Some Aspects of China's Asian Policy in the Cultural Revolution and Its Aftermath

Abstract

T IS AN UNDERLYING PREMISE of this article that, despite changes in portions of Peking's foreign affairs leadership in the course of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GCR), there has been considerable continuity in the leadership's perceptions of regional power-configurations and trends in events with the pre-GCR period.* At the same time, however, the GCR's ideological stresses adversely affected Peking's regional foreign affairs tactics between i966 and i969, causing both a general scaling down of external activities and a rather severe-though probably temporary-confusion in both inter-party and inter-state relations with several Asian countries. This confusion created a bellicose regional image of China which does not, in fact, coincide with either the regime's intentions or its capabilities.1 It is the purpose of this article to provide evidence of this ambivalence in Peking's Asian international behavior and assess its impact on some aspects of Sino-Soviet and Asian regional affairs through I970. Whereas prior to the GCR, Peking included among its friends all who were willing to struggle actively against the West regardless of class origin, the Maoists in the course of the GCR insisted that priority be given to partyled, peasant-based liberation movements, despite their effect on interstate relations.2 Policies toward Burma and to a smaller extent Cambodia in i968-i969 come readily to mind. Revolutionaries were urged to establish agrarian bases and foment rural uprisings without waiting for or relying on the perfidious national bourgeoisie. Success would crown the efforts only of those communists who were completely self-reliant and willing to engage in a long, arduous, and lonely struggle-excluding dependence on Soviet aid and with only minimal Chinese support.