How many wreaths for Bangladesh?
Chinese support for Yahya Khan is one of the most puzzling props of the Pakistan military regime–and the suppression of East Bengal. Here JOHN GITTINGS alayses the factors behind Peking’s curious allegiances.
AT A time when China’s shift to ping-pong diplomacy has been widely welcomed in the Western Press, enthusiasm for some aspects of it is not so unanimous on the far Left. Peking’s apparent support for Yahya Khan and his butchery in East Bengal provides the most obvious ground for uneasiness, but there is also some leftist heart searching about China’s condemnation of the Guevarist rebels in Ceylon.
However, it is argued by some of those who seek to defend China’s policy that “support” is the wrong word, and that Peking has merely declared a policy of strict non-intervention in Pakistan internal affairs. As a recent pro-Chinese pamphlet—”the People’s War” written by supporters of the Maoist-Communist Party of Bangladesh and published in London-puts it, “the Chinese have never opposed the right of the people of Bangladesh to self-determination or their right to withdraw from the State of Pakistan.” All they have done is to oppose “foreign interference,” notably by India and the Soviet Union.
On a literal reading of China’s official statements, as published in the Chinese press, this interpretation just about holds water. “The relevant measures,” says Peking early on in the crisis, “taken by President Yahya Khan …. are the internal affairs of Pakistan, in which no country should or has the right to interfere.” But in his letter of April 11 to Yahya Khan (which the Chinese press did not publish) Premier Chou En-lai took a clear stand against East Bengali separatism.
The prosperity and strength of Pakistan, he said, depended upon unity between East and West. Those who thought otherwise were merely a “handful of persons.” Chou’s letter can still be constructed, if one reads between the lines, as a plea for negotiation instead of bloodshed, but it was widely publicised in the West Pakistan press as indicating Chinese support for Yahya.
Whatever reservations China may have privately, its public diplomatic posture certainly amounts to endorsement for Yahya. Last month saw a banquet in Peking to celebrate the 20th anniversary of diplomatic relations with Pakistan, the signing of a new agreement on border trade, and the opening of a new highway between the two countries across the Karackorum and Pamir Ranges, while a military delegation from Pakistan’s Air Force Visited China According to reports from West Pakistan, China also === November when Yahya Khan visited Peking) of a 1,000 million rupees interest-fee loan, plus an additional offer of commodity aid.
Another line of argument by those who defend Chinese policy-and nerhaps this one is closer to the real Chinese view—concedes that Peking is indeed opposed to the East Bengal separatists but, it is claimed, for the best of reasons. The national Awami League, it is argued, was in the hands of a bourgeois leadership which would probably have turned on the “workers and peasants” of East Bengal as soon as it gained power. It may be true that West Pakistan was oppressing the East. However, the vital difference between the leadership of the West and the East is that the former stands for national independence, while the latter has sold out to India.
This analysis of the class structure in East Bengal is greeted with derision by most supporters of Bangladesh. But even if it were true, they object of East Bengal to do now—should they collaborate with the occupying forces? In fact, according to the latest reports reaching proBangladesh sources in London, the “Maoist” Communist Party of East Bengal, led by Mohammed Toha, has joined the resistance struggle, contrary to previous Western reports that his forces were standing aloof. Maulana Bashani, the more vaguely pro-Chinese leader of the National Awami Party, has written to Mao Tse-tung urging that Peking should recognise Bangladesh.
And there is another question which they ask the Chinese. Regardless of the past, what will Peking do or say if genuine guerilla war develops in the countryside of East Bengal, with the peasants playing an active role under extremist revolutionary leadership? Was not China as guilty as the United States of believing Yahya Khan’s claim that the resistance would be quashed in 72 hours?
Cynical experts in international affairs may regard this whole argument on the Left as irrelevant, pointing out that for solid reasons of national interest, China has maintained good relations with Pakistan since the Sino-Indian border war in 1962, and that an independent Bangla Desh would only weaken Chinese security on her western frontiers. This may be true, but would not Chinese national interests have been better served if Peking had simply kept quiet when the crisis blew up, waiting to see whether the ball bounced east or west?
Over and above the question of Chinese security, there does seem to be an additional element of theoritical analysis of the situation with has led Peking to declare its hand. One theory is that the Chinese have a general objection to separatist movements, perhaps based on their owntraumatic experience before the revolution of warlord division in China. It is true that they spoke in support of Biafra, but only equivocally.
China has also declared its hand in Ceylon, lining up with all the other Great Powers in support of Mrs Bandranaike against the Guevarist Janata Vimukti Peramuna (People’s Liberation Front). This was done in another letter from Chou En-lai which, like his letter to Yahya, was not published in the Chinese press. As in the case of East Bengal, the rebels in Ceylon were described by Chou as only a “handful of persons,” but this time Chou invoked the authority of Chairman Mao himself in order to step them down. China, he said, was glad to see that the chaotic situation created by these selfstyled Guevarists had been brought under control. The Chinese people had always opposed both ultra-Left and Right opportunism in the course of their own revolution, thanks to the teachings of Chairman Mao. Chou’s letter accompanied an agreement (which the Chinese press did publish) on further aid to Ceylon.
It should be remembered that the Chinese treated the whole story of the Guevara’s struggle in Bolivia with silent contempt. The ideologue of the movement. Regis Debray, was written off as an ultra-Left adventurist. At the present time, when within China some of the ultra-Leftists who flourished during the cultural revolution are under severe criticism. Peking will be that much less inclined to support the JVP. In the Chinese view, they are a motley group of “petit bourgeois” students who are divorced from any real proletarian interests.
Nevertheless, it is not only the Trotskyites on the British Left who are unhappy about some aspects of Chinese policy, Others are still groping for an adequate explanation of the Chinese line, Even Peking’s apology to Britain for the burning down of the British mission in Peking at the height of the cultural revolution (an act of attributed to the ultra-Leftist Red Guard, supposedly manipalated by the “counter revolutionaries”) comes amiss to some who defended it at the time.
Perhaps this is all rather had luck on the Chinese, who can hardly be expected to satisfy every shade of radical andior revolutionary opinion in the West. But the unanswered questions are real enough. From The Guardian.
Reference: Hindustan Standard 05.07.1971