the Great Leap Forward, but China was denied the status it so desired
of belonging to the nuclear club. Beijing immediately mounted a war
of words against Khrushchev, culminating in a definitive break in July
1963 after Moscow signed the first nuclear test ban treaty with the
United States. In foreign affairs Beijing thereupon adopted a policy of
self-reliance that verged on isolationism.
The Sino–Soviet split had repercussions for China’s relations
with Southeast Asia. In an era of détentebetween the Soviet Union
and the United States, China saw itself as leader of revolutionary
forces throughout the Third World, including anti-colonial move-
ments in Africa and Marxist revolutionary movements in Latin
America. China pledged its support for all such rebel groups, in the
form of finance, weapons and training. In practice, however, assistance
went mainly to movements ideologically close to the CCP seeking to
overthrow governments allied to the United States. In Southeast Asia,
competition with Moscow for allegiance from communist parties was
never in doubt. Most sided with Beijing, though some pro-Soviet
splinter groups were formed. Only the Lao Dong (Workers’ Party) in
Vietnam and the Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI) attempted to
balance relations with both Moscow and Beijing, though the PKI soon
came down on China’s side.
Being ideologically close to the CCP did not guarantee sub-
stantial assistance, however. In Southeast Asia, China’s increasingly
radical foreign policy of ‘exporting revolution’ was selectively applied.
As state-to-state relations with neutral Burma under the military
regime of General Ne Win continued to be friendly, little assistance
found its way to the Burmese Communist Party. Communist insurgen-
cies in Malaya and the Philippines had been reduced to a security
nuisance, so most assistance was directed to communist parties in
Indochina and Thailand. The most interesting case, however, was
China’s relations with Indonesia, where Beijing established close ties
both with the government of President Sukarno on the one hand, and
with the PKI on the other.
Communism and the Cold War