Международная научная конференция ЮВА в СПбГУ-65

Международная научная конференция, посвященная 65-й годовщине начала изучения языков ЮВА в нашей стране 350 P. Charoenpacharaporn in India, he had gone to Visva-Bharati, the university founded by the Indian Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore in 1921. It was there that Karuna studied Sanskrit and later proceeded to read Indology. At the same time, he worked as a personal secretary for Professor Tan Yun Shan, the director of Cheena Bhavana (Centre of Sino-Indian Cultural Studies) [Kusalasaya 1999: 99–103]. It was also there that Karuna got involved in the cause of Indian independence through his Indian friends, who not only brought him to meetings of the Indian National Congress, but also to Jawarhalal Nehru at Anand Bhavan in Allahabad [Kusalasaya 1999: 102]. Correspondence between Karuna and Nehru soon followed [Kusalasaya 1991: 12- 15]. It turned out that Nehru was deeply impressed by one of Karuna’s letters and included it in his Discovery of India , published in 1946 [Nehru 1994: 209–10] Karuna’s knowledge of the Indian struggle for independence and Nehru’s non- alignment was beyond anyone else’s in the Thai political landscape at the time [Kusalasaya 1999: 183]. Ari used his connections in Hong Kong and China and together they managed to establish contact with PRC authorities around October 1955. Then, two Thai Members of Parliaments—Sa-ingMarangkun and Amphon Suwannabon joined them in China before Zhou hosted them at a dinner and arranged for them to meet Mao Zedong in December 1955. In this meeting, Mao stressed the PRC’s sincerity and willingness to establish trade relations with Thailand even in the absence of formal dip- lomatic relations [Kusalasaya 2002: 100, 118]. Amemorandum affirm- ing the friendship between China and Thailand would suffice for now. At the same time, the memorandum affirming friendship would be signed in the Chinese embassy in Rangoon where Phibun was attending the celebrations of 2,500 years of Buddhism organized by Nu. It was not the only time that cultural events presented political opportunities. Phibun had arranged for Sang and Luean Buasuwan—the chief finan- cier of Police General Phao Sriyanon, to travel to Rangoon separately from his party in order to hide their activities from public knowledge. This was because the knowledge of such activities would have led to American suspicion [Kusalasaya 2002: 81, 91–2]. Sang and Luean, as