367. Executive Summary of an Intelligence Memorandum, Washington, April, 1973.1 2
PEKING’S SUPPORT OF INSURGENCIES IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This study establishes the facts and examines the purposes of China’s support of insurgencies in Southeast Asia.
It is a fact that, despite China’s overall policy of friendly relations, and despite the passage of some four years since the general ending of Cultural Revolution militancy, China continues to sponsor and support insurgencies against certain governments in Southeast Asia. Furthermore, in the cases of Burma and Thailand, such covert assistance has significantly expanded: high-ranking officers from the PLA’s 11th Army perform command roles in insurgent headquarters; PLA officers and non-coms help fill out the ranks of insurgent combat forces; PLA units in nearby Yunnan Province train and supply the rebels; and China-based “insurgent” radio stations beam operational guidance and antigovernment propaganda support into Burma and Thailand. These remote insurgencies are not likely to threaten the Rangoon or Bangkok governments, but the fact remains that China’s covert sponsorship of these insurrections is clearly impeding China’s diplomatic attempts to elicit further responsiveness from these same governments.
This study examines various possible purposes behind this self-defeating course — “two faced,” as the Burmese call it. Is the Chinese purpose essentially [Page 2] that of attempting to exert added pressure on certain of China’s small neighbors? Or a concern not to be up-staged by any new Soviet presence in Southeast Asia and in the support of revolutionary movements? Or an unwillingness or inability to cease supporting insurgencies once begun? Or bureaucratic disarray in the conduct of Chinese foreign relations? Or, a reflection of Maoist impulses? The study concludes that it is the latter of these purposes which carries the greatest force: China supports certain insurgencies in Southeast Asia largely because that’s the way the boss, Mao Tse-tung, wants it — for his own mix of stubbornly-held ideological and personal reasons.
This study has received constructive assistance from a number of CIA offices. The study’s interpretations are those of its author, Arthur A. Cohen, and of this Staff.
Hal Ford
Chief, DD/I Special Research Staff