Toward the 25th Hour

Another Southeast Asian country where China and the Soviet Union are vying for influence is Cambodia. Peking has a clear advantage here. For one thing, it offered shelter and a home in exile to Prince Norodom Sihanouk after he had been ousted by Premier Lon Nol's 1970 coup. For another, Moscow continued to recognize the Lon Nol regime until a few days before the Khmer Rouge conquest of Cambodia.

Last week Sihanouk -- who remains, in his words, Cambodia's royal "but not royalist" titular head of state -- arrived in New York to address the United Na tions General Assembly. In his 45-minute speech, he ritually denounced "United States imperialism" but also praised those Americans who had opposed the U.S. involvement in Indochina. Later he discussed the problems of postwar Cambodia with TIME Diplomatic Editor Jerrold L. Schecter.

Recalling the mass expulsions from the cities, Sihanouk defends them. "When we took Phnom-Penh, there were 3 million people and we had a terrible problem feeding them. The solution for us was to distribute the population of the capital to each of the provinces. The rice is growing well now and next year we will have enough for export."

National Symbol. As for his own future, "The Khmer Rouge invited me to establish myself, my wife and my children in the royal palace, our Buckingham Palace. Like Queen Elizabeth, I am the symbol of the nation. I am a head of state with a new style. The responsibility for government is in the TED THAI hands of the Khmer Rouge who deserve it because they fought and won and I do not want to compete with them."

Why is Cambodia closed to outsiders? "We have nobody to welcome foreigners in the appropriate way. We cannot provide foreign people with enough food or meat and we have the problem of electricity and running water in Phnom-Penh. There is enough for the royal palace and the small houses for the ministers but suppose we have 20 embassies? That would force us to buy new machines."

Sihanouk plans to go slowly. By year's end, he expects to have diplomatic relations with China, North Viet Nam, South Viet Nam and North Korea. Next, Algeria and Cuba. "After two years we shall be able to welcome the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries, our friends of the 22nd hour. They did not support us during the war, they were with Lon Nol and you. Then we shall give facilities to France, a friend of the 23rd hour and then the United States will be our friend of the 25th hour. In just a few years we will be able to have everybody inside Cambodia."

Even though he rated the Soviet Union as more of a Cambodian friend than the U.S., Sihanouk rejected Russian and North Vietnamese proposals to set up a collective security system for Southeast Asia. "We want to be very neutral, very independent and non-aligned," he said. "We do not want to be associated with our neighbors in a regional or Indochinese federation. Each Asian country should alone assume the responsibility to safeguard its security. The security of Asia must be achieved by Asians, not by Europe. The Soviet Union for us is in Europe."

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