THE USSR-DRV-PRC TRIANGLE IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

Abstract

Abstract : As Southeast Asia adjusts to the new realities of the regional distribution of power and its changing connection to the global balance, it becomes increasingly clear that an important element in determining the quality of the relations between the non-Communist states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN: Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, and Singapore) and the principal Communist states will be the nature of the relations among the Communist states themselves. The local Communist victories in Indochina have thrown into stark relief the USSR-People's Republic of China (PRC) competition, the basic strategic terms of which call for each other's exclusion from the region. The termination of the military conflict has removed the restraints imposed by the situational need for solidarity with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) during the war. The DRV in turn is exposed to more open pressures from both Communist giants, which has the effect of constraining the DRV in articulating its own autonomous regional interests. Both China and the Soviet Union have interests in Southeast Asia that can be defined in traditional political, economic, social, and cultural categories. Increasingly, however, their efforts to exert influence in the area have focused on the specific terms of their global confrontation. For the Soviet Union, the test of its policies in Southeast Asia has become their contribution to its search for regional allies in the containment of China. For the PRC, the test of its policies has been their contribution to the isolation of the Soviet Union from Southeast Asia. In this conflictive structure, the DRV seeks to maintain political flexibility while leaping to the revolutionary vanguard and promoting policies that enhance its own power position independently of either the USSR or the PRC. This paper suggests a probabilistic pattern of future interactions among the DRV, USSR, PRC, and non-communist Southeast Asia.