HC Deb 14 November 1973 vol 864 cc628-38

9.57 p.m.

Sir Frederic Bennett (Torquay)

I must admit that I found the Adjournment debate to which we have just listened extremely educational on a very different subject from the one I am about to raise. The subject which I am raising relates to a rather wider canvas.

The reason why I bring this subject to the attention of the House tonight is that it is only a short time ago that a part of the world, the Middle East, which then appeared apparently quiescent, suddenly burst out into a rather dramatic situation. It caught many of us and certainly many chancelleries throughout the world unawares. I have an uneasy suspicion that there is another part of the world where there is also a smouldering fire which could come alight much more quickly than many of us could fairly appreciate today. I refer to South-East Asia.

It is many years since John Foster Dulles initiated the domino theory. That theory was to the effect that, if South Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand fell within a militant Communist grasp, what would follow would be a tumbling of all the remaining bastions of democracy in that part of the world, stretching even across the oceans to Australasia. The domino theory has since been discredited in debate over and again but I am not sure that it has yet been finally discredited in the event as opposed to what should happen in theory. There is not very much doubt today that there is a real fear in South Vietnam of massive new aggression by the Communists intended utterly to obliterate what has been accomplished in South Vietnam after the Americans have left.

This fear involves a massive new onslaught which will take place in the context of an American withdrawal, and because of the American domestic political situation, apart from any other consideration, it involves the virtual certainty that America will not engage herself in salvaging any strategic position in South-East Asia in so far as this applies to Laos, Cambodia and South Vietnam. In these circumstances, since this could happen tonight or tomorrow, I would remind my hon. Friends who do not need reminding—and Labour Members who, by their absence tonight, clearly need reminding—that South Vietnam is now in extreme fear of being overwhelmed or at least attacked in great strength because of the present uncertainties within the Western Alliance and certainly within the United States which are interfering with the chance of any decisive policies emanating from that part of the world.

It being Ten o'clock, the motion for the adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Gray.]

Sir F. Bennett

The point I was seeking to advance was that just as a few weeks ago we on these benches would not have thought that within days, if not hours, we should be facing the biggest single crisis—in the Middle East—that has arisen since the Berlin blockade, so we could be faced with a new crisis which would call on all our resources and imaginative thinking to overcome it.

South Vietnam regards this threat extremely seriously. Indeed, there are ominous proofs in the military sphere that such an attack is in the offing. In these circumstances we must consider what the rest of us can muster to meet the challenge. We need to look at a balance sheet. Since the days of John Foster Dulles certain events have taken place on the credit as well as on the debit side. We often make the mistake of imagining that all the cards are always in the Communists' hands when often, due either to their own folly or the intervention of God, the cards sometimes come into our hands. Of course, the most important card is that Indonesia is no longer the threat to the West that it was a number of years ago.

Another fortuitous happening during the last few years is that China, although a Communist State, has realised the dangers of getting into an embrace with the Russian bear and is now showing every sign of wishing to be extricated from that embrace. This, too, is on the credit side. We have to deal no longer with a united Communist expansionist force in that part of the world but with two great Powers whose interests may not always coincide China's best interests certainly do not lie in allowing the Soviet Union to achieve a pre-eminent position throughout South-East Asia.

I should like briefly to turn to what our contribution could continue to be towards security in that part of the world. Our influence, both direct and indirect, has been minimised by the economic and political events of the last 25 years. However, we still have a five-Power Commonwealth defence pact in that part of the world. Those who criticise and laugh at that should go to Malaysia and Singapore where they will find that the utmost value is attached to this arrangement on a far greater scale than we perhaps accord to it over here. Indeed, not only the Malaysian Government but the Prime Minister of Singapore is on record as saying how much importance he attaches to a continuing Commonwealth presence with a leading British participation to maintain security in that part of the world.

It is a tribute to both Singapore and Malaysia that they do not seem to suffer from the same sense of post-imperialist chips on their shoulders as do some other parts of the world. They do not feel any sense of inferiority because they have forces from friendly Powers on, or within easy reach of, their shores to present a secure front against aggression.

No one suggests that this arrangement between the five Commonwealth Powers could be an effective answer to a massive Communist onslaught, but in an uneasy world it is a useful factor. In the same way, no one would suggest that a policeman on the beat could stop a massive riot in a city, but his presence is a useful factor in maintaining a degree of security.

Mr. Patrick Cormack (Cannock)

It is a real deterrent.

Sir F. Bennett

In many ways, yes, an effective and human deterrent.

If we were able to penetrate the councils in Peking, I think we should find that the five-Power arrangement is not altogether unwelcome there at present—but I do not ask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary to State to comment on that. Nor, I imagine, is the arrangement unwelcome in Japan. Certainly it is not unwelcome in Indonesia.

My hon. Friend has had talks with the heads of mission of all the States in that part of the world. I hope that without breaching diplomatic confidence he can tell us something of the impressions he gained. I hope he can tell us also of his recent conversations with one of our best friends out there, the Sultan of Brunei, a remarkable figure who has, under successive British Governments and in not always very popular circumstances, maintained close links with this country—not always understood or appreciated by Left-wing critics in the Opposition in this House.

Recently there have been political changes in Australia and New Zealand. I recently visited both countries. My impression was that although New Zealand has changed from a National to a Labour Government this has not meant any weakening in her determination to continue to supply her contingent to the five-Power pact. I am not so sure about Australia, but perhaps my hon. Friend will be able to tell us more about that because, although it cannot be our business to dictate to Australia how she should interpret her obligations towards security in that part of the world, as an Englishman I would say that it is not always easy to persuade one's constituents in this country that we have a remaining obligation to look after Australasian security by stationing our forces there when, apparently, the leading country in the area does not seem to appreciate this obligation. It is difficult to maintain the principle.

Papua-New Guinea is shortly to get full independence. Naturally we wish it well. But no one who knows that part of the world imagines that it will be an easy prospect. Without wanting to interfere with the choice that Australia has made, I hope my hon. Friend will make it clear that we in Britain, because of our continuing sense of obligation to that part of the world, have the right to expect that those who benefit from our sharing of that responsibility also play their full part.

10.8 p.m.

Mr. Patrick Cormack (Cannock)

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Torquay (Sir F. Bennett) on his sense of priorities and his initiative in obtaining this debate, seizing upon a rare half hour in the calendar of the House to bring before us with foresight and moderation some of the really important issues facing not only the nation but the world.

So often we become preoccupied with parochial difficulties. Yesterday we got ourselves very involved in discussions on the state of emergency and tomorrow we shall pursue the subject. But the real state of emergency facing our way of life, our freedom and the things we truly believe in and cherish is not the state of emergency proclaimed yesterday and which will be debated tomorrow but the one to which my hon. Friend has referred. I congratulate him on his initiative and thank him for his generosity in allowing me to take up a few minutes of the debate. What a pity it is that the Chamber is nearly always empty when we debate these matters of crucial world importance.

However important social security, industrial relations and so on may be, what really matters is the security and the territorial integrity of our nation and the Western Alliance. In speaking, albeit briefly, about some of the problems of South-East Asia my hon. Friend was drawing our attention, on a day full of glad tidings, to some of the graver problems that remain in the world.

I want to concentrate my few remarks upon the country to which my hon. Friend referred in his opening remarks, South Vietnam. I know the country, although not as well as I should like. It is a country that is beautiful, historic, tragic, troubled and war-torn. It has seen more stark tragedy and more searing trouble than has any country since the end of hostilities in 1945. South Vietnam, with American assistance, at which it is so fashionable to scoff but which we should applaud, has maintained against almost overwhelming aggression its integrity and its spirit to survive.

Just over two years ago I went to Vietnam to observe the presidential elections. There was only one candidate, and that fact became a subject of derision, but there were what a former right hon. Member would have called little local difficulties which accounted for there being only one candidate. At least there was an impressive plebiscite in which people were enabled to register an opinion and to go about their business with a degree of freedom—not the degree of freedom which hundreds of years of problems and progress have enabled us to enjoy, but a certain degree of freedom.

I was impressed, as was Lord Kennet, of the Labour Party, who accompanied me. We saw a nation that was trying to assert its nationhood and that had in the face of overwhelming difficulties managed to survive. We went at a time when the Americans were beginning to realise that they had to extricate themselves. It is not for this House to pass judgment upon the reasons which led our great ally to come to that conclusion. Some form of peace had to be achieved, and I rejoiced, as did every right hon. and hon. Member, when the peace formula was evolved and the signatures were flourished earlier this year. The danger is that that merely is a flourish and a hollow peace. As we speak tonight forces are massing which threaten the existence of that nation.

Although it would be totally unrealistic and stupid to advocate that we have either the responsibility or the ability by military presence to arrest what may threaten South Vietnam, we have a historic and residual responsibility in that part of the world to which my hon. Friend the Member for Torquay alluded which means that we cannot, to use hackneyed and oft-quoted words, stand idly by while a brave and small nation is threatened with annihilation.

I therefore hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, who will speak for Her Majesty's Government, will assure us that we shall do everything in our power to put our country's position in as forthright and positive a way as we can and that the Government will assert tonight from the Front Bench and on every conceivable occasion that we believe in the territorial integrity of this small nation which, with all its shortcomings and bearing in mind that there is no perfect democracy in the world, least of all in Asia, deserves the right to survive. It deserves above all the right to enjoy the terms which were agreed in the peace negotiation—that candidates of all parties should be presented to the people of Vietnam and that they should have, without the thrust of the bayonet or the threat of the machine gun, the opportunity to register in the ballot box their verdict about the future of their country.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield)

It is rather different in the North.

Mr. Cormack

Yes, but I am talking about the South and our residual responsibilities as co-chairman of the conference held nearly 20 years ago. I am also talking about our historic rêle in Asia and, in the context of the Common Market, of the French responsibility in Asia and the responsibility which we must share if all the talk of a European policy is not to be so much idle chatter and nonsense.

I therefore hope that we shall have a positive and forceful declaration from my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, because too often, and very recently, we have perhaps been content to neglect our friends and to shrug off the responsibilities which friendship places upon a nation.

Mr. Winterton

Czechoslovakia, Hungary.

Mr. Cormack

We shall never forget those matters, but let us tonight concentrate on the area which we are discussing. Let us not bring in questions of the Middle East and so on.

In my eyes, this country stands for certain things. I sought to become a Member of Parliament for one reason before all others: I hoped that in the closing decades of the twentieth century Britain would deserve the name of Great Britain in the way it did in the opening decades and in those great and difficult years when the greatest of all Englishmen whose statue stands in the Lobby presided over the destinies of this nation.

10.20 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Anthony Royle)

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Torquay (Sir F. Bennett) on bringing up this subject for debate this evening. As my hon. Friends who are present know—I see no hon. Gentleman on the benches opposite—my comments will be very much off the cuff, as it was ony recently that I heard we were to have this debate.

My hon. Friend rightly took advantage of the opportunity to raise the subject of South-East Asia, a subject for which I have had responsibility in the Foreign Office under my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs for three and a half years. I am, therefore, particularly glad to have this chance, even off the cuff, to reply to the debate.

During the last three and a half years we have lived through a fascinating period in Asia. We have seen immense developments taking place and immense changes in the relations between nations in that area. My hon. Friend, in a skilful speech—because he covered a great deal of ground in a short time—mentioned the emergence of China. That has been the most important development of the last two or three years.

This great nation of 750 million people is now a full permanent member of the Security Council at the United Nations. It has relations with many more countries than it did two or three years ago, and it is a country with which Britain has achieved relations which are on a better level than they have ever been during the whole time that the Communist Government has been in power in Peking following the revolution after the last war.

As my hon. Friend said, the emergence of China on the world stage to play a responsible rêle in world affairs has had a dramatic effect on the relationships between nations in the area. My hon. Friend mentioned in particular China's attitude towards affairs and events in Indo-China during the last few months, and in an important and impressive speech my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock (Mr. Cormack) dealt with the affairs of South Vietnam and underlined the importance of Indo-China to events in that area as a whole.

One of the encouraging aspects of the developments that have occurred in Indo-China over the last year or 18 months is the interest of the Soviet Union and China, and the fact that that interest developed into a rivalry which made it easier for Powers interested in the area—and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock rightly stressed, we have an interest as one of the co-chairmen of the 1954 Geneva Conference—to get together for the peace conference that was held in Paris in February of this year. I attended that conference as deputy to my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, and it was at that conference that certain agreements were reached.

The key to seeing whether those agreements are followed through and carried out now rests with Hanoi. It is Hanoi which, over the last few weeks, has tended—and here I confirm the concern expressed this evening by my hon. Friends—to increase and enlarge the number of her men and equipment in South Vietnam. That is a matter which the British Government view with some concern. It is a responsibility of all parties to the Paris Agreements to carry out those agreements.

Last month I had the honour of visiting Laos, where I had a long talk with the Prime Minister, Souvanna Phouma. It is encouraging that the protocols which were agreed in September are now being implemented, and I think there is some hope of a solution—shall we call it a Laos solution?—for that unhappy war-torn country, which I believe will be a significant step towards peace in the area.

I should like to take this opportunity to congratulate a friend of many of my hon. Friends and, I hope, of hon. Gentlemen opposite—I am thinking of the South Vietnamese Ambassador in London, Mr. Bac—on his promotion to Foreign Minister of South Vietnam, something which all his friends here greatly appreciate.

South Vietnam's relations with this country have always been extremely close. We maintain that the State of South Vietnam is an entity, and indeed, this was established at the peace conference in Paris earlier in the year. To my mind, if all the nations which signed those documents in Paris in February stick to those agreements in them, as I hope they will, there is a chance of achieving a permanent peaceful solution in the area. But again, I stress that Her Majesty's Government are concerned at the build-up of men and materials by North Vietnam in South Vietnam over recent weeks.

My hon. Friend the Member for Torquay mentioned the heads of mission conference last month which I presided over at Chiang Mai in Thailand. That was an important conference. There were present our British Ambassadors to Saigon, Phnom Penh and Vientiane, our Chargé d'Affaires in Hanoi, our Ambassadors in Bangkok and Rangoon, the High Commissioners in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Brunei, and our Ambassadors in Djakarta and Manila. I was also accompanied by officials from the Foreign Office in London. We had a valuable exchange of views. These exchanges took place at a time of great change in the area as a whole.

My hon. Friend mentioned the five-Power arrangements, which are a very important aspect of British policy for the maintenance of peace in the area. The five-Power arrangements, which are supported by Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain, will remain in existence only as long as the people of the area wish. As my hon. Friend said, the arrangements provide an element of stability in the area.

It is worth underlining at this point the British interest in the area in the context of our arrival in the European Economic Community. The Community has a very important economic rôle to play in Asia. I was glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock mentioned that point, and particularly in the light of the French interest in Indo-China and the British interest in Malaysia and Singapore.

It is important to realise that our joining the European Economic Community in no way undermines our responsibilities and desire to play a part in the Far East. We have at present more British forces in the area than any outside Power except the United States. We have over six major units in Hong Kong as well as a battalion and air force and naval elements helping in the five-Power arrangements. New Zealand continues also to have forces there. While we regret Australia's decision to withdraw her battalion from Singapore, we are glad that she is retaining her interest by keeping her aircraft at Butterworth. Those aircraft play a very important part in the five-Power arrangements.

In addition, we have a Ghurka battalion in Brunei. My hon. Friend mentioned the talks that I have had recently in London with the Sultan of Brunei and the Sultan's father, Sir Omar. These were important talks. We had five or six meetings lasting many hours. Our discussions have been very successful. His Highness the Sultan returns to Brunei tomorrow. Relations between this country and Brunei are extremely close. In Britain we view with admiration the efforts that His Highness the Sultan has made to bring on the welfare of the people of Brunei, for whose internal affairs he has the sole responsibility. Our responsibility, following the signature of the 1959 agreement and the amending 1971 agreement, is for external affairs alone.

I am afraid that I have had only 10 minutes or so to speak off the cuff. I have endeavoured to do that. I have tried to cover a lot of ground. It has been rather scratchy. However, I repeat how much I appreciate my hon. Friend's raising this important matter. I wish we could have more time to talk about our relations with, and our general policy towards, our friends in South-East Asia.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Ten o'clock.