Ch'en Yi's visit was followed up in June by a two day stopover in Peking by Sukarno at the end of an extensive world tour. It is interesting to note in passing that China was not on Sukarno's original
itinerary, being added only as an afterthought towards the end of Sukarno's tour, and that while the Chinese press gave extensive coverage to the tour it made no mention of Sukarno's visit to Washington. Liu Shao-ch'i
in his speech of welcome at Peking Airport praised
Sukarno's foreign policy but did not mention the domestic aspects of his leadership. A speech by P 'eng Chen
listed numerous world issues thought by China to be
important and on which it was obviously hoped that Sukarno 12
would take a stand. However, in the joint communique issued at the end of the visit, while West Irian was referred to, being linked as usual with Taiwan, the only other international issue specifically mentioned was Laos, where the two states expressed their opposition to
Nhan Dan> 4 April 1961, BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, FE/606/A3/1.
^ H.P. Jones, Indonesia: The Possible Dream3 (Hoover Institution Publications, 1971), p. 192.
11 NCNA, 13 June 1961, SCMP 2519. 12
These included Laos, Algeria, the Congo, the Cameroons, Kenya, Zanzibar, Angola and Cuba. NCNA, 14 June 1961,
'foreign interference in whatever form or manifestation'.13 This formulation may have been inserted by Sukarno
against Chinese opposition, since it was similar to the compromise wording that had been arrived at after a long debate at the Bandung Conference, whose final declaration opposed imperialism 'in all its manifestations'.14 This had been intended by the pro-Western delegates at Bandung to imply condemnation of imperialism by the Communist as well as the Western powers. Sukarno had used a similar wording in previous declarations in an attempt to
demonstrate his 'even-handedness'.13
Peking's own view of the importance of its association with Indonesia may be inferred from the relatively weak
and unenthusiastic epithets that were used by the Chinese leadership and press in their references to the
relationship and also from their treatment of the West Irian question. Both Sukarno and PKI leader Aidit, who had arrived in Peking several days before him, had
described China and Indonesia as 'comrades in arms'.13
This expression did not find its way into Chinese statements until two years later, with far less positive terms such as friendly cooperation' being employed instead. On the West Irian question, Peking's line throughout 1961 was that China 'resolutely supported' Indonesia's claim but the support that was actually given was only verbal. On one occasion the People's Daily asserted that the Chinese people were Indonesia's 'most reliable friends' on the West Irian question, presumably arguing indirectly that
Indonesia s armourers in Moscow would be unreliable when XI
i b i d .
G. H. Jansen, op. c i t . , pp. 214-215. 15 TT „
H. P. Jones, op. cit., p. 195. 16 _ .
Sukarno s statement in SCMP 2519, N C N A , 13 June 1961; A i d i t 's in SCMP 2524, NCNA, 19 June 1961.
17
the crunch came. However Djakarta in 1961 could see little reason why it should accept MIGs from Peking rather than Moscow - even if China had been in a
position to offer them - and MIGs were what it needed, no matter how 'resolute' China's words might sound.
In fact, even China's verbal support for the West Irian campaign requires closer inspection. It might be expected that China would regard with some ambivalence an issue that was likely to strengthen both Soviet
influence in Indonesia and the internal position of the Indonesian army vis-a-vis the PKI, and this does appear to have been the case. The issue was never singled out by the Chinese media for special attention as a major aspect of the global confrontation with imperialism
which Peking was now claiming to be the main 'contradiction' in the world. Moreover on the occasions when the Chinese press reported Indonesian statements on West Irian, it selected, in the great majority of cases, comments emanating from the PKI rather than the Indonesian
Government. The reason for this was that the PKI tended fictitiously to represent the USA as being closely
associated with the Dutch while the Indonesian Government did not make this connection. Thus another, and perhaps more important, reason for Peking's ambivalence over West Irian was that Indonesia's 'struggle against imperialism' was not directed specifically against China's principal enemy. This of course did not prevent the Chinese
propaganda organs from representing it as such or from discovering other, mostly trivial, examples of anti- Americanism on the part of the Indonesian Government.^ Indeed the Chinese would presumably have backed up these
NCNA, 4 April 1961, SWB, FE/605/A3/3. 18 „
For example when Indonesia banned Time and Life magazines in May, NCNA, 5 May 1961, SWB, FE/633/A1/2.
assertions by arguing that all anti—imperialist struggles were directed against the United States in some fashion but in practice some had to be selected as having
special significance and West Irian was not amongst them. By the end of 1961 the only facets of Sukarno's foreign policy that had been fully endorsed by Peking and thought to be of genuine value so far as China's own objectives were concerned were his calls for a second Bandung Conference and the line he took on the question of peaceful coexistence at the September Belgrade
Conference of non-aligned countries. Peking Radio
broadcasts on the Belgrade Conference stressed Sukarno's 'fundamental differences' with President Tito and Prime Minister Nehru, which was an exaggerated but not wholly untrue version of what had actually happened in Belgrade.19 Even greater attention was paid to Sukarno's remarks on
'peaceful coexistence', on which a People's Daily editorial had this to say:
The important speech made at the conference by President Sukarno carried great weight among the public of all countries. He stressed that the source of international tension was 'imperialism and colonialism and the forcible division of nations'.
He stated clearly 'history in the past and the realities of today prove that different social systems can coexist but there can be no coexistence between independence and
justice on the one side and imperialism- colonialism on the other'.20
The editorial also reported Sukarno's assertion that the non-aligned Conference '... is not a rival to the Afro- Asian Conference but must be complementary to it'. Both
The report of 'fundamental differences' appears in NCNA 15 September 1961, SWB, FE/745/A3/1. NCNA also mentioned an mcident at the beginning of the conference when the Indonesian journalists present protested to Belgrade that they had been discriminated against in only being allowed three seats when India had six.
NCNA, 9 September 1961, SWB, FE/740/C2/1. 20
of Sukarno's positions on peaceful coexistence and the sources of international tension were of course similar to the line that China was taking in the ideological dispute with the Soviet Union but it is unlikely that Sukarno was influenced by this, given Indonesia's dependence on the USSR at this time.
Throughout 1962 the Chinese press continued to give most coverage on the West Irian question to PKI reports
21
that linked the USA with Dutch policy. Some alarm was shown by both the PKI and China when Robert Kennedy
visited Indonesia in February in an attempt to resolve the West Irian question. He was referred to by the Chinese media as a 'ruthless fascist' and an 'old hand' at anti-Communist persecution, with his work in
connection with the prosecution of Owen Lattimore being 22
advanced in support of these statements. Although these remarks were not directed specifically against the Indonesian Government, they are an indication of China's uneasiness about the extent of Indonesia's commitment to the 'real' anti-imperialist struggle at this time. Peking had similar feelings about Indonesia's acceptance of an American mediator, Ellsworth Bunker, whose
proposals were castigated as being no different from 2 3 those of the intractable Dutch Foreign Minister Luns. After the settlement of the West Irian question - which Peking hailed as a victory won by the Indonesian people's struggle, with no mention of Soviet aid - the Chinese press again tended to repeat the PKI line that the anti imperialist struggle had to continue. Aidit's comment in August: 'Around Indonesia are countries under the control
24