China\'s Quest. The History of the Foreign Relations of the People\'s Republic of China - John Garver

Countering Soviet Encirclement } 339

Afghani officer corps carried out a coup d’état that moved their country into
Soviet-style socialism and alignment with the USSR. Throughout this period,
the military capabilities of Soviet-aligned Iraq were expanding rapidly. Soviet
warships were steaming around the Indian Ocean with ever-greater fre-
quency. All this was happening while the United States, the traditional leader
of the global effort to contain the Soviet Union, was distracted by Vietnam,
internal political crisis, and economic “stagflation.” In this increasingly
dark and dangerous situation, Beijing and Tehran found a meeting of the
minds. Figure 12-2 illustrates the wide convergence of Sino-Iranian interests
that underpinned the formation of those two countries’ entente cordiale in
the 1970s.
China’s partnership with the Kingdom of Iran culminated in a visit by Hua
Guofeng in August 1978. This was the first-ever visit by the PRC’s paramount
leader to a non-communist-ruled country, a fact that Beijing intended to
underline the importance it attributed to China’s new, cooperative relation-
ship with Iran. Hua’s visit was also a great and dramatic diplomatic blunder
that would alienate Iran’s new Islamic revolutionary regime for a number of
years. The policy content associated with Hua Guofeng’s visit differed little
from that of Ji Pengfei’s 1973 visit, or of an April 1975 visit by Li Xiannian, or of

EGYPT

SUDAN DJIBOUTI

KENYA S O M A L I A

ETHIOPIA

SAUDI

ARABIA

N. YEMENS.

YEMEN

QATAR

KUWAIT

IRAQ IRAN

INDIA

BANGLADESH

NEPAL BHUTAN

BURMA

THAILAND VIETNAM

CAMBODIA

LAOS

ERITREA

OMAN

U.A.E

PAKIS

TAN

AFGH

ANIS

TAN

Iraq–Soviet Treaty, 1972.

Large-scale Soviet military

and economic assistance.

Monarchy overthrown, 1973.

Military Marxist coup, 1978.Extensive Soviet presence.

Soviet occupation, 1979.

assistance including nuclearLarge-scale PRC military

weapons assistance following

1971 defeat by India. Iraniansecurity guarantee, 1973.

Northwest province = insurgency.

Military Marxist coup, 1974.

Internal socialist revolution

and Cuban military presence.with large Soviet advisory

Democratic People's Republic

state aligned with Soviet Union.of Yemen, socialist Marxist

Extensive Soviet presence;

sanctuary for Omani rebels.

Dhofar province; Marxist

insurgency backed by DPRYand Soviet Union. Iranian

counter-insurgency

intervention,1973.

and India supportedBaluchistan, Iraq,

insurgency. Iranian

military interventionto suppress

U.S. Naval base;Diego Garcia,

construction 1971.

East Pakistan/Bangladesh;

Indian intervention to

sever from Pakistan, 1971.

Chinese client state

destroyed by Vietnaminvasion, 1978. All

Indochina under Hanoi’s

domination.

U.S. client state destroyed.

Vietnam moves into allianceUnited Communist-led

with Soviet Union. VietnamSoviet treaty, 1978. –

India–SovietTreaty, 1971.

India–Soviet

Treaty, 1971.

FIGU R E 12-2 Geopolitical Underpinning of Sino-Iranian Entente of the 1970s
Source: John Garver, China and Iran: Ancient Partners in a Post-Imperial World, (University of Washington
Press: Seattle, 2006), p. 46.