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role in the joint effort—the prospect of an end to US bombing that would per-
suade the Khmer Rouge to accept a limited role in postwar Cambodia. Mao
and his Politburo comrades probably understood little of the unfamiliar US
system of separation of powers with its sometimes counterproductive results.
It was far easier for them to see behind the US “betrayal” some grand scheme
intended to undermine China’s standing in Southeast Asia and deny victory
to Cambodia’s revolutionary forces.
Jiang Qing and her radical followers seized on Zhou’s effort to “betray”
Cambodia’s revolutionary forces, the Khmer Rouge, by cooperating with the
Americans to deny the Khmer Rouge complete victory. The way to secure the
PRC, Jiang insisted in line with Mao’s old tune, was by militant support for
revolution in the intermediate zone, not by cutting deals with imperialism to
thwart revolutionary seizure of power. In terms of China’s Cambodia policy,
Zhou concluded that absolute Khmer Rouge rule was inevitable, and that China
had to adopt its policy to that reality. As vice foreign minister Qiao Guanghau
told Kissinger in October 1973, the wise course was now to “Let the flames
burning in Cambodia extinguish themselves, by themselves.”^9 When Phnom
Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge in April 1975, Maoist leader Zhang Chunqiao
made a secret visit to Cambodia to demonstrate support for the new regime.
China also agreed to give US$1 billion in assistance to the Khmer Rouge re-
gime. This was China’s largest aid pledge up to that point.^10 The Khmer Rouge
victory in spite of Zhou’s effort to channel them into a secondary role in a co-
alition government demonstrated the incorrectness of Zhou Enlai’s pragmatic
diplomacy—at least in the opinion of China’s Maoist leaders.
The Duke of Zhou Toppled
The radicals’ campaign to criticize Zhou’s “right capitulationist” diplomacy
gained steam with a ten-day (November 25–December 5, 1973) Politburo
criticism session. Deng Xiaoping was among the participants in this session,
brought back from Cultural Revolution exile in Jiangxi by Mao especially to
participate in this session. This marked the beginning of Deng’s rehabilita-
tion. Mao rehabilitated Deng because he needed someone who could replace
Zhou. But Mao wanted Deng to pass yet another ideological litmus test, this
time by criticizing Zhou’s capitulationist diplomacy. The session began with a
briefing by Nancy Tang on Zhou’s errors. Zhou, Tang said, was “ready to be a
puppet of the Soviet invaders” and was “running an independent kingdom.”
Participants in the session joined in criticism of Zhou; not to have done so
would have been politically risky, given that Mao had authorized the session.
Zhou, following his usual practice, made a self-criticism.^11
Deng apparently passed this test. Following the late 1973 Politburo criticism
of Zhou’s diplomacy, Mao designated Deng to deliver a statement by China