army and orthodox Muslim fears of Chinese subversion and commu-
nist revolution.
Both external and internal factors contributed to the dramatic
events following the murky and badly botched attempted coup of Sep-
tember 1965. Growing military doubts over confrontation had
undermined the earlier foreign policy consensus. The Indonesian army
was uncomfortable over the country’s international isolation and
dependency on Beijing. Meanwhile, as Sukarno came to rely increas-
ingly on China externally, so he tended to rely more on the PKI
internally. This undermined his ability to maintain the internal
balance of power, which had in any case ignored political Islam. The
coup provided the catalyst for the army to join forces with orthodox
Muslims to destroy the PKI. China was accused of involvement in the
coup attempt, a charge vehemently denied by Beijing. Relations
between the PRC and the new government of General Suharto soured
rapidly, however, until in October 1967 they were suspended unilater-
ally by Jakarta, along with all direct trade.
With the collapse of the Jakarta–Beijing axis, China’s South-
east Asia policy suffered a severe setback. The PRC had targeted
Indonesia as the largest, most populous, and most strategically situ-
ated country in the region. But in doing so it had made serious
mistakes. It had depended far too much on the political skills of
Sukarno, while failing to appreciate how fragile were the foundations
of his power. It had underestimated the grim anti-communism of the
army, ignored political Islam, and overestimated the organisational
strength of the PKI.
China had been playing for high stakes. The Jakarta–Beijing
Axis had been forged when the Second Indochina War was already
underway, and Chinese–Vietnamese relations still close. A united
communist Vietnam and the PKI in power in Indonesia, both
beholden to China, might have brought all Southeast Asia (with the
possible exception of the Philippines where there were still American
bases) into Beijing’s political orbit. In September 1963 Zhou Enlai had
Communism and the Cold War