From Foes to Friends: China and the United States in Laos' Foreign Policy.

• Date: 01 April 2024
• Author: Sayalath, Soulatha

The existing literature on foreign policy decision-making in Laos (formally the Lao People's Democratic Republic, or LPDR) pays little attention to the role of regime survival or the communist government's domestic sources of political legitimacy. (1) Instead, it has tended to focus on the waxing and waning of relations between Laos and Vietnam--which played a key role in the victory of the communist Lao People's Revolutionary Party (LPRP) against the US-backed Royal Lao Government (RLG) in 1975--and to downplay Vientiane's agency in making independent foreign policy decisions. (2) However, overly fixating on Laos' relations with Vietnam does not explain why Laos normalized relations with China and the United States before Hanoi did. Moreover, much of the existing literature overlooks the fact that--unlike in multiparty, democratic countries, where national security relates almost entirely to the state's survival--national security in one-party states (such as Laos) is intractably linked to the ruling party's survival. (3) For instance, Alouni Vixayphongmany has explored how the LPRP regime faced insecurity when China and the United States lent support to armed resistance groups that opposed the communist takeover in 1975, yet that study did not emphasize how this affected Laos' relations with the two superpowers. (4) As such, this article seeks to contribute a better understanding of how the LPRP's objectives of regime survival and legitimization have shaped relations with Beijing and Washington since the 1970s.

On 2 December 1975, the LPRP, at the time known as the Pathet Lao, seized power from the US-backed royal government. (5) The immediate threat to the new communist regime came from armed groups primarily composed of ethnic Hmong, who had been trained by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the Laotian Civil War (1959-75) and who had refused to surrender after the communist takeover. With 2,000-3,000 troops, these groups held strongholds close to the nation's capital, Vientiane. (6) At the same time, the nascent communist regime made enemies for itself after imprisoning soldiers, police and high-ranking civil servants who had worked for the RLG, despite many of them having voluntarily agreed to work for the new government. Fearing execution, many escaped to refugee camps in Thailand, thus threatening the regime's international credibility. Yet another security threat arose when the communist government forcibly introduced agriculture cooperatives between 1978 and 1979. Instead of joining these collectivized units, many farmers slaughtered their animals and destroyed their crops before also fleeing to refugee camps across the Thai border. (7) In 1975, when the communists took power, there were around 10,000 Laotian refugees in Thailand. By 1978, the number had swollen to almost 48,000 refugees. (8) There were more than 100,000 by 1980, many of whom were from the Hmong and Mien ethnic groups that had fought in anti-communist militias. (9) These refugee camps in Thailand became safe havens for anti-LPRP resistance groups. Vientiane suspected that Washington, the financier of the ousted royal government, supported the cross-border incursions these groups carried out during the 1980s. (10)

As head of a small state with limited military capabilities, the LPRP government looked to communist Vietnam--which had supported the Laotian communists in the civil war--as a bulwark against these threats from across the Thai border. In July 1977, both countries signed a 25-year Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation, which allowed Vietnamese troops to be stationed in Laos. The LPRP government quickly suppressed what was left of the counterrevolutionary activity within Laos. (11) Indeed, three months after the treaty was signed, the Lao and Vietnamese armed forces attacked the last stronghold of the Hmong militias. (12) In November 1978, Vientiane and Hanoi issued a declaration of victory. Vietnamese troops, numbering between 50,000 and 60,000, remained in Laos until 1989, helping to put down what was left of the anti-LPRP resistance based in Thailand and to guard Laos' borders. (13)

As well as ensuring its own survival, the young communist government also sought to develop performance-based legitimacy, meaning it wanted to grow the economy--gross domestic product (GDP) per capita was just US$71 in 1975 (14)--to win support from the Laotian people. To do this, Vientiane needed to secure external assistance and maximize mutual benefits from foreign cooperation. Between 1975 and 1985, Laos received economic aid worth from US$40 50 million annually from the Soviet Union, as well as US$100 million worth of military assistance, including the transfer of Soviet-made trucks, artillery, tanks, helicopters and aircraft. (15) Geopolitically, Moscow supported Vietnam in its disputes with China at the time--Beijing launched incursions into Vietnam in 1979 after Vietnamese troops had overthrown Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime, an ally of Beijing, that year--and also sent military advisors to train the LPRP's new army. (16) However, major economic problems within the Soviet Union during the 1980s meant Laos could not rely entirely upon Moscow's largess, thus affecting the LPRP's ability to satisfy the social and economic needs of the Lao people. (17) To justify and consolidate its rule, in 1986, Vientiane transitioned from a socialist, centrally planned, command economy to a market-based economy. Ever since, economic reform has been the principal pathway towards regime legitimization, with the LPRP claiming its one-party rule is legitimate because it claims to have addressed the needs of the people--alleviating poverty, creating job opportunities, bridging the urban-rural divide and diversifying cooperation with new partners. (18)

Laos' early foreign policy decision-making was guided by the LPRP's domestic imperatives of regime survival and legitimization. The same two concerns also motivated Laos to improve relations with China and the United States from the late 1980s onwards, including to the present day, as will be described later. The rest of this article is as follows. The first section demonstrates how domestic insecurity has shaped Laos' foreign policy vis-a-vis China and the United States. The second section discusses how the LPRP advances its regime security and legitimacy with the two powers, while the third concerns how Laos has had to balance domestic concerns with international problems.

Regime Security Shapes Laos' Foreign Policy

A single-minded fixation on regime survival shapes the LPRP's foreign policy. (19) Between 1975 and 1981, "peace, independence, friendship and non-alliance" were the central tenets of the regime's foreign policy. Vientiane nominally declared non-alignment when trying to eliminate the coordinated opposition of those loyal to the royalist government it had ousted in 1975 while, at the same time, it also sought to maintain a semblance of cooperation with Beijing in the name of socialist solidarity. (20) For instance, Chinese military engineering teams had been helping to construct roads in northern Laos as part of an aid programme financed by Beijing since 1962. However, all cooperation ended in February 1979 when China launched military incursions into Vietnam, Vientiane's main ally.

Relations with the United States, which had backed the ousted royal government, were tense ever since 1975. Laos' communist government believed that Washington--and Thailand's anti-communist government--was sponsoring anti-LPRP resistance groups living in refugee camps in Thailand. At the LPRP's Third Party Congress in 1982, it replaced its non-alignment policy with a socialist-framed foreign policy stance, mainly to signal its allegiances with Vietnam and the Soviet Union. At the same Congress, Washington and Beijing were accused of preparing "a series of variegated subversive acts against [Laos]" and of "threatening Laos with aggression". (21)

Indeed, Vientiane perceived China and the United States as the "gravest threat" to the stability of its communist regime, a perception heightened after China attacked Vietnam in 1979. (22) The United States also vocally opposed Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia that year, which had overthrown the Khmer Rouge regime (allied to Beijing), sparking China's invasion of northern Vietnam. Amid the Sino-Soviet split, Washington ostensibly took Beijing's side against the Soviet Union, which was the patron of communist Vietnam and LPRP. After China attacked Vietnam in 1979, Vientiane demanded that Beijing suspend its road construction project in northern Laos. The Chinese embassy in Laos was ordered to reduce its staff to 12, and diplomatic relations were downgraded to charge d'affaires level. The same demands were made on the United States' mission in Vientiane. (23) In retaliation, Beijing said it would accept and resettle 10,000 ethnic Hmong, many of whom were part of anti-LPRP militias, from refugee camps in Thailand. China also turned areas in Yunnan province, which borders northern Laos, into training camps where approximately 3,000 to 4,000 men were recruited, trained and armed as part of an anti-LPRP resistance movement. (24) Reported clashes between the Lao army and these resistance groups, and Beijing's decision to start stationing troops near its border with Laos, raised the threat of "a possible invasion aimed at overthrowing the LPRP government and replacing it by a regime loyal to [Beijing]". (25) Naturally, Vientiane perceived this as a threat to its regime's survival.

To counter the threats from Beijing, Kaysone Phomvihane, the Secretary-General of the LPRP, stated in the Political Report to the Third Party Congress in 1982 that Laos was ready to normalize relations with China based on respect for each other's independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity, non-interference in each other's internal affairs, equality, mutual benefit and the peaceful negotiation of...