to withdraw, and to allow a nationwide plebiscite to be held within
two years. Five years of struggle had given the Vietminh half the
country, and left revolutionaries in the south in limbo. It was a first
bitter warning to Vietnam that China not only would put its own
interests first, but that it would not endorse Vietnam’s ambition to
reduce Laos and Cambodia to satellite status.
The ‘Bandung spirit’
If Geneva provided a stage for China to negotiate on equal terms with
the great powers, Bandung was the forum at which Beijing attempted
to increase its political influence in Southeast Asia. China’s more
moderate stance at Geneva had been welcomed in Southeast Asian
capitals, even though suspicion remained of longer term Chinese
intentions. The stage was also set for China at Bandung by the rela-
tively lukewarm response of Southeast Asian nations to the South-East
Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO).
SEATO was established under American auspices in September
1954, on the conclusion of the First Indochina War, to counter com-
munist insurrection. The Philippines and Thailand, however, both
close American allies, were the only two Southeast Asian nations to
join. While the Philippines still feared communist insurgency, Thai-
land had been alarmed by the formation in 1953 of a ‘Thai
Autonomous Area’ in southern Yunnan which, along with communist
activity in Laos, Bangkok took to be part of a concerted Chinese
strategy of subversion. A series of anti-government broadcasts by
former Thai prime minister, Pridi Phanomyong, who had been granted
political asylum in China, only added to Thai fears.
Laos and Cambodia were precluded from joining SEATO under
the terms of the Geneva agreements, but were designated ‘protocol
states’, invasion of which would trigger a SEATO response. Burma
refused to join, preferring her policy of strict neutrality. For Rangoon,
Communism and the Cold War