New war clouds in the Far East

Norman
St.John
Stevas
WE HAVE BEEN so absorbed by our own internal miseries these last weeks that we have been unable or unwilling to give sustained thought to events taking place outside our island.
Yet the fact is that over at the other side of the world, in the Far East, events are taking place which are bound to have a profound effect on our future and could even contain within themselves the seeds of a third world war: I am referring to the war which has broken out between China and Vietnam.
The danger here is not so much the conflict between the two Eastern countries but the backing of Vietnam by the Soviet Union which may feel impelled to come to the aid of its ally.
While the civil war continued in Vietnam and American troops remained, Hanoi maintained a balancing act between Moscow and Peking, but since the American withdrawal Vietnam has been moving steadily into the Russian orbit — a development carried to a new point last year when Vietnam became a member of the Soviet trade block Comecon and followed this up with a special friendship treaty with the Soviet Union.
The question now is whether Russia will feel bound to come to the aid of its ally by striking at China across its northern frontier: Peking itself is dangerously vulnerable.
Why has China taken military action against Vietnam? Un. doubtedly the basic reason is dislike and fear of Russian in fluence and the desire to check it. When I was in China in the summer the strains and tensions between Vietnam and China were growing, and everywhere I found this attributed to Soviet influence. The Chinese took the view that the Russians were using the Vietnamese to pursue their vendetta against the Chinese people. A second reason connected with this is the Vietnamese take-over of Cambodia. China had backed the Cambodian regime and undoubtedly felt both humiliated and threatened by the Vietnamese action.
It was no coincidence that on Feburary 17, the very day that a Vietnamese delegation flew to Phnom Penh, to sign a friendship treaty with the new Cambodian regime, the Chinese invasion started.
Yet another reason for the Chinese intervention has been the harassment of the Chinese minority in the South of Vietnam, many thousands of whom have already been expelled, but of whom more than a milion remain on Vietnamese territory.
In launching an invasion of Vietnam it seems reasonably clear that China has limited objectives: I was assured of this during talks I took part in at the Chinese Embassy in London last week. China wants to reassure other Asian countries that she is a power to be reckoned with more than a paper tiger — and that she has the power and the will to "punish' the Vietnamese and "teach them a lesson."
Having achieved this aim the Chinese troops will withdraw and the China-Vietnam war would be over as quickly as that between China and India in 1962 when hostilities lasted less than a month.
What should Britain's attitude be to the conflict? Our major interest is in peace and avoiding any escalation of the hostilities. It so happens that we are in a strong position to bring some pressure to bear upon Peking because of the proposed arms deal between our two countries.
Mr Eric Varlcy, our Industry Minister, is at this moment in Peking negotiating the sale of 70 Harrier jump-jets to China as well as the sale of a licence to manufacture 200 more: the whole deal would be worth more than £1,000 million to this country.
Naturally we wish to make the sale, but the Chinese are equally anxious to bring about the purchase: there should thus be an opportunity for a British moderating influence to be brought to bear and for assurances to be obtained about Chinese war aims.
In this respect we should act in concert with the United States, which hasjust re-established diplomatic relations with China but whose ambassador has not yet arrived in Peking. If the Chinese can in fact "teach the Vietnamese a lesson" and then withdraw, the stability of the region will have been strengthened. But can they? From reports of the fighting that have come through to the West it is evident that the Chinese troops are not having it all their own way.
They are facing battlehardened Vietnamese troops with up-to-date Soviet and American equipment, whereas China's armaments are at least a decade old. Furthermore, the Chinese may find it more difficult to get out of Vietnam through the narrow mountain passes than they did to get into it.
Who punishes whom is still uncertain. If Chinese mass superiority doesn't carry the day we could be in for a long war with all its attendant dangers.
Britain and her NATO allies may benefit from the tension in the Far East since it could lead to some withdrawal of the Soviet forces in Eastern Europe, whose superiority was so horrifically outlined in this month's Government White Paper on defence; but our overriding interest must be to limit the conflict and bring the war to the quickest possible end.