Pressure likely on defence pacts

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33095, 9 December 1972, Page 3

Pressure likely on defence pacts

(N.Z.P.A. Staff Correspondent)

WASHINGTON, December 8.

New Zealand and Australia face American diplomatic pressure to maintain their membership of the South-East Asian Treaty Organisation and their association with Britain in the A.N.Z.U.K. force based in Singapore.

This was made clear in Washington yesterday by a senior American official who emphasised the United States view that a weakening of S.E.A.T.O. would upset White House-directed foreign policy aimed at the establishment of lasting stability in the Asian region.

The official emphasised during a one-hour exclusive interview that Washington believed the two security arrangements were of considerable importance to all its allies in the area, including Indonesia, which was not involved in either. He believed S.E.A.T.O. would be needed for many years after an Indo-China peace settlement, and indicated that the United States believed that the organisation had won tacit acceptance by the Soviet Union and China as a desirable stabilising influence. Its break-up would upset adversaries, he said. The interview confirmed that the surge to power of the Labour Parties in New Zealand and Australia has

caused some disquiet in the United States capital. It is evident that the politics of both countries have not received as much analytical attention for some years. And it is apparent that it was not until Australia voted Labour into office last Saturday that concern began to be reflected at senior levels. The impression is left that, had New Zealand alone determined to press on with a withdrawal from 5.E.A.T.0., the Administration would have viewed the move as regrettable but not too worrying. The official interviewed was closely involved in the

Administration’s formulation of the Guam doctrine, on which American Asian and Pacific foreign policy is based, and has been a senior policy-maker during the Nixon term of office.

He indicated that the United States would not publicly comment on moves by either the New Zealand or the Australian Governments to establish ties with Peking, and said that Washington would continue to back the S.E.A.T.O. alliance even if the two countries withdrew. S.E.A.T.O. provided bargaining leverage as “we move forward to the time when such pacts are not necessary," he said. NO EFFECT The A.N.Z.U.S. relationship would not be affected by the development of relations between the two Tasman nations and Peking, he believed. “All the countries of East Asia are concerned with stability in the area, and I think that should apply to New Zealand and Australia,” he said.