mash Maintai
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10.
China, by contrast, has carefully courted ASEAN, although not with equal success in each of the five member states.
Suspicion
of China is far stronger in Indonesia and Malaysia than in the other three ASEAN states. In general, China seeks to project
herself as a developing country and a member of the Third World, while depicting the USSR as an aggressive super-power. On Cambodia the principal focus of Chinese policy is to promote effective
resistance to the Vietnamese. Within this context the Chinese
have shown a disposition to take account of ASEAN sensibilities (eg in the discussions which led to the formation of the Coalition Government in mid-1982).
Ideological
11. The ideological slanging match between the USSR and China has lasted over 20 years. The Chinese no longer criticise the Russians as "revisionists" but continue to accuse them of being "hegemonist". Soviet policy in the Afghan and Cambodian crises provided further cause for condemnation. The Russians, for their
part, were severely critical of Maoism and the Cultural Revolution and have, since 1978, bitterly attacked the Chinese "aggression" against Vietnam. On the face of it the Chinese revolutionary experience based on the peasantry had, initially at least, rather more relevance for the mainly agrarian societies of S E Asia than the Soviet variety which relied on the industrial workers for its momentum. But the poor performance of both the Soviet and Chinese economies has much reduced their appeal in SE Asia. Although in the past few years China has greatly reduced her support for the insurgent communist parties in Burma, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines, the parties remain Beying orientated (with some doubts in the case of the Thai party) a continued cause of mistrust of China in the minds of S E Asian leaders.
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/Economic