tion to be adjusted late:- in the course of the advance.
Justification for working with "feudalists" was finally
set forth in the important CCP letter to the CPSU on 14
June 1963: among our allies we may include "certain kings,
princes, and aristocrats, who are patriotic." Mao's aides
sustained the advance with new offers of economic assist-
ance, and regarding a prestige project of the King's?the
100-mile stretch of Nepal's East-West highway which was
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aligned just north of the Indian-Nepalese border--the
Chinese signed an agreement on 27 April 1964 to finance
their part of this road with $20 million.* But the King
was impelled by pressure from New Delhi to turn over the
project to the Indian government. As a result, the Chi-
nese leaders in March 1965 were confronted with a rebuff
to which they could have replied in high dudgeon, but Mao
and Chou apparently decided to absorb the insult and of-
fer support for additional aid projects. They chose not
to warm Indian hearts with the spectacle of a Sino-Nepal-
ese political dispute and they apparently did not protest
the King's decision. However, they implicitly warned the
Nepalese against New Delhi's dilatory tactics to prolong
the presence of Indian aid experts in the country. On
31 March 1965, Chen Yi performed admirably in Kathmandu
as a man full of "understanding,
*The $20 million was made available to the King by the
cancellation of two earlier-projected Chinese aid projects.
The Chinese had to abandon construction of the cement
and paper plant because, as the Sino-Soviet dispute in-
tensified, they could not, they claimed, acquire equip-
ment from East Germany and Czechoslovakia. By June 1964,
the Soviets were engaged in a direct competition to aid
the Nepalese and they began to complain that the Chinese
were deliberately interfering with their work at Panauti
by failing to keep open part of the Kathmandu. Kodari road
for transit of Soviet equipment.
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The Chinese had good reason to be restrained in
their warnings to the Nepalese leaders because the King
was useful to them. The "feudal" King was receptive to
the Chinese effort to move the majority group of the Com-
munist Party of Nepal out of the CPSU camp in the Sino-
Soviet dispute./
The Chinese continued to expand their presence in
the country through additional projects and aid in the
amount of $43 million. On 7 September 1965, they agreed
to help the Nepalese build a new highway fr-m Kathmandu
to Pokhara and to assist in Nepal's new five-year plan.
Mao and Chou worked together on 11 July 1966 in an effort
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to reassure a Nepalese delegation that they wanted to
continue the aid policy, inasmuch as Nepal was pursuing
an "independent" foreign policy. Mao was critical of aid
projects from unspecified "other" countries which were
dragged out to permit a continued foreign presence, and
he stressed to Crown Prince Birendra the importance of
sustaining a policy of self-reliance--an implicit warn-
ing against accepting more aid from New Delhi and Wash-
ington. During the visit, the Crown Prince and his dele-
gation attained agreement for an additional $20 million
in aid (the final documents were signed on 21 December
1966). Sino-Nepalese relations continued on a friendly
basis until the spring and summer of 1967 when in the
course of Mao's purge on the mainland his cult was exported
to Nepal. When, on 25 May 1967, a Chinese economic dele-
gation signed an agreement to build a hydroelectric plant,
a second long road and two short ones in the Kathmandu
valley), and cooperated with the Nepalese to prepare for
the celebration of the opening of the Kathmandu-Kodari
road on the 26th, Mao's policy toward Nepal seemed to be
unchanged by the purge on the mainland.
However, "revolutionized" Chinese officials had
returned to the embassy in late May following their in-
doctrination in Peking on the methods for and necessity
of disseminating the Mao-cult abroad. In NCNA's account
of the Kathmandu-Kodari road opening ceremony on 26 May,
Nepalese sensitivities were irritated by the ludicrous
claim that "many" Nepalese people shouted that "the great
leader, Chairman Mao, is the red sun which shines most
brightly in the hearts of the people all over the world."
The Mao-cult was also being disseminated along the road
between the capitol, Kathmandu, and the Nepalese village
on the Tibet border, Kodari, according to a USAID employee
who had taken a trip along the road and reported to the
American embassy in mid-July that Nepalese workers, school
boys, and even a beggar were wearing Mao badges at all
points along the road. He also stated that the Chinese
were disseminating Mao's "thought" in various ways in
every village on the route./
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The export of the Mao-cult
beginning in the spring of 1967 on a large scale and with
increasing openness by the embassy in Kathmandu and Chinese
aid experts along the raod--10 to 15 bags of mail a day
came through the Nepalese postal system from Kodari con-
taining mostly printed material--alerted the Foreign Minis-
try to the probability of a showdown. The Nepalese press
in Kathmandu began to complain about the cult and these
complaints helped start a chain of events which turned
Sino-Nepalese relations onto a rocky road.
In March and April 1967, several papers commented
on the implication of photos (published in Peking Review
on 24 February 1967) that the Nepalese peasants aria-Vaili-
ers consider Mao to be their leader. The Foreign Ministry
did not formally protest, but "discussed" the matter with
officials at the Chinese embassy. On June 17, 24, and
25, Chinese embassy officials conducted anti-India and
anti-U?S demonstrations for Chinese diplomats transitting
Kathmandu airport after their expulsion from New Delhi,
and tto Nepalese leaders warned the Chinese against such
actions, at first indirectly in a confidential circular
to all embassies (on 22 June) and later directly following
the demonstration on the 25th. Foreign Minister Bista
and Foreign Ministry Secretary Singha apparently took a
"firm line" with the Chinese ambassador and embassy of-
ficials, warning them to abide by Nepalese regulations
if they wished to remain in the country. The Nepalese
press was less restrained, and
criticized the Chinese by
name for trying to dissiminate the Mao-cult and for dis-
regarding diplomatic propriety.
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?
Following the airport incidents, deep anti-Peking
resentments were sustained among officials and students.
On the evening of 1 July, anti-Chinese students demanded
that the red star and the PRC flag should be removed from
the Chinese exhibition at the fairgrounds during the an-
nual King's birthday fete. fhey complained that there
was no tribute to the King at the Chinese stall and that,
on the contrary, only Mao was being idolized. They burned
Mao in effigy and attacked a Chinese photographer and an
embassy car. A Nepalese official promised to comply with
the students' demands (and was later criticized in the
Chinese protest of 8 July for having done so). The anti-
Chinese students acted after a smaller group of pro-Chi-
nese had moved from the local college to the fairgrounds
and raised pro-Chinese posters. According to another ac-
count, the anti-Chinese students had given the Nepalese
authorities an ultimatum, expiring on 1 July, to remove
Ma- 's portrait from the Chinese stall and warned that they
would pull it down if the authorities failed to act. In
any case, the resentment following the gauche demonstra-
tions of revolutionary Chinese embassy officials at the
airport* had burst into anti.-Chinese group action, and
one mob marched from the fairgrounds to the center of
town, throwing books of quotations from Mao onto the
street from a stall specializing in Chinese Communist
publications and tearing down the sign over the Sino-
Nepalese Friendship Library.
There is some evidence which suggests that the
professionals--viz., the men in the Chinese embassy and
in the Foreign Ministry--reacted with caution, but that
"revolutionized" non-professionals later decided to take
a hard line by accusing Kathmandu of complicity. Following
*The airport demonstrations had started a government-
supported campaign to curtail dissemination of the Mao-
cult in Nepal and part of the effort had been encourage-
ment of the press to print articles critical of Chinese
activities. In addition, local schools had been ordered
to prohibit the waring of Mao buttons.
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the 1 July incidents, Peking Radio did not comment im-
mediately, and the Chinese at first kept the dispute in
private channels./
/ Peking's
first comment, a broadcast of 5 July, was (for the Chinese
Communists) relatively non-provocative, accusing only the
U.S. and India of responsibility for the 1 July incidents.
As late as 8 July, a Nepalese newspaper, known to have
had contacts with Chinese embassy officials, announced
that Peking had asked Nepalese students (who left in 1966)
to return to the mainland to resume classes by 10 August.
(Nepal's Foreign Secretary told U.S. officials that he
had questioned the Chinese ambassador "recently" on the
promised return of Nepalese students and the ambassador
simply said he would query Peking.) As of 8 July, the
Chinese embassy had not publicized the protest. Chou En-
lai may have been making the'decisions for Mao on handling
the Nepalese situation, trying to dampen down the effects
on Sino-Nepalese relations of the 1 July incidents while
authorizing a protest as a warning to the King and his
aides against further incidents.
Non-professional fanatics in the Foreign Ministry
may have intervened on 8 July to charge the Nepalese
government for the first time with complicity. This may
have been the reason for the change to a hard line on the
8th, Their intervention suggests that they had (or believ-
ed they had) Mao's permission to take an abusive, undip-
lomatic line. In any case, a "revolutionary" decision
was made, and on 8 July the 4 July protest was pub-
licized along with a claim that in the protest "the
Chinese ambassador., on instruction of the Chinese
government" pointed out that the incidents were "plan-
ned" by the U.S. and India and were "approved and
supported by the Nepalese government." The 8 July NCNA
report criticized "reactionary forces in Nepal" for pro-
hibiting the wearing of Mao buttons and carrying of Mao-
quotation books by Nepalese students. These and other
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charges in the 8 July blast took many Nepalese officials
by surprise, inasmuch as they believed that the Chinese
leaders in Peking were acting as professionally and
rationally as the ambassador in an effort to downplay the
incidents. The Nepalese tried to prevent the situation
from escalating into a major exchange of recriminations.
Their Foreign Ministry denial of the 8 July NCNA accusa-
tions as "false and baseless" was carried in the govern-
ment press on 10 July without comment, and on 11 July,
the Director of Publicity tried to convince all non-govern-
ment editors of the need to make no comment. Despite the
effort, some editorials were published, attacking both
prohibited subjects, namely, China and Mao, by name. More
importantly, the Foreign Secretary reported that the Chi-
nese ambassador did not react vehemently in response to
the Nepalese protest of 10 July--a protest which had been
combined with assurances of Kathmandu's interest in good
relations with China. The Chinese ambassador, in turn,
stated that Peking did not rish to embarrass Nepal.
In direct contrast to the moderate and rational
behavior of the Chinese ambassador, an NCNA report of 21
July thundered a series of demands to Kathmandu, dictating
a hard line to the Chinese ambassador. It sarcastically
referred to Nepalese professions to "the Chinese ambas-
sador" of a desire to maintain good relations and then
demanded that Kathmandu "must promptly annul all measures
discriminating against China and stop all anti-Chinese
utterances and deeds on Nepalese territory." (emphasis
supplied) In contrast to the non-vitriolic reaction of
the Chinese ambassador to Nepal's 10 July protest of rCNA's
8 July harangue, the NCNA blast of 21 July declared that
the Nepalese government had refused "to admit" complicity
in the anti-Chinese incidents: "The Chinese government
catagorically rejected this unwarranted protest." (emphasis
supplied) The Chinese ambassador, Yang Kung-su, was not
mentioned by name (as he had been, favorably, in the NCNA
blast of 8 July) and the new protest note was made in the
name of the "Chinese embassy"--a more impersonal formula-
tion. He may have been in trouble over his failure to
reject all the protests which Nepalese officials had made
since the confidential circular of 22 June 196Y. The
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ambassador apparently was recalled and replaced as acting
chief of the embassy by Li Chung-ho, the charge. Fanatic
non-professionals who, it is here conjectured, may have
been permitted by Mao to make the hard-line decisions,
apparently were trying to defend their irrational actions
when they later insisted that it had been the Nepalese
"and not the NCNA report" of 8 July which had damaged
Kathmandu's reputation. (NCNA report of 21 July 1967)
Chou En-lai apparently was not permitted to reas-
sert a rational and professional attitude in Sino-Nepalese
relations until mid-August. According to Nepal's Foreign
Secretary, the Chinese charge, who returned from Peking
to the Chinese embassy on 14 August, hand-carried a letter
to King Mahendra from Cllou in which Chou stated that in
the interests of "friendship," the Chinese would take no
retaliatory actions in Peking (presumably against Nepal-
ese officials and their embassy) for the recent anti-
Chinese actions in Nepal. This significant foreign policy
move suggests that Chou continues to be the man responsible
for the ingredients of sanity and relative restraint that
appear, on occasion, to cut across Mao's compulsion to
shift all aspects of Peking's foreign policy to the left.
Although elements of rationality have reappeared
and open hostility has subsided from the peak of July
1967, Mao's Nepal policy has been shifted to the left.*
*Peking and Kathmandu dropped recriminations in August
1967 and both sides have reaffirmed traditional "friend-
ship," the Chinese charge in his speech at the dedication
ceremony for a Chinese warehouse project in Xathmandu on
27 September and King Mahendra in his message of 1 October
to Mao. However, Peking's behavior in July has made the
Nepalese more suspicious of the Chinese then they had been
in recent years. The government has established a commit-
tee in the Foreign Ministry to investigate the activities
and contacts of all Foreign Ministry officials and staff
members to determine which of them are agents of Peking
and Moscow. Another Foreign Ministry committee has been
established to evaluate security reports on the activities
of Chinese and Soviet officials.
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it will continue to have new "revolutionary" features
requiring demonstrations of official contempt for any
Nepalese contacts with the U.S. despite the major concern
to mollify Kathmandu, on occasion, in order to prevent
New Delhi from reasserting its influence more extensively
in the country.*
3. Afghanistan
Afghanistan's unobtrusive neutralism and generally
inactive role in major international developments have
kept it on the periphery of Peking's foreign policy ef-
forts, and its top diplomats have been less active in
Kabul than in any "friendly" country on mainland borders.
Nevertheless, Mao permitted Chou to enlist its leaders
in his cause to demonstrate extensive international reco-
gnition of the Peking regime as a major world power fol-
lowing the Korean war and the Geneva conference of 1954.
Ambassadors were exchanged in July 1955 following Chou's
diplomatic contacts at the Bandung conference, and on 19
January 1957, Chou for the first time visited Kabul and
*The Chinese ambassador's replacement continued to act
as a "revolutionized" diplomat in September, but subsided
finally in December. He stated on 27 September 1967 that
"we will be able to implement the diplomacy and principles
followed by Chairman Mao. We shall strongly support the
national struggle for freedom in Asia, Africa, and Latin
America, and we shall strongly oppose the imperialist
policies of aggression and war, and we shall also oppose
the policy of surrender of revisionism..." (emphasis sup-
plied) When, therefore, airport ceremonies were held at
the departure on 20 October of the King and Queen for their
State Visit to the U.S., the Chinese were the only embassy
group unrepresented, and this incensed Nk..palese Foreign
Ministry officials. However, the Chinese charge appeared
at the airport ceremonies on 10 December to welcome the
King and Queen on their return.
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ant_dc.r t
had "friendly talks" with Prime Minister Daud and other
leaders.r
With the development of the Sino-Indian and Sino-
Soviet disputes, Mao and Chou apparently hoped to add the
Afghans to their camp, or at least deter them from adopt-
ing New Delhi's and Moscow's positions against Peking's
on a whole range of issues. A friendship and nonaggres-
sion treaty was signed in 1960, a border agreement was
signed in November 19631* and in March 1965.economic aid
and cultural exchange agreements were concluded. But
the Chinese have not come close to the level of Soviet
economic aid, viz., $600 million, and they are arguing
with the Afghans about details for implementing the Parwan
Irrigation Project on the Panjshir River. More importantly,
the Afghans have not been responsive to Chinese efforts
to recruit them to attack U.S. policy on Vietnam. They
rebuffed Liu Shao-chi and his delegation ol 8 April 1966
when the Chinese tried to induce them to condemn that
policy in the Sino-Afghan joint communique issued at the
end of his 5-day visit. The communique implied a diverg-
ence of views on Vietnam and the U.S., as witness the use
of the phrase, "res ective stands."
*Peng Chen on 22 November 1963 made the signing cere-
mony the occasion for an indirect jibe at India's intran-
sigence, noting that four countries--Burma, Nepal, Pakistan,
and Afghanistan--had adopted an attitude of "active coopera-
tion."
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Thus far, however, ths. unobtrusive Afghans have
not stirred any deep resentments and the Chinese have as-
sured Kabul that Mao's purge would not affect the two
Afghan art students who are on the mainland and have been
permitted to continue their studies there.
4. Ceylon
Mao and Chou established contacts with Ceylon's
leaders in 1952 when a trade agreement on an exchange of
Chinese rice for Ceylonese rubber was signed, but they
remained at a low level. Prime Minister Kotelawala's non-
alignment policy had not prevented him from criticizing
Communist colonialism and suggesting a "two Chinas" plan
at the Bandung conference in April 1955. Later, however,
Prime Minister Bandaranaike turned Ceylou's nonalignment
policy into a warmer relationship with Peking and as a
direct result of an important visit by Chou En-lai, diplo-
matic relations were established on 7 February 1957 after
"fully satisfactory" discussions with Bandaranaike (Chou's
foreign policy report of 5 March 1957). Relations became
cooler following Ceylon's criticism of the PLA suppression
of the Tibet revolt in 1959 and Peking's rejection of the
Colombo Conference proposals of December 1962 as binding
"preconditions" for starting talks on the Sino-Indian
border dispute.*
Nevertheless, both countries agreed to conclude
a Maritime Transport Agreement (July 1963) providing
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for vessels of the two countries to sail to and from the
ports of either country and to undertake cargo and passenger
services between them and with third countries. Mrs.
Bandaranaike's opposition later distorted this agreement,
alleging, during the March 1965 general election, that,
as the former Prime Minister, she had entered into a
secret agreement with Peking, providing the Chinese with
naval base rights in Trincomalee and giving Chinese war-
ships access to Ceylon's ports. In mid-March, Mrs. Ban-
daranaike issued a communique asserting that the agree-
ment was "essentially a pact to regulate commercial ship-
ping," and the former Port Commissioner in Colombo reaf-
firmed this position to a U.S, embassy officer in November
1966.
Mao's purge and the "revolutionization" of his
diplomacy and diplomats exacerbated Sino-Ceylonese rela-
tions to an unprecedented degree.* Prime Minister D.
Senanayake apparently was angered by information provided
him by security officials during a briefing on I March
1967 regarding shipments into Ceylon of Maoist propaganda
tracts and their sale on the local market or trans-ship-
ment to India. He was further angered by the defense of
Mao's purge--a defense which was made publicly in late
March by Ceylon's ambassador to Peking, Robert Gunawardena,
during a two-week home leave visit.
/Although
Chinese embassy officials at one time had shown some
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SFCRFT
interest in recruiting Gunawardena and supporting him as
a leader of the pro-CCP group of the Ceylon Communists,
politburo member N. Sanmagathasan was still the Chinese
leaders' first choice. On 26 May 1967, NCNA carried an
account of his speech to Red Guards in Peking in which
he depicted Peking as the "center of world revolution"
and Mao as "the greatest teacher, leader, and Marxist
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Leninist alive."
The immediate cause of open Sino-Ceylonese recrimina-
tions, however, was the alleged theft of Chinese goods
and the delay of a parcel of Mao buttons (addressed to
the Chinese embassy) by Ceylon's customs officials. The
Chinese embassy sent a protest note to the government on
15 August compla:ning of "an open robbery of the export
goods from China and the diplomatic articles of the Chi-
nese embassy" at the port of Colombo. The note was then
released to the press, indicating that the Chinese embassy
had been instructed not to downplay the incident and to
move recriminations into public channels. Release of the
note to the press forced Ceylonese officials, who had
preferred to keep the exchange in private channels, to
release their reply to the press. Their counter-protest
of 19 August rejected as "fr'volous and absurd" the Chinese
charge of government complicity in the theft of the Chinese
goods. Regarding the delay of the parcel of 300 Mao but-
tons, the Ceylonese counter-protest note stated that the
government was exercising legitimate authority in asking
what reasonable use the Chinese embassy of 34 persons
had for 300 buttons. It went on to say that wh le a rea-
sonable quantity of buttons for the embassy was acceptable,
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the government could not agree to the importat.on of 300,
"the bulk of which could be distributed to residents of
Ceylon." The note in effect warned the Chinese (and
local sympathizers) not to go too far in spreading the
Mao-cult in Ceylon. The Chinese reply was to organize
a demonstration in front of Ceylon's embassy in Peking
on 20 August and Lo send a note to Colombo through the
Chinese embassy there on the 22nd (publicized by NCNA on
the 23rd). The note of 22 August opened a general attack
on Colombo, ostensibly for inviting Chinese Nationalist
girl-guides to participate in a Colombo conference on 12
August, but actually for retributive motives.* Demonstra-
tions against the embassy in Peking were again staged in
early September, but these were closely controlled, non-
violent, and were neither as sustained as the early Febru-
ary 1967 siege of the Soviet embassy or the entry and burn-
ing of offices in the Indonesian and British embassies
on 5 and 22 August, respectively.
The Chinese now seem to be reluctant to warm Indian
hearts by protracting the dispute with Colombo. Aware
that New Delhi had openly speculated about the possibility
in September that Peking would not renew its rice-for-
rubber barter arrangement, as part of its trade-and-pay-
ments agreement with Colombo, the Chinese probably were
further impelled to conclude a new five-year agreement
on 6 November (with annual contracts to be negotiated and
quantities and prices to be worked out each year). How-
ever, increased support for pro-Peking Communists may
provoke Colombo into a new round of pr tests, to which
the Chinese leaders, operating under a new and more revo-
lutionary policy, almost certainly would respond with open
vituperation.
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II, An Anti-Communist Quasi-Ally: Pakistan
a Mao and Chou apparently viewed Pakistan as a counter-
weight to India in South Asia, and ever since the estab-
lishment of Sino-Pakistani relations in May 1951, they
have avoided antagonizing Karachi on the important Kashmir
issue. Unlike the Soviets, who supported Indian claims,
they equivocated, which meant a refusal to recognize In-
dian sovereignty over the area. Chou took an equivocal
public position on Kashmir when pressed on the matter
during a news conference in Karachi on 24 December 1956,
saying that he had not "studied" the matter and adroitly
suggesting that India and Pakistan settle it by negotia-
tions. By contrast, Moscow had recognized the juridical
accession of Kashmir to India; negotiat'ons were unaccept-
able. Mao and Chou were displeased with Pakistan's par-
ticipation in SEATO and CENTO--"As everybody knows, we
differ on certain questions. Take the Manila Treaty
and the Baghdad Pact for example." (Chou's 5 March 1957
statement on his visit to Pakistan in late December 1956)
Nevertheless, they chose to view this participation as
directed against India and the USSR rather than against
the Peking regime and they were alert to Karachi's policy
of avoiding hostility toward them.
From Karachi's viewpoint, in 1959 and 1960 Peking
was becoming the enemy of India, and the U.S. was becom-
ing India's best friend. Karachi, therefore, tried to
gain greater support against India by moving toward a
closer relationship with Peking and when, in December 1960,
the Chinese were trying to isolate India and suggested
border negotiations with the Pakistanis, the latter com-
plied and agreed "in principle" rn the need to hammer out
a definitive boundary, By December 1962, they had also
agreed in principle on the "alignment" of their common
border, and on 2 March 1963 the border agreement was con-
cluded. Chou was publicly defensive about Peking's move
toward an anti-Communist military dictatorship, but cleverly
put the onus of opportunism on the Pakistanis: he con-
ceded in an interview on 31 March 1963 in Peking that there
is "a certain contradiction" between Pakistan's signing
of a border agreement with the mainland regime and its
membership in SEATO.
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hEL:KE'l?
Pakistan's complaints about U.S. and Soviet aid
to India provided the Chinese leaders with the opportunity
to move President Ayub into a closer quasi-alliance with
Peking. Mao and Chou were anxious to apply more pressure
on India and embarrass the U.S. Closer relations with
Pakistan could also be used to demonstrate that the foreign
policy of Mao and Chou had not resulted in increased iso-
lation of Peking.* Pakistan's ties with the U.S. were
discreetly handled; that is, they were not criticized.
Puring his visit to Pakistan in February 1964, Chou took
a "very reasonable" line on Sino-U.S. differences in try-
ing to impress Ayub with his open-mindedness on Sino-U.S.
talks. Ayub said Chou emphasized that he was prepared
to be very reasonable, accommodat:ng, and patient in im-
plementing an agreement once it was obtained "in principle,"
but the American ambassador had to expla n to the President
that the agreement Chou mentioned was simply one f^r a
U.S. surrender on the Taiwan issue. During his v!sit,
Chou may have arranged to provide Pakistan with military
aid in the form of PLA advisers and various kinds of
equipment, but reports of a "mutual defense" agreement
at the time may have reflected a vague promise of unspe-
cified Chinese action of a limited nature in the event
of an India-Pakistan war. In any case, by February 1964,
Ayub had become Mao's quasi-ally.
As the Chinese and Pakistanis moved toward a closer
relationship, Chen Yi indicated that Peking's effort was
directed against three major enemies of Mao's regime,
namely, the U.S., the USSR, and India--Chen's euphemistic
usage referred to Pakistan's role in the effort against
"imperialism, big-nation chauvinism, and expansionism."
*Chen Yi on I May Tg64 stated defensively (regarding
the inauguration of a regular airline service between the
mainland and Pakistan agreed to in August 1963) that
"those who tried to isolate and blockade China have
failed."
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?
?
(Interview with Pakistani journalist in early August 1964)*
Mao himself, avoiding any reference to Ayub's hard line
on local Communists or to his ties with the U.S., declared
that he "appreciated" Ayub's support on various questions
of Peking's international relations. (Interview with Pakis-
tan's Commerce Minister on 16 July 1964) From Ayub's
viewpoint, the increasing willingness of the Chinese lead-
ers to join with him in a common front--including some
unspecified form of PLA help--against New Delhi encouraged
him in his anti-India belligerency.
Short of committing the PLA to defend Pakistan,
Mao and Chou apparently were willing to supply increas-
ing amounts of military aid to their quasi-ally. They
were cautious on the subject of just how the PLA would
help.r
*Pakittan's shift toward a more critical line on Mos-
cow's support for India was the subject of a Soviet em-
bassy protest to the Director General of the Foreign Af-
fairs Ministry in April 1964. The Soviets were increas-
ingly concerned that as Mao moved toward Ayub, they were
becoming more isolated in the country, and they tried to
purchase advertising space in the local press to pub-
licize their case against Peking but were rebuffed by
major Pakistani news outlets.
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Following two four-hour sessions with Bhutto on
3 and 4 September, Chen Yi at a press conference on the
4th spoke in the name of the "Chinese government and
people" to warn that they would "firmly support" Pakistan's
action to repel India's "armed provocations." On 5 Septem-
ber, a People's Daily Observer article "advised" New Delhi
to stop "bullying" Pakistan,. In neither of the statements
was Peking thus far committed to active participation in
the fighting.
On 7 September, however, Mao and his aides appar-
ently decided in the interests of helping Ayub, to hint
for the first time at Chinese intervention by claiming
Indian "intrusions and provocations" along the Sino-Indian
border and by declaring that Peking is "strengthening its
defenses and heightening its alertness along its borders."
(PRC government statement of 7 September 1965) This in-
creased the political support of the Chinese but commit-
ted the PLA only to preparing for an Indian attack. Re-
garding the position of individual Chinese leaders,
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?
personal involvement was used to warn New Delhi that
Pakistan had a major ally. On 7 September, Peking in-
dicated higher-level support--that is, higher than Chen
Yi's--by publicly and prominently referring to talks held
between Pakistan's ambassador and Chou; on 8 September,
reference was made, also publicly and prominently, to
talks between the ambassador and Liu Shao-chi.
On 8 September, the date of Liu's discussions with
the ambassador, the Chinese leaders began to edge their 25X1
way toward a military commitment to use the PLA as a
maneuvering force on the border in support of the acticns
of a non-Communist regime. /
Developments suggest that Chou felt impelled ;-o
take the strongest and most vigorous anti-Indian positions
that he publicly has ever taken. Ever since 1959, when
relations with India had begun to deteriorate, Chou seems
to have been vulnerable to criticism from within the Chi-
nese leadership for having codd39d New Delhi with his five
principles of peaceful coexistence and talk of Asian unity.
In the mid-1950s, Mao had permitted Chou to play the major
role in exploiting the concept of India's nonalignment,
and in the mid-1960s, Mao apparently has permitted him
to clear his (Chou's own) name from association with such
a moderate policy. Speaking at the Korean embassy on 9
September 1965 in the presence of men who may have cri-
ticized his India policy, namely, Liu Shao-chi, Teng
Hsiao-ping, and P.ang Chen, Chou dissociated himself from
his India policy of the 1950s in the most explicit terms
he has ever used on the matter in public:
India's armed aggression against Pa.istan
thoroughly exposed the Indian reactionaries'
vaunted nonsense about their policy of non-
alignment and peaceful coexistence. How can
there be a peaceful and neutral country that
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commits aggression at will against its neigh-
bors? How can there be a model of peace-
ful coexistence that interprets aggression as
peace? The Chinese government holds that
right and wrong must be distinguished in in-
ternational relations, and that such major
issues of principle as that between aggres-
sion and anti-aggression must never be steeped
in the dyeing pot of so-called nonalignment
and peaceful coexistence. (emphasis supplied)
This repetitious attack on "peaceful coexistence" in the
context of India's image--an imnge which he, more than
any other Chinese leader, had piayed the major role in
creating--suggests that Chou was anxious to go beyond
earlier positions to obliterate the record of his earlier
unity policy toward New Delhi at a time when he was vulner-
able to other leaders' criticism of him for that earlier
policy. Regarding the Pakistan-India war, Chou made a
vague "stern warning" to New Delhi and hinted at hypothe-
tical PLA involvement by depicting the war as "unfolding
beside China." Chou's abovementioned statement was also
an implicit criticism of the Soviet effort to expos-, Peking's
encouragement of the Pakistanis to fight, and the PRC
statement of 10 September attacked Moscow for desiring
a cease-fire and for failing to distinguish between India
("the aggressor") and Pakistan "Its victim"). Soviet
complaints that the Chinese leaders were anxious to fan
the flames of the conflict reflected a good understand-
ing of what Mao was in fact trying to do.
Mao apparently viewed his support of Ayub as a major
political war by proxy against the Soviet leaders who were
supporting Shastri. His opposition to the Soviet leaders'
efforts toward a peaceful solution pr bably increased
significantly by 13 September. On that day, TASS issued
a statement which, in effect, warned Mao not to get the
PLA involved in the conflict.?
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/ On 15 September, India's ambassador publicly
thanked the Soviets for their support. Mao's inclina-
tion in the Sino-Soviet dispute has been, since the 10th
plenum in September 1962, to act more and more openly
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against Moscow's advice for a compromise. For example,
Moscow's advice for restraint in the polemic was rejected
by him in October 1962 (during the Cuban missile crisis),
in July 1964 (during an interview ), 25X1
and in February 1965 (during an interview with Kosygin).
By September 1965, his contempt for Moscow's advice on
moving toward peace in Vietnam and his desire to attack
the concept of "peaceful settlements" of international
disputes were among the motivating factors in his apparent
decision to keep the Pakistan-India war inflamed. His
reaction to the TASS warning of the 13th was to act dir-
ectly contrary to it.
For the first time in the Sino-Indian border dis-
pute, Mao committed the PLA to some form of action within
a specified time limit. Such a drastic and politically
vulnerable commitment could not have been made by any
Chinese leader other than Mao? it was too important, and
it was an unprecedented involvement in a military situa-
tion in support of a non-Communist quasi-ally. The Indians
received the full force of this major decision in a note
delivered to their charge in Peking on 16 September 1965
at 1 o'clock in the morning. Rejecting Soviet advice,
it threatened the Indians with "grave consequences" aris-
ing from their failure to comply with this ultimatum to dis-
mantle structures on the Sikkim-Tibet border within three
days. An official of the Indian embassy in Washington,
Bannerjee, told a U.S. official on the evening of the
16th that formerly he had been the Indian charge in Peking
and had accepted 83 Chinese Communist protest notes, but
he had never seen one like this.
Mao had additional motives for making this unpre-
cedented commitment, the most immediate being his desires
? (a) to humiliate the Indians and (b) to force them to
ease pressure on Pakistani forces which were taking a
beating after 11 September. Regarding the humiliation
? aspect, Mao apparently was prepared to have PLA forces
attack Indian troops if they did not pull down the struc-
tures on the Sikkim-Tibet border; the existence of these
structures was privately conceded on 17 September by the
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Indian Army Chief of Staff.* Mao and his aides were pre-
pared to disparage the Indians if they did comply with
the ultimatum to dismantle them. Regarding the easing
of pressure on Pakistani forces, the Chinese leaders ap-
parently believed that the implied threat of a PLA thrust
down the Chumbi Valley within three days (i.e., on the
19th, on expiration of the unprecedented ultimatum) might
have the effect of drawing off Indian forces from the
fighting or of tying them down./
** Regarding Mao's anti-Soviet motiva-
tion, it was expressed in the People's Daily editorial
of 18 September which accused the "Soviet leaders" of
working with the U.S. and implied that, despite private
Soviet warnings about the dangers of PLA involvement, the
Chinese leaders were justified in encouraging Ayub to keep
fighting. Further, the Soviet charge regarding Peking's
"incendiary" behavior was a betrayal of all true revolu-
tionaries. By depicting the Soviet leaders as being com-
pletely in the camp of Washington and New Delhi, the Chi-
nese went beyond positi.ons which the Pakistanis and the
North Vietnamese had maintained regarding ties with Moscow.
The question arises: In what sense was the ultima-
tum. implying some for of PLA action, a risk? Militarily,
dismantling of old Indian structures on the Tibet side
of the Sikkim border (and destruction of some old structures
**Prime Minister Shastri claimed on 20 September that
the Chinese had fired on Indian posts in Sikkim and Ladakh.
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in the western sector) was a small risk, in view of the
Chinese capability to handle Indian forces on the border
in previous skirmishes. Psychologically, the Indians had
been given a bloody nose in 1962 and were reluctant to
take another beating.
Politically, however, Mao and his aides were taking
a bigglr risk. They could not control the situation--that
is, they could not prevent (as they were trying to prevent)
Ayub from negotiating his way out of the war. They had
committed the PLA to some form of action against Indian
forces and they had touted their ultimatum publicly, so
that not to act would be construed internationally as a
backdown. When, on 18 September, Ayub and his aides de-
cided to save their remaining forces by ending the war,
Mao's diplomats were out on a political limb. They had
to explain that Peking had delayed its ultimatum by three
days more in order to provide an opportunity for the fight-
ing to stop, as witness Chen Yi's "explanation" of 20
September to an Afghan Foreign Office officia.* Chen
was referring to the Chinese fallback note on the 19th
which extended the deadline to the 22nd and which diluted
the psychological advantage that Peking had had over New
Delhi as master directing serf to comply with a command.
As the new deadline of the 22nd approached, the Chinese
tried to regain their psychological advantage by claim-
ing that the Indians had demolished their old positions
on the Jelep La Pass surreptitiously and had abandoned
other military structures on three other Sikkim passes.
(Peking broadcast of 21 September 1965) It is difficult
? *Ayub began to move to accept Kosygin's invitation
of the 19th to meet on Soviet soil for talks with Shastri.
He probably informed Mao that whatever he had intended
? to do with PLA forces when the ultimatum expired on the
'.9th, Mao had better not do it. Ayub told Ambassador
Conaughy on the 20th that he had sent a message to Peking,
"recently," telling the Chinese leaders "For God's sake
do not come in. Do not aggravate the situation." This
message apparently was sufficient cause for Mao to desist
and to leave to his diplomats the task of backing down.
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to separate out just what action the Indians had taken
and it is only a conjecture that they may have in fact
demolished the structures at the Jelep La Pass. As for
the additional Chinese claim that they abandoned other
structures, Peking may have distorted the matter by fail-
ing to mention that some of these structures had been
abandoned since 1962. In any case, the Chinese claimed
that the Indians had been forced to comply by destroying
their "military works" on Chinese territory and allowed
the deadline to pass without using the PLA. (People's
Daily article of 22 September 1965) The cease-fire be-
tween India and Pakistan went into effect on the 22nd.
Mao and his aides, having complied with Ayub's re-
quest to take no action on the border, emerged from the
crisis at a political disadvantage in relation to New
Delhi (which criticized Peking's interference and aggres.
siveness) and Moscow (which defended the Indians in
various ways, including extensive coverage of New Delhi's
notes of protest regarding Chinese interference). Inter-
national opinion, which was extremely critical of Mao's
war-like interference in the India-Pakistan fighting and
favorable to Moscow, confronted Mao with a major foreign
policy defeat.* Ayub's agreement to the cease-fire almost
certainly was a development which Mao favored the least,
and other Chinese leaders implied that Ayub had deserted
*The Chinese leaders' anger over Soviet ability to
demonstrate war-like interference was reflected later in
a statement made by Chen Vi, who on occasion reveals Mao-
ist attitudes in splenetic outbursts. "Some people" ac-
cused China of "adding fuel to the fire" and "fishing in
troubled waters" by supporting Pakistan against Indian
aggression and for Kashmir self-determination. Should
China have supplied large amounts of arms to the aggres-
sor and supported India's annexation of Kashmir while dis-
guising itself as an impartial mediator as "they" did in
Tashkent') (Chen Yi speech in Dacca of 15 April 1966)
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SP.CR FT
the Kashmiris.* Mao was also confronted with the need to
have his diplomats explain that Peking's retreat from the
ultimatum of 16 September had been the result of Indian
compliance with Chinese demands, and Chen Yi on 29 Sept-
ember used part of his frenetic press conference to try
to demonstrate that the PLA could handle not only the In-
dians but also the Americans, British, and Russians--all
at the same time.
The political risk which Mao had fastened upon Pek-
ing by issuing the unprecedented time-limit ultimatum of
16 September was a new departure in Chinese Communist
foreign policy. This deep commitment to the national
policy interests of a non-Communist regime--that is, to
Ayub's military venture--had tied Peking's policy too
closely to that of a government whose actions could not
be controlled by the Chinese. This move apparently re-
flected Mao's int;reasing reluctance, in recent years, to
act on the basis of what his foreign policy experts (Chou,
particularly) tell him about the probable dangerous con-
sequences of revolutionary moves. In any case, the Chi-
nese leaders tried to absorb the political defeat and
retain Ayub as a useful counterweight to India, Peking's
major enemy in South Asia, and on 4 October 1965, Po I-
po provided some rather strained reassurance to a visit-
ing Pakistani delegation by professing that Sino-Pakistani
friendship "can stand all tests."
*Po I-po on 29 September declared that Peking would
not desert the Kashmiris: "the Chinese people will not
cease for a single day their support to the people of
Kashmir in their struggle for their right to self-de-
termination; this stand of China will never change."
(emphasis supplied) Chou En-lai on the 30th expressed
support for "the people of Kashmir in their struggle for
the right to national self-determination." Chou in ef-
fect had declared the struggle for Kashmir a "national"
liberation war--a reflection of Mao's apparent view that
the Kashmiris should have developed a prrtracted guerrilla
insurrection against the Indians.
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or.A..i.m.12,
Although the Chinese agreed to supply Ayub with
large amounts of military aid, including aircraft and
training, following the disastrous developments in Septem-
ber 1965, their suspicions increased. Ayub's statements
to editors at his home on 27 October 1965 again confirmed
to the Chinese (if his participation in the Tashkent dis-
cussions had not already confirmed to them) that he was
not entirely in Peking's camp.
I want you to remember that while we have
good neighborly relations with China, the
U.S. has been our friend and I intend that
she remain so. Only the U.S. can help Pak-
istan, pressure India, and lead the UN to
tackle Kashmir.
/Ayub's partial
disillusionment with the U.S. and opposition to New Delhi
continued to be the major Chinese consideration, and on
2 December Chen Yi was permitted to pledge support for
Pakistan against India. Chen's statement did not imply
direct PLA involvement and he was careful to make a dis-
tinction between what would "inevitably" be the result
of an attack on Pakistan--a vague formulation?and Chinese
"support."* This was a retreat from the positions Peking
had adopted in September 1965 and suggests that Mao prob-
ably will iht repeat his rash act of committing the PLA
to help the Pakistanis in a new crisis. Ayub's discussion
*Chen said: "Should the Indian reactionaries, with
the support of U.S. imperialism and modern revisionism,
launch another armed aggression against Pakistan, they
will inevitably meet with a still greater defeat. As
in the past, the Chinese government and people will
resolutely support Pakistan in her struggle against In-
dian aggression." (Interview with Dawn correspondent
of 2 December 1965)
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with major enemies of Peking--for example, in Washington
in December 1965 and in Tashkent in January 1966--impelled
the Chinese to try to limit the extent of U.S. and Soviet
influence on him. Liu Shao-chi and Chen Yi, in addition
to trying to demonstrate that Peking still had a few
important friends in the world, used their trip to east
and west Pakistan to reaffirm Peking's desire to support
him against New Delhi. Liu stressed Peking's military aid
in tine of need and referred to a continuing policy "to
stand on the side of" Pakistan to repel aggression and
to "firmly support" Rawalpindi on the Kashmir issue. (Liu
speech of 26 March 1966) Chinese Communist arms were
paraded during the Liu-Chen visit; this indicated that
some Pakistani leaders, including pro-Peking Bhutto, wanted
to convince the populace that Peking, not Washington,
was indeed Pakistan's true friend. Chen Yi on 29 March
again declared "firm support" against any Indian aggres-
sion as the Chinese leaders tried to demonstrate the import-
ance of their assistance. Nevertheless, Ayub refused to
comply with the apparent suggestions of Liu and Cheu to
include attacks on the U.S. and to refer to Vietnam in the
communique issued at the end of the visit. Chou's turn
came on 29 June 1966, when he may have tried to convince
Ayub that Peking's good will 25X1
would continue and would include large-scale military aid,
MIG-19s, and tanks.
The Pakistanis have been accorded special treat-
ment and have been exempted from the gaucherie resulting
from Mao's "cultural revolution." In mid-August 1966,
Chen Yi was permitted to placate the Pakistani ambassa-
dor about Red Guard abominations and the closing of the
mosques tn Peking, and Mao probably tried to reassure
Ayub of his personal favor for continuing a warm rela-
tionship by meeting with Foreign Minister Pirzada in late
October 1966. In late March 1967, Chen Yi had to assure
the Pakistanis that the purge had not changed Peking's
overall foreign policy, but what he really meant was
that it had not changed Peking's policy toward Karachi.
Signs of deference to Ayub's diplomats included the use
by the Chinese of the Pakistani commercial counsellor
Malik in late July 1967 to tell David Oancia, the Canadian
correspondent, that the Foreign Ministry warning to him
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?,..).1%.1-!, J.
about his "behavior" was not really severe and that the
Chinese could have beaten him more soundly. (Oancia and
two other correspondents had only been punched, kicked,
and beaten rith belt buckles by Red Guards.) In late
September 1967 the Chinese diplomatic mission leaving
Tunisia turned over Peking's interests there to the Pak-
istani embassy.
The Chinese leaders continued to assure the Pak-
istanis of military aid and special deference in order
to encourage them against the Indians. For example, a
Pakistani official stated in Karachi in late April 1967
that "recently" the Chinese had offered "safe" Chinese
bases as staging areas if bases in West Pakistan were
to be knocked out by an Indian armed forces attack. Al-
though the Chinese probably provided the Pakistanis with
some kind of assurance that Chinese bases could be used
for some kind of sanctuary, it is unlikely that, in the
event of a disaster as conjectured, they would permit the
Pakistanis to fly operational missions from mainland bases.
Their effort was primarily intended to deter the Pakistani
leaders from moving back into a closer relationship with
the U.S. and from consulting the Soviets (if only to argue
with them about Moscow's support for New Delhi). Their
concern was to prevent a cooling off of relations, despite
Sino-Pakistani frictions. In late May 1967, during the
visit of PaListan's Foreign Affairs Secretary and Defense
Minister, they declared that although the U.S. "and its
followers" had tried to make Pakistan jettison its inde-
pendent foreign policy and join "imperialism, revisionism,
and reaction..." against Peking, the Pakistanis "had re-
sisted this pressure." (Yeh Chien-ying speech of 26 May
1967) They insisted that the Sino-Pakistani relation-
ship "is sincere and can weather tests; no force whatso-
ever can disrupt it." (Yeh Chien-ying speech of 29 May
1967)1
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?
Ayub was aware
of Moscow's unwillingness to drop its support of New
Delhi--an unwillingness which he unfavorably contrasted,
no doubt, with Peking's willingness to continue to be
Pakistan's political champion. The Chinese leaders ap-
parently will continue to accept an opportunistic Ayub
--they refer to his "independent foreign policy" as being
constantly under "pressure" from the U.S. and Soviet
Union--and they will continue to support him so long as
he remains an enemy of India.
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??bri. IC II I
III. Non-Communist Enemies
A. A New Enemy: India
India had been a major friend, and after the estab-
lishment of diplomatic relations on 1 April 1950, Chou
was given considerable leeway to try to keep it that way.
He argued in the mid-1950s that two different roads to
power--a euphemistic way of concealing the differences
between the attainment of independence oy democratic men
and the seizure of power by Communist totalitarians--could
not prevent sustained good relations.* He also insisted
that these relations were blessed with a personal man-to-
man friendship.** India's transformation in 1959 from a
major friend to a major enemy was a development which Mao
and Chou apparently accepted with considerable reluctance.
Even after Sino-Indian recriminations had been exchanged
following the Tibet revolt in March 1959, Peking professed
*"The paths and methods through which China and India
achieved their national independence were not entirely
the same. The Chinese revolution was accomplished under
the leadership of the CCP through long armed struggle.
India took a different path. Some people attempt to use
this dissimilarity to prove that friendship between China
and India is devoid of a basis or that it will not last.
But such an argument is untenable...." (Chou's speech to
the Indian parliament of 29 November 1955)
**"We, Prime Minister Nehru and I, have known each other
for more than two years. We are old friends and there-
fore can talk on any questions." (Chou's statement at the
New Delhi news conference on 1 December 1956) Chou had
worked so well along this line that Nehru later found it
difficult to accept him as an enemy--as hardboiled and
not amenable to personal appeals or gentlemanly reason.
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to see that Nehru still "in general advocates Sino-Indian
friendship." (People's Daily, article of 5 May 1959) The
Foreign Policy Review document published in January 1961
laid it down that:
During the first half of 1960, we pursued
an all-out counterattack against the anti-
Chinese struggle in India. In the inter-
national context, however, our struggle
against India should be subordinate to
the struggle against imperialism. Our
struggle against India should not go be-
yond this limit.
This document's instruction to Chinese diplomats to view
each national situation in the context of Peking's entire
world strategy against the U.S. was attributed to Mao.*
The document also attributed to Mao recognition of the
importance of diplomatic flexibility.** Applied to India,
these exhortations to be cautious meant that despite the
need for recriminations ("struggle"), diplomatic relations
must not be severed ("unity"):
Our policy is: 'do not start it,' stick to
the struggle,' leave some leeway,' insist
on unity,' and 'oppose a split.' With India
and other nationalist countries, we have had
both struggle and unity. For instance, India
started an anti-Chinese movement and this we
opposed with determination. Then, after our
opposition, the Premier went to New Delhi
[in April 1960] to negotiate with Nehru.
The two chiefs of state [sic] met. At the
border, a clash was avoided. The relations
between the two countries again temporarily
*"Chairman Mao instructed us in the importance of taking
cognizance of the whole...to be able to maneuver the parts."
**"In 1960, Chairman Mao again instructed us repeatedly
that in our struggles, some leeway must be provided."
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'IPA It II. I
calmed down. The struggle against India
shows how we applied our principles and
used the tactic of flexibility.
For the year 1961, the document stated that "We will strive
to have better relations with India and influence India
into assuming a passive position on the border problem.
This is important." Mao's dialectical policy of "strug-
gle and unity" toward India was cited in November 1960
for indoctrination of border troops in the Tibet Military
Region Command Headquarters, the main thrust of the policy
being depicted as necessary even with "two-faced national
states" because "to make a friend is to lose an enemy,
and this is true in the international struggle."
Because of India's importance, Chou in April 1960
had been permitted to try to bring Nehru to negotiate
the border dispute. Nehru found it domestically embar-
rassing to agree to negotiate, and as the Indians moved
toward a policy of occupying positions near and even be-
hind Chinese positions (after the Chinese themselves in
the western sector had moved into Indian territory earlier),
the Sino-Indian border dispute escalated into a major clash.
Shortly after their first punitive attack on Indian posi-
tions in October 1962, the Chinese published another ap-
preciation of Nehru, formalizing Mao's appraisal of htm
as a man who has "put himself in the position of a lackey
of the imperialists." (People's Daily article of 27
October 1962) Although the real appraisal of the Chinese
leaders apparently was that negotiations would continue
to be rejected by New Delhi and that the border dispute
would continue to be a basic source of tension, they pro-
fessed a willingness to reach an agreement. Their pro-
fessions were intended to make the Indian leaders appear
to be the real recalcitrants. Chen Yi told a group of
Japanese reporters that the border dispute is a "contra-
diction between China and a friendly neighboring country,
and a peaceful settlement can be brought to this contra-
diction. We expect India's reconsideration." (Interview
of 9 November 1962) At a later time, Mao himself in the
fall of 1964 still professed a desire to settle the bor-
der dispute by negotiations "on the basis of" the December
1962 Colombo proposals (rather than on acceptance of these
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CPrT2 Frr
proposals as "preconditions"), "to wait more" for Indian
concurrence with the idea of talks, and to keep the quar-
rel in secret channels--"In one of our notes, we told
India that we were not ready to make our notes public."
(Mao's interview with French delegation and Ambassador
Paye on 11 September 1964) Despite Mao's effort to ap-
pear reasonable and, incidentally, to shift the entire
blame for intransigence to the Indians, his policy to-
ward New Delhi was to discard more and more openly any
desire to settle the border dispute by negotiations.
Small-scale patrol clashes and an interminable ex-
change of insults in government notes have marked Mao's
post 1964 policy, which completely discarded the "unity"
half of his former strategy and became a plan to wage
all-out open political warfare against the Indian leaders.
This included active border patrolling and occasional
probes onto Indian-claimed territory. Particularly in
Sikkim (but not exclusively there.), the Chinese have tried
to test Indian reactions to their claims. On 29 November
1965, Ambassador Bowles was handed an aide-memoire by the
Foreign Secretary which accused the Chinese of incursions
across the border "since the middle of September" in the
Sikkim area and in the western sector, where the PLA has
"practically remilitarized the 20-kilometer demilitarized
zone, thereby v:olating the provisions of the Colombo
Proposals as well as China's own unilateral declaration."
/ Mao's purge on the mainland ap-
parently was an additional reason for sustaining the poli-
tical warfare and occasional patrol probes on the border.*
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ers was changed to reflect "revolutionary" contempt.r
(footnote continued on page 126)
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New Delhi's complaint concerning creeping aggression on
the border had stated that this process had started in
mid-September 1965--that is, prior to Mao's purge--and
that this process in effect indicated that Peking had "dis-
honored" its three commitments (1) not to cross the "line
of actual control," (2) to maintain a 20-kilometer de-
militarized zone in the western sector, and (3) not to
send troops to the "disputed' areas in the eastern sector.*
Following a significant intensifiecation of politi-
cal tensions between Peking and New Delhi in the summer
of 1967 in the wake of Chinese support for Indian Commun-
ist insurrectionists and Red Guard beatings of Indian dip-
lomats, the practice of making shallow incursions was
resumed in August
(footnote continued from page 125)
\ A Ministry of External Affairs
official in New Delhi told a U.S. official there in Febru-
ary 1967 that the Chinese had abandoned these courtsey
phrases in their notes since December 1966 and that, when
they were asked about it, Chinese officials had replied
that Peking had the "sovereign right" to choose modes of
addressing notes and that it had done so in keeping with
the "cultural revolution."
*Increased PLA patrol activity in the fall of 1965
was directly a consequence of Mao's policy to support
Ayub during the Pakistani-Indian wax in September 1965.
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the Chief of Staff of the Eastern Com-
mand, Major General N.S. Nair, told American officials in
Calcutta on the 12th that he seriously doubted Chinese
troops would have taken such quick recourse to widespread
and provocative firing, including artillery, without
specificrapproval of higher authority, presumably from
Peking.
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I By mid-October 1967, both the Chinese and
Indians entered a new period of restraint, the former be-
cause Chou apparently informed Mao of the new charges
of Chinese aggression being discussed throughout the world
and the latter because of genuine concern over the pros-
pect of having to fight a new border war with the PLA which
had whipped Indian troops decisively in 1962.
Beyond the border skirmishes, Sino-Indian relations
became intensely antagonistic on the matter of Chinese in-
terference in Indian domestic affairs (i.e., open support
for Indian Communists against New Delhi) and on the matter
of beating Indian diplomats in Peking. Both sides were
to stop short of a complete break in diplomatic relations,
but the idea of peaceful coexistence between them was dis-
carded as an anachronism.
Regarding more and more open support for opponents
of the government, the Chinese leaders' response to mass
arrests of Indian Communists (started on 30 December 1964)
was to encourage pro-Peking Communists to struggle for
political supremacy, along a long road, without specifying
tactics to be used. "History will prove that the genuine
representatives of the interests of the Indian people and
nation are those Indian Communists who uphold truth and
justice and adhere to Marxism-Leninism and proletarian
internationalism. The future of India certainly belongs
to them, to the people of India." (People's Daily article
of 17 January 1965) They had not at that time (1965) in-
dicated which group of Indian Commurists they would sup-
port, and as late as 24 March 1967, People's Daily was
vague in suggesting that "revolutioe-iii-iEe only road
for India. However, when Mao's purge began to influence
the relatively rational and moderate aspects of Peking's
foreign policy (spring and summer of 1967), the Chinese
began gradually to make clear that they would reject even
former pro-Peking Communists and would support only those
Indian Communists who agreed totally, rather than parti-
ally, with Mao's road of armed struggle. Peking's line
moved from indirect criticism to an open attack on Com-
munists taking the "parliamentary road" in the state
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governments of Kerala and West Bengal; at the same time,
Peking encouraged only the extremist elements of the CPI/L
because they were adhering to Mao's theories of armed
struggle, establishing a rural base area in the Darjeeling
district of West Bengal.
The Chinese leaders, at first, became less reticent
about openly discussing the competing factions in the In-
dian Communist movement and then moved on to target indi-
viduals whom they would not support (because they would
not accept the armed-struggle aspect of the Chinese revo-
lutionary model). Following an attack on Dange's speech
of 24 April 1967, an NCNA report on 7 May 1967 went on to
criticize a former pro-Peking group--"another small hand-
ful of revisionists" who agreed with Dange--for trying
to use the February 1967 voting results, which put Com-
munists into the Kerala and West Bengal state governments,
to sabotage the revolution in India, They were depicted
as being like-minded revisionists for accepting Dange's
appeal for viewing united front governments throughout
India as the way (on the Kerala model) to oust the ruling
Congress party. The report depicted the two state govern-
ments as still being "component parts" of India's big
bourgeoisie, and it insisted that the entire old state
apparatus must be smashed by violent means, The new line
attacking Communists in the two state governments was
sustained in subsequent articles, and tactics were more
openly recommended. On 19 May, a People's Daily Commenta-
tor article declared "rebellion" by violence to be "the
only way out" for the Indian people and praised the "armed
struggle" of the Nagas and Mizos.* A Red Guard writer
*The Chinese leaders had begun to encourage the Naga
tribes even prior to the publication of the Commentator
article, having insisted that the Nagas must "struggle"
against the "reactionary" Indian government (Peking broad-
cast of 11 April 1967) and having claimed more generally
that "Sparks of revolt are growing in different parts of
India." (NCNA dispatch of 19 April 1967) New Delhi's
claims that the Chinese, since early 1967, have been train-
ing and equipping small groups of Naga guerrillas, have
been confirmed by several reports./
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stated in his article in People's Daily on 2 June 1967
that "the only way" is "rebellion" and "use of the gun
to overthrow the reactionary ruling classes." The "re-
visionists" who had been depicted as being no better
than Dange had not yet been named.
The Chinese leaders significantly increased their
publicity on both the peasant insurgency (which they
praised) and the "non-Congress government" (which they
attacked) in West Bengal on 27 June 1967, shortly after
starting the Sino-Indian dispute over the expulsion of
two Indian diplomats. They moved to make somewhat clearer
the line of demarcation between Indian Communists who
take the "parliamentary road" and those who would take
Mao's road of peasant insurrection. An NCNA report on
27 June 1967, praised the peasant insurgents in the
Darjeeling district of West Bengal centered on Naxalbari
as "the revolutionaries of the Indian Communist Party"
who in 1965 prepared for armed struggle and in March 1967
set up a "red district" there. The NCNA report insisted
that Indians must proceed along "Mao's road" to over-
throw the government. An NCNA report on 29 June complained
that the "reactionary central government of India" was
preparing to crush the revolt. Indian authorities were
aided by this outside encouragement of the rebels to
argue more forcefully for the need to take strong action
against them.* They also protested to the Chinese through
their embassy in New Delhi on 5 July 1967, complaining
that the two NCNA reports of late June, which had been
broadcast by Peking Radio, were aimed at "instigating
armed struggle" and at the "territorial dismemberment of
India."
?
*Early in the morning of 12 July 1967, a strong police
force moved into one of the "strongholds" of the rebels
in the village of Naxalbari, arrested 70 persons, and
seized huge quantities of "bows, arrows, and spears," ac-
cording to a Delhi domestic service broadcast of the 12th.
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At the same time, the Chinese were moving further
to make an open declaration of a policy they had discarded
in 1952, namely, the policy of imposing the Chinese model
"Mao's road"--on other revolutionary movements.
The definitive statement on this policy for Indians was
made in the People's Daily editorial of 5 July 1967:
The Indian revolution must take the road of
relying on the peasants, establishing base
areas in the countryside, persisting in pro-
tracted armed struggle, and using the country-
side to encircle and finally capture the
cities. This is Mao Tse-tung's road, the
road that has led the Chinese revolution to
victory, and the only road to victory for
revolution of all oppressed nations and people.
(emphasis supplied)
Mao has returned to the policy of 1948-1952 when he and
his lieutenants, primarily Liu Shao-chi, touted his in-
surrectionist road to power.* But the current formulation
is more inclusive than the earlier one, inasmuch as it in-
sists that this road applies not only to Asian but to "all"
countries.** He is also insisting that insurrectionists
*Peking adulates peasant uprisings more than any other
kind, primarily because they can be construed as being
roughly similar to Mao's road, as witness the publicity
given to the peasant revolt "from 1946-51" in Telengana,
Andhra State, in the Peking Review article of 11 August 1967.
**The earlier formulation stated that "just as the Chi-
nese people have done, all or at least some of the colonial
people of the East can hold big or small base arc:as and
maintain revolutionary regimes for an extended period,
carry on protracted revolutionary war to encircle the cities
from the countryside, and proceed gradually to take over
the cities and win nationwide victory in their respective
countries." (emphasis supplied; (Footnote in the 1951
version of Mao's essay, Why Can China's Red Political
Power Continue to Exist? of October 1928)
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must use his military strategy or, as the 5 July editorial
puts it for India, "the flexible strategy and tactics of
people's war personally worked out by Chairman Mao."
Peking's support apparently had encouraged the
Naxalbari rebels to reject CPI/L discipline and to create
problems for pro-Chinese leaders in the militant part of
the Indian Communist party.
/ By 3
August, a People's Daily article discussed the CPI left
and right groups in historical perspective, attacking both
Namboodiripad and Dange by name, and on 10 August, an arti-
cle in the party newspaper again denounced both men for
taking the "parliamentary road," i.e., for taking posts
in the state government. (Namboodiripad, as chief minister
in the Kerala united front government was, in Mao's ap-
parent view, no better than Dange because he was acting
within a "bourgeois democratic government" rather than
fighting openly against it along "Mao's road" of armed
struggle.)* To sum up, spurred on by the intensified Sino-
*The Chinese leaders had had an additional reason for
attacking him: in September 1965, Namboodiripad tempor-
arily had adopted an anti-Peking position regarding the
India-Pakistan war.
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?
Indian diplomat dispute in late June 1967, Mao and his
aides decided to go beyond attacks on the CPI/R and Dange
(for several years dismissed by Peking as an unregenerate
"revisionist") to open criticism and dissection of members
of the CPI/L, coming to rest finally on extremist elements
of the CPI/L because they advocate "seizure of power by
armed struggle" and are "taking the road of the Chinese
people." (NCNA report of 2 August 1967) The Chinese
leaders seemed thereafter to be edging toward approval
of the formation of a distinctly Maoist, third Indian Com-
munist Party, using those men who had been expelled from
the CPI/L and who, in mid-November 1967, reportedly de-
cided to form a new party to attain "a people's democratic
revolution through building militant rural bases and ex-
tending them to encircle the cities" (Bombay PIT broad-
cast of 17 November 1967)* In the course of expressing
malicious satisfaction over the fall of the West Bengal
united front government, a People's Daily Observer article
of 5 December 1967 stated that the extremists have found
the correct road, which requires a "political party of
the proletariat" to lead the peasant insurrection.
Regarding the details of the Sino-lndian diplomatic
dispute, it developed in mid-1967 at a time when Mao was
permitting (if not encouraging) fanatics in the Foreign
Ministry to defy the established international practice
of diplomatic immunity. When, following warnings to foreign
diplomats in Peking in late May 1967 against reading and
taking notes from wall newspapers or from buying Red Guard
newspapers, the second secretary of the Indian embassy
(who had continued this practice) was seized by Red Guards
(on 4 June), the stage was set to make the Indian offi-
cial a "negative example." He was released after the film
*Peking, in quoting Indian journals which attacked Indian
"revisionists." included the statement that the revision-
ist leadership should either be jettisoned or the extrem-
istr should "leave the fold of these neo-revisionists and
come together into a really revolutionary party." (NCNA
report of 16 November 1967)
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he took indicated that he had only photographed a temple
and not a nearby military barracks. On the following
day (5 June), his summons to the Foreign Ministry was
cancelled without explanation.1
The rational half of this plan was to warn foreign-
ers, including diplomats, against reporting on develop-
ments related to Mao's purge. The irrational half was to
demonstrate a new, "revolutionary" style in handling diplo-
mats of enemy countries. The second secretary did not
appear at his mass trial on 13 June, but he was found
"guilty' of various charges and marked for deportation
without diplomatic immunity. He and his colleague were
beaten for 50 minutes by Red Guards at the Peking airport
on 14 June, and they were later exposed to the poles,
fists, and belt-buckles of other Red Guards at each stop
en route from Peking to Hong Kong, the last stop, Canton,
having been the most damaging to their persons. Report-
ing on the irrational half of the plan, the second secre-
tary described these beatings as "cruel and sadistic"
(interview of 19 June 1967),* but it is likely that Mao
was kept informed of the beatings and appraised them as
very good.
The Indian retaliatory attack on the Chinese embassy
in New Delhi on 16 June and the Chinese reply to that in
*The Indian second secretary reported that the "escorts
provided by the authorities" acted on apparent orders to
prevent him from being seriously injured while approving
a variety of less disastrous assaults on him, such as being
clawed in Peking, hit in the stomach in Shanghai, forced
to bow-the-head in Hangchow, and hit with "stones, spit,
and fists" in Canton. (Interview of 19 June 1967) That
is, he came through bruised but intact. The Chinese lead-
ers avoided a diplomatic break by making sure that he was
not killed or dismembered.
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I
curv pm
the seige of the Indian embassy in Peking on the 17th
further strained relations. Sporadic demonstrations
against the Indian embassy occurred, but by 1 October
following the border clash, they were limited in scope.
The prospect seems to be for sporadic small-scale
patrol clashes at various points on the border, for govern-
ment-to-government political abuse, and for sustained
Chinese support for Naga guerrillas and the new extremists
of the Indian Communist movement. They will insist on
complete support from any Indian Communist who is willing
to be pro-Peking. By their action in firefights during
September 1967 on the Sikkim-Tibet border, the Chinese
have discarded the earlier policy contained in the pledge
they had made to "first of all inform all the Colombo
conference countries" before taking military action
against Indian forces. (People's Daily article of 13
October 1963)
B. Old Enemies
1. Thailand
Chou En-lai had invited Thailand's representatives
at the Bandung conference in April 1955 to visit Peking,
and in this way he initiated the effort to move Bangkok
to loosen its ties with SEATO and Washington. (Chou's
invitation is referred to in his foreign policy report
of 30 July 1955) At the same conference, Chen Yi worked
with him and tried to mollify Foreign Minister Prince
Wan (Chen interview of 28 July 1958) As a result, some
Thais visited Peking and some trade developed, until
itwas restricted by Thai-imposed import controls in
early 1959. Chou and Chen attained very little in all
their efforts, the main difficulty for them having been
the fact that Bangkok, with no experience of Western
colonial domination to make its leaders anti-Western in
attitude, preferred a strong assertive alignment with the
U.S. and an assertive opposition to Communism in South-
east Asia. They openly rejected a policy of accommoda-
tion with Peking and Hanoi.
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Failure to move the Thais away from their close
relationship with the U.S. and toward a neutral foreign
policy position and the increased presence of the U.S.
in Thailand impelled the Chinese leaders to drop their
restraint and to begin to denounce Bangkok for its atti-
tude of supporting anti-Communist efforts in the area.
In mid-1962, Chen Yi referred to the authorities in Bang-
kok as "reactionary," and stated that the country was a
"bridgehead for invading Laos" (speech of 12 July 1962).
Regarding the war in Vietnam, they viewed Thai support
of the South Vietnamese and American effort as sufficiently
important to require warnings to Bangkok to cease this
support or accept the consequences, namely, a subversive
movement of insurgents in the Thai countryside. At some
time between the central committee work conference of
June 1964 and the U.S. airstrikes against North Vietnam
in August 1964, the Chinese leaders apparently decided tt.
create trouble for Bangkok by organizing all anti-govern-
ment Thais, including prominent non-Communists, into a
united front of political and military opponents. This
action probably reflected a decision to discard the 1954-
1964 policy of non-support, or low-key support, for Bang-
kok's internal enemies.
Nevertheless, the Chinese continued on their course;
on 13 December 1984, NCNA rebroadcast a manifesto issued
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by the Independence Movement of Thailand (said to have
been founded on 1 November and originally reported in the
clandestine radio broadcast of the Voice of the People
of Thailand on 8 December), declaring as policy the ex-
pulsion of U.S. personnel from Thailand and the "over-
throw" of the Thanom government. The manifesto stated
that the Independence group was willing "to cooperate"
with "any" individuals or organization who were "patriotic"
--i.e., anti-government--and in this usage it was similar
to the greetings sent to the PRC on 1 October by the Com-
munist Party of Thailand (CPT). U.S. officials in Hong
Kong noted this similarity and also commented that Thai
was among the first three foreign languages to be studied
in Peking's new (established on 5 September 1964) Foreign
Language Institute. By January 1965, the Thai Patriotic
Front was launched as the second anti-government organi-
zation which was "willing to cooperate with all compatriots.
who love peace and democracy." (Voice of the People of
Thailand broadcast of 23 January 1965 reporting the forma-
tion of the Front on 1 January) Both organizations were
given wide and unprecedented coverage by Peking and Hanoi
media, suggesting the primary role of these Communist
capitols in organizing and supporting the subversives.
Activation of the Thai insurgent and subversive
movement was one of the ways the Chinese had decided to
react to increased U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Chen Yi
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guerrilla warfare might "spread" to Thailand in 1965, and
Chen apparently was making a statement of intent. Prime
Minister Thanom declared on 19 January that the Chinese
had already sent agents into Thailand and were financing
them partly through funds made available in Thai currency
in Hong Kong banks. By March 1965, Communist insurgent
activity in northeastern Thailand was reported to be well
organized and in the same month, Communist-led Independent
Movement personnel were circulatin ro a anda tracts in
Ban kok.
Peking broadcasts the Thai
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language intensified by May 1965 and the People's Daily
on 30 July 1965 attacked Bangkok authorities for "playing
the role of an accomplice of the U.S."
Direct Chinese participation has centered on train-
ing of Thai cadres and financing political and military
operations.[
By mid-
1965, Communist-led insurgents and "patriotic" figures
in Thailand were working actively along the lines of Mao's
prescription for a revolutionary seizure of power, namely
the building of an army in isolated territorial base
areas and the organization of Communists and non-Commun-
ists in a broad uni.ted front in order to wage a protracted
military and political war against the central government.*
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By the fall of 1965, the Chinese leaders were acti-
vely engaged in reviving the armed struggle policy which
Mao had permitted Chou En-lai to discard.**/
/In any case, Mao's
personal intervention in early October 1965 seems to have
resulted in a considerable step up in Peking's public
**The CPT's Second Congress in 1952 is said by the Chi-
nese to have proclaimed armed struggle as "the only path"
for seizing power in Thailand. However, by late 1951,
Mao was under pressure from Stalin's aides to drop the
concept of his road as the model for Asian Communist revo-
lutionaries, and he complied, moving toward a more diplo-
matic policy centered on improving Peking's international
image.
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warnings to Thailand that closer Thai-U.S. military coopera-
tion would lead to an intensification of the "patriotic
struggle" in Thailand. (people's Daily article of 7 October
1965 published one day after Mao met with Pridi)
Liao Cheng-chih, who appeared with Mao during the
Pridi interview, continued to shepherd Thai front lead-
ers in Peking, meeting with them on 1 November 1965 on the
first anniversary of the founding of the Independence Move-
ment and probably implementing a new policy of higher level
Chinese leaders to make the fronts a more compact fight-
ing unit by uniting them.* On 1 November 1965, the In-
dependence Movement announced that it had joined the
United Patriotic Front. The first Communist insurgent
attack against a government installation, indicating a
switch to more aggressive tactics, was conducted by a
12-man raiding group on 21 December 1965. Liao tied
the subversive Thai political effort (he remained silent
on insurgent activities) to peace "in Indochina" and the
world and appealed for "bigger contributions" from various
political groups "in 1966." (Liao speech of 2 January
1966) However, a People's Daily article of 28 January
1966 did refer to the insurgents: the Thais have taken
up arms and are determined to overthrow "the reactionary
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rule of the traitorous lhanom Kittikachorn government by
means of people's war." This article also was unprece-
dented in official platy and government publications be-
cause it had dropped the equivocal euphemism, "Thai
authorities," and had disparaged the Thanom government
specifically and in highly derogatory terms. Peking in-
creased its public support. On 24 March 1966, Peking
Radio rebroaaiT-a Voice of the People of Thailand
report that the Thailand Patriotic Youth Organization
was established on 15 February 1966; on 13 April, Liao
referred publicly to the Thai "people's war" and the
readiness of the Chinese people to help "at any moment;"
and on 27 April, a People's Daily article praised the
battles fought by "the patriBTTE?people's armed forces
of Thailand."*
The Chinese leaders were careful to indicate that
increased Thai involvement in the Vietnam war would be
handled by others, by a riposte to be delivered by Thai
insurgents Inc-1-W the Vietnamese Communists and the Pathet
Lao. For example, following the 6 January 1967 announce-
ment in Bangkok that 100 Thai troops would be sent to
Vietnam, Peking (following Hanoi by an interval of five
days) warned that "the peoples of Vietnam and other Indo-
chinese states will certainly deal you resolute counter-
blows and the Thai people, too, will certainly rebel against
you extensively and in enhanced unity." (PRC Foreign Min-
istry statement of 19 January 1967) Peking's reaction
to the announcement that B-52s would use Thai bases was
attacked in a "Brief Commentary" in People's Daily on
25 March 1967 which warned that this action "WIT?inevit-
ably add fuel to the flames of the armed struggle of the
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4
Thai people." The Chinese leaders' reluctance to commit
the PLA to any action, while hinting that the North Viet-
namese and the Pathet Lao might retaliate, was a reflec-
tion of caution and a source of embarrassment. But in
subsequent comment, they still avoided saying what Peking
would do in response to the enlargement of U.S. military
bases in Thailand, committing the Vietnamese to "hit still
harder." (People's Daily editorial of 2 April 1967)
The prospect appears to be for greater Chinese en-
couragement of the Thai insurgents and Thai front groups.
This almost certainly will include military training and
covert financing.
2. Malaysia
Malay's leaders in the 1950s had refused to reco-
gnize Peking while Communist insurgent activity continued
in the countryside. Prime Minister Rahman had stated this
position on 23 August 1957, eight days prior to Malayan
independence, and this was repeated by his successor on
11 May 1959. Before they had granted the Malayans in-
dependence, the British refused to accept any Peking re-
presentatives in the country, as the CCP's guidance of
the Communist Party of Malaya made Chinese Communist of-
ficials a direct security threat. However, the Malayans
viewed the early establishment of trade relations as a
secure form of contact with Peking, and by 1964, the Chi-
nese had exported $95 million to Malaya and had imported
$210,000 in commodities. As noted earlier in the section
of this paper discussing Indonesia, the Chinese Communist
leaders were cautious after the establishment of Malaysia
as an extended country on 16 September 1963, at first
avoiding any direct commitment to support Sukarno's "con-
frontation" policy in the hope that a relatively non-
antagonistic attitude would sustain their trade relations
with Kuala Lumpur and Malaysia's friends, the British.
However, the Chinese leaders significantly increased
their support of Sukarno in the fall of 1964 when the In-
donesian leader became more assertively anti-U, S. and after
the U.S. airstrikes of August 1964 on North Vietnam. On
15 April 1965, the CCP sent a message greeting the Commun-
ist Party of Malaya (CPM) on its 35th anniversary (released
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by NCNA on 30 April 1965). The message made it clear that
the Chinese leaders were intensifying their support of
the small insurgent group operating from almost inacces-
sible bases in southern Thailand against Malaysian author-
ities.* Following the arrest of some leaders of the CPM
front organization--the Malayan National Liberation League
(MNLL)--in Indonesia after the unsuccessful coup of 1
October 1965, the Chinese dusted off one of their own
Malayan puppets in Peking and on 12 January 1966, pub-
licized the establishment of a mission "in China" of the
MNLL with P. V. Sarma as its chief. Sarma joined other
puppets (i.e., the Thai front leaders and the Palestine
Liberation Organization mission members as well as secre-
taries of the formerly Djakarta-based Afro-Asian Journal-
ists Association and the Indonesian AAPSO group), and on
12 January, he declared, in the presence of Liao Cheng-
chih, that his organization was the united front group
of the Malayan people's movement fighting to u;'ush Malaysia
and that they recognized that "people's revolvtionary
war is the only answer to counter-revolutionary war."
A Chinese Communist spokesman pledged Peking's "all-out
support" for the Malayans fighting against the government
authorities and stated that the "National Liberation Army
of Malaya" was making progress against the "British colon-
ialists and their running dogs."
The Chinese leaders were declaring in effect that
their response to increased U.S. and Thai involvement in
the Vietnam war would be reactivation of Communist insurgent
movements in anti-Communist countries in Southeast Asia.
They tied the small Malayan insurgency to Vietnam, using
their Malayan puppet to warn that "the Malayan people would
intensify their anti-Malaysia campaign to coalesce with
the anti-imperialist struggle in Vietnam and Southeast
*The message recounted the two "armed struggles" led
by the CPM, first against the Japanese and second against
"British imperialism and its running dog, the Rahman clique,"
and indicated that the second struggle was continuing.
It concluded with a pledge of support and a declaration
that both parties would "fight shoulder to shoulder."
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Asia." (PV. Sarma speech in Peking on 1 February 1966)
(emphasis supplied)
Study of Mao's doctrines almost certainly increased
as Mao's purge expanded on the mainland, and by 1 February
1967 Sarma was impelled to praise the Red Guards and to
insist that the "Malayan people...were adhering to Chair-
man Mao's teaching by relying on armed struggle." (In
response, a "representative of the revolutionary rebels"
in Peking expressed the support of mainland Chinese for
Malayans who are "completely sweeping away all the freaks
and monsters who are lording it over the people of Malaysia."
Liao Cheng-chih declared that the people of China and
Malaya would always "fight together.") Sarma claimed
that in the year 1966
the Malayan National Liberation Army and
people, led by the Communist Party, were in-
creasingly active in central and northern
Malaya, and especially in the latter region
bordering Thailand.
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3. Singapore
Singapore's secession from Malaysia on 9 August
1965 provided the Chinese leaders with (1) an opponent
of Rahman'- whose anti-Malayan position could be used
to disparage Kuala Lumpur and (2) a poss'ble friend who
would at least agree to trade with Peking. They report-
ed favorably on Lee Kuan Yew's press conferences of 9 and
10 August 1965 and quote* him as saying that "we want to
trade with the world, including the PRC." (NCNA dispatch
of 10 August 1965) However, the desire of the Chinese
leaders to recognize Singapore and establish their influ-
ence there, using assets among Singapore Chinese, was sub-
ordinated to the more important consideration of comply-
ing with Indonesian demands that they avoid taking such
an anti-Djakarta action./
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The prosnect seems to be for stepped up efforts
to penetrate various political parties* by pro-Peking
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Communists in the new stage. Peking has also dropped the
distinct'on between Rahman and Lee, and is using them as
an undifferentiated target. Following the Soviet action
in signing a trade agreement with Kuala Lumpur and agree-
ing to exchange diplomatic missions (announced on 3 April
1967), the Chinese leaders used their Malayan puppets to
attack the joint target.* According to a Chinese offi-
cial's statement in Canton in late May 1967, Peking will
depict the situation as requiring the "liberation" of
Malaysia and Singapore by the CPM.
4. The Philippines
Despite the Philippines' participation in SEATO
and recognition of Taipei, Filipino leaders were encouraged
by Chou En-lai and Chen Yi at the Bandung conference in
April 1955 and thereafter to establish relations with
Peking.** The Chinese leaders hoped to detach the Filipinos
*"All genuine Malayan patriots must therefore step up
their struggle against modern revisionism with the lead-
ing group of the CPSU at its center, at the same time as
stepping up their struggle against U.S.-backed British im-
perialism and the Malayan (Rahman-Lee Kuan Yew) puppets,
in order to crush 'Malaysia' and the new-type colony of
Singapore, and achieve the genuine independence of a uni-
fied Malaya." (Statement of the Central Committee of the
MNLL carried by NCNA on 14 May 1967) (emphasis supplied)
**"At the Bandung conference, we said to Mr. Romulo that
there is no hatred between China and the Philippines, and
that if the Philippines go by the spirit of the Bandung
conference and the five principles of peaceful coexist-
ence, friendly relations of mutual assistance can be es-
tablished." (Chen Vi interview with Manila Vice Mayor
and newsmen on 28 July 1958) "Since the Bandung confer-
ence, we have been constantly thinking about how to pro-
mote and develop relations between our two countries."
(Chou En-lai interview with Filipino newsmen on 27 October
1964)
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from their close alignment with the U.S., calculating that
a gradual process of non-official contacts would erode
Manila's commitment. In a revealing statement on this
matter, M109_0_1964 indicated that the strategy of estab-
lishing contacts gradually was similar to Peking's view
of contacts with Japan:
I ...the Philippines is a member of SEATO.,.
but changes, indeed great changes have taken
' place in the situation and nature of the
aligned countries...The relations between
China and the Philippines can-and-shodld
be improved...
...the Philippines is maintaining diplomatic
relations with the Chiang Kai-shek clique An
Taiwan. But we think that this, too, will
not stand in the way of the establishment
and development of relations between our
two countries. [Japan also maintains rela-
tions with Taipei] but that has not prevented
Japan from establishing and developing gen-
eral contacts with China,, ..friendly contacts
on a popular level are becoming ever more
frequent [although] U.S. troops are still
being stationed in Japan, and a part of
Japanese territory is still being occupied
by the U.S. All this shows that the situa-
tion is complicated, but it does not mean
that nothing can be done about it. Such
being the case with Japan, why should not
the same apply to the Philippines? (Chou
En-lai interview with Filipino newsmen on
27 October 1964) (emphasis supplied)
This expressed Chou's willingness to look for small open-
ings to establish contacts with U.S.-aligned countries
rather than declare the task hopeless and adopt a revolu-
tionary attitude of complete and overt hostility, avoid-
ing all contacts with these countries, The latter attitude
was clearly more revolutionary, but as late as the fall
of 1965, Chou was still advancing a flexible policy, and
probably had Mac's sanction for doing so.
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He apparently also felt that he had Mao's concur-
rence to continue the poliLy of publicly dissociating
Peking from support of Communist insurgents in the islands.
Chou insisted that Peking would not use popular diplomacy
as a means to gain access to Filipino Communists, and he
referred to the "principle" involved:
Revolution cannot be exported. We have con-
sistently persisted in this principle.
Revolution can only be conducted by the
people of the country concerned. (Chou in-
terview with Filipino newsmen on 27 October
1964)
At the time Chou was declaring this as a "principle" rela-
tive to Peking's attitude toward internal developments
in the Filipino insurgent movement, the Chinese leaders
had advanced a considerable distance in discarding it in
Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America and were depict-
ing the CCP as the "leader" of insurgent Communists and
Peking as the "center" of world revolution. Chou's moderate
line with the Filipinos in October 1964 reflected the de-
sire of the Chinese leaders to enlist Manila in their camp
against the Soviets on the issue of Moscow's participation
in the second Bandung conference (Chou referred to the
"very good contact" Chen Yi had had with Romulo at the
preparatory meeting for the conference "not long ago").
It also reflected their decision to try to deter the
Filipino leaders from direct involvement in the Vietnam
war following the U.S. airstrikes against North Vietnam
in August and September 1964.
The Chinese leaders did not abandon their policy
of trying to enlist the support of Filipino political
figures to promote the policy of establishing contacts
with Manila. Chen Yi in mid-March 1966 told visiting
Senator Katigbak that the deplorable presence of U.S.
bases in the Philippines should not prevent friendly re-
lations between their two countries and a Chinese spokes-
man stated (NCNA report of 14 March 1966) that "there
were no difficulties on the Chinese side" to improving
trade relations and people-to-people contacts.1
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Peking began to revolutionize
its policy toward Manila, a key element in the decision
apparently having been the desire to warn government lead-
ers to avoid direct support of the U.S. effort in Vietnam.
In mid-February 1966, Peking Radio's Philippine section
sharply increased its Filipino program broadcasts to the
islands, attacking President Marcos' Vietnam aid bill.
During the mid-March 1966 visit to the mainland of Senator
Katigbak, a Chinese spokesman pledged "support for the
Philippine people in their just struggle against U.S. ef-
forts to induce or force the Philippines to send troops
to South Vietnam." (NCNA report of 14 March 1966)
Propaganda support for the insurgents allegedly
working with the Communist Party of the Philippines (PKP)
seems to have been the Chinese leaders' way of trying to
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create difficulties for Manila at a time when it was in-
creasing its support for Saigon and Washington. By late
1966, Peking began to depict, with considerable exaggera-
tion, the Philippines as an area of increasing "armed
struggles," expanding its list beyond Thaiiand, Indonesia,
Malaysia, Laos, and South Vietnam. In thc spring of 1967,
the Chinese leaders went beyond this to suggest that their
opposition to Manila's policy would take an organizational
form, i.e., support for some guerrilla fighters in the
islands. In early May 1967, two representatives of the
militant front--Movement for the Advancement of National-
ism--were in Peking, apparently consulting on the method
of announcing what was claimed to be the PKP's new action
program. On 21 May, NCNA claimed that the PKP had set
forth its program on 1 May in which the party pledged it-
self to the "development of rural bases and armed strug-
gles," to a "life-and-death struggle" against the U.S.
and its "local reactionary allies"--i.e, the central
government--and to anti-CPSU positions in the Sino-Soviet
dispute. On 29 May, NCNA claimed that the "Philippines
People's Liberation Army" was in existence and tried to
create the impression that it was "led by" the PKP. On
30 May, a People's Daily article stated that this army
had started new battles against the U.S. and "the Philip-
pine reactionaries? and that "the Philippine revolution-
ary people" will win final victory
...after protracted arduous struggles if,
armed with Mao Tse-tung's thought, they
fight a people's war, establish revolu-
tionary base areas, and encircle the
cities from the countryside.
By the end of May 1967, the Chinese leaders had dropped
the line Chou had been expressing in 1964 on non-support
of insurgents in the Philippines, applied Mao's road to
the islands in the most explicit language they had used
since 1952, and in effect declared open support for sub-
versive guerrilla action against Manila by publishing the
"PKI's" 1 May 1967 program. The degree of control which
Pekiag-oriented members of the PKP maintain over the Huks
is unclear. The Huks (i.e., the old name for pro-Commun-
ist insurgents whose activities are focused on central
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Luzon) as a body, or in part, may be resisting the imposi-
tion of any "PKP" controls, as is suggested by the 1 May 1967
PKP program, which hinted that the Communists were trying
to impose control by "reorganizing the party in the en-
tire country" and that the party anticipated disputes be-
tween itself and "any revisionist factlon" still active.
The prospect seems to be for continued overt declara-
tions of support for the insurgents allegedly "led by the
Philippine Communist Party" (Peking Review item of 15
September 1967), but Peking is greatly exaggerating the
size of these small forces, which suffer from lack of
overland contact with the Chinese.
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IV. Imperialist Colonies: Macao and Hong Kong
Although Mao at an earlier time had complained
about foreign control of Macao and Hong Kong, he had been
unwilling to fight to seize the colonies with the PLA or
to begin a political-subversive struggle to impose local
Communist control on their governments.* Practical rea-
sons--namely, the prospect of losing Hong Kong's foreign
earnings (economic) and of losing a major war with the
UK and the U.S. (military)--have deterred him from moving
against the British colony with the PLA, despite his view
of himself as the leader of all world "liberation" strug-
gles.** Regarding Macao, it has not been worth much to
*In the original version of his essay, The Chinese
Revolution and the CCP (December 1939), Mao had complain/A
that: -Tin defeating r: .a in war, the imperailistic
powers had taken away many Chinese dependent states and
a part of her territories. japan took Korea, Taiwan, the
Ryukyu Islands, the Pescadores Islands, and Port Arthur;
England seized Burma, Bhutan, Nepal, and Hong Kong; France
occupied Annam; and even an insignificant country like
Portugal took Macao."
The 1951 version of this essay removed two embarras-
sments: the implication that China had been, and could
again become, an imperialistic country dictating to "de-
pendent states;" the reference to Portugal as an "insigni-
ficant" country able to maintain a colony on the mainland.
However, he retained his complaint about Hong Kong:
"After defeating China in war, they not only occupied many
neighboring countries formerly under her protection, but
seized or 'leased' part of her territories. For instance,
Japan occupied Taiwan and the Penghu Islands and 'leased'
the port of Lushun, Britain seized Hong Kong, and France
'leased' Kwangchowwan."
**Hong Kong has been Peking's largest source of foreign
exchange earnings, which totaled more than $550 million
in 1966.
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Peking economically and, if Mao had decided to use the
PLA to seize it, the colony would have been an insigni-
ficant risk militarily; but a move against Macao alone
would have glaringly revealed Mao's unwillingness to seize
Hong Kong. The preferred course was to avoid extensive
Publicity and to tolerate the status quo in both.
The Chinese leaders were impelled to depict their
acquisecence in this foreign presence on the mainland as
a matter of Peking's tacit approval rather than of any
fear of war or of loss of economic benefits. They portrayed
the Hong Kong and Macao situations as minor matters low
on theiv list of foreign policy problems. However, two
developments moved the colonies higher on the list--viz.,
Khrushchev's public jibes in 1962 and the revolutionary
fanaticism of Mao's purge in 1966-67.
Khrushchev gave the colonies unprecedented inter-
national publicity in his speech of 12 December 1962 to
the Supreme Soviet, and in defending himself against
Peking's charge that he had appeased the U.S. in retreat-
ing during the Cuban missile crisis, he sarcastically
praised the Chinese leaders for appeasing Lisbon and Lon-
don by avoiding "premature" actions for "good reasons."*
Mao and his advisers apparently were uncertain on how to
proceed to answer this jibe and apparently continued to
believe that, if agitation were started, the British would
*Implying that in taking Goa, even New Delhi was more
revolutionary than Peking, Khrushchev sarcastically stated:
"But does anyone accuse China because remnants of colonial-
ism remain untouched on her territory? It would be incor-
rect to prod China into taking actions that she regards
as premature. If the government of the PRC endures Macao
and Hong Kong, then there must obviously be good reasons
for this. Therefore, it would be stupid to heap accusa-
tions on their heads that this supposedly represents con-
cessions to the British and Portuguese colonialists, that
it is an act of appeasement on their part." (Speech of
12 December 1962)
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not hand them a political victory without a prolonged
struggle in Hong Kong and that a victory in Macao alone
would not detract from, and might even underscore, con-
tinuing British control of Hong Kong. They apparently
decided to sustain the policy of avoiding a political
struggle or a military seizure, absorb as well as they
could the derisive implication that Mao--a revolutionary
"liberator"--was deterred by practical reasons from act-
ing like one regarding the colonies, and continue to de-
pict the Portuguese and British presence as a matter of
Peking's benevolent tolerance.
To demonstrate that Hong Kong was continuing in
its colonial status only because Peking preferr not to
change it, the Chinese leaders harassed Hong K. govern-
ment authorities in a low-key and controlled way. In Jan-
uary 1963, they impelled the authorities to postpone a
planned urban renewal project in the Kowloon walled city
(actually located outside of Kowloon).* At the same time,
they annoyed them with complaints about Chinese National-
ist operations in the colony, but publicly justified their
unwillingness to take any forceful action to seize either
*Although the slum clearance plan had been publicized
since March 1961, the Chinese leaders had not protested
until demolition was about to start and, more importantly,
until after Khrushchev's December 1962 taunt. On 17 Janu-
ary 1963, they were impelled to follow up an unpublicized
and informal protest (of 1 January) with a publicized and
formal protest to the Brtiish charge in Peking, reacting
partly to the jibe appearing in the CPUSA organ Daily
Worker on 13 January regarding their timidity in endur-
ing the colonial presence. [
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of the colonies.* The January 1963 protest was carefully
handled by the Chinese leaders; it was not made a major
issue and it was not extensively publicized. More import-
antly, they had chosen an area in the colony?the Kowloon
walled city--where there was the appearance (but only the
appearance) of a legally valid claim and where they would
not have to confront the British with an issue regarding
thek.. jurisdiction over the entire colony.** In this way
they maintained the policy of avoiding a direct confronta-
tion over British control.
This policy seems to have been sanctioned by Mao
himself. On 11 September 1964, Mao told Ambassador Paye
and a French delegation that he had, at an earlier time,
discussed the colonies with Khrushchev and that Khrushchev
had asked him a question.
Why, he said, does China not want to get
back Hong Kong and Macao? I answered: We
have more important problems than Hong Kong
and Macao.
This exchange, as reported by Mao, was put in the context
of a discussion which took place before Chou's trip to
*The justification appeared in a published response
to the American Communists and it contained a reference
to Kowloon (where Peking had gained a minor victory):
"With regard to the outstanding issues, which are a legacy
from the past, we have always held that, when conditions
are ripe, they should be settled peacefully through nego-
tiations and that, pending a settlement, the status quo
should be maintained. Within this category are the ques-
tions of Hong Kong, Kowloon, and Macao and the question
of all those boundaries which have not been formally de-
limited in each case by the parties concerned." (People's
Daily editorial of 8 March 1963) (emphasis supplied)
This editorial raised the issue of disputed Sino-Soviet
territorial claims as a further political counter to
CPSU and C 'USA jibes.
**Actually, the Chinese leaders did not have a good
case for claiming "sovereignty" over the walled city because
(continued on page 158)
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Moscow in January 1957, and presumably when Khrushchev
was in Peking in September 1954. Mao did not indicate
to Paye whether he had changed his position, but he im-
plied that he had not and that he would not be provoked
by Soviet taunts into launching a political struggle to
W 9tJ urisdiction of the colonies from Lisbon and London.
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Chou, in a speech in Canton on 17 July 1965,
told a group of Hong Kong
Ilim and press circles representatives that the people
in Hong Kong were living in difficult circumstances in
being "forced to live and abide by the laws of the colony."
He went on to say that Hong Kong was an integral part of
China and would sooner or later be returned to it, but it
would not be in China's interest if Hong Kong were taken
back "now." That would be "the responsibility of the
younger generation," and he personally would not see it
happen?implying that he was too old to see it. Chen Yi
was reported as saying to the same group in Canton that
it would probably be 20 or 30 years before Hong Kong was
footnote continued from page 157
among other things, they had not disputed the dicision of
Hong Kong courts in 1959 reaffirming police jurisdiction
over it.
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liberated. Chou and Chen apparently were stating indir-
ectly that the U.S. buildup in South Vietnam and air-
strikes against North Vietnam did not require the Chinese
Communist leaders to retaliate by using PLA troops against25x1
targets on the mainland's periphery.
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Only after Mao intensified the purge of certain
of his lieutenants in the spring of 1966 and only after
he adopted an increasingly revolutionary attitude on
various matters of foreign policy was he apparently will-
ing to reconsider his policy of non-revolutionary restraint
toward the colonies. Partly to increase pressure on Hong
Kong authorities regarding the visits of American naval
ships and partly to establish a more revolutionary atti-
tude toward the colonies, Mao and his aides apparently
permitted and encouraged Red Guards to express their fana-
tical views, which i. turn stimulated young leftists in
Hong Kong and Macao. On 10 September 1966, Red Guards in
Canton were reported circulating posters demanding a change
in Hong Kong's name to "Bannish Imperialism City"--a demand
similar to the one encouraged in late August among Red
Guards in Peking who were demanding a change in the name
of the street adjacent to the USSR embassy to "Anti-Revi-
sionism Street". On 15 September, Red Guards at a mass
rally in Canton went even further, demanding that Hong
Kong and Macao should be "returned" to the Peking regime
and claiming thht the continued existence of the colonies
would damage Peking's new revolutionary image.
A. Macao
In the course of his purge, Mao seems to have per-
mitted a new openness in discussing the coionial presence,
and it was in the context of the new publicity and the
general fanatic revolutionary attitude on the mainland
that the leaders in Peking, on the one hand, and the.Com-
munists and leftists in Macao, on the other hand, reacted
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to the Portuguese physical suppression of leftist building
workers on Taipa Island (Macao) on 15 November 1966. He
and his advisers may h*.ve decided to exploit the incident,
ostensibly as a clear example of Portuguese colonial brutal-
ity, but actually as a relatively easy way to attain a
foreign policy victory in which "revolutionaries" subjugate
imperialists./
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At this point, the Chinese leaders apparently de-
cided to increase the pressure on him by openly indicat-
ing their support for the leftists. On 30 November, an
NCNA dispatch from Hong Kong (repeated by Radio Peking)
denounced the Portuguese police action of the 15th as
"bloody fascist behavior" and expressed support for the
"firm demands" of local Chinese. However, this support
was still short of a total commitment and of the usual
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political support--i.e , it did not yet include a People's
Daily editorial or a formal protest. The Chinese leaders
apparently were still apprehensive about making a more
authoritative commitment because of uncertainty regarding
the determination of the new governor to continue to re-
sist the demands. Having encouraged the local Communists
and leftists--i.e , the Left--to organize demonstrations,
they apparently preferred to sustain the impression of
a spontaneous and completely local initiative, providing
themselves with leeway to keep Peking's prestige disen-
gaged as much as possible.
Their calculation seems to have been that a series
of demonstrations and threats of a strike (and then a
strike if necessary) would be a safe way to probe the
governor's will to resist. They apparently did not plan
violent demonstrations for the early stage of the strug-
gle. However, following some concessions made by the
governor on 1 December, the Macao Left, in trying to
wrest more concessions, staged small demonstrations in
the city hall on the 2nd and 3rd. The police tried to
disperse the group with fire hoses, but the participation
of hooligans in the fray led to a riot on the 3rd. Eight
Chinese were killed, apparently during the curfew period,
and the local organizers, including Ho Yin, showed alarm,
presumably because they were aware that Peking had pre-
ferred low-key and non-violent action in the early stage
of the pressure campaign.(
_j The governor reacted
to the post-riot situation by capitulating, accepting the
demands to dismiss the police chief and the district of-
ficer of Taipa Island, apologize, pay compensation, and
promise not to permit another such incident as took place
on the island.
However, the Chinese leaders, recognizing his capitu-
lation as a sign of weakness and fear, apparently decided
to wrest further, more degrading, and more significant
concessions from him. Exploiting the incident of the 3rd,
they demanded retribution, and for the first time came
close to editorializing on the Macao situation. An NCNA
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dispatch datelined
the "intensification
"hostility"
? dents association's
demands (adding
that
stu-
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Hong Kong on 5 December declared
of brutality" indicates Portuguese
to Macao Chinese. On the 6th, a Macao
open letter was used to raise
"punishment" of the Macao Police Command-
ant); on the 7th, NCNA quoted the Vice Governor of Kwang-
tung Province as telling a Red Guard rally in Canton on
that date that the Portuguese "must immediately and un-
conditionally" meet the new demands: "We will resolutely
backup our compatriots in Macao." This rally was timed
by the Chinese leaders for its psychological effect on the
governor (who had capitulated to demands on the 1st and
the 4th) and who was considering at the time new and addi-
tional demands. The rally on the 7th was also used to
imply a military threat; Red Guard speakers were used to
"warn" the Portuguese to accept the new demands "without
reservations,"
because the Red Guards were the "strong
reserves of
the PLA."/
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This rally reflected the apparent estimate of the
Chinese leaders that they were on safe ground and that
the political risk of such a direct commitment from the
mainland was a small one. That is, they believed that
the new governor was on the run and that he could be
bullied into surrendering Portuguese control over certain
aspects of the colony's life.
The Chinese leaders, who do not have diplomatic
relations with Lisbon, made the situation a place-to-
place rather than a government-to-government confronta-
tion. As of 7 December, Peking had not issued an offi-
cial protest or commented editorially. Although the Chinese
communicated with Lisbon through a third country, France,
this was not publicized. Publicly, they used the Canton
authorities. On 9 December, the "Director of the Foreign
Affairs Bureau of the Kwangtung Provincial People's Coun-
cil" made the first official and formal Chinese Communist
move by issuima statement which set forth its (the
Bureau's) four demands, including endorsement of earlier
demands (of the Macao students on the 6th) and new demands
for a ban on Chinese Nationalist activities and tha return
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of seven Nationalist agents picked up in June 1963. The
bullying aspect appeared in the form of positioning PLA
troops at several points on the border (where they had
not been before) and close-in patrolling of the harbor
by Chinese Communist frigates. On 11 December, Ho Yin
met with the governor and insisted on immediate surrender
to all demands, and a People's Daily Commentator article
on the same day, reflecting the Chinese leaders' apparent
belief that they could not now detract from the image of
a local initiative on the part of Macao lcktists, declared
that the demands of the Kwangtung authorities were an ex-
pression of the "Chinese people's" position. The governor
capitulated in separate statements on 12 and 13 December,
turned over the seven Nationalist agents on the 20th,
and was imeplled to conclude a Macao government protocol
with the "Kwangtung Provincial People's Council" represen-
tative. The protocol in effect yielded Portuguese sover-
ignty to the Chinese Communists on several matters: in
the banishing of specific Chinese Nationalist individuals
and organizations in Macao and in complying with the demand
to send back any refugee named by the Chinese Communists.
The Macao success was the only advance which the
Chinese Communist leaders could portray as a major foreign
policy victory in contrast to a series of major defeats
since the summer of 1965. It took some of the wind from
Moscow's sails.*
*But the Soviets were adaptable, ignored the abject
Portuguese capitulation, and hammered away at the con-
tinued existence of the colony. Professing inability
to understand why "Peking did not use this opportunity
to put an end to Portuguese rule in Macao," they refer-
red to the protocol as "conciliation" with the Portuguese
colonialists. (Izvestiya article of 23 December 1966)
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?
they touted it as partly a Red
Guard victory, that is, as a revolutionary victory for
Mao in the course of his purge.** More importantly,
it provided the Chinese leaders with a new confidence in
reviewing their policy of sporadic, low-key harassment
of the British authorities on the issue of visits to Hong
Kong of American warships involved in the Vietnam war.
B. Hong Kong
The Chinese undoubtedly calculated that the British
could not easily be cowed down, and they proceeded cautiously.
They tied Macao for the first time to Hong Kong in a com-
plaint about the latter colony on 29 December 1966 when
an NCNA dispatch declared that the Chinese and their
compatriots in Hong Kong and Macao "resolutely opposed"
the U.S. turning the British colony into a "military base"
and warned that if the British government persists in
"such suicidal foolishness," it is "courting its own dis-
aster." They were aware that the Macao success was still
fresh in the minds of the Hong Kong authorities, and they
hoped to use psychological pressure to impell the British
to place greater restrictions on U.S. Navy visits. The
Macao success was alsT encouraging to the Hong Kong Left,
and by February 1967, the Hong Kong Communist seamen's
**The role of the Macao leftists was mentioned last in
order: acceptance of the Kwangtung and Macao Chinese
demands "resulted from the angry denunciation of the masses
and the Red Guards of the great socialist motherland and
the great pressure of the unremitting struggles against
violence carried out by the Chinese compatriots in Macao."
(NCNA Peking report of 20 December 1966)
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union was pressing charges and making "demands" (roughly
similar to those made in Macao) in complaining about the
master of a Dutch ship who had shot and wounded disorderly
members of his crew. In the same month, some Hong Kong
officials were wary of Macao developments as a prelude
to similar pressures in their colony. A formal note of
protest on
20 March, accusing London of permitting the U.S. to use
Hong Kong as a "war base." When the colony authorities
recognized that this note buttressed a campaign in the
pro-Communist press in Hong Kong claiming that crewmen
from the USS Enterprise visiting the colony at the time
had insuliI and attacked local Chinese, they triedlto
avoid providing the Communists with a pretext to begin
active demonstrations, asking the U.S. to cancel the pro-
posed visit of the USS Canberra.
Moscow, which had been for some time publishing
taunts about Peking's restraint regarding the colony,
seized upon the 20 March protest note and derisively noted
that, after all, the Indians "without wasting much time
on anathematizing the imperialists" had taken over Goa,
the situation of which had been very much the same as that
of Hong Kong. (Moscow Radio comment of 29 March 1967)
They tried to turn the protest note against Peking, declar-
ing that it officially confirmed that the U.S. "with the
direct connivance of the Chinese government" is using
Hong Kong in the war against Vietnam. (Literaturnaya
Gazeta article of 29 March 1967) The effect of this
Soviet campaign almost certainly was to increase the
determination of Mac and his aides to seize on an issue
to prove that Hong Kong existed only on their sufferance
by making the British concede the point.
The Hong Kong Left continued to receive indoctrina-
tion in Mao's "thought" and on developments ?related to his
purge on the mainland. Their spirit of struggle was
further st'mulated; their labor disputes were increasingly
viewed as practical applications of Mao's "thought." Fol-
lowing the settlement on 21 March 1967 of the protracted
dispute between the Communist seamen's union and the Dutch
shipping firm--a dispute which began on 6 December 1966
and finally led to an abject public apology and the payment
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of the involved seamen's back wages--an NCNA displtch
of 22 March claimed that the settlement was a victory for
Mao's "thought." The spirit of struggle was applied by
other unions in smaller labor disputes, but the Chinese
leaders, who were not confronted with a major colony dis-
pute, continued to cooperate with the British on matters
of food shipments and a telecommunications link between
the Hong Kong and Canton airports.
The attitude of Communist union leaders became
more aggressive under the influence of initial strike
successes (small versions, in their view of the Macao
victory), mainland developments, and continued indoctrina-
tion in Mao's view of struggle. By early May 1967, the
British authorities seemed to feel that they were living
in a tinder box. When, on 6 May, riot police clashed with
workers (who were wearing Mao buttons and shouting Mao-
ist slogans) outside a Kowloon plastic factory and arrested
21 workers, the spark was struck which led to a major
confrontation becween Peking and London.
Evidence suggests that the decision to escrlate the
6 May incident into a major confrontation with the Hong
Kong authorities was made by the Chinese leaders and was
passed on to come senior members of the local Communist
apparatus While they were on the mainland. Thus while
Peking had not yet become involved openly, organizers had
arrived from the mainland with instructions as early as
7 May. On the 12th, posters in Canton were noted declaring
support for "Hong Kong compatriots" in their struggle
against Chinese capitalists. By that time, Hong Kong Com-
munist newspapers hAp already bee noted making a black-
white distinction and polarizing the two sides, alleging
that the"British authorities in Hong Kong" had started
a showdown with the "Chinese nationals of Hong Kong."
The Chinese leaders apparently had permitted officials
of the Hong Kong NCNA office (who had returned to the
colony from the mainland on 9 May) to indicate a degree
of mainland involvement by meeting with Governor Trench
on the 12th, but they were met by his aide, to whom they
read three demands and several quotations from Mao's
doctrines in unison. The British refused to comply with
these demands or the demands of 13 May issued by local
Communists.
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The Chinese leaders apparently decided to inter-
vene more openly on the 15th, and their intervention was
quicker, more direct, and more forceful than it had been
in the Macao showdown. Deputy Foreign Minister Lo Kuei-
po handed charge Hopson a protest "statement" which de-
manded "immediate and unconditional" acceptance of five
stipulations.* (This was part of a major coordinated
pressure campaign, and on the same day, a People's Daily
editorial attacked the Hong Kong authorities; by the after-
noon, Red Guards were used to sustain the new crisis
atmosphere by pasting their posters to the walls of the
British compound in Peking.) The protest "statement" in-
dicated the support of the "Chinese people" for the Hong
Kong Left and probably reflected Mao's personal pique with
the authorities for "attempting to exclude the great in-
fluence of China's great proletarian cultural revolution"
and to "restrict the influence of Mao Tse-tung's thought."
The policy of many years of restraint toward Hong Kong was
abandoned. The Chinese leaders had escalated the situa-
tion from a place-to-place showdown (as in the Macao crisis)
to a government-to-government confrontation between Peking
and London.
Although they were aware that the discipline and
perseverance of the Hong Kong authorities were far greater
than that displayed by the Macao authorities, the Chinese
leaders seem to have overestimated the probable combined
effect of their threats to British officials as well as
the capability of the Hong Kong Left to mobilize local
support. They quickly hit some of their targets in order
to gain an immediate Hong Kong capitulation: on 16 May
in Shanghai, the British consulate there was invaded for
*These were: "Immediately accept all the just demands
of the Chinese workers and residents in Hong Kong; im-
mediately stop all fascist measures; immediately set free
all the arrested persons (including workers, journalists
and cameramen); punish the culprits responsible for these
sanguinary atrocities, offer apologies to the victims,
and compensate for all their loses; guarantee against the
occurrence of similar incidents."
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a short time; on 16 May in Peking, the British charge,
Hopson, was besieged in his office in the embassy, and
Reuters correspondent, Anthony Grey, who was trying to
photograph Red Guards pasting anti-British slogans on
his residence, was driven off from his terrace by a volly
of stones; on 17 May in Peking, at an evening reception
given by the Norwegian ambassador, Deputy Foreign Minister
Lo Kuei-po refused to listen to Hopson's protest concern-
ing the invasion and sacking of the residence of the Shang-
hai consul, Peter Hewitt, by Red Guards on the 16th;* at
the same reception, Chen Yi deliberately snubbed Hopson
by avoiding a mutual toast and a proffered handshake; also
on the evening of the 17th in Peking, Hopson had to abandon
his car to push his way into the embassy past an effigy
of Prime Minister Wilson and past loudspeakers at the gate
which had been showering abuse on British "imperialism"
since the 15th. To sustain pressure at a high government
(official) level, Chou En-la i attended the anti-British
rally on 18 May; Hsieh Fu-chih, the main speaker, implied
that the leaders were out to get "great victories," and
he placed considerable emphasis on the idea that the British
were trying to exclude from the colony the "influence" of
Mao's "cultural" revolution and his doctrines. Hsieh's
emphasis suggested that Mao and his aides believed that
a major victory (in Hong Kong) would help to demonstrate
that export of his "thought" alone was a valuable revolu-
tionary contribution to Peking's anti-imperialistic foreign
policy.
However, the speech of Hsieh Fu-chih did not repeat
the specific demands of the 15 May protest "statement,"
*Foreign Ministry officials apparently were acting on
oral orders (or even a written directive) to respond to
British demarches with displays of Maoist contempt. /
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suggesting, for the first time, that the Chinese leaders
believed the British could not be forced to comply with
the five demands quickly.* Subsequent pressures on British
officials on the mainland, in London, and in Hong Kong ap-
parently wer9 intended to get something less than total
compliance with the demands, namely, a "speedy reply"
It is not within the scope of this paper to relate
all the details of the Chinese pressure campaign. The
main lines seem to reflect a sequence of moves, with an
initial surge (i.e., 15-17 May) followed by a marching
in place and an apparent realization that British persever-
ance had been underestimated. The Chinese picked up the
attack again on 24 May, and two British diplomats, who
had been ordered to leave the Shanghai consulate on 22
May, were turned over to the Red Guards to be subjected
to various forms of Maoist abuse. New demonstrations were
staged outside the embassy in Peking.
This return to more pressure on the 24th may have
reflected Mao's personal decision. The important People's
Daily Commentator article of 25 May may have carried his
own views (if not his own words) in certain sections. The
article was used to thuneer at Foreign Secretary Brown
(who had complained about the mistreatment of his diplomats
and an abusive personal demarche from the Chinese
: "Shut your mouth" and "admit your
guilt" as we demanded in the 15 May protest issued by "our"
Foreign Ministry. Whether Mao drafted these lines is
conjectural, but they seem to reflect a basic decision
to prepare for a protracted struggle and for an escalation
*Hsieh indirectly conceded this when he complained that
the Hong Kong authorities had "failed to apologize openly
and immediately accept all the just demands put forward
in the statement of our government." He did not repeat
the specific demands, and his warning to London and Hong
Kong was followed by an appeal to "admit your responsi-
bility for these crimes", which were not detailed.
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of the confrontation. Mao apparently refused to retreat
down the hill he had climbed. The article contains a key
quotation from Mao, which in effect became a directive
to the Hong Kong Left: "The only course is to organize
forces and struggle against them [i.e., the British]."
A protracted struggle was necessary because oi
(1) the British strategy to remain firm (but not provoca-
tive) and (2) the basic miscalculation (made by the Hong
Kong Left and by the Chinese leack,rs in Peking) regarding
the ability of the local Left to mobilize large groups
for the showdown in the colony. As the realization that
they had overestimated the Left's organizational capability
deepened, the Chinese leaders apparently tried to shift
all of the blame onto the Hong Kong agitators./
This was typical of Mao: having failed to gain a quick, 25X1
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victory, he blamed lesser officials for the miscalculation.
It was also typical of Mao to persist in an image-
damaging course which a more reasonable and less stubborn
leader (Chou, for example) would have discarded when con-
fronted with clear signs of failure. Rather than accept
the clear and recalcitrant fact that the British could not
be cowed down, Mao apparently took no nonsense from the
fact, and insisted on a protracted struggle. In early
June, when the Hong Kong authorities had restored order
and the morale of the Left in the colony had been shaken--they
seem to have had their fill of struggle--a People's Daily
editorial of 3 June demanded that Hong Kong Chinese
organize and prepare for more struggle--for the overthrow
of British rule (at some unspecified future time). This
editorial and the Commentator article of 2 June strongly
recommitted Peking's prestige at a time when the situation
was simmering down. The editorial reflected an apparent
new obsession of Mao's, namely, that a large-scale struggle
would force the British to surrender. Typically Maoist
was the advice to the Hong Kong Left to (1) "do a big
job of exposure" of alleged British atrocities, carrying
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the campaign "to every household," (2) rely mainly on the
working class as the "main revolutionary force" but to
arouse "student masses" more fully and integrate their
movement with that of the workers, and above all (3)
"mobilize and organize still further and courageously"
so as to form an unbreakable "revolutionary bastion."
This was a program which probably reflected Mao's dis-
satisfaction with the performance of the Left thus far
and, more importantly, his determination to project
further into the future the timetable for final victory.
In this new directive, Mao apparently made another
major blunder by calculating that better organization and
more time would surely be decisive against British disci-
pline. He was impelled to recognize that short-term pres-
sures on the British would not lead him from success to
success, but rather from failure to dismal failure. Never-
theless, he persisted, demanding that the Left should
unite and organize "more effectively." (People's Daily
Commentator article of 13 June 1967) Having failed at
a major attempt to gain a quick decision, he apparently
insisted on trying to get a delayed decision by prolonged
struggle. Local Communists had to shift their ground and
explain to their supporters that "Quick battle and quick
decision is an old magic weapon of imperjalism...Quick
victory does not apply to the anti-persecution struggle
of Hong Kong compatriots." (Editorial of 14 June 1967
in the Communist-owned Hong Kong Ching Po)
The Soviet leaders were provided with additional
opportunities to taunt Mao for failing to seize control
of Hong Kong. A 17 June 1967 Izvestiya article depicted
the Chinese leaders as "cowards": instead of using the
Hong Kong workers' protests as a means of "liquidating
the remains of colonalism on their soil...the Peking
leaders adopted a cowardly hypocritical position, saying
one thing and doing another." The article added that the
British had quickly seen through the "political clamour"
of the Chinese leaders. "That is why they have begun to
behave so brazenly in Hong Kong." That is, Moscow shifted
its attack from a taunt about Peking's acquiescence in
the status quo of Hong Kong to a taunt about an ineffective
attempt, by proxy and "political clamour," to disgrace
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a
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the British. Chou En-lai moved to devise a position which
did not commit Peking to intervene to the extent of trying
to force the British out of the colony. He tried to make
it clear that Peking's role of support did not require
direct participation--actually, the Chinese leaders' role
was somewhat more than mere support, as they were provid-
ing guidance on the main trends of the struggle--and he
stated that the Hong Kong Chinese were "organizing a mighty
army" while the mainland Chinese, by contrast, were helping
only "in accordance with the needs of the situation."
(Chou's speech of 24 June 1967) This position not only
excluded the need for Peking's intervention, but also was
intended to deflect the Hong Kong militants' grumbling
over the failure of the Chinese leaders to weigh in with
the full force of the PLA.* On the other hand, he had
to convince international opinion that Peking's failure
to humiliate the Hong Kong government authorities was
not due to any unwillingness to support the local Com-
munists but rather a matter of long-term planning
Chou's 24 June statement that Peking would help
only "in accordance with the needs Of the situation" im-
plied political_ help. Military help was kept down to
the level of border security. That the PLA's role on
this border was even more restricted than its role on
the Indian border was made clear by developments during
the July 1967 crisis. Mao and his aides could have used,
*Red Guards and other fanatics on the mainland appar-
ently were also complaining about the failure of the Chi-
nese leaders to use the PLA against the colony, and Chou
later criticized people who would like to "send a divi-
sion. of the PLA against the British imperialists," reason-
ing that if we had listened to everybody's advice along
such lines, we would have been obliged to "take up weapons
in our hands against the revisionists of a certain coun-
try." (Chou's speech in Peking on 1 September 1967)
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as a pretext for a major attack, the firefight which took
place on 8 July at the border towa of Sha-kau-tok, involv-
ing local militia and the PLA, on the Chinese side, Ind
police and Gurkhas, on the British side. However, al-
though additional PLA units were moved up quickly to the
border, the Chinese leaders were careful to avoid using
them to escalate the military incident. Nevertheless,
there was a shift to more aggressive tactics beyond the
use of the strike (in May and June) to seizures of border
police stations and bomb attacks (in July and thereafter);
the shift had been preceded by a warning from Peking that
"the proper punishment" will fall on the head of anyone who
has "killed our compatriots" in Hong Kong. (People's Daily
editorial of 5 July 1967) Peking's protests over the
border incident of 8 July at Sha-kau-tok and the use of
troops to support police (for the first time on 12 July)
were ineffectual, and the Hong Kong authorities continued
to act vigorously against the rioters. Peking's Foreign
Ministry note of protest of 11 July 1967 demanding the
release of 3 NCNA men arrested in Hong Kong did not com-
pel the British to retreat. The Chinese leaders had to
resort to political retaliation (by launching small demon-
strations in front of the British embassy and by placing
under house arrest Reuters correspondent Anthony Grey on
21 July) after one NCNA man was sentenced for his politi-
cal agitation to two years in prison on 19 July. By the
end of July, the Hong Kong authorities had demoralized
elements of the local Communist apparatus and had frustrated
the desire of the Chinese leaders to attain a Macao-like
capitulation of the British. The Chinese leaders were
unwilling to use military methods to gain their capitul-
tioh, and PLA Acting Chief of Staff Yang Cheng-wu provided
the Hong Kong Left with only routine cAipport by the end
of July: "We give resolute support and aid to our patriotic
countrymen in Hong Kong and Kowloon in their heroic strug-
gle against fascist atrocities perpetuated by the British
authorities." (Speech of 31 July 1967 on the eve of the
40th anniversary of the founding of the PLA) In the con-
text, "we" seemed to refer to the PLA, but the support
implied seems to have been political.
Encouragement of the local Communist apparatus to
sustain their effort continued into August, at which time
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small-scale border violations by fanatics on the Chinese
side apparently exceeded the intention of the Chinese lead-
ers, and PLA troops at various times during the month had
to intervene on the mainland-colony border to keep aroused
young militants from expanding their border violations
into full-scale military skirmishes. The determination
of the Hong Kong authorities to combat vigorously the
violent actions of the local Left, and the effectiveness
of the police on the streets of the colony increased the
demoralization of some elements of the Left and the frus-
trations of the Chinese leaders in Peking. They were to
meet with new frustrations in August
After militant Chinese workers and some Red Guards
crossed the border at Man-kam-to, seized the British
sentries' weapons, and forced them to sign an agreement
to remove barbed wire barriers and after the Hong Kong
authorities repudiated this agreement and temporarily
closed the border (except at Lo-wu and Sha-kau-tok), the
Chinese leaders protested
They were rebuffed in the British rejection
of the protest note. When, on 17 August the colony author-
ities suspended the publishing permits of three major
pro-Communist newspapers and arrested important staff
members, the Chinese leaders were confronted with new
evidence that they had failed to cow down the "imperial-
ists." Mao perprnally may have been infuriated when the
whip he was using to beat his British opponent (that is,
the continuation of Communist pressure in Hong Kong and
diplomatic pressure in Pkeing) began to break in his hand.
On 19 August, Hong Kong government police searched the
offices of the three papers under ban. Mao and his aides
apparently decided to use a heavier instrument--the govern-
ment-to-government ultimatum. On 20 August, the British
? charge Hopson was summoned to the Foreign Ministry and
handed a protest note containing an ultimatum to London
and the Hong Kong government demanding cancelling of the
ban and dropping of the lawsuits "within 48 hours." The
Chinese leaders tried to attain a quick British capitula-
tion by increasing the pressure within the deadline period,
and on 21 August, they used "200 revolutionary journalists
in Peking" to demonstrate in front of Hopson's office
after having cut the telephone of the Reuters correspondent,
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who was still under their orders to remain in his house.
They then made the point clear that the British embassy
was their target of first priority by reducing the size
and the virulence of the demonstrations in front of the
Ceylon, Mongolia, and Kenya embassies.* The British
rejected the ultimatum note and began prosecuting the
arrested staff members. Mao and his aides almost certainly
had been prepared to take some form of act on beyond mere
verbal threats and Red Guard demonstrations in front of
the British embassy if the ultimatum was rejected. This
is suggested by the very act of establishing a deadline.
Not to have taken an abusive form of action, not to have
engaged in some political retaliation would have confronted
them with a defeat more specific, and therefore more ob-
vious, than the defeats they had had to face since May
1967. r
The Chinese leaders acted to commit a diplomatic
abomination and then acted to deny their own responsibility
for it. The Red Guards broke into the mission compound,
burned the charge's office, and then manhandled Hopson
and certain other members of his staff. In the course
of this outrage, they tried to force Hopson to accept the
personal humiliation (and the humiliation that would have
been reflected on the British government) of complying
with their demands that he must bow his head in complete
submission to them. It would have been a "revolutionary"
*That certain embassies were being deliberately targeted
at various times during the violations of diplomatic im-
munity in the spring and summer of 1967 WRS indicated by
Chou En-lai. In his discussion on 14 September 1967
with the Cambodian ambassador, Chou said that "Mass mani-
festations against certain embassies had their reasons
and were comprehensible acts because the Chinese people
know who is their enemy and who is their friend." (Cited
in Sihanouk's speech of 18 September 1967)
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victory if Hopson had submitted; he courageously refused,
performing more heroically than did the Indonesian charge,
who admitted that on 5 August Red Guards had forced him
and other embassy staff personnel to kneel on the ground
at the foot of a "people's court." (Darwoto interview
of 2 November 1967) Having administered other "serious
consequences" to the mission and mission personnel, the
Chinese leaders moved immediately to deter London from
using the incident as sufficient reason to break diplomatic
relations.* They began a major effort to deny that they
had committed the outrage. Posters in Peking in early
September 1967 claimed that "at the time of the burning
of the British Office," Madame Mao and Chen Po-ta had is-
sued a directive by telephone that the action taken against
the embassy should not "overstep international norms."
But it was not clear when this alleged directive was is-
sued and precisely what international norms the Chinese
leaders, who had been committing outrages against diplomatic
immunity since the spring of 1967, would have been indicat-
ing.
Chou En-lai, reported by the posters to have con-
demned the sacking of the office, issued a five-point dir-
ective on 1 September which included prohibitions against
the manhandling of diplomats,' damaging of buildings, and
*Fsar of a diplomatic break, threatened by Indonesia's
Foreign Minister Malik on 14 August regarding treatment
of diplomats in the Indonesian embassy, was clearly indi-
cated in their quick action on 15 August to lift the vir-
tual blockade from around the embassy in Peking, after which
Indonesian d;plomats were allowed to enter and leave with-
out obstruction. That is, they were able to control the
A situation around the Indonesian embassy in mid-August
(following the 5 August demolition on one embassy build-
ing and the burning of all embassy cars) when the con-
sequences were clearly to be a break in Sino-lndonesian
relations.
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the "burning" of offices and cars.* The Chinese leaders
used a Chinese servant of a member of the charge's staff
to relay a story further absolving them of complicity:
when Madame Mao, Chen Po-ta, and Hsieh Fu-chih arrived on
the scene in a large car during the attack on the office,
they had to intervene personally to prevent Red Guards
from going on to burn the two British blocks of flats in
the diplomatic compound. The major responsibility for
the incident was placed on Yao Teng-shan, the fanatical
former charge to Indonesia, who is said to have been
encouraged by Wang Li, former member of the Cultural
Revolutionary Group, to seize power in the Foreign Ministry
after Wang's anti-Chou speech of 7 August 1967.** Although
*Following the 1 September 1967 meeting of the enlarged
Peking Municipal Revolutionary Committee, wall posters
in Peking carried Chon's "five prohibitions," which were
(1) do not beat diplomats, (2) do not stone embassies,
(3) do not burn embassies, (4) do not enter diplomats'
houses, and (5) do not violate the boundaries of the dip-
lomatic missions. Madame Mao, at the same time, claimed
that "Last year when I was setting up the Red Guard Head-
quarters, I said that it was not permitted to make attacks
at...foreign embassies. If you are going to oppose foreign-
ers, you have to do it on the street. What do you mean
by entering foreign embassies?" (Speech of 1 September
1967)
**"The speech of Wang X caused an upheaval in the for-
eign affairs: department for 15 days.. .Inspired by the
'August 7' speech, an insignificant man like Yao Teng-
shan, deputy head of the Foreign Ministry General Service
Department, became 'foreign minister' for 14 days...."
(Peking Red Guard Newspaper editorial of 18 October 1967)
The major complaints against Yao were that he (1) "wrested
power from the Foreign Ministry's Party Center" and (2)
"sent cables to the embassies in foreign countries with-
out permission of Chairman Mao and Premier Chou..." He
was also disparaged as "an embassy burner."
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Peking claims that Chou re-captured this power on 23
August--the day after the mission office was burned--it
is not clear that Chou lost control of all aspects of
foreign policy decision-making. On the contrary, he seems
to have had his way during the Hong Kong confrontation
in rejecting "advice" to send the PLA against the colony
(Chou's speech of 1 September 1967) and in defending
certain embassies, such as Cambodia's after anti-Chinese
actions had been taken by Sihanouk. On balance, it may
be conjectured that Chou and members of the Cultural
Revolutionary Group (i.e., Chen Po-ta, Madame Mao, and
Kang Sheng) were aware of the strategy to attack the
embassy and sanctioned the attack but not the burning of
the charge's office, which may have been the point at
which Red Guard action exceeded the plan.
The Chinese leaders were clearly aware that after
the extreme "left" action of burning the charge's office
they would have to create the impression among the British
embassy staff and elsewhere that Red Guard outrages against
embassy property and personnel were entirely the work of
fanatics (which was apparently only part of the whole
story). At a later date, they specifically claimed that
the office burning was contrary to a direct order. In
late December 1967, Chou told an Afro-Asian writers con-
ference in Peking that he, Chen Po-ta, Madame Mao, and
Kang Sheng, learning in advance of Red Guard plans "to
set fire" to the embassy office, "ordered" that it not
be done, but one element of the Red Guards defied the
order. In any case, the Chinese'l 'Eiders apparently have
been careful to omit the crucial matter of the 48-hour
ultimatum, in post facto explanations, as well as the
"serious consequences" they had pledged in it.
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The burning of the charge's office on 22 August
marked the high-tide of wild and irrational actions
against the British in Peking. Various aspects of the
confrontation were sustained, such as restrictions on the
travel of British personnel, detention of Anthony Grey,
and bomb terrorism and border incidents in Hong Kong;
these actions reflected the Chinese leaders' reluctance
to de-escalate quickly. They were concerned about any
appearance of igik-Rigi; as a result, they continued to
be nasty in statements to the
British. They had to cover a gradual retreat from the
high point of the confrontation and they were particularly
sensitive concerning the arrest of the NCNA officials
(still being held by the colony authorities) as well as
their image among the Left in Hong Kong. Nevertheless,
they apparently directed local senior Communists in late
September 1967 to explain and justify to their apparatus
subordinates the new and less intense phase of the struggle.*
The
Foreign Ministry protest of 6 December regarding the clos-
ing of a local Chinese school, raids on other schools,
and the arrest of one headmaster as well as two film dir-
ectors indicated that although the protracted politick.;
*The new low-boil phase reduced the morale of the Hong
Kong Communist apparatus, and in an effort to refurbish
sagging spirits, the Chinese leaders established on 27
Cctober 1967 the "Support Hong Kong Compatriots' Commit-
tee" in Canton. When, on 3 November )967 Chou En-lai
warned militant Red Guards in Canton to keep hands off
of Chen Yu because he was the head of the Committee, the
Chinese premier was indirectly indicating that Chen and
his Committee were directly subordinate to Peking.
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?
struggle in Hong Kong will proceed at a lower boil, the
Chinese leaders will continue to view the colony situa-
tion as "the nub of Sino-British relations which could
not be improved or normalized until the Hong Kong problem
was solved." (Foreign Ministry official's statement to
Hopson on 6 December 1967)
The prospect would seem to be for a protracted
political struggle. British determination and the failure
of the Hong Kong Communist apparatus to acquire widespread
local support have made Peking's demands for capitulation
merely matters for the record which eventually may be
dropped. However, the Chinese leaders may well intensify
the struggle to counter specific British actions against
the colony's Left or to comply with any future intensifi-
cation of Mao's purge on the mainland.
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