COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
SPEECH BY
The Rt. Hon. HAROLD HOLT, M. P.,
ON
PRIME MINISTER'S VISIT TO ASIA
Ministerial Statement
.[ From the ' Parliamentary Debates', 12 April 1967]
Mr HAROLD HOLT ( Higgins-Prime
Minister)-by leave-Mr Speaker, this Australia
of ours is a vast island continent
inhabited largely by people of British or
other European stock and with a heritage
of national freedom, personal liberty and
the institutions of a British parliamentary
democracy. But geographically we are part
of Asia, and increasingly we have become
aware of our involvement in the affairs of
Asia. Our greatest dangers and our highest
hopes are centred in Asia's tomorrows.
Already one Asian country has become
established as the largest purchaser, in terms
of money value, of Australian exports. The
only military operations in which we are
-now engaged or in which we have been
engaged since the Second World War are
located in Asia.
It is a basic tenet of our national policy
to live in friendship and understanding with
our Asian neighbours, but the very word
' Asia', while a convenient general description,
is itself misleading. There are greater
diversities of race, religion, tradition,
appearance and national economic development
to be found in Asia than in any other
region on earth. These differences establish
the importance of better knowledge of those
amongst whom we live and the value of
our friendship with them.
5037/ 67 It was with these thoughts in mind that
I set out recently to see at first hand more
of the friendly nations I had not visited
before, to meet their leaders and their
people, to . remind them where Australia
stood in her friendships and to learn
something of their own attitudes. I visited,
in that order, Cambodia, Laos, Taiwan and
South Korea in the course of a thirteen
days tour. The circumstances of -travel
enabled me to have useful talks also in
Singhpore, Hong Kong and Manila, and at
a fuelling stop-over in Okinawa, an island
of strategic importance in the Second World
War, I was able to see the considerable
defence base which is still maintained there.
I returned heartened by the reception which
1 and my official party received. I was
greatly encouraged by the warmi and kindly
spirit in which Australia has been accepted
as a good neighbour and a good frienid.
Our place in Asia is no new discovery,
but its significance has become ' heightened
for us over recent years. The nations which
I visited are ancient lands with rich and
colourful histories. Some of them trace their
histories back 4,000 to 5,000 years. For
some time I have felt that great benefits
were to ' be won by a ' more personal
demonstration of our nearness and our
interest. In recent months my colleague, the
Minister for External Affairs ( Mr Hasluck),
has visited -the same countries. In -the last
two years joint parliamentary delegations
also have travelled to them. The sum of our
knowledge as a people is growing and is
assisted by the reporting in the Australian
Press and on radio and television around
visits such as that which I have just accomplished.
So is our knowledge as members
of this Parliament. My own visit was part
of the pattern we are developing and as
head of the Australian Government I sought
to underline the warm and genuine interest
we have in the security, progress and prosperity
of the countries of the Asian and
Pacific area.
It was, incidentally, the first visit of an
Australian Prime Minister to each of these
four countries and my third journey as
Prime Minister to the area. I hope that
there can be two-way traffic in personal
exchanges, and my Government will welcome
visits to Australia, as opportunity
offers, of leading public personalities from
these and other countries of the region. Our
interest in Asia is deep. It must be developed
and it must be permanent, for my Governmrent
and I believe that Asia is now the
crucial area of the struggle to preserve the
values of independence, liberty and social
justice for which we have previously fought
in two global wars. I believe also that it
offers bright prospects, if peace can be
secured and maintained, for spectacular
economic progress.
. I believe that for all the shift and change
in the world, none is more important to
us in Australia than the shift of international
tensions from Europe to Asia. We
have to be active on several fronts-on
the armed frontiers where we stand in support
of a small country and with a great
ally and other friendly forces against
aggression; on the frontiers of progress to
a better life for the emerging nations of
Asia; and on the frontiers of our culture
and theirs-for it is by these things, too,
that we know each other better and learn,
as different people with diverse interests,
to live peacefully together.
There is, of course, a continuing preoccupation
with the course of the war in
Vietnam. This was a central point in most
of the talks I had with the statesmen of
these Asian nations. My first person-toperson
talks were in neutral Cambodia with Prince Sihanouk, leader of 61 million
people, whose country is bordered by
Thailand, Vietnam and Laos. The long
history of the nations of Indo-China has
been beset with difficulties. This helps us,
I think, to understand Cambodia's determined
neutrality. There has been the long
struggle to preserve the Khmer race with
its own traditions and cultures. The North
Vietnamese and the Vietcong at times
transgress Cambodian borders for military
purposes-to move men and supplies to
their forces and, at other times, when they
are driven back by the fighting in South
Vietnam. But Prince Sihanouk asserts that
he resents the intrusion of any foreigners
and he insists that he would resist and use
force to remove any alien force which continued
to occupy Cambodian soil.
Australia and Cambodia, to quote Prince
Sihanouk, exercise different options in their
foreign policies. His friendly attitude to ' us
is clearly not based on an identity of views
on political and other questions. Because . he
opposes any foreign intervention in the
affairs of Cambodia., he opposes any foreign
intervention in the affairs of Vietnam or,
for that matter, anywhere else. He feels
that the people of Vietnam as a whole
should resolve their differences, however
tragic and bloody the process might be.
We differ on these points. We joined with
others in resisting aggression in two world
wars. We have long been committed to an
intervention in response to an appeal for
help against Communist aggression, and we
believe also that the Vietnamese should
choose in a democratic way how they should
live and who their leader should be. We
nominate nobody in advance of the event.
But these differences, I am happy to say,
and as I found, are differences, although
important differences, among friends. In
simple terms the Prince says that he has had
friendship from Australia and he gives
friendship in return. This is why he accepted
Australia as the channel between Cambodia
and the United States of America when
diplomatic relations between -those two
countries were severed, and why we act in
the same way for him in South Vietnam.
Prince Sihanouk is a popular leader and
takes an enlightened view of Cambodia's
domestic needs. He has a vigorous programme
of economic development, and his
administration has happily married the practical
and the aesthetic with modern buildings
having imaginative aspects. At
Sihanoukville a modern port and town,
largely created as a product of his own
inspiration, have been hewn out of the seaboard
jungle in a few years and ha e given
Cambodia a strategic water supply route
formerly confined to the Mekong, which
passes through territory he would regard as
hostile with its unsettled surroundings.
I mention these things in passing as a
reminder that though this neutral country
lives uneasily in the shadow of war, it is
concerned, as we are, with programmes to
improve the lot of its people. We found
there a lively enthusiasm to make a better
life. There lie opportunities for Australia to
continue to express her friendship in practical
ways. It was perhaps significant that,
, although Cambodia retains a ban on the
journalists of many countries, this was
waived in the case of the large party of
Australian journalists which accompanied
me. They, too, found the reception cordial,
and said so, through the president of the
Press Gallery, Mr John Bennetts, in a
special message of thanks to Prince
Sihanouk. Each gesture like this adds something
to the mainstream of our effort. I
carried no brief for other nations in Cambodia,
or the other countries I visited, and
I hope the sum of all I said in many frank
and friendly talks helped to underwrite the
independence of our thinking and our
policy-making.
In Laos, also neutral and also well
disposed, I had significant discussions with
the Prime Minister, Prince Souvanna
Phouma, and King Sri Savang Vatthana, and
other Ministers. I learned that, as on my
last visit to Thailand, I was the first Prime
Minister or Minister from any country to
be invited to attend a meeting of the
Cabinet. This small, land-locked country is
struggling to preserve its neutrality. This is
threatened only by North Vietnam which
maintains more than 20,000 regular combat
troops on Laotian soil to guard the supply
route to the battle areas in South Vietnam.
As Prince Souvanna Phouma himself said
at the General Assembly of the United
Nations in October 1966: ' It is no longer a secret to anyone that entire North Vietnamese
battalions are operating in our
country'. He also said: ' The Ho Chi Minh
trail over which foreign troops and weapons
pass is in our territory'. The Prince claims
that the Pathet Lao has no base of popular
support, is not prominent in military operations,
and has no substantial political significance.
I quote a passage from his talk with
me. He said: ' If we kill an enemy soldier,
we find he is a North Vietnamese; if we
wound one, he is a North Vietnamese; if we
take one prisoner, he is a North Vietnamese.
But if the North Vietnamese make some
military gains, then the Pathet Lao move in
like a lot of crows.'
Laos, due not to lack of enlightenment
but largely to the aggression it has ' had to
withstand, is poor and underdeveloped. With
peace, I am sure Laos could make substantial
progress. I assured its leaders that Australia
will continue to make its contribution
to the economic development of Laos and
the stability of its currency through our contribution
to the Foreign Exchange Operations
Fund. I was assured, not only by the
Laotians but by our Ambassador there, that
this is the most valuable way in which we
can give practical help at present-by helping
to stabilise and strengthen the currency.
I also assured the Laotian Government that
it had our sympathy and support in its
resistance to attacks on its sovereignty, its
territorial integrity and its neutrality.
This completed the first'half of my tour
which embraced the non-aligned countries.
I went then to Taiwan and South Korea,
both aligned with the United States in relation
to events in Vietnam
In the Republic of China I had frank discussions
with President Chiang Kai-shek, as
well as with the Vice-President, Prime
Minister Yen and other Chinese Government
leaders. The island under its present
Government is stable and prosperous. There
is an air of vitality in what is being done
and obvious evidence of economic progress.
It is a going concern and is no longer receiving
American aid. I was also glad to find
the Republic of China strengthening its
position internationally by its active participation
in the Economic Commission for
Asia and the Far East, -the Asian Development
Bank and the Asian and Pacific Council.
Members of the Government see good
prospects of a substantial growth in trade
between our two countries. President Chiang
expressed his admiration and that of his
Government and people for the stand we
had taken over Vietnam and for the significant
military aid we were giving.
I was impressed by the lead the Republic
of China is giving in the field of overseas
aid, especially in a number of African
countries. Technical advisers as well as
persons to work in the fields with the
Africans have been successful in a number
of African countries in demonstrating how
agricultural productivity, particularly in rice
growing, can be increased. I was told that
in some instances production had actually
increased tenfold as a result of this technical
assistance.
I also had opportunities for frank and
informative discussion on internal developments
on the mainland of China. Living so
close to mainland China, receiving refugees
and defectors from the mainland, the
Government on Taiwan has access to useful
information and intelligence on the
present complex situation on the mainland.
The establishment of an Australian mission
in Taipei last September, which was warmly
welcomed by the Republic of China, should
help the Government in its quest to acquire
more information about developments in
mainland China.
Despite some predictions to the contrary,
neither our trade with mainland China nor
our recent decision to accord diplomatic
recognition to Outer Mongolia were raised
in official discussions. I did, however, have
occasion to refer to the latter question when
asked at a Press conference in Taipei. I
explained at that Press conference that this
was an Australian decision and that it was
of value to the Republic of China to have
a country like Australia, making its own
decisions on the merits it saw in particular
circumstances, generally supporting the
position of the Republic of China in other
areas. In Korea there was much I found
impressive. The Republic has strength, is
democratic, stable and going ahead. It has
made a good recovery from the ravages of
war in the early 1950s when it was a
victim of Communist aggression. Australian
assistance in resisting that aggression is
gratefully remembered and has laid an
enduring foundation for the warm friendship which undoubtedly exists between our two
countries. On the evening I arrived in
Seoul I drove through what was estimated
as half a million welcoming and obviously
friendly people lining the streets. The size
and warmth of the welcome were exemplified
by one Australian flag I saw which hung
the full length of seven storeys on one
building. This amazing welcome was a
measure of the regard in which Australia
is held in Korea. When I visited the industrial
centres of Pusan and Ulsan in the south
it was moving to see thousands of people
in total standing in heavy rain in small
groups in the villages en route to wave a
friendly welcome as our party passed.
At the United Nations cemetery at Pusan
where one grave in six is that of an Australian
the thought was deeply with me
that those who had given their lives in this
country had done so for a good cause. The
present free and progressive society in South
Korea is the outcome of that sacrifice.
Members from this Parliament who have
been to this country, no matter on what
side of this House they sit, will confirm
the friendliness of the people and the progress
that they are making. A
helicopter flight from Seoul took me to
an observation post on the border of the
Han River where the demilitarised zone
begins. -Across the river literally a few minutes
jet flying time from Seoul, the capital of
the country, Communist strongpoints were
established and could be seen. The people
of the Republic of Korea have this everpresent
reminder of the continuing Communist
threat to their national independence
and their separation from a significant part
of their former territory and their kinsmen.
It is not surprising in the circumstances that
their armed forces totalling more than
600,000 should rank amongst the bravest,
the toughest and the best trained in the
world. On this border a marine group gave
a demonstration of their methods of
unarmed combat. Tae kwon do they call
it. It is * the forerunner of karate adopted
in Japan. I saw men with their bare hands
smash building bricks and thick wooden
pieces. I tested the objects myself and there
was no doubt that they were genuine. They
were able to achieve these feats with their
bare hands. One fellow did it with his forehead;
others did it with their elbows.
Mr Whitlam-The Prime Minister should
have tried his forehead.
Mr HAROLD HOLT-I think that the
thickest heads in the Parliament are on
the Opposition side, but even they would
have had some difficulty in accomplishing
this feat of toughness and endurance.
While in Korea I had profitable exchanges
with President Park and Prime Minister
Chung. As comrades in arms in Vietnam
we reaffirmed our resolve, proclaimed at
the Manila Summit Conference in October
1966, to continue our efforts until aggression
ceased and an enduring settlement had
been reached which respected the wishes
and aspirations of the Vietnamese people.
We agreed that the Vietnamese Government
should be a full participant in any
negotiations to end the conflict and that
the nations which have contributed to the
defence of Vietnam should also participate.
We cannot, of course, lay down in advance
what form this might take.
I believe the remarkable progress evident
in Korea is of relevance to Vietnam and
gives us hope, by its example, that beyond
the clouds of war there is a horizon of
peace, political stability, social justice and
economic advancement.
I comment now briefly on the attitudes
to our position -in Vietnam as they were
given to me at various points in my tour.
In both Taiwan and Korea there was strong
support of the stand we have taken in
Vietnam. In Laos, there was understanding
of our action and in Cambodia, which has
publicly expressed its opposition to United
States policy in Vietnam, I was able to
confirm that our own policy towards
Vietnam and our actions in that country
have not damaged the good relations which
exist between Australia and Cambodia. As
I said earlier, Cambodia bases its attitude
to us on a principle of reciprocity: if we
are friendly to it and behave as a good
friend to it Cambodia is friendly and
behaves as a good friend to us.
Generally, I am reinforced in my judgment
that Australia is not-as is sometimes
alleged by critics of my Governmentdamaging
its image in Asia because of
our action in respect of Vietnam. Many
countries in the region publicly support our
position. Others have expressed, in private, understanding of our reasons for our participation
in Vietnam. To speak of Asian
opinion in this context as though there was
a general view prevailing throughout Asia
is totally misleading. As I have said earlier,
Asia, except as a geographical description,
is a practically meaningless term. Each
country in Asia has its own identity, its
own policies, and its own views on Australia's
actions in Vietnam or, for that
matter, anywhere else.
One of the things which impressed me
on this visit is the degree to which national
identities and national cultures are flowering
and being rediscovered, following the end
of the colonial era. I have now visited
Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. Each of the
countries visited has its own quite different
language, its own national culture, and its
own identity. It is not very long ago that
Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos were all
grouped together by their colonial administrators
as Indo-China. We must, while the
war drags on, be vigorous in our planning
for peace. We put roots down a long, long
time ago with the Colombo Plan, and as I
moved from country to country I saw
something of what we were doing.
In Cambodia, Government leaders spoke
highly of the value and effectiveness of
Australian aid. Prince Sihanouk personally
gave to the hydrographic survey vessel we
presented, which is doing such valuable
work in the harbour of Sihanoukville, the
name Khmer-Australie Amitie'-or, in our
language, ' Cambodian-Australian Friendship'.
In Laos, Prince Souvanna Phouma
expressed his profound gratitude for what
he referred to as ' the positive and
constructive' aid given by Australia.
In South Korea, I saw the contribution
which we were making to Korean technical
progress through the supply of machine
tools and other equipment to Yong San
Technical School.
Generally, I formed the impression that
our aid programmes in these countries,
though modest, have proved valuable and
effective. One of the reasons for this is that
our aid is all in the form of grants. It is
given without strings-with no conditions.
It usually takes a highly practical form of
identifiable items or of the technical
assistance given by Australian personnel.
Aid-receiving countries accept that we see
the raising of Asian living standards as a
desirable end in itself, and not simply a
means of making gains in the cold war.
Communist countries which attack the giving
of aid by Western nations as a form ot
neo-colonialism are themselves seeking to
deny these countries the assistance which
the countries need to progress and develop.
By their attacks they would perpetuate an
economic and social backwardness from
which those in need of aid hunger to free
themselves. We should not be deceived by Communist
jargon. So when they talk of neocolonialism
they tend to mask their own
efforts to bring newly independent countries
under their own direct sphere of influence.
When they talk of wars of national liberation,
they abuse -the English language in
that the wars they have in mind are in
essence both anti-national and opposed to
genuine liberation. Again, they seek the
establishment of docile Communist regimes
under this slogan.
We are not opposed to the social revolution
which has been taking place and is
continuing in South East Asia. This social
revolution reflects long suppressed yearnings
for national identity, social betterment and
economic progress. We seek these things
for ourselves. What we are opposed to is
the perversion of the forces of social revolution
in Asia to establish through indirect
pressures, through subversion, through
insurgency, through terrorism and aggression,
Communist regimes which are neither
sought nor wanted by the majority of the
people in the countries concerned.
What results can fairly be claimed from
this journey? I believe my visit has contributed
to the consolidation of our relationships
with each of the four countries
concerned. I believe it has strengthened our
stature and influence with the four Governments
with whose leaders I conferred.
Moreover, it has given added backing
to our diplomatic effort in Phnom
Penh, Vientiane, Taipei and Seoul.
I believe the visit was of value -to me
personally in an educational sense. I feel
I now have a greater understanding in
depth of the problems which affect us in each of the four countries, just as I feel
that they now have a greater understanding
of us. Knowledge strengthens understanding
and understanding strengthens friendship. I
believe that -thanks to an excellent coverage
by Press, radio and television, these countries
and their problems and potentialities
have become better known to the Australian
people. I believe that, through my visit,
further progress has been made along our
chosen path of securing the acceptance of
Australia by the countries of the Asian and
Pacific region as a co-operative and useful
member of the region.
I visited two countries which are closely
allied, like ourselves, with the Uniled States
of America, and two countries which seek
to preserve a status of neutrality. Our
relationships with other countries are not
determined solely on the basis of whether
they are allied with us. We accept diversity.
In our search for a stable, secure Asian
region, growing in economic prosperity, we
promote the closest relations with Asian
allies in collective defence organisations.
But we also seek to promote the best
possible relations with countries which have
chosen the path of neutrality. We support
and seek to uphold the national integrity
of all countries in the region. And beyond
this, we look to a future settlement with
mainland China, without which there can be
no lasting peace in Asia.
The success of my visit to these four
countries, the warmth of my reception in
each one of them, and the genuinely
friendly attitude towards Australia which I
discovered, are due in some measure to
the years of patient effort put into developing
personal contacts with these countries
through the efforts of the Department of
External Affairs and our diplomatic representatives
in the area. I cannot speak too
highly of those who, sometimes under
arduous conditions and et times conditions
of danger, represent Australia in such a
dedicated manner in these countries. It is
a matter of some pride to me, and a measure
of the focus of our interest in the Asian
region, that with the establishment of our
embassy in Taiwan last year, we are now
represented in every independent country
in the Asian and Pacific region which we
recognise, except Mongolia, which we have
only recently recognised.
There has been silly comment in some
quarters to the effect that. in undertaking
journeys of this kind I am, in some way,
usurping the role or functions of the Minister
for External Affairs. This is nonsense.
' the Prime Minister as head of his Cabinet
has an important responsibility for the
foreign policies of his Government and its
relations with other countries and the view
held of his own country by them. A government's
foreign policy is no more divisible
from the central problems of government
policy-making than its domestic policies.
In some countries, the Prime Minister
holds the portfolio of foreign affairs; in
others, the Minister for Foreign Affairs
tends to be not much more than an echo
of the views of his head of state or Prime
Minister. In Australia, the position is much
more closely identifiable with that of the
United Kingdom where it is customary to
find a strong personality holding the foreign
affairs portfolio, capable of interpreting
articulately the foreign policies of his
Government, negotiating for it, and holding
meetings at the highest level. This situation
has never excluded journeys or attendances
by the Prime Minister on occasion, sometimes
accompanied . by his Foreign Minister,
sometimes not. My own overseas journeys
during my term of office have principally
been of an educational kind, with the added
objective of establishing personal relations
with heads of government in other countries.
On the only two occasions when I have
attended conferences, both conducted at a
level of heads of government-the Prime
Ministers Conference in London and the
Manila Summit Conference-I arranged for
the Minister for External Affa-irs to accompany
me.
In the modern world where international
contacts tend to proliferate, a Foreign
Minister is busily occupied throughout the
year. Our own Minister for External Affairs
has personally represented us at meetings of
the United Nations, of SEATO, of A'NZUS,
of ECAFE and of ASPAC, and at the conference
establishing the Asian Development
Bank, as well as accompanying me to the
conferences I have mentioned and conducting
many discussions on visits to many countries
in Asia, Europe and North America
at Foreign Minister and, indeed, -higher
levels. I believe that our activities have
usefuly supplemented those of each other
in our respective. spheres. There has been another purpose in my
own journeyings, and that is to focus public
attention in the countries visited on Australia's
viewpoints, and also to build a better
informed Australian knowledge and opinion
about countries-some of them little known
of special importance and interest to us.
As the size of the Press parties accompanying
me on my own tours would confirm,
there is, by virtue of the office of Prime
Minister, a more concentrated and wider
public notice taken of a visit by a head
of government than by -any of its other
members. We know from our own
experience that delighted as we are to
receive a visit from a Foreign Minister, or a
Finance Minister or a Trade Minister, there
is an even greater interest in the visit of a
head of government or head of state. This
is one of the well recognised facts of political
life. Undoubtedly, my own visits have
brought Australia more prominently under
notice in each of the countries I have visited
and have helped to make those countries
better known here at home.
We Australians can count ourselves fortunate
to have a Foreign Minister of the
experience, intellectual quality and sagacity
of our present Minister. He not only enjoys
the full confidence and respect of his colleagues
of the Government and of the
Government Parties, but I can vouch from
personal knowledge that he is held in the
highest regard by his opposite numbers
wherever he moves. His job is made no
easier nor are Australia's interests abroad
advanced by stupid comment of the kind
to which I have referred.
No account of this journey would be
complete without my thanks to the very
able team of officials who accompanied me,
to our medical adviser, who so promptly
attended to the minor disorders which
affected most of us in what was a very
strenuous tour through a variety of climatic
conditions, to the aircrews whose skill
invariably brought us to a happy landing,
and to the large Press party which assisted
our general purposes by a coverage that
was, generally speaking, fair, factual and
comprehensive. I publicly say my thanks,
also, to my wife, who made her own
distinctive contribution to the succes:; of the
tour. There must be thanks, also, to all
our hosts, whose hospitality we shall always
remember with appreciation, and which we milestone in the history of the relationship
shall find it difficult to emulate, between our two countries. I believe that
There is no shadow of doubt in my mind can be said of all the four countries
that this was a valuable journey for Aus-visited, and I hope . this will be the judgtralia.
The Prime Minister of South Korea ment, also, of this Parliament and the Aussummed
up the visit as an important tralian people.
BY AUTHORITY: A. J. ARTHUR, COMMONWEALTH GOVERNMENT PRINTER, CANBERRA, A. C. T.