308 { China’s Quest
and social imperialist enemies. Quotes from Lenin and Stalin were offered.
Stalin’s 1939 nonaggression pact with Nazi Germany was offered by Qiao as
a “weighty argument.” Hoxha remained unpersuaded; Qiao’s arguments had
“no foundation” and were “provocative,” the Albanian leader said.^39 Hoxha
rejected Qian’s premise of a dire Soviet threat. The Soviet Union was afraid of
a world war and would not attack China, the Albanian dictator believed. The
next month, China informed Albania it would not be able to fulfill Tirana’s re-
quest for economic aid during that country’s 1975–1980 Five Year Plan.
Hoxha felt that the wrong side had won the power struggle within the
CCP. Hoxha identified with the ideologically grounded Chen Boda–Jiang
Qing group, and saw Zhou and his supporters as hidden rightists who should
be purged by continuation of the Cultural Revolution. (Chen Boda had been
purged along with Lin Biao.) Hoxha understood that Zhou Enlai favored
scrapping support for the world revolution, in practice if not in rhetoric.
Instead, Zhou’s “opportunist, liberal” line premised China’s foreign policies
on China’s national interests like security and development. The clash of ideas
between Hoxha and China’s Maoist radicals on the one hand, and Zhou Enlai
and Li Xiannian on the other, reflects very nicely the movement of the PRC
away from revolutionary activism.Sino-American Rapprochement and Pakistan’s PartitionWhile China was initiating cooperation with the United States to oppose the
expansion of Soviet influence, it simultaneously suffered a serious setback to
that effort in South Asia. Pakistan, a strategic partner of China since 1964 and
a major factor in China’s effort to constrain a hostile India, was torn apart by
Soviet-backed India. The Indian-engineered secession of East Pakistan and
transformation of that entity into the independent state of Bangladesh sub-
stantially diminished China’s position in South Asia, putting into place one
important element of the chain of Soviet “encirclement” that would come to
dominate China’s foreign policy for a decade.
China’s strategic partnership with Pakistan developed unimpaired
throughout the Cultural Revolution. Chairman Mao personally ordered that
China’s ties with Pakistan would be exempt from Red Guard disruption, and
Zhou Enlai ensured that this directive was respected.^40 Red Guards were not
allowed to organize within China’s embassy in Pakistan, and Pakistan was
the only Asian country not criticized by otherwise freewheeling Red Guards.
Pakistan moved to improve ties with Moscow following the 1965 war, but gave
Beijing assurances that these moves did not signify a weakening of Pakistan’s
commitment to China. Beijing in turn gave Pakistan pledges of political sup-
port on the Kashmir issue and military support in the event of an Indian
attack on Pakistan.^41