Americans Now Immersed In Asian Debate

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30855, 14 September 1965, Page 17

Americans Now Immersed In Asian Debate

(From i

FRANK OLIVER,

. N.Z.P.A. ent )

Special Correspondent WASHINGTON, September 13. The Indian-Pakistani war came as a great shock to Americans, not only in high places but to the public at large. Americans, perhaps more than some other nations, are apt to take what might be called a simplistic view of things. This they certainly did over India and Pakistan. The average American thought that a part of his tax dollar was going in foreign aid, economic and military, to India and Pakistan for the purposes Of improving their economies and helping them to defend themselves against the Communist part of the world. Now they find that Pakistan

joined S.E.A.T.O. to get weapons from the United States to improve her military position against India, and they think that perhaps the India military build-up had Pakistan in mind as much as China.

In short, Americans feel they made this war possible by the aid they sent. They feel that these two warring countries have made suckers out of them and by and large most Americans would prefer to be thought libertines and wife-beaters rather than suckers.

Many months ago an acute observer of foreign affairs wrote that the time had come for a national- debate about the Far East. There has been a desultory one that has gone by fits and starts, but it took India and Pakistan to put it into high gear—where it is now, and likely to stay. It is now being realised that it is not a great deal of use to put Vietnam into a compartment and consider its past, present and future within that limitation. Asia, in the public mind, has suddenly become one gigantic problem, complex and involved.

Pakistan and India are in a war that can only limit India’s ability to deal with Chinese Communists on her northern border: Peking is obviously willing to fight the United States to the last Vietnamese; Sukarno is intent on destroying Malaysia if he can; Formosa still demands an American attack on Peking’s nuclear installations; the situation in Korea is not materially improved since the day the truce was signed; and many Americans wonder whether it really was a good idea to clip Japan’s military wings so drastically. Would she, they ask themselves, have been a better stabilising factor in Asia il she had not been defeathered so completely in the military sense? In recent days the press has been filled with materia about Asia, about the roots oi the hatreds engendered by ths Kashmir situation, about Pe king and its aims, about ths political, economic and othe: problems in Vietnam as wel as the more flambuoyant mili tary problems there. On the whole it is an edu cative thing for it is produc

i ing ideas as well as reiteratt ing facts that have been forgotten. China looms large in the r general debate because she 5 seems involved in all the small ; problems that make up the I great Asian problem. ’ The first general impression a created by the debate so far ! " is that the position of the “ West in Asia, and particularly of the United States, has dep teriorated markedly and that ? this process has been going ’ on for some time. J At the same time China bev gins to emerge as the big y demon of Asia, an octopus , with multiple tentacles reachT ing into every troubled spot if on that vast continent. d A correspondent in the New y York “Herald Tribune" says that questions put to a Washis ington correspondent by il people from all parts of . the >f country show three things le about current American opine- ion about Vietnam. le They are, firstly, that the >r President has won the confi II dence of the nation by his li- conduct of the Vietnam war secondly, that he has not wor u- the country’s confidence con c- cerning the kind of settlemen

- he might accept at a peace . conference; and, thirdly, that the American people feel very > let down that the United Na- • tions has taken no stand re--1 garding aggression in Vietnam ; and are puzzled that the President has not pressed the 1 issue more strongly. r The answer to the third 2 point of course is that the f matter was not taken to the !- United Nations because of t fear that the Soviet Union ? might block Security Council action. s- However, things have g changed somewhat. It was s gratifying that the Security i- Council action in sending U t Thant to Asia was unanimous and now, says a correspondent v of the “New York Times,” the s Administration is looking for i- means to strengthen the arm y of U Thant in seeking a settlee ment of what now looms as the ;s most dangerous trouble spot 1- in Asia, the Indo-Pakistan e Wa in the meantime the Asian i- debate continues—in governis ment, in the press and among r; the public; and out of it n seems bound to emerge a naa- tional consensus of high it I value to policy makers.