Communist Indochina and U.S. Foreign Policy: Postwar Realities by Joseph J Zasloff

Author:Joseph J Zasloff [Zasloff, Joseph J]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780429746314
Goodreads: 52143422
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-08-16T00:00:00+00:00

Foreign Policy

In its external relations, the young republic has been chiefly concerned with obtaining economic assistance for its immediate needs and with developing its relations with its major supporters in the socialist camp, while dealing warily with states that could be "neocolonialist." As noted earlier, the expulsion of the U.S. AID mission from Laos in June 1975 and the termination of the Foreign Exchange Operations Fund put the new republic's principle of self-reliance and independence severely to the test. Laos has subsisted with emergency food and materials from the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, and even Cambodia, as well as with donations from virtually all the other socialist states, from nine major international organizations, Australia, India, Burma, Sweden, the Netherlands, and France. By 1978 the LPDR took price in maintaining diplomatic relations with more than fifty states, and it broke relations with Israel, demonstrating Third World solidarity.

Relations between Laos and Vietnam have been, in the words of both, like "lips and teeth," with Vietnam retaining its role as the dominant external power within Laos. As noted earlier, their close relationship was cemented in a twenty-five-year friendship treaty signed in July 1977. Lao relations with Cambodia have been outwardly friendly, despite the military clashes during 1977 between Vietnam and Cambodia. Cambodia provided small amounts of aid to Laos in 1977 in the form of rice, salt, and dried fish. President Souphanouvong made an official visit to Cambodia in December 1977, but if one of his missions was to mediate the conflict between Vietnam and Cambodia, as the press speculated, it obviously failed in view of Cambodia's rupture of diplomatic relations with Vietnam on December 31, 1977, and the eruption of fighting between them.

During the public speeches, neither Lao nor Cambodian spokesmen mentioned the wartime slogans of "Indochinese solidarity." Rather, the Cambodians used Souphanouvong's visit to stress their friendship with the Lao, in contrast with their animosity toward the Vietnamese. In a radio broadcast welcoming the Lao delegation, there was little doubt that the Vietnamese were targeted along with other enemies: "The Cambodian and Lao peoples are brothers who have shared weal and woe, share their characteristic politeness and honesty and have similar traditions, customs and cultures. . . . Our two countries have continually enjoyed good relations to the dissatisfaction of the enemies–the colonialists, imperialists, aggressors, expansionists and annexationists."53 At a banquet honoring the Lao delegation, Cambodian President Khieu Samphan proclaimed that his country "would resolutely prevent any foreign country from stationing forces on its soil" and added an only slightly veiled warning that Lao soil must not be used as a base for Vietnamese forces to launch attacks against Cambodia.54 A few days after the Souphanouvong delegation returned to Vientiane, the Vietnamese foreign minister, Nguyen Duy Trinh, paying a friendship visit to Laos, emphasized the "special relationship" between Vietnam and Laos, and warned that "no vicious maneuver can weaken this relationship."55

Although Laos has generally followed the foreign policy line of Vietnam, which has been more closely linked to the Soviet Union

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.