Soviet Views of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations: An Examination of Unclassified Soviet Sources.

摘要

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Brunei) has become increasingly active as a regional economic, political, and informal military organization. A major impetus to the vitalization of has been the threat posed by the reunification of Vietnam and, more significantly, Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia. Vietnamese militarism in the region is generally seen by the ASEAN states as directly supported by the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union has greatly enhanced its presence and power projection capabilities in the region since the reunification of Vietnam, having established bases at Da Nang and Cam Ranh Bay. The ASEAN states have generally opposed Soviet-Vietnamese expansionism, mainly through political-diplomatic means, although some military cooperation among the members of ASEAN is increasingly apparent. The Soviets have used propaganda as a major instrument of influence in the ASEAN states. The Soviets use propaganda in an attempt to subvert ASEAN's official opposition to Soviet-Vietnamese expansionism, both by appealing to pro-Soviet factions within the ASEAN states and by attempting to exacerbate differences of opinion regarding the threat among the ASEAN states. The persistent Soviet propaganda effort to destroy ASEAN's stance against Soviet-Vietnamese expansionism takes the form of warning that the 'real' danger to ASEAN is US and Chinese 'hegemonism,' and stressing that the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia is 'fraternal assistance' to Cambodia. The Soviet Union and Vietnam have pushed the idea of a regional peace conference involving the conclusion of nonaggression treaties among the participants as a first stage toward the creation of a collective security arrangement in Asia.