Kissinger Writes about the 1971 War
By Khalid A.
London, UK
A new book titled “On China” written by Henry Kissinger reveals that during the Bangladesh war, Mr Kissinger met the Chinese “to suggest Chinese military help” for Pakistan, by which he meant “military intervention”. He writes that he was expecting that the Chinese were going to move and that the USA was prepared to side with China in case of a Russian intervention. In Kissinger’s words, “This was the first decision to risk war in the triangular Soviet-Chinese-American relationship”.
Richard Nixon’s opponents always accused him of a ‘Pro-Pakistan tilt’ in 1971. We the Pakistanis always find it difficult to recognize our friends or foes. We forget that our friends also have their limitations, in terms of domestic politics, etc.
In 1971, China and the USA could not help militarily because of such difficulties. Indeed, it was naive for us to hope for USA/China military intervention because of world public opinion being in favor of the ‘oppressed Bengalis’. The tragedy is that we were not ready to concede that there was any oppression or injustice meted out to our East Pakistani brethren.
