The United States and the “Chinese Problem” of Southeast Asia

Extract

In October 1967, Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore paid his first official visit to the United States. Over the past year, Lee had become increasingly forthright in his support of U.S. intervention in Vietnam. Washington was eager to have him plead its case to the American public. To this end, U.S. officials arranged for journalists to interview Lee on the National Broadcasting Corporation’s Meet the Press program on October 22. Twelve minutes into the televised interview, Seymour Topping of the New York Times proposed to “shift” from discussing the Vietnam War to the real “questions in our minds”: China’s relationship with Southeast Asia. Topping asked Lee to “estimate” whether China, despite the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution, remained a “danger” to Southeast Asia, and to speak “as a Chinese who understands China.” Lee shot back: “I can’t speak as a Chinese because I am a Singaporean.” He stated that he was of “Chinese ethnic stock,” a distinction he began to insist was most “crucial” when Topping said that answering “as an ethnic Chinese” would suffice. Smiling wryly, Lee intoned that Beijing and the “aspirant in Taipei” would take umbrage that he presumed to speak for the Chinese. But he could not resist the opportunity to become the United States’ informal advisor on Chinese foreign affairs. Lee claimed he did indeed possess “the built-in memory—programming of the Chinese people,” and proceeded to address Topping’s question at length.¹