"The Pacific is where the future of the world lies."
-- Ronald Reagan, October 1984
"The Soviet Union is also an Asian and Pacific country."
-- Mikhail Gorbachev, July 1986
Three U.S. naval ships last week pulled into the northern Chinese port of Qingdao as a 21-gun salute fired and a 27-piece brass band played Happy Days Are Here Again. The vessels were in China for a six-day stopover, the first such visit by American military ships to the People's Republic since the Communist takeover in 1949. The port call had been delayed by more than a year, following Peking's unexpected statement that no nuclear-armed vessels would be permitted to dock. But the Chinese apparently had second thoughts after reports began to circulate last summer that North Korea had granted Soviet vessels calling rights at the port of Nampo, just 340 miles across the | Yellow Sea. As Peking and Washington basked in last week's goodwill, the U.S. maintained its policy of refusing to say whether the vessels were nuclear- armed, and the Chinese raised no questions about the nuclear capacities of the visiting vessels.
The port call was a symbolic victory for Washington in the diplomatic war of nerves now emerging in the Pacific between the superpowers. The contest began in earnest 15 months ago, when Moscow secured fishing rights to the tuna-rich waters of Kiribati, a tiny 33-island former British colony in the South Pacific. Since then, much has happened to heighten Washington's jitters. Last June, Vanuatu, formerly the British-French territory of New Hebrides, opened diplomatic relations with Moscow, following the lead of Fiji and three other Pacific island states. Vanuatu is currently negotiating a pact with the Soviets that would include, in addition to fishing licenses, port and landing rights.
If Moscow's Pacific overtures were confined to the island states, the Klaxons might not be sounding so furiously in Washington. But the Soviet diplomatic offensive has a wider reach. Last June the Kremlin created a new bureau within the Foreign Ministry, the so-called Pacific Ocean Department, and began dispatching high-level trade and goodwill delegations throughout the region. Then on July 28, in a 90-minute address in Vladivostok, the Soviet Union's main Pacific port, General Secretary Gorbachev boldly signaled far larger designs. Reminding his audience that the "greater part of our territory lies east of the Urals, in Asia," Gorbachev mapped out an ambitious Soviet policy that includes extensive diplomatic and economic ties throughout the region, concentrating on China and Japan.
The speech received close attention in Washington. Since World War II the U.S. has been the Pacific's paramount power, and since 1980 the Pacific Rim has superseded Western Europe as America's most important overseas trading partner. The Vladivostok speech showed that the Soviets intend to claim a share of Asia's economic success. Some analysts also heard an implied threat to U.S. military supremacy in the region. Says Rick Fisher of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington: "The Soviet goal in Asia is power."