Among several others
(exxept for the Americans in principle) Churchill,
the valiant fighter for the free nations of Europe, did not believe that that freedom
should extend to the colored races. Privately he had specifically excluded them
from the Atlantic Charter of 1941, that great Anglo-American clarion cry for
freedom which had so raised expectations across the colonial world. Following
the end of WWII in Europe, Churchill mused about the possibility of dividing
the Indian empire into ' Pakistan , Hindustan and Princestan',
the last an amalgam of India 's princely states. The first and the third of
these entities would remain within the British Empire no matter what happened
to the 'Hindoo priesthood machine' and its commercial backers. (Rajmohan
Gandhi, Patel: a life, Ahmedabad, 1990 p, 433). By the end of WWII the
troops of the British Empire reconstituted the great crescent of land that Britain
had occupied before 1941, and then fanned out beyond it. In 1945 South East
Asia Command was apparently determined to deploy Indian troops not only in
Burma, Malaya and Singapore, but also in Thailand and what had been French
Indo-China and Dutch Indonesia. By 1946 however as we have seen, Colonial Asia
became a connected arc of protest. Everywhere local nationalists borrowed the
words and emulated the deeds of neighbors, and the language of the Atlantic
Charter and the San Francisco Declaration became a common tongue for all.
Hot and Cold War in
Asia: The Japanese had "lost"; the British, Chinese, French,
Dutch, and Americans had "won." Yet there were still four million Japanese,
many of them armed, on the mainland of Asia, and the Europeans remained shut
out of most of their former colonies for the time being. All along the vast arc
of countries stretching from Manchuria to Burma that constituted the ruins of
the Japanese Empire, new ideas and ambitions were stirring, while old feuds
were renewed with greater vigor. P.1 The China
Theatre.
Hot and Cold War in
Asia: The Cold War brought new violence to the end of empire; as the local
struggles in Southeast Asia were now seen as a part of a global chain of
conflicts between the two power blocs. Reduced in political might and fearing
the spread of communism, the waning colonial powers - Britain, France and the
Netherlands - redeployed the weapons of the Second World War in the guise of
counter-insurgency campaigns in those Asian territories. P.2 The Malay Theatre.
Hot and Cold War in
Asia: The French of Saigon celebrated their victory by going on a rampage in
which they expressed all leir pent-up feelings of fear, anger, and resentment
at the Vietnamese and humiliation at their incarceration by the Japanese. As
one of Mountbatten's staff officers reported, "There were wild shootings
and Annamites were openly dragged through the streets
to be locked in prisons. Generally speaking there was complete
chaos." (Memo for Adm. Mountbatten, subject: FIC Political and Internal
Situation, 3 October 1945, W0203/5562, Public Record Office, London.) P.3 The Vietnam Theatre.
Hot and Cold War in
Asia: In contrast to their frequent squabbling over Indochina, American and
British leaders gave little attention to Korea during the war.The State Department disavowed any responsibility
for leaving the Japanese in control, explaining to the press that it was a
local decision of the theater commander. In fact, State Department planning
documents for Korea had discussed the desirability of continuing to utilize
Japanese technicians and functionaries in the postwar era to fill positions
where no qualified Koreans were available. However soon Southern Korea could
best be described as a powder keg ready to explode. P.4 The Korean Theatre.
Hot and Cold War in
Asia: On November 10, 1945 the British attack against Indonesian Nationalists
in Surabaya began. The battle that ensued equaled in intensity many of the
battles of World War II. More than five hundred bombs were dropped on the
city during the first three days of the battle. P.5 Indonesia and China Burning.
Hot and Cold War in
Asia: By October 1946 the Burmese would be sorely aware that the British had
effectively handed power to India.The goal was to
keep Burma within the Commonwealth and out of Soviet clutches.On
23 March 1947, standing beneath a huge illuminated map of the continent, Nehru
opened the Asian Relations Conference with the words: 'When the history of our
present times comes to be written, this Conference may well stand out as the
landmark which divides the past of Asia from the future.' From the Levant to
China was represented: there were delegations of Jews and Arabs from Palestine;
commissars from Soviet central Asia; courtiers from the Kingdom of Thailand;
hardened communist guerrillas from Malaya, and polished Kuomintang diplomats. P.6 1945-1950.
Hot and Cold War in
Asia: The most deleterious effects of the Allied military presence developed
not through blunders or misjudgments of those charged with carrying out the
occupations, but when the highest levels of government acted indecisively, had
mistaken notions or no notion at all about what was actually happening on the
scene, and neglected or ignoted reports from the
field. Mountbatten had at least some idea of the formidable nationalist
opposition the British were likely to face in southern Vietnam and Indonesia,
but the government in London, preoccupied with retaining the goodwill of the
Dutch and French, tended to downplay or ignore his warnings and those of his
commanders in the field. P.7 Vietnam War and
World Decolonization.
Thus while the old
colonial powers were struggling to hang on in Asia, they thought in Africa that
they had time to play with. Bureaucratic blueprints for the transfer of power
in the indefinite future and after a series of stages (like a dunce's progress
from the first form to the sixth) flowed from the pens of colonial planners.
The real imperative was the urgent need to make the colonies produce: cocoa,
vegetable oil, cotton, sisal, tobacco, copper, gold, uranium, cobalt, asbestos
and aluminum. Dollar shortage and Cold War tension turned Africa from the
derelict of the inter-war years into Europe's Aladdin's cave. The 'night
watchman' state, which let sleeping dogs lie, had to be made into the
'developmental' state, which interfered everywhere. White settler communities
in East and Central Africa, typically regarded by pre-war colonial officials as
a redundant nuisance, had now to be petted and their expansion encouraged. In
colonial West Africa, where there were no white settlers, colonial administrators
looked for support to the educated elite of the coastal towns. Coldly regarded
before the war, they were now to help energize the drive for growth. With
curious optimism, more romantic than rational, the makers of policy in London
and Paris assumed that the promise of ultimate self-government would soothe the
irritation of a much more intrusive colonial presence and lay the foundations
of 'Eurafrican' partnership when colonial rule was eventually relinquished.
Postscript: Sixteen years after the Cold War ended in East Asia
, second-tier powers are beginning to shape the region. Its first try was the
ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), formed in 1993. But aside from serving up some
great karaoke (seriously, you have not lived until you have seen Australian Foreign
Minister Alexander Downer in a leisure suit singing his own version of
"Mambo No. 5," or former Thai Foreign Minister Surin
Pitsuwan in drag), the ARF was really just a talk shop. In the minds of some
ASEAN states, the problem was U.S. participation. After all, if you want to
talk about the big kid, you cannot do it while U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice is playing the piano in the same room. The solution was the
East Asia Forum (EAF), which explicitly excluded the United States .
But that is faltering
as well, for two reasons. First, U.S. allies Japan, Thailand, Singapore,
Australia and New Zealand were all invited, allowing the United States to
influence developments by proxy. Second, the United States is not the only
entity that seeks to harness ASEAN's efforts for its own designs.The
country that has been most successful at this is China , which has now engaged
ASEAN on everything from security talks to free trade negotiations. But even
this partial success is threatening to be undermined by yet another actor
looking to jump into the Pacific playground: Russia. The Russian government on
Thursday called on ASEAN to increase cooperation with one of Russia 's pet
projects: the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
While Russia 's grip
on its Far East is weak, Moscow is well aware that a country that does not act
aggressively in the region risks losing what access it has. Moscow 's interests
also are not primarily in Asia; they are in Europe. So anything the Kremlin can
do to tie up potential adversaries halfway around the world fits neatly into
Russia 's strategy. In part, Russia hopes to strengthen its hand with a limited
naval buildup in the Pacific, but just as critical are Moscow 's diplomatic
efforts. Russia understands that when an organization is either dysfunctional
or beyond one's grasp, it is best to pack it with as many anti-American players
as possible and at least turn it into a loudspeaker for Kremlin propaganda.
With these thoughts
in mind, Russia is hoping to lash the SCO, a onetime security group that now is
shopping for a new raison d'etre, to as many
countries that look askew at the United States as possible. Iran , of course,
is high on the docket, with India and now the ARF and EAF bringing up the rear.
It does not much matter to Moscow whether this makes these organizations more
efficient (it will not), so long as the SCO can function as a platform for
Russian political goals. To that end, the cash-rich Russian state is buying up
Cambodia 's debt and planning a presidential visit to Indonesia in September.
(Both are ASEAN members.)
For the Chinese, who
prefer a more functional and subtle arrangement, as well as the ASEAN states
who formed these organizations so they could call the shots, Russia's
manipulation of the situation is downright rude. But telling the Russians to
stick it in their ear -- to say the least -- would violate not only the mild
anti-American sentiment that has propelled their efforts thus far, but also the
sense of inclusion to which most of the Asian groups aspire. The result is
becoming a mishmash of a half dozen organizations, ostensibly formed for
similar purposes, with strikingly similar member lists. If the groups keep
growing, soon there will be only two that have any meaning.
First is ASEAN itself,
whichhas managed to implement some real economic
integration that should not be scoffed at. The only other organization that
shows much promise is the awkwardly named Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
(APEC), a trade-oriented group that has begun to dabble in security issues.
Originally mooted by the Japanese and Australians, APEC now has become
Washington 's preferred vehicle for bending the region to its will. Unlike
ASEAN -- which works by consensus -- or the World Trade Organization (WTO) --
in which every member has a veto -- APEC is voluntary. Any collection of
countries can implement any economic deal without having to first appease
objecting members, resulting in a race to liberalization instead of marathon
negotiations with troublemakers. Considering the weaknesses of the WTO, the
increasing politicization of the other groups and Asia 's perennial interest in
trade, APEC could soon be the only forum left worth attending.
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