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For years, observers have been able to fit developments in Indonesia into the neat framework of a balance of forces between the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and the army. The coup attempt of October 1, 1965, which came within a hair's breadth of effecting an irrevocable shift in this balance of forces in favour of the PKI, compels us to re-examine the validity of this frame of reference. The facts of the abortive conspiracy lead me to believe that the Sukarno-PKI relationship under-went a gradual qualitative change and, at some point prior to the illuminating flash of October, became the core of a political dynamo that was propelling the Indonesian revolution forward at an accelerating rate.
The radical worsening of Sino-Soviet relations began in the spring of 1958 and the “ point of no return ” occurred at the latest in the summer of 1959. Indeed, since 1958 the public dispute has followed a cyclical course of escalation and partial détente. Each cycle has made Moscow-Peking relations worse than before and given other communist parties more autonomy from the Soviet Union. The apparent partial détentes have ostensibly been caused by Soviet and Chinese moves toward reconciliation, but these actually have been tactical maneuvers intended by each primarily to worsen the other's position and to gain support within other communist parties.
When China and Afghanistan signed a Friendship and Mutual Non-Aggression Treaty in 1960, they called it “a new Silk Road,” evoking nostalgic memories of a link between the two countries established 2,100 years ago. The old “Silk Road” stretching from China to Rome was opened by Chang Chien, a special envoy of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty (140 B.C.), who was seeking a military ally against the Hsiung-nu tribesmen in China's northwest. The Ta Yueh-chih people, then living in the Afghanistan area, originally lived in the Kansu area of China but migrated towards the Oxus River valley under pressure from the Hsiung-nu tribesmen. The Hsiung-nu, therefore, gave Chinese and early Afghans a common cause for alliance in the following century. As early as 104 B.C. an official envoy from the Afghan kingdom travelled the Silk Road to the Chinese Imperial Court.