Sophie Richardson argues that China's foreign policy derives from ‘Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence’, developed in the 1940s and espoused by Mao Zedong. By emphasising ‘mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty, nonaggression, non-interference in others' internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful co-existence’, (p. 5) these principles ‘offer an alternative to a world of bipolarity, military alliances and dependent development’ (p. 9) that characterise Western foreign policy practices, which derive from the theory of political realism.
It is not surprising that China, like other revolutionary powers, attempted to change international relations. But Richardson's portrait of a Chinese foreign policy that respected sovereignty and practised a generally consistent policy of non-interference contrasts with others (such as Chen Jian, Mao's China and the Cold War [Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001]) who see an ideological, interventionist foreign policy supporting revolutionary movements abroad. Only under Deng Xiaoping's leadership in the late 1970s did China abandon this approach, Chen argues (p. 278).
Richardson examines China's policy toward Cambodia as a case study. Based on extensive research in Chinese sources, including interviews with former and current officials, this is the first lengthy study of China's approach to Cambodia. China's principled foreign policy was first evident at the Geneva Conference of 1954 where, with apologies, Zhou Enlai reversed China's advocacy of Cambodian rebel representation (though not nearly as ‘quickly’ [p. 29] as Richardson suggests). Thereafter, until the Cultural Revolution, China's foreign policy reflected the Five Principles. China supported Cambodia's neutrality without conditions. Richardson also shores up previous assertions that, during the Vietnam War, Norodom Sihanouk allowed the Vietnamese communists to maintain bases in Cambodia while permitting Chinese military supplies to transit through Cambodia.
China temporarily lost its way during the Cultural Revolution. However, eventually Zhou Enlai managed to reinstate a principled foreign policy. When Sihanouk was overthrown in 1970, China supported him and the Khmer Rouge rebels because the new government was illegitimate, the result of foreign interference in Cambodian affairs.
Richardson' study of China's influence on the establishment of the rebel government (GRUNK), Sihanouk's relationship with the Khmer Rouge, and China's response to the Khmer Rouge victory in 1975 are important contributions to scholarship. China disapproved of Khmer Rouge extremism (which included a genocidal campaign against the ethnic Chinese living in Cambodia), Richardson argues, but in keeping with its principles refused to intervene and indeed provided substantial support for the murderous regime. Chinese policy may have been principled, but as Richardson acknowledges, its unwillingness to intervene even in the face of Khmer Rouge atrocities was ‘disastrous’ (p. 24) for the Cambodians. A principled foreign policy might also be understood as valueless.
After Vietnam drove the Khmer Rouge out in 1978–79, China resuscitated them to resist the Vietnamese and the People's Republic of Kampuchea (PRK) they had installed. For the next decade China attempted to get the rebel factions to co-operate but without real success.
Eventually peace negotiations ensued. China wanted the Khmer Rouge to have a role in the new government, a position which, Richardson argues, was incorrectly misconstrued as support for a genocidal regime. In Richard's telling, China thought that not including them would produce a worse result. China also remained wary of the United Nations Transitional Authority because it was an intrusion on Cambodian sovereignty.
When Hun Sen, the PRK Prime Minister, ultimately emerged with the most influence in the new government (despite having lost the United Nations [UN]-organised election), China provided generous support to its former enemy. Usually understood as China's way of regaining influence in Southeast Asia, Richardson argues that giving aid without condition derives from the Five Principles and had little to do with self-interest. Similarly, China's veto of a UN effort to try Khmer Rouge leaders for their crimes has been misinterpreted to mean that China feared that its own role in the emergence of the Khmer Rouge would be disclosed. Richardson argues that China's veto was consistent with its belief that this was an internal matter to be settled by Cambodians.
Indeed, Richardson challenges the conventional wisdom about China's motivation on almost all important points. Though she provides a much needed balance to previous works about Cambodia (and China's policy of attraction in recent years has worked very well in Southeast Asia generally), one wonders if all of the previous assertions about Chinese policy have been incorrect. In this regard the book might have been more convincing had it incorporated more material from western archival sources. And there are some significant omissions in the secondary literature cited, including omitting Ben Kiernan's path-breaking work on Pol Pot from a list of the ‘best works’ (p. 237, note 204) on the Khmer Rouge regime.
A final chapter on China and the United States seems out of place. But, Richardson argues, the chapter helps validate her larger thesis about the nature of Chinese policy. It is certainly valuable in explaining how China has viewed American policy and why a truly close relationship has not developed.
All in all, then, this book adds important dimensions to our understanding of Cambodia's troubled modern history. It also provides insight into what motivated the Chinese. In the process it challenges many commonly accepted conclusions about both matters.
