SHADOW OF VIETNAM FEAR OF COMMUNISTS DRAWS SOUTH-EAST ASIANS CLOSER

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34105, 18 March 1976, Page 16

SHADOW OF VIETNAM FEAR OF COMMUNISTS DRAWS SOUTH-EAST ASIANS CLOSER

(B,

DENNIS BLOODWORTH,

L in Singapore, for the Observer Foreign hews Service)

The summit conference of the Association of South-East Asian Nations, which has just ended with a fine burst of platitudes in Bali, bore out the words of the wise men of the East who teach that in an undivided cosmos enemies are friends and friends enemies.

Hasty eleventh-hour juggling strongly suggested that only the new threat posed by a hostile Communist Indo-China along their flank had -finally persuaded the five member States of A.S.E.A.N. to sink their differences and sign their first political treaty nearly nine years after they had become partners. On the other hand, the summit acted like a prism on the illusory solidarity of the interested Communist countries, breaking it down into sharply contrasting fractions.

When Malaysia, Singapore. Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines created A.S.E.A.N. in August, 1967 as an instrument for stimulating economic and cultural co-operation among their 200 million-odd citizens, Moscow, Peking and Hanoi all registered their ideological distress, and the Chinese labelled the new club “an o u t-a n d-out counterrevolutionary alliance against China, Communism, and the people.” It has hardly lived up to this definition, however. Its development has since been slow and painful, and characterised mainly by much tiresome committee work on matters like tourism and fisheries.

Moreover, although the recent summit was called in the ominous light of the “liberation” of all IndoChina, there was still no cause for alarm among the Communists. The meeting was to promote greater economic co-operation, to conclude a treaty of amity providing for “mutual respect for the independence, sovereignty, equality and territorial integrity of all nations,” and to publish a Declaration of A.S.E.A.N. Concord reaffirming the determination of member States to make the region a “Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality.” The differences in the political systems of a Communist Indo-China and the nonCommunist A.S.E.A.N. States must provoke only peaceful competition' and not conflict, as Mr Lee Kuan Yew, Prime Minister of Singapore put it.

And some Communists concur. The days are past when China denounced A.S.E.A.N. By last year Peking was commenting kindly on its “positive achievements” and the proposal that South-East Asia be designated a neutral zone.

On the eve of the summit, the Chinese press enthu-

siastically complimented the I members of this quondam “anti-Communist alliance masterminded by United States imperialism” for having “won notable victories in their joint struggle against hegemony ... their direction is justified and correct.” Why? Because “they defend their national independence and sovereignty” against a perfidious Soviet Union that has been “consistently sabotaging the neutralisation of SouthEast Asia.” In short, this indigenous line-up in favour of a neutral zone is a useful defence against Mr Leonid Brezhnev’s deplorable bid to sell Asia a specious collective security system of his own which would be sponsored and manipulated by Moscow. The Russians, evidently anxious i.ot to alienate the Asians, greeted the summit with qualified approval and gave the partnership a pass mark for its “realistic tendencies.” A.S.E.A.N. was not aggressive. It was laudably offering to establish friendly relations with the three Communist States of IndoChina and had snubbed Japanese attempts to “impart to it the nature of a military and political bloc.” But "the Vietnamese, while intoning the set ritual about the joys of peaceful coexistence, will have none of all this. For them A.S.E.A.N. another 5.E.A.T.0., paperthin cover for "United States-Japanese collusion” and the “dark schemes” of the Americans, who are using it to “rally all proAmerican reactionary forces to oppose the revolutionary movement in South-East Asia.”

However, the States of this sub-continent, already plagued by armed Communist insurgency, scarcely need to be nudged awake by hypothetical American hawks. The Vietnamese and Laotians, happily noting that the “revolutionary movement” in question was stronger now that IndoChina has turned red, put out a joint communique last month in which they bluntly threatened to “participate in making the countries of South-East Asia independent, peaceful and truly neutral.” Common defence At the end of the month, the press and radio in Hanoi spelled out their ill-will in words of one syllable, promising "full support” for “the otl • peoples of SouthEast Asia” who would now

“step up” the struggle against “feudalism, compradore capitalism and other forces of reaction on the payroll of imperialism.” A.S.E.A.N. may prefer peace, but the Communists have brilliantly succeeded in preventing its partners from becoming complacent and melting into a defenceless geopolitical jellyfish. The Americans may keep their big oases in the Philippines and halt their withdrawal from Thailand so that, as Mr Lee said, “some balance can be maintained" if the other big powers fail to respect the A.S.E.A.N. “zone of peace.” For their part, the A.S.E.A.N. States have now pledged themselves to fight subversion within their own frontiers in the interests of their collective security and common defence.

They will sign no formal military pact, nor even organise combined five-Power exercises as Indonesia earl-

[ier proposed. But as their forces expand they will multiply their exchanges of intelligence and antiCommunist expertise, their joint training and the joint anti-insurgency operations mounted where their frontiers meet, if only on a bilateral basis as yet.

All concur that if insurgency constitutes the gieatest menace to the A.S.E.A.N. States, the cure lies primarily in social and economic therapy lather than military surgery, in mutually profitable co-operation that can strengthen and enrich the club as a whole, so that men will be icss tempted to slink off to the terrorists in the jungle, and foreign Powers less tempted to feed them arms.

Before agreement could be reached on that co-operation, however, the Bali meeting — as President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines emphasised only too aptly in his initial address — had first to "demolish the barriers of suspicion and mistrust among member nations.” There could hardly have been less give-and-take at the outset and more touch-and-go at the end if the Vietnamese themselves had been there, fulminating against one and all. But the shadow of Vietnam was there — the shadow of the most powerful armed State in the sub-continent — and that helped to make the others draw together, instead of farther apart. The Treaty of Amity and Co-operation was thrown into jeopardy because the Malaysians feared that the Filipinos would press their territorial claims to the State of Sabah in North Borneo, once it was laid down that all disputes within A.S.E.A.N. should be submitted to five-Power arbitration. But a compromise was reached in the nick of time whereby arbitration would only apply when both parties consented.

Similarly, pressure from the compact, highly developed republic of Singapore (supported by the Philippines) for •» free trade zone, which brought stiff accusations of profit-seeking egoism from “developing” Indonesia, was lifted to allow for another compromise. This provides for the setting up of the first five of a growing number of designated A.S.E.A.N. industrial enterprises in each member State whose products would benefit from preferential trading arrangements within the group — long-term contracts, lower tariffs, low interest purchasing terms, priority status with government procurement agencies. Meanwhile the Declaration of A.S.E.A.N. Concord stipulates that the partners will help each other when natural disasters or major calamities strike, that they will settle all differences peacefully, that they will accord each other priority when supplying or buying basic needs (notably food and energy), and that they will adopt a joint approach to international economic problems and the stabilisation of prices.

The shotgun summit ended with smiles all round, and it is even possible that one day the five member States of A.S.E.A.N. will live happily together ever afterwards, since — unlike characters in other fairy tales — they can never be free from fear. — O.F.N.S. Copyright.