Local conflict in shadow of foreign demons

Press, 28 August 1979, Page 16

Local conflict in shadow of foreign demons

By

JOHN GITTINGS

in the “Guardian,” London

China and Vietnam have accused each other of “preparing for war” while a new round of talks between the two countries has run into trouble in the first few days. Vietnam’s war preparations, the Chinese claim, have been funded by .gold seized from the “boat people.” The money has been used, the Chinese say, to purchase $lOO million worth of Soviet arias. Peking also alleges that Moscow has as many as 5000 military experts in Vietnam. Speaking in Peking last week, at the start of the fourth round of the SinoVietnamese talks, Hanoi’s deputy Foreign Minister, Dinh Nho Liem, said that China had infiltrated spies and commandos into Vietnam and is threatening “to teach Vietnam another lesson.” A steady escalation of charge and counter-charge has produced virtual dead-

lock. The talks, which began several months ago to deal with the specific issues of the “Hoa” Chinese in Vietnam and of the disputed border, have been almost submerged by much wider questions. Opening the Peking talks, the chief Chinese negotiator, Mr Han Nianlong, said that the present Vietnam leadership had “betrayed President Ho Chi Minh” — a charge which could hardly have been more offensive to Hanoi’s leaders, most of whom worked closely with

Ho to complete the revolution. / In the Chinese view, these leaders became “swollenheaded” after their victory over the Americans, and w’ere “encouraged” in their new ambition to take over Indochina by the Soviet Union. Peking spokesmen stress that the root cause of their quarrel with Vietnam is precisely its pro-Soviet alignment and its behaviour — so they claim — as “Moscow’s Cuba in the Far East.” Meanwhile the Vietnamese press has been documenting in greater detail its charge that China has been acting “in collusion with United States imperialism” ever since the 1954 Geneva conference on Indochina. This month the Vietnam Party paper “Nhan Dan” said that China had tried to hold back the Vietnamese revolution “for decades.” At Geneva, the paper claimed,

China had “advocated the division Of Vietnam and Laos to the. detriment of both countries.” China, according to “Nhan Dan,” had only been interested in wresting North Vietnam and two northern Laos provinces from the French at that time, to serve “as a buffer zone for southern China.” Hanoi also claims that the Chinese occupation of the Xisha (Paracel) Islands in January, 1974, then garrisoned by South Vietnam, was carried out “with American complicity.” The new round of Sino-

Vietnamese talks were preceded by a further exchange on the disputed Xisha and Nansha (Spratly) archipelagos in the course of which Vietnam admitted that it had not opposed Chinese Claims to these islands in the past. Hanoi’s Foreign Ministry now says that a statement of May 1965, tacitly accepting the Chinese claim, must be seen against the “historical background” of Vietnam’s pressing need then to win Chinese support against the American invasion of the south. Firmly embedded on the agenda of the bilateral talks are two sets of principles tabled by each couritry which seem totally incompatible. China’s Eight Point Proposal calls on Vietnam to renounce “hegemony in Indochina” and to condemn efforts , “by any other country” (ie the Soviet Union) to estabish hegemony anywhere in the world.

Vietnam has countered by re-defining “hegemony” to mean “alliance with imperialism” and the use of force as to “teach any country a lesson” — as China did when it invaded in January this year. Vietnam’s own Three Point Proposal, in contrast to the Chinese, avoids general principles and simply calls for a mutual withdrawal of armed forces from the disputed border. Though China proposed much the same thing to settle its border conflict with the Soviet Union 10 years ago,

Peking now says this does not get to the heart of the issue, which is Vietnam’s Soviet-sponsored “hostility against China.” With both sides in Peking admitting that the talks face “serious difficulties” and accusing the other of obstruction, it seems clear that any solution must be sought on a different ground. Vice-Minister Han Nianlong warned last week that the Vietnamese leadership must face “a future dreadful to contemplate” — the sort of remark which Hanoi quotes as evidence of China’s intention to invade again. A more optimistic assess-

ment of the current deadlock is that both sides are waiting to see what emerges from the new talks between China and the Soviet Union due to start next month. According to one interpretation Vietnam’s drift closer to the Soviet Union last year, as a result of which she joined Comecon and signed a Treaty of Friendship, was not the blunder which (by provoking China to invade) it appeared to be, but a longterm, carefully calculated move. Logically the time was approaching, it is argued, when China and the Soviet Union would have to look afresh at their relationship.

Vietnam, unable to talk on equal terms with Peking, should by this logic take other steps to insert itself on the Sino-Soviet agenda. From Peking's angle it makes sense — as one Chinese official has rather contemptuously remarked — “to talk to the puppet master and not the puppet,” and the Chinese may feel, rightly or wrongly, that a solution can only be found in Moscow.

Behind the current deadlock — similar to that which has long faced Sino-Soviet negotiations — lies the crucial question of how countries which call themselves “socialist” should settle disputes when they occur. In practice such disputes have led to far worse discord than if they had occurred between capitalist countries.

Fine principles of "proletarian internationalism” only seem to reduce the capacity of socialist countries to cope realistically with conflicts of national interest. These can only be rationalised by arguing that the other party to the dispute is no longer socialist but has “changed colour” and joined forces with some Other sinister world force. To the Chinese it is Moscow’ which is the shadow behind Hanoi. To the Vietnamese, it is Washington which lurks behind Peking. There is an element of truth in both views reflecting recent shifts in international alignments. But the superpowers also serve as demon figures providing an alibi for the failure to deal realistically with a local conflict.