ABSTRACT
Immediately after Liberation, the Chinese were conscious that their example would have significance for other oppressed peoples, but were too preoccupied with their own problems to give more than expressions of sympathy except where, as in Vietnam, their own security was at stake. As more and more ex-colonial states achieved independence under nationalist non-communist regimes the emphasis of Peking's propaganda shifted from 'armed struggle' to 'peaceful co-existence' as highlighted at the Bandung conference. In the later 1950s it became apparent that the Bandung policy had failed to undermine American power and influence in South and East Asia (indeed the United States had begun to expand its influence), the dispute with India became acute, and the Chinese pressed their Soviet allies unsuccessfully to lead the struggle against imperialism. At about this time, Peking embarked on a more radical policy towards the new and underdeveloped states. In competition with both Soviet and American influence, the Chinese attempted in the first years of the 1960s to create a third force dedicated less to peaceful co-existence than to militant antiimperialism.
