Communists seeking friends in S.E. Asia

Press, 20 October 1978, Page 8

Communists seeking friends in S.E. Asia

GAVIN YOUNG

reports after a tour

of South-East Asian capitals

It is amazing what the great communist victory in Indo-China, in 1975, has done for the non-communist countries of South-East Asia. What —one begins to ask oneself—-would they ever have done without it? For it is the communists who are dashing hither and thither in a panic these days, begging for help wherever it looks remotely available. It has been a victory without much instant joy. Thus the Cambodians are sending their Foreign Minister across the world like a hired public relations expert, good at the fixed grin, handy with the arm round the shoulder, toting a couple of unconvincing Chinese-made films designed to show that the Pol Pot regime in Phnom Penh is really not murderous at all, but is everyone’s favourite uncle. The proud, hard-minded Vietnamese are practically on their knees to the Americans some of whom not long ago would have liked to have bombed them back into the Stone Age. And. if anyone traced on an atlas the jet routes of Indo-Chinese or Chinese leaders and lelegations of one

high degree or another, as they flash importunately to the’ capitals of Asia—from Iran to Japan—in recent months, the result would look like a very messy action painting. Added to which, one is now treated to the spectacle of the Russians, once so ponderously selfconfident, running round like some crusty nineteenthcentury British colonel, fulminating about the Yellow Peril—meaning, since Chairman Hua and Prime Minister Fukuda agreed recently to bury the ugly past, not only the Chinese, but also the Japanese. The Russians were particularly riled by the SinoJapanese agreement in Peking to forswear and denounce hegemony — their own or anyone else’s—in the region. “Hegemony,” in fact, has become the “in” word among Russian diplomats. They are now busily calling on South-East Asian Ministers warning of ChineseJapanese designs on Asia. They resemble hysterical and short-sighted old ladies at a barbecue shouting “Fire!” And a South-East Asian Minister told me recently that the only way to

cope with these frantic visits was to thank the Russians for coming and give them a few comforting words before sending them on their way. For, after all, the Russians, when they put their minds to it. are no mean arsonists themselves. For the leaders of A.S.E.A.N. — the Association of South-Eastern Asian Nations (Philippines. Thailand. Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore) — the chaos of Indo-Chinese communism is a propaganda windfall of unprecedented proportions. “People may hate the guts of our Government,” one A.S.E.A.N. minister told me recently. “They may call us fascist or any thing else. What they can’t do is stand up and convincingly advocate a ‘liberated’ communist communist State here. We can all see what that would be like just by looking at Vietnam or Cambodia.” Sometimes it is not even necessary to look out of the window at communist discomforture. The lesson actually walks in the door. It is, for instance, a great, inconvenience and economic burden for the Thais to have to look after thousands of

Cambodian refugees from Pol Pot. But those refugees have spread the grim word far and wide among hitherto sceptical Thais, many of them previously fairly fed up with their own rulers, about what being “liberated" means. Although the rulers of Vietnam are not the bloodthirsty theorists of the type the Cambodian regime has shown itself to be, Vietnamese are still fleeing, too. Three years after the "liberation,” hundreds of Vietnamese of all kinds are still risking leaky boat-rides to Australia and elsewhere. All this coincides with the emergence to power of perhaps the most competent, responsible collection of non-Communist A.S.E.A.N. leaders ever. Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore, Ferdinand Marcos of Philippines, General Kriangsak of Thailand, President Suharto of Indonesia, and Prime Minister Hussein Onn of Malaysia, are a great improvement on a list that once included the grim tyrant Sarit, of Thailand, and the dictator-clown Sukarno, of Indonesia. During the American war in Vietnam, the A.S.E.A.N. governments looked embarrassed and inhibited, frozen in red-faced spectator attitudes. Now the American departure and communist confusion have acted like a kiss of life. A.S.E.A.N. lives.

The communist threat since 1973 has driven these A.S.E.A.N. leaders into a colaboration — economic, not military except as regards counter-subversion — that even the iVetnamese, after a period of violently attacking A.S.E.A.N. as a new form of American aggression, now say they appreciate is peaceful and want to join. That, of course, should not be taken for anything but what it is: a typically sinuous Vietnamese political manoeuvre. But with the Russians pushing their interests through the Vietnamese, and the Chinese standing by Cambodia, strange new patterns could emerge in the Asian political shadow theatre. Perhaps, for example, one may find the Chinese equivalent of the C.I.A. co-oper-ating with the American C.I.A. and the Australian int e 11 i g e n c e organisation against the intruding Soviets. But things may not be quite so simple and reassuring as that. The A.S.E.A.N. countries still face active and daring insurgents — particularly in Thailand which has active insurgency in about half its provinces and which might have to face the horror of urban terror in the future. China may make winsome noises in A.S.E.A.N.'s direct-

ion. Peking might even wish to call off any covert antiA.S.E.A.N. activity it may have afoot. But those insurgents are a demanding lot. If the Chinese did cut oc aid. they could turn to the ever-ready Russians. The insurgents, in fact, can play the familiar game of blackmailing the super-powers. In thise case, the communist super-powers So the underground war continues and may expand. A.S.E.A.N. is not simply sailing calm waters as mcommunists fight it out between themselves — verbally or even militarily — and economically reduce each other to shattered hulks. In Thailand, for instance, anyone who has seen the nightmare of Vietnam must feel an all-too-familiar qualm. Here are bombs and bullets and murderous ambushes in a green land of peasants, water-buffalos and pagodas. General Kriangsak, of Thailand, warns: "We are next to the fire.” Communism is not moribund or on the point of suicide. But, for once and at long last, the n o n-communist have thoughtful leaders, the econi omic potential to discredit the communist economic system, and — just as important — they have, for once, the psychological upperhand. O.F.N.S. Copyright.