Cambodia’s Neutrality

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31547, 8 December 1967, Page 12

Cambodia’s Neutrality

Prince Sihanouk has said again that he is determined to keep Cambodia “outside the hegemony struggle “ between China and the United States for the “ domination of Asia ”. The Prince is almost passionately attached to his policy of strict neutrality, which he regards as the only practicable way of avoiding involvement in the South-East Asian turmoil. Prince Sihanouk asserts that President Johnson is being pressed by the Pentagon to use Cambodian terr*ory in efforts to encircle Viet Cong forces. A deliberate breach of Cambodian neutrality by American forces, even if it were tactically desirable, is hardly to be contemplated at a time when world opinion is growing more anxious about the possible widening of the Vietnam war.

Prince Sihanouk’s denial that Viet Cong forces had been allowed sanctuary in Cambodia was no doubt made in good faith. He is in fact strictly neutral, neither pro-Communist nor pro-American. Whether neutrality is practicable only time will show. Despite his lack of confidence in American policy in Vietnam, uncertainty about China is likely to persist as his main worry. Prince Sihanouk thinks, indeed, that a united Communist Vietnam would be a stronger barrier against Peking’s expansionist ideas than a partitioned Vietnam, the south continuing indefinitely to need protection.

The Prince’s relations with China have been mended since, in April, he accused Peking of inciting local Communists to acts of terrorism in northwestern Cambodia. There are some 250,000 Chinese among Cambodia’s population of a little more than six million people. The Chinese embassy has tightened its grip on this sizeable minority, particularly in the schools, where the teaching has tended to become increasingly political and Maoist. When the Prince, alarmed by this trend, banned the Cambodia-China Friendship Association, he was accused in Peking of being under American influence. The Prince threatened to recall his ambassador, and was appeased only when Chou En-lai suggested that the excesses of the cultural revolution should not be taken too seriously.

Cambodia’s border problems become more and more involved. They affect all the western countries, which want to remain on good terms with Thailand and South Vietnam. The definition of the border is by no means clear, and misunderstandings are difficult to avoid. This may have been the cause of recent reports of Cambodian territory’s being used by the Viet Cong. There will be sympathy in Washington for Prince Sihanouk’s wish to adhere to a strict neutrality; and it is certain that every effort will be made to avoid encroachment on Cambodian territory from South Vietnam.