THE BREACH
The Viet Minh is the so-called national liberation movement of Indo-China. It is led by Ho Chi Minh, who was for a short time, at the end of the Japanese war, head of the Republic of Vietnam. It is conceivable that in 1945, Ho Chi Minh was a nationalist first and only a Communist second; at least this may have been true of his following. BtIt what- ever was the case in the beginning, Ho Chi Minh is now the agent of Communist China. He is financed by the Chinese, fed by them, armed by them, dominated by their interests. There is no real reason to suppose that he is, or ever- will be, a Tito. Thus if the war between the Viet Minh on the one hand and France and Vietnam on the other ends now in circumstances that permit Ho Chi Minh to assume control of the country, it will amount to a victory for orthodox Com- munism. It will mean that China or Russia, or both, will have captured Indo-China. That will have two results. First, there will then be nothing but Siam between the expanding forces of Communism and Malaya. And Siam is not, and cannot be made, a reliable buffer. Secondly, the other young states of South-East Asia, particularly Burma and Indonesia—and even, though he does shut his eyes, Mr. Nehru's India—will have seen the forces of anti-Communism defeated on their frontiers. These states are new to their independence; they are not entirely happy with it; they are trying to sublimate their own explosive tendencies by an experiment in progressive demo- cracy. What conclusions are they likely to draw from the fate of Indo-China ? What effect is it likely to have on the strength of their own Communist parties ? As was argued in an article in the Spectator a few weeks ago; " From Egypt to Japan, surrender in Indo-China would be taken to mean that the West has neither the will nor the ability even to hold its own, much less to win in the end?' It would be too late then to argue that nationalism and Communism are dialectical enemies. It may be true, but the opposite would have been proved, for long enough at least to plunge South-East Asia into darkness. between France and the three Associated States (Laos, Cara, bodia and Vietnam) which gave each of them independence but continued to bind each of them to the French Union; and a successful build-up of the Vietnamese local army. At the end of all this the Associated States should be in a position to negotiate a peace with Ho Chi Minh—from strength—and thus to negotiate the kind of peace that would prevent HO Chi Minh from subsequently gaining political control of th0 area.
But something has already gone wrong with this plan. It is not, directly, the outside aid. For last year, the Americans carried more than half of the cost of the campaign and this year, they will carry more. Nor is it directly the military, campaign. The build-up of strength was always going to tak0 time, and enough time has not yet passed to prove that th0 attempt has failed. Ho Chi Minh has not captured any French stronghold of real strategic importance and he cannot win the war until he does. Furthermore, there is some evidence that he has his own problems of morale; that his troops are hungli his coolies exhausted, and his supplies from China erratic. No; what has gone wrong is not primarily the military situa, tion, but the political situation in Saigon and in Paris. Of the three Associated States, the key one, militarily and economically, is Vietnam. The French plan depended 00 reaching a constitutional arrangement with Vietnam which satisfied both the Vietnamese and the French. For unless the Vietnamese have something they want to fight for in prefer, ence to Ho Chi Minh—that is, their real independence—they, will not fight. And unless the French have something to fight for in Vietnam that they can still call their own, it is difficult to see why they should continue to have most of their regulat army tied down and decimated eight thousand miles front France. But the prospects of achieving such an arrangement have become progressively worse. There has developed in Saigon, the loyalist capital of Vietnam, a nationalist move' meta that is not explicitly sympathetic to Ho Chi Minh but is explicitly unsympathetic to the French-appoirited Emperot Bao Dai. It wants the Emperor's powers curtailed by a freelY elected parliament, and it would seem that one of its purpose in curtailing the Emperor's powers would be to keep the way open for an armistice with Ho Chi Minh on terms that would be a good deal worse than the Emperor—or the French—would want to accept. This movement is powerful, and it is growing more powerful each week, while the French have little to set against it. Bao Dai is poor material at the best of times; his new government, under his relative Prince Buu Loc, could notil by any stretch of the imagination, be called popular or strong Buu Loc is now in Paris, trying to negotiate a new constita' tional relationship with France. If he succeeds, it may something to restore the prestige of the Bao Dai regime. II he fails—and the opening passages were not encouraging' that will be the end of the French attempt to present Vietnart with a strong but loyal alternative to Ho Chi Minh. Val) Dai; they see the deserters from the young Vietnamese , Y; and they do not see that time will cure the weaknesses Qt regime or that France.is justified in spilling more blood d treasure to save it.
This is the background to the Far Eastern Conference at. litillich France, Britain, America, Russia and China will discuss do-China in Geneva next month. Unless France is prepared ° go on fighting, why should Russia and China lift a finger 0 halt Ho Chi Minh ? Even if France is prepared to go on ening, it is most unlikely that they will do so. Until the French have made their choice, there is little that their allies can do. They have already played their part in the present crisis, by vastly over-estimating the stamina of post-war France; by expecting her to be the pivot of their policy in the Far East and in Europe simultaneously. If the choice goes against M. Laniel, and against those Frenchmen who are prepared to go on fighting in Indo-China, they will have paid perhaps the ultimate price. If it goes for him, they must be prepared, henceforward, to relieve France of her obligations in Europe, in the hope that France will continue to accept theirs in Asia.
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