Soviets Push for Power in the Pacific : Gorbachev Faces Problems There, but His Intent Is Clear

Mikhail S. Gorbachev has served notice that he intends for the Soviet Union to become a Pacific power in the fullest sense of the term. The Soviet leader has some major obstacles to overcome in pursuing that goal--not the least of which is ham-handed Soviet behavior in the area since World War II. But his initiative must be taken seriously.

Actually, Russia has been a Pacific power longer than the United States. Russia’s imperial expansion reached the Pacific Ocean in 1640. A Russian governor set up shop in Alaska in 1799, and a Russian colony was established in Northern California in 1812--well before the first Americans arrived. The enunciation of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823 was in part due to Czar Alexander’s announced intention of closing the Pacific Coast north of San Francisco to all but Russian ships.

Today the Soviet Union maintains an intimidating military presence on the approaches to Japan. Soviet military bases in Vietnam threaten sea lanes between the Pacific and Indian oceans and pose a real challenge to the U.S. Navy. And Moscow already is maneuvering to increase Soviet influence in the South Pacific.

The fact remains that if you use the Soviets’ own standard of the correlation of forces--a concept that includes economic, political and psychological factors as well as military strength--the Soviet Union isn’t in the same league with the United States and Japan as movers and shakers in the area.

Moscow was trying to change that well before Gorbachev moved into the Kremlin’s top job 17 months ago. But his recent speech at Vladivostok was a “damned significant” move, in the words of a senior U.S. official, toward accelerating the effort.

U.S. attention focused on Gorbachev’s promise in that speech to remove 6,000 to 8,000 Soviet troops from Afghanistan. But that was only one ingredient of a wide-ranging, conciliatory talk aimed mostly at Asians--especially the Chinese.

In addition to promising a token withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, which also borders on China, the Kremlin chief said that he was considering withdrawal of a “substantial part” of the Soviet forces in Mongolia. He proposed a joint Amur River development project on the tense Soviet-Chinese border. A few days later a Soviet deputy foreign minister added that Moscow was ready to consider concessions in the long-simmering border dispute with China along the Amur and Ussuri rivers where fighting flared in 1969.

Addressing himself to a broader Pacific Basin audience, Gorbachev called for a Pacific security conference to start a “process of dialogue and agreements” similar to that growing out of the Helsinki Conference on European Security and Cooperation in 1975. The Soviet leader said that such talks should, among other things, aim at a “reduction of naval activity in the Pacific, above all nuclear-armed ships.”

Gorbachev’s initiative is understandable.

As they look eastward to Japan, the Soviets see a country with the world’s most successful economy, a veritable treasure-house of modern technology, a country that is replacing the United States as the world’s most important creditor nation.

If they look elsewhere in Asia, they see the most remarkable success stories in the Third World. Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong are becoming miniature, technologically proficient economic power houses in their own right.

And if the Soviets look at China, they see a country that has embarked on a determined program to marry its enormous population to advanced Western technology--a development that could in the long run make China a far more dangerous neighbor.

Most rankling of all, the successful Asian countries all have close ties to the United States. They depend on American markets for their exports, and they depend directly or indirectly on the United States for their military security. The Soviet Union’s client states in the region--Vietnam and North Korea--are economic basket cases by comparison.

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union faces the formidable task of modernizing its own economy--preferably without abandoning the long-term goal of expanding Soviet influence in the world.

It’s easy to see why Gorbachev would want to change all this--to conciliate the Chinese in order to make the border area safe for a money-saving reduction of Soviet forces, to tap into the economic life of the booming Pacific Basin and to gain political influence at Washington’s expense.

The Soviet leader has some troubled waters in which to fish.

If reform fails to stay ahead of revolution in the Philippines, the Soviets could get a major foothold. The anti-nuclear passions that are visible in New Zealand, in the tiny island nations of the South Pacific and even in Australia make them susceptible to Soviet calls for a nuclear-free zone in the Pacific. If protectionist pressures in the United States put a serious squeeze on export opportunities for the nations of East Asia, the resulting disgruntlement could make Soviet overtures more welcome.

It is unclear, however, that the Politburo is willing to do the things that would be necessary for the Soviets to take full advantage of such opportunities.

China probably would not be willing to abandon its increasingly valuable economic ties with the West no matter what Moscow did. But its stated requirements for any significant improvement in relations are reductions of Soviet troop concentrations along the Chinese border, removal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan and withdrawal of Soviet support for Vietnam’s forcible occupation of Kampuchea.

Gorbachev made an important gesture toward satisfying the first requirement. But Peking quickly denounced the token withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan as inadequate. And Gorbachev gave no indication whatsoever of willingness to negotiate a Soviet pullback from Vietnam.

Japan may see advantages in better relations with Moscow, if for no other reason than to gain leverage in the interminable trade squabbles with Washington. But Gorbachev’s speech contained no suggestion of willingness to consider a withdrawal from the northern islands that Tokyo looks on as Japanese territory.

Soviet behavior in other parts of the world, and its mischievous support of Vietnamese aggression, gives the more or less democratic countries of East Asia no reason to think that a Helsinki-style process of consultation with the Soviet Union would do anything to enhance their security.