China’s South Asia Policy

T he first half of 1971 witnessed some significant developments in South Asia: the emergence of a liberation movement for an independent Bangla Desh, the Janata Vimukti Peramuna (JVP) insurgency in Ceylon and the landslide electoral victory of Smt. Gandhi in India. These developments came at a time when China, in the aftermath of the decisions taken at the Ninth Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, had begun implementing a reactivated tactical line in foreign policy. The Bangla Desh struggle and the JVP insurgency in Ceylon have disturbed for some time to come, the equilibrium, however precarious it was in South Asian politics. The Bangla Desh movement against the Pakistani military junta is developing as a guerrilla movement. The Ceylon insurgency, although suppressed presently by the United Front Government of Mrs. Bandaranaike, can, by no means, be considered as over. The questions it raised have not been answered yet. The national problems that it brought into focus may take years to solve. As regards India, it may be said the massive mandate given to Smt. Gandhi amply demonstrated that the Indian electorate had given the leadership of the New Congress a fair chance for the implementation of the proclaimed programmes under conditions of agreeable political stability. What is Peking’s attitude to these events? The Bangla Desh struggle and the Ceylon insurgency—the two unexpected developments—have undoubtedly posed difficult problems of foreign policy decision-making in Peking; for both these movements could be described as ‘revolutionary’ in Peking’s own frame of reference, and constituted a severe test for Peking’s claim to be the citadel of a world revolution. There is no reason to believe that the decision-makers in Peking had visualized situations of this kind to develop either in Ceylon or in Pakistan. Also, while Peking might not have doubted the emergence of Smt. Gandhi as the leader of the Indian nation after the mid-term poll, it is doubtful whether it anticipated the landslide victory of the New Congress. It may have come as much a surprise to Peking as it was to a majority of the political analysts in India and abroad. Peking found it difficult to make appropriate gestures to India in the post-election situation towards normalization of relations between the two countries, which got frozen in the Himalayan slopes in 1962. It is against this background of new developments in Pakistan, Ceylon and India that Peking’s policy towards South Asia is analysed here.