China’s Islamic Connection

Abstract

P relations with the Third World are certain to be considerably more extensive and significant in the 1980s as a result of the growing economic impact of the Third World and its increasing political leverage. The theory of the Three Worlds, to which Peking still officially adheres despite certain de facto modifications, holds that the Third World is potentially the most powerful force in international affairs. It seems certain that China will seek to exploit this resource for its own advantage during the coming decade. For several years, the PRC has sought to propagate the thesis that its sizeable Muslim population qualifies it for a special relationship with a particular segment of the Third Worldthe Muslim countries. By expressing support for Third World causes which in Muslim countries are often identified as Islamic causes (Palestinian objectives, opposition to superpower domination, the Iranian revolution, resistance in Afghanistan), China hopes both to encourage international unity against the Soviet Union and to strengthen its own overall relations with the Third World In its efforts to stimulate a unified worldwide resistance to Soviet expansion, China has looked for any useful lever on Third World opinion. The nonaligned movement has for several years been such a lever, and Peking has attempted to manipulate it through its friends in the movement. But the steady leftward drift of the nonaligned movement toward Moscow under such Soviet allies as Cuba and Vietnam has caused the Chinese to cast about for a more com-