ASIA: 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.