Building the Defences
This is why the creation of SEATO is an essential accom- paniment to co-existence Chinese style. So long as the Chinese are intent on expanding, the remnants of non-Com- munist Asia will only be safe if they are defended, first by their own efforts, and secondly bya Western guarantee of their. integrity. The meeting at Baguio on September 6 will make a start on both these problems. It will be attended by three Asian countries—Siam, the Philippines, and Pakistan—who fully recognise their danger, as well as by the three Western Powers, and Australia and New Zealand. The actual drafting of the treaty will probably be brief; the Americans have been busily; and on the whole successfully, negotiating a form of words with the potential signatories ever since the peace in Indo-China. But it will be one thing to devise a form of words, another. to spell out the commitments which may be necessary to give these words force. Which countries will be covered by the guarantee? The text of the treaty will, wisely, probably not specify but the alliance must be clear in its own mind. Will it include those neighbouring countries, such as Burma, who prefer for the moment not to commit themselves? And how is such a guarantee going to be implemented? Are Britain and America prepared, like Australia, to provide troops, or are they merely going to wave the atom bomb in the face of a potential aggressor? And how are they going to stop the kind of secret, ambiguous aggression in which the Chinese specialise? By more and more economic aid, in the first place, and by efficient, silent, political warfare in the second place; but in both these fields, deeds will matter much more than words. Baguio is a beginning, but it is a long way from the end.
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