An independent Bangladesh may set up minor economic ties with China, but these are likely to be much less than the current scale of trade and aid between China and Pakistan. The chance of international links between China and Bangladesh are likely to increase the longer the independence struggle takes to achieve its goal, since its control may, over time, slip from moderate Awami League leadership to more militant, and leftist elements such as the National Awami Party (which did not contest the December elections).
In recent years, U. S. S. R. has competed with China for influence over the West Pakistani-dominated Central Government, using the levers of economic and military aid. In its newly established relationship, the Soviet Union's contacts have been confined to the military regime in West Pakistan. Though it is hard to predict the Soviet attitude towards an independent Bangladesh, ties with the Soviet Union are unlikely to be any stronger than with China.
III
UNITED STATES POLICY: PAST AND FUTURE
The likely pattern of United States relations with Bangladesh depends crucially on U. S. policy in the current crisis particularly with regard to the decisions on economic and arms aid to the Central Government in West Pakistan. To appreciate possibilities for U. S. policy, a little history is helpful.
Since the early 1950's when Pakistan joined mutual security pacts of SEATO and CENTO, she has received massive economic and military aid from the United States. By 1969 economic aid amounted to about S 3 billion and military aid, a classified number, has been estimated to have been between $1.5 and 52 billion. This assistance has included F-104 Star fighters, F-84 Sabre jets, C-130 transports, Patton tanks, armored personnel carriers, heavy artillery, and automatic weapons. This arsenal of sophisticated equipment was explicitly intended for defense, and in terms of the context in which they were provided, the Communist Bloc was seen as the potential aggressor. After the 1965 Indo-Pakistan border war, when the U. S. imposed an arms embargo on both countries, the Pakistan Government turned for support to another adversary of India, i.e., the People's Republic of China.
The Pakistani initiative was sympathetically received by China, presumably not so much because of the Sino-Indian conflict but because it represented a breach in SEATO and CENTO. The growth of Chinese military and economic aid spurred similar offers from the Soviet Union, anxious to get into the act of weaning Pakistan away from its military alliances with the Western powers. Perhaps because the United States still believed it could compete for influence with Pakistan through arms sales, or perhaps due to the sheer momentum of long and close ties between the Pentagon and the military superstructure in Pakistan, attempts to circumvent the arms embargo gathered strength in 1967. Attempts were made to persuade “third countries” West Germany and Turkey to sell arms previously provided by the U. S. to Pakistan for nominal prices, with the assurance that the U. S. would replace these weapons with newer equipment.10 Though
