He was proudly going around as the unchallenged leader of the Third World. He failed to realise that the Chinese leaders had begun to resent his approach and his manner of dealing with them, that as per them China was the natural leader of the Third World, that the initial bond of personal friendship he had formed with the Chinese leaders was not strong enough to withstand this strain, and that personal relations can never score over vital national interests in any case. Countries fight wars when their vital interests are threatened. Nehru and Krishna Menon failed to understand this. # Nehru's rigidity on the border issue, his insistence on Chinese withdrawal before border talks could begin, his grant of political asylum to the Dalai Lama and permission to him to establish a Tibetan government-in-exile (an act that created conditions for a future invasion of Tibet by India or outside powers through India to restore the Dalai Lama's rule, if desired), the hostile Indian press on the question of the occupation of Tibet, and Nehru's increasingly aggressive statements on the border made the Chinese believe he had become a tool in the hands of the Anglo-American imperialists.
Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai was maintaining a friendly posture, but he had practically begun to hate Nehru, as is clear from the text of his conversations with US President Richard Nixon in 1972, now made public. There were possibly some outward signs of this and some hints were dropped, but Nehru was
