Whose Ally?

As U.S. Under Secretary of State George Ball flew in to Rawalpindi last week to express chagrin over Pakistan's budding friendship with Red China, he got a quick and bitter taste of the nation's new mood. No fewer than five Chinese Communist delegations--including poets, pingpong players and trade officials--were getting the welcome treatment from Pakistani officials. Gleefully, the Pakistan press trumpeted the words of one visiting Chinese bard who wrote: "You are on the western coast of the sea and we are on the east. The tidal waves of the ocean roar, and intermingled, we can hear the sound of our heartbeat."

Amid this heady stuff, Ball passed the word to Pakistan's President Mo hammed Ayub Khan that the U.S. hoped Pakistan would not carry its palsy-walsy campaign with Red China too far. But all Ayub and the other Pakistanis wanted to talk about was their preoccupation with increased military aid to India, which they consider a betrayal by the U.S. and a threat to Pakistan's security.

Behind Pakistan's new stance is growing pressure on Ayub by neutralist Pakistani politicians such as 35-year-old Foreign Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Emerging from sessions with Ayub and Bhutto, Ball declared that "we have a better understanding of each other's point of view." It was diplomatese for a stubborn deadlock. Although Ayub privately had made it clear that he will not sign any military pacts with China and wants to remain an ally of the West, he passed along word to his American guest that Pakistan is not about to back down on the new air agreement it had just signed with China. Pakistan underscored its attitude toward Peking by announcing an agreement to survey the border between China's Sinkiang region and the Pakistan-controlled portion of Kashmir.

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