Thailand and The Widened War

THE PRESIDENT'S trip to China may give a great boost to his election hopes, but his desire for a "generation of peace" faces severe challenges from his Asian allies and from the fact that the Indochina war continues unabated. In recent months there has also been another "low profile" escalation of the Southeast Asian war.

Thai troops have begun to take a more active role in fighting in Cambodia, and U.S. sources in Bangkok suggests that the U.S. sources in Bangkok suggest that the U.S. is planning to raise its aid in the next year by $5 million for a total of $70 million, the Washington Post reported on March 5.

During the last two months the Chinese government has frequently expressed its concern over Thai involvement in Cambodia. On January 14, the People's Daily of Peking said that participation by "certain Southeast Asian countries" in the U.S.-backed aid consortium for Cambodia contradicted their support for Southeast Asian neutralization as expressed at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on November 27, 1971.

On January 18, the same newspaper attributed to U.S. Vietnam commander General Creighton Abrams's visit to Bangkok a desire on the part of the U.S. to arrange for the dispatch of more Thai troops to Laos and Cambodia.

Nine days later, a spokesman of the Chinese Foreign Ministry charged that the January 19 "border security" agreement between Cambodia and Thailand was "a cloak for 'legalizing' further and open invasion of Cambodia by the accomplice troops of Thailand."

On February 17, the People's Daily reported that Thai troops had taken part in fighting near Cambodia's ancient temples at Angkor.

The State Department and U.S. embassies in Bangkok and Phnom Penh have dismissed Chinese charges concerning the January 19 border agreement between Thailand and Cambodia. These sources report that the agreement set up a "Joint Commission on Border Control and Fisheries" which has been given a "vague mandate" to study the "border situation" and to make "recommendations."

"For Cambodia to the south," reported the Washington Post on March 5, "the North Vietnamese and Khmer communist forces control the major portion of the border with Thailand."

TENSION ON THE Thai-Cambodian border can only continue to mount because of an increase in Thai activity in Cambodia. Nevertheless, in the joint U.S.-China communique signed in Shanghai on February 27, the U.S. side stipulated that it will "progressively reduce its forces and military installations on Taiwan as the tension in the area diminishes." Last week Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird emphasized that Vietnam is a focal point of tension in the area.

One other source of tension between China, Thailand, the U.S. and Cambodia is the distribution of drilling rights for off-shore oil on the continental shelf shared by Cambodia and Thailand.

The decline of growth in the Thai economy and the increase in activity on the part of anti-government guerrilla forces adds even further to the malaise of the Bangkok government. During fighting on the Plain of Jars in December 1971, Thai troops suffered "extremely heavy casualties," according to a London Times interview with the Defense Minister of Laos, Sisouk no Champassak.

The future of Thailand, of U.S.-Chinese relations, and the outlook for the solution of the Southeast Asian war are integrally related to the kind of policy the U.S. adopts in the next few months. The increased presence of Thai troops in Cambodia after the severe defeats suffered by the Cambodian army during December and January as well as those undergone by the Thai army in Laos during the same months are bad omens. Extensive participation by Thai forces in the Indochinese war, in addition to the presence of five airbases used by U.S. bombers in Thailand, will not solve the problems of the ailing Thai economy.

It is thus abundantly clear that if Thailand is to avoid further useless and unproductive participation in the Indochina war, an overall diplomatic solution for Southeast Asia will be necessary in the very near future. If such a settlement does not take place, the hopes for improvement in Sino-American relations based on reduction of "tension" in Asia may well fizzle.

THE OUTLOOK for a negotiated solution for the Southeast Asian war has become bleaker because of worsening relations between the U.S. and North Vietnam. The extensive U.S. bombing of North Vietnam during the week prior to President Nixon's visit to China has done nothing to improve chances for a rapprochement.

In the wake of President Nixon's disclosures of secret negotiations on January 25, Le Monde and other newspapers have concluded that the "real stumbling block" in the Vietnam peace talks is the kind of government that would replace the present regime in Saigon in order to organize elections.

On October 22, 1971, eleven days after the U.S. privately delivered its peace plan to the North Vietnamese, the Saigon government of President Nguyen Van Thieu publicly bragged that it would assassinate its opponents in the PRG (Provisional Revolutionary Government). As they "lay down their arms" prior to elections organized under the framework of the present Saigon government all members of the PRG infrastructure and military forces would be wiped out.

The necessary condition for lasting peace in Vietnam is the annihilation of all PRG forces which have infiltrated rural and urban areas, reported the weekly publication of the Saigon embassy in Paris.

The embassy publication, which frequently carries articles by high-ranking members of the Saigon Foreign Ministry, lauded the "Phoenix" (or Phoung Hoang) program which has served as an instrument for the assassination of those whom Saigon labels "communists."

In order to prevent the communists from launching a third Indochina war, the article called for tight cooperation between Saigon's civilian and military forces to ensure that the PRG forces are fully eradicated.

WHILE THE VIETNAM negotiations languish, U.S. intelligence officers in Saigon are predicting that the PRG-North Vietnamese offensive which "failed to take place" in mid-February will occur in July and August or in November at the time of the U.S. presidential elections.

The Baltimore Sun commented on March 4:

Who remembers today the chorus of urgent official warnings a bare month ago against the chance of an immediate enemy offensive? For example General Westmoreland...considered 'multiple attacks' a probability. Who remembers the massive air strikes justified as directed against reported enemy massings for attack? Who knows how many million of dollars worth of bombs were used, or wasted--since to our knowledge nobody has claimed that the strikes prevented the attack--in that adventure, or the extent of non-military destruction wrought?

This comment suggests no lessons beyond the usual lessons of Vietnam, which through year after year after year have proved to be unlearnable (except, to be sure, for the lesson that the rainy season, one more of which impends, is vitally important, on one way or another, or yet another).

THE CONTINUED U.S. involvement in the Indochina war is ironic for another reason. As the air war continues, the U.S. program to provide medical assistance to civilians injured during the war has been severely cut back. Senator Edward M. Kennedy has pointed out that "we cannot wash our hands" of the plight of these civilians.

What is equally apparent is that if Thailand is to avoid further involvement in Indochina and if Sino-American relations are to continue blossoming, the United States cannot "wash its hands" of the plight of the Vietnam negotiations.