Kantjil’s Three Choices

Bangkok. For centuries Indonesians have recounted the tales of kantjil, the little mouse deer, native to their country and much of Southeast Asia. Wily, patient, and resourceful, kantjil is a typical anti-hero, common to the folklore of a thousand peasant societies the world over. Now outwitting the tiger, again goading the buffalo to fury—kantjil survives and even prospers, demonstrating that the contest does not always go to the strong, or the race to the swift. In the aftermath of the Vietnam ceasefire and in Mr. Nixon’s new “heterogeneous, multipolar international order,” the nations of Southeast Asia, individually and collectively, have good reason to feel like kantjil. Survival in the new global jungle will require all the diplomatic agility and deviousness of kantjil at his best.

The Southeast Asian kantjils have three basic courses open to them. The first of these—to declare themselves and their region “neutral” and get the big powers to recognize that neutrality —is widely regarded as ideal and has in fact captured the imagination of much articulate opinion in Southeast Asia (especially among intellectuals and the young). Malaysia has taken the lead in trying to realize this dream, by extending diplomatic recognition to Hanoi and Peking, negotiating independently with the European Economic Community, gently nudging U.S. and Commonwealth military forces out, and so forth. It also persuaded its fellow members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines) to join it in the 1971 “Kuala Lumpur Declaration,” in which ASEAN nations resolved to make “necessary efforts” to win international recognition for their region as “a zone of peace, freedom, and neutrality, free from any form or manner of interference by outside powers.”

JK

About the Author

Justus M. Van Der Kroef

Featured Tags

Bangkok. For centuries Indonesians have recounted the tales of kantjil, the little mouse deer, native to their country and much of Southeast Asia. Wily, patient, and resourceful, kantjil is a typical anti-hero, common to the folklore of a thousand peasant societies the world over. Now outwitting the tiger, again goading the buffalo to fury—kantjil survives and even prospers, demonstrating that the contest does not always go to the strong, or the race to the swift. In the aftermath of the Vietnam ceasefire and in Mr. Nixon’s new “heterogeneous, multipolar international order,” the nations of Southeast Asia, individually and collectively, have good reason to feel like kantjil. Survival in the new global jungle will require all the diplomatic agility and deviousness of kantjil at his best.

The Southeast Asian kantjils have three basic courses open to them. The first of these—to declare themselves and their region “neutral” and get the big powers to recognize that neutrality —is widely regarded as ideal and has in fact captured the imagination of much articulate opinion in Southeast Asia (especially among intellectuals and the young). Malaysia has taken the lead in trying to realize this dream, by extending diplomatic recognition to Hanoi and Peking, negotiating independently with the European Economic Community, gently nudging U.S. and Commonwealth military forces out, and so forth. It also persuaded its fellow members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines) to join it in the 1971 “Kuala Lumpur Declaration,” in which ASEAN nations resolved to make “necessary efforts” to win international recognition for their region as “a zone of peace, freedom, and neutrality, free from any form or manner of interference by outside powers.”