Song: Admiral Jacob, I honestly don’t know about that. I could tell you to ask Admiral Li, the head of our navy, but I know he won’t tell you, just as I’m sure the British Foreign Secretary Chris Baker has no idea where all the British submarines are at the moment. But I will say this. The Chinese navy has a right and a national obligation to send its warships and submarines into any international waters it wishes. It is a ridiculous notion to suggest that while American and European battle groups can sail the seas at will, those of China are confined to specific areas.
Harding: Sir Peter Hanman, can you enlighten us any more on this?
Hanman: There is nothing new about Chinese naval passage through the Andaman Sea. The Burmese have given Chinese full naval facilities at Hanggyi Island and they have a surveillance station on the Cocos Islands from which they track Indian missile tests. India doesn’t like it, but can do nothing about it. The United States didn’t like Castro in Cuba and Cuba didn’t like the American base of Guantanamo on its territory left over from a previous treaty. I’m sorry to jump around the world so much, but I think it’s important to bring in these comparisons. Nobody is special here. Things happen in geopolitical change which governments don’t like. But that doesn’t mean you go to war over it.
Harding: A call from Seattle. The caller doesn’t want to give his name, but has already identified himself to us as a supporter of the Tibetan independence movement. Go ahead, Seattle.
Seattle: What will China do if Lama Togden gets to safety in India?
Song: We will ask India to return him in order for him to serve the rest of his sentence.
Seattle: And if India doesn’t?
Song: I think we shouldn’t speculate.
Harding: Perhaps, Foreign Minister, this a good opening for you to give us a run-down on what exactly is happening in Tibet. You have sealed it off, banned all foreign visitors, yet Western satellite pictures show widespread civil disturbance in many towns.
Song: Yes, Max, you are right. If I could return to my analogy with Northern Ireland, a small number of Tibetan nationalists have used the Drapchi incident to try to ferment civil unrest. They are being armed and helped by units from the SFF which appear to have been infiltrated into many areas. And I might emphasize that these soldiers are doing exactly what they were trained to do when the SFF was created in 1962. The Chinese army is trying to stop the rebellion, but in many places our troops are fighting pitched battles with the insurgents. If a similar incident happened in Northern Ireland, I am sure Britain would not allow an Irish delegation into the Falls Road at the height of the disturbances.
Harding: I think they might—
Song: Please. Let me finish, because young Chinese men and young Tibetans are killing each other as we speak in this conflict. We did not start it. India ignited something it cannot control. We have, in any case, just announced that the disturbances are over. I have today issued an invitation for diplomats accredited to Beijing to visit Lhasa as soon as it is safe for them to do so.
Harding: The Tibetan government-in-exile accuses your troops of massacring civilians in their hundreds.
Song: Well, we wouldn’t expect them to say we were serving them tea and cutting firewood for them.
Harding: We have a call from Islamabad. Go ahead.
Islamabad: India is also reinforcing its border with Pakistan. Its warplanes have bombed villages, killing civilians in Kashmir. Many of us in Pakistan fear we are going to be swallowed up by India. China is an old ally. I’m pleading with you to do something to help.
Song: Kashmir is a very difficult problem and I don’t think there is anything China should do to inflame the situation any more. You are right, though. We do have very genuine and strong links with Pakistan, and China would certainly not like to see her treated unjustly by the international community.
Harding: Sir Peter Hanman, is the Chinese alliance with Pakistan significant? Is it something we should take into account as tensions over Kashmir and Tibet mount?
Hanman: It exists, for sure. Pakistan’s military is largely supplied by China, including its intermediate- and short-range missiles. China helped Pakistan with its nuclear-arms programme.
Song: I refute that unequivocally. The allegation—
Harding: OK, Foreign Minister, we’ve taken your viewpoint on board.
Hanman: Up until the 1965 war with India, Pakistan was pretty much a Cold War ally of the United States. India was non-aligned, but regarded as in the Soviet camp—
Harding: Sorry to interrupt, Sir Peter, but it appears we have a former Pakistani Chief of Army Staff on the line from Rawalpindi, General Awan. Why don’t we get it from the horse’s mouth.
Rawalpindi: Yes. Thank you. During the fifties, Pakistan opted for an alliance with the United States. The question of looking to China began actually during the 1962 Sino-Indian War, when America sided with India, and China offered friendship to Pakistan. In the 1965 war with India, when we were still technically a Western ally, Pakistan was completely abandoned by the United States. We were left without spares. No new equipment was available. We pleaded with the Americans to fulfil their agreements with us and they refused. It was like a stab in the back, and we turned to China. For fifteen years, between 1965 and 1980, there was very little military contact with Washington. China provided everything we needed. She gave us four billion dollars’ worth of weapons and didn’t charge a penny for it. And I would like to take the opportunity to thank Foreign Minister Song for the complete friendship China has shown us over the so many years.
Harding: Then came the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Rawalpindi: Quite right, Mr Harding. The United States needed its Cold-War ally back and we let them take us. American relations with China were improving at the time, and Beijing, which had no love for the Soviets either, told us it didn’t mind. In 1990, the Cold War ended and the Soviets were out of Afghanistan. But the nuclear-proliferation issue raised its ugly head and the United States stabbed us in the back again. We were making legitimate efforts to create a nuclear deterrent against India, yet the Pressler Amendment made all US aid conditional on our not possessing a nuclear device.
Harding: So you went to China?
Rawalpindi: Washington cut more than half a billion dollars of the money it had promised us. Yes, we went to China, and I for one regret we ever again danced to Washington’s tune. America corrupted our ruling classes and its support for the mujahedin guerrillas in Afghanistan, created a monster of violent religious fundamentalism which we are now having to contend with. That is why the people of Pakistan and the armed forces support the middle way being forged by General Hamid Khan and his government.
Harding: Gentlemen, I’ve just been told that the Reuters news agency is sending over dramatic and horrific pictures of the situation inside Tibet. They have been smuggled out of Lhasa to Beijing. We don’t know how and we are now going over live to that Reuters feed and I’m told what we are seeing now is a protest outside the official buildings of the government of Lhasa.
The camera was on a position above the crowd and held completely steady, letting the action take place within the frame. Hundreds of demonstrators were at a junction of two major roads. A traffic light in the left-hand top corner of the screen was smashed. On the roof of a drab government building the cameraman picked up a machine-gun position. The lens zoomed in shakily. Three men manned it, and a fourth, wearing white gloves, had his pistol drawn. He was shouting, but the camera did not pick up any of his sound.