were to decide to develop itself as a thermonuclear superpower and to develop a major navy, surely one of its main concerns would be to protect its sources of oil.

CHINESE PRIORITIES

Mr. HAMILTON. Where do the Chinese put the Middle East among the various third world areas in terms of priority; compared to Southeast Asia and Africa, Indian subcontinent, Latin America, where do they put the Middle East?

Mr. OJHA. Latin America lowest then, in ascending order, Africa, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia.

Mr. HAMILTON. Do you agree with that, Mr. Griffith?

Mr. GRIFFITH. Yes; in terms of their ideal priorities; at the present time they are more active in black Africa because of the building of the Tanzam Railroad. But they would like to be more active in the Middle East because it is a more important area.

Mr. HAMILTON. Any other questions from the members?

GREECE HOMEPORTING

Mr. WOLFF. Mr. Chairman, I would like to question both of these gentlemen about an area that has an influence certainly upon the Middle East and our moves in that area. It relates to Greece and the present decision to homeport in Greece.

How do you feel about the question: Shall the military considerations take precedence over the political there?

Mr. GRIFFITH. I am no authority on Greece, but my view is that the United States should take the same attitude toward Greece that it takes toward other authoritarian regimes in the area. These include Portugal, Spain, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Albania, and various of the Arab

states.

I see no reason why we should take a more or less hostile attitude toward Greece than toward Yugoslavia. Both are authoritarian regimes. We have, as you know, extensive bases in Spain.

Mr. WOLFF. Not in Yugoslavia.

Mr. GRIFFITHI. We don't in Yugoslavia. I don't know that anybody is proposing we have them. As to the military aspect, I would not be surprised if Greece would be the only place in the eastern Mediterranean at the present time out of which the 6th Fleet could operate.

As to the homeporting, I gather that the purpose of it is to improve morale in the Navy and get, therefore, more reenlistments and more career officers and so on. I don't see why one needs to be more concerned about it than otherwise, than one would be, for example, with the same thing in Spain.

Of course, part of this would require an assessment of the durability of the present regime in Athens. I do not know enough about Greece to make that, but what I have read and what I have heard could indicate that at the present time there is not any really effective internal opposition to it. This could, of course, change.

Mr. OJHA. I know less about Greece than Mr. Griffith. It is not ir. my area of expertise or concern. But I would like to make two points here.

First, I would make a distinction between developments within the nation perceived by outsiders and developments within a nation perceived by the Greek people. Second, I would agree that the Greek regime at this moment has a high degree of internal support.

Mr. WOLFF. Do you think it would have any effect on the Arab nations at all?

Mr. OJHA. I don't see any, one way or the other.

Mr. HAMILTON. Thank you very much, gentlemen. You contributed greatly to the work of the subcommittee and we appreciate your statements and responses to the questions very much.

The subcommittee stands adjourned.

(Whereupon, at 11:30 a.m. the subcommittee adjourned.)

APPENDIXES

APPENDIX A

[From the Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 1, No. 2 (1972), pp. 19-34]

CHINA AND THE PALESTINIANS

(By John K. Cooley*)

Only an insider-Palestinian or Chinese-would be able to tell the full story of the intimate relationship between the Palestinian resistance movement and the People's Republic of China, a relationship which has important implications for the world as well as for the Middle East. But in the present state of evidence an outside analyst may venture some basic observations and conclusions.

First of all, it is clear that Peking, from its new global vantage point in the United Nations, and the important Middle East diplomatic and logistical base it has acquired through its decision to open an embassy in Beirut, is determined not to appear as “just another superpower," manipulating Palestinian hopes and aspirations to its own advantage. Chiao Kuan-hua, chief Chinese delegate to the United Nations, spelled this out in his maiden speech in New York in the autumn of 1971:

"The intrinsic nature of the Middle East question lies in the aggression against the Palestinian people and the other Arab peoples committed by Israeli Zionism, with the support and connivance of the superpowers. The Chinese government and people give their resolute support to the Palestinian people and the other Arab peoples in their struggle and maintaining unity, the heroic Palestinians and the other Arab peoples will surely be able to recover their lost territories and reestablish the Palestinian people in its national rights.

"No one has the right to seek to conclude political deals behind the backs of the Palestinians and other Arabs so as to injure their right to existence and their other national interests." 1

This was a repetition of China's constant rejection of "imposed," "compromise" and "superpower" solutions backed by Soviet and United States policy, such as the ill-fated UN Security Council resolution of November 22, 1967. Chiao's statement was followed by China's refusal of a French suggestion that China might wish to join the four-power talks on the Middle East. Peking has always stressed that it aided the Palestinians, not as a big power helping a liberation movement, but as one "revolutionary people" helping another, with both sharing similar backgrounds and similar experiences.

The comparison certainly has some validity in historical terms. Like the upheavals in Palestine in the twentieth century, those beginning in China in the nineteenth and ending in the Communist victory of 1949-the year when Israel's first victory over the Arabs was sealed by the Rhodes armistice agreementsprofoundly shook society and administration in China. Like Palestine and most of the rest of the Arab world, China was invaded, attacked and humiliated by foreigners. The result in both cases was a profund case of culture shock. The victors, armed with their new technology, came from the industrial West. In neither China nor the Arab world could the traditional weapons, tactics, rulers or values cope with the intruders. Their new machines and manufactured goods disclosed the huge gap between the new industrial world of the West and the old

*John Cooley has been Middle East correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor since 1965. He is the author of East Wind Over Africa: Red China's Offensive (New York: Walker, revised edition, 1966) and Baal, Christ and Mohammed: Religion and Revolution in North Africa (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965).

1 Agence-France Presse (AFP), Nov. 16, 1971.

agricultural one of the East. The result in both cases was violence, in some instonces xenophobia, and a situation of permanent conflict.

In China as in the Arab world. Western manners, ideas and techniques seemed to challenge the very moral basis of society. There was a sectarian clash of religious values. Among the Palestinians and other Arabs, as in China, a debate began on how to adapt to the new situation. This debate still rages. In 1948 and since 1967 some Arab leaders, like some Chinese during the last days of the Manchu Empire in 1911, have argued that all that needs to be done is to acquire Western skills and equipment, especially in the military field. These, it argued, can then be used to expel the alien forces from the traditional community, which will then continue on the basis of its unchanging traditions.

In both China and the Arab world the conservatives have argued that traditional institutions should be strengthened and innovation discouraged. In China the conservatives lost, but in the Arab world the argument goes on. In both cultures, most younger men support revolutionary change: China's younger men of the 1920's and 1930's, the generation of both Mao Tse-tung and Sun Yat-sen, have become the elders and the rulers of today. In both China and the Arab world younger men, though by no means all of them in the case of the Arabs. have adopted Leninist doctrines about the nature of imperialism and what should be done about it.

The common experience of China and the Palestinian Arabs has been expressed in neat political terms. One of the clearest rhetorical expressions of Peking's view was Mao Tse-tung's address to Ahmed Shuqairy and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) delegation which visited Peking to sign its first military and diplomatic agreement in March 1965:

"Imperialism is afraid of China and of the Arabs. Israel and Formosa are bases of imperialism in Asia. You are the front gate of the great continent, and we are the rear. Their goal is the same Asia is the biggest continent in the world, and the West wants to continue exploring it. The West does not like us. and we must understand this fact. The Arab battle against the West is the battle against Israel. So boycott Europe and America, O Arabs."1

One key to the continued cordiality of the Sino-Arab relationship lies in Peking's total rejection of Israel. This has continued despite Israeli feelers to overcome it and establish links with China. Most of these feelers have been on a trivial level. as in March 1971, when Israeli Transport Minister Shimon Peres claimed proudly that ships belonging to an Israeli company were carrying oranges between China and the Soviet Union. Some, however, indicate more important aspirations, such as Israel's break with precedent in the fall of 1971 by voting to admit China to the United Nations and to expel Taiwan (to the intense annoyance of the US gov ernment). In July 1971 Elie Ben Gal, Paris representative of the Israeli Mapam party, admitted he had been meeting Chinese diplomats "in an absolutely unofficial way and at a low level" since 1968. When the newspaper Maariv disclosed this, both the Israeli and Chinese governments denied the story, but Ben Gal insisted that it was true. There were other stories of talks between Israel, certain African states friendly to Chino, and the Rumanians, those perennial intermediaries for Peking. The Jerusalem Post even reported that Prime Minister Golda Meir had expressed interest in opening diplomatic relations. The stories were all denied. but there had obviously been some fire behind the smoke.'

There was a historical precedent for these Israeli feelers to China dating back to the first weeks after the victory of the Communists in 1949. At this time Peking's future stand on the Palestine question was unclear. Most of the Arab regimes in the Middle East were under Western influence, and the main Arab League members, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon had decided to recognize Taiwan as China's legal government. On January 6, 1950, on the other hand, Israel became the first Middle Eastern government to announce formal recognition of Peking. At the time non-alignment was still official Israeli policy and Washington itself was still hesitating between recognition of Peking and trying to overthrow its new Communist regime. But Peking did not respond to the Israeli overture. Moreover, the United States, which in 1948 had been Israel's co-benefactor with the Soviet Union, was rapidly becoming its principal one, since Joseph Stalin was then already turning away from his earlier support to the Jewish state. When the Korean War broke out, Israel aligned itself with the United States.

2 In al-Anwar (Beirut). Apr. 6, 1965, as received from New China News Agency (NCNA). Speech to the Haifa Chamber of Commerce, reported by AFP, Mar. 25, 1971. Jerusalem Post and Israel Radio, July 27, 1971; Haaretz, Aug. 3, 1971.