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CONFIDENTIAL
PA
24 MAY
Mr Myburay Comfy
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Mr Cartazzi
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US POLICY IN EAST AND SOUTH EAST ASIA
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Mr Samuel, FED Mr Melhuish, NAD
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At a meeting arranged for me on 17 May by the State Department Policy Planning Staff Mr Richard Holbrook (Assistant Secretary, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs) gave his view of the current state of American policy.
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He said that over the last year the Americans had had significant political and strategic successes. They had close relations with Japan; they had weathered the crisis with Korea; they were developing their relationship with ASEAN as an organisation; the Taiwan issue had not under- mined their developing relations with China. The ANZUS Treaty arrangements were working well, though this would change if Mr Rowling became New Zealand's Prime Minister because of his strong views on nuclear issues.
Vietnam
3. But the unresolved legacy of Vietnam remained worrying. Holbrook saw a real prospect of another, bigger and more serious war between China and Vietnam within a year. Despite their comparative military success, the Chinese had failed to "teach the Vietnamese a lesson". The US were determined not to get involved. But there was real danger of Tailand, Laos and the Soviets being sucked in. The Soviet militay were greatly tempted by the naval facilities of Cam Ranh, and the intelligence gathering of other facilities available at Da Nang. The Vietnamese on the other hand had every interest in involving the Russians, who were their only friends, as much as they could in their affairs in order to act as a "trip wire" against Chinese aggression. All this constituted "perhaps the most dangerous situation in the world today".
Refugees
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The refugee problem was the "single most explosive issue" (Mr Holbrook, like some of his colleagues, tended to speak in these apocalyptic terms about each of the subjects for which he was responsible). There was no reason to expect the flow of refugees to diminish. Apart from the determination of the Vietnamese Government to re-structure their society, the refugees were being driven out by economic reasons (shortage of rice) as well as racial ones (most of the refugees were from the minorities or the Chinese community). The funds available to aid refugees were inadequate; so attempts to exhort the Vietnamese Government.
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