Peace at What Price ?
Last Saturday evening, the Geneva conference began to discuss Indo-China, twenty-four hours after the fall of Dien Bien Phu. Thus what was presumably conceived at Berlin as an opportunity for the French to test the intentions of Russia and China from a position of military superiority, turned out to be an obligation on the French to negotiate with the Viet-mink from a position at least of moral, and possibly of military, impotence. For in the last eight weeks, a situation Which was calmly and rather casually regarded in the West as decidedly uncomfortable but indefinitely sustainable has changed into a situation where only British and American Intervention could prevent a major French defeat, within the next few months, in the key parts of Viet Nam and perhaps le the whole of Indo-China. Whether the change is due to military or political facts, whether Dien Bien Phu was a military or a political disaster, is secondary. It was probably both.
As British and American intervention is not to be forth- coming—at least, not in time to save the whole of Indo-China —it is now clear that some part of Indo-China is lost to the West. Therefore the question that the Western Powers find themselves willy-nilly having to decide at Geneva is: "How much .of Indo-China can be saved from the Communists ? " So far, Mr. Dong (who is Foreign Minister of the Viet-minh) has made no proposals that provide a serious temptation even to the French. M. Marc Jaquet, French Minister for the • Associated States, who has accompanied M. Bidault to Geneva, is reported to find the Communist peace terms partially acceptable, but they are well beyond anything that the present coalition in Paris has yet envisaged. Mr. Nguyen Quoc Dinh, the Viet Nam representative, has revealed the terms of pro- posed treaties between France and Viet Nam under which Viet Nam would be given independence, with a loose associa- tion with France. where, and how and with whom they are going to defend South-East Asia, it seems unlikely that a settlement for Indo- China will be reached. It is. on the other hand, quite possible that one of these three things may occur.
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