The situation in Southeast Asia, in which the United States now finds itself so deeply involved, is disagreeable in every imaginable respect. Terrain is extremely rugged and climate is miserable. The nations are economically backward, yet economic co-operation between them is minimal because of historic animosities. The bulk of the people are politically apathetic while their political leaders often behave so capriciously that they seem bent on national suicide.
America’s traditional allies are providing minimum assistance in Southeast Asia, if they are helping at all. In fact, some of our closest friends are openly trading with the enemy.
Meanwhile, hovering to the north like a threatening cloud, Communist China casts its ominous shadow over the entire area. Nearly every public utterance coming out of the country consists of belligerent pronouncements. In his now-famous “Manifesto” of September 1965, for example, Defense Minister Lin Piao labeled peaceful coexistence as “rubbish” and reminded China’s neighbors that Peking still regards brute force as the only acceptable way to settle political issues.
At home, moreover, America’s foreign policy is being subjected to more widespread criticism than at any other time when her troops were fighting abroad. This means that responsible U. S. government officials must work in an environment of Vietniks, teach-ins, opposition rallies, damning newspaper columnists, and critical Congressional hearings. Also, many of the American people have voiced doubts about whether the war is worth the cost—during the first half of 1966 the weekly price tag averaged 100 combat deaths, 500 wounded in action, plus an estimated $250 million.
Could operating conditions possibly be worse for a group of national leaders? Of course they could. Just ask the leaders of the other side.
Strength in any contest is a relative matter. It is, therefore, quite meaningless and totally misleading to consider only one side of a situation in which force is meeting force. But most of the writing on the conflict in Southeast Asia is doing just that.
For some unknown reason, we like to paint our situation in the darkest possible shades and picture our opponent’s position in light, bright hues. Any difficulty we encounter is worthy of front page treatment in our newspapers, yet the other fellow’s trials and tribulations appear on the back page—if they get into print at all.
It is readily apparent that we have some very grave problems on our hands in Southeast Asia, and minimizing them will not make them disappear. But, on the other hand, little will be gained by overstating them either. What we need to do is keep the situation in perspective. We should not concentrate so intently on our own difficulties that we lose sight of the fact that life is hard for our opponents, too. The only reasonable way to evaluate how we are faring is to examine also how well the opposition is doing.
An abundance of material has been written about how poorly we are doing in Southeast Asia and how we face an impossible task there. It might be enlightening, therefore, to look at some of the trials being experienced by the other side and what the Asian Communists might expect in the years ahead.
The “enemy” in Southeast Asia is a bloc consisting of Communist China, North Vietnam, and the so-called National Liberation Front (NLF). The bloc is currently operating in concert; it is inaccurate, however, to treat it as a complete monolith. Each of the parties has its own peculiar problems, attitudes, and interests within the over-all framework of their common goal, which is gaining control of South Vietnam.
The senior member of the team is, of course, Communist China. Were it not for her visceral hatred of the United States and constant bellicose posturing, it is highly doubtful that North Vietnam would take the risk of crossing swords with us. It should be noted, however, that China’s words have thus far been a great deal more rabid than her actions.
The second of the team members, North Vietnam, is the one actually directing the war effort. It is also the one that stands to lose the most should U. S. officials decide to knock one of the opponents out of the game. But, even short of that, Hanoi is already in the jaws of a vise.
One of the jaws is China. Despite their close ties with Peking, the North Vietnamese still harbor a considerable amount of historical animosity and suspicion toward the Chinese. Ho Chi Minh himself has expressed such feelings in the past. The United States forms the other jaw of the vise. There is constant visible evidence of U. S. armed might in the form of aircraft overhead and ships offshore. Ho knows his country could be crushed like an eggshell anytime that the decision were made to do so, and there is nothing he could do unilaterally to prevent it.
So, while Ho gains a degree of comfort from the presence of China on his northern border, he is well aware that China’s offers of active assistance carry a steep price tag: the difficulty of getting Chinese troops out again once they set foot on Vietnamese soil.
The third team member, the National Liberation Front, is merely the South Vietnamese arm of the North Vietnamese Communist Party, the Lao Dong. The more popular term “Viet Cong” is merely a contraction of the phrase “Viet Nam Cong-San,” meaning literally “Vietnamese Communist.” The Lao Dong Party has within its Central Committee what is known as the “Central Reunification Department.” As implied by its title, the mission of this department is to direct the work of the NLF in its effort to bring about the “reunification” of Vietnam— under Hanoi’s domination, of course.
The National Liberation Front consists of a political organization roughly paralleling that of the South Vietnamese government structure. In those areas not under firm governmental control, it collects taxes and conscripts youths for the Viet Cong guerrilla forces. It also provides political guidance for the indigenous guerrilla troops after they are inducted. In the case of the North Vietnamese regular forces in South Vietnam, however, indications are that the NLF is bypassed, and that their orders come directly from Hanoi.
So much for who our opponents are in Southeast Asia. Let us examine some of the setbacks they have experienced in the recent past, and what they are going through at the present time.
First, consider “awesome China,” beginning with her economy. Although she is huge in geographic size and population, Communist China is desperately poor and underdeveloped. As one Sinologist put it, “Economically, China is hardly more than the biggest among the undeveloped nations.” In their impatience to jump from this status to the role of a World Power, China’s rulers decided to institute a forced-draft program which they called the “Great Leap Forward.”
The “Leap” began in 1958. It entailed the merger of Communist collectives into giant “communes” of about 20,000 farmers each, creation of “backyard” steel smelters, and the thrusting of many unqualified people into unfamiliar supervisory roles. Predictably, it ended in a debacle. By 1960, the average person was surviving on 1,500 calories per day or less, and there was some outright starvation. When the Chinese economy stood the risk of total collapse, the leaders finally admitted their folly and reverted back to more sensible policies. It is estimated that the economy is just now recovering to its “pre- Leap” status, and the current status is not very impressive.
Steel production is one of the prime indicators of industrial vitality of any modern nation. The steel industry of China is able to turn out less than 11 million tons of raw ingots a year. By way of contrast, the United States uses more than 100 million tons of steel each year, yet has only about one quarter of China’s population size.
Power use is another indicator, and China is one of the most primitive nations in the world in this regard. It is generally accepted that the equivalent of 1.5 tons of coal per person per year is the minimum requirement for a modern industrial nation. Red China gets by on about 100 pounds, and natural gas is lacking in any significant amount on a national scale. Whereas almost 400 gallons of gasoline is consumed per year by each person in the United States, the Chinese use only about four or five.
A nation’s transportation system is another measure of its state of development. With a land area of four million square miles, China has no more than 22,000 miles of railroad. She has less than one thousand miles of modern highway plus about 350,000 miles of so-called “improved roads” which are considered usable in all weather. Counting all cars, trucks, and buses—none of which are privately owned—there are only about 300,000 vehicles for use on these roads.
There are only about 120,000 tractors in China to cultivate 300 million farmable acres, or one tractor for each 2,500 acres. The chief source of power for agriculture is not machinery or even animals, it is human labor. This primitive agricultural system makes it impossible to produce enough to feed China’s millions, even with approximately 80 per cent of the work force engaged in farming. The Chinese are therefore scraping by on an average of 2,000 calories per day with the help of heavy imports of grain from the West. Agencies of the United Nations specify 2,300 calories as the minimum average diet for good health. The balance between food production and consumption is so precarious in China that natural phenomena such as flood and drought are literally life and death matters for large numbers of people.
The shortage of doctors, nurses, medicines, and hospital facilities makes medical care woefully inadequate, despite a crash program which has been in progress since 1959. And, although another crash program is going on in housing, it is still not uncommon for five or six people to live in one room ten feet square.
There are reports that many factories are operating at 60 to 70 per cent of capacity, while others stand idle. Much of the machinery is obsolete and worn out. On the basis of per capita income, China is roughly equal with the Congo.
From all reports that filter out, it is perfectly clear that China maintains the Bamboo Curtain not to shield her strength, but rather to hide her severe weaknesses.
On the international scene, many people might argue that the Chinese—despite their internal problems—have been remarkably successful in the last few years in extending their influence into foreign areas. In point of fact, however, while they have managed to get agents of various types into some of the underdeveloped areas, their solid achievements have been extremely limited.
In most cases, other countries have used China more than China has exploited them. For example, Pakistan finds it useful to maintain close ties with Peking because of its conflict with India. Some African leaders have done no more than enhance their revolutionary image by shaking the hand of Chou En- lai, while they continue carrying out non-revolutionary policies. Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia uses his outward friendship with Red China primarily as a device to encourage a hands-off policy on the part of his neighbors.
Communist China had an especially bad year on the international stage in 1965. During the India-Pakistan difficulties in September, she attempted what amounted to an ultimatum to India, but finally had to back down. She suffered several setbacks in her courtship with the new African states, and had a noisy quarrel with Castro. The upheaval in Indonesia, starting with suppression of the Communist coup attempt in October, reversed the increasingly Peking-oriented policy in that potentially important Asian nation. Then, more recently, the anti-Communist generals finally took over the reins from Sukarno, thus widening the breach with Communist China.
Meanwhile, the frustrations suffered by North Vietnam and the National Liberation Front in South Vietnam have been so closely linked that it is just as well to examine their plights jointly. The long string of disappointments started right with the division of Vietnam into two de facto countries.
Ho considered himself “the George Washington” of the rebellion against the French. He, therefore, had every reason to expect everyone to rally to his leadership once the colonial power was ousted. The ink was not yet dry on the 1954 Geneva Agreement, however, when he discovered this simply was not to be.
Article 14-d of the Vietnam cease fire agreement (one of the four so-called “Geneva Accords”) promised that civilians could move to whichever side of the 17th parallel they preferred. The Communists accepted this provision with a considerable lack of enthusiasm, and stood in the way of its implementation in every possible way. Despite all the Communist obstruction, however, some 900,000 people uprooted themselves and their families from their ancestral homes and fled from the north to the south. As many as 400,000 more wanted to leave, and were entitled to do so under Article 14-d, but the Communist authorities would not let them depart.
Then Ho had to sit by and observe the soundness of the refugees’ decision. During the period 1954 to 1959, 140,000 previously landless peasant families in South Vietnam were given land under an agrarian reform program. The prewar transportation system was almost entirely rebuilt. Rice production reached an annual average of 3.5 million metric tons. Rubber production exceeded prewar totals; and construction was underway on several medium-size manufacturing plants, thus beginning the development of a base for industrial growth. In addition to such economic progress, school enrollment tripled and almost 3,000 medical aid stations and maternity clinics were established throughout the country.
This success stood in marked contrast to development in the north. Despite the vastly larger industrial plant inherited by Hanoi when Vietnam was partitioned, gross national product was considerably larger in the south—estimated at $100.00 per person in the south and $70.00 in the north. While per capita food production in the north was 10 per cent lower in 1960 than it had been in 1956, it was 20 per cent higher in the south.
In the beginning, the NLF enjoyed a moderate amount of success in winning sympathy of the South Vietnamese peasants. Like ward heelers everywhere, the village agents skillfully managed to convince many of the people that there would be pie-in-the-sky for all supporters.
Then, the United States came to the aid of the South Vietnamese government. As military and civic action pressures against the guerrillas mounted, the villagers found that instead of getting pie they were forced to pay higher and higher NLF taxes, and an increasing number of their sons were being conscripted into the Communist ranks. No political lackey would have an easy time keeping erstwhile supporters in line under these circumstances, and the Viet Cong village agents were not exceptions.
Then, the stepped-up air war had the effect of turning the villagers even more against the Viet Cong guerrillas. Instead of regarding them as neighbors, they began to look on them as the magnet that attracted bombs, rockets, and napalm from the air and shells from distant artillery tubes.
Regional prejudices have also caused problems for the NLF in South Vietnam. Place of ancestry in Vietnam causes feelings between people as strong as caste does in India. As more and more cadres of troops infiltrated from North Vietnam into the South, there has been a marked increase of hostility and suspicion on the part of the southerners.
The NLF has also found that its movement has an extremely shaky foundation among the people, because the concept of “reunification” has little appeal to peasants who regard someone from the next province as an alien.
Casualty figures are cause for concern in Hanoi also. Red casualties in South Vietnam were 17,000 dead in 1964, 35,000 in 1965, and their death toll in the first half of 1966 had reached 27,000.
So, both economically and militarily, the Communist Chinese and their junior partners to the south have been having rather hard times. They differ from us, though, in that they don’t advertise it. On balance, moreover, they have a great deal more to worry about in the future than does the United States and her allies.
It has been argued that because of her tremendous size, China is relatively invulnerable. The argument undoubtedly stems from the historical examples of how Russia’s vast geographic size frustrated the invasions of Napoleon’s and Hitler’s armies. Invasion, however, is not the only way to encourage reasonable conduct on the part of the Chinese leaders.
The threat of massive air attack against selected targets undoubtedly constitutes the primary brake on Chinese ambitions. In other words, selected parts of the country are being “held hostage” to the leaders’ acts.
The areas most valuable to the Chinese—the principal “hostages,”—are Manchuria, North China, the Lower Yangtze and Canton. They contain key transportation and communications centers, large industrial complexes, important mines and mineral deposits, major agricultural regions and commensurately concentrated populations. The nuclear material production plants and assembly factories, on which the Chinese have expended so much of their scarce resources, and of which they are so proud, can certainly be added to the list of hostage areas.
Furthermore, China must certainly have the most vulnerable communication lines of any major nation in the world. She is dependent upon the sea for subsistence supplies, yet the U. S. Navy virtually dominates the Pacific Ocean. Absolute import/export tonnages are unknown, but we do know that China is incapable of feeding herself without foods entering the country from overseas. Taking 1964 as a representative year, annual grain imports alone come to some 5.6 million tons. During that year, the following nations shipped grain to China: Canada—2.2 million tons; Australia—1.8 million tons; France —.4 million tons; and Argentina, Mexico, and the Union of South Africa collectively— 1.2 million tons.
So China is, in fact, quite vulnerable. Her leaders undoubtedly realize that they have quite a lot to lose by provoking the United States into action against their country, which no doubt explains the inconsistency of their words and deeds.
North Vietnam is likewise tremendously vulnerable to determined air attack, as recent missions against the Hanoi/Haiphong oil storage installations proved. So restraint on the part of the United States is all that has permitted her national survival so far.
There are at least 30 prime targets in the so-called “Red Envelope” of North Vietnam which would constitute worthwhile air attack objectives. Included in the target list are several power plants, engineering facilities, jet airfields, cement factories, and the recently attacked storage areas that hold over 70 per cent of the country’s POL (petroleum, oil, and lubricants). Hanoi’s population of 650,000 and Haiphong’s 375,000 are also hostage to U. S. restraint.
Destruction of some, or even most, of these targets would not knock North Vietnam out of the war, because war goods could still be obtained from outside sources. But these installations have been built at great personal cost to the North Vietnamese people and they should be expected to have some agonizing thoughts while they are watching them go down the drain one at a time.
The Viet Cong forces in South Vietnam are getting increasingly vulnerable rather than safer as the size of their units get larger. Hit-and-run tactics can be annoying and costly in terms of defense against them; yet, these tactics in themselves can never win a decisive military victory against determined opposition. At some point guerrillas have to cross over into more extensive operations. When this happens, they need supply bases, assembly and training areas, and a command network. These are all vulnerable to an opponent with more sophisticated military equipment, such as artillery and air support.
Indications are that the Viet Cong are currently treading the line between guerrilla tactics and conventional warfare. They continue such terrorist practices as murdering village officials who support the government (115 in May 1966) and still use “Old Reliable” at every opportunity (attack a weak outpost then lay an ambush for the relief force). But they are also showing a willingness to engage large units when they consider the odds are favorable. When they operate as guerrillas they are a frustrating opponent, but an opponent whose only chance of winning is at the conference table. Then, when they attempt to employ conventional warfare tactics in an attempt to gain victories, they invariably come out on the short end of the score board.
Finally, the ability for the two major contestants to inflict punishment on each other’s homeland is decidedly one-sided. The Chinese are about a decade away from development of a delivery system for their nuclear weapons that could threaten the Continental United States. This lead-time for China to build these weapons is greater than America’s lead-time for building an anti-missile defense against them.
Besides the relative vulnerability factor, the military strength balance is also something for our opponents to worry about.
A major change took place in the Chinese armed forces in June 1965, when ranks and insignia were abolished and the uniforms of the three services were made similar in style. It was announced that the move was aimed at “allowing fuller expression of revolutionary spirit and to improve solidarity among military personnel.” Many China-watchers consider it more likely, however, that the Chinese Communist Party had become apprehensive about the loyalty to the Party of the officer corps, and used this device to enhance the influence of political commissars by obscuring their difference of function from military commanders. In this vein, it is interesting to note that the new Air Force Commander-in- Chief, Wu Fa-hsien, was formerly its political commissar, and was promoted over the heads of several officers previously senior to him.
Although Communist China has the largest standing army in the world—about 2.3 million men—it could not be rated as anywhere near the most powerful one. By modern standards, it is drastically inadequate in artillery, communications and vehicular equipment. It is thus very largely a walking horde of riflemen.
The Chinese Navy is primarily a defensive force with quite limited ability to engage in offensive operations. Its largest craft are destroyers and submarines. She is building one missile submarine which should be completed in about two years and will probably be armed with three 350-mile missiles.
The Chinese Air Force consists of approximately 3,000 aircraft, most of which should be termed second-line type. The majority of them were supplied by the Soviet Union prior to 1960, and are rapidly wearing-out through normal usage. There have been some reports, however, that the Chinese are building copies of the Russian aircraft in limited numbers.
The North Vietnamese armed forces have about 300,000 men under arms, plus a few aircraft and a very small fleet of patrol craft. Like the Chinese, their supply of equipment is extremely modest.
The Viet Cong are scraping the bottom of the barrel with their local recruitment efforts within South Vietnam. More and more old men and young boys are showing up in the guerrilla ranks. There is a limit, moreover, to how many troops can be covertly infiltrated from the north as long as our air attacks are continued. Depending upon who is making the report, this infiltration capability is estimated to be anywhere from 4,500 per month to double that figure. No one is prepared to state categorically that air interdiction of the infiltration routes will choke-off the flow completely. It can be said, however, that our air superiority is limiting infiltration to a lower rate than it would be if the Communists had freedom of movement.
Should either North Vietnam or Communist China decide to send military forces southward overtly, they would be faced with severe difficulties in logistically supporting a massive effort.
The border between Laos and Communist China lies generally along the crest of some of the highest and most rugged of mountain peaks. The Laotian boundary with North Vietnam also runs through a rough forested mass of mountains. Routes crossing both borders are limited to a few poor roads and trails.
The 50-mile border between South and North Vietnam follows a river channel slightly south of the 17th Parallel for most of its extent. One road and an inoperable railroad cross the boundary.
The usability of what routes do exist is strongly affected by the monsoonal climate. During the dry season the roads are reasonably hard, but dusty; they then turn to mud during the rainy season.
While the Viet Minh proved that a “flea army” was capable of logistically supporting the siege of Dien Bien Phu, it must be remembered that girding for one decisive battle is not the same thing as providing for protracted warfare.
What all this means is that the Asian Communist nations could field a rather low-order World War II-type combat force with almost no modern vehicles, only lighter-type artillery, and very little air support. A Pentagon report which was made public in March 1966, estimated that the largest South Vietnam invasion force the Communists could logistically support would be no more than 100,000 men. The report further estimated they could support no more than 400,000 men in a full-scale invasion of all of Southeast Asia on a front extending from the Gulf of Tonkin to the Burma-Indian border. With their superior fire power and mobility, the Free World forces could certainly contain an invasion of this size.
So, while the “Chinese dragon” and its North Vietnamese junior counterpart rant and rave and rattle their sabers, they certainly are well aware that they are no match for the force that can be brought against - them if they decide to escalate the conflict. Their military strength limitations are very real and finite, while the amount of military strength brought to bear against them is limited only by the degree of restraint exercised by the U. S. government.
Besides their relative military inferiority, the Asian Communists also have a severe leadership problem just over the horizon.
Communist China is ruled by a powerful hierarchy that has been toughened by “The Long March,” followed by their outlaw existence in the caves of Yunan, and the subsequent struggle for national power. This group of leaders, however, cannot possibly last much longer. Mao Tse-tung is in his 70s and said to be quite ill. His personal appearances are becoming increasingly less frequent, despite his well-publicized swim in the Yangtze. Chou En-lai is not much younger. The overall average age of the Politburo is 68. As Mao and his old comrades pass from the scene—as soon they must—China is in for some very difficult internal stresses, which are already beginning to show.
The “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” during the spring of 1966 resulted in the purge of former Peking Mayor Peng Chen, a hard-line doctrinaire Communist often mentioned as Mao’s successor; plus a number of editors, university presidents and professors, actors, musicians, and film directors, many of whom were appointed by and loyal to Peng. The “winner” of this particular round was a triumvirate composed of Defense Minister Lin Piao, Mao’s apparent titular and ideological heir; Premier Chou En-lai, who heads the government apparatus; and a little-known party secretary, Teng Hsiao-ping, who controls the Chinese Communist Party. This power play by the three old pros is, however, only the beginning.
Tensions and conflicts will undoubtedly become even more open and prevalent among the younger generation of politicians in the years ahead. Whereas Mao’s leadership and the relative power position of the other old- time Politburo members have gone unquestioned, the new breed of political climbers know well that they will have to win their way to the top by means of ruthless competition.
The Chinese people, with their characteristic attitude toward authority, will undoubtedly find the resulting power struggle quite unsettling. The most likely effect will be a loss of respect for the leaders, with a consequential decline in confidence in the system as a whole.
Also, little has been done to institutionalize and routinize the system of authority. Even after some 15 years of existence, the Chinese government today is still of a quasi-revolutionary nature and highly dependent upon special campaigns and drives. The thrust behind these special efforts has been provided by the personal prestige of the hierarchy. When the respected personalities in authority are gone, therefore, there will likely be an administrative gap difficult to fill. This will undoubtedly mean that many things will go undone that should be done.
There is a fairly similar situation in North Vietnam. The present regime consists of dedicated revolutionaries who seem to be firmly seated in the governmental saddle. The relationship between the dual executives, President Ho Chi-minh and Premier Pham Van Dong can be compared to that of Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai of China before Mao resigned as Party Chairman. Ho is the near-legendary national leader, while Pham is the government’s managing director. A third powerful figure is General Vo Nguyen Giap, the hero of Dien Bien Phu and current Defense Minister. The precise position of a fourth powerful figure, Le Duan, is difficult to assess. Although he holds no government job, some students of Southeast Asian politics consider him to have the most realistic power in the country. He has been the First Secretary of the Communist Party since 1959, and is associated with the pro-Chinese faction as opposed to the pro-Soviet.
While these men seem to be doing an effective job of running the country—at least by Communist standards—there is little evidence to indicate that heirs are being prepared to take over when they are no longer around.
The Chairman of the National Liberation Front Presidium and Central Committee is Nguyen Huu Tho, a rather nondescript former provincial lawyer. The first NLF Secretary General was Nguyen Van Hieu, who is now its principal traveling representative abroad. A former journalist and teacher, his chief activity since the late 1940s has been as a Communist propagandist. The present Secretary General is Huynh Van Phat. He is described in their propaganda as an “architect,” but one would be hard-pressed to point to anything he has designed. The Chairman of the External Relations Committee (foreign affairs) is Tran Buu Kiem, who has spent most of the past two decades as the leader of North Vietnam’s various Communist-front youth organizations.
These are the best figures the Front has been able to produce to staff its most important public offices. While their revolutionary talents may be impressive, their professional stature and prestige among the South Vietnamese people are not.
Since no apparent measures have been taken to insure continuity of leadership when the old breed passes on, Communist nations in Asia are in for some very trying times in the years ahead. And even if they did not have the leadership dilemma staring them in the face, they would still be confronted with some other rather grim facts of life.
This discussion of Communist China’s future presupposes her avoidance of direct involvement in the conflict in Southeast Asia. If she does become involved, her already- limited economic base can be reduced to virtual nonexistence with American airpower, and it is not too useful to trace her possible climb back from there.
Communist China is already the most populous nation on earth, and her numbers continue to multiply at an alarming rate. Although her demographic statistics are as incomplete as all other data coming out of that country, a reasonable estimate of her current population is 730 million, and it is growing at the compound interest rate of about 2.5 per cent per year. This means that there will be one billion people in China sometime in the 1980s.
The root of the population dilemma is that China simply cannot raise enough crops to feed the population now, and the population is mushrooming faster than agricultural processes can be improved. In order to realize greater farm productivity, additional industrial resources in the form of farm implements and fertilizer plants must be obtained. Yet, capital which should be spent to buy these things must go into buying food abroad merely to keep the Chinese people from starving to death. To compound the problem still further, her principal exports are pork, rice, soybeans, and hides, all of which are exported at the expense of the diet of the Chinese people.
Coupled with the population/agriculture dilemma, the Chinese are likely to face a growing problem in their international balance of payments. This will make it more difficult for them to import the capital-goods required for further agricultural and industrial expansion. China is, of course, no longer receiving any long-term financial assistance from the Soviet Union for its development program, consequently it is experiencing real strain in its efforts to pay back debts already incurred.
One of the prime questions for the Red Chinese in the immediate future, therefore, is how to extract a sufficient surplus from the agricultural sector of the national economy to repay its past debts and still pay for new capital-goods imports.
Looking to the future, the most likely prospect is for a continuing contest between the regime and the peasantry. The contest will probably bring about severe tensions because of the government’s drive to increase its controls and pressures on agriculture in order to pursue its industrial goals, and the peasant populations’ desire for a better life. The peasants, therefore, can be expected to continue resisting these excessive controls and pressures, even if only by dragging their feet.
All things considered, it seems highly probable that farm and industrial output in China will lag requirements for a very long time to come. China is also faced with a severe shortage of trained manpower.
In that country, bright and intelligent youths find it easier to advance themselves by political work rather than by going into such demanding careers as science. Even according to inflated Chinese figures, less than 1.5 percent of college-age men are now given the opportunity of a college education. With the system of half school and half work, moreover, it is not clear what the quality is of the education they do receive.
The future for North Vietnam is not especially bright either. Just how dark her future turns out to be is dependent upon how long she persists in her attempt to take over control of South Vietnam.
The United States is in a position to frustrate North Vietnamese aggressive ambitions indefinitely, while retaining the power of putting her out of action militarily at any moment. The sooner the men in Hanoi realize, therefore, that there is no future in their current course of action, the less deterioration will take place within the North Vietnamese national structure. Indeed, if this realization does dawn in Hanoi, there is no reason at all why North and South Vietnam cannot coexist peacefully and enter into normal trade arrangements. This way, the North would at least gain legitimate access to the rice in the South which she is trying unsuccessfully to get by force.
Meanwhile, North Vietnam has considerable potential for industrialization. Of all the countries in Southeast Asia, North Vietnam is probably the most diversified in terms of its mineral resources, including coal and iron. The hydro-electric power potential of the country is also considerable. She could, therefore, expect some fairly impressive results if she would move in that direction, rather than risking the loss of her industrial base by staying on the course she is currently steering.
As President Johnson indicated in his Johns Hopkins speech, and re-emphasized in his Omaha and Des Moines speeches of 30 June, 1966, the next move is up to the leadership in Hanoi. Ho Chi Minh can continue playing the dangerous game he is playing, with nothing but a bleak future lying ahead, or he can have his country join the family of peaceful nations and share in the developmental effort the United States is willing to devote to Southeast Asia. Thus, North Vietnam’s future is in doubt until her leadership puts her on a more productive course.
The National Liberation Front, on the other hand, has no future at all. It can harass, impede progress, create misery, and cause the expenditure of lives and money, but there is no possibility it can win as long as the United States stands firm in its commitments to the South Vietnamese government. Every top ranking American official has made it abundantly clear, moreover, that those commitments will be honored.
There are indications of a healthy increase in realization on the part of the Vietnamese people that the VC ultimately will be defeated. One sign is the encouraging increase in defections from the guerrillas: 5,000 in 1964, 11,000 in 1965, and nearly 10,000 during the first half of 1966. Another is the increasing willingness of the people out in the countryside to furnish intelligence information on guerrilla movements. It is also worth noting that over half of the rural population voted in the May 1965 provincial elections, despite Viet Cong orders to boycott them. And when the VC put out public calls for a “general strike” in the cities on October 15 and December 19 of 1965, the calls went totally unheeded. Since people are the objective in a guerrilla war, this trend is a significant gauge of how the conflict is going, and how it will eventually turn out.
At a press conference in March 1966, Secretary of Defense McNamara said: “We are a peculiar people. We should be proud of the gallantry of our men. We should be proud of the restraint that our Commander-in-Chief is using in applying what is almost unlimited power. We should be proud of a unique military accomplishment. . . . Instead, we seem to take a masochistic pleasure in flailing ourselves with imaginary weaknesses.” Amen!
So, we should not minimize the magnitude of our problems in Southeast Asia. We should not relax and figure that because the trend is favorable we have solved them. We should not let down our guard there even after the fighting has stopped.
But what we should do is recognize the fact that our opponents have a lot more problems than we do, and they and their “wars of national liberation” are far from invincible. And above all, if we look at the situation through their eyes, it is a certainty that we will never be tempted to envy the enemy!