China, the U.S., and Vietnam: Approaches to a Soviet Colony
Toai, Doan Van & Chanoff, David
..................................................................................................................................................... Doan Van Toai and David Chanoff CHINA, THE...
...This has already been largely accomplished through implementation of the secret military articles of the 1979 Friendship Treaty, which gives the Soviet navy and air force access to Vietnam's coastal and river systems...
...She does not, however, have the muscle for a direct confrontation, a point made vividly clear during her abortive 1979 "lesson...
...David Chanoff is teaching at Harvard and a freelance writer...
...Recently Son San lamented that his forces have received from China only enough material to equip about one thousand soldiers, from Singapore only enough for three thousand, and from the United States nothing...
...does not normalize relations with Vietnam this year and if the UN does not unseat Pol Pot this year, then they certainly will over the next several years, or the next ten years...
...China, however, is also aiding indigenous military opposition within Vietnam's own borders...
...Soviet Strategy in Southeast Asia Last October the United Nations General Assembly again asked Vietnam to withdraw its troops from Cambodia...
...The recent softening of Chinese public attitudes toward the Soviets is one consequence of China's realization that her strategic position has been severely compromised...
...Again the request has not affected Vietnam's imperturbability...
...At this level of support, the coalition government does not pose a serious military threat to Hanoi...
...At the same time, the People's Republic hopes to create for Vietnam an endless guerrilla war both in the jungles of Cambodia and within Vietnam itself...
...Freedom of operation for these forces has now been further expanded with the formal resolution in Vietnam's favor of a long-standing dispute between Cambodia and Vietnam concerning control of waters off the southern tip of the Indochinese peninsula...
...One objective of this strategy is to establish a militant and aggressive second front in the Soviet Union's ongoing conflict with China...
...It is for this reason that Cambodia and Laos will continue to be held under strict occupation by Vietnam, as will Afghanistan by the Soviets...
...Despite UN criticism and the far more important facts of severe domestic food shortages and dangerously poor economic performance generally, Vietnamese leaders have no intention of withdrawing either from Cambodia or Laos...
...It is an interesting side note to history that the military provisions of the Friendship Treaty closely parallel Vietnamese concessions to the French in 1884 which were instrumental in France's consolidation of her Indochinese colonial empire...
...Nor have Western economic and diplomatic sanctions, in place many years now, had the slightest success in ameliorating either Vietnam's determined aggression against its neighbors or its systematic internal suppression of human rights...
...Their recent articles have appeared in various major publications including the New York Times Magazine, the New Republic, National Review, and Encounter...
...His book The Vietnamese Gulag, published in several European countries, will appear in the United States later this year...
...Until now, only China and Singapore have given public support to the coalition while others, including the U.S., have been content to provide moral encouragement...
...Due in large measure to Chinese efforts, the Cambodian Coalition Government (an improbable alliance between the Khmer Rouge, Prince Sihanouk, and nationalist leader Son San) was formally established in Singapore on June 22 of last year...
...By itself it creates only a nuisance in the field and some relatively innocuous diplomatic difficulties, neither of which has yet to impress the Vietnamese invaders...
...Accordingly, Chinese strategy has focused on denying Vietnam stable control of Indochina...
...The second Soviet objective is the establishment of a major naval presence in East Asian waters...
...Eventually, the two formerly independent Southeast Asian countries are slated for absorption in a Socialist Union of Southeast Asia which planners at Vietnam's Nguyen Ai Quoc Institute are projecting for the 1990s...
...at Cambridge...
...We have the patience to wait...
...Again the request was supported by an overwhelming number of nations (105 to 23), fourteen more than in 1981...
...On the contrary, domestic police-measures have become increasingly harsh since the shortlived euphoria of victory in 1975, and the Vietnamese have clearly established themselves for the long run in Cambodia and Laos...
...As foreign minister Nguyen Co Thach has commented, "If the U.S...
...Doan Van Toai and David Chanoff CHINA, THE U.S., AND VIETNAM: APPROACHES TO A SOVIET COLONY USSR out of Vietnam...
...Vietnam's leadership feels that time is on its side, that eventually the world will accept Vietnamese hegemony in the region as a fait accompli...
...An overly hostile Indochina under Hanoi's leadership achieves that goal and constitutes an important additional link in the iron necklace of clients and allies that Russia has forged around its Asian neighbor and antagonist, including North Korea, Mongolia, the USSR itself, India, and now Afghanistan...
...And current Soviet strategy in the region calls for a consolidated Indochina under Vietnamese leadership...
...The fact is that the stakes in Cambodia and Laos are simply too high for Vietnam to be induced to leave, unless the Soviets reduce their objectives in Southeast Asia...
...In pursuing this policy, China can be counted on to intensify her diplomatic campaign to prevent legitimation of the Vietnamese puppet government in Cambodia...
...The most important native recipient of Chinese largess has been FULRO (Front Uni pour la Lutte des Races Opprimees), the persistent Montagnard insur THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1983 19...
...Doan Van Toai is a program consultant at the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, Inc...
...The Chinese Response China is most directly threatened by the Soviet thrust into Southeast Asia, and consequently is most serious about stopping the Russian/ Vietnamese consortium...
Vol. 16 • April 1983 • No. 4
