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Nothing but a Masquerade?

By P. J. HONEY

Co many strands are now inextricably inter-

twined in the Gordian knot of Vietnam that it is hardly to be wondered at if President Johnson took a leaf from Alexander's book and attempted to cut through it by his unprecedented lobbying of heads of governments last week.

China and Russia. it is clear, have become so obsessed with their own Sino-Soviet conflict that they have come increasingly to regard the Vietnamese war as just one more area of that conflict. The Chinese leaders see in Vietnam a heaven-sent opportunity to demonstrate to all that Peking is the true centre of the world revo- lutionary movement. They repeatedly urge the North to fight on, no matter what the cost, until it achieves final victory, and assures it that China will not stand idls by. Yet her assistance has fallen far short of what North Vietnam expected and she has exacted payment from the North Vietnamese for at least part of her military supplies.

Meanwhile the Chinese have continued to abuse the Soviet Union for her alleged secret collabora- tion with the United States in order to betray the Vietnamese socialists' liberation war and serve the interests of imperialism. The Soviet Union, claim the Chinese. has resources to supply the North Vietnamese with all they need to defend their country and to win the war in the south, but she has chosen not to do so for her own perfidious reasons.

The truth of these Chinese claims is difficult to accept in the light of the happenings when the Russians attempted to send military supplies to North Vietnam. The only route over which these supplies could travel lay through China and there is no doubt that the Chinese created the maximum difficulty for the Russians and caused serious delays in delivery. It is still not clear precisely what did happen because both the Chinese and the Russians carefully leaked reports which conflicted over almost every de- tail, but the North Vietnamese were indisputably the losers. The Soviet trump card, however, is the quantity and quality of the assistance, both military and economic, which she is capable of supplying. North Vietnam is not economically viable and desperably needs all the Soviet help she can get, especially since the effects of American bombing have made themselves felt on her economy.

The Russians have long suppliPd North Viet- nam with heavy machinery; since the visit to Hanoi of Mr. Kosygin last February, however. they have been supplying MiG fighters, ground- to-air missiles and radio systems and Hanoi is un- doubtedly asking for more. This is the kind of equipment China simply cannot match and it is through the judicious manipulation of this aid that Russia hopes to prove to North Vietnam the emptiness of Chinese boasts and the worthless- ness of China as an ally.

In this context, a Deputy Premier of North Vietnam, Le Thanh Nghi, signed six aid agree- ments in Moscow on December 21. The contents P. J. Honey is lecturer in Vietnamese studies at the London School of African and Oriental Studies. c--z

of the agreements have not been disclosed, but the Russians described them as 'important,' which is probably an accurate description be- cause Le Thanh Mehl, who is also a member of the North Vietnamese Politburo, is the country's leading specialist in economic matters. He would be most unlikely to have journeyed to Moscow to negotiate anything less than the most important agreements. Shortly afterwards came the announcement in Moscow that Mr. Shelepin would pay a visit to North Vietnam, which caused little surprise to anybody except in the matter of the Soviet emissary's identity. The Russians do not make gifts of large quantities of aid without demanding something sizeable in return, and to secure this return is no doubt the object of Mr. Shelepin's visit.

In these circumstances, it became unthink- able that Mr. Shelepin's public statements in Hanoi could do anything other than profess full Soviet support for North Vietnam and the Viet- cong. while the real objectives of his visit were pursued in private conversations. All that can be said with certainty is that they would be designed to offset and reduce Chinese influence. Possibly his brief was to persuade the North Vietnamese to participate in the March meeting of Communist parties in Moscow at which the Soviet leaders appear determined to take strong action to isolate China from the rest of the Communist bloc.

But Mr. Shelepin was overtaken by President Johnson's unheralded campaign to achieve peace negotiations. His departure date was postponed from January 1 until January 6, presumably to allow time for a reconsideration of his mission's objectives in the light of the American move. In view of Mr. Kosygin's profession of support for North Vietnam and the Vietcong during an interview with Japanese correspondents on December 31 and lzvestids description of Presi- dent Johnson's action as 'nothing but a masquer- ade' on the same day, it seems unlikely that Mr. Shelepin's instructions will have undergone anything but minor modifications.

In North Vietnam, meanwhile, full advan-

On the question of the war, there has been no change in the North Vietnamese position. Ho Chi Minh's New Year message to the American people insisted on Hanoi's four points —already rejected as unacceptable—before any negotiations could begin and the party news- paper, Nhan Dan, dismissed American peace moves as hypocritical and called for a 'pro- tracted struggle until victory.' That is the policy advocated by Le Duan. understandably, since it was he who established the Vietcong in the South and is the Northern leader most closely associated with it.

Le Duan's political future is now heavily dependent upon the Vietcong's success and, since he controls a majority vote in the party Politburo, which makes North Vietnamese policy, the line is unlikely to change while he remains in power. Some of his colleagues have reservations and are believed to favour Soviet- style 'peaceful coexistence'—in other words, political struggle rather than military struggle—. on the grounds that it is far less dangerous and would probably be equally effective in South Vietnam. Yet since these men are in a small minority, there is little they can do to change present policy, especially since the Chinese sup- port Le Duan to the hilt.

These are just some of the factors operative in the present Vietnamese situation. If ?resident Johnson's peace moves meet with no response from North Vietnam—and the signs are any- thing but hopeful —then the United States will have no alternative but to continue the war. Should this happen, there now seems little doubt that she will increase her military efforts well above their present level.