That India did not have an envoy in either Hanoi or Saigon during the recent crucial period in Indochina shows how slovenly is the manner in which the Ministry of External Affairs continues to function. All the same it will be wrong to make too much of the absence of an Indian ambassador in the North Vietnamese capital. For, there is precious little he could have told New Delhi which it cannot find from material published elsewhere.
It is no secret that Indian missions in most communist countries are singularly ill-equipped to find out what is going on there. Language is, of course, one obvious difficulty. But that is the least of them. Few of these missions can boast of men with any expertise in the affairs of the countries concerned. Most of the diplomats are amateurs who are sent there in the belief that they are better off without any knowledge either of the ideology professed by these countries or of local conditions. The staff is usually quite small and often lacks even access to books and learned journals. In fact, most missions depend largely on Indian and local newspapers and journals. If a bright person somehow gets selected to head one of these missions, the permanent bureaucracy in the ministry does all it can to make him feel an outsider.
Those who try to follow developments in China know that much more information is available in Hong Kong through translations of the mainland press than in Peking where it is often not possible even to get copies of provincial newspapers. This is, of course, a unique situation. But the men who rule in Albania or Bulgaria are no less secretive than the Chinese. And can any Indian diplomat, who has served in Moscow, claim that the mission there has ever possessed one-half of the hard information which is available in various US congressional reports on the Soviet economy, for instance?
Effectiveness
The question of the effectiveness of Indian missions apart, in the specific case of Hanoi, no Indian ambassador or visiting official can possibly answer questions which are pertinent for policy makers in New Delhi. For, it is doubtful whether the North Vietnamese leadership itself has sorted out or can in the near future sort out its priorities. Indeed, there can be no finality about its priorities because it, too, will respond to developments in countries around it and the attitude of the great powers – China, the Soviet Union and the United States.
In the circumstances, New Delhi will do well to adopt a wait-and- see approach. The policy planning set-up under Mr G Parthasarathy can doubtless go ahead with what have come to be called exercises. But it should do so in the knowledge that right now even countries of South-East Asia, which have a much more intimate knowledge of Indochina and which are much more directly affected by developments there, are groping in the dark. Among them, Thailand is under the greatest compulsion to try to establish normal relations with Hanoi, Saigon, Phnom Penh and Vientiane because it allowed itself to be used by the United States as a launching pad for bombing raids on all the countries of Indochina. The present Thai government has been most anxious to reduce American military presence in its country as quickly as possible.
Meanwhile neither the Soviet Union nor China can be said to have gained much advantage in the area despite the very substantial assistance they extended to North Viet Nam in its struggle against the United States. There is some speculation that Hanoi may lean a little more towards Moscow than towards Peking. But if it does so, it will be not so much because it can expect far greater economic aid from the Soviet Union than from China as because the former is thousands of miles away and cannot possibly expect to acquire much long-term influence in the country.
Reports
Earlier there were reports that Peking had established direct contacts with, and extended direct assistance to, the National Liberation Front in South Viet Nam in order to promote it as a separate entity independent of Hanoi. In case these reports were correct, the Chinese did not succeed in their enterprise. The political and the military power in Saigon vests firmly in the hands of two members of the politburo of the North Vietnamese Communist party. The Chinese may fare a little better in Cambodia but not because they assisted the Khmer Rouge in the war against the US-backed Lon Nol regime but because, like Prince Sihanouk, the Cambodian communists, too, may regard them as a useful counterweight against the far stronger Vietnamese.
For years it has been widely assumed that the defeat of the United States will automatically lead to the emergence of Viet Nam as the dominant power not only in Indochina but in the whole of South-East Asia. This has in a sense happened. The two Viet Nams have a population of over 40 million, the best trained and best equipped defence forces and the most experienced and dedicated cadres. But judging by reports coming out of Phnom Penh – these have, of course, to be treated with a healthy dose of scepticism – the prolonged struggle against the American puppets seems to have led to an intensification of the feeling of nationalism. The repeated affirmation by the new Cambodian rulers of their policy of strict neutrality and opposition to any foreign base on their soil and their decision to evacuate the cities so that they do not have to depend on others for food, are the clearest possible indication that they are fierce nationalists.
If this view regarding the strength of nationalism in Indochina is correct, New Delhi will do well to stick to its traditional approach of emphasising strictly bilateral relations. That applies to the members of ASEAN – Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines – as well. In fact, it may well turn out that ASEAN is a hangover from a past when the Americans tried to bring states friendly to them together as part of their overall anti-communist platform. On the face of it, members of ASEAN lack the cement which can hold them together in the absence of US support.
India is interested above all in peace in South-East Asia. What is more, it has a direct stake in the survival of the present friendly regime in Burma in view of the long common border and the insurgency in Nagaland and Mizoram. But the best contribution it can make to the cause of stability in the region is to do what little it can to see to it that the competition for influence between the Soviet Union, China and Viet Nam there does not become intense because its net result will be support by all the three powers to communist and other kinds of rebels.
It will perhaps be an exaggeration to say that China has decided to step up support to Burmese communists just because it has reaffirmed its faith in their final victory. On the contrary, it is possible that it has only gone through the motions of living up to its “obligations” to a fraternal party which for all practical purposes has been wiped out as a result of a successful expedition by government forces against the rebels in the Pegu hills in which the party chairman and secretary were killed along with nearly 200 insurgents. But it also cannot be ruled out that the Chinese have made the belated broadcast – Thakin Zin and Thakin Chit were killed last March – because they do not like the idea of the remaining rebels looking elsewhere for support.
In Flux
Chinese policy is in a flux. As such it is not possible to say what Peking will do in South-East Asia. It can, however, be taken for granted that it will move in support of dissident elements and rebels, if they exist, in any country whose government draws close to the Soviet Union.
By virtue of its close ties with Moscow and poor ones with Peking, New Delhi is not well placed to play the role which it tried to play in the early ‘fifties, that is before the Americans made nonsense of any attempt to insulate the region from great power rivalries. It is in no position to intercede on anyone’s behalf with China. But it does not follow that it should opt for a policy which needlessly antagonises Peking. China’s influence in the region is so limited that it does not need to be “contained.” But the more vigorous the Soviet approach, the more desperate will be Peking’s actions. Also no one has defined what “neutralisation” of South- East Asia means and how this is to be achieved.
The Times of India, 28 May 1975