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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Laos
Index
Grand Presidential Palace, Vientiane
Courtesy Gina Merris
One of the royal elephants in a New Year's parade in Louangphrabang
in 1975, ridden by its Lao Theung handler
Courtesy Ernest Kuhn
Boats on the Mekong River, Louangphrabang
Courtesy Gina Merris
Man transporting bamboo; in the background are posters, removed
around 1990, proclaiming the New Economic Mechanism and urging a
stop to United States bombing.
Courtesy Gina Merris
More than most countries, Laos suffers the constraints
of
physical location in shaping its foreign policy.
Historically, the
landlocked Laotian kingdom of Lan Xang, situated along the
middle
stretch of the Mekong River, had to contend with the
predatory
kingdoms of Burma to the north, Vietnam to the east, and
Siam
(present-day Thailand) to the west. After these kingdoms'
seventeenth-century period of ascendancy, the lowland Lao
kingdom
broke up into the principality of Louangphrabang (Luang
Prabang),
which survived by offering tribute to both east and west,
and
Vientiane and Champasak (Bassac), which were reduced by
the end of
the eighteenth century to tributaries of Siam. Vietnam
then
asserted suzerainty over Xiangkhoang and Khammouan to the
west
(see Early History
, ch. 1). Thus, the foreign relations of the
Laotians
reflected their geography--landlocked and narrowly
confined by
valleys and mountains that supported a limited,
overwhelmingly
agricultural population exposed to more numerous and
productive
neighbors. In addition, the lack of national cohesion
among various
tribal groups subsisting in the mountains diminished the
thrust of
Laotian statehood.
Starting in 1893, Laotian kingdoms were subjected to
the
"protection" of France, which reasserted Vietnamese claims
against
Siam to all Laotian territories east of the Mekong River
and in
Xaignabouri and Champasak. This period of subordination
was
followed by the intervention of the United States and
Thailand
after 1954, succeeded by Vietnamese communists after 1975.
More
recently, since 1989, foreign policy has veered back
toward more
independence, in relinquishing both Marxist-Leninist
ideology and
the special influence of Vietnam.
The geographical and demographic confines of Laos have
not been
the only constraints on its foreign policy. Given the
weakness of
the state, the international environment has largely
determined
both the opportunities and the limits of national
strategy. The
most obvious recent example is the economic collapse and
political
breakup of the Soviet Union and the consequent
retrenchment of its
economic assistance throughout Indochina. This series of
events
helped cause Vietnam's withdrawal of its troops from
Cambodia and
Laos by 1990, which encouraged Thailand to reenter
Indochina as a
field for business. In turn, Vietnam sought to normalize
relations
with China, which also withdrew its military support from
Cambodia.
These policy shifts redefined the conceivable
strategies for a
government concerned with economic development and
political
leeway. The shibboleths of Marxism-Leninism and
state-organized
agriculture and industry were no longer appropriate. In
need of
economic advice and investment, Laos looked beyond Vietnam
and the
Soviet bloc, to the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP--see Glossary)
and other international organizations, and aid
from a few
Western nations and Japan. Besides increasing dramatically
the
presence of Thai traders and investors, Laos responded
positively
to the International Monetary Fund
(IMF--see Glossary) and
advice
from various United Nations (UN) agencies
(see Foreign Aid
, ch. 3).
At the same time, it began to establish a legal foundation
for the
protection of business risk-takers. Thus, the road to
"national
uplift" no longer stretched through the alien fields of
Soviet/Vietnamese collectivism; people in Mekong Valley
towns could
see more products in their markets, and peasants began to
believe
that communal agriculture was a government imposition not
likely to
return.
Despite the security gained during the French
protectorate,
Laos lost ground economically because of its slowness in
absorbing
European technology and in developing trade beyond its
borders. By
and large, it failed to tap the mineral resources beneath
its
mountains, except for tin, which was mined by the French,
and to
investigate its oil potential. It did next to nothing to
build an
infrastructure for international trade. Even if a railroad
system
and reliable roads had been built, Laos still would have
confronted
potential controls over its access to the sea from
Thailand or
Vietnam. However, the hydroelectric capacity of the
country has
provided a major export that Thailand cannot afford to do
without
(see Industrial Output and Employment
, ch. 3).
Because the rugged Annamite Mountains separate the
Mekong
Valley from Vietnamese population centers to the east,
physical
communication with the Thai nation to the west has always
been
easier, even before the Friendship Bridge across the river
was
completed in April 1994. Thus, the threat of Thai
intervention
across the Mekong River cannot be treated lightly by the
LPDR's
military planners, particularly under dry season
conditions. At the
same time, the ease of Vietnamese infiltration through the
Annamite
Mountains was thoroughly demonstrated during the years of
the Ho
Chi Minh Trail, which led across southeastern Laos into
the
Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam).
Data as of July 1994
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