CHAPTER

10
REGIONALISM AND NATIONALISM

For Southeast Asia the immediate postwar years (1945-8) were a time of
change and turmoil. Dominating this era were problems of rehabilitation
and aspirations for independence in the face of returning colonial regimes.
The Philippines and Burma, along with India, Pakistan and Ceylon (Sri
Lanka), parted from their paramount powers in a comparatively amicable
way, and guidelines were laid down for an orderly advance to inde-
pendence by Malaya and British Borneo; but there was little prospect for a
peaceful transfer of power in Indonesia and Vietnam, and decolonization
was to come to those countries through violence.
Between 1949 and 1959, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and
Malaya attained independence, while Singapore acquired internal self-
government, but these years coincided with the Cold War's spillover into
Asia. While this was cold war between the superpowers, there were active
war and revolution in many parts of Southeast Asia, where countries were
often aligned with Western or communist blocs and faced internal strug-
gles which moulded them according to rival ideological models. Intense
power-bloc rivalry in Southeast Asia added to the strains of newly won
independence. This contest led to the formation of the South-East Asia
Treaty Organization (SEATO), backed by the United States, on the one
hand and to Russo-Chinese support for left-wing movements on the other.
Superpower competition accentuated internal divisions between radicals
and traditionalists, subversives and constitutionalists. It also deepened
rifts between states: communist and anti-communist, 'non-aligned' and
'neo-colonialisf. While the 1955 Afro-Asian Bandung conference was a
significant step in the emergence of the non-aligned movement, in which
Third World nations attempted to develop an independent stance in
international affairs, this failed to spread harmony in Southeast Asia.
The following period, up to 1975, covered the Second Indochina War,
which brought foreign involvement on a massive scale and dominated
developments throughout Southeast Asia. It also coincided with the
Cultural Revolution in China. But during this time the first steps were
taken to develop regional co-operation. An Association of South-East Asia
and aspirations to Malay brotherhood (the Maphilindo concept) foundered
on the creation of Malaysia, which led to disputes about Sabah and
to armed confrontation between Malaysia and Indonesia (1963-6). The
first major breakthrough came with the formation of the Association of

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South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1967. In the early 1970s the sharp
divide of the East-West Cold War began to blur. The beginnings of detente
between the United States and the Soviet Union were overtaken by
the more dramatic rapprochement between the United States and China,
the American withdrawal from active participation in the Vietnam war,
and subtle changes in Japan's policies towards the region.
The communist victories in the three Indochinese countries in 1975 were
seen as a major turning point at the time, and indeed had immediate
repercussions for the rest of Asia. But in some ways the events of 1975 only
confirmed certain trends already under way. China's Cultural Revolution
came to an end soon afterwards, with the death of Chairman Mao Zedong
(Mao Tse-tung) in 1976, followed by the beginnings of China's open-door
policy, which would have significant effects on Southeast Asia. The new
situation, intensified by Vietnam's invasion of Kampuchea (Cambodia) in
1978, put pressure on ASEAN to improve regional co-operation and
achieve stability. By the late 1980s the communist countries of Indochina,
the non-communist countries of ASEAN, and non-aligned Burma showed
promise of peaceful co-existence.

THE CONCEPT OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

The concept of Southeast Asia as a political entity emerged almost by
accident from World War II when, at the Quebec Conference in August
1943, the Western Allies decided to establish a separate South East Asia
Command (SEAC), embracing Burma, Malaya, Sumatra and Thailand. The
Potsdam Conference in July 1945 extended SEAC's responsibility to cover the
rest of the Netherlands East Indies and Indochina south of the sixteenth
parallel, excluding only northern Vietnam, the Philippines and Laos.
This military expedient provided a cohesive framework for a region
which had never previously been seen as a distinct geopolitical area.
No single empire had dominated the whole region in pre-colonial times.
At the outbreak of the Pacific war, apart from Thailand, Southeast Asia
comprised a collection of colonies and protectorates under the tutelage of
Western imperial powers. And even Thailand's sovereignty and freedom
of international action were limited. The external relations of the region
were determined as part of each metropolitan country's foreign policy,
without heed to pre-colonial feuds or friendships.
Although the period of consolidated colonial rule in Southeast Asia was
comparatively brief, it produced fundamental effects not only on the
various subject states but on their relationships with each other and
the outside world after independence. Occasionally colonial rule strength-
ened existing political structures and tried to take over their regional
relationships, but more often Western rule had the opposite effect. The
divisiveness was most notable in the separation of Sumatra and the Malay
peninsula by the Anglo-Dutch treaties of 1824 and 1871. Elsewhere it
smothered bitter feuds such as the traditional enmity between Burma and
Thailand, or stemmed age-old developments like the southern expansion

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of the Vietnamese people and the waning of Cambodia. Often it encouraged

the immigration of people from outside the region, notably Chinese and
Indians who found opportunities in the colonial economies.
While there were stirrings of nationalism before World War II, the
similarities of the imperial experience did not provide a stimulus for
co-operation, and nationalism developed at a varied pace and in different
forms in the individual countries.
The closest to a regional association before World War II was the
Nanyang Chinese National Salvation Movement. The Chinese term 'Nan-
yang' or Southern Ocean had long been in use but acquired a new
significance as Nationalist China tried to bind its overseas compatriots
together in the service of the motherland. The Nanyang Chinese National
Salvation Movement, which reached its zenith in 1938 in opposing the
Japanese invasion of China, had its headquarters in Singapore and
branches throughout Southeast Asia. For a short time Japanese aggression
against China drew the Nanyang Chinese together in unprecedented
unity. This was not proof against the political and cultural divisions within
the Chinese community, but the concept—or spectre—of the Nanyang
Chinese was a potent force in shaping postwar regional policies and
attitudes of newly independent states.
Other external ideological and religious influences exerted some sway at
certain periods but were generally divisive. Communism in Southeast Asia
was fragmented and weak after the disastrous communist revolt in Java in
1926, followed by the split between the Kuomintang and the Chinese
Communist Party in 1927 and the failure of the Comintern to establish an
effective Nanyang Communist Party. The pan-Islamic movement, which
played a dominant role in early Indonesian nationalism, lost credibility
with the downfall of Sarekat Islam in the 1920s, while international
Buddhism could not transcend ethnic and sectarian differences.
Yet despite the divisions, Western imperialism stamped a pattern across
Southeast Asia. After wars of resistance by subject people and friction
among the colonial powers themselves during the early days of their
takeover, by the twentieth century territorial boundaries were clearly
delineated and civil wars were over. Western imperialism brought peace
and stability to the region, which was broken only by occasional upheav-
als, such as the Saya San rebellion in Burma. The various colonial regimes
had many similar features: secular administration, a modernized bureau-
cracy and judiciary, Western-educated elites, an urban middle class, and
economies partially geared to the international world system.
The colonial pattern was shattered by the Japanese invasion and inter-
regnum. The Japanese Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, in which
Southeast Asia was to play a vital role, proved to be more a political
firebreak than a catalyst for regional cohesion. It disrupted colonial econo-
mies and political administrations without substituting an enduring new
system. Nations emerging in the postwar world had to establish their own
identity and create a new regional order. The variety of ethnic, cultural and
religious differences added complexity to the situation, as did the revival
of some traditional issues. Once more the region came under the influence
of its powerful neighbours, India and China, which were themselves

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undergoing great changes. Southeast Asia was drawn into the superpower
struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union. And later still it
was to fall under the economic influence of Japan.

THE POSTWAR SCENE

A number of factors complicated the immediate postwar scene: the unex-
pectedly sudden end of the Pacific War, the problems of reconstruction
and reorganization in war-torn Southeast Asia, the varied circumstances in
which independence was attained, and the desire to create unity. All these
were bound to complicate the regional and international relationships of
inexperienced new states. There were additional problems: the presence of
minorities with external links, the inertia of colonialism which continued
after formal political independence had been achieved, the beginning of
the Cold War, the communist victory in China in 1949, and the growing
involvement of the United States in the area.
In the last stage of their occupation, the Japanese encouraged dialogue
between Indonesian and Malay nationalists. Tokyo gave nominal inde-
pendence to Burma and the Philippines in 1943, to Indochina in March
1945 and to Indonesia on the eve of the surrender in August 1945. But no
metropolitan power was prepared to accept this, nor did the nationalists
feel themselves strong enough to resist outright the return of colonial rule.
While insisting on real independence within a short space of time, initially
they preferred negotiations. This was true even in Indonesia among
moderate nationalists, such as Mohammad Hatta, and in Vietnam, where
in 1946 Ho Chi Minh was prepared to accept membership in the French
Union for his Democratic Republic of Vietnam as a 'bourgeois democratic
republic' in the first stage towards communism.
The 'firebreak' effect of the Japanese occupation made it nigh impossible
to revive the ancien regime, even in places such as Malaya and the Borneo
territories where the British were at first welcomed back. The Japanese
victories revealed the vulnerability of the colonial powers, which were
further weakened by the wartime drain on their economic resources.
Japanese rule alienated the Nanyang Chinese vis-a-vis host ethnic groups,
some of which collaborated with the Japanese. The occupation had given a
taste of pseudo-freedom, while the Atlantic Charter and the founding of
the United Nations provided international legitimacy for nationalism. This
was further encouraged by disillusionment among the liberated peoples
over economic difficulties, shortages and hardships in the aftermath
of war.
Although all the Western powers attempted to reimpose their rule after
the war, within twelve years most of the area had gained independence.
Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah were to follow in 1963 as part of Malaysia,
and two years later Singapore became a separate republic. Portuguese East
Timor was annexed by Indonesia in 1975 and Brunei became independent
in 1984. By that time the region comprised ten independent nation-states:

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Brunei, Burma, Cambodia (Kampuchea),1 Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the

Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. 2
The new nations were almost invariably the successor states of former
colonies and dependencies and, with the exception of Timor, modern
frontiers largely followed the lines laid down by the colonial powers at the
high noon of empire. Despite Thailand's initiative during World War II in
reclaiming sovereignty over parts of the Shan states, the northern Malay
states and territory on the eastern border with Cambodia, the winning of
independence did not lead in general to a reversion to the pre-colonial
scenario. Indeed working out external policy was determined by many
new factors: domestic needs; economic priorities; the continuing relation-
ship with the former colonial powers; the reactions to the great powers;
and the evolution of intra-regional relationships, which might involve both
conflict and co-operation.
The two most important factors affecting regionalism and international
relations in the immediate postwar years were the decolonization process
itself, and the problems of creating national identity within the (often
artificial) former colonial boundaries.

THE IMPACT OF DECOLONIZATION

The colonial powers returned with different approaches towards their
dependencies in Southeast Asia. The United States and Britain had the
advantage of returning as liberators against a repressive Japanese regime,
but France and the Netherlands, themselves occupied during the war,
appeared as imperial masters after the euphoria of liberation had dissipated.
The United States honoured its prewar pledge to grant independence to
the Philippines, but continued close economic and defence links, which
were to be of new significance when the United States came to play a wider
role in post-colonial Southeast Asia. France and the Netherlands planned
to give their colonies equal status in a French or Netherlands Union. But
the vagaries of domestic politics in Paris and The Hague, and the failure to
meet Asian nationalist aspirations, led in both cases to wars of liberation.
These ended with the breaking of political links—and, to a great extent,
economic links—with the paramount power.
The British connection lasted longer, partly because colonial policy in
Southeast Asia was not a matter for political rivalry in London, and
also because legitimate movements to independence were allowed to
1
The country adopted a variety of names in this period. Known as the Royal Kingdom of
Cambodia when it attained independence in 1953, it became the Khmer Republic after Lon
Nol took over in 1970. The Khmer Rouge adopted the term Democratic Kampuchea in 1975.
The Heng Samrin regime established a People's Republic of Kampuchea in 1979 but
reverted to the name Cambodia in 1989. For convenience, the name Cambodia is generally
used here.
2
Papua New Guinea, which became independent in 1975, is excluded from this study
as being more traditionally linked with Australasia, although it has had observer status in
ASEAN since 1976.

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take a more peaceful constitutional path. Thus British economic links

and defence responsibilities continued beyond political independence.
Further, the Commonwealth concept was already well tried in the case of
the old Dominions, and was sufficiently flexible to attract most newly
independent countries, except for Burma.
Despite its legal independent status, prewar Thailand had suffered
quasi-colonial infringements of its sovereignty, and its declaration of war
on the United States and Britain and seizure of British and French colonial
territory in World War II left the country in a vulnerable position in 1945.
The resignation of premier Phibun Songkhram in 1944 helped to soften
Allied hostility, since the successor civilian government was a front for
Pridi Phanomyong's Free Thai resistance movement, which was closely in
touch with the British and Americans. Nevertheless Britain and France
wanted to penalize Thailand for its pro-Japanese wartime role, but were
overruled by the United States, which in the early postwar years adopted
an anti-imperial stance when it suited national interests. Britain insisted on
compelling Thailand to supply rice at fixed low prices to the rest of
Southeast Asia—a measure considered essential for the stability of the
region—but otherwise the country's integrity was not infringed. In 1946
Thailand was admitted to the United Nations, where it aligned itself with
the West. Bangkok welcomed American protection against Anglo-French
retribution, and this broadened into a more general reliance on the United
States in the difficult postwar world. After Phibun took over once more in
1948, the American alignment became even closer.
While Washington kept its promise of political independence for the
Philippines, nothing had been done about the islands' economic reliance
on the United States. In July 1946 the Americans transferred power to a
conservative oligarchy, and for nearly thirty years the country remained
their firm ally, economic dependant and military collaborator.
The British came back to Southeast Asia with new policies of advancing
former dependencies to self-government. For Burma, which had achieved
a fair measure of autonomy in the 1930s, the British War Cabinet proposed
full independence as part of the Commonwealth as soon as the country
was ready and the interests of non-Burman minorities assured. In the
Malay states, the Straits Settlements and the Borneo protectorates, where
there had been little overt nationalism before World War II, the British had
approved schemes to streamline the political structure and prepare the
way for eventual self-government.
In 1946 Britain separated Singapore as a Crown Colony and organized
the peninsula into a Malayan Union, which in 1948 became the Federation
of Malaya. Sarawak and British North Borneo were brought under direct
colonial administration, but Britain deferred plans for changing the status
of Brunei, which continued to be a protected sultanate. Subsequently the
orderly transfer of power in Malaya and Singapore and the constitutional
incorporation of Sarawak and British North Borneo into the Federation of
Malaysia facilitated continuing military and economic links with Britain
and membership of the Commonwealth.
But in Burma the apparent strength of the nationalists largely deter-
mined the pace of political events. Aung San's Anti-Fascist People's

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Freedom League (AFPFL) emerged from the war with such ostensible
popular support that the British, with too many other priorities on their
hands, went along with Burmese demands without securing adequate
safeguards for minorities or achieving the degree of preparedness London
had considered necessary. A constitution was agreed in April 1947, but
three months later Aung San and most other AFPFL cabinet leaders were
assassinated, and the premature granting of independence in January 1948
immediately plunged the country into civil war. Vulnerable and weak, the
Union of Burma Republic was preoccupied with its internal problems. It
joined the United Nations but not the Commonwealth, and to a large
extent reverted to its traditional pre-colonial policy of isolation from the
outside world.
Dutch attempts to force its colonies into a Netherlands Union and to
isolate and undermine the newly declared Republic of Indonesia soured
the independence settlement negotiated at The Hague in 1949. Provision
for continued Dutch investment and commercial links laid down in the
agreement foundered during the ensuing troubled years.
In Indochina the returning French administration did not recognize the
independent regimes created by the Japanese. Paris re-established its
authority in Cambodia and Laos in 1946, signing agreements with both
countries providing for constitutional monarchies. But in Vietnam the
French were unable fully to reimpose their power or come to terms with
Vietnamese nationalism. By the end of 1946 France was engaged in
outright war against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, which was
dominated by the Vietminh. 3

NATIONAL IDENTITY AND UNITY

While international frontiers were a consequence of imperialist interests
and not necessarily designed to create nationhood, they proved to be the
least contentious issue in the post-independence period. With the notable
exception of the Philippines claim to Sabah and the multinational claim to
the Spratly Islands, there were few serious territorial disputes. Neverthe-
less the variety of sometimes incompatible racial groupings, including
immigrant communities, formed during the colonial period left problems
and tensions which affected regional and international relationships.
Some political leaders stressed cultural nationalism. They tried breaking
free from the colonial past to build up a sense of national cohesion by using
the language, religion or ethnic affinity of the politically dominant group
as a unifying factor. This happened with the Buddhist religion in Burma
and the Malay language in the Federation of Malaya. But such emphasis
highlighted minority differences and tended to look back to conservative
tradition. Elsewhere, as in Indonesia, or later in Singapore, nationalist
leaders stressed a unity in diversity, acknowledging ethnic, religious and
linguistic distinctions but adopting a secular approach with such common
3
Vietminh: Vietnamese Independence Brotherhood League, founded in 1941 as a front
organization of the Indochina Communist Party.

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goals as modernization. On occasions independence meant transferring

power from foreigners into the hands of a traditional elite or Westernized
privileged class, which tried, at least in the early years, to maintain the
economic and social status quo with the minimum disruption, as in the
Philippines and Malaya. But more radical nationalists aimed, in over-
throwing alien rule, to restructure society, eliminate poverty, and redis-
tribute wealth more equitably.
Even Thailand, which had never been colonized, needed to establish an
identifiable nationalism, which it had failed to do despite the 1932 revolu-
tion. While the British and French had annexed many of the ethnically
non-Thai border areas, postwar Thailand still had to come to terms with
Malay Muslim separatism in its southern provinces and the influx of hill
tribes in the north. Meanwhile, in Bangkok the pendulum continued to
swing between military and civilian bureaucracy, usually in bloodless
coups which caused little internal upset but made for unstable and shifting
government policies.
Before World War II the Muslim Moro population of the southern
Philippine islands had raised objections to the proposed granting of
independence, which might subject them to the rule of the Christian
majority, and indeed communal problems were to flare up later. But the
immediate concern of the newly independent regime under President
Manuel Roxas was to cope with agrarian unrest and communist Huk
guerrilla warfare. For this the Roxas regime needed aid and recognized its
economic reliance on the Americans, both for the immediate needs of
postwar rehabilitation and for long-term development. In March 1947 the
Philippines granted the United States military bases on 99-year leases
and made a mutual defence assistance agreement. The interdependent
questions of military bases and economic assistance would continue to
dominate Philippines foreign and domestic policy.
Burma's chief need was to absorb non-Burman states and defeat com-
munist guerrillas, while at the same time avoiding provoking its poten-
tially dangerous neighbour, China. Prime minister U Nu, the AFPFL
vice-president, who took over the leadership after Aung San's murder,
was respected as an individual but did not command the allegiance of
either the army or the left wing of his party. Within a year of independence
Burma was torn apart by the insurgency of communists, former Burma
Independence Army soldiers, Karens and hill tribes, so that the U Nu
government exerted little control outside the urban areas. The consequent
instability and preoccupation with establishing national cohesion, com-
bined with its vulnerability, reinforced Burma's inclination to isolationism.
Some sense of Indonesian nationality evolved through the long struggle
for independence, yet at the same time the bitterness of those years left
many divisions, a fragile federal organization, a ravaged economy, and a
dearth of administrators. The unleashing of guerrilla warfare during the
anti-Dutch campaign bequeathed a legacy of violence, which was to
characterize the new nation and perpetuate rifts between moderate secular
nationalists, aggressive pemuda (youths), left-wing socialists, and Muslim
fundamentalists. Indonesia's experiences during the fight for independ-
ence made it suspicious of the West—not only of the Netherlands but also

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of the United States and Britain. British troops had reoccupied the Indies
on behalf of the Dutch at the end of World War II, and Britain had
withdrawn from the scene after helping to produce the unsuccessful
Linggajati agreement.
Since the majority of Indonesians were Muslims, there was a natural
inclination to look to fellow Islamic countries for moral support. In 1947,
during the struggle against the Dutch, Haji Agus Salim, Vice-Minister of
Foreign Affairs for the Republic of Indonesia and a fluent Arabic speaker,
toured the Middle East. He negotiated a treaty of friendship with Egypt
and obtained recognition for the republic from Syria, Saudi Arabia, the
Lebanon and Iran. But Indonesia's internal needs meant tolerating diver-
sity in order to achieve national unity, which led it to play down an
Islamic image.
In Indochina the French and Vietminh remained at war, while inde-
pendence for Malaya and Singapore still seemed a distant prospect in the
late 1940s. Progress in the Federation was complicated by the outbreak of a
communist uprising in 1948, and by the need to provide for the various
racial groups in a country where the indigenous Malays were now out-
numbered by Chinese and Indian immigrant communities.

REGIONAL LINKS IN THE IMMEDIATE POSTWAR ERA

Widespread anti-colonial sentiment in the immediate postwar years did
not prove a regional bond since Southeast Asian nationalism was frag-
mented. This was true even before the lines were under-scored in the Cold
War and the area became involved in superpower rivalry. In these early
days independent countries often found that pressing internal needs
precluded the ability to devise sound foreign policy, so that what policy
there was usually stayed in a state of flux, engendering a fluid and
complex international situation. Regional ties among the newly independ-
ent countries were slow to develop.
There was no obvious regional leader. While the Philippines boasted a
nationalist movement dating back to the 1870s and was the first Asian
colonial territory to gain independence—predating even India in this
respect—its ongoing links with the United States made it a spokesman
and docile ally of that country rather than an acknowledged pace-setter of
regional nationalism. This was accentuated by the strong social and
cultural influence of the Spanish and American colonial period, which left
a Christian majority and the largest Western-educated community in
Southeast Asia. Filipino statements praising the United States at an Asian
Relations Conference held in New Delhi in March 1947, only months after
the Philippines became independent, shocked other delegates, as did a
statement at the Manila Treaty conference in 1954 that Filipinos did not
regard themselves as Asians.
Thailand's status as the only traditionally independent country in South-
east Asia and the first to become a member of the United Nations, might have
qualified it for a leadership role in the rest of the region. During the decade

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