South China Sea Forum
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Viet
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it is NOT all about oil. you are right, oil may exist or not. No, we give the offer to India as pretext. it is all about politics. India is invited to join the open party in the SC Sea
Viet
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my friend, India is one of many foreign companies seeking and exploring oil and gas in Vietnam EEZ. our intention is to get all major powers from EU, Russia, India, America to Japan into the South China Sea partyGood move on side of Vietnamthe best way to counter against someone in EEZ is to establish a new commercial issues based search and extraction of oil instead of threating and deploying armed ships around there .
I appreciate move of vietnam in this way . **But still i would prefer an europe based company in South Sea, instead of india which already has clashes ; since europe based companies would have stronger insurance and application of rules, they have involved this EEZ issues in many place around world. Decision of Vietnam ,therefore; seems to have one ally around there ,instead of securing South sea, a strategical move rather than political.
China cant touch commercial based ships in EEZ , otherwise they will counter International Maritime Organization Rules which is mandatory in all seas outside than terrirotial waters ;unless otherwise india and vietnam deploys some armed ships around there, china only can disturb some to give more claims in hand of india and vietnam for international courts
IMO rules about EEZ ;
http://www.imo.org/ourwork/legal/documents/6.pdf
ANMDT
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my friend, India is one of many foreign companies seeking and exploring oil and gas in Vietnam EEZ. our intention is to get all major powers from EU, Russia, India, America to Japan into the South China Sea party
In the map, it can be seen whole problem about EEZ emerges from Spratly and Paracel islands
Anyway 2nd map is quite explaining about EEZ around there, thanks
Sam.
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Sushma Swaraj’s Vietnam visit opens up new avenues of cooperation
NEW DELHI: India's look-east policy is gaining momentum under the BJP-led NDA government. After her visits toMyanmar, followed by Singapore and current one to Vietnam, foreign minister Sushma Swaraj is opening new vistas of cooperation with ASEAN members in strategic and economic spheres.
Vietnam has been India's key defence and strategic partner in the region, with whom relations have grown away from public glare. Swaraj's visit would prepare for PresidentPranab Mukherjee's visit to Vietnam from September 14-17, followed by their PM Nguyen Tan Dung's visit to India in October, official sources told ET.
It is not often that the Indian President visits one country and its PM comes calling in back to back months. This shows significance of growing strategic partnership amid regional tensions following China's claim in the South China Sea region, experts indicated. A major defence deal is in the offing, when Mukherjee visits Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, sources said. India has been a key defence hardware partner for Vietnam in naval equipment. As both countries have been using Russian military platform for decades, India and Vietnam complement each other on matters of training and spares. Vietnam is also seeking to import Brahmos missiles jointly manufactured by India and Russia.
Sources told ET from Hanoi that Sushma told PM Dung during her meeting on Monday that India appreciated Vietnam's security and national defence capabilities and expects to become its partner. Indian Navy ships recently made a port call in Vietnam on their way back from India-US-Japan trilateral exercise off the coast of Japan.
The meeting also focused on doubling or tripling trade between the two countries, conclude negotiations on a bilateral free trade agreement and launch a direct air route in the near future. Indian firms also have an interest in investing in infrastructure and signing deals with Vietnamese producers of corn and rice, as well as pangasius farming enterprises.
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-08-26/news/53243741_1_indian-president-defence-south-china-sea
NEW DELHI: India's look-east policy is gaining momentum under the BJP-led NDA government. After her visits toMyanmar, followed by Singapore and current one to Vietnam, foreign minister Sushma Swaraj is opening new vistas of cooperation with ASEAN members in strategic and economic spheres.
Vietnam has been India's key defence and strategic partner in the region, with whom relations have grown away from public glare. Swaraj's visit would prepare for PresidentPranab Mukherjee's visit to Vietnam from September 14-17, followed by their PM Nguyen Tan Dung's visit to India in October, official sources told ET.
It is not often that the Indian President visits one country and its PM comes calling in back to back months. This shows significance of growing strategic partnership amid regional tensions following China's claim in the South China Sea region, experts indicated. A major defence deal is in the offing, when Mukherjee visits Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, sources said. India has been a key defence hardware partner for Vietnam in naval equipment. As both countries have been using Russian military platform for decades, India and Vietnam complement each other on matters of training and spares. Vietnam is also seeking to import Brahmos missiles jointly manufactured by India and Russia.
Sources told ET from Hanoi that Sushma told PM Dung during her meeting on Monday that India appreciated Vietnam's security and national defence capabilities and expects to become its partner. Indian Navy ships recently made a port call in Vietnam on their way back from India-US-Japan trilateral exercise off the coast of Japan.
The meeting also focused on doubling or tripling trade between the two countries, conclude negotiations on a bilateral free trade agreement and launch a direct air route in the near future. Indian firms also have an interest in investing in infrastructure and signing deals with Vietnamese producers of corn and rice, as well as pangasius farming enterprises.
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-08-26/news/53243741_1_indian-president-defence-south-china-sea
Skull and Bones
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China taking on India to enhance relations with Pakistan will be greatly detrimental to China's interest with India.
See, the ball rolls both ways.
Sam.
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China taking on India to enhance relations with Pakistan will be greatly detrimental to China's interest with India.
See, the ball rolls both ways.
Vietnam to us is like what Pakistan to China.
BoQ77
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Volume 21 - Issue 23, Nov. 06 - 19, 2004 India's National Magazine
from the publishers of THE HINDU
Home • Contents
WORLD AFFAIRS
A friendship renewed
V. SURYANARAYAN
External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh's visit to Vietnam further consolidates the foreign policy gains of the past and gives a boost to bilateral relations.
THE HINDU PHOTO LIBRARY
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru with President Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi on October 29, 1954.
THE recent visit of Minister of External Affairs K. Natwar Singh to Vietnam turned the spotlight again on India's growing links with South-East Asia in general and Vietnam in particular.
The 12th meeting of the India-Vietnam Joint Commission, which was held in mid-October, coincided with the 50th anniversary of the historic meeting between Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and President Ho Chi Minh. To commemorate the event, the Institute of International Relations organised a special seminar in which several distinguished scholars from both countries participated and analysed in depth the whole gamut of India-Vietnam relations. The Vietnamese, like Indians, have a profound sense of history; the two countries, poised on the threshold of a new era, have an excellent opportunity to consolidate the gains of the past and give a fillip to bilateral relations.
Credit for the successful completion of the visit should, in large measure, go to Natwar Singh and his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Dy Nien. As a diplomat Natwar Singh has had the rare privilege of witnessing the tumultuous developments in India's neighbourhood in the post-Independence era; he is conscious of India's seminal diplomatic role in the Geneva Conference in 1954 and the attempts to make Indo-China an "area of peace" between 1954 and 1958.
In fact, during the Third Indo-China War, Natwar Singh as a member of the government, played an important role in bringing about reconciliation between Hanoi and the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN). India was against ostracising Vietnam and was convinced of the futility of the confrontational politics in South-East Asia. It was this realisation that finally led to the conclusion of the Paris Agreements, the withdrawal of Vietnamese forces from Cambodia and the gradual lessening of tensions, paving the way for the admission of the Indo-Chinese states into ASEAN.
Vietnamese leaders have acknowledged the spontaneous support and solidarity that the people and the government of India have extended to their heroic struggles - first against the French colonialists, secondly against the forces of neo-colonialism led by the United States, and finally against ASEAN, supported by United States and China for their own selfish reasons.
Ho Chi Minh is a household name in India; millions of Indians refer to him as Uncle Ho and Indian historians consider him as a "cross between Mao of the Long March and Gandhi at the spinning wheel".
As far as civilisational states such as India and Vietnam are concerned, no epoch in history is complete by itself; it is both a continuation and a beginning. Natwar Singh and Nguyen Dy Nien are sensitive to the working of historical forces. And, therefore, the relationship that India seeks to build with Vietnam today is being fashioned on twin foundations, the benign interaction of the past and the mutuality of interests that exists at present. The politics of the unipolar world and the trend of countries trying to befriend the U. S. at any cost should not make one oblivious of historical realities.
Even during the anti-colonial phase, Jawaharlal Nehru underlined the need for a reorientation of the Indian outlook on world affairs. He was mainly instrumental in making the Indian National Congress take positive a stance on issues relating to freedom from colonial domination and the fight against Fascism and Nazism. His well-known biographer Sarvepalli Gopal has written: "Jawaharlal Nehru played a decisive role in the history of the twentieth century - as the leader of the Indian people, as a representative of the new mood of Asia and as a spokesman of the international conscience." No other nationalist leader of the 20th century, except perhaps Ho Chi Minh, was able to understand and mould the history of his people in the context of world history and universal culture.
With their passionate commitment to anti-colonialism, it was but natural for Indian leaders to identify themselves with the political aspirations of the South-East Asian peoples. As early as 1927, Nehru had condemned the use of Indian soldiers in China, Burma (now Myanmar), Malaya (now Malaysia) and other countries in furtherance of imperialist interests. In December 1945, he expressed resentment at the use of Indian troops by Lord Mountbatten's South-East Asia Command against Indonesian nationalists.
Indicative of the emergence of this Asian perspective, or to quote Nehru's words, the "Awakening of Asia", was the Asian Relations Conference held in New Delhi in March-April 1947, which was attended by delegates from 28 Asian countries. India also played a notable role in arousing world opinion in favour of Indonesian nationalists and in the transfer of power from the Dutch to the Indonesians in 1949.
Simultaneously India articulated the policy of non-alignment, which meant refusal to accept the division of the world into two opposing blocs and meaningful involvement in world affairs in furtherance of world peace. Initially the policy was opposed by both superpowers, but gradually India did succeed in removing the fears and misgivings of the Soviet Union and China. India's successful mediation in the Korean War and its appointment as the Chairman of the Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission were clear evidence of improved relations with the communist world. The dramatic changes in the Soviet Union after the death of Stalin in 1953 and the acceptance of the policy of peaceful co-existence by the new Soviet leadership further facilitated the improvement of relations between the communist and non-aligned worlds.
The high watermark of this new trend in improvement in international relations was the signing of the India-China Agreement on Tibet in April 1954, which incorporated the five principles of peaceful co-existence. The acceptance of these principles, Nehru believed, would enlarge the "Area of Peace" in Asia. He visualised a situation where a large number of countries in Asia, more particularly in South-East Asia, would be uncommitted to either of the two power blocs, which had polarised the post-Second World War world. Prime Minister U Nu of Burma and President Sukarno of Indonesia shared India's views; it was, therefore, no accident that India came closer to Burma and Indonesia than the other countries in the region.
External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh (centre) with Vietnamese officials at the function organised in Hanoi on October 18 by the Vietnam Union of Friendship Organisation in connection with the 50th anniversary of Nehru's visit.
The prospect of a world war breaking out in Indo-China as a result of massive U.S. and Chinese intervention in 1953-54 brought Indian diplomacy into full play. U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles accused the Soviet Union and China for conniving with the Vietminh and held them responsible for increased Vietminh military activity. The U.S. stepped up military and economic aid to France. Indicative of U.S. brinkmanship was the statement issued by Vice-President Richard Nixon that there was no possibility of a negotiated settlement when people in Vietnam were held under communist bondage.
Nehru was keen to prevent a war in a sensitive region so close to India. Peace, for Nehru, was not just a hope, it was a necessity. Though India was formally excluded from the Geneva Conference, V.K. Krishna Menon played a notable role behind the scenes to bring about broad areas of agreement among the major participants. The proposals put forward by Nehru in Parliament were later endorsed by the Colombo powers and influenced the negotiations and final agreement on Indo-China. The behind-the-scenes participation of Krishna Menon was so successful that Pierre Mendes-France, the Prime Minister of France, spoke of the conference as "this ten power conference - nine at the table - and India".
In India's view the struggle in Indo-China was essentially a nationalist one and its solution could best be accomplished by direct negotiations between France and the Indo-Chinese states. Thus, Indian diplomacy was mainly geared to remove all external influences from Indo-China and to ensure that the independence and neutrality of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were guaranteed by the Great Powers, especially the U.S. and China. In Geneva, thanks to Indian diplomacy, United Kingdom Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden and Mendes-France assured Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai that there would be no U.S. bases in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam that would pose a danger to China's security. Zhou Enlai, in turn, assured the others that China would respect the territorial integrity of Indo-Chinese states and would persuade the Vietminh to withdraw its forces from Laos and Cambodia. Thus, behind the idea of neutrality was India's keen desire to keep both China and the U.S. out of Indo-China and thus extend the area of peace and non-alignment.
The Geneva Agreement represented a great success for Indian diplomacy. As Prof. Sar Desai, the Indian scholar who has specialised on the subject, has written: "From the position of an outcast at the Geneva Conference, India had moved to occupy the central position of a custodian entrusted with the supervision of the Geneva Settlement over Indo-China."
In the days following the Agreement, India tried to make China and North Vietnam repeatedly commit themselves to the principles of peaceful co-existence and thus tried to allay the fears of the non-communist countries in South-East Asia. This was all the more necessary because of the establishment of the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO), whose primary aim was to prevent the spread of communism in the region.
The military approach, as embodied in the SEATO, was fundamentally opposed to India's policy of peaceful co-existence with all countries, irrespective of ideological affiliations; SEATO was doomed to failure from the very beginning. Only two countries, Thailand and the Philippines, joined it. Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia and Prime Minister Katay Sasorith of Laos for some time toyed with the idea of joining SEATO, but were won over to India's point of view by Nehru's diplomacy.
In the Afro-Asian Conference in Bandung, not only Laos and Cambodia, but also China and North Vietnam subscribed to the principles of peaceful co-existence. Nehru also arranged private meetings in which Zhou Enlai and Prime Minister Phan Van Dong assured Sihanouk and Katay Sasorith that China and North Vietnam would respect the neutrality and territorial integrity of Laos and Cambodia. Phan Van Dong also agreed that the differences between the Pathet Lao and the Royal Laotian Government were purely internal matters of Laos and that North Vietnam would not support the Pathet Lao forces.
India's policy towards Indo-China was diametrically opposed to that of the U.S. and Indo-U.S. relations reached an all-time low. The U.S., during this period, was also providing military aid to Pakistan. The U.S. not only did not sign the Geneva Agreement, but went all out to scuttle the unification of Vietnam and propped up discredited South Vietnamese leaders as showpieces of anti-communism in South-East Asia. Encouraged by the U.S., President of South Vietnam Ngo Dinh Diem repudiated the Geneva Agreement and put obstacles in the way of the functioning of the International Control Commission, of which India was the Chairman.
Thwarted in their efforts to unify Vietnam through peaceful means, the Vietnamese nationalists resumed the liberation struggle. Laos could maintain its position of neutrality only for four years; the U.S. succeeded in ousting the "neutralist" Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma in the middle of 1958 and the right-wing government led by Phoui Snanikone immediately reversed the policy of neutrality and accepted U.S. military aid. The Pathet Lao resumed the guerrilla struggle and North Vietnam started rendering aid to its ideological ally. Despite U.S. pressures and aggressive postures by South Vietnam and Thailand, Sihanouk could maintain his country's independence. But, in 1970 the U.S. succeeded in ousting Sihanouk from power and installed the pliable Lon Nol in power.
By the end of the 1950s India's policy in South-East Asia had lost its momentum. The U.S. scuttled the Geneva Agreement and propped up its allies in South Vietnam and Laos. India-China friendship got frozen in the snows of the Himalayas and India's foreign policy was conditioned by increasing China-Pakistan collusion in the subcontinent and the unwillingness of Indian leaders to follow policies that might conflict with those of the superpowers, on whom India increasingly depended for military and economic assistance. The South-East Asian countries were also drifting apart and there was tension and violence in the air. Indonesia followed the policy of confrontation against Malaysia; the Philippines broke off diplomatic relations with Malaysia on the question of Sabah; Cambodia's relations with South Vietnam and Thailand got strained; and Burma, unable to maintain political stability, withdrew into monastic seclusion. Above all, the tragic conflict in Vietnam and Laos, and later on in Cambodia, continued without any end.
V. Suryanarayan is Professor of Maritime Studies, University of Calicut, Kerala.
from the publishers of THE HINDU
Home • Contents
WORLD AFFAIRS
A friendship renewed
V. SURYANARAYAN
External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh's visit to Vietnam further consolidates the foreign policy gains of the past and gives a boost to bilateral relations.
THE HINDU PHOTO LIBRARY
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru with President Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi on October 29, 1954.
THE recent visit of Minister of External Affairs K. Natwar Singh to Vietnam turned the spotlight again on India's growing links with South-East Asia in general and Vietnam in particular.
The 12th meeting of the India-Vietnam Joint Commission, which was held in mid-October, coincided with the 50th anniversary of the historic meeting between Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and President Ho Chi Minh. To commemorate the event, the Institute of International Relations organised a special seminar in which several distinguished scholars from both countries participated and analysed in depth the whole gamut of India-Vietnam relations. The Vietnamese, like Indians, have a profound sense of history; the two countries, poised on the threshold of a new era, have an excellent opportunity to consolidate the gains of the past and give a fillip to bilateral relations.
Credit for the successful completion of the visit should, in large measure, go to Natwar Singh and his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Dy Nien. As a diplomat Natwar Singh has had the rare privilege of witnessing the tumultuous developments in India's neighbourhood in the post-Independence era; he is conscious of India's seminal diplomatic role in the Geneva Conference in 1954 and the attempts to make Indo-China an "area of peace" between 1954 and 1958.
In fact, during the Third Indo-China War, Natwar Singh as a member of the government, played an important role in bringing about reconciliation between Hanoi and the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN). India was against ostracising Vietnam and was convinced of the futility of the confrontational politics in South-East Asia. It was this realisation that finally led to the conclusion of the Paris Agreements, the withdrawal of Vietnamese forces from Cambodia and the gradual lessening of tensions, paving the way for the admission of the Indo-Chinese states into ASEAN.
Vietnamese leaders have acknowledged the spontaneous support and solidarity that the people and the government of India have extended to their heroic struggles - first against the French colonialists, secondly against the forces of neo-colonialism led by the United States, and finally against ASEAN, supported by United States and China for their own selfish reasons.
Ho Chi Minh is a household name in India; millions of Indians refer to him as Uncle Ho and Indian historians consider him as a "cross between Mao of the Long March and Gandhi at the spinning wheel".
As far as civilisational states such as India and Vietnam are concerned, no epoch in history is complete by itself; it is both a continuation and a beginning. Natwar Singh and Nguyen Dy Nien are sensitive to the working of historical forces. And, therefore, the relationship that India seeks to build with Vietnam today is being fashioned on twin foundations, the benign interaction of the past and the mutuality of interests that exists at present. The politics of the unipolar world and the trend of countries trying to befriend the U. S. at any cost should not make one oblivious of historical realities.
Even during the anti-colonial phase, Jawaharlal Nehru underlined the need for a reorientation of the Indian outlook on world affairs. He was mainly instrumental in making the Indian National Congress take positive a stance on issues relating to freedom from colonial domination and the fight against Fascism and Nazism. His well-known biographer Sarvepalli Gopal has written: "Jawaharlal Nehru played a decisive role in the history of the twentieth century - as the leader of the Indian people, as a representative of the new mood of Asia and as a spokesman of the international conscience." No other nationalist leader of the 20th century, except perhaps Ho Chi Minh, was able to understand and mould the history of his people in the context of world history and universal culture.
With their passionate commitment to anti-colonialism, it was but natural for Indian leaders to identify themselves with the political aspirations of the South-East Asian peoples. As early as 1927, Nehru had condemned the use of Indian soldiers in China, Burma (now Myanmar), Malaya (now Malaysia) and other countries in furtherance of imperialist interests. In December 1945, he expressed resentment at the use of Indian troops by Lord Mountbatten's South-East Asia Command against Indonesian nationalists.
Indicative of the emergence of this Asian perspective, or to quote Nehru's words, the "Awakening of Asia", was the Asian Relations Conference held in New Delhi in March-April 1947, which was attended by delegates from 28 Asian countries. India also played a notable role in arousing world opinion in favour of Indonesian nationalists and in the transfer of power from the Dutch to the Indonesians in 1949.
Simultaneously India articulated the policy of non-alignment, which meant refusal to accept the division of the world into two opposing blocs and meaningful involvement in world affairs in furtherance of world peace. Initially the policy was opposed by both superpowers, but gradually India did succeed in removing the fears and misgivings of the Soviet Union and China. India's successful mediation in the Korean War and its appointment as the Chairman of the Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission were clear evidence of improved relations with the communist world. The dramatic changes in the Soviet Union after the death of Stalin in 1953 and the acceptance of the policy of peaceful co-existence by the new Soviet leadership further facilitated the improvement of relations between the communist and non-aligned worlds.
The high watermark of this new trend in improvement in international relations was the signing of the India-China Agreement on Tibet in April 1954, which incorporated the five principles of peaceful co-existence. The acceptance of these principles, Nehru believed, would enlarge the "Area of Peace" in Asia. He visualised a situation where a large number of countries in Asia, more particularly in South-East Asia, would be uncommitted to either of the two power blocs, which had polarised the post-Second World War world. Prime Minister U Nu of Burma and President Sukarno of Indonesia shared India's views; it was, therefore, no accident that India came closer to Burma and Indonesia than the other countries in the region.
External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh (centre) with Vietnamese officials at the function organised in Hanoi on October 18 by the Vietnam Union of Friendship Organisation in connection with the 50th anniversary of Nehru's visit.
The prospect of a world war breaking out in Indo-China as a result of massive U.S. and Chinese intervention in 1953-54 brought Indian diplomacy into full play. U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles accused the Soviet Union and China for conniving with the Vietminh and held them responsible for increased Vietminh military activity. The U.S. stepped up military and economic aid to France. Indicative of U.S. brinkmanship was the statement issued by Vice-President Richard Nixon that there was no possibility of a negotiated settlement when people in Vietnam were held under communist bondage.
Nehru was keen to prevent a war in a sensitive region so close to India. Peace, for Nehru, was not just a hope, it was a necessity. Though India was formally excluded from the Geneva Conference, V.K. Krishna Menon played a notable role behind the scenes to bring about broad areas of agreement among the major participants. The proposals put forward by Nehru in Parliament were later endorsed by the Colombo powers and influenced the negotiations and final agreement on Indo-China. The behind-the-scenes participation of Krishna Menon was so successful that Pierre Mendes-France, the Prime Minister of France, spoke of the conference as "this ten power conference - nine at the table - and India".
In India's view the struggle in Indo-China was essentially a nationalist one and its solution could best be accomplished by direct negotiations between France and the Indo-Chinese states. Thus, Indian diplomacy was mainly geared to remove all external influences from Indo-China and to ensure that the independence and neutrality of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were guaranteed by the Great Powers, especially the U.S. and China. In Geneva, thanks to Indian diplomacy, United Kingdom Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden and Mendes-France assured Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai that there would be no U.S. bases in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam that would pose a danger to China's security. Zhou Enlai, in turn, assured the others that China would respect the territorial integrity of Indo-Chinese states and would persuade the Vietminh to withdraw its forces from Laos and Cambodia. Thus, behind the idea of neutrality was India's keen desire to keep both China and the U.S. out of Indo-China and thus extend the area of peace and non-alignment.
The Geneva Agreement represented a great success for Indian diplomacy. As Prof. Sar Desai, the Indian scholar who has specialised on the subject, has written: "From the position of an outcast at the Geneva Conference, India had moved to occupy the central position of a custodian entrusted with the supervision of the Geneva Settlement over Indo-China."
In the days following the Agreement, India tried to make China and North Vietnam repeatedly commit themselves to the principles of peaceful co-existence and thus tried to allay the fears of the non-communist countries in South-East Asia. This was all the more necessary because of the establishment of the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO), whose primary aim was to prevent the spread of communism in the region.
The military approach, as embodied in the SEATO, was fundamentally opposed to India's policy of peaceful co-existence with all countries, irrespective of ideological affiliations; SEATO was doomed to failure from the very beginning. Only two countries, Thailand and the Philippines, joined it. Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia and Prime Minister Katay Sasorith of Laos for some time toyed with the idea of joining SEATO, but were won over to India's point of view by Nehru's diplomacy.
In the Afro-Asian Conference in Bandung, not only Laos and Cambodia, but also China and North Vietnam subscribed to the principles of peaceful co-existence. Nehru also arranged private meetings in which Zhou Enlai and Prime Minister Phan Van Dong assured Sihanouk and Katay Sasorith that China and North Vietnam would respect the neutrality and territorial integrity of Laos and Cambodia. Phan Van Dong also agreed that the differences between the Pathet Lao and the Royal Laotian Government were purely internal matters of Laos and that North Vietnam would not support the Pathet Lao forces.
India's policy towards Indo-China was diametrically opposed to that of the U.S. and Indo-U.S. relations reached an all-time low. The U.S., during this period, was also providing military aid to Pakistan. The U.S. not only did not sign the Geneva Agreement, but went all out to scuttle the unification of Vietnam and propped up discredited South Vietnamese leaders as showpieces of anti-communism in South-East Asia. Encouraged by the U.S., President of South Vietnam Ngo Dinh Diem repudiated the Geneva Agreement and put obstacles in the way of the functioning of the International Control Commission, of which India was the Chairman.
Thwarted in their efforts to unify Vietnam through peaceful means, the Vietnamese nationalists resumed the liberation struggle. Laos could maintain its position of neutrality only for four years; the U.S. succeeded in ousting the "neutralist" Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma in the middle of 1958 and the right-wing government led by Phoui Snanikone immediately reversed the policy of neutrality and accepted U.S. military aid. The Pathet Lao resumed the guerrilla struggle and North Vietnam started rendering aid to its ideological ally. Despite U.S. pressures and aggressive postures by South Vietnam and Thailand, Sihanouk could maintain his country's independence. But, in 1970 the U.S. succeeded in ousting Sihanouk from power and installed the pliable Lon Nol in power.
By the end of the 1950s India's policy in South-East Asia had lost its momentum. The U.S. scuttled the Geneva Agreement and propped up its allies in South Vietnam and Laos. India-China friendship got frozen in the snows of the Himalayas and India's foreign policy was conditioned by increasing China-Pakistan collusion in the subcontinent and the unwillingness of Indian leaders to follow policies that might conflict with those of the superpowers, on whom India increasingly depended for military and economic assistance. The South-East Asian countries were also drifting apart and there was tension and violence in the air. Indonesia followed the policy of confrontation against Malaysia; the Philippines broke off diplomatic relations with Malaysia on the question of Sabah; Cambodia's relations with South Vietnam and Thailand got strained; and Burma, unable to maintain political stability, withdrew into monastic seclusion. Above all, the tragic conflict in Vietnam and Laos, and later on in Cambodia, continued without any end.
V. Suryanarayan is Professor of Maritime Studies, University of Calicut, Kerala.
seven7seven
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If Indians think they can explore in disputed territories without consequences, then they are very naive. China will cut cables, ram survey ships and spray water cannons at any foreign ships in disputed territories. China harass Japanese and US planes and boats around Diaoyu Islands all the time so don't think for a second they will go easier on weaker nations like India and Vietnam.
This is just empty posturing from India and Vietnam. Don't think either have the balls to follow through with their words. China knows this but they are not complacent and will build and send more patrol ships to reinforce their control of SCS. China will just keep doing what they have been doing and that is to occupy and administer the territories they believe is China's. Vietnam can keep moaning but weak nations don't have a voice and wannabe regional powers, like India, can try to play power games with the real big boys but trying to dictate terms to China in their backyard is foolish as they can't even manage to do it to China in their own backyard.
Once India gets a far better economy and move on from their vulnerable one-time-use military, then they can reconsider playing the superpower game.
This is just empty posturing from India and Vietnam. Don't think either have the balls to follow through with their words. China knows this but they are not complacent and will build and send more patrol ships to reinforce their control of SCS. China will just keep doing what they have been doing and that is to occupy and administer the territories they believe is China's. Vietnam can keep moaning but weak nations don't have a voice and wannabe regional powers, like India, can try to play power games with the real big boys but trying to dictate terms to China in their backyard is foolish as they can't even manage to do it to China in their own backyard.
Once India gets a far better economy and move on from their vulnerable one-time-use military, then they can reconsider playing the superpower game.
