Word: cambodia
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Peking was plainly embarrassed by the events, particularly since the capture of Cambodia's three major airports and lone seaport at Kompong Som ruled out any possibility of resupplying the tattered Kampuchean fighters. The Chinese contented themselves with beefing up their own forces along the Vietnamese border and hurling insults, mainly at the Soviets for supporting the invasion. "An aggressor's day of ascendancy," proclaimed an enigmatic statement released in Peking, "is the beginning of his defeat...
Elsewhere, the affair left foreign offices puzzled about which way to lean. The Rumanian government, once again at odds with Moscow, took Cambodia's side and declared that the ouster of Pol Pot was "a heavy blow for the prestige of socialism." Washington was almost bemused by the spectacle of one ferocious Communist nation pulverizing another. It was, said one senior Administration official, a case of "an abhorrent regime being overthrown by an abhorrent aggression...
Nevertheless, the U.S. came down on the side of Cambodia, despite its distaste for the Pol Pot government. The Vietnamese invasion, protested Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, "threatens regional peace and stability and violates the fundamental principle of the integrity of international borders." Washington's policy was to play the role of "a discreet referee," said Administration officials; the object was to keep Moscow and Peking from becoming involved in a direct confrontation...
Nations in Southeast Asia appeared more worried over the next step than the last. In occupying Cambodia and installing a friendly puppet government, the Vietnamese Communists had taken yet another stride toward control of the Indochinese peninsula. Having conquered South Viet Nam in a long and bloody war, Hanoi had gone on to rule a puppet regime in Laos with the aid of 30,000 Vietnamese soldiers. Cambodia was the obvious third target...
...view, at least, was that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) remained united. Most of the member states-Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines-received soothing visits and pledges of "good neighborliness" last year from smiling Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Duy Trinh. After the fall of Cambodia, the ASEAN leaders had good reason to assess the guile behind the smile...