Showing papers in "Asian Affairs: An American Review in 1984"

China’s Four Modernizations

Abstract: Despite a series of setbacks and subsequent revisions of targets, priorities, and programmatic strategies, China's Four Modernizations program has so far retained acceptance as the foundation upon which China's current development policies are being constructed. Yet, a number of recent studies make it clear that-within the bounds of agreement on the general need to modernize-elite consensus on a number of more specific though equally critical issues remains incomplete, unstable, and subject to periodic shifts. Matters ranging from the specific policy goals to be pursued and programs to be implemented to the relative priority of the four broad dimensions themselves continue to generate considerable dissension among China's elite; indeed, there remains at least residual opposition (among the unreconstructed Maoists) to the very legitimacy of the Four Modernizations as a programmatic blueprint for China's future. In a sense, then, it may be more accurate to say that the basic themes of modernizing agriculture, industry, science and technology, and the military continue to structure the game within which conflict over policy priorities, ideological legitimacy and, ultimately, political power itself is played out. However, while the nature and implications of intra-elite conflict has been explored considerably, relatively less attention has been

Strategic Implications of the Indochina Conflict

Abstract: In the past eight years one of the most observable trends in international affairs has been the hardening of the schism between the then five countries that made up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand (Brunei joined in early 1984, thus becoming the sixth member)-on the one hand, and Vietnam on the other. There seems to be little doubt that from the very beginning the ASEAN states regarded as developments dangerous to themselves the victory of North Vietnam over the South in 1975 and the subsequent reunification of the country in 1976, taking place as they did in the context of the diminishing U.S. role and guarantees in the region. It is significant that within two days of the fall of Saigon, Singapore Premier Lee Kuan Yew visited Bangkok for consultations with his Thai counterpart, Kukrit Pramoj, about the new security situation and thereby started what turned out to be a regularized process of visits and discussions which not only injected some vitality into the life and limbs of ASEAN for the first time, but also opened up new horizons of political and diplomatic cooperation for the organization, as witnessed at the February 1976 Bali summit and beyond. Clearly, the possibility of Vietnam's becoming, as termed by one veteran observer of regional affairs, "a twentieth-century Prussia in Southeast Asia"' was much feared.

The Military Potential of the People’s Republic of China and Western Security Interests

Abstract: WVshington's apparent willingness to move beyond the implicit counterweight strategy with the People's Republic of China (PRC) toward more active collaboration against the Soviet Union (including the possible sale of weapons and weapons-related technology to Beijing) has precipitated wide-ranging private and public debate in the United States.' Other than the diplomatic and political significance such developments might entail, one central question involves the conceivable military consequences of such sales and transfers. How might the sale of weapon systems to the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of the PRC alter the military balance along the Sino-Soviet border to the benefit of mainland China and the collateral advantage of the anti-Soviet Western powers? Whatever the arguments for the political or diplomatic benefits of such transfers, there remains the concern with the balance of forces along the SinoSoviet border.

Why India Matters

Abstract: Relations between India and the United States can be characterized as strained, while punctuated by periods of friendship and cooperation. Difficulties have been less the product of bilateral conflicts than of problems arising from differing perceptions of the strategic environment of South Asia. The U.S. has taken a "global" view, shaped fundamentally by the East-West conflict with the Soviet Union. India's view is regional, and New Delhi seeks to insulate the subcontinent from superpower conflict. Viewing South Asia as a strategic entity, its borders constituting India's defense perimeter, India seeks to exclude foreign powers and secure its preeminence in the region. An assumption of American foreign policy has been that the United States has no vital strategic interests in South Asia as such. American involvement in the region has been episodic and derivative of other interests-notably, containment of the Soviet Union and, earlier, of China; over the past decade, protection of the vital petroleum resources of the Gulf and their access through the sea lanes of the Indian Ocean has been prominent. In pursuit of these interests, the U.S. established an erratic strategic tie with Pakistan that from its inception affected the nature and course of Indo-U.S. relations. Thus, in the 1950s, the U.S. viewed Pakistan as the eastern flank of the "northern tier" and a critical link in the chain of alliances forged to contain communist expansion in the Middle East

Dilemmas in the United States-Pakistan Security Relationship

Abstract: For fiscal year 1984, the Reagan administration requested congressional approval of security assistance programs amounting to almost $5.8 billion for twenty-two of the forty littoral states of the Indian Ocean. The administration proposal for Pakistan, consisting of $300 million in Foreign Military Sales (FMS) financing, $225 million in Economic Support Fund (ESF) assistance, and $800,000 in International Military Education and Training (IMET) support, came to $525.8 million, or about 9 percent of the total. It placed Pakistan fourth in the world after Israel, Egypt, and Turkey among ninety-one recipients of U.S. security assistance. Washington was supplying all three of Pakistan's military services with some of the world's most sophisticated air, ground, and naval weapons and weapons systems; and the possibility existed that the scope of security assistance and the dimensions of the security relationship itself might expand significantly in coming years. For thrice-embargoed Pakistan, with whom even economic assistance had been terminated by Washington in 1979 on grounds that it was pursuing unsafeguarded nuclear technology applicable to the development of nuclear weapons, this third installment of a six-year $3.2 billion military and economic assistance package represented a considerable jump in status.

A Comparison of Security Concerns of Noncommunist Southeast Asian Nations in 1967 and 1983

Abstract: Southeast Asia has been an area of vital U.S. security concerns since the end of World War II, when the region began experiencing problems connected with the end of European colonialism, highly nationalistic regimes arose in new nations there, and communists attempted to bring the area into the socialist group of nations. Among Western observers there was concern over the long-run stability of the region and whether it would be open or closed to Western economic, political, and ideological influence. After thirtyeight years, some of these problems have passed: old-style European colonialism has disappeared, leaving only traces in the economies of several nations of the region; national regimes exist in all states with only one, Kampuchea, depending on outside support for its continuation in power. On the other hand, the communistnoncommunist struggle continues with the area split between socialist and capitalist orientations. Most importantly, the final disposition of the area has not yet been made and socialist, Western, and several Third World viewpoints still contend for ultimate control. One way to look at the situation in the area is through the security concerns of the Southeast Asian nations themselves. The out-

Pacific Regionalism: Problems of Institution Building

Abstract: O ver the past decade some of the policy-oriented international political economy literature has proposed the formation of a Pacific economic community, comprising the open market East Asian and North American states. Most of the proposals have stressed the high growth rates of several of the prospective East Asian members, especially Japan, and the rapid increases in trade and investment flows which have linked the United States more closely to those East Asian countries. A consultative association is envisaged in almost all these proposals. Representatives from the member states would become increasingly more aware of each other's interests and thus would endeavor to coordinate and harmonize the regional policies of their administrations. Hence, the regional economy would become more open, trade and investment would be stimulated, and there would be general increases in efficiency and welfare, especially because of the wider scope for dynamic expansion by Japan and its high-growth trading partners. The suggestions for Pacific Community formation have been given publicity mainly through a small network of private organizations, supported by business groups in Japan and the United States. This has had some influence on the orientation of Japanese policy, but little on that of the United States. In the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand-most of the member governments have evidenced concern that their grouping would be weakened if they

Reagan’s China Policy and the Sino-Soviet Détente

Abstract: We cannot discuss the Reagan administration's China policy outside the general context of its overall foreign-policy goals. These goals are: (a) To end what Reagan considers to be a decade of foreign-policy vacillations and ambivalence; (b) to check the onslaught of Soviet expansionism (which he attributes to the failures of the previous detente policy); (c) to reassert U.S. leadership in the free world; and (d) to ensure the West's access to vital strategic resources. 1 Reagan's anti-Sovietism combines both an instinctive power struggle and a close-to-zero-sum ideological conflict. His strategy calls for both a rearming of America ("to close the window of vulnerability") and an all-out effort to rally all America's allies and friends against the common threat. If previous administrations were more concerned with deterrence, the Reagan team is truly serious about a "war fighting" scenario, at both nuclear and conventional levels.2 In this strategic equation, China's value receives a special twist: If the People's Republic of China (PRC) could be counted on to stand up to the Soviet challenge, it would serve to spare America from having to bear the brunt of the fight, and to neutralize both Communist giants in the process. In this sense, the China "card" has turned into the China "pawn," as it were. To do battle with the Soviet adversary, China must have adequate armor and sword. Hence, repeated offers of arms sales were made to Peking-first in June 1981, during Secretary of State Alexander Haig's visit to Peking, and renewed by

Eight Characters in Search of a Strategy: Political Economic Reform in Post-Mao China

Abstract: Since the Chinese leadership's decision in the early 1970s to pursue an extensive program of economic modernization, major political economic reforms have been anticipated. Reforms are not without precedent, as readjustments were implemented during the late 1950s and in the early 1960s after the Great Leap Forward. In 1975, building on the experiences of the earlier periods, then Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping proposed an extensive program of political economic reforms known as the "Twenty Points." Implementation of his proposals was delayed by the succession struggles in 1976, during which Deng was deposed and his program severely criticized. The passing of Chairman Mao from the political scene set the stage for the reintroduction of reforms. Creating a new leadership consensus incorporating the goals and techniques of modernization was the first step. A neo-Maoist faction led by Hua Guofeng and a more pragmatic faction led by Deng Xiaoping generally agreed on the priorities of modernization: agriculture and light industry, science and technology, heavy industry and national defense. They also agreed on the need for some ideological liberalization in the fields of education, science and technology, and economic management in order to foster innovation. The consensus was summarized in the eight-character slogan of "readjustment, consolidation, filling out, and improvement."