Sino-Indian Rapproachement and the Sino-Pakistan Entente

Abstract

The several years preceeding Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's December 1988 visit to China saw significant improvements in Indian-Chinese relations. Following his visit, Sino-Indian relations became more cordial than at any time since the mid-1950s. China's close relation with Pakistan has been very important to Beijing. It is a long standing friendship that has been, as the Chinese and Pakistanis like to say, tested by adversity, which has come in the form of regime change and upheavals in both countries, fundamental realignments in the international system, and war. Pakistan played a major role in China's strategy for coping with India and, following the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, with the Soviet Union. I By the time of the Deng Xiaoping-Mikhail Gorbachev summit meeting of May 1989, however, Sino-Soviet relations were increasingly cordial. Gorbachev acceded to Beijing's three demands-withdrawal from Afghanistan, ceasing support for Vietnam's occupation of Cambodia, and drawing down the Soviet military presence on China's northern borders. This redefined Sino-Soviet relations, reducing the utility of Pakistan to Beijing in the countering of Soviet encirclement. Moscow's withdrawal from Afghanistan was of special relevance here. Then following the Western sanctions in response to the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, Beijing sought to renew its lapsed membership in the Third World, beginning with China's large southern neighbor, India. Since its formation in 1964 the Sino-Pakistan entente has been a significant source of contention in