106 { China’s Quest
The new Eisenhower administration (inaugurated in January 1953) worked
to build “positions of strength” around the periphery of the Sino-Soviet
camp. In September, following the expansion of Chinese influence at Geneva,
the United States led the signing of a South East Asia Treaty Organization
(SEATO) uniting the Philippines, Thailand, France, Britain, New Zealand,
Australia, and Pakistan along with the United States in an anticommu-
nist collective defense treaty. The new US-supported anticommunist South
Vietnamese state, the Republic of Vietnam (RVN), quickly “associated” with
SEATO. (Full RVN membership would have violated the Geneva agreement.)
But there were a number of countries in South and Southeast Asia that were
skeptical about being drawn into the intensifying Cold War between the
Western and Eastern camps. A moderate and reasonable approach to these
might persuade these intermediate countries to disassociate themselves from
US containment schemes. It might be possible to create a “zone of peace”
along China’s southern borders encompassing Burma, Cambodia, Ceylon,
India, Indonesia, and Nepal.^31 Cambodia, for example, had rejected “asso-
ciation” with SEATO, preferring to trust its security instead to China’s en-
lightened self-interest. Further beyond China’s periphery, there were other
“emerging countries,” in Africa for example, that might be persuaded by a
moderate and reasoned approach to expand ties with the PRC, lessening its
diplomatic isolation. Up to 1954, the PRC had few international contacts be-
yond the socialist camp.
In April 1954, the prime ministers of India, Indonesia, Burma, Pakistan,
and Ceylon—all newly independent countries and (except for Pakistan) lead-
ers in the emerging non-aligned movement—met in Ceylon and decided to
convene a conference of Asian and African nations in Bandung, Indonesia, a
year hence. The original Indonesian proposal was that invitations be limited
to UN members, a formulation that would have excluded the PRC. Indian
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru urged inclusion of the PRC, and this was
agreed to. Nehru imagined that drawing the PRC into the Asia-Africa move-
ment would serve India’s interests by demonstrating India’s friendship for the
PRC. Neither the Soviet Union nor the Western developing countries were
invited—testament to the emerging non-aligned movement. The Bandung
Conference is often identified as the founding event of what became the
Non-Aligned Movement.
On February 10, 1955, after several weeks of deliberation, China informed
the five convening countries that China accepted the invitation to attend the
Bandung conference. According to Huang Hua, who served as press secre-
tary of the Chinese delegation to the conference, Bandung was an oppor-
tunity to launch “a major counterattack” against the “US policy of hostility
and isolation.”^32 Mao Zedong personally presided over a Politburo meeting to
work out strategy for the conference. The Politburo decided to seek a united
front for international peace, unity in support of the movement for national