From Third World to First The Singapore Story pdfdrive com

37. Deng Xiaoping’s China
My meeting with Vice-Premier Deng Xiaoping was unforgettable. A dapper,
stocky man of 74, not more than five feet tall, in a beige Mao suit came down
from a Boeing 707 at Paya Lebar Airport in November 1978. Walking briskly,
he inspected the guard of honour, then drove with me to the Istana Villa, our
guesthouse in the Istana domain. We met that afternoon for formal discussions in
the cabinet room.
After seeing the spittoons in the Great Hall of the People, I had arranged for
a blue-and-white porcelain spittoon to be placed next to Deng. I had read that he
regularly used one. I also placed an ashtray ostentatiously for him alone although
there was a no-smoking rule for air-conditioned rooms in the Istana. It was a
gesture to a great figure in the history of China. I made sure that the exhaust fan
serving the cabinet room was switched on.
I welcomed him as a great Chinese revolutionary. He replied that Singapore
could be said to be an old place for him. Fifty-eight years ago, in 1920, he had
visited it for two days on his way to France. When I visited Beijing in 1976, he
had not been able to meet me; at that time he had been “shoved aside”. He had
been defeated by the Gang of Four, but in the end they were defeated. He spent
the next two and a half hours on the dangers the Soviet Union posed to the
world. All countries and peoples who did not want war had to form a united
front against the warmongers. He quoted Mao: we should all unite to cope with
the 
wang ba dan
(literally “tortoise egg” but translated by his interpreter as the
S.O.B). He gave a comprehensive survey of Soviet manoeuvres in Europe, the
Middle East, Africa, South Asia, and finally in Indochina. The Soviets had
scored immensely in Vietnam. Some people did not understand why relations
between China and Vietnam were so bad, and why China had taken action such
as cutting off aid, which pushed Vietnam towards the Soviet Union instead of
winning it over. The question to ask was, why did Vietnam see fit to fall
completely on the lap of the Soviet Union when it was not in their interest? The
answer was Vietnam’s “fond dream for many years of the Indochina federation”.

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Even Ho Chi Minh had had such an idea. China had never agreed to it, and
Vietnam regarded China as the greatest obstacle to its realisation of this
federation. China had concluded that Vietnam would not change and would
become more anti-China. The expulsion of ethnic Chinese from Vietnam was
one such manifestation. After careful consideration China had decided to cut aid.
Deng said China’s total aid to Vietnam had been over US$10 billion, at
current value worth US$20 billion. When China cancelled aid to Vietnam, the
Soviet Union had to carry this burden alone. When they could not satisfy
Vietnam’s needs, they got it admitted to COMECON (the communist bloc
counterpart to the EEC), to shift the burden to the East European countries. The
Vietnamese were also putting out their begging bowls before Japan, America,
France, Western Europe and even Singapore. In 10 years’ time, he said, China
would consider pulling Vietnam from the Soviet Union again. I thought to
myself that Deng took a very long view, totally different from American leaders.
He said the real and urgent problem was a possible massive invasion of
Cambodia by Vietnam. What would China do, he asked rhetorically. What China
would do would depend on how far the Vietnamese went, he answered himself.
He repeated this a few times, not committing himself outright to a counterattack
on Vietnam. He said if Vietnam succeeded in controlling the whole of
Indochina, many Asian countries would be exposed. The Indochina federation
would expand its influence and serve the global strategy of the Soviet Union to
move southwards into the Indian Ocean. Vietnam’s role was that of a Cuba of
the East. The Soviets were drastically increasing their Pacific fleet. The world
had witnessed great turbulence in the last two years as was evident from events
in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan, all pointing to a southward thrust by
the Soviet Union. China’s policy was to counter the strategic deployment of the
Soviet Union, whether in Zaïre or Somalia. Wherever the Soviet Union attacked,
China would help to repel the attack. To have peace, Asean had to unite with
China and repel the Soviet Union and its Cuba in Southeast Asia, Vietnam. His
two interpreters did not take notes diligently; they only made a few squiggles. I
concluded he must have made the same presentation in Bangkok and Kuala
Lumpur and they knew it by heart. It was past sunset when he finished. I asked
whether he would like me to respond or adjourn till the next day to give him
time to change for dinner, and for me to think over what he had said. He
preferred not to let the dinner get cold.
At dinner he was sociable and friendly, but still tense. Vietnam’s invasion of
Cambodia was very much on his mind. When I pressed him – what would China

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do, now that General Kriangsak, the prime minister of Thailand, had committed
himself on China’s side by giving Deng such a warm reception in Bangkok – he
again muttered, it depended how far they went. My impression was that if the
Vietnamese did not cross the Mekong River, it would not be so dangerous, but if
they did, then China would do something.
He invited me to visit China again. I said I would when China had recovered
from the Cultural Revolution. That, he said, would take a long time. I countered
that they should have no problem getting ahead and doing much better than
Singapore because we were the descendants of illiterate, landless peasants from
Fujian and Guangdong while they had the progeny of the scholars, mandarins
and literati who had stayed at home. He was silent.
The next day I made my points in one hour – actually half an hour, without
the translation. I summarised what he had said about the Soviet threat by
referring to well-documented studies of their military capabilities by the
International Institute of Strategic Studies in London. I pointed out that
Germany’s Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, France’s President Giscard d’Estaing
and American leaders in Washington had given me different conclusions on the
dangers the Soviet Union posed. Some of them believed the Soviets were
wasting too much of their resources on armaments. Anyway, small countries like
Singapore could only take note of these world trends but could not influence the
outcome. We had to analyse the situation from a regional, not a global
viewpoint. The problem after the end of the Vietnam War was that American
troops had withdrawn from Vietnam and Thailand. It was clear that they would
never again engage communist insurgents on the Asian mainland. The next
question was how long would American forces stay in the Philippines to balance
the growing Soviet fleet in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Singapore wanted the
United States to stay in the Philippines.
To allay Deng’s concern about Singapore’s attitude to the Soviets, I listed
our main trading partners – Japan, the United States, Malaysia and the European
Union, each with 12–14 per cent of our total world trade. China was only 1.8 per
cent and the Soviet Union a mere 0.3 per cent. Soviet contribution to our
economic life was negligible. I also needed no lessons on the hegemonistic
behaviour of the Russians. I recounted to him how in 1967, after visiting Abu
Simbel and Aswan, when I was returning to Cairo on an Egyptian aircraft
accompanied by an Egyptian minister, there was a commotion in the cockpit as
the plane was about to land. The minister excused himself to go to the cockpit.
After the plane landed, I discovered that the Soviet pilot of another plane had

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told airport control he did not understand English, and demanded priority to land
ahead of the VIP plane. The Egyptian minister had to bark his order from the
cockpit to ensure that the VIP plane landed before the Soviet plane. I needed no
lessons on the arrogance of the Russians.
China wanted Southeast Asian countries to unite with it to isolate the
“Russian bear”; the fact was that our neighbours wanted us to unite and isolate
the “Chinese dragon”. There were no “overseas Russians” in Southeast Asia
leading communist insurgencies supported by the Soviet government, as there
were “overseas Chinese” encouraged and supported by the Chinese Communist