There was no such thing as Chinese betrayal. There were no assurances from China (or any other country for that matter) that she will fight Pakistan's war. Bengalis were not ready to stay with Pakistan, everybody could see it except perhaps certain Pakistani Generals, and not all of them BTW. Lt. General Sahibzada Yaqoob Khan saw and understood what was coming and he therefore refused to execute an Army action against the Bengali insurgents. We lost Dacca simply because the Bengalis were not on our side and no force can fight against her own people. Intervention from any country be it China or USA would not have saved the day for us and it should not be very difficult for people to understand. Bengalis were (still are) extremely nationalistic and we had to give them full provincial/state autonomy for day one. East Pakistan parting from West was an inevitability, however, it did not have to happen after such a loss of life or humiliation.
May be betrayal is too strong a word, but I am not sure what other word I can use, Chinese inaction?
People's opinion changed on 25th March crackdown, Operation Searchlight. Before that night most people I believe did not support the breakup of Pakistan, they wanted political rights and autonomy. Outright independence was a claim from a very small minority, may be a few thousand, many of whom were Soviet leaning communists/leftists (many were quite anti-India). Mujib himself was ambivalent about this issue as I recall from the little research I have done. Political and military leaders from both wings made a series of mistakes since 1947, but the final one was the decision to commence Operation Searchlight and the way it was conducted in my opinion. Army personnel from the western wing tried to disarm army, police and border guards of the Eastern wing. This forced them to revolt, declare independence and start the fight, that was the starting point of the war. Essentially it seemed to the people in Eastern wing at the time that the Western wing had initiated an armed attack on the Eastern wing using Army personnel solely from the Western wing. That changed people's perception when this fact became clear.
From the following article I found on the web, it looks like Chinese inaction was quite deliberate, they simply did not agree to intervene based on their own reasoning, but somehow it was not sufficiently clear to Western wing leadership at the time or they intentionally did not disclose it to keep up morale. I personally think the Chinese made a mistake, if they intervened it was still possible to prevent a breakup. In hind sight, it would have been better for people of both wings and for the people of China, as well as the West. The only people that benefited from this inaction was Soviet Union, temporarily and India, permanently. This inability to foresee their own self interest I think is a serious drawback with the Chinese. That is my opinion of course and the Chinese I am sure will disagree.
War of liberation and China | New Age
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War of liberation and China
March 31, 2015 12:04 am·
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There is enough evidence from Chinese leaders’ reactions during the war to suggest that it would not be right to assume that they opposed Bangladesh’s liberation struggle. And using an either/or logic to understand China’s role during the war will be meaningless, writes Anwara Begum
THERE are prominent scholars, South Asian and Western, who found China’s reactions to the Bangladesh liberation war to be more complex than it appeared to be. Garver (Protracted Contest: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Twentieth Century, 2001 p. 207) who called the liberation struggle of Bangladesh ‘Indian Dismemberment of Pakistan’ writes in the same page, ‘China’s response to this bold Indian move was somewhat paradoxical. Although the geopolitical stakes were considerably higher in 1971 than they had been in 1965, China’s response was far weaker. Whereas China in 1965 was apparently prepared for some level of military activity against India, China’s support in 1971 never approached that level.’ Some believe that China understood that Pakistan was faced with a serious crisis that could undermine its national integrity and military means for solving such a problem would not be useful.
During a visit by Yahya Khan, the Pakistani president, to China shortly before the 1970 election, Zhou Enlai, the Chinese premier, suggested that Pakistan should find a ‘fair’ solution to the political problem. After the election Zhou wrote to the Pakistani leaders of both the east and west wings and urged them to find a political solution satisfactory to all, meaning East and West Pakistan (Chowdhury India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Major Powers: Politics of a Divided Subcontinent 1975, p 211). Garver (2001, p 208-209) writes that India assured the Awami League of its support even before the liberation war started in Bangladesh and once it started India allowed freedom fighters to train on Indian territories and supplied them with weapons, ammunitions, and explosives. By July 1971 India decided to wage a ‘quiet war’ to ‘liberate’ Bangladesh within a reasonable time period (Garver, 2001, p 209). Indian strategists, for example K Subramanyam thought India should help liberate Bangladesh and bring a quick end to the conflict because if the conflict lingered there would be radicalisation.
When Chinese leaders met with Pakistani leaders, they privately criticised the bloody methods that were being used by the Pakistan army to solve the political problem. In April Zhou frankly communicated the Chinese leadership’s concerns to Pakistan’s foreign secretary (Garver, 2001, p 210). An important member of the ruling military junta of Pakistan went to Beijing to ask for its support. But Zhou expressed concerns at the use of military force and warned that Pakistan might have to face grave consequences if a political solution was not found (SM Khan, Memories and Reflections of a Pakistani Diplomat, 1997; Khan participated in the mission that was sent in April 1971). Garver (2001, p 210) thinks the Chinese leaders tried to avoid opposition to the Bangladesh liberation war using various means. This opinion is too strong coming from a scholar like Garver. His works lie at the centre of the Sino-Indian hostility discourse. Obviously he is discussing something that is plain to any person watching Chinese leaders’ reactions during the war. Garver discusses a commentary appearing in the Renmin Ribao on April 11, 1971. This piece neither criticised nor defended Pakistani actions or the Awami League. It attacked Indian and Soviet interference in Pakistan’s domestic affairs. The commentary also stated that ‘the Chinese government and people will, as always, firmly support the Pakistan government and people in their just struggle to safeguard state sovereignty and national independence.’ Garver has noticed that this statement does not contain the phrase ‘territorial integrity’. It was in April 1971. I don’t want to adopt a language that clarifies matters so much that the readers of this piece does not have much to think about.
Chinese leaders were silent for about seven months while the Chinese media publicised Pakistan’s charges of subversion and intervention. But when the USSR and India signed the Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Assistance China began to forcefully support Islamabad. China still supported Pakistan rather equivocally and did not make any credible threats of military intervention as it did in 1965. Some observers believe that Chinese leaders were silent in mid-1971 because of their principle of sympathy for national liberation struggles (M Rahman, Emergence of a New Nation in a Multi-Polar World, 1978). In November 1971, Bhutto, leading a high-level delegation, went to China to request the Chinese leaders to change their decision of non-intervention. China refused to militarily intervene in the conflict but said that it would continue to provide aid to Pakistan. China advised the Pakistani leaders, even as late as November, to reach a political solution through negotiations with the Awami League (R Sisson and L Rose, War and Secession: Pakistan, India and the Creation of Bangladesh, 1990). India carefully studied Chinese leaders’ statements and communications which the Indian intelligence got hold of (Jain 1974). It found Chinese rhetoric to be less belligerent than it was during the 1965 war and it also detected no Chinese troop movements against India. This definitely influenced India’s decision to intervene. All the while Pakistani leaders gave the impression that China would militarily intervene in the war.
Garver (2001, p 213) presents a number of reasons for China’s ambiguous reactions to the Bangladesh liberation war: 1. China’s position was much weaker in 1971 than in 1965 because the PLA was weaker after fighting the Korean and Indian wars plus taking control of Tibet. It got involved in Chinese politics because of the Cultural Revolution. 2. India was militarily much more powerful in 1971 than in 1965. China risked embarrassing defeat at the hand of India. 3. In 1965 China felt it was supporting the Kashmiris in their nationalist struggle but in 1971 it would be opposing the nationalist aspirations of the Bengalis. 4. China could try to help Pakistan in a non-military way in 1971 because of its position in the Security Council of the UN. 5. China’s intervention risked a Soviet attack against China. After listing these reasons Garver expresses surprise that in 1965 China intervened even though both the superpowers were against it but in 1971 it did not intervene even though it enjoyed the support of the United States!
That the revolutionary leaders of China were reasoning the way Garver thinks they were is an invalid assumption. There are enough archival materials in East European countries (allies of the former Soviet Union) to understand that an attack against China by the USSR was unlikely and the rift between the People’s Republic and the USSR was not as sharp as is assumed by many scholars. With hindsight one can assume safely that the Chinese leaders did not feel they would be defeated in a conflict with India. Feng (Chinese Strategic Culture and Foreign Policy Decision-Making, 2007) has argued in his book that China attacked India in 1962 because it felt Nehru engaged in forward deployment thinking China was too weak to dare to respond because of domestic troubles. Feng also stresses that the Chinese do not like to resort to war but if they feel they must fight a war, they will.
The question of defeat comes only when one thinks about fighting a war; it seems China was not thinking about fighting a war with India even though the US was giving it green signals; we will see that later as described by Luce (In Spite of Gods: The Strange Rise of India, 2006). The question is why. Mao is on record saying, ‘A war between China and India is truly a most unfortunate event.’ From the very beginning China had been urging the Pakistani leaders to reach a political solution. For analysing Chinese leaders’ reactions properly and in a more balanced way, Chinese language archival materials are necessary. This essay cannot deal with those. Suffice it to say here that there is enough evidence from Chinese leaders’ reactions during the war to suggest that it would not be right to assume that they opposed Bangladesh’s liberation struggle. And using an either/or logic to understand China’s role during the war will be meaningless. The assumption that China recognised Bangladesh soon after Sheikh Mujib’s death also does not mean that China felt his leadership was an impediment to the development of relations. It was Sheikh Mujib who tried to improve relations with China before his death.
During the 1971 Bangladesh war of liberation, China’s reactions were measured. It expressed its dislike of Indian actions but never indicated it would militarily interfere in the conflict. Edward Luce (2006, pp 268-269) provides some very interesting information on how China acted during the 1971 Bangladesh war of liberation. The Nixon administration did send the USS Enterprise to the Bay of Bengal when it felt the conflict was serious and Pakistan, a US ally, was threatened with breakup. Kissinger publicly remarked that the United States would not come to India’s aid if China militarily intervened in the conflict. This was a green light for China to intervene; China did not intervene. Luce (2006: 269) claims that National Security Archives transcripts show that during the 1971 war Nixon said that the Indians needed a mass famine. Kissinger said that they were ‘such bastards’. He called Indira Gandhi a bitch. Kissinger also felt that the US should tell the Chinese that they should intervene; later they (Nixon and Kissinger) agreed to tell the Chinese that ‘if you are ever going to move, this is the time.’ The Chinese did not move. As serious a conflict as this war was which led to the dismemberment of Pakistan, a close ally of China, it did not incite China to take military measures against India, nor even a threat as the one issued during the 1965 war was used.
A single cause explanation of China’s actions would be wrong; assuming that the Chinese leaders were reasoning like the traditional realists would also be wrong; obviously an altogether different kind of analysis should be adopted. Bangladeshis themselves should decide if they want to ask such an exclusionary question like: ‘Did China support our war of independence?’ What kind of answers you will get depends on the kind of questions you ask.
Anwara Begum is a professor of political science at Chittagong University."
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War of liberation and China | New Age
Some reference material:
War and Secession: Pakistan, India, and the Creation of Bangladesh - Richard Sisson, Leo E. Rose - Google Books
pages 247-253
Nixon/Kissinger Saw India as "Soviet Stooge" in 1971 South Asia Crisis
Meeting China Halfway: How to Defuse the Emerging US-China Rivalry - Lyle J. Goldstein - Google Books
Chapter 11
