Balancing the Tiger with the Wolf

Slowly but unmistakably, the nations of Asia are adjusting to the Communist conquest of Indochina. That event has forced all nations of the region, including China and the countries on its vast periphery, to re-examine their relations with one another and with Washington. Last week Thailand--a member of the Association of South East Asian Nations, once regarded as a barrier to Chinese Communist expansion--followed the Philippines and Malaysia in establishing formal diplomatic relations with Peking. TIME'S diplomatic editor Jerrold L. Schecter completed a tour of Asia that included many of the affected capitals. His report:

Despite the rash of Asian leaders forming links with Peking, a strong case can be made that the biggest loser of the Viet Nam War was Communist China and not, as it may at first have appeared, the U.S. One admittedly prejudiced senior China watcher in Washington puts it thus: "The removal of the relatively benign American presence from the southern flank of China has caused Peking a lot of worry. Hanoi's relations with China are uneasy. Soviet access to Southeast Asia--possibly a naval base at Cam Ranh Bay [site of the largest U.S. military installation during the Viet Nam War]--would change the whole strategic balance of power in Asia."

The Chinese have signaled their concerns to Washington in a variety of ways. Early in June, Vice Premier Teng Hsiao-ping told a group of visiting American editors that President Gerald Ford would be welcome in China whether or not he had anything substantial to discuss. Chinese officials in Hong Kong suggest that the maximum goal for the Ford visit would be "normalization" of relations and resolution of the Taiwan issue. The minimum goal, they graciously add, "is for your President to come to China and have some good meals." Evidently, the Chinese policy will be one of moderation: urging the U.S. and Japan to blunt the increasing danger of Soviet penetration into Southeast Asia.

Through Japanese socialist leaders, the Chinese have urged Japan to maintain security treaties with the U.S. Teng recently warned visiting President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines against Soviet expansion in Asia. The Vice Premier referred to the old Chinese proverb: "Guard against letting the tiger in through the back door while repelling the wolf through the front gate." Despite past Chinese propaganda denouncing the U.S. as a paper tiger, the reference in this case was clearly to a Russian tiger and an American wolf.

The end of the Viet Nam War has forced on Japan a new awareness of its vulnerability. For the first time since the start of the Korean War 25 years ago, Japanese business executives and politicians are discussing privately how they might join with the U.S. in case of a North Korean attack on the South. The Japanese do not believe that a peaceful unification of Korea is possible. Forceful unification--meaning conquest by the North--would involve the loss of $1.5 billion in Japanese investments and loans to Seoul, and far more seriously, would be a direct threat to Japanese security.

New Mood. Japan spends less than 1% of its G.N.P. on defense for its 261,400-man self-defense force, relying on the American nuclear umbrella and bases in the Pacific. "Security for Japan up to now has been like sunshine and water. When there is plenty, people take it for granted," said Michita Sakata, Director-General of the Japanese Defense Agency. "We want to enhance the credibility of our existing security arrangements, but Japan must be defended by the Japanese themselves."

Sakata is trying to build a new Japanese consensus on defense. He hopes to meet with U.S. Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger in August to discuss realistic options for Japan's military future in case of a war in Korea.

One difficult question facing the Japanese is their strict three-part ban on the manufacture, possession and introduction of nuclear weapons into the Japanese islands. But if South Korea or Taiwan, feeling that its own security has been weakened by the U.S. withdrawal from Indochina, develops its own nuclear weapons, sentiment could rapidly change in Japan. Thus the U.S. nuclear umbrella over South Korea assumes new importance.

The U.S. defense commitment to Taiwan, formalized by the Mutual Defense Treaty of 1954, is another major element in the balance of forces in Asia. The fall of Viet Nam has, at least for the moment, strengthened Taiwan's position with the U.S. "There is less likelihood than a year ago that the U.S. will move rapidly to establish full diplomatic relations with Peking," said a senior U.S. official in Taipei.

Yet even the Taipei government is contemplating alternatives to a U.S.-guaranteed defense. Taiwan, which has diplomatic relations with only 29 countries, will clearly try to emphasize its economic strength--foreign trade increased from $4.1 billion in 1971 to $12.6 billion last year--to counter growing diplomatic isolation. And it will undoubtedly try to maintain enough military strength to deter an all-out invasion of the island by Peking.

U.S. intelligence experts believe that Taiwan's self-reliance will eventually include nuclear weapons, produced with enriched uranium from existing reactors on the island. The probable target date for a nuclear weapon is 1980. An American expert who has been studying nuclear developments on Taiwan explains that "they are making the tests by programming experiments on computers, the way the Israelis did," rather than openly exploding their weapons.

Mending Fences. All U.S. combat aircraft have been removed from the island, and American troops will be reduced from 4,400 to 2,800 by early fall, but the U.S. continues to conduct joint contingency-planning exercises with Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense. Such exercises indicate that any U.S. move to establish formal relations with China this year will be made only if Washington can retain its ties with Taiwan. Peking will have to agree that "normalization and the solution of the Taiwan problem are not simultaneous," say U.S. officials.

As Chairman Mao Tse-tung's mental and physical powers weaken, the Chinese Communists will be concentrating on the internal problems of political succession. The Taiwanese, for their part, are realistic about their future prospects. "Northeast Asia is now the front line," explains a senior government official. "We must strengthen our existing relations with Korea and mend fences with Japan." In the new power balancing, that may be acceptable to China--as long as the U.S. continues to have an active, constraining influence on the Soviet Union.

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