Links urged with Indo-China

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34103, 16 March 1976, Page 14

Links urged with Indo-China

(Byl

BRUCE KOHN,

N.ZR.A. staff correspondent)

WELLINGTON.

Countries of the Association of South-East Asian Nations will be encouraged to pursue diplomatic and political efforts to expand their relationship with IndoChina when the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Mr Taiboys) visits their capitals later this month.

Mr Taiboys will fly from Auckland tomorrow for a series of discussions with leaders of the five-nation grouping over the next two weeks. The mission will take him to Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia. His main aim will be a study of prevailing A.S.E.A.N. attitudes towards the prospects of a peaceful settling

down period after the turmoil of the Indo-China wars, It is apparent that the Government fears the tensions fuelled by the drawnout Indo-China conflict could flare up anew, rather than recede. Wellington was concerned that Malaysia, in particular, might opt undei its former leader, Tun Abdul Razak, greatly to increase defence spending, at the expense of economic growth. Such a move might well

have sparked a further wave of “security jitters” in the area, and exacerbated tensions between the A.S.E.A.N. five on the one hand and Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos on the other.

Diplomats say the A.S.E.A.N. group is worried that Hanoi, given Russian assistance, might seek to encourage guerrilla subversion in the . area. Hanoi, for its part, is said to remember with some bitterness that it received no supnort from the five during the battle it fought with South Vietnam and the United States. It is evident that the New Zealand Government would like to see an easing of these suspicions, and Mr Taiboys is thought likely to assure the A.S.E.A.N. group of his Government’s support for any efforts to obtain an improved relationship with IndoChina.

He will also discuss in Singapore and Malavsia the future of the New Zealand battalion stationed in Singapore.

The Government has not yet decided whether it will withdraw these troops from Singapore. The views Mr Talboys presents to the Cabinet after his visit are likely to be crucial to the eventual attitude the Government adopts on the issue.