Moscow Plays a Different Tune in Asia, Pacific

CAMBRIDGE, MASS. — Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s acceptance last week of the U.S. “zero-zero” option--a worldwide ban on medium-range and short-range missiles--along with Soviet proposals for ending the Gulf War, have focused attention on Europe and the Middle East. It is in Asia and the Pacific, however, that some of the most interesting changes in Soviet foreign policy may be occurring.

A year ago Tuesday, Gorbachev traveled to the Pacific port city of Vladivostok to deliver one of the key speeches of his tenure. The principal focus was China. Gorbachev suggested that the Soviet Union might compromise its position towards the divisive Amur River boundary dispute--a dispute that in 1969 led to armed clashes. He declared as well that the Soviet Union might withdraw a substantial number of troops from Mongolia, and stated that the Soviet Union “is prepared to discuss (with China) concrete steps aimed at proportionate lowering of the level of land forces.” In part to assuage China, the Soviet leader also gave notice that six regiments would be withdrawn from Afghanistan by the end of the year.

Significant passages of the Vladivostok speech concerned Japan. Gorbachev expressed satisfaction over the January, 1986, visit of Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze to Japan and added that the possibility existed of a future “top level” visit. The Soviet leader also included a bid for political and economic ties with many of the island microstates of the South Pacific, support for New Zealand in its anti-nuclear policies and a suggestion to the new government of the Philippines that an end to the U.S. military bases there would not go “unanswered.”

Noteworthy parallels exist between Soviet policy towards Europe and the Vladivostok speech. As in Europe, there is in Asia a concerted Soviet effort to establish military parity and, where possible, superiority. Arms control is being suggested as a means to reduce forces along the border with China and to promote regional stability. The desire for trade, investment and technology is made explicit. In many countries--Japan in particular--the Soviet Union seeks to discourage support for military expansion; in every case it is trying to weaken ties between regional states and Washington by fanning opposition to the U.S. military (especially nuclear) presence. Indeed, one can now speak of the “Europeanization” of Moscow’s Asia policy.

Afghanistan has moved to the top of Gorbachev’s agenda. The presence of some 115,000 Soviet troops in Afghanistan is costly in a number of ways: The war is expensive to wage, unpopular at home and hurts the Soviet Union’s reputation in the Muslim world. The January, 1987, visit to Kabul by Shevardnadze and Anatoly F. Dobrynin, former Soviet ambassador to the United States and current head of the Central Committee’s International Department, coupled with new proposals for settling the conflict and withdrawing Soviet forces, indicates heightened Soviet interest in terminating the struggle.

It is significant that Gorbachev’s speech was delivered in Vladivostok, home of the Soviet Far East fleet, largest of the Soviet navy. The military dimension of Soviet policy remains paramount. Any thinning of Soviet forces along the border with China will be of little military significance; any reduction of Soviet troops in Mongolia will be modest.

But this should come as little surprise. The Soviet investment in its military arm, its extension to Asia and the Pacific, is simply too great to give away. The Soviets cannot hope to be a significant economic participant in the advanced technological world that constitutes today’s Asia and Pacific community. Nor are the Soviets about to compromise key territorial claims; for an empire like the Soviet Union, the precedent of territorial compromise and accommodation to the claims of its neighbors is simply too dangerous to allow. Afghanistan could well prove more difficult to leave than to invade; anything above a token Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan would be highly problematic for the Kremlin, since no pro-Soviet political authority could survive for long without a large Red Army presence.

It is similarly difficult to imagine a pro-Vietnamese government surviving in Cambodia without the presence of Soviet-supported Vietnamese soldiers. Although there are reports of strains between Moscow and Hanoi, no evidence exists that the Soviets are pressuring Vietnam to leave Cambodia. The Soviets will be hard-pressed to meet this Chinese concern, the most important of the obstacles to improved Sino-Soviet relations.

The prospects of improved Soviet ties with Japan are similarly constrained. High-level visits and somewhat expanded trade can improve atmospherics, although the recent Toshiba scandal in which the Soviets illegally got technology needed to make their submarines harder to detect will dampen prospects for economic cooperation. More important, the continued presence of the Soviet fleet, coupled with a Soviet refusal to compromise on the sovereignty of the contested Kurile Islands, will prompt Japan to continue the largely pro-Western and more assertive strategy it has adopted under Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone.

The Korean peninsula poses a special problem for the Soviets. They have made a major investment in North Korea and are Pyongyang’s chief source of advanced arms; nevertheless, Moscow may find it difficult to reign in the North Koreans, given their commitment to reunification, the north’s large stockpiles of material that confer upon it a surprising degree of independence and the view in the north that time works in the south’s favor. The Soviet dilemma is clear: They must assist the north on a scale likely to give them influence, but not so much as to bring about a conflict that would set back Moscow’s regional aims.

More broadly, factors of culture, race, history and geography limit Soviet prospects. Although Gorbachev declared that “the Soviet Union is also an Asian and Pacific country,” most Asians consider the Soviets to be fundamentally European and somewhat unwelcome.

In short, a speech does not constitute a policy. Gorbachev, in his remarks at Vladivostok, may have reduced Soviet isolation in Asia and the Pacific, and added diplomacy to what had been only a sword; nevertheless, short of major Soviet concessions to both China and Japan and major economic reform at home, the Soviet Union is likely to remain on the political as well as geographic periphery of this most dynamic of regions.