9 Fresh beginnings
The visit of President Nixon to Beijing in 1972 opened the way for
several of America’s Asian allies to follow suit. By the time full diplo-
matic relations were established between Washington and Beijing,
Japan had signed a Treaty of Peace and Friendship with China, and
three more Southeast Asian states (Malaysia, Thailand and the Philip-
pines) had recognised the PRC. This left Indonesia and Singapore
(and Brunei, which only gained full independence in 1984) as the only
states in Southeast Asia that did not have diplomatic relations with
Beijing.
The 1970s were thus a crucial decade for China–Southeast Asia
relations. When the decade opened, the PRC—with an aging Mao still
at the helm—was recovering from the excesses of the Cultural Revo-
lution, still actively supporting revolutionary movements in the region,
and was regarded with deep suspicion by Southeast Asian govern-
ments. China’s only ally was North Vietnam, though even there
appearances were misleading. Ten years later, Mao was dead, the
radical ‘Gang of Four’ had been overthrown, and Deng Xiaoping had