Countering Soviet Encirclement } 333
however, that dictionaries of Japanese define meiwaku as “trouble, bother,
nuisance, annoyance.”
During his talks with Tanaka, Zhou Enlai raised but did not dwell on
Japan’s alliance with the United States. More pointedly, Zhou did not object
to that alliance.
Japan was an important link in the anti-Soviet front Beijing was trying
to assemble. During US-PRC interactions in 1971 and early 1972, Beijing had
been critical of the US alliance with Japan, warning the United States that it
was encouraging the revival of Japanese militarism and imperialism, which
it would someday regret. The reply of US representatives was that the US alli-
ance with Japan benefited China by limiting the development of Japanese
military capabilities. By November 1973, Kissinger found that Mao and Zhou
had accepted the US view. The US link with Japan was a good thing because
it checked potential Japanese alignment with the Soviet Union, Mao said.^40
Strengthening the Southern Front: Pakistan and Iran
Chinese support for Pakistan’s development of nuclear weapons was ap-
parently one component of Beijing’s effort to strengthen global anti-Soviet
forces.^41 Pakistan’s nuclear weapons would be targeted against India, not the
USSR, of course. But from the perspective of Mao and Zhou, India was a
Soviet ally, while Pakistan was a quasi-ally of China. India’s December 1971
partition of Pakistan had occurred with Soviet support and represented an
important element of the shift in the global correlation of forces in Moscow’s
favor. Following Pakistan’s catastrophic 1971 defeat by India, China moved
quickly to assist Pakistan’s rebuilding of its shattered armed forces. But
India’s far larger economy and population meant that Pakistan would find
it difficult to match India in conventional military strength. India was also
increasingly aggressive, at least from the Chinese perspective: partitioning
Pakistan, annexing Sikkim in 1974–1975, testing an atomic bomb in May
- All these moves were, again from Beijing’s perspective, aspects of an
Indian drive to achieve hegemony over South Asia, turning that region into
part of the Soviet-engineered encirclement of China. Indian policies had full
Soviet backing. India was generally aligned with the Soviet Union in the
United Nations, and most of India’s weapons were purchased from the Soviet
Union. Indian ports were favorite Indian Ocean ports of call for Soviet war-
ships. A strong Pakistan was an important element countering that adverse
pro-Soviet trend.
Pakistani weakness and vulnerability was also a threat to China. If
Pakistan’s weakness tempted another Indian attack on Pakistan, China could
be confronted with the unpleasant choice of intervening to assist Pakistan,
thereby risking war with both India and the Soviet Union, or not intervening