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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 39, Number 14, 5 July 1976.

Thai's Caught in a Bind

Thai's Caught in a Bind

Recently the Thai government has cast out all but residual United States forces. This action was based on the tried and proven historical fact that those whom the gods wish to destroy they first send American aid. The former Thai Foreign Minister was attempting to foster relations with Cambodia at the same time as the Thai government was blaming the Vietnamese for causing border clashes with Laos. The obvious intention was to divide Vict Nam and Cambodia.

The New Zealand government, despite itself, had better come to terms with these complexities. Smiling at the Chinese and threatening the Russians is not enough.

For Malaysia in particular, these complexities mean a number of important changes. With the drying up of American capital and already a capacity to absorb as much capital from Japanese sources as they can provide the Malaysian government is now receiving capital from the Soviet Union via such countries as Poland and Czechoslovakia. A few years ago this practice would have been unthinkable as the "thin edge of the communist wedge".

Along with the posture of "coming to terms with communism" is the growing anxiety by the rulers of Malaysia to be self sufficient from foreign assistance; be it military, political, economic or technical. For Viet Nam the process was called "Vietnamisation". The process is enormously risky for it leaves an elite that has the privilege and power in a position very vunerable to the rest of the population in the short term. There are no GIs patrolling the streets anymore.

As a vital part of Malaysianisation (Not Malayanisation) there is required a foreign trained bureaucratic group who will faithfully administer the country along the right lines. The place of the Malaysian student is to learn the appropriate skills and to develop the correct political standpoint.

If something goes wrong with this training the group becomes a potentially volatile and dangerous one. Already the Malaysian students in this country are mostly of Chinese origin while the ruling power in Malaysia is Malay. The United Malay National Organisation (UMNO) and the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) are rapidly compromising the minimal differences remaining between them while trying to ensure that peasant, student and worker unrest is still directed along racial directions.