European and East Asian Regionalism: Critical Junctures and Historical Turning Points by Jens Uwe Wunderlich

Author:Jens Uwe Wunderlich [Wunderlich, Jens Uwe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781000197662
Goodreads: 53371385
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2020-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Nixon’s rapid movements on Vietnamisation and his visit to Beijing in February 1972 came as a surprise to many. The gradual decline of British power in the region, particularly in Southeast Asia, is also of importance here. In 1964, Britain maintained a major military presence in Malaysia and Singapore. Yet only four years later, in 1968, the Wilson government announced that it would withdraw from its major Southeast Asian bases by the end of 1971.8 This British retreat coincided with an increasing interest and involvement of the Soviet Union in the area, particularly in South Asia and the Indian Ocean (Millar, 1970). It was feared that the withdrawal of American and, to a lesser extent, British forces from Southeast Asia would generate a power vacuum which would invite Soviet and Chinese expansionary activities. China’s quest for renewed great power status has its origins in the 1950s. By fighting the US to a standstill in the Korean War, tacking on the Soviet Union in the 1968 border war and helping the Vietnamese to defeat the French and the Americans, China had emerged as a regional power to be reckoned with. America’s East Asian partners, therefore, were forced to reassess their relations with the US, China and each other. Changing external circumstances served as a catalyst for closer regional cooperation in Southeast Asia.

Institutional supply, however, was determined by intra-regional factors. Southeast Asia’s non-Communist states elected to enhance ASEAN’s functionality. Each ASEAN member had its own position regarding the changing international balance of power and its regional implications. The Philippines and Thailand, for example, were committed US allies and members of SEATO. The Philippines were especially dependent on the US in economic and military terms, and Nixon’s Vietnamisation policy raised questions about the credibility of US defence commitments.9 Thailand had emerged as a frontline state in the fight to ward off Communist (and Chinese) expansionism, becoming an important location for US bases and military installations. Furthermore, Thailand had despatched troops to support the beleaguered Saigon regime, fighting alongside American forces. Bangkok had a special interest in South Vietnam’s survival – being a frontline state, a victory of the North over the South would herald the spectre of a hostile regime right on Thailand’s border, which would potentially offer support to various local insurgent groups active within Thai territory. This also explains Bangkok’s hard-line approach to Beijing, following the US containment approach, while being much more flexible in its relations with the distant USSR.10

As just mentioned, the Nixon doctrine placed a strong emphasis on supporting multilateral cooperation among Asian countries to maintain the balance of power in East Asia (Buss, 1977, p. 57). The emphasis on SEATO initially reassured the Thai government that US support for Thailand would remain firm, even in the event of a withdrawal of US troops from the Southeast Asian mainland. Sino-US rapprochement, however, renewed doubts about US commitment to its alliance partners. Nixon’s announcement to travel to Beijing came as a shock to the Thai leadership which had not been informed in advance about the fundamental shift in US policy towards the PRC.

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