CONFIDENTIAL
LONG RUN TRENDS IN ASIA AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR
NATO COUNTRIES
Introduction
This is a vast subject and a short paper (as is traditional for APAG) demands especial selectivity and a connecting thread. This paper considers only that part of the Asian continent east of Iran. The countries known collectively as the "Middle East" are excluded and, indeed, how many of us commonly think of them as "Asian"? Also, they are not affected immediately by China, chosen as the thread of this paper because it will continue to condition to a greater or lesser extent developments in the rest of Asia.
2. The thread will be woven by looking initially at likely developments inside China over the next ten-fifteen years and then turning to each of the countries
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or areas around China, first as regards their relations with her and then in respect of their development generally.
3.
This method is not to suggest that Asia revolves around China and the artificial nature of the chosen thread will be more apparent in the case, for instance, of Japan, a world power to a large extent independent of events in China, than of the smaller countries of South East Asia, in whose existence China must always be the predominant factor.
4.
There are inherent unpredictables in looking at the development over ten-fifteen years of an unstable continent in which over half the world's population live. A number of the points made can really be no more than questions, to which there are either no answers or, at best, a number of equally plausible ones.
China
5.
China is an enigma, a bundle of uncertainties, an unpredictable volcano. This makes especially rash any predictions as to how she is likely to develop in the coming decade. She has been overrated in the recent past but it would probably be imprudent to write down her role and capability in the '70s. Her potential for trouble, her capacity for opportunistic and sometimes illogical action should still keep the West (and the Soviet Union) on its toes; but the basic pragmatically prudent nature of the Chinese may offet the vociferous propaganda of the party when it comes to risk-assessing and decision-taking.
6.
With the ending (perhaps in the next year or so) of the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution and with the death of Mao (again perhaps by the early '70s) the bureaucrats and technocrats are likely to come increasingly to the fore and to concentrate on picking up the bits. Their principal objectives will be to restore unity to the administration of the country and to bring order out of the economic chaos of recent years. One facet of the latter will be the feeding (and the limitation) of China's huge population, which by the mid-70s may have reached 900 million (based on a 2% annual increase). Will they be able to do this? Or will food shortage stimulate disorders? New strains of rice, improved use of fertilisers (involving imports on an enormous scale until new factories have been built) better irrigation, etc. could conceivably produce much increased yields. Even the target of 250 million tons in the Great Leap Forward may not prove an impossible goal and with it the chance greatly to reduce or do away with imports. Substantial repair to the damaged educational system will be difficult but without it China is most unlikely to produce the technicians needed for agriculture and for industrialisation, particularly as she has virtually denied herself the opportunity of foreign technical training and assistance. Everything depends upon a period
CONFIDENTIAL
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