The Fallout

Whatever their leaders may say in a political vein about the U.S. stand in Viet Nam, the non-Communist countries of Asia are catching a beneficial economic fallout from American involvement in the fighting there. The need for bases, manpower and supplies is affecting economies all around the rim of the battle area. South Korea expects trade with Viet Nam to increase from $16 million last year to $70 million this year. Taiwan's dealings with Viet Nam, which totaled $40 million last year and represented 9% of all exports, may reach $55 million this year. Hong Kong has doubled its Vietnamese business from $1,650,000 to $3,160,000 in a year. And most of the trade is underwritten by the U.S.

Sandbags & Gravel. The U.S. Defense Department, which uses Okinawa as its major offshore supply depot for troops in Viet Nam, has an inventory there of $250 million in military hardware, but nevertheless it intends to spend another $13.8 million in Asia this year for supplies that would take too long to come all the way from Stateside. Factories in Japan and Korea in the meantime are turning out hundreds of thousands of combat boots with thick rubber soles and steel plates to protect soldiers from both jungle and booby trap. The Koreans are tailoring 750,000 uniforms for the Vietnamese army, and the Japanese are providing nylon sandbags, barbed wire and prefabricated buildings. Taiwan is negotiating with the U.S. to supply mortar shells and machine-gun bullets, and enterprising Filipinos are making money selling the U.S. Army venomless snakes to be used in training G.I.s about how to avoid panic when they encounter the really poisonous serpents in Viet Nam.

The havoc of bombs and battle in Viet Nam has also made a market for other supplies. South Viet Nam, in spite of the war, still exports rice to both India and Japan. In return, India has sold it irrigation pumps and sugar-mill machinery, while in other Asian countries factories are busy sewing pajamas for Vietnamese war refugees. A Korean construction firm recently won a $5,000,000 contract to dredge five Vietnamese harbors. Taiwan is contracting to ship $2,000,000 worth of two different kinds of gravel, one to be used in building runways and the other a special variety that is used in water-filtration plants. Carrying the goods has meant cargoes for small ships that ply the area, since most large freighters arriving in the far Pacific are already jammed with materiel for Viet Nam.

Cameras & Chickens. The war's effect on employment has been significant. South Korea, along with 45,000 fighting men, is dispatching to Viet Nam 3,000 civilian plumbers, carpenters, welders and crane operators who will work for U.S. companies and earn ten times what they would have at home. As a result, 12,000 applicants turned up when the jobs were advertised. In Japan, the Yokosuka naval shipyard is jammed with U.S. Navy repair orders, and work is being let out to civilian yards. Both Taiwanese and Japanese plants are repairing U.S. and Vietnamese planes. On Okinawa, because of the supply depot, 1,000 civilian jobs have opened up, and there is a sudden demand for domestic servants for U.S. families.

Much of the fallout is totally unwarlike. Japanese firms since last fall have supplied 50,000 cameras as well as tape recorders and transistor radios to U.S. post exchanges in Viet Nam Japanese entrepreneurs are gathering in money by renting out civilian clothes at $2.50 a day to U.S. servicemen on furlough in Japan. Other U.S. military personnel on leave last year spent $14 million in Hong Kong. Philippine farmers have a new income from providing vegetables, meat, chickens and eggs to U.S. military hospitals there, where U.S. wounded are treated. Southeast Asians are also looking at new possibilities in the U.S. itself. Because American textile companies are busy with military orders, Hong Kong textile makers last year increased their sales to the U.S. by 44% . And Japanese machine toolmakers, who at this time last year were selling $200,000 worth of lathes, borers, grinders and millers a month in the U.S., are currently selling five times that much because U.S. competitors are backlogged with orders.

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