444 { China’s Quest
domination of the Third World by the developed countries. Deng and Gandhi
issued a joint communiqué outlining the many areas of common interest and
possible cooperation and calling for the development of friendly, coopera-
tive relations between the two countries on the basis of the Five Principles of
Coexistence. The road to Sino-Indian rapprochement had been opened.
It is significant that the hardening of China’s demands on the territorial
issue (re Tawang) and Beijing’s apparent willingness to go to war with India
in 1987 precipitated the reorientation of India’s China policy. This touches on
an underlying Chinese perception about management of China’s ties with
India: India is prone to arrogantly reckless actions (the Forward Policy in
1961–1962, interference in Tibet in the 1960s, moving into Sumdorong Chu in
the 1980s), and only the shock of confronting China’s power will keep India
sober and deter it from acting recklessly on the basis of its dangerous illu-
sions. This may be one reason why Beijing has decided to keep the territorial
issue alive by insisting on Indian concessions in the Tawang region, where
Indian concessions would further aggravate India’s northeastern security
complex, making concessions unlikely. It may be that keeping the territorial
issue open is an excellent way of keeping Indian attention focused on the re-
ality of China’s military power.^33 This, of course, is a surmise.Establishing a Partnership with the Islamic Republic of IranThe close anti-Soviet partnership between the Kingdom of Iran and the PRC
that developed during the 1970s collapsed abruptly with the overthrow of the
shah’s regime in January 1979. Beijing’s strong support for the shah during
that monarch’s final months in power deeply alienated the new rulers of Iran,
constituted as the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) in April 1979. Aside from
Hua Guofeng’s ill-fated visit in August 1978 as the wave of popular revolution
mounted in Iran, China’s media had continued to support the forces of law
and order, attributing much of the mounting instability in Iran to Soviet sub-
version. China’s close anti-hegemony association with the United States was
another source of conflict between the IRI and the PRC. From the perspective
of Iran’s Islamic revolutionary leaders, and especially the charismatic figure
of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who headed the coalition of revolutionary
forces, the shah’s regime was a US puppet government, an instrument of an
infidel, demonic, and atheistic power enslaving the Muslim people of Iran.
The poisonous effect of China’s association with the “Great Satan” America
was demonstrated by Beijing’s joint effort with America to stifle Iran’s Islamic
revolution (i.e., Hua Guofeng’s 1978 visit)—or so it seemed to Khomeini.
Iran’s new Islamicist rulers also knew little about China. Their worldview
and experience were not wide. What they knew about China was its atheis-
tic communist philosophy and that Muslims in China were cruelly repressed