208 { China’s Quest
States supported the proposal. China and North Vietnam together rejected
the proposal as interference with Laos’ sovereignty and independence, and
as a US scheme to put Laotian territory under US control. This idea too was
dropped.
The issue of integration of Pathet Lao armed forces into a national Laotian
army also touched on the VWP ability to control the trails. The United States
argued for amalgamation of the several Laotian armies into a single national
army—as had been the case with Austria in 1955—on the grounds that this
was essential for a successful neutralization of Laos. Beijing and Hanoi would
have none of it. The US proposal was nothing less than an attempt to wipe
out Lao’s “patriotic forces,” Beijing said. Again the United States dropped the
issue. The crux of the matter was that the VWP needed cooperation with a
reliable Laotian military force to protect its trails: to garner intelligence from
locals; to provide a Laotian facade when outsiders, such as Western journal-
ists, visited; to interface with the local populace to procure labor or supplies;
and to help fight whenever US covert or special forces showed up. The Pathet
Lao military remained intact to serve as Hanoi’s reliable partner throughout
the war.
China’s “fighting while talking” at the 1962 Geneva Convention made an
extremely important contribution to the ultimate success of the VWP’s war
for South Vietnam. Together with Beijing’s persuasion of Sihanouk to tolerate
the trails in eastern Cambodia (a matter dealt with below), China’s 1962 vic-
tory at Geneva allowed men and material to continue flowing to battlefields
in South Vietnam. The United States and Saigon never succeeded in cutting
that flow. Moreover, the Declaration on the Neutrality of Laos signed on July
23, 1962, gave Beijing and Hanoi a legal basis for condemnation of US efforts
to disrupt the trails by air bombardment and covert special operations.BurmaIf South Vietnam was a close US ally and SEATO “associate” posing a threat
to PRC security, Burma was a leading member of the non-aligned move-
ment and a country with long cordial relations with the PRC.^20 Burma and
the PRC established diplomatic relations at the ambassadorial level on June
8, 1950. Relations became warm in the early 1950s, when the two countries
cooperated militarily to deal with KMT remnants in northern Burma sup-
ported by the United States and Nationalist China. Summit exchanges
between Zhou Enlai and Prime Minister U Nu began in 1954 and continued
through a visit by President Liu Shaoqi in 1963. In 1960, a treaty of friend-
ship and mutual non-aggression and another treaty settling the border issue
were signed.^21 Burma had no military link to the United States or the West.
Non-aligned Yugoslavia was its major arms supplier. In late 1960 and early