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The Possibilities for Diplomacy in Southeast Asia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

John T. McAlister JR.
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Extract

At Angkor, where the remains of an antique kingdom's abandoned capital are found deep in the Cambodian jungle, the exquisite bas-reliefs tell a story more compelling than written history. Battle scenes with a great cavalry of war elephants meld into episodes of river combat between handsomely carved fleets of oar-powered boats in an unending stone panorama of warfare as it was fought centuries ago in Southeast Asia. For one who has seen these carved panels it is not difficult to realize that when the Europeans arrived in mainland Southeast Asia in the early seventeenth century they found warfare endemic there. This conflict was not less bloody nor less protracted than that which Europe had already experienced or was about to endure in the Thirty Years' War. But this violent interaction in Asia did not seem to hold the prospect for the development of a nation-state system such as was emerging from European warfare. Rather than moving toward centralized states and configurations of alliances, the peoples of Southeast Asia in the seventeenth century appeared to be entering a phase, repetitious in their history, in which political fragmentation and spasmodic conflict were hallmarks.

Type
Review Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , January 1967 , pp. 258 - 305
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1967

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References

1 Cady accepts the widely held view that the Thai were stimulated by the Mongol intervention in Southeast Asia to move southward from their original homeland in south China into the Menam River Valley. The validity of this view has been challenged by two well-known scholars of Asian culture: Frederick W. Mote rejects the idea that the Thai originated in south China and migrated southward under Mongol pressure. He believes that “the region of origin of the Thai peoples has still not been established.” See his “Problems of Thai Prehistory,” Social Science Review (Bangkok), 11 (October 1964), 100-109. Also see William J. Gedney, “From Ancient Thai to Modern Dialects,” ibid., III (September 1965), 107–12, which supports Mote's assertion from the perspective of linguistic analysis.

2 Maybon, Charles B., Histoire moderne du pays d'Annam, 1592–1820 (Paris 1920), 18–25Google Scholar. This work is the most thorough and well-researched study available in a Western language for any period of Vietnamese history.

3 Khoi, Le Thanh, in Le Viet-Nam: Histoire et civilisation (Paris 1955), 313Google Scholar–22, tends to discount the importance of French aid because he feels that the Vietnamese carried the burden of the fighting. However, Professor Cady's outstanding study,The Roots of French Imperialism in Eastern Asia (Ithaca 1954), shows him well qualified to offer a differing interpretation. However, Le Thanh Khoi's book is the most comprehensive history of Vietnam available; it is based on French and Vietnamese monographic sources.

4 Luang Vichitr Vadakarn, Thailand's Case (Bangkok 1941), although specifically concerned with a discussion of the Thai-Laotian and Thai-Cambodian border controversies, gives a useful background on Thai goals in Southeast Asia.

5 LeBar, Frank M., Hickey, Gerald C., and Musgrave, John K., Ethnic Groups of Mainland Southeast Asia (New Haven 1964).Google Scholar

6 A more comprehensive account of this nineteenth-century struggle over the Tai highlands is contained in Hall, D. G. E., A History of South-East Asia (New York 1955), 591Google Scholar–98. The revised i960 edition of this standard history of Southeast Asia is out of print.

7 The Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRVN) was proclaimed by Ho Chi Minh on September 2, 1945, in Hanoi; it was recognized as a “free state” by France on March 6, 1946, although the legal definition of this recognition was never agreed upon. On December 19, 1946, military operations between France and the DRVN commenced. France's adversary was popularly known as the Viet Minh, a short form of Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi, or Vietnamese Independence League, which had been organized by Ho Chi Minh in 1941; its leadership was synonymous with that of the Indochina Communist Party, also founded by Ho in 1930. On June 5, 1948, France agreed o t recognize an independent Vietnamese government opposed to the Viet Minh; its leader was Emperor Bao Dai. This recognition paved the way for the creation in 1950 of the State of Vietnam. In October 1955, Ngo Dinh Diem proclaimed the Republic of Vietnam as the successor to the State of Vietnam. The Republic was immediately recognized by France and other Western powers; it is the only Vietnamese government recognized by France. See Cole, Allan B., ed., Conflict in Indo-China and International Repercussions: A Documentary History 1945–1955 (Ithaca 1956Google Scholar).

8 The nine participants in the Geneva Conference of 1954 were Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, France, Laos, the People's Republic of China, the State of Vietnam, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America.

9 The phrase is that of Lacouture, Jean and Devillers, Philippe, La fin d'une guerre: Indochine 1954 (Paris 1960), 274Google Scholar.

10 There are two exceptions: Lacouture and Devillers, La fin d'une guerre and “The Geneva Conference,” in Bell, Cora, Survey of International Affairs, 1954, Benham, F. C., ed., for the Royal Institute of International Affairs (London 1957), 42–72Google Scholar. The former i s an unexcelled study by an impressive French team of scholar and journalist.

11 An analysis of the International Commission is “Peace Observation in Indochina Through Three International Control Commissions, 1954–1964,” in Washington Center of Foreign Policy Research, The Future Character and Role of Peace Observation Arrangements Under the United Nations, a study prepared under contract ACDA/IR-34 for the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (Washington 1964), Appendix III, Part 2, 673–750.

12 Between 1951 and mid-1954, aid from China is reported to have increased by ten to twenty tons per month, reaching a level of four thousand tons monthly (Tanham, George, Communist Revolutionary Warfare: The Vietminh in Indochina [New York 1961], 68–69Google Scholar). Clear evidence of the autonomy of the Viet Minh development is contained in Tanham and in Fall, Bernard B., Le Viet-Minh: La République Démocratique du Viet-Nam, 1945–1960 (Paris 1960).Google Scholar

13 “The Geneva Conference,” in The Memoirs of Anthony Eden: Full Circle (Cambridge 1960), 120Google Scholar–63. In a brief volume just issued Eden has perceptively related his views of the Geneva Conference to the current crisis in Southeast Asia. See his proposal Toward Peace in Indochina (Boston 1966).Google Scholar

14 Bell, 57–58.

15 New York Times, June 29, 1954.

16 This suggestion is put forth by Donald Lancaster, in The Emancipation of French Indo-China (London 1960), 336Google Scholar–37. Such a possibility is discounted by Cora Bell who says, “. . . There is little evidence that Mr. Molotov considered concessions in IndoChina necessary to secure the demise of the E.D.C., which was already in articulo mortis at this time. Nor, if he had desired to make such a bargain, was there any sign during the negotiations that he was enough in control of the situation to do so” (p. 72).

17 Lerner, Daniel and Aron, Raymond, France Defeats E.D.C. (New York 1957), 162Google Scholar–63.

18 The primary medium of exchange was opium. Approximately thirty-eight tons of opium were available annually for marketing in northern Indochina during the late 1940's and early 1950's. Had the Viet Minh controlled all thirty-eight tons they would have been able, at prevailing exchange rates, to acquire 12,800 rifles an d 6,400,000 rounds of ammunition in one year—a quantity of supplies sufficient to equip a Viet Minh infantry division. In th e period 1947–1952, the Viet Minh could theoretically have equipped the entire six divisions of their main force through the barter of opium alone! See McAlister, John T. Jr., “Mountain Minorities and the Viet Minh: A Key to the Indochina War,” in Kunstadter, Peter, ed., Southeast Asian Tribes, Minorities, and Nations (Princeton 1967).Google Scholar

19 Bell, 70–72.

20 Hinton, Harold C., Communist China in World Politics (Boston 1966), 249Google Scholar–54, refers to Dulles' speech at Los Angeles on June 11, 1954, in which the Secretary of State outlined conditions under which a clash between the Chines e People's Republic and the United States might occur. While Hinton feels that the effect of this speech was to bring concessions from Chou En-lai, he does not make this an unqualified assertion.

21 Interview with Professor Mus, May 1, 1965.

22 A detailed histor y of the founding of the party is found in Gouvernement général de l'Indochine, Direction des affaires politiques et de la sûreté générale, Contribution à I'histoire des mouvements politiques de l'Indochine française (Hanoi 1933), Vol. IVGoogle Scholar, Le Dong-Duong Cong-San Dang (Parti communiste indochinois).

23 Democratic Republic of Vietnam, Central Committee of Propaganda of the Viet Nam Lao Dong Party and the Committee for the Study of the Party's History, Thirty Years of Struggle of the Party, Book I (Hanoi 1960), 27. This is the official history of the Vietnam Workers' Party and an extremely valuable source on the history of communism in Vietnam.

24 The details of this mountain combat are set forth impressively by Bernard B. Fall, Street Without Joy: Indochina at War 1946–1954 (Harrisburg 1961), esp. chaps. 2 and 3. A more recent military history is O'Ballance, Edgar, The Indo-China War, 1945–1954 A Study of Guerrilla Warfare (London 1964Google Scholar).

25 The story of the Tho uprising is told in McAlister, “The Origins of the Vietnamese Revolution,” unpubl. diss., Yale, June 1966, 101–26.

26 Shaplen, Robert, “The Enigma of Ho Chi Minh,” The Reporter, xii (January 27, 1955), 11–19Google Scholar. In addition to describing how the Viet Minh created a jungle base, Shaplen offers the opinion in this article, as well as in his The Lost Revolution (New York 1965), 27–54Google Scholar, that without French intransigence Ho might have established a government favorable to Western interests.

27 Fall, Street Without Joy, 27–55.

28 McAlister, “Mountain Minorities and the Viet Minh,” Section V. The French also attempted to exploit antipathies among ethnic minorities living in Viet Minh-controlled territory. Recruiting members of dissident minorities, the French trained them for guerrilla operations and parachuted them as commando teams into Viet Minh mountain base areas. There they made contact witfi fellow tribesmen and rallied them in harassing the Viet Minh. Their goal was to reduce the strategic mobility of the Viet Minh by making their enemy's rear area insecure. Known as the GCMA (for Groupement de commandos mixtes aéroportés), the mountain guerrilla units numbered 15,000 men by mid-1954. Although able to tie down at least ten battalions during the engagement at Dien Bien Phu, the GCMA was powerless to shift the tide of battle. See Fall, Street Without Joy, 240–50. Overall, the Viet Minh had greater success than the French n i exploiting mountain minority antipathies because they were able to meet demands for autonomy within a hierarchical political-military structure. The French thwarted aspirations for autonomy by recognizing the dominance of particular mountain groups; those alienated turned to the Viet Minh.

29 Fall, Bernard B., “The Pathet Lao: A ‘Liberation’ Party,” in Scalapino, Robert A., ed., The Communist Revolution in Asia (Englewood Cliffs 1965), 173Google Scholar–77.

30 Bell, 57.

31 Ibid., 67.

32 Fall, Bernard B., Viet-Nam Witness, 1953–66 (New York 1966), 64.Google Scholar

33 Voting statistics are from Bernard B. Fall, “Political Development of Viet Nam: V-J Day to the Geneva Cease-Fire,” unpubl. diss., Syracuse, October 1954, 662. Military personnel figures are from Henri Navarre, Agonie de I'Indochine (1953–1954), rev. ed. (Paris 1956), 46Google Scholar.

34 Jumper, Roy, “Sects and Communism in South Vietnam,” Orbis, III (Spring 1959), 85–96Google Scholar; Fall, Bernard B., “The Political-Religious Sects of Viet-Nam,” Pacific Affairs, XVIII (September 1955), 235CrossRefGoogle Scholar–53; and Savani, A M., Visages et images du sud Vietnam (Saigon 1953).Google Scholar

35 This determination was made clear by General J. Lawton Collins upon his arrival in Saigon as a special envoy on November 17, 1954; see Lancaster, 352.

36 Henderson, William, “South Viet Nam Finds Itself,” Foreign Affairs, xxxv (October 1956), 283Google Scholar–94.

37 Lancaster, 398–99.

38 Fishel, Wesley R., “Free Vietnam Since Geneva,” Yale Review, xlix (September 1959), 68–79Google Scholar; also Henderson.

39 The fear of a Communist victory is frequently given as the reason for the absence of American support for these elections. In particular, President Eisenhower is quoted, out of context, to the effect that H o Chi Minh would win eighty percent of the vote in any election. What Eisenhower intended was to call attention to Ho Chi Minh's wartime popularity as contrasted with that of Emperor Bao Dai: “I am convinced that the French could not win the war because the internal political situation in Vietnam, weak and confused, badly weakened their military position. I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indochinese affairs who did not agree that had elections been held as of the time of fighting, possibly 80 percent of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader rather than Chief of State Bao Dai. Indeed, the lack of leadership and drive on the part of Bao Dai was a factor in the feeling prevailing among Vietnamese that they had nothing to fight for. As one Frenchman said to me, 'What Vietnam needs is another Syngman Rhee, regardless of all the difficulties the presence of such a personality would entail'” (Eisenhower, Dwight D., The White House Years: Mandate for Change, 1953–56 [Garden City 1963]. 372)Google Scholar

40 Fall, Bernard B., “The Second Indochina War,” International Affairs, XLI (January 1965), 59–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41 Honey, P. J., “Revolt of the Intellectuals in North Vietnam,” The World Today, xii (June 1957), 250Google Scholar–60; , Honey, Communism in North Vietnam (Cambridge, Mass., 1963Google Scholar); and Fall, Bernard B., “Crisis in North Viet Nam,” Far Eastern Survey (January 1957), 12–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42 “The growth of Communist strength in Laos was due [according to Souvanna Phouma] to ‘the stubborn refusal’ of United States officials in the logo's ‘to admit neutrality. … Unfortunately … the policy of our United States friends at the time of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was, “If you are not with us you are against us.”’ The Prince said he was forced to resign in 1958 after continued United States opposition to Lao neutrality.” The Prince charged that by 1961, when the United States agreed to Laotian neutrality, the Pathet Lao had grown from 2,000 to 15,000 men (Christian Science Monitor, April 14, 1966).

43 Honey, P. J., “The Position of the DRV Leadership and the Succession to Ho Chi Minh,” China Quarterly, No. 9 (January-March 1962), 24–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Honey, Communism in North Vietnam, 76–96.

44 Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (Boston 1965), 512Google Scholar–18; Sorenson, Theodore C., Kennedy (New York 1965) 642Google Scholar–48.

45 The territory of Laos and Cambodia annexed by Thailand in 1941 can be seen on the end map in Decoux, Amiral, À la barre de l'Indochine: Histoire de mon gouvernement général (1940–1945) (Paris 1949Google Scholar), and it is virtually identical with the territory ceded by Thailand to French Indochina in 1904–1909. See also Map I.

46 Sorenson, 654 (for forces in Vietnam), 647 (for forces in Thailand).

47 See map, Navarre, 4.

48 Union Francaise, Haut-Commissariat de France en Indochine Affaires Economiques, Annuaire statistique de l'Indochine, xi, 1943–1946 (Saigon 1948), 27Google Scholar.

49 “Viet-Cong—The Unseen Enemy in Viet-Nam,” in Raskin, Marcus G. and Fall, Bernard B., eds., The Viet-Nam Reader (New York 1965), 252Google Scholar–61.

50 The term “Vietcong” was adopted by the Ngo Dinh Die m government through a shortening of the phrase Viet Nam Cong San, which means “Vietnamese Communist.” This designation has proved most unfortunate because of its imprecision, its inappropriateness, and its lack of psychological impact. It is imprecise because, since 1930, there has been no group called the Vietnamese Communist Party; there has been only the Indochina Communist Party and its successor organized in 195 r, the Vietnam Workers’ Party. “Vietcong” has been an inappropriate designation because the term does not describe what the insurgents are trying to do; in Malaya the guerrillas were called “Communist terrorists.” Finally, the term demonstrates psychological insensitivity: it includes the name of the country (“Viet”), which unwittingly gives legitimacy to the insurgents. More attention to the accuracy and psychological impact of the designation of their enemy might have resulted in a more effective response on the part of the Republic of Vietnam.

51 Hickey, Gerald C., Preliminary Research Report on the PMS [Plateau montagne du sud], Field Administration Division, Michigan State University Vietnam Advisory Group (Saigon, June 1957), 26–30Google Scholar. Hickey is the author of a major work of anthropological literature, Village in Vietnam (New Haven and London 1964Google Scholar).

52 “Viet-Cong—The Unseen Enemy in Viet-Nam,” 255–56.

53 “North Vietnam's Workers’ Party and South Vietnam's People's Revolutionary Party,” Pacific Affairs, xxv (Winter 1962–63), 375–83Google Scholar.

54 U.S. Department of State, A Threat to Peace: North Viet-Nam's Effort to Conquer South Viet-Nam, Publication 7308, Far Eastern Series 110 (Washington 1961); U.S. Department of State, Aggression From the North: The Record of North Viet-Nam's Campaign to Conquer South Viet-Nam, Publication 7839, Far Eastern Series 130 (Washington 1965); for an interesting critique of the latter see I. F. Stone's Weekly, xiii (March 8, 1965).

55 General Duong Van Minh (“Big Minh”) in May 1955 was instrumental in Diem's successful bid to gain control over the Vietnamese army and thereafter to defeat the political-religious sects. Associated with “Big Minh” were, among others, Generals Tran Van Don and Tran Van Minh. Eight years later, “Big Minh” was the leader of the coup d'etat that ended in Diem's assassination. See Lancaster, 393, and David Halberstam, ”Coup in Saigon: A Detailed Account,” New York Times, November 6, 1963. For a discussion of the role of the Buddhists, see Charles A. Joiner, “South Vietnam's Buddhist Crisis: Organization for Charity, Dissidence, and Unity,” Asian Survey, iv (July 1964), 915–28.

56 Pace, Eric, “Million Refugees Listed by Saigon,” New York Times, July 5, 1966Google Scholar.

57 On July 17, 1966, Hanoi, Radio, “was quoted as having said that North Vietnam would never surrender and would continue fighting until victory was won” [New York Times, July 17, 1966).Google Scholar

58 See Peter Grose's perceptive analysis of the Russians’ dilemma, “Moscow's Choice: For Peace or War,” New York Times, July 17, 1966.Google Scholar

59 “In close coordination with the counter-revolutionary ‘global strategy’ of U.S. imperialism, you [Russians] are now actively trying to build a ring of encirclement around socialist China. Not only have you excluded yourselves from the international united front of all peoples against U.S. imperialism and its lackeys, you have even aligned with U.S. imperialism, the main enemy of the people of the world . . . in a vain attempt to establish a Holy Alliance against China, . . . against the national liberation movement and against Marxist-Leninists” (quotatio n from a letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, date d March 22, 1966, in Peking Review, ix [March 25, 1966], 6).

60 The program of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam, originally issued on December 20, 1960, has not been revised from its essentially anti-Diem character; Diem's departure makes the program out-of-date. For the text of the program, see Raskin and Fall, 216–21.

61 New York Times, July 11, 1966, for the estimated size of the insurgent force.

62 The process of this politicization in Japanese-occupied China is analyzed in detail in Johnson, Chalmers, Peasant ‘Nationalism and Communist Power: The Emergence of Revolutionary China, 1937–1945 (Stanford 1962).Google Scholar