heavily on economic aid (in the case of Vietnam and Laos this comes
mainly from the USSR and the Soviet bloc; in Cambodia's case the
international community helped to overcome the threat of famine).
The UK, along with its allies and friends, has constantly maintained
that the Vietnamese should withdraw their troops from Cambodia and
allow the Cambodians to determine their own fate. We have voted
against attempts to deprive Democratic Kampuchea of her seat in the
United Nations, despite our de-recognition of the Pol Pot regime in
1979, and we have firmly refused to consider recognising the Heng
Samrin authorities in Phnom Penh. We are fully aware of the need to
keep the Cambodian crisis in the forefront of world attention and are
satisfied that this is ASEAN's intention also.
The dual ASEAN approach of mobilising international diplomatic pressure
on Vietnam through the UN and the Non-Aligned Movement in support of
proposals which protect Vietnam's legitimate interests in a future
Cambodia, and of facilitating the effective cooperation of the anti-
Vietnamese groups in Cambodia seems to us sensible and worthy of
support. No one can see an early acceptable outcome to the troubles
of Cambodia, nor an early move towards the sort of stable and peace-
ful SE Asia of the type ASEAN have proposed. And it is difficult to
see any quick amelioration of the disastrous economic situation in
Vietnam.
The silver lining behind this particular cloud, however, is that the
fear, widely expressed after the débacle of South Vietnam in 1975, that
Vietnam would prove a threat to the non-Communist countries of Asia,
looks no nearer realisation to-day. With Cambodia further draining
the resources of the already limping Vietnamese economy and a hostile
China along her northern borders, Hanoi's capacity for adventures
/further