Nixon And The New Asia

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32031, 4 July 1969, Page 10

Nixon And The New Asia

President Nixon’s intention to visit five Asian countries emphasises his preoccupation with the role of Asia in the world after the end of fighting in Vietnam, and with the need for United States diplomacy to help in building up an outward-looking and cohesive Pacific community. In a recent article in the American quarterly, “Foreign Affairs", Mr Nixon remarked that, had there been no American commitment in Vietnam, Asia would be a very different place today. He submits that the increasingly effective resistance to communism in South and South-East Asia since the defeat of Chinese aims in Indonesia is a convincing answer to those who, overawed by China’s massive strength, were prepared to accept with fatalistic resignation the submergence of the smaller Asian countries under the Communist wave. He asserts that, because of Vietnam, Peking has had to limit, or perhaps abandon, other expansionist aims in India, Thailand, and Malaysia.

conclusions are persuasively argued. Of more direct interest, however, is Mr Nixon’s conviction that new and constructive patterns are emerging in Asia. China’s preoccupation with Hanoi’s bid for a Communist take-over in Vietnam, he argues, has given time for weaker Governments, possibly “leaning towards-Peking as a hedge against the “future”, to organise politically, economically, and militarily for the preservation of their own freedom. Mr Nixon sees a growing complex of national, subregional, and regional interests joined together by the shared- sense of a common danger. The developing coherence of Asian regional thinking is reflected in a disposition to consider problems and loyalties in regional terms, and to evolve regional approaches to development needs and to the evolution of a new world order. This is not necessarily chauvinistic, but rather in the nature of a coalescing confidence, a recognition that Asia can become a counterbalance to fte West; with an increasing disposition to seek Asian solutions to Asian problems through co-opera-tive action. If this truly interprets the direction of Asian thinking, as opposed to Peking’s insistent efforts to dominate and channel political development, then the urgency of Mr Nixon’s desire for talks with Asian leaders, for a clearer understanding of the foreign policy that he himself will direct from Washington, is immediately apparent. American public opinion, it may be supposed, will not again countenance direct American military involvement in Asian affairs, unless in circumstances quite exceptional and as yet unforeseeable. Mr Nixon has suggested what such circumstances might be: should there be a threat, the nations concerned should make a collective effort to contain it themselves; only in the event of failure might they make a collective request for American assistance. China, in Mr Nixon’s view, cannot continue indefinitely to live in isolation, nurturing its fantasies, cherishing its hates, and threatening its neighbours. The goal of policy, Asian as well as Western, must be to induce and, if necessary, assist change, with the long-range aim of pulling China back into the world community—“ but “as a great and progressing nation, not as “ the epicentre of world revolution It has already been predicted that the talks Mr Nixon will have in Asian capitals will not centre on the immediate problem of Vietnam but on the future of Asia’s thousand million people. He has defined the American role clearly: there can be no turning away from Europe, but it must participate in the task of fashioning and strengthening a Pacific community. He sees no call for heavy-handed American pressure, but rather American encouragement of Asian initiatives to translate design into reality. “The distinction may seem superficial”, he says, “but in fact it is central both to the kind of Asia “ we want and to the effectiveness of the means of “ achieving it The central pattern of the future of “United States-Asian relations must be American “ support fpr Asian initiatives ”,