Liu Heng, Britain's Reaction and Policy toward the Soviet-Indian MIG-21 Deal in 1962

　　Both the British and the American government paid high attention to the Soviet-Indian MIG-21 deal in 1962. In order to prevent India from buying MIG-21, both the Macmillan and the Kennedy administration tried to sale British-made Lightning Fighters to India in virtue of financial assistance, but failed eventually. During this process, in contrast to the Cold War diplomacy of the United States, Britain's main goal was to protect its imperial interests, consolidate the Anglo-American relationship, and take full advantage of the Cold War consciousness of the United States to serve its imperial interests. Primarily for avoiding undermining the Anglo-American relationship, the Macmillan administration agreed to deliver Lightening Fighters to India first in spite of serious political, financial and defence risks. However, when Kennedy's demand touched Britain's bottom line, namely it might endanger Britain's overseas commercial interests of arms sales as well as its leadership in the Commonwealth, the reaction of the Macmillan administration showed that it was the imperial interests based on the Commonwealth which mattered most to Britain's foreign policy, although the Anglo-American relationship was of great significance. From the perspective of the post-colonial Anglo-Indian relation, the multilateral diplomacy caused by the Soviet-Indian MIG-21 deal was not simply an East-West confrontation incident, but also involved with complicated historical meanings beyond the Cold War. Its process and result indicate that the residual influence of ‘the British Empire’ started to fade, as the Cold War in South Asia escalated.