ABSTRACT
Soviet policy toward South-East Asia in the mid-seventies aimed at turning the countries of Indochina into Soviet client states and bringing their foreign policy and socio-economic development into line with Soviet ideas. Although M. S. Gorbachev in his speech at Krasnoiarsk of September 12, 1988, left no doubt that Soviet policy toward Asia would continue adhering to a comprehensive concept, it was not confined to projections into the distant future. There is no indication so far that the envisaged improvement of relations with the ASEAN countries is at the expense of the Soviet-Vietnamese dyad. The Cambodian question illustrates most plainly the dilemma of Gorbachev's policy toward South-East Asia, aiming as it does at winning new partners in South-East Asia without rashly staking the position in Vietnam acquired at great expense. The Soviet Union paid the price of general political isolation for the strategic advantages accruing from the military bases in Vietnam.
