Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 38, Number 26. 1975
$eato; — not worth the mourning
$eato;
not worth the mourning
A few weeks ago the South-East Asian Treaty Organisation ( Seato) was quietly put to sleep at a little publicised meeting in New York.
While it was never particularly important in itself, the passing of Seato signifies the historic changes that have taken place in South-East Asian politics. As the tide of national liberation sweeps the region, the anti-communist alliances of the 1950's and 1960's have fallen to pieces.
Asia in turmoil
Seato was a product of the anti-communist drive by the United States and other western countries after World War II. The war had left Asia in turmoil. In the late 1940's revolutionary forces had seized power throughout Vietnam and consolidated their position in north Korea. Despite a massive influx of American military aid, the Chinese Communist Party was successfully leading a vast armed struggle against the regime of Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek. India and Pakistan had achieved political independence after two hundred years of British colonial rule. Armed revolutions were taking place in the Philippines and Malaya, while the Indonesian nationalists had thrown out the Dutch.
The US strikes back
The United States, Britain, France and other western colonial powers faced serious problems in the late 1940's. In Europe the Soviet Union, under Stalin's leadership, had firmly resisted the western powers attempts to establish their dominance over the continent, despite military provocation and nuclear blackmail Communist parties in France, Italy and Greece were making important advances. In Eastern Europe the people's democracies, under communist leadership, were consolidating their position after years of brutal fascist rule.
In Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos the United States poured military aid and millions of dollars into salvaging the French attempt to re-establish its colonial power. In the Philippines a similar effort was carried on to prop up the pro-American regime. And in June 1950 the south Korean government, which owed its political existence solely to Washington, launched an invasion of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the north.
In 1951 the US and 47 other countries signed a peace treaty with Japan. At the time it was heralded as a 'soft' peace treaty; the US Government wanted to include Japan in its network of alliances surrounding People's China and the Soviet Union. The Australian and New Zealand Labour governments reluctantly bowed to the American view as they wanted a tougher settlement fearing a resurgence of Japanese militarism.
Speaking in Parliament in October 1951 1951, Mr Philip Connolly, a Labour member, pointed out that many signatories to the Peace Treaty were dependent on US economic aid. He went on to quote Chapter 22, Verse 7 of the Book of Proverbs: 'The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.' Needless to say, the US successfully excluded the Soviet Union and China from the peace treaty.
About this time the US concluded security pacts with a number of pro-western governments in Asia - Japan (1951), the Philippines (1951), south Korea (1953) and Taiwan (1954). One week before the Japanese Peace Treaty was signed, the US, Australia and New Zealand signed the ANZUS security treaty in San Francisco. While some historians have argued that this treaty was a guarantee of US protection against Japan in exchange for the 'soft' peace treaty, the Australian Minister of External Affairs, Mr R. G. Casey pointed out at the time'
It is incorrect to describe the Treaty as a guarantee by the United States exacted by us as a condition for entering the Japanese Treaty ... well before the ANZUS Treaty was drafted, the spokesmen of the Australian Government identified the immediate menace in the Pacific not as Japan but as Comunist Imperialism.'
By 1954 the western powers' attempts to defeat the revolutionary forces of Asia on the battlefield were going badly. The British were slowly getting on top of the guerrilla forces in Malaya, as was the pro-US government in the Philippines. However the revolutionary forces in these countries were never completely defeated. Korea had been ravaged but the north Koreans, aided by volunteers from China, stopped the advance of the "United Nations" troops, funded and directed by the American military machine. In Indochina the French finally met complete defeat at Dien bien phu.
A peace conference was held in Geneva to try and settle the political situation in Korea and Indochina. Here the western powers fell out. Under Secretary of State Dulles, the US still wanted to follow a relentlessly aggressive policy against China and the Soviet Union. The British Conservative Government had a finer appreciation that history was running out for the imperialist powers and Foreign Secretary Sir Anthony Eden fought Dulles to reach [ unclear: e] settlement in Indochina. When the [ unclear: Geneva Aement] on Indochina was finally signed, the US walked out. Dulles refused to accept diplomatic defeat in Indochina and set about fanning the flames of war in Asia again.
The sickly birth of Seato
Throughout the late 1940's and early 1950's the governments of Australia, New Zealand, Britain and the US had talked vaguely about a "collective defence treaty 'in Asia. For some years the Americans placed little importance on the idea. But after Dulles had seen his policies defeated in Korea and Indochina, he hastened to create the new alliance In September 1954 the South-East Asian Treaty Organisation came into being
One of the main ideas behind Seato was to create a counter-revolutionary alliance against China, linking the old western colonial powers, the white governments of Australia and New Zealand and pro-western regimes in Asia. Western leaders at the time waxed eloquently about the fact that Asian nations would now play an equal part in "defending" themselves against communism.
But the alliance was a failure right from the beginning. India, Ceylon, Burma and Indonesia refused to join. In the end only Pakistan. Thailand and the Philippines signed the treaty along with the US, Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand. The alliance's boundaries were left somewhat vague, but excluded Taiwan and Korea.
Under Seato the eight parties recognised that "aggression by means of armed attack in the treaty area against any of the Parties or against any State or territory which the Parties by unanimous agreement may hereafter designate, would endanger its own peace and security." and agreed that it will in that event act to meet the common danger in accordance with its constitutional processes." The US Government added a rider saying it would only act in the event of "communist aggression." Dulles was not particularly concerned to try and hide the real purpose of the alliance.
Seato was also aimed at keeping a watchful military eye over Indochina in case of another revolutionary upsurge. Laos, Cambodia and south Vietnam were designated as being covered by the treaty without being asked. In his book "My war with the CIA,' the Cambodian Head of State Prince Sihanouk has documented the numerous attempts by the US Government to force his country into the anti-communist pact by diplomatic pressure, the manipulation of foreign aid and eventually outright subversion.
Seato was never important as a military alliance. The eight parties never acted to meet any "common danger." By the 1960's Pakistan and France had broken away from the US alliance, although nominally remaining Seato members and the British had come to realise that their role as an active imperialist power in Asia had come to an end.
From time to time Seato members engaged in military exercises and organised projects of economic, technical and social cooperation (usually with a military purpose). Seato had its headquarters in Bangkok, which published semi-literate tirades against the communist peril. The Thais also used Seato as an excuse for bullying Cambodia.
Countries want independence, nations want liberation and people want revolution
Today, ten years after the US poured troops into Vietnam by the thousand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos have finally been liberated from foreign domination. The decisive victory of the revolutionary forces in Indochina forced the pro-US governments of Thailand and the Philippines to abandon their American masters' military "protection."
But the defeat of US imperialism by the people of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos was not the only factor in Seato's demise. Over the past two years the pro-US governments of South East Asia, with the exception of Singapore and Indonesia (which froze diplomatic relations with China in 1965), have come to terms with the People's Republic of China. Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand have now established diplomatic relations with the country their leaders once tried to isolate.
However, imperialism has not suffered its final defeat in the Asian region. The US continues to try and provoke another war in Korea. Western transnational companies, principally American and Japanese, continue to plunder the resources and exploit the working people of Asia. Corrupt, pro-Western governments continue to survive on western dollars and ruthless political repression in a number of Asian countries.
With the decline of US imperialism in Asia the new Tsars of the Soviet Union have seen an opportunity to extend their influence. From their firm base of political and economic dominance in India and Bangladesh, the Soviet leaders have attempted to use economic "aid", trade, military 'cooperation' and finally KGB agents to infiltrate a number of Asian countries. Throughout Asia Soviet meddling in other countries' internal affairs is now seen as a major threat.
New Zealand's foreign policy in Asia has been forced to change because of the victories won by the Asian people through bitter struggle. The Labour Government has at least begun to recognise the implications of these victories while the National Party has engaged in hollow sabrerattling. The changes in our foreign policy are best illustrated by New Zealand's warm and growing ties with China in a great variety of fields. Only three years ago the National Party still maintained its arrogant attitude of ignoring Peoples China. Today that policy seems like a bitter memory of the past That shows that we are living through a time of historic change in Asia. The clock can never be turned back.