SE Asia keeps the peace 50 years after Vietnam War
Region mainly untouched by interstate conflict since Vietnam War, an equilibrium US vs China rivalry is putting to the test
On April 30, 1975, the last American helicopter lifted off the roof of the US embassy in Saigon hours before North Vietnamese tanks crashed through the gates of then-South Vietnam’s presidential palace, marking the end of the Vietnam War. Since then, Southeast Asia has been mostly unafflicted by interstate war.
There was, of course, Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia in December 1978 and China’s retaliatory assault on Vietnam along their shared border months later in 1979. But these were largely legacies of Indochina’s larger conflict that started when France sought to defeat Vietnam’s bid for independence in the 1950s.
The lesson of this period half a century ago, which cost as many as four million lives, is that great powers were militarily defeated and failed to prevail. Southeast Asian states, although riven by internal tension and conflict, have since then managed to fend off external intrusion and coexist in awkward though peaceful equilibrium.
This signifies a historical resilience and immunity that, in today’s era of multipolarity and evolving spheres of influence, should serve Southeast Asia well. As other regions of the world fall prey to proxy conflict and perpetual instability – particularly the Middle East – the ten nations of Southeast Asia have managed to resist overt great power alignment and enjoy relative geopolitical stability.
Southeast Asia has always been difficult to subjugate. In pre-modern times, it was hard for the larger powers to mount anything other than cultural invasions. India and China’s influence was largely maintained using trade, diplomacy and, in the case of India, spirituality, as rulers in the region found useful ways to harness the caste-based hierarchies of Hinduism.
China repeatedly sought to impose control over Vietnam but was time and again repelled. Beijing was satisfied with receiving symbolic forms of tribute, from which Southeast Asian kingdoms mostly profited in terms of trade.
The arrival of Europeans in the 16th century heralded more successful intrusion, with the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, English and later the French establishing trading empires based on military control over key ports.
Much later these became the focal points of larger imperial domains that harnessed people to the land to produce valuable exports of commodities. Only Thailand resisted imperial takeover while relinquishing territory to ever-pressing French and British empires to its east and west.
Japan’s invasion and occupation of the region in the 1940s set the stage for home-grown nationalism that eventually managed to overcome European rule.
It was this strong sense of nationalist identity, drawing on European ideas of liberalism as well as communism, that set the stage for America’s ultimate defeat in Vietnam.
Today, two generations on, the Vietnam War is a distant memory. Although for much of the region outside Vietnam there was much to gain from the wider impact of the conflict, and for the people of the region, just as much to lose.
America’s anti-communist crusade was beneficial for countries like Thailand and the Philippines, which saw a boom in trade and investment supported by US fears of the spread of communist ideology.
This same fear of communist takeover stimulated US support for strongman military rule in many countries and stifled the democratic impulses that accompanied successful anti-colonial struggles. It took another two decades for the after-effects of American intervention to be rolled back.
The “People’s Power” revolution in the Philippines in 1986 forced the US to abandon its close anti-communist ally Ferdinand Marcos after Filipinos revolted against his repressive and kleptocratic rule.
A decade plus later, Suharto of Indonesia, another anti-communist Western ally, also succumbed to a popular reform movement.
Ironically, perhaps, Communist Party-ruled Vietnam itself has not seen a longer-term freedom dividend. The triumph of Hanoi’s communist leadership over the US laid the foundations of enduring one-party rule, even as the Vietnamese economy has thrived and grown into a regional powerhouse.
Laos and Cambodia greatly suffered during the Indochina conflict from massive collateral bombing campaigns that spawned harsh reactionary politics and longer-term instability from which neither country has fully recovered.
As for the larger powers, half a century later, the US and China have resumed their contest for primacy in the region. For the past 15 years, Washington has tried to force Southeast Asia to align with its aims of constraining and countering China’s rise.
China has reacted by asserting claims to islands and features in the South China Sea, somewhat undermining a more constructive policy since the 1990s of mutually beneficial trade and investment in the now hotly contested maritime region.
Even as Beijing’s win-win rhetoric wears thin in a region that fears the overbearing weight of the Chinese economy, the new Trump administration’s reckless trade and financial policies, not to mention the dismantling of American aid programs, have undermined the Biden administration’s efforts to strengthen allies and partners in the region.
Ultimately what has saved Southeast Asia from another protracted period of inter-state conflict is the region’s refusal to take sides. During the Vietnam War, Thailand dispatched more than 35,000 troops to help defend US-backed South Vietnam, while the Philippines sent another 10,000 troops.
Today, this kind of military deployment would be hard to imagine, even though Thailand and the Philippines remain treaty allies of the US.
One significant upshot of the Indochina conflict has been the creation of weak but functional multilateral regional frameworks. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), established in 1967, was principally designed to prevent interstate conflict in the region.
Although much maligned for its inability to manage internal conflicts within member states such as Myanmar, ASEAN has largely achieved what it was designed to do.
The inability of Middle Eastern states to forge the same kind of multilateral cooperation and resilience has made it much easier for the US and other emerging regional powers to continue to intervene.
Fifteen years after the end of the Iraq War, US troops remain stationed across the Middle East and there is currently the possibility of a war against Iran.
Fifty years after that last American helicopter left Saigon, the US deploys a small number of rotational troops under a non-permanent base agreement with the Philippines, but the majority, some 80,000, are based in Japan and South Korea.
For if there is to be a conflict between China and the US, it is more likely to be in Northeast Asia, in and around the Taiwan Strait.
By Michael Vatikiotis – Asia Times – April 21, 2025