The Bandung Era } 97
government of Laos, and the communist-led Laotian group the Pathet Lao,
plus the royal government of Cambodia. This was the PRC’s first interna-
tional conference, and Chinese leaders prepared carefully. The Chinese dele-
gation included 180 people. Zhou Enlai specified that the key objective was to
break the US policy of blockade and embargo of the PRC. To this end, China
should do its utmost to reach agreements, win consensus, settle disputes via
consultations among the big powers, and open up new diplomatic channels,
especially with Western nations.^14
Zhou Enlai had spent the first three weeks of April in Moscow con-
sulting with Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov about strategy for
the upcoming conference.^15 Zhou and Molotov agreed to cooperate closely
at the conference and to adopt a realistic attitude to find a peaceful settle-
ment to the Indochina problem. The United States would try to sabotage
the conference to continue its policy of war and aggression in Indochina,
the two agreed. Zhou and Molotov probably reached agreement that an
appropriate and realistic approach would entail the establishment of two
temporary regroupment zones in Vietnam, communist in the north and
noncommunist in the south, to be accompanied by a French withdrawal
and, after an interval, by a national plebiscite. Zhou proposed such an
approach to the CCP Politburo shortly after his talks with Molotov. The
Politburo, and Mao, approved Zhou’s proposal for a temporary partition
followed by elections.
The fall of Dienbienphu put the Viet Minh in a very strong position.
Premier Pham Van Dong proposed to the conference a plan that would have
given the Viet Minh sole control over all of Vietnam and perhaps Laos and
Cambodia as well. The Viet Minh felt that they dominated the battlefield, that
the French were defeated and demoralized, and that the Viet Minh should ap-
propriately be rewarded with political victory. Pham refused to give ground.
By mid-June, the Conference was deadlocked. Then an election in France
on June 18 led to the inauguration of a new French prime minister, Pierre
Mendès France, who swore upon taking office to end the war in Indochina by
July 20 or resign. This deadline, and the greater French urgency to exit that it
represented, gave new life to the deliberations at Geneva.
Zhou Enlai seized on the opportunity to persuade the Vietnamese to com-
promise. Previously, Pham had demanded that France recognize as full and
legitimate governments the VWP-linked liberation movements in Laos and
Cambodia and withdraw French forces completely from all of Indochina. In
a meeting with Soviet and Vietnamese delegations, Zhou Enlai, with strong
Soviet support, persuaded Pham that the Viet Minh should admit that it had
forces in Laos and Cambodia and agree to withdraw these forces as part of the
withdrawal of all foreign forces from those countries. Pham was reluctant to
abandon VWP domination of Laos and Cambodia, for that was what Zhou’s
proposal amounted to. But confronted with Chinese and Soviet opposition,