Spectator January 10, 197 5 There are still several thousands of
Chinese roadbuilders in northern Laos and China is supplying bicycles, lorries and tractors (as well as the fireworks for the thirtieth anniversary of Laotian independence in October). But it will be difficult for Peking to increase its leverage.
Cambodia is the exception. Here the new communist rulers have as much connection with China as with Vietnam. The Chinese diplomats were the first to set up in the neW Phnompenh, Peking has reportedly committed as much as $1,000 million in long-term aid, the Chinese masterminded the recent Cambodian reconciliation with Thailand and the Chinese' Cambodian tie is the only one official described in Phnompenh as a "radiant model of international relations."
With Vietnam, by contrast, the Cambodians are at odds over alleged sanctuary given t° ethnic Khmers still resisting the Communists across the border, and over the sovereignty of disputed islands in the Gulf of Siam.
Prince Sihanouk (likely soon to become President judging from the republican trend among the new Cambodian leadership) is, °f course, a fierce partisan of China — and has referred to the Russians scornfully as "oar friends of the twenty-second hour". But then Sihanouk is not necessary the trump card in the Chinese hand: he did once indict Ieng Sary, one of the bossses of Cambodia, for being "too Stalinist", and his role in Phnompenh is a° uneasy one. He would certainly prefer Chinese "rice" communism to Russian "goulash" communism, and in this he has enough supPort in the new government for him to feel it worth while to stick it out in Phnompenh and try t° influence the regime's foreign policy. But for the,major part of Indochina it looks like being a goulash diet. -..••■■••00.11.
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