VIETNAMESE EXPANSIONISM: THE WAR THAT HUNGER CAN'T HIDE
Excerpts from The SUN Editorial Page, Page 3 of 18. Saturday, November 10, 1979.
VIETNAMESE EXPANSIONISM: THE WAR THAT HUNGER CAN'T HIDE
The Christian Science Monitor New Service.
The Effort of well-intentioned people in Washington to relieve the human misery of the Cambodian people would be more successful than it is proving to be if the United States itself were truly disinterested in the outcome of the war which is going on in and about Cambodia.
The United States is not disinterested in the war and in the eventual outcome of the war. It is interested and it does care who wins. This inevitably means that any American effort to help the victims of that war is suspect in the eyes of those who are at present making the major effort in that war.
The major effort in that war right now is by the armed forces of the government of Vietnam. Their purpose is to finish off once and for all the ability of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia to survive in the Western mountains and jungles of Cambodia.
The United States has no reason to favor the survival of that particular regime which has blood on its hands and has long since become a disgrace among nations.
But the United States does has reason to look with disfavor upon the prospects of such a complete and decisive victory for Vietnamese arms in Cambodia.
A complete and decisive victory by Vietnamese arms in Cambodia would have the effect of adding the territory of Cambodia, and also those Cambodians who would survive that victory, the holdings of Vietnam. Vietnam is already a small empire.
The people of North Vietnam have conquered both South Vietnam and Laos. They are now in the process of trying to add the whole of Cambodia to their holdings. They are reaching for, and are very close to closing their grip on, all that in the pre-World War II world was called French Indo-China.
The United States has three reasons for being reluctant to contemplate and to acquiesce in a complete and decisive victory for Vietnamese arms in Cambodia.
First Vietnam is a client in power politics of the Soviet Union. The United States looks with disfavor upon any extension of Soviet influence in the world.
Joseph C. Harsch
Second A Vietnam in total control of all of Indo-China and backed by Moscow is a danger to China. It would be one means by which Moscow could exert pressure on China.
The United States would prefer less, not more, Soviet influence in Asia.
Third A Vietnam in control of all of Indo-china would be biggest and strongest regional power in Southeast Asia. There is no certainly that it would become a satisfied power if and when it reached the outer borders of old French Indo-China. Might it push on into Thailand "Might it become a danger to Malaysia, to Singapore, to Indonesia and even to the Philippines".
It is largely anxiety about the future power of Vietnam which has brought the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand together in the Association of Southeast Asia Nations, known ASEAN.
Three of these, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines, are military clients of the United States. All of the ASEAN countries revolve in the economic and cultural orbit of the Western democracies. All of them look to the United States to help them keep out of the clasp of Moscow through its regional client, Vietnam.
Thus for the sake of the ASEAN countries and China the United States is reluctant to see consolidate its military and political control over all Cambodia.
Such consolidation is not yet certain to happen.
A major Vietnam offensive against the surviving pockets of resistance in the western portions of Cambodia is about to be launched. It will be the second attempt to eliminate all surviving resistance. The first such effort failed. This might fail as well. The Chinese who are even more reluctant than is the United States to see a decisive and final victory for Vietnamese arms in Cambodia are passing weapons along to the Pol Pot forces through Thailand. There is the possibility of another Chinese incursion into Vietnam from the north as a means of relieving pressure on the Pol Pot survivors it has little reason to care what happens to the civilian refugees now pouring into Thailand.
Besides, the Vietnamese are not interested to the survival of Cambodians. Hence, they tend to look upon attempts to aid the Cambodians as both interference in their war aims and as unfriendly act against their interests.
Now does the Washington want to find itself to the position of playing Moscow's game against China in Asia.
All of which makes it extremely difficult to bring much effective relief to the Cambodian victims of Vietnamese expansionism.