Soviet Union Pacific Overtures

By Jill Smolowe

"The Pacific is where the future of the world lies."

-- Ronald Reagan, October 1984

"The Soviet Union is also an Asian and Pacific country."

-- Mikhail Gorbachev, July 1986

Three U.S. naval ships last week pulled into the northern Chinese port of Qingdao as a 21-gun salute fired and a 27-piece brass band played Happy Days Are Here Again. The vessels were in China for a six-day stopover, the first such visit by American military ships to the People's Republic since the Communist takeover in 1949. The port call had been delayed by more than a year, following Peking's unexpected statement that no nuclear-armed vessels would be permitted to dock. But the Chinese apparently had second thoughts after reports began to circulate last summer that North Korea had granted Soviet vessels calling rights at the port of Nampo, just 340 miles across the | Yellow Sea. As Peking and Washington basked in last week's goodwill, the U.S. maintained its policy of refusing to say whether the vessels were nuclear- armed, and the Chinese raised no questions about the nuclear capacities of the visiting vessels.

The port call was a symbolic victory for Washington in the diplomatic war of nerves now emerging in the Pacific between the superpowers. The contest began in earnest 15 months ago, when Moscow secured fishing rights to the tuna-rich waters of Kiribati, a tiny 33-island former British colony in the South Pacific. Since then, much has happened to heighten Washington's jitters. Last June, Vanuatu, formerly the British-French territory of New Hebrides, opened diplomatic relations with Moscow, following the lead of Fiji and three other Pacific island states. Vanuatu is currently negotiating a pact with the Soviets that would include, in addition to fishing licenses, port and landing rights.

If Moscow's Pacific overtures were confined to the island states, the Klaxons might not be sounding so furiously in Washington. But the Soviet diplomatic offensive has a wider reach. Last June the Kremlin created a new bureau within the Foreign Ministry, the so-called Pacific Ocean Department, and began dispatching high-level trade and goodwill delegations throughout the region. Then on July 28, in a 90-minute address in Vladivostok, the Soviet Union's main Pacific port, General Secretary Gorbachev boldly signaled far larger designs. Reminding his audience that the "greater part of our territory lies east of the Urals, in Asia," Gorbachev mapped out an ambitious Soviet policy that includes extensive diplomatic and economic ties throughout the region, concentrating on China and Japan.

The speech received close attention in Washington. Since World War II the U.S. has been the Pacific's paramount power, and since 1980 the Pacific Rim has superseded Western Europe as America's most important overseas trading partner. The Vladivostok speech showed that the Soviets intend to claim a share of Asia's economic success. Some analysts also heard an implied threat to U.S. military supremacy in the region. Says Rick Fisher of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington: "The Soviet goal in Asia is power."

It is no coincidence that Moscow's smiling offensive comes at a time when U.S. interests in the region are taking a beating. The collapse of the ANZUS treaty in August, after New Zealand's refusal to permit any nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed ships in its waters, was the most serious blow to any U.S. alliance in 20 years. Antinuclear activism, spurred in part by continued French nuclear testing in Mururoa, has spread through the South Pacific. According to Harry Gelman, a political analyst at the Rand Corp., the Soviets hope to benefit "by identifying the United States in Asian eyes with the nuclear danger."

Of even greater concern is the future of two American installations in the Philippines that serve as the fulcrum of U.S. operations in the Pacific: Subic Bay and Clark Air Base. Leases on the two expire in 1991, and according to a new Philippine constitution, which is subject to a referendum in February, their continued presence will be put to a national vote.

The military troubles take place at a time of growing economic conflicts between the U.S. and the region. American protectionism, which is likely to become stronger now that the Democrats control both houses of Congress, has many Asians worried. Fears abound that the U.S. will seal off American markets, costing thousands of local jobs. There is good reason for concern: the U.S. this year will run a trade deficit of some $170 billion, and more than half of it will be with Pacific Rim countries. Moreover, continued subsidies of U.S. farm exports, which take sales from Australia and Thailand, have outraged friends in the region. The biggest concern, though, is the growing potential for a military confrontation in the Pacific. The U.S. Pacific Fleet now squares off against a Soviet force that is the largest of Moscow's four naval units. From headquarters in Vladivostok, the Soviet Pacific Fleet covers a 1,200-mile maritime zone that stretches south from the Kamchatka Peninsula to Viet Nam's Cam Ranh Bay, the vast airfield-and-port complex developed by the U.S. during the Viet Nam War. The Soviet fleet includes two small aircraft carriers, twelve nuclear-armed cruisers and 180 combat aircraft. On any given day, 25 to 30 Soviet ships are docked at Cam Ranh Bay, just 870 nautical miles from the U.S. bases in the Philippines. At an adjacent airfield is a squadron of 24 Soviet combat aircraft, including 18 TU-16 Badger reconnaissance jets.

Elsewhere in the Far East, the build-up of Soviet land forces, which has been going on gradually for 20 years, is quickening. Some 550,000 Soviet troops now line the 4,500-mile Sino-Soviet border. Moreover, some 147 SS-20 missiles are deployed in the Soviet Far East, each carrying three warheads. Peking's suspicion of Moscow is heightened by the growing Soviet naval presence off China's coast, underscored by Moscow's apparent success in persuading North Korea to grant access to the ports of Wonsan and Nampo and overflight rights that permit reconnaissance missions along China's coast.

It was against that backdrop that China welcomed U.S. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger last month for military cooperation talks that paved the way for last week's port call to Qingdao. En route to Peking, Weinberger made a brief stop in Anchorage, where he delivered a White House-approved response to Gorbachev's Vladivostok speech. The Defense Secretary praised the economic and political achievements of several pro-Western Pacific countries and attacked the Soviet record in East Asia. He charged that Moscow and its two regional allies, North Korea and Viet Nam, "see American military power simply as an obstacle to their expansion, not as a threat to their homelands."

Despite the recent Soviet buildup, most Western analysts believe U.S. strategic interests are so far not seriously threatened in the Pacific. They contend that the Pacific Fleet, headquartered in Hawaii, is more than a match for the Soviets. American forces boast six aircraft carriers, 18 nuclear-armed cruisers, 368 combat aircraft and F-16 jet-fighter squadrons. The Soviet buildup, says a high-ranking U.S. official, is "not something to be alarmist about."

Nonetheless, American diplomats recognize they can no longer take alliances for granted. The Pacific microstates in particular feel bruised by neglect and the boorish behavior of U.S. tuna fishermen, who for years paid little attention to local interests. Kiribati shocked Americans out of their complacency in August 1985 by granting fishing licenses to 16 Soviet trawlers in exchange for about $2 million. The lesson did not go unheeded. Last month the U.S. offered a five-year, $60 million fishing-rights package to 16 Pacific island states, of which a portion, as yet undesignated, will be assigned to Kiribati.

It is the Soviet approaches to China and Japan that have most seriously unsettled U.S. officials. In Vladivostok, Gorbachev tackled several of the obstacles blocking Sino-Soviet detente. He indicated a willingness to consider a reduction of the 45,000 troops stationed in Mongolia, dropped a long- standing demand concerning the disputed border along the Amur River, and announced plans to withdraw some 6,000 troops from Afghanistan. Since then, . the Soviets have reportedly withdrawn the troops, then reinforced the area with as many as 15,000 new ones.

In recent months Moscow and Peking have agreed to resume consular relations and have stepped up cross-border trade, marking the most significant movement in Sino-Soviet relations since Gorbachev's rise to power 20 months ago. Moreover, there are tentative signs of improvement on another source of dispute, Soviet support for the Vietnamese occupation of Kampuchea. Two weeks ago, when a senior Soviet-bloc diplomat was asked in Peking if Moscow might reduce aid to Viet Nam, he responded, "There is always the possibility of adjusting programs that might not work." Still, Peking is wary. Says a Chinese journalist in Moscow: "Gorbachev has not taken a step forward. He has merely lifted his foot." The Japanese, too, are cautious. Soviet efforts to warm relations began last January, when Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze traveled to Tokyo. Since then, Moscow has wooed Tokyo with diplomatic concessions and hints of a Gorbachev visit, perhaps as early as January. In Vladivostok, Gorbachev pointedly called for "profound cooperation" between Moscow and Tokyo. Japan has the technology Moscow needs to awaken the sluggish Soviet economy and develop gas and oil deposits in the Soviet Far East.

But more will be needed to warm Moscow-Tokyo relations. The two countries, which never signed a peace treaty after World War II, have been at odds over the four northern islands off Hokkaido, where the Soviets have 10,000 troops and 40 advanced MiG-23s. Sovereignty over the islands, occupied by the Soviets at the end of the war, remains a highly divisive issue. Last August there was a modest breakthrough when the Kremlin allowed a group of Japanese to visit their relatives' graves on two of the islands without first obtaining visas. But the Japanese are not overly impressed. "So far," says a Japanese Foreign Ministry official, "it's been an atmospheric change."

Atmospheric changes, however, can become important. "The point is that the Soviets are just beginning to move into the area," says a Moscow-based Western diplomat. "The important thing is for America to behave well and not allow the Soviets to increase their presence." Toward that end, Washington is watching Soviet moves closely. Warns one senior State Department official: "Ours is the position to lose."

With reporting by David Aikman/Washington and Richard Hornik/Peking