192 { China’s Quest
in Southeast Asia. The heavy demands imposed on China’s people as a result
contributed to the disillusion of the Chinese people from the utopian goals at
the core of Mao Zedong’s vast project.China and the 1965 India-Pakistan WarChina’s dramatic defeat of India in 1962 established China as a viable partner
of Pakistan in countering India. The Sino-Pakistan entente cordiale that
resulted from this would become one of the most stable elements of PRC for-
eign relations. Formed in 1964 as China was on the threshold of the Cultural
Revolution, the Sino-Pakistan entente was one of very few of China’s diplo-
matic relations to survive that upheaval without disruption. During Beijing’s
push to propagate Marxism-Leninism and Maoist parties around the world
in the 1960s, Mao advised the Pakistani Communist Party to dissolve and
support the Pakistani government. Formed during a period when US impe-
rialism was China’s nemesis, China’s entente with Pakistan continued unim-
peded when Soviet social imperialism became Beijing’s target, and continued
further during the post–Cold War period when US “peaceful evolution”
became Beijing’s bane. The entente flourished equally under Pakistani mil-
itary dictatorships and civilian parliamentary governments, as well as under
more secular or more Islamicist Pakistani leaders. Forged under Mao, the
Sino-Pakistan entente remained strong as Deng Xiaoping scrapped one after
another of China’s Mao-era policies. Even in the 2010s, as Beijing pushed for
rapprochement with India, China’s entente with Pakistan remained strong.
The basis for this remarkable continuity is parallel Chinese and Pakistani
interests in preventing Indian domination of South Asia.
Beijing did not move immediately into alignment with Pakistan after the
1962 war. Mao had hoped that after assimilating the lesson of 1962, New
Delhi would be willing to return to Bandung-era-like peaceful coexistence.
By 1964, it was apparent that this would not happen and that India would
follow an anti-China path for some considerable time. The foundation of
the partnership with Pakistan came in February 1964, when Zhou Enlai
during a visit to Pakistan declared China’s support for Pakistan’s call for
resolution of the Kashmir question on the basis of the will of the people of
that region.^54
The Kashmir issue emerged in 1947 when British India was partitioned
into two separate countries, India and Pakistan. Kashmir’s population was
mostly Muslim, but it was ruled by a Hindu prince who opted to join India
instead of Pakistan. Pakistan felt this was unjust and resorted to war to rec-
tify the injustice. Ever since then, Pakistan has demanded that the people of
Kashmir be allowed a free vote—self-determination—to decide whether they
should be part of India or Pakistan. India, after briefly agreeing to a plebiscite,