206 { China’s Quest
1958, and resulted in strong Pathet Lao representation in the new National
Assembly and in a coalition government headed by a neutralist prince.
Largely because of its potential role as a transport corridor, Washington
viewed the struggle for Laos as part of a broader struggle for Indochina and
Southeast Asia. The United States therefore decided to use its influence to
bring to power an anticommunist government which would work with the
United States to sever Hanoi’s trails. This was accomplished; US aid paid most
of the wages of the Laotian army. US military personnel, wearing civilian
clothing out of deference to the 1954 Geneva agreement, began training the
Laotian military. Beijing was deeply concerned that the United States might
succeed, and countered by stepping up support for the Pathet Lao. The situa-
tion in Laos reached a crisis in August 1960, when a coup by neutralist military
units ousted the US-backed anticommunist leader and brought the neutralist
prince back to power. That restored neutralist government in turn collapsed
after only two months, and neutralist forces fled to Phong Saly and Sam Neua
to join the Pathet Lao. With additional but carefully camouflaged support
from both North Vietnam and China, the Pathet Lao then launched an offen-
sive that rapidly expanded the area under communist control. By February
1961, the Pathet Lao controlled the Plain of Jars and threatened Vientiane and
Luang Prabang. The next month, China established ambassadorial-level dip-
lomatic relations with the Pathet Lao government, with the neutralist prince
as a figurehead. This meant that a Chinese military presence in Laos was
covered by the sovereignty of the government recognized by Beijing. China
also opened a consulate in Phong Saly, headed by a PLA major general and
ex-commander of the Kunming Military Region. The PLA began construct-
ing roads linking Mengla, in Yunnan, with Phong Saly. All this signaled prep-
aration for Chinese intervention.
As fighting in Laos flared, an international conference seeking a negoti-
ated settlement met in Geneva from May 1961 to July 1962. China viewed the
fourteen-month-long second Geneva Conference on Indochina as political
warfare against US imperialism, and employed its traditional tactic of “talk-
ing while fighting.” Beijing had two paramount interests at Geneva: 1) pre-
venting Laos from being drawn into the US military system (a system that
already included Thailand, South Vietnam, and the Philippines), and 2) pre-
venting impairment of the vital trails linking North and South Vietnam.
When the conference got under way, there was significant US military pres-
ence in Laos. US military advisors, economic and military aid, and air power
bolstered Laotian anticommunist forces in the continually shifting align-
ments of Laotian politics. There were also several thousand KMT “irregu-
lar” forces in the Burma-Laos border areas that had contacts with both US
and Chinese Nationalist clandestine services. All of this posed for Beijing the
specter of Laos becoming a military base for the United States. Preventing
this via “neutralization” of Laos and, as part of that, the elimination of a US