Sino-Soviet confrontation threat keeps Asia tense

Press, 21 August 1976, Page 21

Sino-Soviet confrontation threat keeps Asia tense

By

LEONARD RAYNER,

of the Observer Foreign News Service

FY LEONARD RAYNER The Chinese regard war with Russia as inevitable. Britain’s Foreign Secretary (Mr Anthony Crosland) reported after his recent visit to Peking, and this threat of confrontation dominates Asia today.

The consequent political activity, especially in South and .South-East Asia has achieved a momentum of its own. says a senior United States diplomat, outpacing the suner-Powers’ initiatives and with attendant dangers to the world power balance. The Asian Communist parties are. as never before, polarising their loyalties either to Moscow or Peking.

If war comes it could not! be localised. South-East Asia! mat have replaced the Mid-| die East as the potential trigger for a third world war. ' A senior Russian official i working in Asia denies this,! pointing to the internal economic problems Russia still' has to resolve and to the fut-l fifty of such a war. The re-i placement of the late Marshal Grechko by a civilian as Soviet Minister of Defence lends credence to this view but the Russian involvement through Cuba in Angola indicates the kind of military adventures that are acceptable to it.

The Russian official did not think the Chinese would attack Russian. China has neither rhe sea nor air power to equal the Russians and the size of its 2,500.000 man Armv is not matched by its effectiveness.

An American State Depart, ment China expert put it differently. He saw China and Russia as two nuclear powers jn a classic stand-off who could only indulge in conventional warfare. The cost to both countries would be unacceptable, especially as it would put them at a disadvantage in their relations with America. ’

The Russians do not have a good track record in foreign relations, even with some of their East-European allies and their progress in Asia has been limited. Trade

'is generally restricted to their sown needs. They have expended no credits and, apart I from Indo-China, no aid. In ithe modern world it is aid and trade that wins friends land •’he Russians have kept ia low profile on both counts. : They proposed an Asian ; Security Conference, ostensibly to achieve security for I Asian countries without Ipower bloc commitments. I The Asians are cool about 'the idea, partly out of suspicion of Russian motives but (also because of Chinese opposition. Most of China's neighbours would rather not be forced to take sides but [tend to prefer Third World (China to super-Power Russia.

The Indonesians are the exIception because they blame ’the Chinese for the bloody 1965 attempted Communist (coup, though the Russians [complain that the Suharto regime seems equally antagonistic towards them. Even Russia’s long-time ally India has now agreed to normalise relations with China. The only I areas where Russia has al ■clear-cut political advantage [ jin the Third World are Cuba: jand indo-China. > In the choice between Rus-j sia and China, Hanoi has jopted for the greater capacity [and higher technology of Moscow’s aid. In May a senior Chinese official confirmed I that Peking stopped its aid ' as soon as the Vietnam war ' ended. Traditional antagonism between Tonkin (North ' ‘Vietnam) and China must also '(have influenced Hanoi’s deci■jsion. North Vietnam is ; achieving hegemony over ■ Indo-China with Russian ' backing.

Since the war ended last year, however, a new dimension has been added to Asian politics. The Association of South-East Asian Nations (A.S.E.A.N.), bringing together non-Communist Indonesia, Malaysia, the * Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand, has taken positive steps to make the Association effective in the face of growing Communist subversion.

Hanoi feels this move will counter its own predomin-

ance in the region and Russia’s attitude to A.S.E.A.N. is being influenced by Hanoi’s thinking. In April Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko expressed “misgivings” about A.S.E.A.N. becoming a “military arrangement” despite repeated rejections by A.S.E.A.N. of any military I role.

China’s Moscow phobia extends to the British Colony of Hong Kong, whose Government must maintain the status quo in its relations with China. In 1972 K.G.B. agents were discovered living there as marine superintendents supervising repairs to Russian ships. This year there was a report that the K.G.B. were getting into Hong Kong as officers on Cuban merchant ships.

The Moscow Narodny Bank’s branch in Singapore has also come under suspicion. Its activities extended, on a grand scale, throughout South-East Asia and to Hong Kong. The unusual way the bank conducted its business gave rise to wild rumours of spying and political skulduggery 7. Two large failures among its customers added weight to the rumours.

There is in fact evidence to support suggestions that the Narodny was a cover for the K.G.B. The bank is British-registered and subject to the scrutiny of the British Government, the Bank of England and, since opening its branch in South-East Asia, the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Its accounts are checked annually by International auditors Peat, Marwick. Mitchell. For the K.G.B. it would be like spying in a goldfish bowl. The international nervous tension over Soviet intentions was voiced at the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Oslo last month. Although the Americans say they will not tolerate another Soviet involvement like the Angolan affair and President Ford’s new Pacific Doctrine is supposed to commit America to the peace and stability of South-East Asia, the "1969 Guam Doctrine makes it clear

that American land forces ; will not make a military com-| mitment to the mainland of 1 Asia. It is not likely that the Russians would undertake such a commitment. Even in Angola they let the Cubans do the actual fighting. But Chinese predictions of war are a warning to the world of the Russian menace as they see it. They feel that. Leftwing governments in Western Europe will undermine the capacity of N.A.T.O. and the European Common Market to resist Russian expansionist pressure. Russian attempts to expand in Europe and isolate China in Asia are. in Peking’s view, aimed at making the People’s Republic a satellite in the Russian orbit. There is also the fear that, in the post-Mao tse-Tung period, the pure Marxist-Leninism of Mao will be polluted by Russian revisionism if rhe moderate section of the Chinese Communist Party takes over. In these exchanges one factor could push either side further than it intended to go. The North Vietnamese have the largest, bestequipped. battle-trained army in Asia. They have the heady experience of defeating first the French and then the Americans and their allies in war.

They have always taken an independent line and, except for their need of logistical support in a protracted war, could take the aggressors’ role in South-East Asia. In 1975 President Amin II Sung of North Korea tried to get Russian and Chinese backing for an invasion of South Korea in the immediate post-Vietnam war period, believing that Americans no longer had the stomach to defend their Asian allies. He got no takers and it is is generally believed North Vietnam would get a similar reaction if it tried to pull the war trigger today. But then North Korea does not have North Vietnam’s incredible record of military successes. — O.F.N.S. copyright.