ABSTRACT
This was the period when international politics in the Asia-Pacific, as elsewhere in the world, was greatly shaped by the attempts of the United States and the Soviet Union to consolidate their respective sides of the Cold War as part of the management of the central balance of power between them. Although the alliance patterns in the Asia-Pacific were bilateral and much more volatile than in Europe – as attested by the collapse of the Sino-Soviet alliance into acrimony and bitter rivalry – they nevertheless reflected the essential bipolar character of international politics of the period. Most of the countries in the region were linked to one or other of the two superpowers, and the changing character of SovietAmerican relations had a discernible impact upon the points of conflict and cooperation in the region. Perhaps one of the most important ways in which the operation of bipolarity
was distinctive in the Asia-Pacific during this period centred on the role of China. As a relatively independent strategic actor that had proved its entitlement to great power status in the Korean War, China moved from being a close ally of the Soviet Union in the early 1950s to become its most implacable adversary by the end of the 1960s. Indeed, for much of the 1960s it challenged both the superpowers simultaneously. Moreover, within the Asia-Pacific region itself China exercised considerable weight independently of all other powers. However, it was not until relations were opened with Washington at the beginning of the 1970s that the main features of a broader strategic triangle involving Beijing as well as Moscow and Washington became evident. Nevertheless, as we now know, the Eisenhower administration sought to drive a wedge between China and its Soviet ally by a policy of calculated toughness towards the former so as to increase pressure upon the alliance beyond breaking point.1 The irony is that when that point was reached during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, the United States became too focused on Vietnam to exploit it. Hence tripolarity did not fully emerge until 1971/1972 when Chairman Mao and President Nixon recognized their common interest in managing an augmented Soviet threat. If the unity of the communist side of the bipolar divide in the Asia-Pacific was
threatened by the nationalist sentiments of independent governments (and that included North Vietnam and to a degree North Korea as well as China2), the pro-Western side was also characterized by greater diversity than obtained
in Europe. The Cold War rhetoric that characterized the application of the containment policy of the bipolar period was even less appropriate here than in Europe. Thus India – the world’s largest democracy – enjoyed closer relations with the Soviet Union than with the United States. The Indian attachment to non-alignment stopped it from joining the Western alliance systems in the early years, especially as Pakistan became allied to the United States. Once the conflict with China deepened as a result of the border skirmish of 1959 and open warfare of 1962, India’s links with the Soviet Union were correspondingly consolidated. The notion that the Cold War consisted of a conflict between the ‘free world’ and that of communist dictatorships did not accord with the situation elsewhere in Asia. Although the economies of the pro-Western states in East Asia were orientated towards the market, the majority were not ruled by ‘free’ democratic governments. Additionally, with the possible exception of Japan, most governments, especially in Southeast Asia, were fragile in their exercise of power and fearful of a variety of challenges to their survival. These came not only from communist insurgencies that exploited rural discontent, but also from ethnic unrest, disorders based on religious forces, and from separatist elements – all of which could be aided and abetted from the outside, and not necessarily by communist forces alone.3
