Not only were the two superpowers reluctant to make way for
China, in Southeast Asia nationalist elites were unimpressed by
Chinese-backed attempts to overthrow them. With Western assis-
tance, revolutionary movements were crushed in the Philippines and
Malaya and, in different circumstances, brought under control in
Burma and Indonesia. Largely as a result of its own policies, by 1970
China had been able to establish diplomatic relations with only five
countries in Southeast Asia. These were, in order of recognition of
the PRC, Burma, Indonesia (until 1967), the Democratic Republic
of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Let us look briefly at the develop-
ment of bilateral relations regimes with the PRC by each of these
states.
One point to note, first, is that of the five, four are continental
states. Only Indonesia represented maritime Southeast Asia (including
Malaysia). Only Thailand—among continental Southeast Asian
states—did not recognise Beijing. This was in accordance with Thai-
land’s historical international relations culture that has consistently
sought to maintain Thai independence and security through alliance
with the current hegemonic power in the region. From the end of the
Second World War until the mid-1970s, this was the United States.
With US backing, Thailand challenged Vietnamese influence in Laos,
and to a lesser extent in Cambodia, but was itself vulnerable to periph-
eral insurgencies directed from outside the country.
Burma was most consistent in developing a bilateral relations
regime with China, based on a clear set of mutual understandings.
These had to do, above all, with mutual security. While China repre-
sented the principal threat to the Burmese government and state,
Beijing feared imperialist encirclement. To this, both democratic and
military regimes in Burma were sensitive. In return for strict Burmese
neutrality, China limited its support for the Burmese Communist
Party to a level that prevented the BCP from seriously challenging
the government in Rangoon. Burma’s Buddhist-impregnated inter-
national relations culture, which accepts impermanence as a universal
A Short History of China and Southeast Asia