Baker Hoping to Calm Criticism of Indochina Policies : Diplomacy: He arrives for ASEAN meeting. A change in U.S. stance on Cambodia will be high on the agenda.

Secretary of State James A. Baker III arrived in Indonesia on Thursday, seeking to deflect an extraordinary outpouring of criticism from Southeast Asian nations angry over current U.S. policies toward Indochina.

Over the next three days, Baker is scheduled to meet with leaders of the Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the regional organization that includes the six non-Communist nations of Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Brunei.

Ordinarily, ASEAN’s annual meetings are harmonious affairs in which Southeast Asian leaders and their friends in the West line up to praise the virtues of democracy and free markets. But in recent days, Southeast Asian officials have voiced growing irritation both over recent U.S. policy changes toward Cambodia and over U.S. failure to help them stem the exodus of Vietnamese refugees.

On Tuesday, the ASEAN foreign ministers issued a blistering statement denouncing the United States for its refusal to countenance the forced repatriation of Vietnamese “boat people” who wash ashore in Southeast Asian countries.

Tens of thousands of Vietnamese are now living in refugee camps throughout the Southeast Asian countries and Hong Kong. The United States has repeatedly argued that they should not be forced back to Vietnam, at least until there are major changes in Hanoi’s Communist system.

Several Southeast Asian leaders also have attacked the Bush Administration for its recent decision, spearheaded by Baker, to begin talking to Vietnam about a peace settlement in Cambodia and to withdraw U.S. recognition from a coalition of Cambodian guerrilla groups that includes the brutal Khmer Rouge. When the Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1978, between 1 million and 2 million Cambodians are believed to have been murdered or to have died of starvation or illness.

For the past decade, the ASEAN nations and the United States had joined together to support this Cambodian rebel coalition for a seat in the United Nations. In announcing the switch in policy, Baker said that the United States was worried that the Khmer Rouge might return to power.

At a news conference aboard his plane on the way to Asia, Baker acknowledged the disagreements between the United States and the Southeast Asian governments but suggested that he would try to smooth over the differences at the upcoming meetings here.

During his airborne news conference, Baker also sought to minimize the importance of the disputes over Cambodia policy. He emphasized that both the United States and the Southeast Asian countries still share the same goals: to prevent the Khmer Rouge from returning to power, to reach a political settlement that would result in a new democratic government in Cambodia and to get Vietnamese troops out of Cambodia.