Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (54 page)

Malaysia proved to be a far greater challenge to Deng than Thailand. Malaysian leaders did have concerns about Vietnamese and Soviet aims in the region, but they were even more worried about the activities of the ethnic Chinese living in Malaysia. Deng, knowing this, did not expect to receive the enthusiastic reception he had received in Thailand. At best, following classic united front strategy, he hoped to neutralize Vietnam's efforts to court Malaysia and to draw Malaysia closer to China's side.

Deng's host, Prime Minister Datuk Hussein Bin Onn, had good reason to be concerned about local ethnic Chinese and their relationship with China. In the 1950s the Communist movement in the British colony of Malaya was so strong that many Malays had feared that the Communists might take over after Malaysian independence.
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After Malaysian independence was achieved in 1963, the Malays were afraid that the ethnic Chinese, who had a strong political party, would dominate their government. To avoid this, Singapore, 75 percent ethnic Chinese and a part of Malaya, was cast out in 1965 and forced to become independent. Thereafter the Malays were a clear majority, even though ethnic Chinese still dominated the economy and the universities, and even though their powerful political party remained a constant thorn in Hussein Onn's side.

The ethnic Chinese also kept close ties to their original homeland. In May 1969 race riots erupted and lasted some two months; many local ethnic Chinese, worried about their futures, chose to keep their Chinese citizenship. When Deng visited in November 1978, the Communist Party of Malaysia was still active, most members were ethnic Chinese, and their general secretary Chin Ping sometimes took refuge in China.

Deng struck a more neutral tone with the Communist Party in Malaysia than the Vietnamese had done. Although he could not move right away to shut down the clandestine radio broadcasts, he did resolve to stop such activity (and in June 1981, at the time of the Sixth Plenum when Hua Guofeng was formally removed from his posts, China did finally shut down the clandestine Voice of Malaysia Revolution).
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But Deng carefully avoided distancing himself too much from the Communists in Malaysia. For instance, two
months before Deng visited Malaysia, even though he was a Communist, Vietnam Prime Minister Pham Van Dong had laid a ceremonial wreath at the memorial for Malay officials who had died suppressing Communist insurgents. Because Deng wanted Malaysia's support and because the Chinese Communist Party was no longer a revolutionary party, it would have been easy for Deng to do the same. But neither did he lay down a wreath, nor did he renounce the local Communist Party. Deng explained to Hussein Onn that he believed it would be difficult for China to attract and keep supporters abroad if it suddenly were to disown previous allies. He said that the Chinese government hoped to work with the Malaysian government, but the Chinese Communist Party would continue to have relations with Communist parties abroad, including Malaysia's. Datuk Hussein Bin Onn replied that Malaysia found that unacceptable, but Deng held firm.
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He had already resigned himself to the Malaysian government not giving China its whole-hearted cooperation. And he knew he could not suddenly disown China's past policies and the people with whom China had cooperated.
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In 1974 when China and Malaysia established formal diplomatic relations, Zhou Enlai announced that China would not accept dual nationality. Now Deng reiterated Zhou Enlai's policy, saying that ethnic Chinese who acquired Malaysian citizenship would automatically forfeit their Chinese nationality and that China encouraged all who lived in Malaysia to follow local customs.
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Deng was also on the defensive when pressed to discuss Pol Pot, who was anathema in Malaysia. Deng acknowledged the problems and explained that Pol Pot was the only Cambodian leader who could resist Vietnam and the country was too important strategically for China to push for a potentially destabilizing change of leadership.
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Deng's best hope for finding common ground with Malaysia lay in his support of the Malaysian proposal for a neutral political zone. In 1971 Malaysia's leader Tun Abdul Razak had proposed a Zone of Peace, Freedom, and Neutrality (ZOPFAN), designed to preserve local independence from the two Cold War powers. Deng praised Malaysia's initiatives in establishing a zone of peace, urging all of the ASEAN countries to close ranks and defend the ideal of a neutral zone in Southeast Asia, as a way of resisting increased efforts by Vietnam to infiltrate and expand into the area. Prime Minister Hussein Onn, who was himself worried about the threat of Vietnamese expansionism and who was aware that China was a major importer of Malaysian rubber, acknowledged Deng's point. Although he referred to Vietnam
only indirectly, he agreed that foreign aggression, interference, control, and subversion were intolerable.
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In his talks in Malaysia, Deng made no effort to evade the problems between the two countries; rather, he was frank and forthright in acknowledging them. At the end of his visit, Hussein Onn commented on this new openness, saying that Deng's visit had been a great opportunity to develop further mutual understanding: the two rounds of discussions had been “most useful and helpful” and he expressed some confidence that “the relationship between the two countries will prosper and be strengthened in the future.”
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Given the circumstances, this was the most Deng could hope for.

Singapore, November 12–14, 1978

Deng understood that Singapore, with a population that was 75 percent ethnic Chinese, did not want to appear to its larger and stronger neighbors to be too pro-Chinese. He realized as well that as a city-state of a mere two million people, Singapore had to adapt to the power realities in the region as the Soviets and Vietnamese increased their influence. But he also knew that Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore had an unusual grasp of geopolitical realities and exercised great influence in ASEAN and with Western governments. He hoped, then, that Lee might help persuade ASEAN to resist Vietnam and even help persuade the United States to assist China—or at least not stand in the way—if China should enter into a conflict with Vietnam.

During Lee's previous visit to China, in May 1976, Deng was rusticating in Jiangxi, so when Deng arrived in Singapore on November 12, 1978, it was their first meeting. There was a respectful distance between the two great leaders from very different backgrounds, each aware of the other's reputation. Lee's understanding of China was derived more from academic study than from personal experience, for he had grown up in an Anglicized family and had been educated in English, not Chinese, schools, and had excelled as a law student at Cambridge University, England. In fact, although he could speak four languages, he was not completely fluent in Mandarin, and he spoke English during their meeting to signal both that he was not constrained by his ethnic background and that his first loyalty was to Singapore. Deng, meanwhile, spoke only one language, Mandarin, with a Sichuanese accent. Deng, Lee's elder by eighteen years, was the leader of a socialist country, whereas Lee was the leader of a capitalist country. Lee had to face elections, Deng faced a
Politburo. When they met, Singapore was an orderly, tidy city-state already growing rapidly, and gigantic China was poor and messy. China's population was four hundred times that of Singapore, but Singapore, as the intellectual and financial center of Southeast Asia, and with a strong leader, was far more influential than its size would suggest. Both Deng and Lee graciously tried to bridge their personal differences; briefed on Deng's habits, Lee had prepared a spittoon and offered an ashtray for Deng to smoke (with a specially constructed duct in the wall to allow the smoke to exit). Deng, however, who had been informed about Lee's views and allergies, did not spit or smoke in Lee's presence.

Deng spent the entire first two-and-a-half-hour meeting spelling out the threats from the Soviet Union and Vietnam. Without notes, he gave a tour of the geopolitical horizon, like Kissinger or Zhou Enlai might have done, that came entirely from his own synthesis and long-term historical perspectives. But what struck Lee Kuan Yew most was Deng's grim intensity and sense of urgency about the threat from the Soviet Union and Vietnam. The Soviet Union, Deng said, was spending more on armaments—20 percent of its GNP—than the United States and Europe combined. It had some 4.5 million men and women in its armed forces. And just as the Russian czars had coveted a corridor to the south, so too did the Soviet leaders now hope to push to the south, first to establish ports on the Indian Ocean and then to control the sea lanes from the Middle East. In pursuit of this goal, Deng warned, the Soviet Union had already amassed about 750 warships and was rapidly expanding its Pacific fleet. The Soviets were also seeking military bases and control over resources. But although war seemed inevitable, Deng said, China was determined to oppose the strategic deployments of the Soviet Union.

Deng went on to discuss the Vietnamese perspective. The Vietnamese had a long-cherished dream of forming an Indochinese federation to control Laos and Cambodia and to dominate Southeast Asia. The Vietnamese already controlled Laos, and considered Soviet help essential for advancing toward their immediate goal of unifying Indochina. China was considered a central obstacle. In this context, Deng explained, continued Chinese aid to Vietnam would never be enough to counter the Soviets' support for their dream of hegemony, and would only help Vietnam expand. So China had decided to cut its aid to Vietnam.
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When Deng, with great intensity, laid out the dangers of Soviet-Vietnamese
domination, Lee pressed Deng on how China would respond to a Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia. Deng would only say that it depended how far Vietnam went. Lee surmised from this answer that if Vietnam crossed the Mekong River and went on to Phnom Penh, China would certainly respond militarily.
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Deng, aware that Lee was highly respected by American political leaders, expressed the hope that Lee Kuan Yew would pass on to the United States, before Deng's own visit there, the fact that China was very concerned about a possible Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia. Lee later complied.
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Deng went on to discuss long-term prospects for relations in the region. In particular, he said that conditions were not yet ripe for China to try to pull Vietnam away from the Soviet Union, but in another eight to ten years, a better opportunity might arise. Deng's estimate proved remarkably prescient.

The following morning, on November 13, Lee laid out for Deng the various Western estimates of Soviet military power. There was no doubt that the Soviet military forces were the largest and growing. But although some experts believed that the Soviets posed an imminent threat, others were convinced that the Soviet Union was overextended. To allay Deng's worries about Singapore's willingness to welcome the Soviets to the region, Lee explained that Singapore traded mainly with Japan, the United States, Malaysia, and the European Union: only 0.3 percent of its trade was with the Soviet Union. (At the time, Singapore's trade with China constituted only 1.8 percent of its total trade.)

Lee explained that the ASEAN countries sought economic development, political stability, and national integrity. To Deng's surprise, Lee told him that the Southeast Asian countries were more worried about China than about Vietnam. Lee then described how the Southeast Asian countries worried about Chinese broadcasts encouraging revolution, especially among the ethnic Chinese, echoing the concern Deng had heard from the Thai and Malaysian leaders. Lee said that Southeast Asians were also aware that Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Van Dong had placed a wreath on the memorial to Malaysians who had fought against the Communist insurgents, but Deng had not. To Lee's surprise, Deng then asked, “What do you and the ASEAN countries want us to do?” Lee replied, “Stop the radio broadcasts.” Deng said he needed time to think about it. Lee was surprised that Deng, unlike virtually all other leaders whom he had met, was willing to change his mind when confronted with an unpleasant truth.
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But Deng was not willing to consider
laying a wreath in Malaysia for those who had killed Communists. Pham, he said, was selling his soul. Deng went on to say that the Chinese leaders have spoken honestly and if China promises something, it will carry it out.

By the time Deng left Singapore on November 14, the two leaders had developed a special relationship that, like that between Zhou Enlai and Kissinger, enabled them to communicate with mutual respect on a common wavelength. Lee and Deng had both come of age fighting colonialism, and both had lived abroad in a colonial power. Both had been bold leaders during their countries' revolutionary struggles, and both understood what it took to build order from a chaotic situation. Although Lee had received an English education, he had also studied Chinese history and could sense where Deng was coming from. They were both straightforward realists, utterly dedicated to their nations, who had risen to responsible positions at a young age and believed in the need for strong personal leadership. They understood power and thought strategically, taking into account long-term historical trends. Only one other person outside mainland China, Y. K. Pao (Yue-Kong Pao, founder of Hong Kong's World Wide Shipping Group), and no other political leader, had bonded with Deng the way Lee did. Deng had close ties with many foreign leaders, but his relationship with Lee reflected a greater depth of mutual understanding. From Deng's perspective, what made Lee and Y. K. Pao attractive was their extraordinary success in dealing with practical issues, their first-hand contacts with world leaders, their knowledge of world affairs, their grasp of long-term trends, and their readiness to face facts and speak the truth as they saw it. Lee considered Deng to be the most impressive leader he ever met—one who thought things through, and, when something went wrong, was ready to admit the mistake and set out to solve it.