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rumor that Zhou was frightened by Soviet nuclear threats and had committed
China to military cooperation with the United States in exchange for US nu-
clear protection. Jiang Qing and her followers were delighted that Mao had
turned against Zhou, their long-time rival for power and influence with Mao,
and seized the opportunity to attack Zhou. Zhou was a “rightist capitulation-
ist,” “selling out the national autonomy,” and “getting down on your hands
and knees to the Americans,” Jiang charged.^4 An inadvertent undermining
of China’s position arising out of the separation of powers in the US political
system further eroded Zhou’s position.
Zhou’s Betrayal by the Americans in Cambodia
Policy toward Cambodia became an arena of conflict between Zhou and
CCP radicals. China began supplying large-scale aid to the Khmer Rouge
when Sihanouk was ousted by a coup in March 1970. Over the next five years,
Beijing gave two million US dollars per year to the Khmer Rouge. Office
and living accommodations in Beijing were also provided for Khmer Rouge
leaders, while Sihanouk was given the old French embassy for a residence.^5
With strong Chinese support, areas under Khmer Rouge expanded rapidly.
In those expanding base areas, the Khmer Rouge began implementing rad-
ical policies—collectivization of farming, communal meals, free distribu-
tion of goods, militarized labor—along with genocidal anti-Vietnamese and
anti-Chinese policies. Zhou calculated that these misguided policies (sim-
ilar to those of China’s Great Leap Forward) would lead to economic decline
and popular resistance. Later, when Khmer Rouge seized Phnom Penh and
began killing off the old elites, Zhou, then in the hospital and dying of cancer,
warned the Khmer leaders to avoid the mistakes of extremism committed
previously by the CCP. In reply, Khmer Rouge leaders reportedly smiled con-
descendingly at Zhou.^6
In mid-1973, following the January peace agreement between Hanoi,
Washington, and Saigon, Beijing undertook together with the United States
an effort to install in Cambodia a coalition government including most of
the leaders of the US-supported Phnom Penh government but headed by
Sihanouk.^7 The purpose of this arrangement was to avoid an absolute mili-
tary victory and unrestricted rule by the Khmer Rouge. Zhou Enlai was the
principal architect of this scheme on the Chinese side, although he would cer-
tainly not have undertaken this risky move had it not been approved by Mao.
Zhou had concluded that unchecked Khmer Rouge rule of Cambodia would
lead to ultraleftist and extreme anti-Vietnamese policies that would lead, in
turn, to a Vietnamese takeover of Cambodia. This would indeed prove to be
the case in 1978.^8 On the other hand, Sihanouk was a well-known quality to
China, had proved himself to be quite amenable to China’s advice over the