Regionalism in Southeast Asia: To Foster the Political Will (Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Asia)

Regionalism in Southeast Asia

Regionalism in Southeast Asia provides the reader with a historical analysis of Southeast Asia from the distinct perspective of regionalism. Southeast Asian history is usually written from a national point of view, which underplays the links between neighbouring states and nations and the effects of these bonds on the development of regionalism. This innovative book first defines the meaning of ‘region’ and ‘regionalism’ and then applies it to periods of history in Southeast Asia to show how patterns of regionalism have shifted through time to the present day. Providing a rare historical treatment of the ASEAN, Tarling examines the economic and political relationship among the states within the association and their relations with external powers. In focusing on the regional perspective, Regionalism in Southeast Asia provides a stimulating and original treatment of Southeast Asian history, its political dynamics and its international relations. Regionalism in Southeast Asia completes a trilogy of books on Southeast Asia by Nicholas Tarling. The other titles, Imperialism in Southeast Asia (2001) and Nationalism in Southeast Asia (2004), are also published by Routledge. Nicholas Tarling is a Fellow of the New Zealand Asia Institute, The University of Auckland.

Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Asia

1 The Police in Occupation Japan Control, corruption and resistance to reform Christopher Aldous

8 Religion and Nationalism in India The case of the Punjab Harnik Deol

2 Chinese Workers A new history Jackie Sheehan

9 Japanese Industrialisation Historical and cultural perspectives Ian Inkster

3 The Aftermath of Partition in South Asia Tai Yong Tan and Gyanesh Kudaisya 4 The Australia-Japan Political Alignment 1952 to the present Alan Rix 5 Japan and Singapore in the World Economy Japan’s economic advance into Singapore, 1870–1965 Shimizu Hiroshi and Hirakawa Hitoshi 6 The Triads as Business Yiu Kong Chu 7 Contemporary Taiwanese Cultural Nationalism A-chin Hsiau

10 War and Nationalism in China 1925–1945 Hans J. van de Ven 11 Hong Kong in Transition One country, two systems Edited by Robert Ash, Peter Ferdinand, Brian Hook and Robin Porter 12 Japan’s Postwar Economic Recovery and Anglo-Japanese Relations, 1948–1962 Noriko Yokoi 13 Japanese Army Stragglers and Memories of the War in Japan, 1950–1975 Beatrice Trefalt

14 Ending the Vietnam War The Vietnamese communists’ perspective Ang Cheng Guan 15 The Development of the Japanese Nursing Profession Adopting and adapting Western influences Aya Takahashi 16 Women’s Suffrage in Asia Gender nationalism and democracy Louise Edwards and Mina Roces 17 The Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 1902–1922 Phillips Payson O’Brien 18 The United States and Cambodia, 1870–1969 From curiosity to confrontation Kenton Clymer 19 Capitalist Restructuring and the Pacific Rim Ravi Arvind Palat 20 The United States and Cambodia, 1969–2000 A troubled relationship Kenton Clymer 21 British Business in Post-Colonial Malaysia, 1957–70 ‘Neo-colonialism’ or ‘Disengagement’? Nicholas J. White 22 The Rise and Decline of Thai Absolutism Kullada Kesboonchoo Mead

23 Russian Views of Japan, 1792–1913 An anthology of travel writing David N. Wells 24 The Internment of Western Civilians under the Japanese, 1941–1945 A patchwork of internment Bernice Archer 25 The British Empire and Tibet 1900–1922 Wendy Palace 26 Nationalism in Southeast Asia If the people are with us Nicholas Tarling 27 Women, Work and the Japanese Economic Miracle The case of the cotton textile industry, 1945–1975 Helen Macnaughtan 28 A Colonial Economy in Crisis Burma’s rice delta and the world depression of the 1930s Ian Brown 29 A Vietnamese Royal Exile in Japan Prince Cuong De (1882–1951) Tran My-Van 30 Corruption and Good Governance in Asia Edited by Nicholas Tarling 31 US-China Cold War Collaboration, 1971–1989 S. Mahmud Ali

32 Rural Economic Development in Japan From the nineteenth century to the Pacific War Penelope Francks

37 Colonial Cambodia’s ‘Bad Frenchmen’ The rise of French rule and the life of Thomas Caraman, 1840–1887 Gregor Muller

33 Colonial Armies in Southeast Asia Edited by Karl Hack and Tobias Rettig

38 Japanese-American Civilian Prisoner Exchanges and Detention Camps, 1941–45 Bruce Elleman

34 Intra Asian Trade and the World Market A J H Latham and Heita Kawakatsu

39 Regionalism in Southeast Asia To foster the political will Nicholas Tarling

35 Japanese-German Relations, 1895–1945 War, diplomacy and public opinion Edited by Christian W. Spang and Rolf-Harald Wippich 36 Britain’s Imperial Cornerstone in China The Chinese maritime customs service, 1854–1949 Donna Brunero

40 Changing Visions of East Asia, 1943–93 Transformations and continuities R. B. Smith (Edited by Chad J. Mitcham) 41 Christian Heretics in Late Imperial China Christian inculturation and state control, 1720–1850 Lars P. Laamann 42 Beijing – A Concise History Stephen H. Haw

Regionalism in Southeast Asia To foster the political will

Nicholas Tarling

First published 2006 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2006 Nicholas Tarling

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN10: 0–415–37962–8 (Print Edition) ISBN13: 978–0–415–37962–5

For Wang Gungwu

The fundamental basis of ASEAN’s cooperation is the political will. Thus the basic effort in promoting our Association is . . . to foster the political will. (Suharto)

Contents

Preface

xii

PART I

Definitions and chronologies

1

1

Definitions

3

2

Chronologies

17

PART II

The view from without

33

3

Further India

35

4

Nan-yo

49

5

Colombo, Geneva, Bandung

69

PART III

The view from within

93

6

ASA and ASEAN

95

7

ZOPFAN

141

8

AFTA and ARF

186

PART IV

Historiography

217

9

Historiography

219

Notes Bibliography Index

227 253 268

Preface

Following as it does the author’s Imperialism in Southeast Asia (2001) and Nationalism in Southeast Asia (2004), this book completes what has turned out to be a trilogy. Like the others, it may, however, be read as an autonomous work. It describes the attempts to conceive of Southeast Asia as a region or to make it one. It places them in the context of regionalist theory in general and in that of Southeast Asian history in particular. Many books and articles have focused on ASEAN, but few of them have taken a historical perspective. Though this book is not a history of ASEAN, it is written in the belief that such a perspective adds both to an understanding of its nature and to a consideration of its prospects. Some forty years ago Bernard K. Gordon complained that, because of the way ASA worked, its public records had ‘very limited utility as historical documents, and even its confidential records will leave future historians with the feeling that something is missing’. The same is true of ASEAN, ASA’s successor. The diplomats of other countries, however, were, or made themselves, the recipients of confidences, and their reports provide a source of information and speculation additional to those in the media. The operation of the thirty-year rule has enabled the author to make some use of this material. He is grateful, as he has so often been, for the exemplary services of the Public Record Office (National Archives) in London and of the University of Auckland Library, for the welcome support of the New Zealand Asia Institute at the University of Auckland, for the commitment of Routledge and for the perceptive comments of a scholar-practitioner, Dr Brook Barrington. Auckland, 2005

Part I

Definitions and chronologies All cooperation is political. (D. Crone, 1988)

1

Definitions

The author sees this book as one in a series which, with Imperialism in Southeast Asia and Nationalism in Southeast Asia, will form a kind of trilogy with a common pattern. Each focuses on a concept that has framed the political structures of the region in modern times. Examining the concept helps in understanding the development of the region and in placing its history in the mainstream. At the same time examining the region helps to define the concept, so far as it has been or may be used more generally. In each book the author has endeavoured to follow a somewhat similar structure. In the opening chapters he searches for definitions and examines chronologies in the region and in the wider world. Then he discusses the colonial period and the Japanese interregnum. A sequence of chapters covers decolonisation, the independent states and the impact of globalisation. That approach means that there are overlaps as well as similarities or possibilities for comparison. But the books are meant to be free-standing as well as parts of a trilogy, and, while imperialism, nationalism and regionalism may be conceived as describing three phases in the history of the region, they themselves overlapped and overlap. Writing in 1982 on Regional Organization and Order in South-East Asia,1 Arnfinn Jorgensen-Dahl suggested that there were ‘two routes by which to approach such an undertaking’ as his. ‘One can start with specific generalizations and hypotheses taken from the wider body of already accumulated knowledge about regional cooperation, organization, and integration and proceed to test them within the context of Southeast Asia.’ Alternatively, one could ‘examine the conditions and processes in Southeast Asia and relate the results to relevant elements of the wider body of theoretical understanding’. He chose the latter path, partly because ‘little or nothing of the evidence on which present theoretical understanding rests has been drawn from Southeast Asian experiences’ but rather referred to Europe, Latin America and Africa. Moreover, the ‘empirical generalizations arrived at’ dealt with ‘conditions and processes the outcome of which represent levels of cooperation and integration not reached in any parts of Southeast Asia’ and might be ‘considered “ideal” outcomes in whose attainment in the region there is no a priori reason to believe’. Starting with existing generalisations might lead to ‘acts of oversight with regard to possible alternative outcomes and to the rejection or neglect of factors and variables unique to the area’;

4

Definitions and chronologies

and to explain why ‘levels of cooperation, organization, and integration achieved elsewhere’ had not been achieved in Southeast Asia, which the first approach seemed to require, would involve ‘a considerable amount of speculation about possible intervening factors as well as extrapolations into the future from the past and the present’, which could be used ‘neither to confirm or disconfirm existing hypotheses’.2 Jorgensen-Dahl thus adopted the second approach. Since he wrote regional cooperation and organisation have attracted more practical attention in Southeast Asia, and so has the study of them. But though they have to some extent been placed in a larger context, both actual and theoretical, that has largely been created by the development of what has become the European Community (EC). In that sense, Jorgensen-Dahl’s reservation remains: there is a risk that theoreticians as well as practitioners will be searching for deviancy rather than for comprehensiveness. ‘Studies in regionalism frequently but erroneously reflect the expectation of a progressive development which proceeds from consultation and co-ordination to integration. . . . A regional organization is judged by what it has achieved along this path towards integration.’ But that is an ‘over-simplification’. Integration should not be ‘a terminal condition’.3 By contrast Vincent Cable remarked ten years later that ASEAN had ‘survived’ but had ‘little concrete to show’ for its ‘integration efforts’.4 The present author suggests, however, that it may still be possible to avoid a choice between the two kinds of approach Jorgensen-Dahl outlines. Regionalism may be examined in a theoretical way without assuming that Southeast Asia has to be fitted into a particular pattern or process, or that there is, say, a necessary evolution towards ‘integration’ even if in different ways towards different forms, while yet recognising that it may add to the understanding of the Southeast Asian experience. At the same time, it may be possible to suggest that a study of the Southeast Asian experience may test out and possibly afford the means of amplifying or sharpening the theoretical approach. Unsatisfactory as it may be logically speaking, it may be a practical way to proceed, and a profitable one, as well as, perhaps, one a historian might be expected to prefer. It is indeed this course the author endeavoured to adopt in the two previous books on ‘imperialism’ and ‘nationalism’. There he began with definitions. Those he endeavoured to supplement with chronology, in the recognition that the meanings of words may vary from place to place but are also likely to change or be changed over time as circumstances and conditions change. That does not necessarily mean that a theoretical approach is completely time-bound and so of limited, even but snapshot, value. It may rather lead to a more useful definition, further dislodging the risk of seeing regionalism as taking one particular course of development and no other and regarding it as somehow questionable, even unsuccessful, if it does not always end up with the same outcome. It provides a historical context for a topic too often discussed more or less in its absence. That does not make it easier to discuss but may make it more worthwhile. In the case of ‘imperialism’ and ‘nationalism’, the search for a definition itself took differing forms. Both words had not only shifted their meaning over time but also had – also shifting – political overtones. In the first case, the author decided

Definitions 5 that it might be best tentatively to adopt a limited definition, applied to a particular time-phase, allowing readers to set other definitions against it if they were so disposed. In the second case, he took a rather different course. ‘Nationalism’ could not be confined to a particular time-phase, and it seemed best to adopt a kind of definition that would enable it to be studied in its continuity and discontinuity over a long, though not undefined, period. ‘As a political doctrine regionalism is even more incoherent than nationalism’, James Mayall writes, ‘since those who advocate regional solutions to political and economic problems do not merely differ on the meaning and implications of the concept, but are frequently pursuing contradictory projects’.5 Defining ‘regionalism’, however, is perhaps a less fraught venture than finding a useful definition of ‘imperialism’ or ‘nationalism’. As a movement, it does not extend over a long period, and thus requires either to be chronologically pinned down or treated in an expanded manner. Nor – though it is not entirely free of political overtones – does it carry the political baggage of ‘imperialism’ or ‘nationalism’, even though it is in a measure a comparator and a successor. The definition of ‘regionalism’ – and of correlatives like ‘region’, ‘regionalist’, ‘regionalise’ and ‘regionness’ – is not, however, uncontested, even if, in this case, it is less on account of political or ideological overtones or purposes, and more on account of varying approaches to comment and analysis. The concepts are, however, increasingly being used or developed in the course of or as a basis of public action, not merely though primarily political, and both practice and theory are increasingly placed in the conflicted context of ‘globalisation’. In discussing ‘nationalism’ the author was able to enjoy some recourse to an extensive non-historiographical theoretical literature. Writers on the topic, he found, have attempted to classify their approaches to the topic. Some are ‘primordialist’ or ‘perennialist’ in emphasis, some ‘functionalist’ and some ‘constructivist’. No doubt partly because of his historical training, the author found some truth in all of them, and deployed parts of each. ‘Primordialism’ he found least convincing, however, and an element of ‘constructivism’ he deemed essential. ‘Nations’ had not always existed, only to be awakened. Nor were they simply brought into being by changing conditions, such as the advance of industrialisation or literacy. Instead they were ‘constructed’ by those who reckoned with such factors and turned them to account. Such categorisations may also help in discussing ‘regionalism’, in some ways not only as comparator, but collaborator and competitor. In discussing ‘regionalism’ the author has had recourse to a theoretical literature that, not surprisingly, overlaps in part the literature on nationalism, and indeed in some cases has been produced by the same writers. He was struck by the contention in the discipline of international relations, so much in evidence, indeed, that there seemed a risk that scholars in the field might find it difficult to offer composite accounts and explanations. That risk has been coupled with another, given that so much of the writing has focused on one case, that of Europe and the EC. Unlike that on nationalism, the literature on regionalism rarely gives ‘primordialism’ explanatory force. Michael Haas’ suggestion that ‘the peoples of

6

Definitions and chronologies

Asia share a common culture in regard to international relations’6 is scarcely convincing, and, in discussing the mandala concept advanced by Oliver Wolters as a means of understanding interstate relations in early Southeast Asia, Craig Reynolds warns that its emphasis on non-coercive cultural authority, playing down warfare and violence, may perpetuate ‘an exotic, idealist, Orientalist construction of the Southeast Asian past’.7 Does that point to ‘realism’? By contrast again to the debate on ‘nationalism’, the state – for which nationalists contended or which took up that cause – is throughout the main focus of the debate on ‘regionalism’. One approach is the ‘realist’, which analyses international relations in terms of contending states relentlessly pursuing their interests in a more or less anarchic world. Whether states, even in Europe before the Second World War, behaved like that a historian may readily question, but, during and after that war, it was urgent to argue that they need not. It was in that context that David Mitrany conceived, in A Working Peace System (1943), what came to be seen as the ‘functionalist’ approach.8 That approach was practically exemplified in the post-war attempts to ensure that France and Germany would not fight again. ‘Functionalism’ and ‘neo-functionalism’ described actuality and hope. Statesmen saw the Coal and Steel Community as a first step towards a wider community. Theorists analysed their achievement and supported their aspiration. There were and would be ‘spillovers’ from economic collaboration, as Ernst Haas argued in The Unity of Europe (1958), though it has been suggested that ‘neofunctionalists do not fully explain the starting up of an integration process, but advance a hypothesis on the course for further expansion’,9 and Haas, taking account of De Gaulle, later added in a leader with ‘dramatic-political’ aims.10 The development of the EC was certainly led from the top and was strikingly contractual and rule-bound, and some ‘intergovernmentalists’, like Andrew Moravcsik, saw ‘integration’ in terms of a series of bargains among heads of state.11 The major shift in international relations studies was, however, towards ‘constructivism’, and it became the main contender with its supposed opposite, ‘realism’, even as modified by the stress placed on conventions and expectations by Robert Keohane’s ‘institutionalism’.12 To some extent ‘constructivism’, too, goes back to the 1950s, to the ideas of Karl Deutsch, who also influenced theories of nationalism. States, he suggested, might develop a habit of peaceful interaction as a means of managing the anarchy that ‘realists’ took for granted: a ‘security community’ might emerge. His ‘transactionalism’ was an insight into the past itself taken up by ‘constructivists’ in the 1980s and 1990s, when scholars ‘finally caught up with Deutsch’s vision’.13 But they were also influenced, if not misled, by the ‘linguistic turn’, exemplified in the debate on nationalism by Ben Anderson and his concept of ‘imagined communities’. ‘In the constructivist approach’, writes Björn Hettne, ‘regions come to life as we talk and think about them.’14 Like the nation, the region is an ‘imagined community’. A balance is required. Constructivists’ studies may focus on ‘the effects of norms on the behaviour of actors or the development of norms by actors through their agency’. Most, Hiro Katsumata thinks, currently focus on the first. ‘This is why today’s constructivists are criticised for not paying sufficient attention to the

Definitions 7 actors’ construction of ideational structures despite their claim that structures and agents are mutually constitutive.’15 Summarising complex theories is a risky task, especially when undertaken by someone outside a discipline. The historian may find the risk worth taking, for they may offer new insights into his own discipline. The present author hopes to offer something in return, not only by presenting a fuller account than most of regionalism in Southeast Asia, but also by taking another risk. For he has found that, while most of the theories have offered some new insights, they seem less at odds with each other than their proponents at times seem to suggest, and he fears that, as it were, a single lens may distort. In his view Jean Monnet was a ‘realist’, but it was part of his ‘realism’ that he recognised the value of what theorists would describe in terms of ‘functionalism’ and ‘constructivism’. The point is all the more important if the study of international relations is to be, as Keohane hoped, ‘a policy science as well as a theoretical activity’.16 What is true of Monnet is surely also true of the creators of the Association of Southeast Asian States, ASEAN, such as Ghazali, ‘realists’ to a man, but also ‘constructivists’. Richard Higgott saw the Asia-Pacific networks of the early 1990s as ‘an important laboratory for enhancing our conceptual and theoretical understanding of the importance of ideas in identity formation and policy learning in international relations’.17 The same may be true of Southeast Asia even before then. ‘Without a constructivist understanding, it would be difficult to explain the emergence of ASEAN.’18 For the most part modern understanding of the word ‘region’ and its correlatives are geographic in character, though the English word comes, perhaps significantly, from the Latin regere, to direct; and it was earlier used also to describe levels of air, and is also used metaphorically. Contiguity or proximity seem to be essential, though some have denied even that, and others have extended the boundaries very wide, while allowing or advocating the ‘imagining’ of ‘subregions’, ‘meso-regions’19 and ‘micro-regions’.20 But it would still be hard to conceive of ‘regionalism’ as ‘primordial’, though the associations and loyalties that might grow up or be cultivated within it might over time bring it within the ambit of those who wish to use that category. Far more, regions appear to be constituted by ‘function’ and ‘construction’, a mixture, in varying proportions, partly depending on type and purpose. Over a period economic, social and cultural connections may be built up, taking more or less account of geographical relationships, as a result of ‘function’ but also as a result of ‘construction’. More directly, perhaps more immediately, it may be effected by leaders, perhaps particularly in the political sphere, who are advocating and pursuing regionalism. Those who ‘imagine’ – or ‘invent’ – this community are likely, like Anderson’s nationalists, to include the elite rather than or sooner than the masses: indeed the elite might be more likely actually to know others than merely imagine a relationship with them. But they may also be – or solely comprising – outsiders, who perceive the area as a region, however its occupants perceive it. And the region does not have to be conflictless to be a region: it may be marked by conflict, or by a mixture of agreement and disagreement,

8

Definitions and chronologies

‘the interdependence of rivalry’, in Barry Buzan’s words, as well as ‘the interdependence of shared interests’.21 Indeed ‘outside’ factors are important as well as ‘outsiders’. The discussion of ‘nationalism’ suggested the extent to which, in at least two senses, it was formed as a response – by way of contention, collaboration or negotiation – to changes in a larger world. That world, first, might be affected by all-encompassing or potentially all-encompassing changes of an economic origin, improvements in communication, industrialisation and now ‘globalisation’. Second, there were allencompassing changes of a political nature, creating first a world of empires, and then a world of states, generally identified with or as nations. States and nations indeed formed themselves in contact or contest with one another, imitating example, emulating power. Overall they constituted a way in which segments of humanity organised themselves and, in order to avoid anarchy, more or less recognised the existence of others. ‘Region’ is another. The sense of ‘region’ may be felt in the economic, cultural and social fields, as well as the political. Nor is it necessarily to be conceived as composed of states or nations. They might come together in a region – on the basis of equality or inequality – to struggle among themselves, to compose differences among themselves, to work out ways of living alongside one another, to pursue common interests, or to fend off the threat or actuality of aggression from others. But ‘regions’ or a sense of ‘regionness’ may, even so far as the political is concerned, be made up out of components other than states, out of non-state actors, at odds with state frontiers or boundaries, or supplementary to them. Elites have different, sometimes competing, agendas, and people may sustain a range of loyalties, to family, community, religion, nation, state, region, humanity, in varying priorities and combinations. There are two ways in which the geographical concept of ‘region’ relates to the political concept of ‘state’ in a world of states. A ‘region’ may exist, or be thought to exist, within a state – the Vendée, the Black Country, the Ruhr, the Wairarapa, Kabikolan, Isan – and the state may adjust policies, and even structures, to take account of it and of any ‘regionalism’ which may relate to it. In modern states that may involve formal measures of devolution, autonomy or federation. A ‘region’ may also exist, or be thought to exist, among states, or among parts of states seen, though more or less independent, as having common features or common interests, including but going beyond geographical juxtaposition: the Danube, the Mekong, for example. Commentary on Southeast Asia sometimes calls up ‘the Balkans’ as example or warning: ‘Balkanisation’ standing for intra-regional rivalries, outside intervention, loss of independence,22 and, in respect of Indonesia, possible fragmentation. The correlatives of ‘region’ are often deployed in a confusing way. Attempts to clarify may not succeed, but may be useful nevertheless. Regionalism in Paul Evans’ view is ‘a conscious awareness of shared commonalities and the will to create institutions and processes to act upon those commonalities’.23 One difficulty with this is that it does not include the exogenous ‘creation’ of a region: a region may exist in the eyes of outsiders before it is perceived or taken over by

Definitions 9 insiders, if indeed it ever is. The same ambiguity hangs over a relatively recent usage, ‘regionness’: coherence, identity, ‘translocal “sameness” ’, as Hettne puts it.24 ‘[I]t is how political actors perceive and interpret the idea of a region and notions of “regionness” that is critical: all regions are socially constructed and hence politically contested’, Andrew Hurrell tells us.25 Even those words seem, however, to preclude the exogenous, and that foreshortens the topic. ‘Regionalism’ and ‘regionalisation’ have also been distinguished from one another in different ways. For Söderbaum ‘regionalism’ is a set of ideas, identities and ideologies related to a regional project, and ‘regionalisation’ ‘the process of regional interaction creating a regional space (or the outcome)’.26 For Morten Boas and Helge Hveem, on the other hand, while regionalism ‘denotes the body of ideas and goals laid down for the regional project’, regionalisation ‘represents the active pursuit of a strategy, aimed at creating a regional system in a specific area’.27 ‘Regionalism’, it would seem, has to do with attitude and policy. ‘Regionalisation’ might encompass both process and practice. Mark Beeson is among those who would distinguish the two by their protagonists. In regionalisation, ‘the private sector and economic forces are the principal drivers of regional integration’. In ‘regionalism’, ‘self-consciously pursued political projects drive closer transnational cooperation’.28 But it seems safer to be less specific. ‘Regionalism’ implies a sentiment that exists or, perhaps more often, a programme or policy designed to build on or, if need be, to create or promote such a sentiment. Within a state, it may be designed to secure concessions from a central government, though it may also be used by a central government to win support or divide opponents. Among states, where it is now at least the more common usage, it may again be designed to reduce differences and expand commonalities. It may also be designed to accommodate or provide leadership from within the region or from outside. In the world of states that has emerged since the Second World War, inter-state relations are conducted on a theoretical basis of equality, though they are very unequal in power, and have become even more so, perhaps to the extent of placing the whole paradoxical system under threat. Regionalism has been a means of handling that paradox, though it may provide another: states enter regional organisations in order to pursue ‘national’ aims. But that may be a source of success. Those are issues that concern the basic element in the foreign policy of states in a world of states, the provision of security vis-a-vis other states. That has been, and remains, primarily a political and strategic issue, but it has always been an economic one, too. Without ‘development’, a state cannot sustain its domestic support, let alone conduct an effective foreign policy. There is, however, a tendency in writing about ‘globalisation’ to exaggerate the primacy of the economic. ‘Globalisation’, ‘a term used by many and defined by few’, as Charles Oman justly puts it; he defines it as ‘the accelerated growth . . . of economic activity that spans politically defined national and regional boundaries’.29 There is a counterpart risk in writing about ‘regionalism’, particularly at a time when it may be deployed in gaining leverage in world trade negotiations. Sheila Page, for example, offers a ‘basic definition’ of a region as ‘a group of

10 Definitions and chronologies countries which have created a legal framework of cooperation covering an extensive economic relationship, with the intention that it will be of indefinite duration, and with the possibility foreseen that the region will evolve or change’.30 It is, however, recognised that what is often called the ‘new regionalism’ extends beyond the economic. ‘A central characteristic of the new regionalism is its multidimensional character’, Louise Fawcett and Andrew Hurrell claim. ‘Even if the outward form of regionalism is economic in nature (as with the EC, NAFTA, or APEC), the factors that underpin and sustain such projects are often far from solely economic and economic regionalism may carry with it important geopolitical or security consequences.’31 As Hettne points out, the ‘new’ regionalism may indeed be seen as the ‘return of the political’, encompassing interventions to defend ‘civil society’ against economic globalisation.32 It seems thus both to operate within economic globalisation and in contention with it. What that concept may by-pass is, of course, the fact that the concern for ‘civil society’ is itself ‘globalising’. The error in over-emphasising the economic element in current regionalism lies less in neglecting its civil society content than in ignoring its strategic element. Even Fawcett and Hurrell seem to see that in terms of outcome rather than purpose. ‘Imperialism’ and ‘nationalism’ were programmes or policies not merely accepted by the elite but propagated by them: they were means of winning popular support. It is much less clear whether ‘regionalism’, at least in the second sense, has that purpose or that potential. It often seems to be a perception held only by leaders – indeed the proto-EC was explicitly elite-led, and the organisation has never become a popular one – sometimes from outside the region rather than inside, sometimes with transparently one-sided objectives, sometimes ephemeral, banal or unthinking in character. That tends to bring out its ambiguous relationship with the nation-state and its purpose. In a world where ‘imperialism’ is condemned but still feared, and ‘nationalism’ still powerful, though said to be weakening, ‘regionalism’ is hard to promote, so far as its interstate manifestation is concerned, if not its intrastate. ‘Function’ may not be enough. Leaders offer ‘Visions’ in ‘dramatic-political’ style, but they may be no more convincing than company prospectuses. There is a case, however, for arguing that ‘regionalism’ should not be too strong. Rather than the object of the fierce antagonisms that faced ‘imperialism’, or the fierce enthusiasms that supported ‘nationalism’, regionalism might serve the world and its peoples better as a mediating influence, an instrument of negotiation among them, rather than of outright struggle. Theorising about ‘imperialism’ and ‘nationalism’ has been a longstanding academic activity. Whether or not the concepts readily form the basis of academic analysis, they have necessarily been the subject of it. Historians have had to tackle the study of their history while they are still being worked out, their nature changing, the words assuming new meanings or overtones: a not unusual kind of historiographical task, fraught with risk but with the prospect of clearer understanding, too. ‘Regionalism’ – less prominent in history – has been less prominent in historiography, too. Only in the depression and particularly after the Second World War – when ‘imperialism’ was coming to an end and a world of ‘nation’

Definitions 11 states was emerging – did it emerge as a phenomenon worth a study at least in its interstate form, chiefly in its manifestation in European Economic Community (EEC), and only in the last decade or so – with the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union (SU), and the advance of ‘globalisation’ – has it become a major theme. In both cases that has perhaps emphasised the economic aspect of analysis and definition, and their historiography, as well as analysis in other disciplines, has been affected by that. This book indeed suggests that such an emphasis has led to some distortion in the use of the term and some narrowing of the meaning attached to it, not only in the discussion of more recent times, but in the discussion of the past. It was indeed often part of the rationales that key members of the elite offered, but in some measure they were doing so in order to better pursue the political agenda. Analysis of their actions and, as far as possible, their motives should not be unduly inflected either by the rationales they advanced by way of persuasion or propaganda or by the assumptions others have since made on the basis of more recent or current preoccupations. That conclusion might as well be reached by studying Europe as by studying Southeast Asia. The author hopes that his focus on Southeast Asia will not only add something to the understanding of its history and politics, but also offer another reminder to students of ‘regionalism’ that students of Europe may also wish to keep in mind. Much of the literature has focused – as again did other parts of the rationale members of the elite offered at the time – on external threat. Too little attention has been given, the author suggests, to the internal political dynamics of ‘regionalism’, the influence on it, and on the creation and development of regional organisations, and of the relations among states seen or seeing themselves as part of a region. Like other phenomena, a ‘region’ may not remain stable over long periods, whatever the human intention and still less any ‘regional organisation’ that may be created. And what some see as the objectives of ‘regionalism’ or a regional organisation may indeed differ from what others see from the very start, let alone as it changes its nature and its response to conditions, internal or external. The historical approach should uncover such differences as well as such changes, as matters of intrinsic interest and, possibly, of practical significance. Redirecting or readjusting may be more difficult to achieve, not less, if the original purpose or expectation is ignored. It was in the late 1990s that writers involved in a United Nations University/World Institute for Development Economics Research (WIDER) project investigated the ‘new regionalism’. That itself needed defining. The present author draws on the attempts to do so, though his objective is rather to use them to define ‘regionalism’, ‘new’ or ‘old’. Its novelty – or antiquity – he would like to be able to include in a more general definition, making them forms of ‘regionalism’ that have particular features because they relate to particular times, places and circumstances. The notion itself may well be challenged by a student of Southeast Asia. Fredrik Söderbaum explains it in terms of ‘waves’ or ‘generations’. Some, he

12 Definitions and chronologies says, might find the first in the protectionism of the 1930s. More frequently, analysts find the first in the post-war period and see it dying out in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The ‘new’ wave starts in Western Europe in the mid-1980s.33 Yet ASEAN, ignored in this categorisation, was founded in the late 1960s and survived throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Whatever is derived from examining the definitions will need to reckon with that, even if the definitions themselves do not. Björn Hettne, a progenitor of WIDER, compares ‘new’ regionalism with ‘old’. In the latter case, he has in mind the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community in the 1950s, ‘a peace project’, as he puts it, ‘largely positive, but’, he curiously adds, ‘certainly not a decisive factor in the post-war world order’. Had the ‘new regionalism’, a world-wide phenomenon, come to stay, he wondered, or would it turn out to be ‘as ephemeral as the first wave, that glimmered then disappeared’? The initial reception of the ‘second wave’ was cool, he notes, because the reigning neo-liberal community of economists feared that it heralded protectionism,34 a recurrence, perhaps, to a yet earlier ‘wave’ in the 1930s. But it grew in importance. The rhetoric is rather unappealing to the historian, who may in general find the reification of regionalism damages any prospect of explanation, and in particular question the role assigned to the ECSC, the preamble of whose founding document after all set out the objective of creating ‘an economic community’ as ‘the foundation of a broad and independent community among peoples long divided by bloody conflicts’.35 Nor does Hettne’s subsequent attempt to incorporate in his definition of ‘new regionalism’ the distinction, derived from the writings of Immanuel Wallerstein, between core and periphery, seem helpful. Certainly, if the present author is seeking assistance, he is looking for a definition that could encompass ‘regionalisms’ in different parts of the world, rather than differentiating them ‘with reference to their current position in the world system’.36 Happier, perhaps, and more useful to the historian, is the concluding chapter in the collection Hettne thus introduces. ‘[W]e emphasize the socially constructed character of ‘ “the new regionalism” ’, write Michael Schulz, Fredrik Söderbaum and Joakim Ojendal. ‘There are no “natural” regions, but these are constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed – intentionally or non-intentionally – in the process of global transformation, by collective human action and identity formation. Since regions are social constructions, there are no “given” regions, nor any given regionalist interests, but interests and identities are shaped in the process of interaction and inter-subjective understanding.’ ‘Hard structuralism’ was to be transcended, ‘and in order to understand structural change we must move from structure to agency, actor, visions and strategies’.37 Those are notions with which, though stated rather exaggeratedly, an historian may sympathise, without necessarily using the same terms. And, as far as the present project is concerned, they also offer ways of defining any ‘regionalism’, ‘new’ or ‘old’. One of the essays in another collection, Theories of New Regionalism (Palgrave, 2003), also seems to assist with such an historiographical enterprise, at least so far as interstate regionalism is concerned, and, rather as David Brown’s

Definitions 13 work on contemporary nationalism was taken as the basis for concluding the first chapter in the book on nationalism, it may serve a similar purpose in the present work. Helge Hveem offers an analytical perspective in her paper ‘The Regional Project in Global Governance’ (pp. 82–91). First, she draws a distinction between ‘regionalism’ and ‘regionalization’. The former ‘refers to a programme, an ideology, to a situation where there exists a clear idea of a region, a set of goals and values associated with a specific project that an identifiable group of actors wish to realize’. Regionalisation Hveem uses for ‘the actual process of increasing exchange, contact and coordination and so on within a given region’. It may, she says, result from regionalism, ‘but not necessarily, and not only so’. Regionalism might ‘fail to produce the results it intends’. Moreover, Hveem adds, ‘regionalization – as increased emphasis on organizing cross-border transactions within a region – may be intended not as an end, but as a means to an end. The end may be the global market and the region may serve as a stepping-stone to it, as an adjustment to and preparation for globalization. In yet other cases regionalization may be intended neither as an end nor as a stepping-stone, but simply be a way of hedging’ (pp. 83–4). Those definitions are perhaps oriented too much to current concerns to be readily applied to earlier periods. But Hveem’s attempt to categorise regional projects is stimulating for the historian, for it takes her into the past, and, just as they trespass themselves, historians welcome trespassers, without necessarily thinking that they must leave things as they found them. ‘Throughout history hegemonic regional projects have been dominant’, she declares. ‘The legitimacy of the project has, in other words, not been a primary concern’ (p. 85). The historian might accept the first sentence more readily than the second. For European ‘empires’ were concerned with their ‘legitimacy’, and not solely, if primarily, in their metropolitan constituencies. In the decolonisation process, ‘imperial regions were contested’, Hveem continues, ‘but the Cold War led many parties to accept hegemonic regionalization of a less openly or informal type. State leaders’ – it is not clear whether Hveem means those in the hegemon or in the region or both – ‘could thus legitimize hegemonic regional projects if a credible enemy image was present, or could be constructed. Security concerns at the same time imposed strict rules as to with whom members of security pacts could associate’ (p. 85). Sometimes ‘considerations of security, welfare, or even collective identity led the weaker parties rather voluntarily to associate with hegemonic powers, Francophone West Africa being one example’. Hegemonic projects did not end with the Cold War, but ‘with democracy and greater transparency’ faced ‘greater contestation’ (p. 85); ‘and they face alternative types of regional projects’ (p. 85). Such, Hveem omits to add, already existed, notably ASEAN. The ‘alternative types’ include ‘international regionalization where the decision-making is based on inter-state relations and on the multilateral principles of one-member, one-vote and of reaching consensus’. They also include ‘transnational regionalization’, which Hveem divides into two sub-categories: ‘corporate industrial organization’, and ‘societal non-state initiative and decentralized

14

Definitions and chronologies

patterns of influence’, ‘new regionalism’ often being associated with the latter. The EU ‘both incorporates and transcends elements of all these types’, at the same time representing ‘what is still the only real example of supranational regionalization’ (pp. 85–6). ‘[T]he hegemonic regional project is far from dead’, Hveem continues (p. 86). She goes on to consider India in SAARC, the United States in NAFTA, Brazil in Mercosur, South Africa in SADC, suggesting a definition rather different from the one she initially appeared to be contemplating. Then the hegemon appeared to be an ‘outside’ power, empire or Cold War combatant. Now her examples are states with the power or potential to offer ‘leadership’ in a region. ‘Leadership is most often associated with a major nation-state. If leadership is uncertain, not to mention contested, that creates instability and the project becomes non-viable. At the same time a hegemonic project would normally be aware of the threat to leadership in the structural imbalance or “democratic deficit” that it represents. It will therefore focus on security more than other goals, or at least as one major goal, because it has the potential of being considered a collective good.’ It may also be ‘willing to meet a disproportionately large share of the costs of carrying the regional project and finance. . . . The hegemon needs to be deliberately benign towards other members of the project’ (p. 86). Once, however, this relationship is taken as ‘hegemonic’, it seems to overlap with what Hveem describes as ‘non-hegemonic’. A non-hegemonic project ‘represents a state-led and inter-state project that assumes some form and degree of multilateral decision-making style’, and in which members share leadership and decision-making is based on negotiation not dictation. It is the type of regional project most often found in the period of decolonisation and in the post-Cold War periods, because ‘it comes closer than either hegemonic or supranational orders to preserving state autonomy and is thus seen as most legitimate by most political agents’ (p. 87). Indeed – so it may seem to an historian, and perhaps particularly an historian of Southeast Asia – the two categories are too sharply distinguished to relate adequately to the conditions and practices essentially involved in the maintenance of a world of states in which theoretical equality is combined with actual inequality. ‘Regionalism’ or ‘regionalisation’ may be a more subtle process or practice than these models readily admit. States within a region or regional organisation may have a more complex inter-relationship than that of states/hegemon or states/states and that may also condition their attitude to those states that might be seen or want to act as ‘hegemons’ from outside the region. Hveem’s discussion does, however, at least draw attention to the need to consider intra-regional relationships. Hveem goes on to consider the question of motivation. Before that she reviews transnational regionalisation in its two sub-categories, corporate and societal regionalisation. Corporate actors may be globalist or regionalist or may prefer bilateral arrangements. Their objective is to create wealth through growth. Societal actors are more concerned with distribution, but they may converge on some aspects of environmental protection (p. 87).

Definitions 15 These sub-categories may motivate measures of economic regionalisation. One object may be to reduce transaction costs by cutting tariffs or simplifying administrative procedures, creating a larger home-market (p. 88). Societal regionalisation may focus on common or supra-national but regional issues, the use of a river basin, the prevention of desertification and the reduction of pollution. The motivation for both is ‘utility’. Hveem offers ‘a second type of motive or goal’, security. In the past, she suggests, many regional cooperation agreements, EDSC, SADCC, ASEAN, have been driven or initiated by such a motive. More recently, the security motive has been based on a comprehensive security concept, rather than a military one, related, for example, to the destabilisation of neighbours (p. 88). A third type of motive Hveem finds in the creation or defence of collective identity. ‘Cooperation may result out of a manifest need to establish, or defend, what is perceived as the fundamental cultural basis, socio-cultural distinctness or the particular institutions characteristic of a region’ (p. 89). Europe is a case in point, the Monnet-Schuman ‘idea’ taken up by Realpolitik leaders Adenauer and de Gaulle ‘because it represented a radical breach with the perception of Europe as an eternal war zone’ (p. 89). In that example, there is, of course, a long-standing concept of Europe, though, perhaps, no certainty about its geographical boundaries. The ‘constructivist’ element lies in effecting a shift or re-emphasis in the perception of the identity of the region. Hveem might have taken ASEAN as an example, too. There was indeed no long-standing concept of Southeast Asia. But leaders sought, with success, to displace an image of turmoil by one of stability. To an ‘outsider’ ‘international relations’ seems, as a discipline, currently to offer a somewhat ambiguous mode of analysis, with its schools of thought taking up approaches or perspectives that appear unduly contentious or exclusive, even, perhaps, to the extent of disadvantaging a rounded view of the topic they are tackling. They may surely be usefully drawn together. Hurrell suggests a ‘staged approach’ to the study of regionalism, the start of the process best considered with a neo-realist perspective, with later stages being better suited to other approaches. That, he admits, is ‘theoretically somewhat unsatisfying’, though ‘historically often very plausible’.38 But it would surely be more consistent and more rewarding to develop an integrated or multi-school approach to the whole process. That is more likely to do justice to the essential point that in the ‘real’ world actors or ‘agents’ may find it ‘realistic’ to be ‘constructivist’. In this book, as in its predecessors, the author finds it useful to juxtapose the perceptions the historian has of the past with the theories political economists, sociologists and international relations experts offer on the contemporary phase. Their emphasis on ‘theory’ reminds the historian not to avoid it, while not necessarily embracing it. At the same time, the historian’s particularism is both a critique of it and a contribution to its elaboration. The author finds that the two areas of activity come close together if, as in the earlier books, he adopts the approach of one of his mentors, F.H. Hinsley, who, in discussing the origin of the world wars, found it useful to distinguish between the

16 Definitions and chronologies circumstances in which governments acted and the actions that they undertook, the ‘given conditions’ and the ‘human element’.39 There may thus be factors that are making for ‘regionalism’ or ‘regionalisation’, as there were for imperialism or nationalism, but they are turned to account and shaped through ‘agency’ or ‘actors’. The factors may include, if not the ‘primordial’, then the ‘functional’ and ‘institutional’, but perception and ‘construction’ are also essential to an explanation. In the present chapter the author has sought help from attempts to define and categorise contemporary regionalism and regionalisation made by contemporary analysts. The second chapter seeks to validate their use in a more extended historiographical discussion. First, that assumes a rather general ambit. Then it begins to focus on Southeast Asia, offering in that way a more specific introduction to the remaining chapters of the book.

2

Chronologies

A definition may allow for, or be amplified by, an extension of the application of the term over a period of time. That may make it more compendious and possibly more comprehensible. This chapter attempts to place the definitions of region and its correlatives adumbrated in Chapter 1 within chronological sequences related both to the world at large and, in a preliminary way, to Southeast Asia in particular. The object – as of the book as a whole – is both to reflect on theories and concepts of region and regionalism, and to enhance understanding of what has come to be seen as a region and of attempts to create regional policies and organisations. Chapter 1 also offered what some may see as a historian’s way of perceiving and exploring such issues. That is, not merely ‘realist’, ‘functionalist’ nor ‘constructionist’ but a mixture of them. The historian may also have a special sense of ‘agency’. There are conditions that may make some kind of region, ‘regionness’ or regionalism possible, geographical, traditional, historical, political, strategic, economic, cultural, ethnic or religious. But human beings, whose actions are already incorporated in some of those ‘conditions’, have to build on them if they wish, for whatever reason, to advance regionalist policies or create a regional organisation. And to achieve that, they need to understand at least some of the conditions and to develop objectives which they may be able to realise. The historian will also want to emphasise change over time. The conditions under which a region may be recognised or regionalism advanced will change, both within the region and outside it. The idea of a region or a regional organisation will also change as new precedents are established and new examples created. Actors will take account of these new scripts in making their analyses and decisions. It is unlikely that they will all set out on the same path, still less reach the same destination. No one, for example, should assume that contemporary regionalists will want to emulate the EU or end up like it, even if it invited action and reaction, nor should they be automatically criticised for ‘failing’ to do so. It is much more likely that the sense of region or the nature of regionalism or the structure of a regional organisation will change over time, as conditions, and the perception of them, change within the region and outside. Indeed not all the actors even within a region, or indeed a regional organisation, need share the same perception or motivation. They are likely to use the idea or the structure for

18

Definitions and chronologies

different purposes or apply different emphases. The actors and their roles, taken together, make up the play. The historian will try to sense the continuities and discontinuities in what is bound to be a complex and shifting collection of relationships. A sense of region implies a sense of world. A region is part of the world. For some it may be the whole world. More usually, it is seen to be, as it is, part of the world, in which there are other regions variously conceived and constituted. In them geographical realities assert themselves, but they are most readily conceived and created in political and economic terms. ‘Regions’, regionalisation and regional organisations are indeed both a product of and a reaction to world-wide changes, predominantly economic and political in character. But neither political nor economic ‘globalisation’ is a simple ‘progressive’ narrative: the ups and downs are also significant. Politically the narrative may be interpreted as the history of the emergence of a world of states, and that provided one context for the changing and differing versions of regionalism. The concept of a world of states includes both a concept of a world and a concept of the state. The former itself may be given more than one meaning. We speak of a Malay world or the world of learning, meaning something more or less coherent and self-sufficient but not in fact global; we speak of the world of art, of the demi-monde as part of the ‘social world’; we even speak of the world of Charles Dickens as a means of describing his imaginative experience. But the meaning this book employs encompasses the globe. It was in a sense indeed perceived as a result of the voyages of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries CE, which included the first circumnavigation, itself touching on Southeast Asia, where its leader met his death. The second term in the phrase, states, may also be deployed in more than one way. The meaning itself may be relatively stable, but it may be stretched or shrunk when put to use. What kinds of entity can be properly or usefully identified as states? In general – and in Southeast Asia – the word is used for almost any body politic or polity. On the one hand the merely tribal is likely to be excluded as stopping short: so, on the other, may be an empire as going beyond. Otherwise a great diversity is accepted, sometimes ordered by a progressive ranking, sometimes confused by an assumption that older forms had more of the functions and attributes of the modern state than proves on further examination to be the case. Normally there seems to be a requirement that a state has and can exercise such a measure of autonomy and authority that it can deal with other states. A world of states assumes that this is the predominant or sole kind of political entity that is found around the globe. It took centuries to emerge, in the process appropriating or being appropriated by the concept of nation. Even a world of nation-states may not mark ‘the end of history’, though no replacement has yet been conceived. The current concept of a collection of states dealing with each other on the basis of equality and in conditions of ‘anarchy’ – in the sense of an absence of superordinate authority – originates in Europe. It came about only after much struggle, and is often named after the treaty of 1648 that brought an end to the Thirty Years’ War, Westphalia. It marked a decisive stage in the overthrow of the

Chronologies 19 Holy Roman Empire and the Papacy, contenders for hegemony in medieval Europe. Instead states would conduct relations with one another on the basis of equality and sovereignty, even though their relative power differed, and their interests and ideologies often clashed. That struggle took place at the same time as the Europeans realised that the world was one, and they began to establish colonial realms and trading empires outside Europe. The two developments were surely connected. The first book in this trilogy argues that the urge to build and defend or expand the state in Europe was a driving force in the search for resources outside Europe. But there, of course, the Europeans did not create autonomous states on the model that was emerging in Europe. In Asia they treated the states they found either with deference, even awe, or on terms of equality. But in America they overthrew the empires they encountered and established new polities whose autonomy was supported by distance rather than in principle. That practice extended to Asia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The breakdown of the Mughal empire and the intensification of Anglo-French rivalry led to the creation of a British empire in India, though that in some ways acted as a restraint on the British elsewhere in Asia. In the nineteenth century almost all of Southeast Asia was divided among colonial powers. Japan escaped foreign intervention more narrowly, perhaps, than its historians and others have been ready to recognise. Turning ‘imperialist’ itself, it moved on Korea and Manchuria, in contest with the Russians who had expanded across Siberia, as well as with the Chinese. The inter-state rivalry that had promoted European expansion in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had been renewed by the modernisation of the state as a result of the impact of the French revolution and of industrialisation, prompting what came to be called ‘imperialism’. What had thus been created was, it might be said, a world of empires. Based in Europe, or adopting European practice, they dealt with each other on the basis of the principles of Westphalia, expanded to take account of the acquisition of empire. One crucial issue was the respective acceptance of empires. That required – as in Europe – the drawing of frontiers. It also came to require a definition of the measure of authority that imperial authorities exercised in ‘possessions’ and ‘protectorates’. That became particularly important when the Second Reich entered the fray. Could it accept the claims the older empires put up? The Berlin Conference of 1884–5 set out guidelines, which in fact speeded up the ‘partition’ of Africa and spurred on the Dutch in Southeast Asia to round out ‘Netherlands India’. The world of empires could not, however, endure. Industrialisation redistributed power and that fostered ambition and apprehension. Empires came under threat or attack from other empires or would-be empires. They were also the object of threats or attacks of a political sort. Some within the metropolis considered ‘empire’ illegitimate, inconsistent indeed with the national principle on which their domestic states were founded. The colonial territories themselves had begun to modernise, the metropolis extending to them administrative and developmental practices adopted in the homeland, education, the ‘rule of law’ and census. But, if they were to modernise more fully, they could not do so as colonial territories.

20

Definitions and chronologies

Moreover, the changes imperial rulers introduced helped to produce local elites who believed that the task was properly theirs. Within the frontiers of the world of empires, they sought to create ‘nation-states’ that, on the European model, could more fully modernise their society. By this indirect route a world of states, indeed of nation-states, would replace the world of empires, though imperialism might take new forms or the word be applied to new trends. The world wars speeded up the process, both by weakening the leading imperial power, Britain, and by advancing the US and Russia to the rank of super-powers: both of them were opposed to ‘imperialism’, though also rivals and offering rival critiques, set out, in the former case, in Wilson’s 14 Points of 1917 and, later, in the Atlantic Charter of 1941, and, in the latter, by Lenin’s theses on the colonial and undeveloped countries. The world wars also prompted the founding of international organisations, the League of Nations after the first war and the United Nations after the second. The UN Charter was explicitly based on the Westphalia principles, though seeking also to transcend them. The organisation, Article 2 declared, was ‘based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members’; all members were to ‘settle their international disputes by peaceful means’; all were to ‘refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State’. Article 51 allowed for individual and collective self-defence, however, and Article 52 for ‘regional arrangements and agencies’ consistent with the overall principles, which might help in achieving ‘pacific settlement of local disputes’. Gaining a seat in the UN was to become a significant step for a new ‘nation’: it marked a form of recognition in addition to the normal diplomatic recognition in the Westphalia tradition; and it offered a measure of security in return for the obligations it imposed. In the Cold War world that US–Soviet Union rivalry produced, inter-state relations were intensely affected by ideology as well as interest. That affected both diplomatic recognition and seating in the UN, notably in the case of China. Some states recognised the People’s Republic, proclaimed in 1949, some, notably the US, did not. The seat was held by the Nationalist government for more than two decades after it had been displaced on the mainland by the Communist government. The latter took care, however, to assert that it abided by the principles that underlay the UN Charter. Indeed, in an agreement with India in 1954, it spelled them out. The agreement, signed by the Indian ambassador and the Chinese vice-minister of foreign affairs, covered trade and intercourse between India and the ‘Tibet region of China’, over which the Communist government had recently established its control. A preamble to the agreement declared that the governing principles should be mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, non-aggression, non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful co-existence. Those principles, as Coral Bell puts it, were to become ‘rather a theme song with the Chinese communists’. They were, she adds, ‘unexceptionable sentiments’.1 Indeed they were core principles for a world of states, an amplified echo of those that underpinned the UN itself. China was demonstrating that, though not a member of the UN, it deserved to be treated as one.

Chronologies 21 Not all accepted that they were more than sentiments, since the Chinese Communist Party was known to be tendering support for communist movements in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. Indeed, it was both collaborating and increasingly competing with the Soviet Union, as in fact it had been since the 1920s. Communism was an international movement allegedly based on class rather than state or nation. In practice, however, it compromised. Indeed Lenin evoked ‘national’ support in the struggle against ‘imperialism’. That struggle continued after the Second World War, when the SU sought to win the support of ‘new’ nations against its rival super-power. Yet, at the same time, the course of its government-to-government relations was troubled by the undertow of party-to-party relations. The same was true of the PRC. But in neither case were the two relationships quite at odds. Threats and promises about subversion could help to keep non-communist governments in line. The rival super-power, the US, had no party-to-party relations to complicate or support its government-to-government relations. It was, however, determined not to be defeated in the Cold War. It was better able to offer economic aid than the SU, let alone the PRC. It also sought to fight ‘subversion’ by training and support and ‘counter-subversion’. What was in fact taking place was a war that only nominally respected frontiers and sovereignties and that sought to displace or appropriate ‘neutralism’ when professed by sovereign states. But it was a war that in a sense was fought in a framework of understandings. It tended to consolidate the nation-state principles, even as it in practice denied them. The two super-powers were fighting a limited war, seeking allies and supporters within a system. Inherited frontiers became firmer, not weaker. The PRC – out of the system and lacking Taiwan – was restive in the 1960s, though increasingly directing its invective against the SU and its failure to confront the US. The pattern changed with the US acceptance of the PRC regime and its admission into the UN in 1971–2. These moves were deeply disadvantageous to the SU. In line with the naval strategy outlined by Admiral Sergei Gorshkov as a means of altering the relationship with the US, controller of the ‘world ocean’, that power had begun to deploy vessels in the Indian Ocean in March 1968.2 In March the following year there were clashes with the PRC on the Ussuri river, and in June 1969, Brezhnev called for an Asian security system,3 a call revived by Kosygin in 1972.4 The forward policy continued, however, in the 1970s, both on land and sea: the SU invaded Afghanistan in 1979, and it deployed its navy in the South China Sea from Cam Ranh in Vietnam. Pressed by President Reagan’s Star Wars initiative, Gorbachev sought in a speech at Vladivostok in July 1986 to open the way to the normalisation of relations with the PRC, and in a further speech at Krasnoyarsk in September 1988 he looked towards an early resolution of conflicts in Asia and called for collective efforts to reduce armaments and increase security in the Asia-Pacific.5 The SU’s ‘overstretch’ contributed to a mounting crisis at home, and turned Gorbachev’s reform into a revolution, even precipitating the breakup of the Union. The Cold War came to an end, though not, as some thought, history itself. It remained to be seen how the principles of a world of states would be handled

22 Definitions and chronologies in a world where one state, the United States, was overwhelmingly more powerful than any other. That was important for every state. What was of particular importance in Southeast Asia was the relationship with the PRC. The emergence of a world of states, its principles and institutions, and the forty-year-old Cold War struggle, provide a context for considering ‘regionalism’ in its political aspects. Did it emerge as a ‘spill-over’? What scope or inducement was there to create it? In the subsequent phase, its role and form are still being negotiated. Will it deal with what Hettne calls the ‘black hole’ syndrome, with the failure of states? Will it work with or through the UN or, as he hopes, by ‘regional multilateralism’, its mandate derived from ‘cooperating states pooling their sovereignty’?6 Regionalism in the first sense offered in Chapter 1 may exist before the emergence or creation of a state, but it assumes political objectives, and perhaps takes a political form or forms, when a state exists. It may contend with a central or centralising government for a share in making state policies or distributing state revenues. It may be met by a central government with policies of repression or conciliation. The protracted endeavour to create what became ‘nation-states’ in Europe was marked by struggle and compromise. It has indeed not concluded. The United Kingdom toys with regional government. France, by contrast, insists, perhaps nervously, on a highly centralised bureaucracy. Spain formally accepts a large measure of provincial autonomy. The issue is all the more problematic when the central/regional tension assumes the form of a conflict of ‘nationalisms’, that of the state and its opponents. The problem faces newer nation-states or would-be nation-states outside Europe in rather different ways. The model is already set up, and it is urgent to imitate it. But within the frontiers, already determined by decolonisation and affirmed by the Cold War, there is a range of interests and attitudes, which may assume political forms, some of them ‘regional’ in character, appearance or emphasis. In Southeast Asia, they are indeed complex, combining in the case of northeast Thailand, for example, the legacy of a somewhat distinct culture with a sense of current deprivation to produce a sense of ‘Isan’ identity, an example of what Charles F. Keyes calls ‘ethnoregionalism’.7 The ‘regional revolts’ in Indonesia in the later 1950s were, in contrast, military- and elite-led. Their sense of ‘region’ was limited and so was their identity with other forms of disaffection. In a sense ‘regionalists’ were constituted by ‘centralists’, though they might also be stimulated by foreign contact or interference. A similar conclusion may be reached in respect of the second definition of regionalism. Perhaps to an even greater extent, it emerges or is pushed into in active politics as a result of the exertion of outside pressures, rather than as a result of the development of commonalities over a period of time. It requires sovereign states within a region or putative region in a measure to limit their independence of action, if only to preserve it. In the War of American Independence the League of Armed Neutrality was a temporary measure, aimed at inhibiting the use of British sea-power. The Balkan League of 1912 came

Chronologies 23 together for the task of dismembering Turkey-in-Europe, while preventing the intervention of Austria-Hungary. The common interests of the Nordic Countries are both less ephemeral and less warlike. For Southeast Asia to become a region of stability rather than revolt, its states had to avoid fighting or subverting one another. The main focus of the definition and discussion of regionalism over the last half-century has, of course, been on what has become the EU. Though that focus has perhaps led to the neglect of other examples of regionalism, studying it does suggest some of the questions that need to be asked in respect of them. First, it has been a long process, during which objectives have shifted. Second, though it began ostensibly with economic cooperation in mind, that in fact veiled a political agenda. Third, that agenda was in part driven by direct intervention from outside Europe, but even more by the wish to limit that intervention, lest the Cold War led to a new struggle. Fourth, the agenda was also, and connectedly, driven by a desire to deal with the inequalities of power among the states of Europe, in particular between France and Germany. Fifth, the process was essentially bureaucratic, and the politicians had difficulty in persuading their national communities of the validity of its purpose. Sixth, the grouping assumed a new shape and new tasks with the collapse of the SU and the end of the Cold War. Countries in other ‘regions’ have shared some of those conditions and some of those aims. They are influenced by powers outside the region, but, nation-states in aspiration if not in actuality, do not want to be entirely dependent on them. Avoiding quarrels with their neighbours will limit that intervention. Cooperation must be based on accepting current frontiers, whatever the sympathy with ‘regionalism’ in the other sense across the frontier. It may also involve accepting that one state in the region is more powerful than others, but offering ways in which it can exert an influence or gain a benefit without establishing a formal hegemony. The organisational emphasis will be on cooperation not integration. ‘Europe’ is undoubtedly a long-established concept, though what it covers is rarely agreed, even, or particularly, among ‘Europeans’. ‘Southeast Asia’ is a much more recent concept, and, despite Leonard Andaya’s assertion,8 it is doubtful if many in the region would even now readily call themselves ‘Southeast Asians’, even if ‘outsiders’ may deploy the term. Yet – while firmly basing themselves on sovereignty and inherited frontiers – the leaders of the states in the region have constructed the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). For that there was little historical basis, even in geographical terms. It emerged and developed in large part from the political conditions created by the emergence of a world of states, some more equal than others, and by the Cold War and its conclusion, and from the decisions that its leaders took in those changing circumstances, based on ‘key norms of international society’,9 constructed in an ‘ASEAN spirit’. No one would say, however, that ASEAN, or indeed the EU, was founded or developed merely for political reasons, or was merely a response to political circumstances. Clearly the EU had and has an economic thrust, though that, too, has and had a political purpose and political outcomes. The founders of ASEAN

24 Definitions and chronologies stressed their economic aims for political reasons, but they were there. And they were – like the EU’s – also a response to stages in the emergence of a world-wide economy, the development of which ran alongside, interlinked and was at times at odds with the emergence of the world of states. The origins of that, like the origins of the world of states, may be dated back to the late fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries CE. Doing that, of course, must not ignore the development of supra- or intra-regional trade links in an earlier period, across Asia landward by the ‘silk route’, for example, or within the ‘world’ as known to the Ming voyagers of the early fifteenth century CE. Nor, on the other hand, should we assume that a ‘world-wide’ economy was simply an early ‘globalisation’, ignoring the differences between the two, over-simplifying the process, neglecting the ups-and-downs that marked this development as well as that of the world of states. There is, indeed, a tendency to read the present back into the past in this case as in others, perhaps an especially tempting one. When Britain signed the Elgin treaty that helped to ‘open’ Japan in 1858, Marx took it as a sign that ‘world trade was taking a new direction’. Bourgeois society, he wrote to Engels, ‘has experienced its sixteenth century a second time – a sixteenth century which will, I hope, sound the death knell of bourgeois society, just as the first one thrust it into existence. The particular task of bourgeois society is the establishment of the world market, at least in outline, and of production based upon the world market. As the world is round, this seems to have been completed by the colonization of California and Australia and the opening up of China and Japan.’10 The idea of a ‘second’ sixteenth century is, of course, impossible for an historian to accept, other than a stimulus to compare and contrast. The historian is likely to be similarly confronted by more recent writers, dependencia theorists, for example, such as Andre Gunder Frank, or Immanuel Wallerstein, who, in The Modern World System, sought in history for an understanding of the problems of ‘development’. For them, it might be said, the sixteenth becomes the first twentieth century. The past is made too similar to the present. Dependencia theorists, historians may conclude, attribute too much to outside forces, and Wallerstein seems to predate the dominance of the ‘West’. He is, of course, right to emphasise the importance of the industrial revolution, but he may be underplaying its revolutionary character, so far as relations with the rest of the world were concerned. Trade and the acquisition of colonial territories had so far been very much bound up with the rivalry among European states. War was carried on through trade and vice-versa. The industrial revolution opened up a different prospect. The ideas Adam Smith put forward at the time when the American colonies were contesting British control could be generalised. Why, he had asked, insist on political control? Instead Britain should settle with the colonies ‘such a treaty of commerce as would effectually secure to her a free trade, more advantageous to the great body of the people . . . than the monopoly which she at present enjoys’.11 With industrialisation, the cause of free trade was widened, and imperial control seemed ever less necessary. ‘Commerce is the grand panacea’, Richard Cobden claimed.12 Friedrich List was lost in admiration of Britain’s achievement as the first industrial power. ‘[T]he world has never witnessed a supremacy to be

Chronologies 25 compared with that existing in our time’, he wrote in 1841. Earlier powers had sought to ‘establish universal dominion upon the power of arms’. England [sic] sought to become ‘an immense manufacturing and commercial city’, a centre of arts and knowledge, ‘the arsenal of extensive capital, the universal banker’.13 That was the rub, however. Where did that leave other proud nations? Arguably they, too, would benefit from the ‘panacea’, and free trade was advanced by a range of ‘most-favoured-nation’ treaties. But, while industrialisation spread, it spread differentially. It began to create a new distribution of power among states, and new patterns of rivalry. It is that, rather than industrial capitalism itself, which, the first in this trilogy of books argued, created the conditions that conduced to the ‘imperialism’ of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, though capitalism may have followed the flag. It also promoted a new protectionism, not merely in respect of colonial territories, but in respect of metropolitan states. The British stood by ‘free trade’. But over against them other major states resorted to protection, Germany in 1879, the United States in 1890, Russia in 1891, France in 1892. The development of the world-wide economy and of the world of states crossed paths. The former did not necessarily imply free trade. That might be the choice of the leading economic power, but not of those who wished to catch up or overtake. The First World War and the Second World War marked further steps in the redistribution of power, breaking down the primacy of the British, but not to the advantage of their challenger on the continent, the Germans, nor their challenger in Asia, the Japanese, who, after the ‘Restoration’ of 1868, had adopted a programme of industrialisation and modernisation. Out of these conflicts, indeed, emerged what the Germans and the Japanese had feared, two super-powers, the US and the SU. Another way of viewing the history of this period is conceivable. A long phase of economic expansion – marked only by occasional recessions – had been brought to a halt by the Great Depression after 1929. But, rather than question whether one change was more important than the other, it may be better to suggest that they interlinked. In the depression states gained new powers and responsibilities, often sharing common problems, but framing their answers in differing ideologies. Differing ideologies were adopted by the two super-powers at the end of the war, not only in the political field, but in the economic field also. The statesmen of the ‘Western world’ sought to provide international institutions that would promote economic recovery and development and so remove the burden of depression and unemployment often seen – though it was only a partial truth – as a root cause of war. Though prepared to join the UN, the SU, on the other hand, saw it ‘an institution to give security by political rather than economic means. Its own economy was so closely controlled that it was unwilling either to contribute to or receive from international economic institutions.’14 Though it took part in regional commissions, such as ECAFE, it did not join in the work of other specialised agencies. Partly as a result, those connected with international trade and finance ‘developed into institutions with only a loose connexion with the UN’,15 and their nature was determined by post-war discussions

26

Definitions and chronologies

between the US and the UK. The interests and attitudes of those two states indeed differed, as did their resources. Abandoning the isolationism of the 1930s, and conscious of their economic strength, the Americans argued that the universal liberalisation of trade would lead to world prosperity. ‘They were not opposed to the formation of customs unions, with free internal trade and a common external tariff, although these were less desirable than world-wide reduction of tariffs; but they were opposed to discriminatory tariffs.’ The British, however, had rather belatedly developed a system of imperial preferences, seen as of political as well as economic importance. They also thought that liberalisation was not enough in itself: it had to be ‘accompanied by policies designed to safeguard countries like Britain from foreign depression and slump’.16 The two partners recognised, however, that ‘any plans to stabilize the post-war international economy must cover exchange stability and balance-of-payments problems; long-term investment; the reduction of trade barriers; measures to secure full employment; price control for primary products’.17 The conference at Bretton Woods in July 1944 covered the first two issues. International monetary stability, it was considered, ‘depended on each country having access at known rates to other currencies as part of its general liquidity position’. Each would also have to ‘maintain exchange rates with a sense of responsibility towards the international economy as a whole’, avoiding competitive devaluations, multiple exchange rates and anomalous cross-rates, ‘while retaining an acceptable means of adjusting its exchange rate other than being forced to deflate or inflate in order to keep the exchange rate constant’.18 The instrument was the IMF. Each member agreed on a gold par value for its currency, adjustable beyond 1% only with IMF consent. The Fund, the resources of which were provided by quota contributions from each member, was also a kind of banker. Bretton Woods also set up the World Bank (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, IBRD), again sustained by quota contributions, in general the same as the contribution to the IMF, though in the US case larger. Its task was to decide what loans to give and what projects to favour. It did in the event come to focus on infrastructural projects insufficiently attractive to the private sector. Its assessment of such projects gave it another significant role, the provision of advice to ‘developing’ countries. Britain and the US also agreed on proposals for an international conference on trade and employment, but here there were important differences. Lord Keynes, the British negotiator, ‘at first denounced the American attachment to non-discrimination in trade’, and then celebrated it.19 ‘Discrimination’, he declared, called up ‘all the old lumber, most-favored nation clause and all the rest which . . . made such a hash of the old world’. The aim was to restore multilateral trade. ‘The separate blocs and all the friction and loss of friendship they must bring with them are expedients to which one may be driven in a hostile world where trade has ceased over wide areas to be cooperative and peaceful and where are forgotten the healthy rules of mutual advantage and equal treatment.’20 The concerns of the British over multilateralism had, however, been increased by the loan negotiations of 1945, and they did not believe that the

Chronologies 27 Administration’s offer of major tariff reductions would survive Congress. The Charter of an ITO was indeed signed in March 1948, but it was not ratified. The Geneva Conference that had drawn up the charter in 1947 did, however, produce a General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which many countries eventually signed. That proscribed quantitative restrictions, except where required to safeguard the balance of payments, to protect agriculture or to assist underdeveloped countries. Tariffs were to be reduced by bargaining. The first round took place at Geneva and others followed. As Eric Holleiner pointed out in 1994, conventional wisdom had it that the US ‘used its overwhelming power in the early postwar years to establish an open liberal international economic order’. That was not true, he argues, so far as finance was concerned: the US ‘constructed a decidedly nonliberal financial order in which the use of capital controls was strongly endorsed’.21 Once more, there is a risk of reading back the present into the past and a risk, too, of ignoring the ups-and-downs in the advance of what came to be described as ‘globalisation’ and of down-playing the role of the state in the process. The US itself, as Holleiner points out, did not use capital controls, but in the post-war decades it supported their use abroad. For that his excellent book offers a number of explanations. Capital controls were seen – by officials, industrialists and labour leaders, though not by private or central bankers – as ‘necessary to prevent the policy autonomy of the new interventionist welfare state from being undermined by speculative and disequilibrating international capital flows’.22 It was believed – thanks to prewar experience – that, at least in the short run, a liberal financial order would not be compatible with stable exchange rates and a liberal trading order. Third, the US sympathised with financial interventionism in Western Europe and Japan for Cold War reasons. The 1947 crisis in Europe had damaged the bankers’ cause. By the early 1970s, however, the major powers had largely abandoned cooperative financing strategies, while unilateral capital controls were no longer able to handle speculative flows. ‘The ineffectiveness of capital controls reflected in part the inherent difficulties of controlling capital movements’, as Holleiner puts it. But those had now been ‘compounded by the growth of international trade and multinational corporations, which had increased the opportunities to evade controls by means of leads and tags in trade payments and in intra-firm transactions. The growth of international telecommunication links . . . also made enforcement of controls more difficult’.23 Though Western Europeans argued for cooperative controls, the Americans rejected them, arguing, by contrast to Bretton Woods, for the free movement of capital as well as free trade in goods and services. The reason for the shift was also partly ideological. Argument was supplied by ‘neo-liberals’, drawing on Friedrich Hayek and others, who were critical of the interventionist welfare state envisaged at Bretton Woods. They also dismissed the idea that speculative capital flows would disrupt stable exchange rates by arguing for a floating exchange rate, under which speculation would not be destabilising. The other argument was supplied by ‘those concerned with maintaining the

28

Definitions and chronologies

[US] government’s policy autonomy in the face of growing external and internal imbalances’.24 Private investors, given the freedom to invest globally, ‘would continue to underwrite U.S. deficits through their holdings of attractive U.S. assets’.25 Other major Western countries, including the UK, accepted the neoliberal thinking, partly because of the difficulty of ‘implementing national Keynesian ideas in a globally integrated financial system’ and partly because of frustration over the stagflation that followed OPEC’s hike in oil prices in the mid-1970s.26 Milton Friedman seemed to have the answers. The US renewed its enthusiasm for financial liberalism in the 1980s: ‘international markets once again helped the United States to retain policy autonomy in the face of large domestic and external economic imbalances.’27 Just as it had in the 1970s attracted investment by Arabs enriched by OPEC’s oil prices, it now attracted the surplus savings of the Japanese. The UK abolished exchange controls at one blow in October 1979, and, committed to maintain London’s position as an international financial centre, in October 1986 opened up the Stock Exchange to foreign securities firms [the Big Bang]. Now a substantial creditor, Japan had a stake in a stable and open global system, and also ‘liberalised’. Other governments, too, began to ‘liberalise’ and ‘deregulate’, including the EC. Circumstances, example, ideology all pointed that way. Neoliberal thinking also influenced the handling of the debt crisis of 1982. Latin American policymakers accepted the austerity and liberalisation programmes put up by the IMF. The economic expansion of the US after 1982 and the rise in the US dollar contributed to large deficits. This worried policy-makers because they contributed to protectionist sentiment. In 1985 major countries signed the Plaza accord, in which they agreed to reduce the US current account deficit by encouraging the dollar to fall. That, the Reagan Administration hoped, would improve the trade position, but encourage foreigners to bear the main burden of the deficit. Talking down the dollar would devalue the US debt, and indirectly prompt other governments to ‘begin expansionary policies that would help reduce the U.S. deficit without requiring the United States to reduce its growth’.28 Initial success was followed by the collapse of the share market in October 1987. ‘Globalisation’ in the financial sphere, though it finally took hold, was clearly neither a smooth nor an inevitable process. In it, as Holleiner shows, the state had, moreover, a major role, especially the largest and the most powerful, the US. It recognised that it ‘could utilize its dominant position in the open, liberal international system to encourage foreigners both to finance and to bear the burden of adjustment to its growing current account and fiscal deficits’.29 It was more willing to promote an open, liberal order in respect of finance than trade, because its hegemonic position lasted longer. In trade, too, states had a prominent role. The US had been a clear supporter of multilateralism in trade in the two post-war decades. No ITO had been set up, but a great deal was done by GATT, set up as an interim agreement, and its secretariat, formally known as the Interim Commission for the ITO.30 GATT evolved into a de facto world trade organisation (WTO) and rounds of talks were held under its auspices following the first Geneva round, the Annecy round (1949), the Torquay round (1951), a second

Chronologies 29 Geneva round (1956), the Dillon round (1960–1), the Kennedy round (1964–7), the Tokyo round (1973–90), and the Uruguay round (1986–94), which finally established the WTO. Through GATT-negotiated tariff reductions, ‘[e]normous progress’ was made towards global free trade. Between 1947 and the close of the Tokyo round of GATT talks in 1979, the average US tariff had declined by nearly 92%, and on the eve of the Uruguay round in 1987 the average US tariff was 4.9%, the EC 6% and Japan 5.4%. The key was the most-favoured nation clause, under which bilateral bargains became available to all.31 By 1994 tariffs had fallen further, and a range of other issues were involved, including investment, trade in ‘services’, and ‘intellectual property’. GATT had, moreover, become quasi-universal. It now had 128 signatories, and the post-SU Russian Federation, China and Taiwan were engaged in accession negotiations. The US stood against a regional approach. It saw the EEC, created in 1957, as an exception, not an example, necessary for political reasons. It had introduced the Marshall plan in 1947, the SU countering with Cominform and Comecon. It then looked to the EEC as a means by which Western Europe would strengthen itself. Article XXIV of GATT permitted customs unions (CUs) and free trade arrangements (FTAs) among a subset of members only if they went ‘all the way towards elimination’,32 and the Common Market did not qualify. But the US helped it through, ‘all in the cause of what it saw as a politically beneficial union of the original six nations that formed the Community’.33 ‘[O]ne way of combatting Communism is to give western Europe a full dinner pail.’34 The US remained ‘indifferent’ to the suggestion that EEC should be followed by a North Atlantic FTA or a Pacific one (PAFTA). What is sometimes Eurocentrically called the ‘first regionalism’ had ‘virtually died’ by the late 1960s, save, Bhagwati says, for EEC and EFTA.35 He does not mention ASEAN, set up in 1968, also the year in which the European CU was set up. There were other factors besides the political one. US business, more efficient than any competitors in Europe, saw the opportunities in a stable and open market. From the early twentieth century it had taken the lead in mass production, benefiting from a large domestic market, largely kept closed.36 Now that lead was eroded both by the EEC and then by Japan as well, though the US had favoured their earlier growth by investment and technology transfer. Other changes in the 1970s made a range of protectionist measures more appealing, including stagflation and the rise of Asian dragons, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Korea. The ‘new protectionism’ took the form of measures that did not openly challenge GATT, but certainly challenged its spirit: border nontariff measures (NTMs) such as voluntary export restraints (VTMs) and domestic nontariff measures such as subsidies. The US Administration ‘maintained commitment to the broad liberalizing norms of the postwar system’, but Congress insisted on tougher measures against ‘unfair’ trade.37 In the Tokyo round, however, it broke little ground on NTMs – the EU stuck to the Common Agricultural Policy – while, in a dispute over subsidies, it was not prepared to budge over its right to apply ‘countervailing duties’. In the

30 Definitions and chronologies Tokyo round, as Sylvia Ostry puts it, tariff liberalisation continued. ‘But in terms of the new protectionism, little progress was made, although it could be argued that without the round the situation would have been far worse.’ Congress sought ‘reciprocity in foreign trade’, market share, and a number of bills were introduced, though none became law.38 The US launched the next round at Punta del Este in September 1986 in face of opposition not only from the EC but from many developing countries. Its purpose was ‘the essential ingredient in the mammoth effort to update, extend, and reinforce the multilateral system’.39 The US was also committed – in the face of opposition from EC and developing countries like India and Brazil – to expanding the agenda to cover services, investment and intellectual property, where its advantage was still strong. But it also dropped ‘its single overriding commitment to multilateralism’ and began negotiating preferential agreements under Article XXIV of GATT. It thus launched ‘a twin-track trade policy’, also following a third, unilateral, track, by acting against the ‘unfair’ under its own legislation, such as the 1974 Trade Act.40 In September 1985, when the Plaza accord was announced, the President also declared that ‘free trade is, by definition, fair trade’.41 The Uruguay round concluded in Marrakesh in 1994. It was protracted not only because of the increased size of the membership but also because of the complexity of the issues it faced. Some of them were left-overs from trade liberalisation. There, considerable progress was finally registered. Even more intractable, however, were the new issues, services, investment, and IPR, which the US insisted on including. The major outcome was GATS. Indeed it tended to transform the whole system by its level of intrusiveness. GATS and TRIPS, (TradeRelated IP) ‘exemplify . . . key parameters of deeper integration, a much more intrusive concept than traditional liberalization. Should future multilateral negotiations prove too difficult an avenue for such an intrusive agenda, unilateralism or . . . regionalism may prove attractive alternatives’, Ostry wrote in 1997.42 The setting up of WTO turned GATT from ‘a trade agreement to a membership organisation’.43 What conditions would a state have to meet in order to join? What is sometimes called a ‘second wave’ of regionalism had begun in the mid-1980s. ‘This time around, the United States was a major player.’44 The US was impatient with the slow progress of GATT, now larger in membership and more complex in content, and the decline in US dominance made it more difficult to run. It proposed a hemispheric FTA with the Enterprise for the Americas initiative. It made a agreement with Canada and Mexico for a North American FT Area. At the same time, the EC, expanding both to the Mediterranean and to Scandinavia, and then to former Iron Curtain countries, had, prompted by the Delors Commission, committed itself to completing the internal market, raising fears of ‘Fortress Europe’, and in the treaty of Maastricht in 1991 agreed on economic and monetary union, including a single currency and a central bank. Elsewhere regional arrangements were revived or invented. ‘[I]nter-regional regionalism’ or ‘quasi-regionalism’ developed, beginning with APEC in 1989.45 Not a region, Hettne declares: a ‘bargaining forum’.46 ‘[I]ts main role at the

Chronologies 31 moment appears to be to head off other kinds of regionalist project’, Andrew Gamble and Anthony Payne wrote in 2003.47 Was the ‘second wave’ of regionalism a step towards multilateralism or away from it? Was it a building block or a blockage? The concept of ‘open regionalism’, adopted by APEC, sought to ensure it was the former, but it might become an oxymoron, as Sung-Hoon Park puts it.48 And if regionalism became established, or turned to ‘regionalisation’, would it stand in the way, or even become, as Ostry perhaps implies, the focus of the deeper integration implied by GATS and TRIPS in reaction to an over-ambitious attempt to put such a process on a world-wide basis? In respect of globalisation in the economic field, as Boas and Hveem put it, a regional project may ‘attempt to ride on it, regulate it or resist it’.49 Their remarks recall Hettne’s comments on the political potential of regionalism. Deepening integration, Hurrell writes, creates problems that require management and regulation ‘that bite ever more deeply into the domestic affairs and sovereign prerogatives of states. . . . a stimulus to regionalism to the extent that it is politically more viable to construct such institutions at the regional rather than the global level.’50 But that need not mean that regionalisation, rather than globalisation, displaces the state, nor even perhaps that it is a question of pooling sovereignties. Regionalism may be a way of preserving the state, and the system of which it is a part, by modifying the roles it plays and the tasks it undertakes, and indeed that may be preferable to a world of blocs. The experience of statebased ASEAN is intrinsically worth studying, but studying it may have an additional value. Identifying state and people is, moreover, still a primary task in many parts of the world. Yet moves towards political integration have been notably elite-led, and globalisation has been presented as a process that cannot be questioned. The state may have the potential to extend popular participation in these changes, and enhance popular understanding of them. In this respect ASEAN has so far offered a less convincing example. The Marrakesh agreement required a WTO ministerial meeting every two years. The third, held in Seattle in late 1999, was intended to review the working of the multinational trade negotiations and launch the next round. But differences among the US, the European Union (EU) and Japan, and between industrialised and developing countries, bedevilled the preparatory work.51 And outside the conference there was a new level of protest, matching in some sense the level of intrusion which the extension of GATT to GATS involved, but evidencing also the failure of national leaders to allow for an informed discussion of the issues and the possible outcomes. The Internet globalised the logistics of mass protest and, as Rosemary Righter puts it, gave single-issue pressure groups ‘a spurious homogeneity’.52 To complain that an instrument of globalisation was turned against it is futile. Leaders have to work out ways of reaching the peoples for whom they claim to speak, and the state could and should be their instrument. The WTO was made ‘the scapegoat for all that was wrong in an unequal world’.53 Scuttled at Seattle, the round was resurrected as the ‘development’ round at Doha (Qatar) in November 2001, and then it stalled again at Cancun in

32

Definitions and chronologies

September 2003. Bilateral FTAs began to proliferate. Would they have a positive or a negative effect on multilateral trade negotiations? The ‘building block or stumbling block’ debate was renewed.54 The independent states of Southeast Asia were, of course, involved in both forms of ‘globalisation’, economic and political. They and their leaders responded more or less creatively both to the political circumstances in which they found themselves and the economic. Politically, their circumstances were particular as well as general. They shared the process of decolonisation with other parts of the world, but in their case it had been preceded by Japanese conquest. Their strategic value and their proximity to China subjected them to Cold War rivalries, and, after its conclusion, to post-Cold War uncertainties. They remained the concern of major powers and were concerned by them. Key episodes included Britain’s withdrawal from its base in Singapore, announced in 1967–8; American military intervention in Vietnam, coupled with President Johnson’s insistence late in 1966 that ‘[t]he key to Asian peace in coming generations is in Asian hands’55 and with Nixon’s Guam doctrine, the intervention and the withdrawal of the Soviet Union, the growth of China’s political influence and economic power and the various stages of the predominantly economic involvement of the Japanese. But much depended – as surely in other regionalisms and regionalisations – on intra-regional relations, particularly as one of the Southeast Asian states, Indonesia, successor to Netherlands India, was the fifth most populous country in the world. The ‘ASEAN Way’ was a response to political factors made ‘external’ and ‘internal’ by the ‘construction’ of a region. Economically, the states sought initially to break away from the colonial economic pattern by adopting ISI programmes, though markets were relatively small. A shift to EOI gathered speed in the 1980s, backed by Japanese investment post-Plaza, and that, with in some cases the export of oil and gas, brought them extraordinary prosperity and a growing commitment to economic liberalisation and deregulation. A vast inflow of FDI, coupled with inadequate supervision and regulation of financial markets, contributed to an economic crisis in 199756 and led – except in Malaysia’s case – to the application, more or less unwillingly, of neo-liberal ‘remedies’. Southeast Asian regionalism survived, based – old and ‘new’ – on the existence of sovereign states. The states faced in their own particular way the problems the nation-state generally faced in a phase of globalisation, political and economic. Was their particular tradition of regionalism – a regionalism that could not be described in terms of ‘waves’, and that was not necessarily heading for ‘integration’ – an advantage they could turn to account in a changing world or a disadvantage?

Part II

The view from without

There is in reality no voice of Southeast Asia. (Russell H. Fifield, 1958)

3

Further India

No one clearly conceived of a region that comprised what we have come to call Southeast Asia before the twentieth century. That was true even of those who saw the region from the ‘outside’, if that term may, albeit rather illogically, be used. They conceived of it, if at all, in terms that were too vague – Nanyang, Nanyo, the ‘southern seas’ – too specific – ‘Further India’ – or too narrow – the ‘Indies’. Within Southeast Asia, political concepts ranged from the particularistic to the universalistic or a combination of both. After discussing the work of Oliver Wolters and Anthony Reid, Amitav Acharya persuasively concludes that ‘neither the mandala management of political and territorial space nor the “age of commerce” produces an authentic and enduring basis for a regional notion of Southeast Asia’.1 ‘Realities’ and concepts interplay. There was neither a call for a regional idea nor an opportunity to construct one. A region of the inter- or suprastate type arguably requires not only a geographical reality but also a social and political one. ‘Southeast Asia’ offered something of the former, though in a rather negative sense: it was what was not India or China, the two great agglomerations that were its neighbours. Denys Lombard has indeed invited a comparison between them and the ‘Javanese case’. ‘Since there was little “metamorphism” here, our orientalists were unable to forge the idea of the “great East Indian civilization.” Instead of an imposing edifice whose internal workings we could study piece by piece . . . , we were forced to accept the geographical diversity and take change as our starting point.’2 ‘In using the term “region,” one runs the risk of assuming the existence of a geographically proximate set of states characterized by intensive intercourse and socio-cultural homogeneity’, Richard W. Mansbach wrote in 1978. By those criteria, he concluded, Southeast Asia did not ‘constitute a region at all’. It lacked ‘a dominant land-mass or central riverine culture around which an ancient empire might have formed’. Oceans and seas were ‘less . . . buffers to external penetration or . . . means of binding the peoples of the area together than . . . avenues of access to the region from outside’.3 Accessibility by water might have been a positive factor in creating some kind of regional thalassocracy. But the most central point, at the tip of the Straits, was off-centre, so far as the mainland was concerned. Moreover, though the rivers provided access to the interior, they tended to fix a number of cities as the focus

36 The view from without of trade and political control. Areas of great fertility, the other possible source of political power, were also dispersed. Despite the appearance of great fertility, Southeast Asia is not generally endowed with rich soils. East and central Java is exceptional. Barriers – forest, mountain, swamp – stood in the way of demographic maturity. Geography prepared the way for political struggle but made it difficult to set up and maintain larger realms, let alone a state that could claim to control the region. None ever did, nor even tried. Water indeed invited contact with the ‘outside’ world, with China, with India and Arabia and, initially indirectly, with Europe, and, later on, with America and Australasia. Commercial contacts and cultural ‘borrowing’ worked, however, on the divisions of Southeast Asia, and indeed increased them. They did not promote its unity. Nor did ‘outside’ powers seek to impose the unity of a hegemon. Indian trade, Indian culture and Indian religion were influential, but, even when India was largely unified, it did not seek to rule ‘Further India’. China’s interventions were spasmodic. The countries of the Nanyang were at most ‘tributary’. The essential aim of the Chinese emperor was not control but the avoidance of threat. The disunity of Southeast Asia was a convenience, something to encourage, not destroy. Only Vietnam’s case was more ambiguous: it was flatteringly, but worryingly, imitative. The incursion of the Europeans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries established more direct contact with Europe and new contacts with America and Australasia. They did not promote unity, nor could it even be said that ‘Southeast Asians’ shared a common experience. The Portuguese and the Dutch exploited and enhanced the disunity of the Malay world, while playing only a marginal part in the interstate struggles of the mainland. The Spaniards created the Philippines, uniquely largely colonial and Christian. For all of them, moreover, ‘Southeast Asia’ was only part of a wider system of Asian and indeed worldwide trade and empire. It was only in the eighteenth century that the Dutch began to focus on Java and to conceive of that as the centre of a realm of ‘Netherlands India’. By the late eighteenth century, Spain had extended its rule throughout Luzon and the Visayas but it was still contested by the Muslims of Mindanao and Sulu. The putative Dutch realm, based in Java, extended to Maluku and the Great East, to southern Sumatra and across the Straits to Riau and to Melaka. The Portuguese retained an outpost on Timor. None of these powers had a settlement on the mainland. There, under a new dynasty, Siam (Thailand) was recovering from the devastating Burmese attack of 1767 and reasserting its claims over parts of the Malay peninsula. The Vietnamese had expanded over Cham and Khmer territory to the south, but expansion had been promoted by both and itself promoted division and civil war. The Lao states and the remnant of Cambodia retained a somewhat precarious existence between Vietnam and Siam. At the time, the British held only two possessions in Southeast Asia, Benkulen on the west coast of Sumatra, a relic of the East India Company’s vain attempt in the later seventeenth century to contest the monopolistic tendencies of the then more powerful Dutch, and the island of Penang, acquired in 1786 from the sultan of Kedah, who was seeking support against the Siamese. Yet in China the British had become the most significant of the Western powers at Canton, then the only

Further India 37 port open to them, and, in complete contrast, they had begun to acquire a territorial empire in India. So placed, they were bound to be interested in Southeast Asia, and, as the wars of the French revolution were to demonstrate, they had the power to bring in major changes. That they did. They were, however, changes that consolidated the dispersion of power in ‘Southeast Asia’ rather than terminating it. With the exception of Siam, the whole area came under colonial rule in the nineteenth century but not under British colonial rule. There were common experiences but also very different ones. The British secured a remarkable degree of world power during the nineteenth century, enjoying a security in Europe that none of their predecessors had enjoyed, and also enjoyed the advantage of early industrialisation. That did not mean, however, that they sought a universal empire. What they sought was security, stability, commercial access, the ‘free trade’ that Smith commended and Cobden celebrated. Their concept was indeed that of a world of states, trading with each other without obstruction. It was the British decision not to use their power to establish territorial dominion in Southeast Asia that ensured its continued division in the new form of colonial territories or ‘states’. The general unwillingness of the British to extend territorial dominion was enforced in Southeast Asia by their lack of intrinsic interest in the region. Southeast Asia’s importance, they conceived, lay in its position in regard to their dominion in India and their commercial interest in the route to China. It was also convenient that minor powers – such as the Dutch and the Spaniards had now become – should hold the island territories, particularly as their independence helped to sustain the European balance of power, one of the guarantees of Britain’s security. Even the French need not have been seen as a threat in Vietnam – they might ‘open it up’. And, if successful there, they might have been less of an irritant elsewhere. Only in the twentieth century did Malaya assume major importance on economic grounds – as a producer of rubber and a dollarearner – and only in the interwar period did Britain aspire to make Singapore a great naval base. Though its servants did not always agree, and at times ignored or controverted its instructions, the British government was reluctant to undertake political intervention or to extend formal control beyond the Indian sub-continent. Countries might be ‘opened up’, but then commerce should do its work. That policy made it easier to adopt a pragmatic policy towards the ‘region’, recognising that other areas had a greater priority. Deals with other states made by the leading power were largely responsible for establishing new frontiers in Southeast Asia, sometimes more or less consistent with older frontiers, sometimes quite novel, even arbitrary, but in all cases seeking a more rigid definition than had been common under the mandala system or in the ‘age of commerce’. It was within those frontiers that the peoples of Southeast Asia underwent experiences that were both common and distinctive. There was trade across frontiers and between ‘states’ but increasingly a colonial ‘state’ was tied to its respective metropolis, economically and politically. There was little political contact within the region, either at the government level or among opponents of the government, though there was some.

38 The view from without Despite the constraints of its non-intervention policy, Britain acquired Burma, but that may be an exception that proves the rule. It was not part of a programme of expansion in Southeast Asia, though it worried neighbouring Siam and Vietnam. Acquisition was arguably the second-best policy. Furthermore, what brought it about was concern for the interests of India rather than concern for the interests of Britain itself. The prime objective of British policy was the security of the dominion in India rather than the commercial opportunities offered by Burma or, through Burma, by Yunnan. The two states, British India and the Burmese monarchy, found it, moreover, difficult to resolve their differences and to agree on a modus vivendi or establish common frontiers because of their differing perceptions of inter-state relations. A Burmese monarch, on the one hand, had universalist claims, set in Buddhist terms. The British, on the other hand, did not view their neighbour quite as a state among states. The attitude they might adopt as a trading nation was modified because in India they were more than that. A continental empire cannot accept challenges on its perimeters. States there can enjoy independence only if they accept that it is a qualified independence. Moreover, the Indian empire rested not merely on force but also on ‘prestige’. A challenge from a prince on the frontier, even if it did not involve consorting with a foreign power, had to be met, lest it set a disastrous example. In the first war (1824–6) the British hoped for a decisive victory that would produce a more compliant view. No such victory was secured. The war was prolonged, and at the peace, made at Yandabo, Britain’s supremacy was marked instead by the acquisition of Tenasserim and Arakan, outlying parts of the kingdom, not its core. They were not followed by friendly relations. The defeated monarch resented the loss, and his successor declared that he would have nothing to say to the treaties, ‘that they had not been made by him, and that we had never conquered him’.4 Poor relations made it difficult to resolve disputes, but Lord Dalhousie did not go to war in 1852 to defend the rather disreputable British merchants at Rangoon. Once the crisis had begun, however, it had to be carried through successfully. ‘The British power in India cannot safely afford to exhibit even a temporary appearance of inferiority.’5 The victory was again marked by the acquisition of territory, this time Pegu. The new king, Mindon, attempted to come to terms with the British, while yet, like his neighbour in Bangkok, opening up relations with other powers. In a faction-ridden court, Mindon’s successor, Thibaw, lost the capacity to balance. But the extreme measures to which the British resorted in 1885–6 – a third war, the abolition of the monarchy, and the annexation of the remainder of the kingdom – were explained, not only by the unsuccessful search for a special relationship with Burma, but by fear of French expansion in the course of the partition of mainland Southeast Asia that had got under way. ‘It is French intrigue which has forced us to go to Burmah’, the Secretary of State wrote to the Viceroy; ‘but for that element we might have treated Thibaw with severe neglect. . . . If . . . you finally and fully add Burmah to our dominions before any European rights have had time even to be sown, much less grow up, you undoubtedly prevent forever the assertion of such rights, or attempts to

Further India 39 prepare the way for such assertion.’6 In fact the French had negotiated a treaty with Burma. Their aim, as Francois Deloncle put it, was ‘to use it to make headway in Siam in exchange’. Alarming the British might make them more ready to accept French expansion in Siam and Laos. ‘What Jules Ferry wanted was to conclude an agreement in Burma which would give him the tiller in Siam.’7 The French also acquired Vietnam in stages and the three parts into which they divided it were to make up, with Laos and Cambodia, what they called ‘French Indo-China’. They had been rivals of the British – in Asia as elsewhere – in the eighteenth century and then seen a venture in Vietnam as a way of countering their frustration in India. In the mid-nineteenth century, when Napoleon III resolved on a warlike expedition, Britain put up no opposition. The Vietnamese rulers had offered a negative response to its attempts to ‘open up’ their country to foreign trade, both before the British defeated their Chinese suzerain in the Anglo-China war of 1840–2 and after. French intervention would not damage, and might even promote, the interests of commerce, and ‘a second Cherbourg in the East’ was not ‘cause for serious anxiety’.8 In 1859 the French occupied Saigon, and in the subsequent decade acquired six southern Vietnamese provinces, which they formed into a colony to which they applied the name ‘Cochin-China’. In 1863 they had placed neighbouring Cambodia under their protection. ‘[S]o long as the proceedings of the French in or towards Cambodia do not in any way interfere with the independence of Siam’, the India Office in London commented, ‘in the present state of affairs, they may be regarded by Her Majesty’s Government without anxiety or concern’.9 The defeat of France in 1870–1 did not halt this extraordinary venture, pressed by adventurers, empire-builders and a group of politicians – rather the reverse. Even before German troops had left France after their triumph of 1870–1, Admiral Dupré had despatched an expedition to Hanoi, designed to withdraw the provocative Jean Dupuis, merchant and arms-supplier, and also to secure a protectorate over the rest of Vietnam. It was headed by Francis Garnier. He occupied the citadels in Hanoi and other delta towns. He was killed in a counter-attack. The emperor Tu-duc negotiated the withdrawal of the expedition, but not without agreeing to a disguised protectorate. The steps that led to a formal protectorate in the early 1880s were not dissimilar. Governor C.M. Le Myre de Vilers was authorised to send a small force up to the delta to deal with disorderly Black Flag bands and thus ensure freedom of commerce. Its leader, Henri Rivière, was warned ‘not to drag the government into complications’; but since it sent him reinforcements, ‘I set out to accomplish on my own what it lacked the nerve to make me do’.10 His death became a public cause and the prime minister got backing for a major expedition. The Vietnamese court accepted French protection. The monarchy was not dislodged, but it was deprived of effective power, even more in ‘Tonkin’ than in ‘Annam’. Neither of these major changes went unchallenged by the Chinese. Vietnam’s opposition had been backed by China’s intervention: the old suzerain sent troops across the frontier against the new imperialists. Only with troop reinforcements were the French able to take the major strongholds of Bac Ninh and Hung Hoa.

40 The view from without That led to the negotiation of the treaty of May 1884, in which the Chinese government acknowledged the French protectorate. The Chinese renewed the war when they realised that they had lost their traditional suzerainty. Admiral Courbet bombarded Foochow. A new treaty followed in April 1885. Britain’s acquisition of Upper Burma produced a common frontier with the Chinese, who had old claims over that kingdom, too. In the convention of July 1886 the British took a conciliatory line, though it proved difficult to settle a frontier. ‘French Indo-China’ was also to include some of the Lao territories. Over them Siam had claims, as it had over Cambodia. It had reached a compromise with the French over the latter: it accepted the French protectorate, while retaining Battambang and Angkor. Its claims over Laos came into serious question when the French established themselves throughout Vietnam. The French at times talked of compromise, though they also talked of acquisition. The Pavie mission of 1890–1 was designed to collect evidence of Vietnamese claims that might be utilised and to push back the Siamese garrisons one by one. Its lack of success enabled the colonialists to secure parliamentary support for an expedition to evict the Siamese garrisons on the east bank of the Mekong. The resistance of the Siamese led to a naval blockade of the Chao Phraya river. The Franco-Siamese crisis of 1893 was also an Anglo-French crisis. The result was a compromise. The British urged King Chulalongkorn to accept the French ultimatum – which would involve the loss of the east bank and most of Luang Prabang – while they protested in Paris against any extension of its terms. The result was to keep Battambang and Siemreap temporarily out of French hands, but they, too, were transferred in 1907. The British and the French had reached an agreement in 1896, not so much a guarantee of the core of the Thai kingdom, the Chao Phraya valley, as a mutual promise of self-abnegation. It did not prevent the loss of further Thai claims, including those over the northern Malay states, but it did help to preserve the independence of the Thai kingdom when all around were losing theirs. The success of the Thais in preserving their independence owed something to the shrewdness of their policies. It owed something to their geographical position, too. The core of the kingdom was centred on the Chao Phraya, and Bangkok, the capital since the 1780s, commanded it even more completely than its predecessor, Ayudhya. Furthermore, it was placed between the Southeast Asian possessions of the British and the French. That might indeed have led to a complete partition. But the Chakri monarchs, repudiating the suzerainty of the Chinese, had developed a positive relationship with the British – unlike the Vietnamese and the Burmeses – so far as commerce and diplomatic relations were concerned, making a treaty with Henry Burney in 1826 and an ‘unequal’ China-style treaty with John Bowring in 1855, and that connexion helped them when the French established their control in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. The British were clear that the Thai kingdom could and should constitute a buffer state. That was consistent with their commercial policy, the policy of Britain itself. It was consistent, too, with their Indian policy, that of a continental power that insulated itself from threats on its peripheries. Increasingly the Thai state behaved towards its inhabitants like a colonial state, but it did not become one.

Further India 41 Britain’s relationship with Siam and with France had another context, that of its relationship with the Malay peninsula, where the Thai monarchs claimed the allegiance of some of the Malay sultanates. There the British were to create what Frank Swettenham called ‘British Malaya’, but the phrase was never official. Building a colonial state entered Britain’s calculations very late. It was certainly not the intention when it acquired Penang from the Sultan of Kedah in 1786, Melaka from the Dutch in 1795/1825 and Singapore from a claimant sultan of Johore in 1819. The eyes of the British – as the very placing of the three ‘Straits Settlements’ suggested – were looking outwards not inwards, to the security of India and the route to China. And the commercial success of Singapore – as indeed its founder, Sir Stamford Raffles, intended – was derived from its position in relation to the Malay world as a whole. It was an entrepot – the successor of earlier entrepots in the region, like Palembang and Melaka – that linked the archipelago with the world beyond the region. While the establishment of the Straits Settlements did not guarantee that the British would create a colonial state on the peninsula, however, it did ensure that no other European power would. Though the Settlements guarded the Straits, their value would be undermined if another power were located in their proximity. It was the return of the Dutch to Melaka after their elimination during the French wars that had helped Raffles persuade his superiors that Britain should secure a settlement at the tip of the Straits. The subsequent Anglo-Dutch treaty of 1824 required the Dutch to transfer Melaka, to accept the occupation of Singapore and to refrain from further political connexions with the peninsula. For several decades there was little risk that any other power would settle there either. The growth of ‘imperialism’ after 1870, in particular the emergence of Germany, encouraged Britain to take further precautions. In the meantime, the governors had built up informal connections with several of the Malay states, and merchants in the Settlements had a growing interest in their tin mines. But the decisive factor in the ‘intervention’ of 1873–4 seems – though it is a subject of controversy among historians – to have been a concern to ensure that no other power should establish itself on the peninsular side of the Straits. Britain did not annex the Malay states nor displace their rulers. It made agreements with them, providing that they should take the advice of ‘Residents’. Initially the system – in some part an echo of that in Indian states – was applied in the tin-bearing west coast states of Perak, Selangor and Sungei Ujong. Only at the end of the next decade was it applied to the east coast state of Pahang. In 1895–6 the states were drawn together as the Federated Malay States. ‘British Malaya’, however, also included the ‘unfederated’ states. Those comprised Johore, which accepted a version of the residential system only in 1914, and the states over which Siam finally surrendered its claims in 1909. No united state including the Straits Settlements, the FMS and the UMS was ever created. The initial British intervention in northern Borneo was not the result of a government decision at all. The official policy after the French wars was that the British should not contest Dutch authority in the archipelago and that included Borneo. The enterprise was initiated by a British adventurer who, as had Raffles,

42

The view from without

believed that the official policy was mistaken. James Brooke hoped to overturn it, not merely by talking and writing, but by acting. The Dutch had ‘gradually and effectually destroyed all rightful authority.’ They were weak and ‘their doubtful title and oppressive tenure would . . . render the downfall of their rule in the Archipelago, certain and easy, before the establishment of a liberal Government and conciliatory policy’.11 He aimed to do that first in the sultanate of Brunei, which, then claiming all northern Borneo, was still outside the Dutch system of treaty relationships. Brunei would be an example to others. And his own rule in the province of Sarawak, then covering only the Kuching area, would be an example for the rest of Brunei, of which it formed part. The British government made him its agent in 1844, then its commissioner and consul-general. But his was an ambitious programme, which it did not endorse, yet which could in fact have been carried out, if at all, only with much stronger support. Even so, he, and his successor, Charles Brooke, contrived – though without explicit British backing, and at times in the face of some British criticism – to expand Sarawak at Brunei’s expense. The possibility that, despite the sultan’s obligation under a treaty James Brooke had made in 1847 not to cede territory without Britain’s assent, the sultanate might become – willingly or not – the prey of another power was a factor in changing the attitude of the British government in the ‘imperialist’ phase of the later nineteenth century. But its response took the form, first, of tendering limited support to another anomalous regime, that of the British North Borneo Company, chartered in 1881, ruling territories leased or ceded by the sultans of Brunei and Sulu, and then, in 1888, of extending protectorates over Sarawak, North Borneo and the remnant of Brunei. Recognising that it might be the only way to preserve what was left of the sultanate, Sultan Hashim of Brunei accepted a British Resident in a new treaty in 1906. In the French wars the British had eliminated Dutch authority at the Cape, in India, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and the archipelago. They retained the Cape and Ceylon but in the treaty of 1814 undertook to restore the other holdings of the old Dutch company to the new kingdom of the Netherlands, including not only the old Dutch republic, but also the Belgian provinces of the Habsburgs, that had been set up as a barrier against another French attempt to disrupt the balance of power in Europe and to threaten the security of the British isles. Handing back Dutch possessions in the Indies would help the new kingdom to sustain its independence, if not guarantee its friendship. At the same time, it would keep another major power out of those possessions, which had been one of the objectives of the British conquests. During the nineteenth century, the British were essentially to hold to this policy. Aside from accepting Raffles’ acquisition of Singapore, and affording Brooke support in northern Borneo, the British government made no real attempt to challenge the political predominance of the Dutch in the archipelago, through the creation of Singapore helped to ensure a substantial share in its commerce. The fundamental document in this relationship was the treaty of 17 March 1824, under which the British withdrew from Sumatra as the Dutch did from the peninsula. No line was drawn on the map, partly for fear of provoking other powers. Yet other

Further India 43 powers did in fact recognise that the British and the Dutch were, in George Canning’s phrase, ‘exclusive Lords of the East’:12 the British, the prime naval power, were seen to have an interest in the preservation of the Dutch empire in the Indies, and others did not challenge it, weak though Dutch authority was outside Java, and challenged as it was there in the war of 1825–30. The apprehension that they might do so was renewed in the ‘imperialist’ phase. The Dutch reduced the tariffs on foreign trade, wisely seeking to buy off territorial ambitions with commercial opportunities. Their policy towards Aceh was, by contrast, disastrous. Not yet brought within the ambit of their wide-ranging contractual relationships with Indonesian rulers, the sultanate, they feared, might turn to other powers. The Dutch felt that they had to interpose and so began what turned out to be the kind of long and exhausting war which a colonial power – particularly a minor one – ought always to avoid. It even limited their attempts to establish their control more firmly east of Java, which the Berlin conference of 1884–5 seemed to make more necessary. Only in 1894 – and with great violence – was Lombok brought under control. Bali followed a decade later, not without a mass suicide in the principality of Badung. Though once part of a larger commercial, political and religious venture, the Philippines had become an outpost of the Spanish empire in America. The advent of ‘enlightened’ rulers in Spain – coupled with the temporary British occupation of Manila in 1762–3 – prompted an endeavour to turn the Philippines to greater account, and the subsequent loss of the American colonies made it even more necessary for it to rely on its own resources. The Spanish response was to ‘open up’ the Philippines. British, and for a while American traders, in fact contributed a great deal to the development of the islands in the nineteenth century, and the British government made no further attempt to dislodge the Spanish rulers. The only dispute was over the Muslim or ‘Moro’ regions which the Spaniards included in Filipinas, but over which they had never established their control. At the outset of the ‘imperialist’ phase the Spanish authorities – concerned over Islamic revival as well as over the rivalry of other powers – renewed their efforts, finally establishing a fort on Sulu in 1876. Partly perhaps to avert unilateral action on the part of Bismarck’s new Germany, the British asserted the right to trade freely to islands not under Spanish control, and a tripartite protocol was concluded in 1877. The creation and chartering of the British North Borneo Company led in 1885 to a different kind of agreement among the Western powers. The British agreed to cease any attempt to sustain or support the independence of the sultanate of Sulu, while the Spaniards agreed not to take up his claims in northern Borneo. The Germans reluctantly accepted the deal. Spain had still not effectively incorporated Sulu in Filipinas when the Spanish– American war broke out in 1898. The US victory over Spain made the Philippines the outpost once more of an American empire. Its acquisition under the treaty of Paris was controversial. Expansionists won the argument, talking of duty and of stepping-stones to the China market. Yet this ‘imperialism’ seemed to consort poorly with the ideology of the American revolution, and it confronted Filipino nationalists

44 The view from without who had been challenging Spanish authority since 1896. A long and bitter struggle to ‘pacify’ Luzon and the Visayas put off the conquest of the Moro regions, and a further bitter struggle then ensued. The Americans declared that they aimed to grant the Filipinos independence: they had come in order – in good time – to go. Thus, in the nineteenth century, and especially after 1870, did Southeast Asia, with the exception of Siam/Thailand, come more or less completely under the control of imperial powers. The closing stage of the process was marked by ‘imperialism’, which was created more by the rivalry of states than by capitalist ambition. Yet once ‘colonial states’ had been set up, their search for revenue led them to seek investment and to build infrastructure. Those endeavours produced a type of regionalism that may fall within the first category, intra-state. The resources in which foreign capital interested itself were found in various parts of the region and its states, and it was on those regions that infrastructural developments tended to focus. Thus Sumatra’s ‘East Coast’ became a ‘cultuurgebied’ because of its capacity to fill a market niche for wrapper leaf tobacco, and Perak, Selangor and Negri Sembilan on the west coast of the peninsula became a focus for development and immigration because of the exploitation of tin, the infrastructure installed subsequently making the region a major rubber producer as well. Such developments led to the lop-sided growth of the individual colonial states. So far as ‘region’ in the larger sense was concerned, economic development tended to make the colonial states competitors in world markets, except where they filled niches. But it stimulated some intra-regional trade, for instance in rice. There was, of course, some sense that, amid their rivalries, the imperial powers were engaged in a common endeavour and had some common problems and experiences. Recruiting itself to the ranks, the US sought to learn from its neighbours. Siam imitated them, in the hope of avoiding a take-over by them. But, more obviously, the region was marked by a series of bilateral relationships, most of them naturally involving Britain, the leading power in the colonial phase. The most important of these relationships were those between the British and the Dutch, a minor European power holding the most populous territory, Netherlands India: a mixture of patronage and resentment, alliance and rivalry. Threats from outside brought the governments of the region a little closer together but not much. One was the threat of international communism after 1917: to a limited extent the regimes collaborated against it. Though the region contributed inventively to international communism – with the example of Henrik Sneevliet, the criticism of Tan Malaka, the persistence of Ho Chi Minh – it tended not to treat Southeast Asia as a region, but as a collection of colonial territories. Within them it made connections, both supportive and destructive, with nationalist movements. Those the governments of the day thought they could handle, and there was relatively little cross-frontier collaboration among them. What there was made them nervous. Malay ‘extremists’ looked across the colonial ‘frontier’ to Indonesian nationalism. The visit to Surabaya in 1934 of Manuel Quezon, soon to become President of the semi-independent Commonwealth of the Philippines, was unwelcome to the Dutch.

Further India 45 In several of his essays, collected in Indonesia’s History between the Myths, the late G.J. Resink contrasted the theoretical ‘independence’ of component parts of Netherlands India in the early twentieth century with their lack of the capacity for international action that is an essential part of ‘real’ independence: ‘many Indonesian lands had not yet been annexed politically’ but ‘had been isolated internationally’, conducting relations only with the Indies government.13 Incorporation in a colonial state, which was the next step, naturally confirmed that isolation. ‘It was’, Michael Leifer says, ‘the quality of international political isolation as much as alien control which characterized the condition of Southeast Asia under colonialism.’ Its international relations, ‘proceeded in the main between extra-regional powers who concluded agreements defining territorial spheres of interest and advantage with almost exclusive reference to themselves’.14 The legacy the colonial period left to the region was one of division as well as commonality. Except for the Thais, its peoples shared a colonial experience, though it varied with the metropolis in control, and they were to share a nationalist struggle, though it too took different forms, again partly as a result of metropolitan policies. They shared, too, a legacy of ‘isolation’, of non-participation or restricted participation in the world of states that was being created. It was partly as a result of that somewhat negative experience that states, even as they came to enjoy an independent existence, supported a regionalist approach. It could be ‘constructed’ from the ‘imperialist’ past. The speech that a Thai leader, Thanat Khoman, made at Chulalongkorn University in December 1975 made the point. The Southeast Asian nations, he said, were ‘comparatively weak and small’, and of little significance in world affairs. ‘Politically, they are ‘balkanised’ by prolonged diverse colonial rule which oriented them toward their respective metropolitan centers rather than toward their neighbours in the area. This colonial compartmentalization has estranged them . . . a new sense of regional solidarity and partnership would have to be forged.’ Then ‘their individual weakness and impotence will gradually be replaced by a combined strength and their voice will be heard and their weight noted on the international forum’.15 There was, however, a further legacy that Thanat left unspoken, even impliedly denied. Colonial powers had been unequal in strength: so were the post-colonial states that succeeded them but not in the same way. Indonesia, in particular, stood in a political position vis-a-vis its neighbours quite different from that of Netherlands India: the one was a large state, the other the possession of a minor power. The new or renewed capacity to conduct international relations had to take that into account. Was that an advantage to the regionalist approach or a disadvantage? It might indeed be considered that it gave the regionalist approach an additional purpose: it would not merely help the Southeast Asian states to exert an influence on ‘the international forum’ but enable them to accommodate the differential in their power and potential. The regionalism of which Thanat spoke in the 1970s was further designed to meet a perceived threat from the ‘outside’. Though accounts of the origins of ASEAN have often exaggerated its role or misinterpreted its impact, it helped in

46 The view from without the ‘construction’ of a region, though for a while also dividing it. That ‘threat’ came from China. In the 1930s the Southeast Asia of the colonial period had also faced a threat from the outside more serious than the Communist one. That came from Japan, its modernisation having led it into an expansionist venture in East Asia that it sought increasingly to avoid presenting in the merely imperialist terms that had become unfashionable. How far did that threat induce regional collaboration among the colonial states? It was, of course, clear that what could be done ultimately depended not on any regional collaboration, but on the grand strategies of the major powers in the world as a whole. But the growing threat suggested the need for collaboration in the region, too. Still the leading colonial power in the region, the British saw a need for coordination, not least but not merely among their own authorities. The concern, however, was expressed in terms of the ‘Far East’, not of ‘Southeast Asia’. The example of the ‘Near East’ was in mind. There, after the European war began in 1939, the British Cabinet had appointed a Resident Minister, based in Cairo. As tension increased in the Far East, Duff Cooper, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, was sent out in July 1941 to ‘examine the present arrangements for consultation and communication between the various British authorities in the area . . . and to report to the War Cabinet how these arrangements can be made more effective’. He advocated the appointment of a Commissioner-General for the Far East. The opening of the Pacific war in December anticipated Cabinet consideration of his report. He was appointed Resident Minister in the Far East, charged with forming a War Council.16 The Far East had changed and was changing very rapidly as a result of speedier communications and of the ‘awakening’ of Asian peoples, Cooper had argued. Yet at the outbreak of war in 1939, the affairs of the British empire there were being conducted ‘by machinery that has undergone no important change since the days of Queen Victoria. . . . Two Ambassadors and one Minister reported to the Foreign Office on the affairs of Japan, China and Siam, while the same department was kept informed by the Consul-General of events passing in the Netherlands East Indies, in the Philippines and in French Indo-China. The Governors of the Straits Settlements and of Hong Kong reported to the Colonial Office. The Dominions Office was represented by High Commissioners in Australia and New Zealand and the recent bestowal upon Burma of a Secretary of State of her own brought the India Office into the picture. . . . save for the fact that the Ministers responsible for the departments met weekly in Cabinet, no effort was made to co-ordinate the activities of the officials or the policies of the departments concerned.’ Other ministries appeared after the European war began: the Ministry of Information, the Ministry of Economic Warfare, the Ministry of Transport, and the Treasury appointed a Financial Commissioner in Shanghai. The meetings of the Cabinet’s Far Eastern Committee in London suggested that much could be settled on the spot. A Commissioner-General could assist and advise the representatives of all the departments in the Far East; he could at times authorise action that might otherwise need to be referred home; he could arbitrate differences between the representatives

Further India 47 of departments. He would keep in touch with the military authorities; he would furnish the War Cabinet ‘with a complete picture of the whole situation in the Far East’; and he would keep the authorities in the Far East informed of the views and plans of the Cabinet. ‘He should keep himself acquainted with developments both in India, the United States and, if possible, with Russia, and he should return at intervals to England.’ He would be based in Singapore.17 The war in the Pacific came too soon to ascertain whether the plan would have worked. In the actual conditions of war, the appointment of a Resident Minister probably only added to the chaos in British decision-making. Would Cooper’s proposal have worked in peacetime conditions? John Sterndale Bennett, of the British Foreign Office, doubted it. ‘The speeding up of communications to which the report refers inevitably tends to centralisation of responsibility in London, since it is there only that the relative importance of events can be properly judged. It is not clear in fact how a Cabinet Minister or senior official in Singapore can keep himself informed of developments in the United States and Russia to the extent which the report admits to be necessary.’ But Bennett thought there was ‘clearly room for local centralisation and coordination in Singapore of a number of activities and a committee or council in Singapore on the lines of the Far Eastern Committee here might have many advantages in relieving London of a good deal of detail and presenting coordinated recommendations for consideration here’. A ‘central political adviser’ would be valuable in assisting and advising the representatives of all departments, ‘assuming a certain degree of local responsibility’, and settling differences among them.18 The idea had been planted in his mind. The old system, pilloried by Duff Cooper, had grown with the spread of British interests, commercial and territorial. It reflected their diversity, the range of contacts they involved, the varying conditions in which they were placed. But it also reflected the level of coordination that was possible and necessary. There was a consensus about Britain’s purposes and priorities that guided policies and made an enforced coordination superfluous. The improvement in communications had, moreover, reduced the risk of unwarranted and exceptionable initiatives, such as those Raffles and Brooke had been able to undertake. Now, however, that these world-wide interests were under attack or threat both at the centre and on the peripheries, such a system seemed inadequate. On the one hand, there was a need for greater ‘metropolitan’ centralisation, but, on the other, more ‘local centralisation’ was also called for. A new balance was needed. But it would be hard to find. Not only were there local British interests and personalities to be coordinated. There were other local interests, including those of other colonial powers, who would have to be handled both in the region and in the metropolis, and who might be wary of what might appear to be a hitherto-avoided open assertion of Britain’s primacy in the region. Bennett’s comments are also in effect a comment on the type of ‘regionalism’ the British then had in mind. It was a ‘regional’ approach from the ‘outside’, a ‘hegemonic’ policy made for a region, neither in it nor by it. They recognised the need but also the difficulty. Was it possible to coordinate their own interests, let alone those of the other colonial powers?

48

The view from without

The ‘colonial’ states were in any case creating, intentionally and unintentionally, nationalist elites who were seeking to make the colonial states independent nation-states. There could be but limited cooperation among them in the task, nor, once independence was secured, would it be possible to abandon the ‘national’ focus of interest. Post-colonial regionalism was to be and could only be the initiative of post-colonial states, and would be influenced by the need and capacity to come together in changing circumstances. That regionalism the British were at a later stage of their decolonisation – and of the changes in the world in which they pursued their interests – to welcome. The ‘balkanisation’ of the imperial period provoked the new regionalists, but the post-imperial period offered example and encouragement. In the meantime, however, the empires in the Far East, including Southeast Asia, had been lost, though the British empire in India and Ceylon remained. The task of reconquest or liberation was not only to revive the concept of local coordination but was also to sharpen the Allies’ sense that ‘Southeast Asia’ was a region. That – though not quite all of it, nor all the time – was the area where the British were expected to assume the leadership in the struggle against Japan.

4

Nan-yo

The connection between the Japanese and Southeast Asia dates back at least to the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Then they had taken part in the commercial expansion brought about by the development of China’s economy under the Ming dynasty, by the voyages of the European adventurers and by the exploitation of Japan’s own silver mines. There were Japanese settlements in several of the port cities of early seventeenth-century Southeast Asia, made up of merchants, persecuted Christians and lordless samurai. Victorious in the long civil wars of the sixteenth century, Toyotomi Hideyoshi had declared in 1590 that ‘even if a land be thousands of miles distant, I shall deeply achieve amity and so build with foreign lands the spirit of the four seas as one family’.1 He sent a letter to Manila, threatening an attack if it did not submit, and the Spaniards there sent emissaries.2 But Northeast Asia’s geographical propinquity gave it a strategic importance that Southeast Asia entirely lacked. Hideyoshi invaded Korea in 1592 and 1597. ‘Even China will enter my grip’, he boasted.3 His successors, the Shoguns of the Tokugawa clan, abandoned his policy, and adopted quite a different one, that of sakoku, the closed country. The Japanese in Southeast Asia were ‘not only abandoned by their home government but . . . lost any hope of repatriation’.4 Japan still sought overseas goods – sappanwood, pepper, deer hides, sharkskin, silk – but they were brought by the Chinese and the Dutch, who, alone among the Europeans, were allowed to trade at Nagasaki. When the sakoku policy was abandoned, and the Meiji restoration carried out after 1868, Korea was, not surprisingly, the initial focus of Japan’s foreign policy in Asia. The Korean government provoked the new regime by refusing to recognise it. Some of the ruling oligarchs wanted retaliatory action. The majority preferred to temporise, though imposing the treaty of Kanghwa and also incorporating the Liuchiu islands as Okinawa. Twenty years later, better prepared and facing a critical Diet, the government went to war with China over Korea. Once the war began, Japan’s ambitions expanded. Its aim came to be, as the British minister put it, ‘to humble China to the dust, and for Japan itself to rise on the ruins of that empire’.5 As a result of Japan’s success, China recognised the independence of Korea by the treaty of Shimonoseki and ceded the Liaotung peninsula in southern Manchuria. To the latter, however, France, Russia and Germany objected, and in face of the Triple Intervention of 1895, Japan backed down.

50 The view from without Under the treaty of Shimonoseki Japan acquired Formosa and the Pescadores. Though Japan made a joint declaration with Spain on their respective spheres of interest,6 the new imperialists did not entirely rule out moving further south. The question arose because of the revolt against Spanish rule in the Philippines that began in 1896. The Filipino nationalists were aware of Japan’s victory over China. The revolutionary Katipunan, for example, apparently delivered an appeal to the captain of a Japanese training vessel, the Kongo, in May 1896, looking for the aid of Japan, as France had once aided the American revolutionaries.7 While, however, some super-patriots (shishi) wanted to go further, and while, indeed, some Europeans expected Japanese intervention, the oligarchs, bearing the Triple Intervention in mind, were cautious. The intervention of the Americans only redoubled that caution. When the shishi Sakamoto Shiro suggested occupying Manila while Admiral Dewey was blockading it, the General Staff in Tokyo replied: ‘The control of the South Sea is an idea [to be achieved] in Japan’s national policy, but today is an inopportune time. You must positively not meddle in the war.’8 Three points emerge from the history of this phase. First, Japanese policy gave preference to ‘Northeast Asia’, to its relations with Korea and with China itself, to which strategic and political concerns drew their attention. Second, the Japanese had no integral perception of a region of Southeast Asia. They referred rather to the Nan-yo, the ‘Southern Sea’, which comprised islands in the Pacific as well. Third, while the main focus was on East and Northeast Asia, some believed that Japan had an interest in the ‘South’, idealistic, anti-colonial, imperial, strategic or commercial or all of those. Increasingly, on the other hand, its focus was on one part of the region, Netherlands India, in particular because it had oil, in which Japan was very deficient. The Chinese revolution and the First World War had again focused the Japanese on the mainland. The weakening of the Western position, however, exposed their own divisions. Were they simply to take advantage of China’s difficulties, or were they to pursue the more idealistic policy of pan-Asianism, which perceived Japan’s neighbours in terms of ‘a miniaturized counterpart of the Chinese imperial system with Japan at its imperial apex’?9 The 21 Demands they presented in 1915 marked the adoption of the former line. Yamagata Aritomo declared them inconsistent with ‘the self-protection of Asians and . . . the co-existence and co-prosperity of China and Japan’.10 Their interest in Netherlands India increased and Dutch apprehensions increased, too. The Japanese, however, made no moves, though, at the end of the war, they did acquire German islands in the Pacific as mandates. In the 1920s the ‘China Friendship’ policy of Shidehara Kijuro marked an attempt to put Japan’s relationship with the mainland on a new basis, accepting some at least of the implications of Chinese nationalism. The Dutch renewed their encouragement of Japanese trade, though also securing the ‘identic notes’, in which the US, the UK, France and Japan declared their intention of ‘respecting the island possessions of Holland in the region of the Pacific’.11 The Japanese, wrote Frank Ashton-Gwatkin at the FO in London, were interested in the oil of

Nan-yo 51 the Indies and in its trade. They appeared ‘to have no definite political ambitions in this region. But they are obsessed by the idea that their country is one day destined to be mistress of the Pacific and of its islands. They regard Holland as a very weak Power, and her colonial empire as doomed to disruption. Japan must have a say in the disposal of this rich empire. So she is steadily increasing her knowledge of the country, her vested interests therein, and the numbers of her merchants and colonists’, and keeping an eye on the native movement.12 The analysis coincides with Shimizu Hajime’s contemporary interpretation of Taisho nanshin-ron: it ‘stressed trade and industrial development for Japan’s sake. . . . The only things that Japan really tried to do on behalf of the political liberation of Southeast Asia were trying to understand its nationalism and giving passive support to independence from its Western masters.’13 The depression and the Manchukuo adventure once more changed Japan’s policy towards Northeast Asia and China. Though some of the Dutch and others were again apprehensive, the Japanese made no such drastic change in policy to the south. Arguably they thought the long-term prospects of decolonisation was still sufficiently encouraging. Under the Washington treaties of 1921–2 neither the US nor the UK could build a naval base in East Asian waters. The British were slow to build a base in Singapore, and the US were committed to give the Filipinos their independence. Rejecting Washington’s restrictions on naval building in 1934, the Japanese government resolved in 1936 to acquire naval power sufficient to secure command of the Western Pacific. It also envisaged ‘footsteps’ in the southern seas, and the navy organised ostensibly private business organisations to promote investment there.14 It also concluded the Anti-Comintern Pact of 1936. The object was to make the colonial powers in Southeast Asia more responsive, and the Dutch in particular more compliant. Pressure short of war might suffice. The Marco Polo bridge incident of July 1937 escalated into the undeclared war between China and Japan. In November 1938, Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro defined his country’s objectives in an ambitious way, though still one that did not explicitly include Southeast Asia. ‘It is the establishment of a new order that will enable us to maintain [the] permanent peace of East Asia that the Empire seeks.’15 The successes – and excesses – of the Imperial Japanese Army did not, however, bring the prompt victory that Konoe looked for. The UK and the US thought China would continue to resist and afforded it verbal encouragement and limited assistance, such as the completion of the Burma Road in December 1938. After the Munich crisis, however, the Japanese had moved on Canton, and the call for a New Order was followed by the occupation of Hainan and the Spratley islands in February and March 1939. Those moves brought Southeast Asia into closer focus. Aid from Burma and Indo-China helped to keep the Chiang Kai-shek government going, the Japanese believed. Taking Hainan, however, did not mean that they had yet decided to retaliate. They hoped that, pressed by the Germans in Europe, the colonial powers would become more amenable in Southeast Asia. There would still be no need to go to war. The war in Europe justified some of their hopes but destroyed others. Making an armistice in Europe in June 1940, the French sought to negotiate with the

52 The view from without Japanese over Indo-China. ‘The position is unhappily very simple’, wrote Paul Baudouin, the Vichy Foreign Minister; ‘if we refuse Japan, she will attack IndoChina which is incapable of being defended. Indo-China will be a hundred per cent lost. If we negotiate with Japan; if we avoid the worst, that is to say the total loss of the colony; we preserve the chances that the future may perhaps bring us.’ The Japanese troops might remain in the country and annex it bit by bit, ‘but they might also respect French sovereignty, and withdraw once the fight against Chiang Kai-Shek is at an end’.16 Though Hitler had conquered the Netherlands, the NEI government by contrast resisted Japan’s attempt to secure ‘a free hand economically’ in return for a guarantee of territorial integrity.17 Hitler’s invasion of the SU in June 1941 led the Japanese not to join their ally in the struggle but to intensify their pressure to the south. They secured from the French the right to use air bases and station troops in southern Indo-China. It was at this late stage that the US, anxious about the fate of Britain, and thus of the security of the Atlantic, determined to bring the Japanese to a halt in Asia by moving beyond comminatory words. Its deeds included economic embargoes. The terms for an understanding drew, however, on the words which the US had employed since Secretary of State Stimson had declined to recognise the change in Manchuria’s status. ‘We advocate abstinence by all nations from use of force in pursuit of policy and from interference in the internal affairs of other nations’, Cordell Hull had declared in reaction to the outbreak of the undeclared war.18 In April 1941 he presented four principles as the basis of negotiation: respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty; non-interference; equality, including that of commercial opportunity; non-disturbance of the status quo in the Pacific except by peaceful means.19 Those were brought forward again when the concept of a US–Japan modus vivendi was dismissed. By then the Japanese had finally resolved on war. Certain that their country would come to play a larger role in Southeast Asia, and that the colonial structures there could not endure for ever, Japan’s leaders had developed no more specific vision of its future or of their role in it, still less any more definite plans. Information had been collected, societies formed and pamphlets published. Commercial interests had been established, either private or, increasingly, with government backing. But, while the resources of Southeast Asia became more important, there was no plan to take it over. Those most interested in them, the naval leaders, were indeed those most apprehensive of the opposition of the maritime powers. Their army colleagues were more concerned about the SU. It was the European war that changed such attitudes. Even then, it was initially hoped that it would provide opportunities in Southeast Asia that might avoid the need for force. When force was resolved upon, indeed, there was a residual notion that it was but a step beyond the previous diplomacy, and that the other powers would accept a fait accompli as they had, though without affording recognition, in Manchuria. The conquest of Southeast Asia was not therefore the result so much of a long-term plan as of a sudden frustration. It was clearly partly as a result of this timing that, when the venture was begun, military objectives predominated, and that planning for the empire that was

Nan-yo 53 acquired was limited and largely improvised. The previous history of Japan’s policy-making suggests, of course, that timing was not the only factor in its incoherence. There were structural reasons, as well as personal, for its failure to develop strategic concepts and its tendency to resort to the cumulation of objectives and to formulae. Those processes were combined with a visionary rhetoric that spoke first of equality with the West and then increasingly, as Japan continued its ‘return’ to Asia, of some kind of leadership in Asia. That did not help in defining a policy. It was itself contested in the process of making policy at home and also indeed in carrying it out. It also affected outside perceptions of Japan, those held by the Chinese, the Western powers and the peoples of Southeast Asia. What might have been seemed as idealistic aims to the Japanese might not seem so to others. The task had been problematic even in East Asia. Japan shared a Confucian background with China and Korea, but it had no special bond with its neighbours and handling them was complicated not only by the interests of the West but by Japan’s emulation of the West. The New Order rhetoric of 1938 was, as Kumitada Miwa says, presented in traditional terms so as ‘to have a readier appeal to the sentiments of the Japanese public. It was also hoped that it would have a similar effect on the Chinese.’20 It was a forlorn hope. The acquisition of Manchuria prompted attempts to accommodate national self-determination and pan-Asian rhetoric. The Great Asia Society (Dai Ajia Kyokai) was founded in 1933 on the day Manchukuo was proclaimed. Its emphasis was neotraditionalist: it spoke, for example, of the harmony of the five races. The Showa Study Association (Showa Kenkyukai), a think-tank for Konoe21 informally inaugurated in November 1933, sought a more ‘scientific’ approach. The Japanese ‘must be prepared to accommodate the nationalist desires of Asiatic peoples, and to weave them into a world policy which is readily distinguishable from Western imperialism’, declared Royama Masamichi, one of the study group. He argued for an ‘East Asia Cooperative Body’. He was trying, as he later put it, ‘to construct a regionalistic globalism’ as ‘a foundation for our continental policy, as it has developed in the most recent decade’.22 If proximity did not help in defining Japan’s relationships nor did distance. Extending the rhetoric to cover the nonSinitic world was still more challenging, though Royama’s ideas suggested a way. Konoe’s New Order had indeed not been concerned with Southeast Asia. ‘[I]ts definitional extension to include Southeast Asia was the result of a sudden turn in international events and of Japan’s opportunism in seizing upon this turn, rather than the consequence of a long-considered or widely held interest in the co-prosperity of the Southeast Asian peoples.’23 As the focus shifted south, a new rhetoric was needed. Foreign Minister Arita Hachiro had begun the task in April 1940, when, as it became likely that Germany would move on the Netherlands, he urged the maintenance of the status quo in the Indies. He referred to the ‘intimate relationship of mutuality’ binding Japan and ‘the South Seas regions’, and especially the Indies. Extending the war to Southeast Asia would interfere with maintaining and furthering ‘economic interdependence’and ‘coexistence and co-prosperity’.24 On 29 June – by which time the Germans had overrun the Netherlands – he went further. ‘The countries of East Asia stand in close relationship to the regions of

54 The view from without the South Seas in terms of geography, history, race, and economy. They are destined to enjoy prosperous coexistence by mutual help and accommodation and, by so doing, to promote the peace and prosperity of the world. It is a matter of course, therefore, to unite these regions into a single sphere on the basis of common existence so that the stability of that sphere be ensured . . . .’25 Rhetoric about the South Seas could not emphasise a common Sinitic heritage. It tended therefore to emphasise ‘liberation’. Four days after the Pacific war began the government announced that the Anglo-American war would be called a Great East Asia War ‘because it is a war for the construction of a new order in East Asia’. It entailed the ‘liberation of East Asian peoples from the aggression of American and Britain’, which was to lead to ‘the establishment of a genuine world peace and the creation of a new world culture’.26 Terms like hakko ichiu, ‘eight corners of the world under one roof’, a theory for the control of ‘alien tribes’ which the Japanese had embraced from early times,27 seemed meaningful only to a Japanese audience, as a task force on ideology at the navy ministry in June 1941 concluded. ‘Don’t we have any “slogan” comparable with the universality of America’s “democracy”?’ asked a naval officer. One adviser suggested redefining hakko ichiu as ‘universal brotherhood’, but soon all agreed that ‘although we say “universal brotherhood,” it probably means that we are equal to the Caucasians but, to the peoples of Asia, we act as their leader’. An academic adviser declared in October: ‘The Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere is not a reality, nor is it capable of becoming so. We are deceiving the world.’28 The Japanese had made a deal with Vichy over northern Indo-China. Greater Asianism, the magazine of the Dai-Ajia Kyokai, offered that, too, as a kind of liberation. ‘We are only gratified and admire the wholesome way of Heaven, imagining the joy of the inhabitants there welcoming the Imperial troops with heartfelt joy and gratitude, now that those people in Vietnam have come to look up to the Imperial wind and bask in the Emperor’s benevolence.’ The occupation was ‘the first in a series of great leaps forward toward war to liberate all of Asia’. The move into southern Indo-China was greeted as egregiously. ‘Who can imagine the feelings of the people in southern Vietnam without deep emotion?’29 Who indeed? ‘The Japanese empire is a manifestation of morality and its special characteristic is the propagation of the Imperial Way’, the Total War Institute declared early in 1942. ‘It is necessary to foster the increased power of the empire, to cause East Asia to return to its original form of independence and co-operation by shaking off the yoke of Europe and America, and to let its countries and peoples develop their respective abilities in peaceful cooperation and secure livelihood.’The desire for independence of peoples in the Co-Prosperity Sphere was to be respected, ‘but proper and suitable forms of government shall be decided for them in consideration of military and economic requirements and of the historical, political and cultural elements peculiar to each area’. Independence was to be based on the construction of the New Order, differing from ‘an independence based on the idea of liberalism and self-determination. . . . The peoples of the sphere shall obtain their proper positions, the unity of the people’s minds shall be effected and the unification of the sphere shall be realised with the empire as its center.’30

Nan-yo 55 Prime Minister Tojo’s speech to the House of Peers on 20 January 1942 echoed that kind of rhetoric. Japan wanted to enable each country and people in the Sphere ‘to have its proper place and demonstrate its real character, thereby securing an order of coexistence and co-prosperity based on ethical principles with Japan serving as its nucleus’. Japan would deal with areas ‘absolutely essential’ for defence, such as Hong Kong and the Malay peninsula. ‘As regards the Philippines, if the peoples of those islands will hereafter understand the real intentions of Japan and offer to cooperate with us as one of the partners for the establishment of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, Japan will gladly enable them to enjoy the honour of independence. As for Burma what Japan contemplates is not different from that relating to the Philippines.’31 Each nation would have its own place in the sphere, ‘where “an order of coexistence and co-prosperity” would take shape under Japan’s leadership’.32 Not only was it difficult to invent a rhetoric satisfying both at home and in the empire, it also had to reckon with the need for raw materials that had finally driven Japan to war. The Cabinet Planning Board’s statement of 6 August 1940, Outline of Economic Measures for the Southern Regions, ‘set the tone’, as Mark Peattie puts it.33 Japan’s military requirement for raw materials was to have priority. This priority was followed in the first serious study of the problems of a possible occupation, which was undertaken by the operations division of the Army General Staff. Its Research Office produced a draft study, Principles for the Administration and Security of Occupied Southern Regions, in March 1941. The planners set forth the three main principles that the government was to adopt later in the year, the restoration of public order, the acquisition of strategic materials, and the economic self-sufficiency of the occupation forces. Those were adopted by the Liaison conference in November. An army document of 25 November 1941 spoke of gradually indoctrinating the local people with ‘the policy of liberation in East Asia, so that they will be available for use in our operational schemes’.34 The conquest was carried out with ruthless efficiency and dumbfounding effect. The occupation itself was another matter. For that – arguably never part of Japan’s longer-term plan – there were principles rather than preparations, principles that allowed, even required, a great deal of ad hoc decision-making among military authorities already famous or notorious for asserting subordinates’ authority, carried out under wartime conditions. The whole was imbued with a cloudy rhetoric designed somehow both to appeal to the public at home and to cover the whole vast ‘Sphere’ that had now fallen into Japanese hands. Southeast Asia, only part of the Sphere, was not treated as a region in itself, nor were the countries in it the subject of the same policies. In the following months a more coherent approach was indeed adopted. Yet even that resulted less from the idealism some associated with the Sphere than from the practical difficulties that adhocism had produced, and the approach was itself the subject of intra-bureaucratic wrangling. An advisory Council for the Construction of Greater East Asia had been set up in February 1942. Some officials now saw the need for a central planning agency for the occupied areas. The haphazard nature of the policies of the occupying forces were an argument for it,

56 The view from without put forward by civilians on the Planning Board and in the Colonial Ministry. With that they invoked the need to prepare for the new Asian order. Even so, they noted that the major goal of the new organisation would be ‘to carry out the establishment of a great East Asian order properly and expeditiously so as to enable all regions of Asia to concentrate their resources on the strengthening of [Japanese] fighting capabilities’. Japan, as Tojo told the Privy Council, must compel all parts of Asia, autonomous or occupied, ‘to unite with Japan and contribute their respective resources to Japan’.35 There was opposition. Some of it originated in bureaucratic rivalry but by no means all. Former financial leaders, like Fukai Eigo, thought it a mistake to separate Asian countries from others. They thought, too, that the agency would symbolise compulsion and alienate those whom it was intended to win over. After the Midway defeat in June 1942 the proposal was also criticised by the Foreign Minister, Togo Shigenori. ‘[H]e thought an East Asian ministry would represent a point of no return in Japan’s determination to separate the region from the rest of the world. It would be particularism in the extreme, making it more difficult than ever to come to terms with the Western powers.’36 He argued in vain and resigned. The new ministry was established on 1 November 1942. The concept of Greater East Asia had not, however, thus received a final definition. It remained part of the debate among the Japanese, and its role changed as their fortunes changed. Overall the trend was to emphasise its ‘liberationist’ aspect. Though they remained cautious, the military leaders could see that as a means of recruiting support in the conquered territories as the war turned against them. Others could see it as a means of universalising Japan’s war aims, and so perhaps facilitating a settlement, while yet persuading the Japanese themselves that they had not fought in vain. In that Togo’s successor, Shigemitsu Mamoru, who had argued for a new policy in China, was following Togo’s line. Later Togo returned to office. On 14 January 1943 the civil-military Liaison Conference decided to determine the future status of occupied areas according to two principles. ‘When considered suitable as Imperial territory, areas of strategic importance which must be secured by the Empire for the defense of Greater East Asia, as well as sparsely populated areas and regions lacking the capacity for independence, shall be incorporated into the Empire.’ The administrative systems adopted were to take account of traditions, ‘cultural levels’ and other factors. ‘Independence shall be bestowed upon such areas as qualify for it in the light of their past political development, if this is deemed advantageous to the prosecution of the Greater East Asia war and the establishment of Greater East Asia.’37 The Liaison Conference of 10 March agreed that Burma’s independence should be coupled with complete military collaboration and a treaty of alliance. That of 26 June 1943 agreed on a similar deal for the Philippines. Tojo addressed an extraordinary session of the Diet that month. The war situation was ‘increasingly grave’. New policies were necessary, given that situation, and ‘in response to the sincerity and cooperation of the various nations and peoples’. Among them he listed Manchukuo and the Chinese Republic under

Nan-yo 57 President Wang. He envisaged ‘increased strengthening’ of Japan’s cooperation with Thailand, and noted the preparations for Burma’s independence. He affirmed that the Philippine people, ‘who hitherto vainly pursued an illusory independence under the insincere administration of the United States’, would gain the real thing later in the year. He spoke of ‘an increasingly intimate coalition with French IndoChina’, but proffered ‘political participation’ in the Indies, particularly in Java.38 The prime minister thus put a new emphasis on the liberationist aspect of the Sphere, though its shaping remained opportunistic and variegated. The Allies were fighting to regain their colonies, but Japan’s aims were quite different, Shigemitsu told the Diet in October 1943. ‘To East Asia and its peoples, this is a war of racial awakening – a war for the renascence of East Asia. No wonder that all the peoples of East Asia have risen en masse to join this supreme and stupendous enterprise. . . . The present war is to us a war of national emancipation, which to our enemy is nothing but a war of aggression. . . . The war of greater East Asia is a war for justice to combat aggression. It is a war of liberation.’39 For the foreign minister, the rhetoric was a means of persuading the Japanese that they had won, as well as a means of stirring fellow Asians to greater efforts. It was, according to the summary he later made of his Diet speeches, something else as well. ‘We must be prepared to make peace so soon as our aims have been attained. The emphasis on our war aims and the limits we assign to them will provide the groundwork for the restoration of peace.’40 A Greater East Asia Conference met in Tokyo in November 1943, attended by leaders from Free India, Burma, the Philippines, though not by Thailand’s Pibun, who failed to come, nor by the Indonesians, who were not asked. Tojo’s welcoming speech recurred the rhetoric he had used in 1942. In Greater East Asia, each nation was to have ‘its proper place’, ‘enjoy the blessings of common prosperity’, and ‘practise mutual help’. Such was the ‘spiritual essence of the culture of Greater East Asia’.41 The declaration of principles adopted on 7 November was rather different. The countries of Great East Asia were to ‘cooperate together in order to secure the stability of East Asia and establish an order based on the principle of coexistence and coprosperity’. They were to ‘respect their mutual autonomy and independence, extend aid and friendship to each other, and establish an intimate relationship throughout East Asia’, and to ‘respect their respective traditions, promote each people’s creativity, and enhance the culture of the whole East Asia’. The countries were to cooperate closely ‘according to the principle of mutuality, plan their economic development, and promote the prosperity of East Asia’. They would also ‘maintain friendly relations with all nations, abolish systems of racial discrimination, undertake extensive cultural exchanges, voluntarily open up their resources, and thus contribute to the progress of the entire world’.42 The declaration had been drafted in the Foreign Ministry. While retaining key concepts like coexistence and coprosperity, it was more universalistic in tone than pan- Asianist. ‘It is Japan’s tragedy’, the diarist Kiyosawa Kiyoshi noted, ‘ to have had to draft a declaration which is similar to the Atlantic Charter, granting all peoples their independence and freedom.’43 Yet while the statement was adopted at a conference designed to support the war, its invocation of universal principles

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could also be a means of working towards peace. If they were accepted in Tokyo, they would give the Japanese a sense of achievement and avoid humiliation. At the same time they might also be accepted in Washington and, less readily, in London, and also perhaps in Moscow. ‘In retrospect it can be seen that Shigemitsu and others were preparing themselves and the nation for accepting defeat by calling it a victory for certain universalistic principles.’44 Those principles were, of course, those that had grown with the Western concept of a ‘world of states’, by contrast to the hierarchical patterns of the Chinese and Japanese imperial systems. They had been articulated by Hull in 1937 and in 1941 and were to be taken up in the UN Charter. ‘Vague and often contradictory as their ideas were, men like Shigemitsu and Kido were trying to formulate realistic approaches to terminating the hostilities’, Akira Iriye writes. ‘It is clear that they were hoping to salvage the war from a complete disaster by devising a formula for a symbolic “victory”.’45 It would, of course, be far more than symbolic. For any such plan, while bringing an end to the exclusivity of the Sphere, it would also bring an end to the treaty system in China and to the colonial system in Southeast Asia. That, in a sense, was what they wanted their Tokyo colleagues to see as a victory, so as to make a settlement possible. Japan would have had a role in the creation of the world of states. In 1943, said a memorandum on the independence of Java produced by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs early in 1944, the emphasis was on ‘the obvious necessity of meeting the various military and economic requirements of the Empire in the successful prosecution of the Greater East Asia War – a course considered indispensable in completing the material foundation of the Empire which will become a stabilizing power in East Asia as a powerful defensive state after the war’. Now circumstances were changing. Granting independence would, the memorandum argued, ‘naturally contribute to winning the hearts of the natives’, and ‘demonstrate the consistency of the Empire’s moralistic Greater East Asian policies and contribute in no small way to the unity of Greater East Asia’. The ‘tide’ of the war was, however, ‘running disadvantageously’. Granting independence in such circumstances might restrict ‘the Empire’s pressing military and economic measures and obstruct military operations in no small degree’, and give ‘the impression that the Empire is weakening’. The memorandum went on to consider the advantages and disadvantages from the point of view of the post-war period. ‘Temporarily leaving aside the possibility of an overwhelming victory for either side, should a stalemate be reached, and should a delicate situation arise making it necessary to terminate the war because of internal and external factors, it will obviously be of the utmost importance to leave everything on an open basis as much as possible to assure diplomatic flexibility.’ Since, moreover, the area was not British or American, ‘there is the very great possibility that it may become a subject for negotiation’, and ‘a hasty “commitment” of our diplomacy concerning Indonesia at this time may be harmful’. ‘Nevertheless’, the memorandum continued, ‘the Greater East Asia war is fundamentally a struggle against the Anglo-American world order – in essence, a war between two world outlooks. Even if America and Great Britain, with their

Nan-yo 59 utilitarian outlook, do not comprehend the significance of the present war, regardless of whether or not the war is viewed as a clash in terms of the old concepts of national interests, and no matter whether circumstances are even now enabling complete restoration of the old order, the ideological foundation developed through the war of liberation in Greater East Asia by the Empire is, regardless of the course of the war, an eventuality which even the enemy must follow and accept; there should be a deep-seated conviction in this development.’ Even if the independence of Indonesia were not finally ‘upheld by diplomatic negotiations after the termination of the war’ and were ‘temporarily left in abeyance as a future problem’, not even the enemy would be able to ‘deny the fundamental truth that independence inevitably follows the formative development of a people; if so, and if independence is granted by us, then half the victory can be acknowledged as ours’. Independence, moreover, could be modified to meet the Empire’s requirements, ‘should circumstances resolve in our favor; but should the war end completely disadvantageously, with the Empire also unable to honor its other international commitments, the granting of independence, if viewed on a long-term basis, would leave an invincible foundation which could be used in the future resurrection of Japan’. Clarifying Japan’s position at this stage would ‘make the Empire’s war objectives more coherent and provide a constructive legacy for the future; moreover, it should not necessarily prove obstructive after the termination of the war’.46 In September 1944 the new Koiso government announced its plans for Indonesia. Officials had drawn up draft statements for the prime minister to use when announcing them in the Diet. Those alluded to the goals of Greater East Asia, invoking ‘stability’, ‘independence of national states’, ‘fraternal cooperation’, ‘coexistence and co-prosperity’ and quoted the examples of Burma and the Philippines. The natives, said Koiso, had, since their participation was extended in 1943, ‘thoroughly comprehended the Empire’s true intentions and consistently continued their tremendous efforts toward the successful climax of the Greater East Asia war; moreover, their cooperation with local military government has been truly something to behold. In response to these circumstances and in order to ensure the permanent welfare of the East Indies, the Empire here states that their independence will be sanctioned in the future.’47 At the end of the year the future of Indo-China came into question. While the military saw it in strategic terms and now looked towards a takeover from the Vichy French, Shigemitsu clearly saw this, too, in terms of an international diplomacy and in particular in terms of Japan’s relationship with the Soviet Union. His final decision was that a coup against the French, if followed by declarations of independence, would not be damaging. The coup followed on 9 March 1945. Emperor Bao Dai denounced Vietnam’s treaties with the French, King Sihanouk of Cambodia declared independence and the King of Laos followed suit. Shigemitsu’s successor, Togo, convened a second Greater East Asia conference in Tokyo on 23 April 1945, attended only by ambassadors, rather than heads of state, because of the physical conditions. One aim was to demonstrate Asian solidarity at the time of the UN conference in San Francisco. It ‘set forth’ the

60 The view from without independence of the Indo-China states, and looked towards that of the Indies. Its declaration stressed, not Japan’s leadership, but cooperation, political equality, economic reciprocity and non-aggression.48 Iriye’s adjective is ‘Wilsonian’. It was a response to the nations of Greater East Asia. It was also, perhaps, a signal to enemy nations, a means of conveying peace terms. ‘More important’, peace would not be a disgrace: ‘it would simply mean an agreement with the enemy about an acceptable framework for Japanese foreign affairs.’49 It would be that of the ‘universalistic’ world of nations. Japan would be implementing the promises of the Atlantic Charter. This ‘liberationism’ formed no part of peace negotiations, despite Shigemitsu’s hopes. The Western Allies were determined on surrender, ‘overwhelming victory’, and Stalin joined in at the last moment. The legacy in Southeast Asia was partly positive and partly negative. There had been no policies for the region, only for the Sphere, and the countries in the region had been treated differently, even divisively, according not merely to the nature of their political development but even more to the convenience of the conquerors. Nor was it merely a matter of internal manipulation. The frontiers of the territories had been altered. Two of British Burma’s Shan states had been made over to Thailand, and so had the northern states of Malaya, though the hopes of an Indonesia Raya, raised during the discussions on independence in mid-1945, had been given no encouragement. The economic links between the countries in the region and their respective metropolises were abruptly broken off and with them the links within the region – such as the supply of rice – that had depended on them. The Japanese had, however, destroyed the hold of the colonial powers, even, though only in March 1945, that of the French, and made it difficult for them to regain their hold, if not impossible. They had, rather willy-nilly, given the colonial elites an opportunity, though they gave them little or no preparation for utilising it nor any real experience of the business of government. But their cruelty and incompetence had limited the gratitude they were likely to secure, even if those colonial elites were to be successful. Their occupation was ill-prepared, permanently under war conditions. Its main aim was to mobilise support, not to create new states. It employed the terror of colonial rule more than the colonial powers themselves, and it engaged in a high level of everyday violence. It exploited labour and utilised the zaibatsu, old and new. Such an experience qualified the possibility of long-term advantage that Shigemitsu and the Java memorandum had foreseen when they put forward a ‘liberationist’ view of the GEACPS. The elites now faced the victorious Allies, the colonial powers in somewhat equivocal relationship with the triumphant US. Only the Vietnamese – caught up in a new war, though a cold one – were unable to secure independence for their country over the following decade or so. The victory in this struggle was the victory of the Southeast Asian nationalist elites, though so far they had been fought over more than fought. ‘My colleagues and I are of that generation who went through the Second World War and the Japanese occupation and became determined that no one – neither the Japanese nor the British – had the right to push and kick us around’, as Lee Kuan Yew was to put it. ‘We were determined that we

Nan-yo 61 could govern ourselves and bring up our children in a country where we could be self-respecting people.’50 What the leaders of independent Southeast Asian states drew from the experience of the interregnum, as from that of the colonial period, was in a sense negative, a provocation or a stimulus to construct a different ‘order’. The attempt to give the Sphere a liberationist aspect was largely a failure in this respect, though not as completely as it was in respect of peacemaking with the victorious Allies. It was overlaid by memories of violence and deprivation, and the Sphere, seen largely as Southeast Asian, was recalled as a precedent to be avoided rather than followed. Indeed such memories hung over the attempts of a revived Japan to renew its relationships with the region, though not to the extent that Nanjing and the failure to ‘apologise’ hung over its relations with the PRC. Militarily Japan maintained only a Self-Defence Force, and it was reluctant to send it abroad. Only in 1992–3 did it send SDF ‘officials’ to the south, to assist the UN peace process in Cambodia.51 The reluctance mirrored the reluctance to see the Japanese military in Southeast Asia. Attending the ASEAN summit in Manila in December 1987, Prime Minister Takeshita Noboru had insisted that Japan would be unswerving in a policy that ‘rejects militarism’, and he described his country’s war record as ‘deplorable’.52 Visiting Singapore in May 1991, Prime Minister Kaifu Toshiki expressed ‘our sincere contrition at Japanese past actions which inflicted unbearable suffering and sorrow upon a great many people of the Asia-Pacific region’.53 When Yozo Ishikawa, director-general of the Defence Agency, visited Thailand in May 1990, Prime Minister Chatichai Choonhavan proposed joint exercises in the South China Sea in order to enhance security in the event that the US left its bases in the Philippines. ASEAN experts dismissed the proposal as ‘premature’. ‘Perhaps it is better if this initiative comes from countries other than Thailand which has not come under Japan’s occupation’, declared Noordin Sopiee, director of Malaysia’s ISIS. ‘But then of course other countries are not prepared to do so.’54 Keeping the US active in the region would help to check Japan. ‘Our people suffered in World War II’, an ASEAN defence minister said in 1992, ‘and they still remember. . . . They could do it again.’55 Kaifu spoke of economic cooperation, peace and prosperity, but there the very success of the Japanese produced a resentment which could attach itself to memories of the occupation. Its models might be borrowed, its help solicited, its investment and know-how sought, but leadership in this sphere evoked, or could be made to evoke, recollections of a different Sphere. The onset of the Cold War had encouraged the US to change its attitude to Japan, and under the ‘reverse course’, the zaibatsu and the wartime planners were recruited for the restoration and expansion of the economy. Unable in the Korean war to look to China, Japan looked to Southeast Asia. ‘I do not think it is necessary to dwell upon the importance of our relations with Southeast Asia, since we cannot expect much from our relations with China’, Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru remarked. ‘The government desires to extend every possible cooperation for the prosperity of the countries of Southeast Asia in the form of capital,

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The view from without

technique, service or otherwise, in order thus to advance further the relations of reciprocal benefit and common prosperity.’56 Hence what Shigemitsu, back as foreign minister, called ‘economic diplomacy’. Japan’s economic revival, and its increasing role in world trade, also gave it a strategic interest in Southeast Asia: ‘Japan’s snag-free economic activity depends on the situation in this part of the world’, as a Russian commentator was to put it.57 The payment of reparations, organised on a bilateral basis after the San Francisco peace treaty of 1951, was a means of re-entry into the Southeast Asian economies. The knowledge of the resources acquired in the war was turned to account, and so, too, the Chinese commercial networks. ‘Japan’s so-called reparations programme was invented by business, and run by business, exclusively as a self-serving plan.’58 Some manufacturers feared that shipping plant and machinery to Southeast Asia as reparations would create competition, for example in textiles. ‘But other manufacturers facing a decline in American military spending in Japan were convinced that reparations must open the door to rich raw materials and new markets for equipment, spare parts and after-services.’59 They carried the day. ‘[R]eparations and quasi-reparations – paid in capital goods, services and equipment over a twenty year period – helped Japan increase its exports and production, especially since South East Asian countries were dependent on them for their industrialization.’60 Kishi Nobusuke, a wartime minister, visited Southeast Asia in 1957 and proposed a Southeast Asia Development Fund, but the US did not support it.61 In the Vietnam war his brother Eisaku Sato endorsed President Johnson’s plan for development in April 1965 and poured capital into the region, and Japan played a major role in establishing the Asia Development Bank, which it vainly hoped would be located in Tokyo.62 Becoming a world-wide economic power, Japan still played a major economic role in Southeast Asia in the 1960s. Indeed its ‘overpresence’ produced a reaction, as Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei found on his 1974 tour: he faced hostile students in Bangkok, and there were major riots in Jakarta.63 Just before he came, B.M. Diah, editor of the nationalist Merdeka, had told an Indonesia–Japan conference in Jakarta that ‘the present gigantic posture of Japan is the new branch from an old tree. The economic expansion in Asia and the world is a rejuvenation of the fruits of the old policy.’64 Fukuda Takeo enunciated a different approach in 1977. ‘Diplomacy towards Southeast Asia until now was contact through money and goods. It was not contact based on the policy of good friends acting for mutual benefit. Even when viewed from our country there was an impression of economic and arrogant manners, and it was a situation which was symbolized by the expression “economic animal.” ’65 But it seemed ‘a change of style rather than substance’.66 In some sense the Japanese were back on the track that Ashton-Gwatkin had pictured their taking in the 1920s. The continuities were, however, combined with discontinuities. Japan’s interests were now global not merely regional. Southeast Asia was not part of a Sphere, nor a Sphere in itself, though the Japanese attached particular significance to it. Moreover ‘Southeast Asia’ was seeing itself and constituting itself as a region, to which Japan, like others, would have to give

Nan-yo 63 attention as an entity. The Japanese invasion, and the subsequent creation of independent states, had removed Southeast Asia from the economic and political framework of the colonial period and opened it to the wider world. Those states themselves, partly in reaction, began to act on a regional basis. Their post-colonial commitment to a nation-state might have prevented that. In fact, that commitment made it possible, even necessary. Yet before the Southeast Asian states took matters into their own hands, the British had begun to see Southeast Asia as a region more than they had in the days of empire. ‘Southeast Asia was defined negatively as a region from which Japan had to be expelled rather than one with any positive identity’, Charrier suggests.67 That was indeed the initial thrust of SEAC, the Allied South East Asia Command, headed by Lord Louis Moutbatten as Supreme Allied Commander. But its dealings with Southeast Asia – starting with its campaign in Burma – quickly added a more positive content, which its post-surrender operations amplified. It was a region not only in a geographical sense, but increasingly in a political sense, inasmuch as across the region nationalism was struggling for independence. There was a case for a common policy if the European were to retain a post-colonial interest in the region. That concept of the region persisted into the 1950s, when it was perceived as a scene of turmoil and a venue for Cold War struggle. The creation of SEAC, the Allied South East Asia Command, was to give unprecedented currency to the phrase Southeast Asia. But its ambit did not clearly define the boundaries of a region. It was based initially in India, and then at Kandy in Ceylon, and in that respect it was clearly a phrase put forward and used by outsiders to the region, for its zone of operations did not include Ceylon itself, still, of course, in British hands, though basing the Command in Ceylon did in some sense provide a precedent for other regional initiatives, both on the part of the British and on the part of Asian leaders. It became a kind of vantage point for considering a wider region or regions: not part of a vast neighbour, nor controversially located in, say, Singapore. But if it was clear that ‘South East Asia’ did not include Ceylon itself, what did it include? The British were anxious to play a major role in the defeat of Japan, and a distinctive one. ‘The most ideal form of participation for Britain was to dissociate her forces as far as possible from the Americans and preserve their own identity, but – at the same time – playing the leading role in a theatre which was of great importance to the overall victory.’ Prime Minister Churchill argued that ‘the economically most precious areas of [the] Japanese Co-Prosperity Sphere, SouthEast Asia, should be re-conquered by a nominally allied, but de facto British South-East Asia Command’. That would have the opportunity to liberate Singapore, redeeming the humiliation of 1942. The first Quebec conference accepted the proposal.68 The Command as set up did not, however, cover all Southeast Asia as now conceived: it covered Burma, Thailand, Malaya and Sumatra. Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s American-Australian South-West Pacific Area Command (SWPA) covered Australia, the South Pacific and the areas to the north and northeast. That included much of Netherlands India as well, of course, as the Philippines.

64

The view from without

By mid-1945 the Japanese had been driven from Burma, and SEAC was preparing to recapture Malaya and Singapore. Though the Japanese were clearly going to be defeated, it was then thought that they would conduct a prolonged resistance when MacArthur, island-hopping and bombing, reached the home islands. In July, however, the plan to use the atomic bomb brought the prospect of an early surrender. Mountbatten was told in Berlin on 24 July 1945 that his command had been expanded to include Borneo, Java and the Celebes (Sulawesi) and also some of Indo-China. That still did not include all ‘Southeast Asia’. MacArthur had already secured the Philippines, and the occupation of northern Indo-China was to be the responsibility of Nationalist China, which the US was anxious to treat as a major ally. There was thus a SEAC, now with new responsibilities, though not those of waging war, but no clearly defined ‘Southeast Asia’. Moreover, it was not only Britain that sought to return, so the French and the Dutch, and SEAC had to permit them, if not help them, to do so. They would face different conditions in their respective territories, and they were likely to adopt different policies. The British, on the other hand, saw advantage in coordinating the policies towards their own territories, and, the leading power in the region once more, hoped also to influence the policies others adopted in their territories. That might be done as part of the normal course of inter-state relations, but they also revived the pre-war idea of coordination in the region itself, which could now be seen both as a follow-up to the activities of SEAC, and, in some sense, as a substitute for the foreshortening of the process of reconquest and liberation. It could be a means of dealing with the nationalism that they had met in Burma and that the other powers would also meet. The way it was dealt with would determine what would follow empire in Southeast Asia and what role the Europeans might still play. In mid-1945, when Germany had surrendered, Rangoon had been recaptured, and it was clear that the defeat of Japan could not be long delayed, there was in the British government, as John Sterndale Bennett of the Foreign Office put it, ‘still a tendency to watertight departments’ as there had been pre-war, and there was a danger that the immense problems of China, Japan and Southeast Asia would be dealt with ‘from hand to mouth’. Some kind of planning machinery was needed. ‘[W]e ought at all events to review the question of liaison with military commands in the Far East.’69 Esler Dening, Political Adviser to SACSEA, supported the appointment of a British Minister of State in Southeast Asia as in the Middle East and the Mediterranean.70 Reconstruction and rehabilitation were on Dening’s list, along with ‘major political problems’. As the reconquest of Burma had shown, those problems could emerge before the end of the conflict, even as part of the process of conducting it. But it was certainly true that, as the end of the war came into view – though, at this point, it was not clear that it would end as soon as it did nor that there would be no further reconquest – it became even more important to look to the future and to assert the civilian role in the making and implementing of policy, avoiding, so far as possible, arguments with the Americans, and also initiatives on

Nan-yo 65 the part of Mountbatten and his staff and SOE, who, some believed, had been unduly willing to make a deal with Aung San and the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League in Burma. The existence of a political adviser of high standing – ensuring ‘local centralisation and co-ordination of matters affecting more than one department of H.M.G.’ – would also ‘relieve the Supreme Commander of a great deal of nonmilitary work’, Bennett observed. There was also, however, a wish to relieve him of some political responsibility. Sir Harold MacMichael, earmarked for a mission to Malaya, said that the idea of a Resident Minister would be unpopular, ‘partly but not entirely owing to recollections of previous experience’. By contrast Sir Philip Joubert – who had fallen out with SAC over Burma – thought it ‘an urgent necessity’: SAC’s naval training did not enable him to take political decisions, but he was ‘somewhat ready to regard himself as a political wizard’, and in the case of Burma, ‘had shown an increasing tendency to take political decisions of a sweeping and perilous nature’. Dening thought that the one thing that would endear him to SAC would be the thought that he would be replaced by a resident minister.71 The position was further complicated by the Colonial Office’s plans for coordinating British policy towards Malaya, where a Union was to be created, Singapore, which was for the time being not to be part of it, and ‘British Borneo’, where Sarawak and North Borneo were to be made colonies: it planned to appoint a Governor-General on top of the governors. Mountbatten liked the idea of a Governor-General and pointed to the continued need there would be for a Supreme Commander. He declared, however, that it would be impossible to have both a Governor and a Governor-General in Singapore.72 Nothing had been done when the war ended precipitately, and SEAC was handed a major take-over role in the replacement of its role of reconquest/liberation. The Japanese surrender, Sir Frederick Bovenschen of the WO argued, changed the context. British territories would tend to return promptly to Whitehall control, while dealing with the remaining territories within SEAC would be a FO responsibility.73 The FO did not agree. The demise of SEAC, wrote I.A.D. Wilson-Young, ‘in no way invalidates the suggestion that some form of co-ordinating British authority is desirable’.74 Indeed the surrender and the early reoccupation provided another argument for such a regional approach. They would produce enormous supply problems, as Dening pointed out, and neither the military machine nor the returning civil governments were likely to have adequate resources. ‘If we are prevented by Japanese surrender from fighting battles for the recovery of the S.E.A.C. area, . . . it is of paramount importance that we should make the best possible showing in our re-occupation of the territories which the Japanese have overrun.’ With the creation of SEAC, ‘predominantly British’, Britain assumed responsibility for the area, ‘all to the good if we discharge that responsibility. If we do, then we stand a fair chance of restoring British prestige in a part of the world where it had sunk to a very low ebb. If we do not, then I should expect that, as the years roll on, the peoples of the Far East will look less and less to Britain and more and more to any Power which is in a position to afford them strategic, political and economic security.’75

66

The view from without

Some in SEAC hoped that it would be given the task of rehabilitation: ‘we . . . have to hand at a critical moment an agency which could, if so instructed, play a great hand and which has the resources necessary for the purpose.’76 Bennett thought this ‘the gem of a good idea’. Mountbatten did not like the notion of a Minister of State, ‘doubtless because he prefers to be supreme in his own command’. On the other hand, his ‘incursions into political matters have sometimes been precipitate and he does not seem to take the advice of his subordinates easily’. Appointing a minister or a high-powered civil adviser would mean friction: there was, therefore, much to be said for having Mountbatten in charge, ‘and obviously there is much in favour of harnessing our armed forces to the task of reconstruction’. But would he stay? Perhaps the best thing to do would be to make a start and give him a council of political, economic and financial advisers who, if need be, could later be switched to the service of a Minister of State or some equivalent. ‘If the scheme were properly handled S.E.A.C. might become the nucleus for the consultative regional commission in South East Asia which has long been one of our tentative objectives.’ But ‘due regard will have to be paid to the susceptibilities of the foreign countries concerned’.77 Civil government should be restored as soon as possible in Netherlands India and French Indo-China as well as in Malaya and Borneo, Dening thought. But some organisation should be considered ‘which will preserve the unity of purpose engendered by the war. Regional economy and regional security are, at any rate, essentials, and the more we can break down political barriers at this stage the better . . . it will be only too easy, if we do nothing now, to drift back to the old ways. They may have been all right for their day, but that time is past.’78 It was not merely within the British structures that coordination was to be sought. The US had raised the idea of regional commissions in 1943: their object would be to supervise the advance to colonies to independence. The idea was taken up by Australia and New Zealand in 1944, so far as the South Pacific was concerned.79 Not surprisingly, the British Colonial Office preferred that they should be collaborative rather than supervisory.80 In Southeast Asia, G.F. Hudson of the FO Research Department had hazarded in 1944, postwar problems would be largely of an economic or administrative character, complicated by ‘the existence of actually independent or emerging Native States’, and by the special claims Nationalist China might make on behalf of emigrant communities. ‘For this reason it would seem advantageous that the South-East Asian regional organisation should not be conceived primarily as a colonial system but as a grouping for co-ordination of economic polices based on the large common interests of all the countries in the region as producers of raw materials for the world market. . . . A certain accountability of colonial administrations would be established in the process, but colonial supervision would not be the primary function of the organisation.’81 The extent of the problems SEAC had to face in Netherlands India and French Indo-China were greater than even Dening anticipated, let alone Hudson, and Bennett again argued for ‘a panel of experts, on political, financial, economic and supply questions which can coordinate the needs of the whole

Nan-yo 67 area’. Sir Orme Sargent, the Permanent Under-Secretary at the FO in London, thought the reorganisation ‘definitely overdue’ and favoured a Minister of State. Ernest Bevin, the Foreign Secretary, wanted ‘quick action’.82 In his absence Prime Minister Attlee called a special meeting which favoured appointing ‘an official of high standing . . . directly responsible to the Foreign Secretary’. He ‘would deal primarily with political questions in the non-British territories in the area’, but ‘could also achieve a considerable measure of co-ordination by consultation with, e.g. the Viceroy, the Governor of Burma and, eventually, the Governors of other British territories’.83 SEAC covered foreign as well as British territories, Bennett noted, ‘and we must be careful not to set up anything at the outset which would have the appearance of trying to fasten long term British control over those foreign territories’. The title ‘Commissioner-General’, which had been suggested, might arouse foreign suspicion.84 It also aroused concern at the CO. If he were, as proposed, ‘to encourage and promote general political and economic co-ordination within the area’, his role would encroach on that of their Governor-General, A.N. Galsworthy suggested.85 ‘[T]here will be a first class mess if H.M.G. persist in the creation both of a Governor-General . . . and a Commissioner-General or Special Commissioner’, K.E. Robinson thought.86 Coordination would be confounded. Dening believed that there was ‘a need for an overall civilian organisation to co-ordinate British domestic and foreign policy in this region and to act as a clearing-house for resolution of regional problems which are at the same time of concern to individual British territories’. He thought there should be a Commissioner-General and no Governor-General. He would preside over regional conferences of governors or governors and representatives in foreign territories.87 Bennett disagreed. He saw a ‘less ambitious’ role for a Special Commissioner, as well as one for a Governor-General.88 The argument was settled by the food crisis. There was a risk that the return of the Western powers would be accompanied by a rice famine, adding to their problems, lowering their prestige still further. Bevin decided to appoint a Special Commissioner, with a brief focused on food supply in the region, and Lord Killearn (Miles Lampson) was surprised to find himself with the job. It was for two years, but also intended to keep the post going after that89; it was not merely to focus on food. After his Food Conference in Singapore in April 1946, Killearn worked out with Mountbatten a draft on coordination in Southeast Asia. The wartime SEAC region would, it argued, ‘continue to be a bastion of vital political strategic and economic importance to the Commonwealth’. British interests might be threatened by a collapse of law and order in any area, by an ‘increased revival of trouble’ in Netherlands India, by difficulties with nationalist movements and by trouble with the Southeast Asian Chinese. Even if such threats did not materialise, a coordinated approach could be of advantage to the prosperity and development of the Commonwealth and the Allied nations. Political, strategic and economic interests were ‘interlocking. What happens in one part of the area is of interest to all other parts of the area. A reversion to pre-war methods of handling these

68

The view from without

problems in water-tight compartments and penny packets would be a retrogressive step.’ One immediate recommendation was for periodical meetings, chaired by the Special Commissioner, to discuss problems of concern to all British representatives in the area, occasionally with foreign representatives also present.90 The coordination of British interests in Asia would, Bevin hoped, be a task for the Special Commissioner that ‘would grow naturally from the present short-term arrangement for dealing with the food crisis’. He did not wish ‘to deal with the Asiatic countries one by one. Their interests were so closely bound together nowadays that it was essential to treat the area as a whole in formulating British policy.’91 Killearn was, however, told to concentrate initially on the food crisis, ‘taking the place, where necessary, of the various organs of the South East Asia Command as they disappear. The work should be done quietly and in such a way as not to arouse suspicion on the part of other countries as to our political activities in South East Asia.’92 Coordination with other countries, whether pursued in the region or in inter-state diplomacy, was indeed to prove problematic. Getting on with the French and the Dutch was difficult in itself, though necessary to Britain’s European policy, and did not make it easier to come to terms with nationalism in the region, given the deterioration of the position in Indonesia and Indochina. ‘What one hopes’, Killearn nevertheless confided in his diary on 1 January 1947, ‘is gradually to proceed from subject to subject until all these adjacent territories form the habit of acting together to discuss and plan regarding their various problems of mutual interest. My deliberate intention is that gradually this system shall lead up into the realm of international politics, and from that into the most important sphere of all, namely regional defence.’93 Britain’s regional project might perhaps be described as ‘hegemonic’, but it would be better seen as a means by which Southeast Asia might move from the world of empires to the world of states. ‘Southeast Asia’ still had jagged geographical edges, and it was still the concept of those who by any definition would be called ‘outsiders’. The inhabitants themselves had not yet appropriated the term, though they were beginning to realise that they had a common purpose. When they did, they were to perceive Southeast Asia in terms of the nation-states whose independence they had secured, just as Britain had seen it in terms of nationalist aspiration.

5

Colombo, Geneva, Bandung

The leading power in the region in the imperialist phase, the UK sought a common policy with other powers in the post-imperial phase. Of what that should be they had a view that only became clearer in the closing years of the Pacific War and in the years immediately following its conclusion. Extending SEAC’s boundaries, Charrier writes, ‘opened the way for Southeast Asia to be seen as a zone of Asia with a common political profile’. SEAC faced Indonesian and Vietnamese nationalism, and nationalism came to be seen as a ‘force’ in Southeast Asia: it was ‘a political entity with significant shared features’.1 In fact, that perception was generated in the course of the campaign in Burma, from which direction the British had begun to regain their empire, though it was not the direction from which they had originally established it. The imperial powers would have to come to terms with nationalism. Only on that basis could they hope to limit the advance of communism and its proclaimed anti-imperialism and have an opportunity to preserve their economic interests. At the same time, the British recognised, not only that the experience would be common to many parts of the region but that the problems involved and their possible solutions were in a measure regional in character. In the post-war years, and indeed for much of the Cold War period, it was not thought that small states would be viable in a dangerous world. They would need support from outside the region but would also benefit from regional collaboration. A regional framework would succeed the imperial one. Yet – in a measure at least like the Japanese Sphere – it would provide a formal link with the outside world. Britain’s ‘regionalism’ recognised the need to take account of regional interests and the attitudes of leaders and peoples in the region. But it was designed to sustain Britain’s interests and connections, too, by providing stability and building post-colonial relationships. They also believed that their own example was one that the other colonial powers in the region should follow. That would facilitate collaboration in Southeast Asia. It would also avoid embarrassment elsewhere. For the French and the Dutch were allies in post-war Europe, and those important relationships must not be damaged by differences elsewhere. In the event the British largely failed to carry the Dutch and the French with them in dealing with the nationalism of post-war Southeast Asia, their regional thrust was not without effect in terms of practice and precedent.

70 The view from without They did not believe that the region could develop or defend itself without outside support, nor did they consider that they alone could provide it. As in imperial times, they tended to associate the future of Southeast Asia with the influence of India. Increasingly, as the Cold War developed, they also sought to commit the US to the defence of the region, though without provoking Communist China, which the US declined to recognise. The Colombo Plan was one manifestation of this regionalism. Ostensibly oriented to economic development, it had a political purpose. The Korean war and the first Indo-China war increased the US commitment to the region but also divided it. The British worked to secure what became SEATO, but only two of the independent states in Southeast Asia became members, and India was opposed to it, all the more because Pakistan, with which it was at odds over Kashmir, joined it. That was not really what the British had sought: they wanted some structure which would involve the US in a way that did not threaten war with China, which could be accepted and preferably joined by most of the new states of South and Southeast Asia, and which preferably would ‘emerge’ or appear to emerge in the East rather than be obviously bestowed by the West, and which would as a result be more attractive. Their position was not too far from the one the PRC adopted after 1953, represented by the principles endorsed by Nehru and Chou En-lai in April 1954. Though the principles were not unlike those Hull had put to the Japanese in 1941, the US deeply distrusted the trend. The Chinese were indeed trying to advance their interests by endorsing what were indeed basic principles in a world of states, in a sense making a bid for the UN seat that they were denied. The UK was more sympathetic than the US. There had already been other Asian initiatives. Sometimes they resembled or rivalled those of the British, though that did not, of course, guarantee their sympathy or displace their policy. During the war K.M. Panikkar – a future Indian ambassador to China – had written of the future of Southeast Asia – ‘for long known as Further India’ – as in some sense the joint responsibility of Britain and ‘a free and stable government in India’.2 Aung San, the Burman nationalist leader, not surprisingly took a different stance. In a broadcast in January 1947, he forecast the formation of an Asian Commonwealth, constituting a united Asian front ‘against imperialistic rule’. ‘While India should be one entity and China another, Southeast Asia as a whole should form an entity – then, finally, we should come together in a bigger union with the other parts of Asia as well.’3 What transpired at the Asian Relations conference at New Delhi in March–April 1947 could be compared with the ideas Killearn had set out in his diary at the beginning of the year. There were delegates from Indonesia, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines and Malaya. ‘We felt we had much in common. We were from the same stock, and certainly once belonged to the same Malay race. We debated, talked, planned a Southeast Asian Association closely cooperating first in cultural and economic matters. Later, there could perhaps be a more closely knit political cooperation. Some of us even dreamt’, Abu Hanifah recalled, ‘of a Greater Southeast Asia, a federation.’4

Colombo, Geneva, Bandung 71 That idea was also in the head of Pridi, the senior statesman in Thailand at the end of the war, though he focused it on Burma, Laos and Cambodia.5 During the proceedings of the conciliation commission, set up to determine the frontiers of the Indochinese territories the Thais had to retrocede, the French themselves proposed a Southeast Asian Union, based in Bangkok. ‘Regional plans for the joint development of irrigation, fisheries, communications and other resources will be suggested within the Union.’ Perhaps it was only a ballon d’essai from ‘the least popular colonial power’, John Street commented at the British FO.6 The official organ of the Thai Constitutionalist Party, Suwannaphum (Golden Land), put forward a similar idea, however. ‘Southeast Asia is composed of small nations which, realising that they cannot help themselves, naturally seek to cooperate with each other in some way or another. Siam, being situated in the centre of the group and the only independent country so far, naturally will be looked up to as an “elder brother” nation.’7 Geography and history seemed to give Thailand a claim to leadership or ‘hegemony’ in a regional project, and it never quite dropped it. Struggling with the French, the Vietnamese were, for the time being, disposed in a measure to recognise it. Vietnamese representatives pressed the Thais to take the lead in forming a bloc to oppose the return of European colonialism. ‘Southeast Asia has many similarities with Balkan Europe’, Tran Van Giau had written to the Bangkok Post. ‘That it may be a generator of prosperity, or of conflagration, depends on the unity of the native peoples. . . . Let us oppose our “united force” to their “divide and rule”.’8 The Vietnamese were not, however, alone. An editorial in the Malaya Tribune in September suggested that the ‘Southeast Asia bloc’ could include Burma, Siam, Indochina, Malaya and Indonesia. ‘It behooves the leaders of Southeast Asia to call a conference . . . to draft a long-term plan which will enable this part of the world to stave off any threat, political or economic, that might arise in the future.’9 The Southeast Asia League was inaugurated in Bangkok on 8 September 1947, soon after the conciliation commission had resolved in favour of France. It looked forward to a federation and meanwhile sought ‘unity among the peoples of Southeast Asia’.10 Its goals were the promotion of good understanding among them; the realisation of their aspiration to ‘full nationhood’, and the raising of economic, social and cultural standards, the promotion of universal peace and harmony, respect for human rights, the UN principles; study, research, exchange of information on Southeast Asia; and the establishment of a federation.11 The French, Street thought, ‘started this particular hare’. So long as they sponsored it, it was ‘likely to make little headway, but there might be support among the smaller Southeast Asian nations for the idea of a Union of those who are so uncomfortably placed between India and China’.12 If taken up by the Asian peoples, the FO thought, it might become a force to be reckoned with.13 Early in 1948 the British ambassador in Bangkok forwarded a memorandum on the League by the well-informed journalist, John Coast, adding that ‘it is a mistake to assume that nationalism in Asia is necessarily due to the evil machinations of Communists’, though they would exploit it. Mainland Southeast Asia’s only hope

72 The view from without of avoiding absorption by India or China lay in unity, Peter Murray commented, and ‘a show like this would be well worth encouraging’. Otherwise it might go communist. In fact, as Street noted, the November coup in Bangkok had struck it a blow.14 There were, of course, to be further Asian initiatives. Not all of them were to be seen by the British in so positive a way. They had, however, recognised the importance of nationalism in postwar Southeast Asia, and they recognised, too, the risk that it might be hi-jacked by communism, particularly if the Western powers reacted negatively or unsympathetically. Anti-imperialism might even be tolerated, provided it came from non-communist sources. They recognised as well the significance of regional movements as a means of providing for the security of post-imperial Southeast Asia. Their supportiveness was only increased by the decline in their own power. When the independent states finally came together in ASEAN, their view, though at times quizzical, was positive. It was after all in some sense the achievement of one of their own objectives. In the context of the Cold War the regional initiatives of the independent states might be, or might be represented or understood as, aspects of or participation in wider struggles, the work, perhaps, of post-colonial puppets. But often they included a ‘neutralist’ element, not simply, moreover, in the sense of avoiding ‘taking sides’, but in the sense of an intention to limit the intervention of outside powers in the region in the longer term, though even that was, of course, open to misunderstanding or manipulation or criticism from the outside. The initiatives, moreover, reflected the interests and objectives of the particular states or governments propounding them, even if they came from inside the region rather than outside. But in the world of states that they had joined states, though theoretically equal in sovereignty are not equal in power. ‘Regionalism’ sought in a measure to bridge the gap between the ideal and reality, so far as relations with ‘outside’ powers were concerned. But within the region itself there were, not only potential or actual differences of interest, but also disparities of power, and ‘regionalism’ had to deal with them, too. Regionalism was potentially subject to its own hegemonism. Would-be regional leaders could assert their claim over their neighbours, either directly or indirectly, perhaps indeed by playing a demonstrative extraregional role. Both such courses could damage regionalism, the one by inducing smaller states to reinsure outside the region, the other by associating regional politics yet more closely with the wider politics of the Cold War. The first summit meeting of ASEAN was held in Bali in 1976. ‘Bali’, Derek Davies and Denzil Peiris wrote the following year, ‘is seen as marking the resurgence of national independence after the colonial era and the removal of the stifling presence of alien forces – and as the first major step towards regional inter-dependence and resilience.’15 It also marked a step towards accommodation among the states of Southeast Asia that, inheriting the frontiers of colonial states, were so disparate in power. The essential principles of the world of states – restated by Chou and Nehru in 1954 and reaffirmed in the Bandung conference of 1955 – were to serve them not only in relations with ‘outside’ powers but also in intra-regional relations.

Colombo, Geneva, Bandung 73 Regionalism, P.F. Grey of the British Foreign Office had written back in July 1948, could no longer involve an association only of Western powers. The relationship of the Dutch and the Indonesians had to be seen ‘as part of the problem of the relations between Asia and the West, which must now be established on a new basis if Asia was not to turn away from us and relapse if not into chaos or Communism at least into an attitude of Asia for the Asiatics and the virtual expulsion of the white men . . . if the Dutch and the British, or the Western powers as a whole, were to admit any form of regional cooperation in any part of Asia, this must not in my view be confined to our own circle. It must not be a projection of the West into the East, which would arouse the animosity of all those who had rejected or still resented Western “imperialism” or “colonialism,” but must attempt to induce cooperation between all the Asiatic countries and those Western countries in the area.’16 At the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Meeting (CPM) in October 1948, the British Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, had pointed to the unsettled condition of the region. Could Commonwealth countries help its pacification? Without interference in their internal affairs, ‘there should be some regular means of consultation between Commonwealth countries interested in that area with the object of helping to put the political and economic life of the countries of South-East Asia on a firm footing, based upon internal stability and freedom from the menace of Communist attack’. The recent attainment of independence by India, Pakistan and Ceylon ‘meant that their collaboration in such an approach would be of special value and influence’.17 Increasingly, that approach was seen as needing US support, being worthy of it, and being a suitable avenue for it. It was not, however, going to be easy to secure. In Southeast Asia, the interdepartmental Far Eastern Committee believed, the US was ‘apparently not prepared to accept any responsibility . . . , or to take any action at present to maintain the position of friendly Powers there’. They must therefore take their own measures. It was ‘very doubtful whether in the present political situation in the region it would be possible to align the various territories publicly together’. Burma would find it difficult to associate with French IndoChina and Indonesia; Australia, New Zealand, India and Pakistan, all with ‘a vital interest in the peace and prosperity of South-East Asia’, would be ‘unwilling to join in any activities involving support of the French and Dutch Governments in this area’. Britain might be ‘in the best position to act as the co-ordinating factor, though it would be necessary to consider the political consequences very carefully at each stage’.18 ‘Clearly’, Dening wrote, ‘it will take many months, if not years, for policy to crystallise in the manner suggested. . . . If, however, Asiatic countries show a disposition to create a united front against Russian expansion, we should hope that the Americans would be disposed to offer material help when and where it is required.’19 He prepared a brief for Bevin’s visit to Washington. As measures were developed for the security of Europe and the Middle East, pressure upon Southeast Asia would increase. Conditions there were favourable for the spread of communism, and if the Western powers seemed both unwilling and unable to

74 The view from without assist in resisting Russian pressure, local resistance might be weakened. Southeast Asia might ‘come under Russian domination without any military effort on the part of Russia’. It followed that ‘we must try to take steps to stiffen the will to resist on the part of South East Asia territories’. Neither the UK nor the US should seek to dominate. ‘The fully sovereign governments of South East Asia must be prepared to take the initiative themselves, but we might prompt that initiative.’20 The memorandum was given to Dean Acheson, the US Secretary of State.21 But at the embassy in Washington, Hubert Graves thought the British had ‘a difficult task to bring the Americans in on this. They have burnt their fingers so badly in China that they are at present in a very cautious mood.’22 The conference on Indonesia that India called in Delhi in 1949 passed a resolution encouraging participating governments to ‘explore ways and means of establishing suitable machinery, having regard to the areas concerned, for promoting consultation and cooperation within the framework of the United Nations’.23 That initiative might lead the wrong way, the British feared. The organisation could ‘prove to be an organ for directing criticism against all the remaining traces of European power in Asia’, L.J.D. Wakeley suggested at the Commonwealth Relations Office.24 But, he later added, ‘it may be necessary to put up with a good deal to keep India going, however critical of our policies she may be, so long as she is in a broad view standing firm against the Russians’.25 At this juncture, Dening commented, Nehru would not contemplate a regional pact. ‘We should have to convince him . . . that the West has a material contribution to make to the welfare of South East Asia, and that it is therefore in the interests of a South East Asia front to be on friendly terms and even in close association with the West.’26 He hoped that Britain could seize the initiative at the next CPM, and propose a regional conference, possibly including some non-Commonwealth countries. It should start regional cooperation in the economic field but that might later lead to ‘some kind of regional security arrangement’.27 In fact the CPM, focused on the need to find a formula by which a republic might stay in the Commonwealth and did not deal with Southeast Asia. Malcolm MacDonald – who held the post of Commissioner-General, created in 1948 when Special Commissioner and Governor-General had been combined – was disappointed at the lack of action. ‘The sooner we can demonstrate that the Democratic Powers have an agreed and co-ordinated policy in South East Asia, the stronger will be our influence on all the Governments and populations in South East Asia who wish to resist Communism.’28 Visiting London, he argued that defence was the prime objective, for, triumphing in China, the communists ‘would probably try immediately to crumble the anti-communist front in South East Asia while the going was good’. The UK High Commissioner in New Delhi thought the Indians would respond better to proposals for economic collaboration. MacDonald agreed that they could not be expected to take part in a conference together with the French and the Dutch. ‘Why . . . should we not hold a Conference limited to Commonwealth Powers, amongst whom India would play a leading part? . . . While we were developing cooperation within the Commonwealth in South East Asia the French and the Dutch might disappear

Colombo, Geneva, Bandung 75 from the scene as Colonial Powers and so facilitate a wider Conference.’A postponed Commonwealth Foreign Ministers (CFM) conference, to be held in Colombo, could focus on nationalism and economic development, the two causes without championing which, in Nehru’s view, the communists could not succeed in Asia.29 Before that met MacDonald convened a preliminary conference at Bukit Serene. For that, held after the proclamation of the new People’s Republic, the FO prepared a statement of British policy, to be taken beforehand to the Cabinet. The UK, it argued, could not dominate the region, but ‘there is no other Power capable of undertaking the formidable task of trying to link South-East Asia with the West and to create some kind of regional association which will be capable of effective resistance against communism and Russian expansion’. India was the key to regional cooperation. But it mistrusted the West because of the legacy of imperialism, and it sought to avoid entanglement in a struggle between the West and the SU. A Commonwealth approach would at once reduce India’s suspicion and allow it to take a leading role without alienating others. The Colombo conference might be a suitable occasion, particularly as further communist success in China, increasing communist disturbances in India and the launching of independent regimes in Indonesia and Indo-China might make the Indians more realistic.30 The Bukit Serene conference agreed that to prevent the spread of communism in South and Southeast Asia ‘we should encourage the ultimate creation of a Regional Pact of Association between all the Governments in the area’. So far as political and military affairs were concerned, that could not happen for some time, and ‘the initial approach should therefore be to stimulate cooperation in economic affairs’. In the meantime short-term action was needed to meet the emergency in Southeast Asia, in particular the threat that the victorious Chinese communists would subvert Burma, Indonesia and Siam.31 At the first formal session of the Colombo conference on 9 January 1950, Bevin did not advocate a pact: ‘the right policy was for the like-minded countries with interests in the East to keep in close contact and be ready to help each other in resisting any attempts to hinder peaceful development on democratic lines. He recognised the close inter-dependence of East and West and stressed the great need for the expansion of capital development and food production in the less developed countries.’ Nehru preferred ‘mutual consultation and cooperation’ to a pact. Percy Spender of Australia favoured giving some practical help to Southeast Asia, and Ghulam Mohamed of Pakistan endorsed his realistic approach. Next day the Ceylon minister of finance, J.R. Jayawardene, envisaged the preparation of a long-term economic plan. His idea and Spender’s were combined in the proposal to set up a consultative committee on which the conference agreed.32 In due course, as J.J.S. Garner of the CRO pointed out, the US would have to be associated with the work, but ‘a start had to be made somewhere. . . . After all, the United States was not likely to come in unless they were given some evidence that the countries concerned were first prepared to help themselves.’33 The US had offered some support for a Philippines initiative originally prompted by Nehru’s New Delhi conference and reshaped by Carlos Romulo

76 The view from without as part of an attempt of the new Republic to play a larger role in international affairs: a conference at Baguio ‘to discuss methods of closer political, economic, and cultural cooperation for preservation peace, democracy and freedom in Asia’.34 For that the British had felt no enthusiasm. Anything Romulo did would have an ‘anti-colonial bias’, as J.S. Shattock of the FO put it in February. But events in Southeast Asia were ‘taking a graver turn and the need of forming an anti-communist front or some sort of regional alliance or pact becomes greater every day’. Britain’s hopes were built on the idea that some sort of regional political grouping might result from the successful implementation of economic assistance, but it might be difficult to secure cooperation ‘if we have poured cold water on any initiative previously taken by such persons as General Romulo’. Australia and New Zealand had received invitations. Given that such that might have ‘American blessing’, R.H. Scott thought, ‘we should say we see no objection to their accepting’.35 In London for a tripartite US–UK–France meeting in May, Livingston Merchant of the State Department indicated that the US had advised the Philippines that the concept of a ‘Pacific Pact’ had to arise ‘spontaneously’. The problem had been in the minds of the British since the war, Dening commented. ‘It had become clear early on that political consciousness on a regional basis did not exist among Southeast Asian countries, and that the best hope of securing collaboration was in the economic sphere’. Out of that political, then military, collaboration might arise. ‘Time was not on our side’, but ‘we could not force the pace’.36 At Baguio, late in May 1950, the Indian delegation indeed ruled out any political declaration. Some people, Sir Ramaswami Mudaliar said, seemed to think that ‘a political and military alliance against all aggression’ would mean that everything would be ‘smooth and happy’ in a ‘very unhappy world’. That was ‘utterly foreign to our conception of how we can bring about peace in the world’.37 Commenting on ASEAN, the late Michael Leifer suggested that its notion that economic development was relevant to regional security was ‘based on the halftruth that poverty is the prime cause of political discontent because it provides a fertile soil in which revolutionary forces can flourish’.38 That perhaps is itself only part of the truth. Economic advance may or may not reduce political discontent. But discussion of it may promote the political cooperation which avowing political purpose might impede. In that sense ASEAN had a precedent in the Colombo Plan. The Korean war followed in June 1950. The success of the communists in China, spurring on the Vietnamese communists, had alarmed the French, though not to the extent that they could bring themselves to send conscripts overseas like the British, nor to the extent that, like the British, they offered a real independence to the non-communist nationalists. The Chinese intervention in Korea increased their apprehension. Would the Chinese intervene in Indo-China as well? There was in fact no need for them to do so: supplying advice, weapons, and training would suffice. But the fear that they might gave the French an argument for seeking American support. The US interest was in keeping the French going. The Americans did not, of course, wish to intervene themselves.

Colombo, Geneva, Bandung 77 It was through that interest, however, that the British now sought to involve the US more formally, though still non-provocatively, in the security of Southeast Asia, hoping to attain the Colombo objective by a different route, even though it was a matter of supporting an ‘unpopular’ colonial power. Military conversations were slow to get under way, but in March 1951 the US proposed an agenda that went beyond Indo-China. The embassy in Washington thought ‘that the value of interesting the Americans in the defence of the South East Asian mainland outweighs any possible embarrassment over, for example, discussion of Malaya’,39 where the British had been engaged in a struggle with the Malayan Communist Party, termed the Emergency, since 1948. Britain should agree, Robert Scott thought, though it would not wish to discuss its plan for a possible pre-emptive strike on Kra.40 The British Chiefs of Staff (COS) considered that Southeast Asia was ‘a serious gap in the cold war front of the Western powers’, and that it was important, from a military point of view, to achieve ‘a unity of policy’ between the Commonwealth, the US and France. Differences over the recognition of the communist government in China put ‘a major obstacle in the way of achieving a unified approach’ to all the problems in the Far East and Southeast Asia, but that should not make it impossible to achieve ‘a degree of unity’ on defence questions in Southeast Asia. The object of the talks, the Joint Planners suggested, should be to recommend ‘a common military policy in South East Asia in the Cold War, in which we include local eruptions of hostilities on the Korea model’.41 In most of Southeast Asia the struggle for independence still dominated political thinking, wrote H.R.C. Keeble at the South East Asia Department of the FO in London, and ‘fear of Western attempts to re-establish control over the area tends to outweigh the fear of Chinese expansion’. Britain’s policy was ‘to promote the emergence of independent nation states as rapidly as may be consistent with the establishment of reasonably stable systems of government, and, once these states have been established, to give them all possible assistance in the hope of maintaining Western influence throughout the area’. The Japanese occupation led to ‘a heightening of nationalist feeling’ and that made it necessary ‘to progress rather faster than would otherwise have been the case, but this speed has on the whole been justified by the fact that it has enabled power to be transferred not to Communist extremists but to individuals who still retain a measure of sympathy with the West’. Aid must be politically acceptable: economic aid, as envisaged at Colombo; military assistance and advice, as with the British Services Mission in Burma under the 1947 defence treaty; and training police officers in anti-subversive work.42 On the announcement of the ANZUS pact in April 1951, Britain had ‘reiterated’ that a defence pact embracing Southeast Asia was ‘not at present in the realm of practical politics’, his colleague Dalton Murray noted, but ‘indicated that we hope one day it will be possible either to extend the Pacific Pact [ANZUS] to cover South East Asia or to link up the Pacific Pact with another Pact covering SouthEast Asia, in which the United Kingdom would be a direct participant through her responsibility for the defence of Malaya’. The military reasons for rejecting

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a Southeast Asia pact included lack of UK and Commonwealth resources ‘to undertake new commitments such as the defence of Siam, absence of US interest in the South-East Asian mainland, and doubts about the French capacity to defend Indo-China even in the cold war.’ The political reasons included ‘the determined neutralism of India (and Burma and Indonesia) and the consequences that any pact without India is open to criticism, especially in Asian eyes, as a “White Man’s Pact,” and as “underwriting French colonialism in Indo-China” ’. The talks, to be held in Singapore, should indicate whether there was any prospect of planning for the collective defence of Southeast Asia not only against Chinese subversion and limited aggression but also against all-out Chinese attack. The latter meant global war, since the involvement of Russia in hostilities in Europe would, given the SU-PRC alliance of 1950, be followed by a Chinese offensive or, more likely, preceded by it. Present military thinking contemplated in that case withdrawing from Korea and from Hong Kong. The military could be asked if the forces could be deployed in Southeast Asia. If Southeast Asia could not be defended in Tonkin, it was recognised that ‘there is no other position where an invader can be effectively held north of the Kra Isthmus’. It followed ‘that any defence scheme for South-East Asia must call for the military co-operation of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Siam as well as France and the U.S.A.’ To extend the US Pacific system to the Southeast Asian mainland, it was also recognised, was ‘feasible only if some Asian countries are included as well as Malaya, since to provide otherwise would be to deprive Malaya of the defence in depth afforded by Indo-China and Siam, to discourage the will to resist Communism in those countries, and to invite the Chinese to attack them’. If the military talks showed that it was feasible to defend Southeast Asia with available resources, ‘it seems to follow that the time for a limited Defence Pact is almost ripe’, and political considerations should not stand in the way of negotiating one. The Chinese would condemn it, but it was more likely to deter aggression on their part than provoke it. They might increase their aid to the Burmese communists, if Burma were not a member, but even that might not be ‘quite unwelcome to us, as the thought of a Communist Burma is one of the few factors likely to influence India to more positive co-operation with the Western Allies’. India’s ‘isolationism’ was ‘becoming more and pronounced’, but, while it would not join in the defence of Asia, its relations with the Commonwealth and the West in general, and the gearing of its economy to that of the West, would prevent its ‘getting off the fence on the Communist side’. It would be critical of a pact, but it would not radically change its policy ‘to our disadvantage’ as a result of one. Indeed, if a Southeast Asia pact were negotiated, and Pakistan took part in Middle East defence, the Indians might ‘realise that it is to their interest to co-operate with the other powers interested in containing Chinese and Russian expansion’. Neither Burma nor Indonesia should be invited to take part initially, but they, and India, should be told in advance of any announcement and it should be made clear that an application to join at any time would be ‘sympathetically considered’.43 These ideas were not put on the agenda of the talks, held at Phoenix Park, 15–18 May 1951. At MacDonald’s suggestion, however, the British FO offered

Colombo, Geneva, Bandung 79 press guidance which touched on the issue. These, it insisted, were military talks, not political, and were without commitment. ‘There is no question of the Western powers getting together to arrange South-East Asia defence without consulting these [Southeast Asian] states.’44 More reliable correspondents might be told that Britain supported the ‘general idea of a South East Asian Defence Pact’ – which the Secretary of State had mentioned in the House of Commons – but for military and political reasons it was not ‘a practical proposition at this stage’. So far Southeast Asian countries had ‘not, in general, shown any disposition to combine against Communism; should they evince any desire for discussions on the defence of South-East Asia, we should gladly join in’.45 The idea of a pact appeared in the literature for the British elections in October 1951. One of the objectives in the Conservative party pamphlet Britain Strong and Free was the creation of a ‘Nato for the Far East’. Whitehall departments considered what action they might be called on to take should the Conservatives win,46 and at the FO J.C. Petrie commented on the concept. There were two options, she suggested, extending the Pacific Pact to cover Southeast Asia and the ‘sub-continent of India’ and creating a Southeast Asia pact with or without Indian participation. In neither form was there ‘much opening for a full-scale defensive pact’. It was unlikely that the US would commit troops beyond the Pacific Pact line. France would be glad of a settlement in Indo-China so that it could devote its strength to Europe. The UK had commitments in Malaya and Hong Kong but could not add to them. There would, however, be advantage in tripartite joint planning, which should also involve Australia and New Zealand. But the area was of ‘low priority’ in global defence, and no NATO-type planning could be expected for some years. ‘[H]ow far could one go’, she asked, ‘in the direction of a political pact as opposed to a simple defensive alliance on the lines of the existing Pacific Treaty?’ There could be ‘some form of regional understanding between say Burma, IndoChina, Siam, Malaya and Indonesia, linked in some looser way with the United States, United Kingdom, France, Australia and New Zealand’. India would not take part in any kind of defensive pact, but might be willing to ‘take the lead in some more limited regional alliance directed specifically towards peaceful aims i.e. with the principal object of improving the standard of life and the stability of the South-East Asia area’. She looked to ‘a purely South-East Asia treaty of friendship, not openly anti-communist or even purely “defensive” ’. Within it ‘there might be provision for mutual defence planning in case of attack’, in which the US, UK, France, Australia and New Zealand would participate, and ‘some kind of military Standing Group’, including India if willing.47 A Southeast Asian or Southwest Pacific pact – including the UK, the US, France, Australia, New Zealand, the ‘Associated States’ of Indochina, Siam and the Philippines, Indonesia, if it was prepared to join, and possibly Ceylon – could be considered, Anthony Eden was told when he became Foreign Secretary following the Conservative victory. It would be a step towards bridging the gap between the Atlantic and Pacific defence systems and have ‘an encouraging and stabilising effect on the South-East Asian countries concerned’. The Allies would not be able to defend Indo-China, Burma or Siam in a global war, and it would be

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wrong to assume a commitment to do so. What was now impossible might, however, be ‘practicable in a few years time’: an impending global war might, for instance, remove the objections to using Japanese or Chinese Nationalist troops. India and Burma would oppose, but India’s policy of independence and non-involvement could not be ‘the governing factor’. The pact might be thought ‘provocative’ of China, but equally it might serve as a deterrent. On balance it was desirable, and the question was one of timing, and whether any machinery could be set up in the meantime to ensure ‘unity of policy and purpose (and as far as possible of method) between the Anti-Communist Powers in the Far East’. A study should be undertaken, which would at least provide a basis for an understanding among the powers on the policy they should follow in the event of a Korean-style aggression on China’s part and in the event of general war.48 The threat of Chinese intervention in Indo-China, and more particularly the notion of issuing a warning against it, were the focus of tripartite talks held early in 1952. Its effectiveness was ‘highly conjectural’, Stephen Olver of the South East Asia Department wrote, but it would ‘surely give the Chinese pause to think’, and have ‘an extremely heartening effect on French morale’. There was a risk that the bluff would be called. But it was ‘probably the best chance of involving the United States actively in the defence of South-East Asia’, and it seemed ‘the only comparatively painless way of offering support to the French, without which their will to continue may well crack at any moment’. If the Chinese invaded, Britain would be faced with requests for assistance. ‘[T]he effect of having our bluff called would be hardly any worse than would be our situation were the Chinese to invade South-East Asia without any warning having been given.’49 C.H. Johnston of the Permanent Under-Secretary’s Department thought that the political case for a warning ‘overwhelmingly strong’, and that ‘the military study of what we could do to back it, if necessary’, would not be ‘so negative as to outweigh the political advantages’. A warning statement would be ‘a major step’ in the direction of a Southeast Asia defence pact, he suggested. He did not envisage Britain’s drawing forces from other theatres. It had already sent a force to Korea and the commitment to Southeast Asia ‘arises out of our requirement to defend Malaya as best we can. If, by formalising this commitment in any way, we can get a similar American commitment to South East Asia, then we shall really be obtaining something substantial in return for no real fresh outlay on our own part.’50 That would give Britain a clearer influence on policy, based on its contribution in Malaya. In a presidential election year, Johnston wrote, Britain could not ‘stem the torrent of American Sinophobia. Our interest consists in harnessing it to constructive purposes, in diverting it from the fruitless swamp of Korea, and the dangerous rapids of Formosa into the dynamics of Southeast Asian defence.’51 In June 1952 Eden presented the cabinet with a paper on British overseas obligations. Three fundamental factors governed Britain’s policy: ‘world responsibilities inherited from several hundred years as a Great Power’; the fact that it was ‘not a self-sufficient economic unit’; and the lack of a world security system which meant that it was faced with ‘an external threat’. Its present commitments placed ‘a burden on the country’s economy which is beyond the resources of the

Colombo, Geneva, Bandung 81 country’. The remedy was a gradual shedding of responsibilities while preserving ‘the world position of the United Kingdom’. The UK must ‘shed or share the load of one or two major obligations, for example, the defence of the Middle East, for which at present we bear the responsibility alone, or the defence of South-East Asia, where we share the responsibility with the French. Our present policy is in fact directed towards the construction of international defence organisations for the Middle East and South-East Asia in which the United States and other Commonwealth countries would participate.’ Britain’s aim should be to persuade the US ‘to assume the real burdens in each organisation while retaining for ourselves as much political control – and hence prestige and world influence – as we can’.52 ‘[W]e are groping our way slowly towards a Far Eastern Defence system’, Robert Scott wrote in August. It would be ‘much looser than N.A.T.O. . . . designed to stiffen the French and to commit the Americans to support us in South-East Asia, the importance of which to the Western world the Americans still do not seem to grasp’. For Britain it would ‘not necessarily’ involve new and unacceptable commitments. It would ‘do little more than formally commit us to action which we would have had to take in any case in defence of our own territories and interests, and in the discharge of our obligations to the United Nations. Moreover, a Far Eastern Defence system will help the countries of the area to pluck up courage to defend themselves and it will give us our rightful place in strategic planning for the Pacific and the Far Eastern area.’ New talks on planning against a Chinese attack might lead, ‘perhaps not at once’, to ‘a South East Asia Regional Defence plan which in turn be merged into a wider system’.53 The talks were unsatisfactory. The Americans had apparently decided ‘that, whatever the outcome of the discussions, they must be left free to pursue their own military policies in the Far East without any international intervention’. The British tried to get agreement on ‘some form of Staff Planning Organization capable of keeping the area under review’, but ‘the most that had been achieved was agreement that it might be necessary to set up some such staff agencies’.54 That idea went ahead, however. Meeting in Paris on 17 December 1952 the three foreign minister agreed ‘in principle’ on setting up a five-power staff agency.55 The main objective of the British at this time was to boost France so that it might continue the struggle in Indo-China, and give the Associated States – which the French should at the same time give a fuller measure of independence – a chance of survival. Partly to the same end, they also wanted to involve the US in Southeast Asia more definitely than through its subsidising French and Vietnamese troops. They did not expect or want the US to send troops to IndoChina. That indeed was unlikely: there were to be no more Koreas. The difficulty was that the US had alarming notions about what it might do instead. Ever since the French had raised the question, the focus of the discussion was largely on the prospect of a Chinese invasion. The American concept of retaliation went well beyond what the British were prepared to contemplate, and no agreement could be reached. The deterioration of the situation in Vietnam suggested a different emphasis. Few thought, however, that the French could be persuaded to do more to defeat

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the Vietminh. What else was to be done? That question was to face the new US Administration. In a sense the French and the British had been successful, for the US believed it had to do something. The lame-duck Administration had not found it easy to define a policy. For some of the same reasons, and for others, too, the new Administration did not find it easy either. When it did act, its course was at odds with the course that the British and the French pursued. They had been almost too successful. The UK also saw the greater and more explicit involvement of the US as a step towards the Southeast Asian pact that both the FO and COS discussed in these years. That, too, was to be achieved but not in the form the UK envisaged. In one sense the South East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) was to be looser than the pact that they sought: they wanted a fuller share in policy-making, justified by their role in Malaya; whereas the US did not wish to have the use of its forces constrained by its allies. In another sense SEATO was tighter than the pact the British had all along had in mind. They wanted something that could be acceptable to, if not joined by, the Asian states, including, if possible, India. The Eisenhower Administration adopted a policy of ‘massive retaliation’ as frightening to its allies as to its opponents. How could the vast power of the US be applied without actually using it? Indo-China – already a challenge to American policy-making – was a challenge again. The aim indeed did not change: to keep France in the fight. The new formulation took shape early in 1954 – as the Franco-Vietminh battle for Dien Bien Phu intensified – in a call for ‘united action’. The US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles told Sir Roger Makins, the British ambassador, on 27 March 1954 that he had been going over with the President a speech he was to make in New York on the 29th. On Indo-China the crux of the statement would be ‘that the extension of the Communist political system to South-East Asia could not be passively accepted but would have to be met by united action’. One aim of the speech was ‘to counteract an idea which seemed to be making headway in France that the United States would be prepared to acquiesce in some arrangement by which the cessation of hostilities in Indo-China could be traded against the admission of Communist China to the United Nations’. Dulles said that the US government was ‘still thinking . . . about what could be done if the French threw in their hand’. They were considering action in the UN, or alternatively ‘trying to conclude some security arrangement in SouthEast Asia including . . . the United Kingdom, Australia, Vietnam, Siam, Burma, etc. He also mentioned the Philippines.’56 Asked if he had a NATO in mind, he said, according to the US record, that he had reached ‘no firm conclusions’, but was ‘thinking more in terms of a temporary arrangement which might or might not take a permanent form like NATO’.57 The speech was delivered at the Overseas Press Club. The imposition of the Russian and Chinese political system in Southeast Asia ‘by whatever means would be a grave threat to whole free community’, Dulles said. The US felt that ‘that possibility should not be passively accepted but should be met by united action’, which might involve ‘serious risks’.58 The US, Dulles told Makins, was ‘in no doubt that Indo-China could not be surrendered to Communism. But so far they were up against a brick wall with the

Colombo, Geneva, Bandung 83 French, who would neither win the war themselves nor let the Americans win it for them.’ The Administration was not ‘thinking of anything “silly” such as committing American ground troops, but they thought that with wise political action in Indo-China combined with energetic attempts to train native troops the situation could be mastered.’59 The British took a different view. They were committed to seeking a settlement in Indo-China at the conference at Geneva which the great powers had agreed on back in February. But it might be possible to make ‘united action’ the basis for the long-sought US commitment to the security of Southeast Asia. Tripartite talks, set for 12 April, would provide an opportunity to ‘iron out’ some of the evident differences between the US and UK viewpoints, John Tahourdin suggested at the FO. ‘It may be . . . that we should also take this occasion . . . to propose something more fundamental: either to revive the issue of United Kingdom participation in ANZUS or else seek to make the Five Power Staff Agency an effective planning instrument by giving it some form of political superstructure.’60 The words President Eisenhower used in a letter to Prime Minister Winston Churchill could be seen as helpful. Dulles’s speech of 29 March had sketched ‘the preliminary lines of our thinking’, he wrote. ‘[T]he best way to put teeth in this concept and to bring greater moral and material resources to the support of the French effort is through the establishment of a new Ad Hoc grouping or coalition composed of nations which have a vital concern in the checking of Communist expansion in the area’, ‘strong’, ‘willing to join the fight if necessary’. The President did not envisage the need for ‘any appreciable ground forces’ on the part of the Americans or the British. ‘If the members of the alliance are sufficiently resolute it should be able to make clear to the Chinese Communists that the continuation of their material support to the Vietminh will inevitably lead to the growing power of the forces arrayed against them.’ If Britain and the US grasped the nettle together, that would ‘enormously increase our chances of bringing the Chinese to believe that their chances lie in the direction of a discreet disengagement’, and ‘we could approach the Geneva Conference with the position of the free world not only unimpaired but strengthened’. He proposed to send Dulles or Bedell Smith to London.61 The proposal to organise the collective defence of Southeast Asia was welcome, Eden told the Cabinet, removing the anomaly of Britain’s exclusion from ANZUS and adding to the security of Hong Kong and Malaya; but he had ‘grave misgivings’ about the timing. Proceeding now would impair the prospect of a successful negotiation at Geneva and be ‘unacceptable to public opinion’ in the UK. Nor was he persuaded that a threat of retaliation would cause Communist China to drop its aid to the Vietminh without any concession in return. A joint warning would have no effect, and the coalition would have to ‘withdraw ignominiously or else embark on warlike action against China’. Neither blockade nor bombing would be effective, but they would give China ‘every excuse for invoking the Sino-Soviet Treaty’. The time for a warning might come later, in support, for example, of a negotiated settlement, ‘possibly on the basis of partition’.62 The Cabinet noted that the Foreign Secretary was working out ‘means of adapting the

84 The view from without United States plan so as to further the security of South-East Asia without endangering the prospects of a successful outcome from the Geneva Conference’.63 Eden had convened a meeting at the FO that morning, including Selwyn Lloyd, Lord Reading, Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick, R.L. Speaight and Tahourdin. The Americans, they felt, were ‘not clear precisely what action they had in mind nor had they any military plans as to how the proposed warning to China might be implemented’. The British needed time to consider the proposal. ‘Apart from this, it would be a practical impossibility to get agreement of all the powers involved in the project in the short time before the Geneva Conference. Nor were there military reasons for any desperate hurry.’ When Dulles came, the British should try to get his agreement to ‘a modified proposal that a coherent system for the collective security of South East Asia should be established after the Geneva Conference’. One advantage would be providing a recognised basis for military aid for Siam and perhaps for the Kra plans. Britain did not wish to be committed to defend Indo-China, but France and the US would not accept its exclusion. ‘The solution might be to include in the proposed arrangement any partitioned area of Indo-China which might result from the Geneva Conference.’64 The following day, 8 April 1954, Eden asked W.D. Allen what Asian countries should be associated with any warning statement and any collective defence arrangement and whether anything should be said to India at that stage. The only possible starters for coalition or warning, Allen wrote, were those states the Americans had in mind, Siam, the Philippines, and the Associated States, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. ‘India, Burma, and Indonesia are so deeply committed for the time being to their policy of neutrality that it is hard to conceive of their agreeing to go in from the outset’, and Pakistan was aligning itself with the Middle East grouping. The nucleus of any effective arrangements would be the five powers of the staff agency, the US, the UK, France, Australia and New Zealand. ‘My own view would therefore be that we should not seek to make progress dependent upon the participation of Asian countries at the initial stage. . . . Our main object should be to ensure that any initial arrangements and statements drawn up by the Five, plus any Asian countries willing to join, are so framed as not to alienate Asian opinion generally and so as to leave open the door for wider Asian participation, as Asian opinion develops.’65 Against the phrase about ‘leaving the door open’, Eden wrote: ‘But we ought to try to get them’; and at the end of the minute: ‘Something must be arranged either through Delhi or here before I leave today for [the] country.’66 He also accepted a lunch engagement with the Burmese foreign minister, though his private secretary, Evelyn Shuckburgh, suggested he might be too busy. ‘He is friendly and Burma counts.’67 A concern for ‘Asian opinion’, Indian in particular, had informed earlier FO discussion both of Indo-China policy and of Southeast Asia pact. Now, it seems, Eden had seen that it might be used positively. Its stance would help him in the attempt to transform Dulles’ initiative. The Dulles visit to London began with dinner at the US embassy on 11 April 1954. Dulles explained, as he had to Makins, that he did not have a warning statement in mind, but rather an ad hoc coalition, which might eventually develop into

Colombo, Geneva, Bandung 85 a NATO or ANZUS. The formation of the coalition would itself be a warning and a deterrent to Chinese intervention, and evidence of solidarity before Geneva ‘could only have a good effect upon the negotiations there’. Eden said that Britain would welcome ‘some lasting collective security system for South East Asia’ and would be ready to examine it further in consultation with the United States. ‘However, important and difficult questions would arise’, such as the relationship with the UN and the participation of Asian states. ‘It was particularly important that India and the other Asian members of the Commonwealth as well as Burma and Indonesia should not be deliberately excluded.’ The other question was Indo-China itself, ‘where we were committed to a discussion with the Soviet and Chinese Governments at Geneva. If there were to be any question of Allied intervention, military or otherwise, or of any warning announcement before Geneva, that would require extremely careful consideration.’ An announcement could follow Dulles’ visits, warning ‘that we should not allow the prospects of the Geneva Conference to be prejudiced by military action. He was more doubtful about making any immediate mention of a decision to begin discussions about the possibility of concluding a South East Asia security arrangement if that were agreed upon.’68 At their meeting on 12 April Eden said that ‘he could agree to no more than to engage in preliminary discussions on the possibility of forming a mutual security system for the area’. Dulles offered the draft of a communique. That alluded to the threat to Southeast Asia; declared, invoking Article 51 of the UN Charter, that ‘collective efforts should be made to assure the peace, security and freedom of the area’; and hoped ‘that the prospect of a unity of defensive purpose will promote the honourable peace which will be sought at the forthcoming Geneva Conference’.69 Eden said it would be difficult for Britain ‘to give an undertaking in advance of the Geneva Conference regarding action to be taken subsequently’, and Dulles agreed that the draft could be modified. The contemplated security system, Eden went on, ‘should not exclude the possibility of wider Asian membership’. It was important for Britain that India should be ‘free to participate’, even though it might not do so, and it should be kept ‘fully informed of what was proposed’. To begin with, Dulles responded, it should include the UK, US, France, Australia, New Zealand, Siam, the Philippines and the Associated States. An open invitation to join might bring embarrassing requests from Formosa and South Korea. But the grouping would not be ‘exclusive’.70 The British, Dulles reported home, had ‘moved forward considerably. . . . they seem willing to state publicly their readiness to examine possible collective defense measures’.71 He was alluding to the communique, which was approved at the meeting on the 13th.72 It deplored the threat the communist forces presented on the eve of Geneva and declared that Britain and the US were ‘ready to take part, with the other countries principally concerned, in an examination of the possibility of establishing a collective defense, within the Charter of the United Nations, to assure the peace, security, and freedom of Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific’. It expressed the hope that the Geneva conference would lead to

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the restoration of peace in Indo-China. ‘We believe that the prospect of establishing a unity of purpose throughout Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific will contribute to an honorable peace in Indo-China.’73 The previous evening Eden had explained the draft to a group of senior ministers. ‘He had contrived to insert into it an expression of hope that the Geneva Conference would lead to the restoration of peace, and he had excluded from it any statement which would commit us to provide military assistance in Indo-China.’ Malaya, the Americans had argued, could not be defended if Indo-China were lost; and the British should therefore be ready to take their part in defence of Indo-China. ‘He had replied that that was a commitment which we could not undertake in present circumstances, although we might have to reconsider the position if the Geneva Conference failed.’ The meeting adopted an amendment – apparently Churchill’s – that put ‘a system of collective defence’ in place of ‘collective defence measures’, since that might be interpreted as foreshadowing direct military intervention.74 The final version removed the word ‘system’. President and Prime Minister met in Washington in June, with Eden in reluctant attendance. Churchill had promoted the conference as part of his grand design for improving relations with the SU through summit talks with Stalin’s successors. In fact it was much taken up by Indo-Chinese questions. It was an opportunity, as Makins said, to iron out differences with Dulles. In any case the accession of Mendès-France to the French premiership, and his commitment to ending the Indo-China war made the issue unavoidable. ‘Do you interpret the elevation of Mendès-France and the pledges he has made as evidence of a readiness on his part to surrender completely in South-East Asia?’ the President had written to Churchill. If so, he would like to be able to consider Churchill’s ‘solution’ before they met.75 If France had meant to fight, Churchill replied, it should have introduced two years’ conscription, but it did not. The result was ‘inevitable’. Mendès had decided ‘to clear out on the best terms available. . . . I think he is right.’ What should we do? Set up a SEATO, with the support of the Asian countries. British troops could be used in Indo-China in no circumstances, except perhaps a rescue operation, and if asked their opinion, the British would suggest the Americans took the same line. The sectors of the SEATO front should operate nationally. The main British sector had to be Malaya. He would bring with him the plan for its defence should Siam fall.76 Russia and China wanted a settlement, Eden told the Cabinet, but might have difficulty in restraining the Vietminh, ‘who are in a position to demand a high price. It may prove even more difficult to persuade the Americans to accept whatever settlement can eventually be reached.’ One task in Washington was (1) to persuade them to give the French at least a chance of reaching one in the next few weeks. (2) ‘We must continue to make it clear that we cannot consider intervening in Indo-China and we must do our best to restrain the Americans from doing so.’ (3) ‘We must again make it plain that we can accept no further commitments in regard to “united action” in South-East Asia until the outcome is known. (4) But we can express willingness to examine at once and in secret how best we

Colombo, Geneva, Bandung 87 can proceed to strengthen our common defences. (5) We should discuss how the principal Asian powers in that area can best be associated with this work. (6) But we should not agree, before Geneva is over, to any wider and more publicised meeting, at which Siam and the Philippines would be the only Asian countries present, to plan and proclaim an anti-Communist alliance.’77 The Americans were likely to press for a pact, Eden added. What form might it take? A NATO? a Locarno? – an allusion to the treaty of 1925 under which a number of states had severally and collectively guaranteed the western frontiers of Germany. ‘[T]he two types of pacts were not mutually exclusive’, he suggested. ‘In Asia, as in Europe, there might still be need of a collective defence organisation, even if a Locarno agreement were reached.’78 The idea reappeared in his Commons speech on 23 June 1954. He envisaged a kind of Locarno, ‘a reciprocal arrangement in which both sides take part’, and a kind of NATO. ‘[B]y refraining from any precipitate move towards the formation of a N.A.T.O. system in South-East Asia, we have helped to create the necessary conditions in which both systems can possibly be brought into being.’79 Next morning the ‘two tier’ idea was discussed at a meeting of Eden and FO officials. The Locarno-type arrangement would consist of a guarantee of the agreements on Indo-China – either part of the agreement or a separate undertaking – by powers participating or by others, like India, Australia and New Zealand, which might associate themselves with it. The powers would be free to act individually, so that the communist powers would have no veto. The NATO-type arrangement would be confined to the non-communist powers. ‘Its essence would be to guarantee the countries, particularly Burma and Siam, lying on our side of the IndoChina area.’ It would have to contain assurances of action against communist aggression. Its effectiveness would lie in the warning it would give to communist powers, ‘rather than in the ability of the non-Communist powers effectively to prevent by military means any crossing of the line laid down’. It would have to provide for measures of defence cooperation among the parties. Securing the participation of Asian states might be ‘difficult’. An attempt to secure a Locarno should be made first. If it failed, the NATO agreement would be more likely to secure acquiescence, if not participation. Even if ‘Locarno’ were secured, ‘NATO’ should still be proceeded with ‘as a second line of defence’.80 In Washington, the British delegation handed over a memorandum on the two-tier proposal and suggested it might be studied by the five-power staff agency group augmented by political representatives.81 Dulles objected to the Locarnotype scheme, inasmuch as ‘an affirmative guarantee . . . amounted to moral approval of a Communist success. This was unacceptable.’ The US might, however, be able to associate itself with the agreement by declaring, in line with Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter, ‘that it would not use force to upset it’. That did not ‘apply [imply?] approval of the Communist regime in the North’. Eden liked the idea, and suggested it be studied along with possible alternatives. The Americans pointed out that the British paper seemed to exclude Laos and Cambodia from the area covered by the pact. That was ‘because, in practice, we would never achieve an agreement at Geneva which did not neutralise those

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countries’. Bedell Smith, Dulles’ deputy, suggested that there was ‘no reason why the political guarantee should not include them even if the military stop-line were further south’.82 According to the American record of this meeting, Dulles asked why, if a de facto settlement divided Vietnam, what remained should not be ‘guaranteed by a collective defence system’. Eden ‘did not exclude from the defense provisions those parts of Indo-China which might be salvaged’, even though, Harold Caccia added, they could not be ‘turned into a defensive position’. Would subversion, he asked, bring the pact into operation? What if the communists won elections?83 These discussions adumbrate the kinds of agreement that were secured in July 1954 and hinted at some of the problems they were to meet. No ‘Locarno’ was secured, not even a treaty, only a Final Declaration, and a form of the partition that the British had concluded was the only possible answer. Eden’s ambitious diplomacy had sought to accomplish another objective, the creation of a Southeast Asia defence organisation, which, indeed, it was increasingly seen, would have to deal with subversion as well as aggression. Such an organisation had been a long-term British objective, adopted even before Eden became British Foreign Secretary. It was not, however, an American objective, as is often argued or assumed. The British attempt to turn the ‘united action’ which the US proposed into a defensive military alliance was a major task, perhaps an impossible one. What the British had in mind was an arrangement that would commit the US to the defence of Southeast Asia in a way that would avoid war. ‘Warnings’ and ‘declarations’ ran the risk of being paper tigers or of leading to drastic and dangerous action. A more formal structure would be a means of restraining as well as involving the US, and at the same time its creation would be in itself an effective warning. Bringing a range of Asian states, if not into the alliance, at least into association with it, would conduce to the same objectives. Ultimately, as Eden had put it to the COS in May 1954, India, Pakistan and Ceylon might provide the local military backing that the Western powers, committed elsewhere, could not.84 That the US would see such arrangements as fettering its action rather than supporting it was perhaps made apparent quite early in the discussions. The word ‘system’, which Churchill put into the 13 April statement, was omitted, as Dulles put it, ‘because the urgency of the situation was such that the need was for “defense” and not for a “system” which would be a matter of long negotiation and ratification’.85 Though wanting international backing for its actions, the US did not want international control: there Dulles and the top brass were agreed. With the settlement, moreover, the purpose of collective defence changed. Those who saw it as a device to bolster the French, and those who saw it as a cover for intervention, found those purposes, as Makins put it, ‘overtaken by events’. The problem in Southeast Asia was now seen as one of meeting communist infiltration and subversion rather than aggression, and the Administration was ‘likely to seek for the solution in terms of economic and technical aid, coupled with loose military commitments designed primarily to strengthen local forces’.86 The US Chiefs of Staff had no enthusiasm for a defence pact. In April 1954 the forces of France and Vietnam would have been available, said Admiral Radford;

Colombo, Geneva, Bandung 89 now they were not. If there were Chinese aggression, the counter-attack would be on China. To attempt to protect the Southeast Asian countries would, said Matthew Ridgway, be ‘an unjustified diversion of our military resources’. Military aid commitments, they agreed, were getting out of hand. ‘Why should we not divide up the area?’ Radford asked. ‘The US could assume responsibility for the Western Pacific and ask the British to assume responsibility for the security of the south.’87 Next day, impatient with Eden’s ‘dragging feet’, Dulles ‘stated that we should consider telling the British that we would drop the whole SEATO matter. They could come to us some time later if they ever decided to build strength in the area.’88 The State Department, Makins reported, wanted to avoid the NATO model: ‘there should not be any elaborate organisation with forces earmarked for the area and complex staff and command systems. Their stated reasons are lack of funds and forces and reluctance to encourage countries of the area to expect too much in the way of military help.’ Radford reportedly was willing to let the pact ‘go forward as a political exercise, provided that it does not lead to American involvement in South East Asia’. Serious trouble could come only from China, and the ‘sensible course, if the need arises, is to deal with the source of the trouble and not fritter away large resources in South East Asia’. Perhaps as a result the State Department was looking towards ‘looser commitments on the ANZUS model. . . . I have long been rather afraid that by the time we are ready to go in for the Security Pact the Americans would start to cool off it’, Makins concluded. ‘But it may be that this trend also accords with your own thinking.’89 The answer was yes and no. The British COS wanted to associate Asian powers with a pact, or include them in it, but it also wanted a core commitment by the outside powers.90 ‘What we should aim at’, Makins was told, ‘is a loose military link between the Asian countries backed by a more specific form of agreement between the “white” powers.’91 Throughout the preliminary discussions, the FO and its chief continued to pursue the goal of reconciling the settlement they had done so much to bring about with the defence treaty they also wanted. The task was the more difficult inasmuch as the Americans, not effectively in support of the settlement, did not much care for the treaty. It involved, as Dulles told the President, ‘committing the prestige of the United States in an area where we had little control and where the situation was by no means promising’.92 Their aim had been ‘united action’. The British aim was a US commitment at the core of a treaty system which would be accepted, and perhaps ultimately joined, by a range of Asian powers. The US was unwilling to offer the core commitment and sceptical about the Asian powers. ‘The American attitude towards planning for defence in South-East Asia has always been equivocal’, A.A. Dudley wrote from Singapore. He thought it was ‘anxiety about the immediate future . . . rather than the desire to construct a longterm security system, which led to Mr Dulles’ proposals of last April, for the establishment of the South-East Asia defence arrangement’. That ran ‘counter to their own former opinions’ and to advice from officials in Southeast Asia and in the State Department ‘concerning the readiness of Asian countries to enter such

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an arrangement’. Dulles was ‘clutching at a previously rejected straw in the hope of finding any possible assistance to stave off defeat in Indo-China’. Once the battle had been clearly lost, ‘the need for something to stop the rot immediately no longer existed, and it was natural that the longer term trends should reassert themselves’.93 The SEATO treaty, signed in Manila in September 1954, was not the cause of the subsequent US involvement in Vietnam. The fact was that the caution that Eisenhower displayed was not sustained, nor did Dulles stick to his judgment that the situation was not promising. Instead – partly on the supposed analogy of the Korean conflict – the Americans committed themselves to supporting a regime in the South that they believed could counter the Vietminh and prevent further ‘losses’ to communism. That commitment grew so that it became difficult to withdraw without risking the wider implications of the failure of US ‘guarantees’. Only under the Nixon Administration, which finally recognised the PRC, did the US find a way to withdraw from Vietnam. The Vietminh’s triumph quickly followed. The discourse on regionalism in the late 1940s and 1950s and early 1960s had turned not only on the theme of the emergence of independent nation-states, but also, and increasingly, on the impact of the Cold War, the establishment of the People’s Republic, and its intervention in Korea. Britain’s regional approach had ipso facto been conceived in terms of an extra-regional interest as well as a regional: it sought a continued relationship with the West, though on a new basis; and it emphasised the role of India. The impact of the Korean war emphasised that extra-regional interest. In face of concern about China, it became even more necessary, though perhaps more feasible, to involve the US. The sequence of events, however, skewed Britain’s policy as well that of the US, in particular because the Vietnamese were still struggling for independence. Britain sought both a defence treaty and a Locarno. When the latter proved impractical, it sought maximum endorsement of the Geneva settlement among the Asian states, and tried, largely in vain, to secure their acceptance of, if not their participation in, the Manila treaty. At the end of the second Vietnam war, other Southeast Asian states themselves adopted a regional approach in their attempts to deal with the newly unified Socialist Republic of Vietnam. It was a regional approach with a difference. Already in 1967 they had formed ASEAN, an association of independent states based on mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity. That association was open to other states within what was now more clearly defined as the region, including Vietnam, as they made clear. They also conceived of a further means of reducing foreign intervention, namely the acceptance of Southeast Asia as a zone of peace, freedom and neutrality (ZOPFAN). But if this were regionalism with a difference, there was some continuity with the ideas the British had put forward. The common core was the acceptance of the nation-state. ZOPFAN, at least in the form it was originally proposed, had elements of ‘Locarno’. There were other continuities. The concept of ‘neutrality’ had been viewed with rather more sympathy by the UK than by its super-power ally: it characteristically feared lest pressure on ‘neutralist’ states to move towards the West might be

Colombo, Geneva, Bandung 91 counter-productive and that it might be better to respect their neutralism than attempt to undermine or overthrow it. The British were even so somewhat impatient with Nehru’s neutralism and still more with his anti-colonialism. At the same time they recognised the elements of congruence between his view of the world and theirs, perhaps exaggerating it but in any case utilising it. The British held rather similar views with respect to other Asian states, over which they conceived – perhaps again exaggeratedly – that India was influential. The anticolonialism of those states was distressing and also unnecessary. Beneath the ideology, however, the British discerned an array of independent states with a place in the world. It was in Britain’s interest to sustain them, and it might influence and utilise them, too. The possibility that Indo-China would be discussed by the Asian heads of government when they met in April 1954 at Colombo had reinforced the opinion of James Cable at the FO ‘that we should take a more positive interest in the Colombo meeting and explore the possibility of seeking to exert some influence on its proceedings’.94 The initiative for the meeting came, as its venue suggests, from Ceylon, now a member of the UN, and more particularly from its prime minister, Sir John Kotelawala, who took office in October 1953. Perhaps hoping to increase his political prestige, the acting British High Commissioner suggested, he made public statements ‘in which he appeared to visualize a bloc of newly independent South East Asian countries which would become an effective force in the preservation of world peace and would hold frequent meetings in one or of their countries on the lines of meetings of Commonwealth Prime Ministers, to evolve policies in regard to the needs of the region’. He included India, Burma, Pakistan and Indonesia as well as his own country.95 The conference communique was issued on 2 May 1954. It welcomed the Geneva conference, favoured the seating of the PRC, and regretted that colonialism still existed in various parts of the world, Tunisia and Morocco in particular. Members discussed communism and, affirming their faith in democracy, ‘declared their unshakable determination to resist interference in the affairs of their countries by external communist, anti-communist or other agencies’. ‘The Prime Ministers discussed the desirability of holding a Conference of AfricanAsian nations and favoured a proposal that the Prime Minister of Indonesia might explore the possibility of such a conference.’96 After a preliminary meeting of the Colombo prime ministers in Bogor in late December 1954, the Afro-Asian conference met in Bandung in April 1955. The conference opened on 19 April with a speech by President Sukarno, ‘Let a New Asia and a New Africa be born!’97 Ali Sastroamidjojo, the prime minister, was then elected president of the conference. He reiterated the principles on which world peace must be sustained in terms of the 1954 formulae: ‘Mutual respect for each other’s national sovereignty and each other’s territorial integrity; abhorrence of aggression; non-interference in each other’s internal affairs; equality and mutual benefit’. He also condemned colonialism. Some colonial powers had expressed their intention to end it, but deeds not words were needed. Racialism

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and underdevelopment were other sources of tension. And so was the development of nuclear technology. ‘If we are able to express our desire and determination for peace in unmistakable terms, if our labours will have some salutary influence on the ways of thinking of mankind, if we can contribute to the elimination of fear and want so eagerly hoped for by all then this conference will have fulfilled its historical task.’98 The presence of ‘pro-Western’ powers avoided, as at Colombo the previous year, a simple condemnation of Western colonialism. The communique condemned colonialism in all its forms. It also endorsed the Nehru-Chou principles as the basis of peace, together with (5) ‘respect for the right of each nation to defend itself singly or collectively, in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations’; (6a) ‘abstention from the use of arrangements of collective defence to serve particular interests of any of the big powers’, and (6b) from the exertion of pressure by one country on another; (7) ‘refraining from acts or threats of aggression or force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any country’; (8) settlement of disputes by peaceful means; (9) promotion of mutual interests and cooperation; and (10) respect for justice and international obligation.99 The five principles of coexistence were not, however, displaced, and Bandung, though not their source, was remembered in their context. The Indonesian government of the day gained international as well as domestic standing. It also found a use for the principles within Southeast Asia itself. Its attempts to deploy them and the international eclat it had won produced a rather adverse reaction among its neighbours, in particular Malaya, which secured its independence in 1957. But together, action and reaction, they were to contribute to a more coherent sense of Southeast Asia as a region and to a more positive utilisation of the principles within the region and outside it. Independence meant a redistribution of power in Southeast Asia. A Malaya cut loose from the UK was in a different position vis-a-vis an Indonesia no longer in the hands of Britain’s minor ally. The ‘Bandung principles’ could be used to assert Indonesia’s leadership in the region as well as the domestic standing of its government. ASEAN was an attempt to apply them in a way that made for the stability of the region. Regionalism had an internal logic as well as an external one.

Part III

The view from within

[S]haping the Southeast Asian future by Southeast Asian hands. (Siddhi Savetsila)

6

ASA and ASEAN

Regionalism and regionalisation emerge in Europe in part as a response to and defence against outside pressures but in part also as a means of modifying or mediating internal disequilibrium. Within a trans-state region one state is likely to be stronger than another. A regional structure both constrains it and gives it an opportunity. Its leadership may become more acceptable to others if its dominance is less apparent. It may discover advantages in de facto leadership not available if leadership is asserted de jure. The comment applies whether regionalism takes the form of cooperation or the form of integration and whether it covers a wide or a narrow range of activities. The post-war Europeans followed – albeit with many hesitations and side-steps – an integrationist route. Southeast Asian regionalism was quite differently constituted. Its most striking contrast was the insistence on the sovereignty and integrity of the avowed nation-states: those principles form the very basis of the regional structures, organisations and modes of discourse that have been created. Indeed they are a reason for their existence and also for their limitations. It is in this way that the states of Southeast Asia as they became independent sought to meet both the pressures from outside the region and the disequilibrium within it, to create their version of what Barry Buzan has called a ‘regional security complex’.1 The two pressures were related. Few regions are more exposed to penetration from the outside, by sea above all but also by land. Within the region – partly as a result, but also as a result of internal barriers to integration of people and of state – diversity has prevailed, not unity, even in the phases of British primacy and during the Japanese occupation as well. The removal of the imperial framework – dislodged by the Japanese, to be finally destroyed by post-war decolonisation – arguably opened the way to conflict within the region. To meet the threat of hegemony from major states within the region that might then arise, other states might have to look once more to states outside the region. Though in some cases more rapid than expected, in other cases decolonisation was slower; in some cases it was scarcely controverted, in others it was conflictual and caught up to a greater or lesser degree in the Cold War. By the late 1950s, a post-colonial Southeast Asia might seem to have been at hand. The Geneva settlement did not, however, last. In the 1960s the region was intensely divided by the penetration of Cold War conflicts. By then, on the other hand, Southeast Asian

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The view from within

leaders were also not only articulating a view of the region but taking steps to bring it about. Indeed the second Indo-China war made it more urgent, but also – in the end – more feasible. That regionalism had, however, been prompted by tension and conflict in maritime Southeast Asia. There Indonesia had finally secured the recognition of its independence from the Dutch in the Round Table Conference agreement of 1949, though they still retained West New Guinea, claimed by the new Republic as part of the colonial state it aspired to inherit. It was over against this state – proud of its struggle for independence, conscious of a potential leadership role, and acquiring arms both to consolidate its integrity in face of regional revolt and to secure ‘West Irian’ – that newly independent Malaya sought to create an association with other Southeast Asian nations (ASA). Though it concluded a defence agreement with the British (AMDA) – with which Australia and New Zealand, already involved in the ANZAM planning arrangements, subsequently associated themselves – it did not join SEATO, not merely, perhaps, to avoid provoking domestic Chinese sentiment but also to avoid provoking Indonesia. Its leaders, however, also wanted to avoid a merely bilateral engagement with Indonesia, which would imply another kind of dependence. Not all Malays agreed with the post-colonial stance of the Malay-Chinese-Indian Alliance government, it should be added: some thought, as they had in 1945, that joining Indonesia Raya would be a better way to contain the Chinese community. Within a few days of securing independence and taking its seat at the UN, Malaya had been faced with the New Guinea question: it had abstained on the inscription of the question on the agenda, sought by Indonesia. That, the British ambassador reported, was seen as ‘quite a slap in the face’ in Jakarta, where Malaya was expected to be a junior partner. Possibly, he thought, the Malayan community in the Indonesian capital was creating trouble for the Malayan government, ‘scallywags’, as he called them, ‘most of whom came to Indonesia to escape police prosecution but who pose as political refugees. . . . Their conception of a revolutionary achievement of independence is much closer to the sympathies of the Palace than is the official Malayan one.’2 On the actual resolution Malaya’s vote was positive. The prime minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, suggested that the issue was a threat to peace. There was also, however, a domestic issue. As he told the Australian High Commissioner, he had to keep the Malays together. Abstention had cost votes.3 Early in February 1958 Tunku visited Colombo, and there urged closer co-operation between the smaller Southeast Asian countries. He took up the theme on 8 February 1958 at a press conference in KL on his return. Southeast Asian countries were ‘too much inclined to dance to the tune of bigger nations. They should not concern themselves unduly with the world and Afro-Asian politics when they had problems of their own nearer at hand. An effort should be made to build up their own unity and understanding. If they did not do this, they would have to look outside the area for protection and the full meaning of independence would be lost.’ Tunku referred to the topic again in a talk with Geofroy Tory, the British High Commissioner, on 12 February 1958. Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand all

ASA and ASEAN 97 had similar problems, in particular ‘the need to deal with Communist subversion’, and should exchange ideas. ‘He had no particular steps clearly in mind, but evidently thought, vaguely, that over a period of time closer association might develop. He added the strange remark that he was attracted by the idea that these other countries in South-East Asia . . . were monarchies like Malaya’, perhaps forgetting about Vietnam. ‘He may have meant that they were all torn to some extent between the forces of socialism and neutrality on the one hand and their own inherent conservatism and links with the West on the other.’ Tory thought a regional association ‘far more valuable than involvement in a world-wide association like the Afro-Asian bloc which embraced many conflicting interests, but which managed far too often to maintain a solid and negative front in the United Nations’. Tunku agreed. He told the Australian High Commissioner that ‘he was thinking of the desirability of keeping Malaya and its South-East Asian neighbours out of power politics’. Insulation from world politics was impossible, P. Cradock of the UK High Commission commented, but it was a constant theme with Tunku that Southeast Asian countries should not be ‘distracted by ambitious foreign policies from improving their own domestic lot’. If he persuaded other countries in the region, it might reveal that their real interests were ‘not necessarily at one with the larger Afro-Asian concept. As such it seems an attitude to be encouraged.’4 In May Tory reported on further statements by Tunku. Nothing more had been heard about his Ceylon idea, which had been a ‘surprise’ to his colleagues and officials. It was implicit, both in his reported remarks and his subsequent private comments, ‘that one of his motives was to escape involvement in global blocs’. That was ‘entirely admirable from our point of view’. A report from New Delhi covered an interview in which Tunku had allegedly proposed a defence treaty organisation comprising Malaya, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and South Vietnam. That astonished his advisers still more, but he told Tory he was flying a kite. He said he was ‘afraid that if there is a world recession the US and UK may some day have to withdraw all their forces from this part of the world and Malaya will be thrown on her own resources’. Those would not be sufficient to protect it from communist aggression. ‘In the circumstances he sees merit in all the South-East Asian countries pooling their military resources and preparing bases for use by Western forces which they hope would come back again in the event of any war.’ He could put no reliance on India, he told the correspondent. The reactions to his idea were ‘almost nil’, except for the Malayan political parties, most of which opposed it. Tunku’s ideas on closer cooperation in Southeast Asia extended to the economic sphere, Tory continued. At the ECAFE conference he had mooted the idea of an investment guarantee arrangement, originally thought up by Oscar Spencer as a ‘suitably harmless’ theme for his speech to delegates. He had given his ministers a draft investment charter prepared by Shawcross, his tutor at Cambridge. It was, Tory thought, ‘typical of Tunku to throw out these ideas without much thought and without any official guidance’. Neighbouring governments, Indonesia excepted, saw him as a rising statesman. Tory doubted if

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The view from within

he measured up to that. ‘But it will I think be to our general advantage if Malaya succeeds in taking the lead in the direction of any form of closer cooperation between South-East Asian countries and thus helps to break down the Afro-Asian bloc, towards which Tunku is undisguisedly hostile.’5 Indonesia was, of course, the regional proponent of the bloc, and while Tunku insisted in his conversation with Tory that he was not ‘ganging up’ on Indonesia during the Sumatra rebellion of 1958, the Republic was in his mind: it was, perhaps significantly, not on the list in respect of his alleged proposal for a defence treaty. Newly independent Malaya had to work out a relationship with its much larger neighbour at a time, moreover, when rebels were challenging the Jakarta government and, for a while, being encouraged by the UK and, even more, by the US.6 Malaya needed relations with other neighbours if it was to handle Indonesia without a possibly provocative resort to ‘outside’ help. At the end of the year Malaya sent a goodwill mission to Indonesia headed by Abdul Razak, the Deputy Prime Minister. It included Ghazali bin Shafie, then Deputy Permanent Secretary at Foreign Affairs, and the Minister of Education, Khir Johari, who declared in Surabaya that Malaya was against colonialism, and that its support for Indonesia over West Irian was based on the UN Charter. Razak himself did not go so far, and in Bandung declared that Malaya was not opposed to SEATO.7 ‘The thought of probable Indonesian reactions is constantly present in the minds of Federation Ministers when decisions are taken’, Tory commented, ‘and there is no doubt that reflections of this have played a large part in deciding the Federation’s cautious external policy, midway between the Western and AfroAsian camps’. The initiative for the goodwill mission had been Indonesia’s, and on his arrival Razak had been confronted with the draft of a cultural agreement. Differences might arise over Borneo, Tory thought. He believed that Indonesia’s ultimate aim was to absorb Malaya. If the government failed to create a Malayan consciousness, Malay leaders might look to Indonesia as a way of preserving Malay dominance.8 At the same time President Carlos Garcia of the Philippines, returning from a state visit to Japan, spoke of the need for ‘collective Asian defence against communist economic and political aggression’. His speech to the Overseas Press Club on 18 December 1958 marked, G.L. Clutton told the British Foreign Secretary, ‘a starting point of a serious Philippine effort to draw closer to her Asian neighbours’. There should be ‘closer links . . . between the countries of the area outside the great power blocs’. Garcia’s motives were ‘generally speaking political rather than economic and cultural’. There was a feeling that the Philippines relied too much on the US: its support had not secured the election of a Filipino to UNESCO and its aid had not lifted the country out of its economic difficulties; and SEATO’s limitations in organising the defence of Southeast Asia against communism had come to be recognised, together with the possibility of supplementing it by some association of a less military nature. Tunku’s response was immediate and favourable, Clutton added.9 That preceded his visit to the Philippines the following month (3–7.1.59). ‘A new South-East Asian mental approach was required’, he declared at Baguio, and

ASA and ASEAN 99 recalled his proposal at ECAFE for an economic charter.10 At the end of his visit he and Garcia issued a communique that referred to friendship, racial kinship, determination to meet the challenge of communism. The leaders agreed on the need to raise the standard of living and invited other countries to subscribe to the idea. Their representatives would meet to discuss ways and means. Closer economic cooperation between Malaya and the Philippines was needed. It was also necessary to forge cultural ties and closer collaboration among the countries of the region in order to solve common problems. Regional leaders should meet more frequently. Foreign investors should be given assurances.11 For the Philippines, as Clutton put it, it was another small step towards associating with its Asian neighbours. He thought Tunku’s purpose, unlike Garcia’s, ‘rather economic and cultural than political. Though he often roundly denounced communism during his visit and though an association of nations such as he has in mind would doubtless in practice strengthen the area against communism, he made it quite clear before his departure for the Philippines that there was no question of his subscribing to any anti-communist pact since this would appeal only to “two or three” Asian countries and would antagonise the many Asian neutrals.’12 But that, of course, did not necessarily mean that his aim was not political. Felixberto Serrano, the Philippines Secretary for Foreign Affairs, told Clutton that he had no definite ideas about the shape the association might take: ‘his own belief was that it would be easier to achieve cultural and technical cooperation than economic since . . . the two countries were competitors’. Clutton agreed. The cultural link, as he reported, was mainly Islamic, and ‘of little interest, if not actually distasteful, to the Roman Catholic majority’. Nor did Tunku’s tendency to see the Philippines as a kind of prodigal son mesh with its larger population and resources and ‘overweening vanity’. The two countries, too, had very different attitudes to the Chinese. ‘The possibility of extending any eventual association to other countries is also prejudiced by remarks such as those attributed to President Garcia, that South Korea and Nationalist China could not be excluded from candidacy. Indonesian pique and possibly jealousy of the initiative taken by her two very much smaller Malay brothers may also be an obstacle.’ But Clutton was not prepared to write the venture off, and he thought it presented no threat, though ‘active encouragement would be likely to hinder rather than help’.13 Tunku had told Tory he had been astonished at the way the Philippines and world press had taken up his ideas and ‘given them more substance than they at present had’. A beginning might be made with a cultural agreement, like the one with Indonesia that was contemplated. He had invited Prime Minister Djuanda to visit.14 The Indonesians, by contrast, declared that Tunku’s scheme was too narrow: it should cover all the A-A bloc. It seemed, as Cradock put it, that the Indonesians had ‘detected the dislike of the A-A bloc which lies behind the Tunku’s proposals’. He had reacted by saying that, if need be, he would go it alone with the Philippines.15 The Indonesian ambassador then corrected earlier reports and said Indonesia was sympathetic,16 though The Times of Indonesia thought it would be ‘a charitable act’ if the Indonesian government ‘nipped in the

100 The view from within bud the puerile, vain and flamoboyant hopes’ expressed in the communique.17 Razak told the Australian High Commissioner that Tunku attached importance to including Indonesia in any closer association. He added, however, that, as far as Indonesia was concerned, ‘proposals for any agreement would be confined to goodwill, culture and education, and . . . economic clauses were not envisaged’.18 In February 1959 Tunku announced that he would resign as prime minister in order to strengthen the Alliance in preparation for the August elections.19 He told a press conference on 15 February that the resignation would not affect carrying out his plan, which he thought could be called SEAFET (Friendship and Economic Treaty). It was intended to (1) adhere to the UN Charter; (2) ‘consult and pool experience on matters of common interest . . . ’; (3) ‘explore jointly (the) needs and potentialities of the region’; (4) ‘collaborate in promoting trade and economic development’ and (5) explore more collaboration in the educational and cultural fields. The members would be from Southeast Asia, but not solely of Malay stock. There would be a Council of Ministers, with a secretariat at KL or Manila. The ‘ultimate effect might be that countries of the area would be able to survive without foreign aid’.20 Though Tunku’s temporary resignation would not mean that the proposals were in abeyance, the British High Commission in KL did not think it likely ‘that anything will happen very suddenly’. Djuanda was due to visit in April in order further to discuss the draft Indonesia/Malaya cultural agreement. ‘That of course is quite separate from S.E.A.F.E.T. and in fact the Indonesian reaction to S.E.A.F.E.T. appears so far to have been distinctly cautious.’ Officials were now at work ‘trying to give some body to what as yet is a highly insubstantial plan’. Possibly the High Commission would have an opportunity to inject ideas. In any case the British should decide what the possibilities were and what form cooperation could best take from their point of view and Malaya’s. On political grounds, it was assumed that ‘we would like to give the proposal a fair wind, firstly, because the Tunku’s and the Federation’s prestige are now bound to it, and secondly, because however vague, it provides a rallying point for secessionists from the Afro-Asian bloc’. But, economically, it was ‘extremely difficult to suggest any concrete basis for cooperation’. The economies of Malaya and the Philippines were complementary. ‘Each produces mainly primary products and has only a very limited amount of secondary industry catering for a home market.’ Trade between them was ‘inconsiderable’. Trade between Malaya and Indonesia was ‘considerable’, but consisted ‘mainly of entrepot traffic: as exporters of rubber, tin and copra the two are competitors’. There was ‘virtually no scope for increasing trade among them’, and indeed Indonesia would like to see the entrepot traffic reduced. Malaya and the other countries of the area had ‘common interests as producers of certain raw materials’, but ‘policy and even practice’ frequently diverged. The Economic Commission for Asia and Far East (ECAFE)’s Committee on IntraRegional Trade provided a forum for discussing economic collaboration, but it was dominated by India and Japan. The increase in mainland China’s economic activity was a possible topic, but the size of its export drive appeared to have been

ASA and ASEAN 101 exaggerated. Overseas investment could form the subject of a declaration, not in the form of a charter, but in the form of ‘a general expression of good intentions’. That might not be especially valuable in itself, ‘but if it gave the Federation an opportunity of preaching good behaviour to the others, especially Indonesia, this might not be entirely wasted effort’.21 The British Foreign Office noticed that Tunku did not confine his remarks about closer association to the countries of Malayan race but also included Ceylon and Vietnam. He had suggested that the Philippines and Malaya could ‘set something in motion which might be the beginning of a linking between nations within our ethnological and geographical group . . . that could lead to economic and political stability for all countries of South-East Asia’. What was needed, he said at Baguio, was ‘a new approach, a meeting of minds with the common purpose of looking at South-East Asia as a whole, a common determination that while each of us is thinking first of his own country, we must also bear in mind the fortunes of our whole region and the betterment of the lot of our peoples’.22 An approach that included the mainland the British favoured, and they appreciated the Malayan initiative. An interdepartmental meeting in London – the FO, the CRO, the Board of Trade – considered a response. The idea of a closer association was, as a draft put it, ‘commendable’. The Tunku was ‘reviving a solution to the political problems of the area which in general we favour. (Whatever the association may be called – cultural, economic, etc. – it is the political implications which interest us most.) Any attempt to force the pace, however, might produce the opposite effect to that desired and an attitude of benevolent, but detached, approval is the one we should adopt publicly.’ Malaya, the departments thought, was ‘well placed to take the lead’. It stood midway between SEATO and the neutralist countries of Southeast Asia. ‘If Tunku is able to inspire an association of these states the effect should be favourable to the West while any appearance of Western domination would be avoided.’ Malaya, ‘more peaceful and settled than most countries of the region’, could be a home for international organisations’, ‘geographically central’, ‘small enough to be acceptable for the purpose’. There was, however, doubt about Tunku’s tactics. The Philippines, to which he went first, was, given its close US links, ‘the least suitable of the states of the region to play a leading part in promoting the principle of association’. It was also unfortunate that a Malaya/Indonesia cultural pact was ‘on the stocks’. Though Malaya seemed to ‘lack enthusiasm’, it would probably be effected before any other proposal. ‘This would be a pity, because it would give Indonesia an opportunity to assume leadership in any further measure of regional co-operation.’ The departments thought Tunku should turn his attention northward. ‘Ideally we would like to see Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and South Vietnam included.’ Burma was ‘a particularly strong candidate’, non-SEATO and neutralist, ‘but internally anti-Communist’. Thailand was essential if the association were to have ‘any geographical cohesion’, but, a prominent member of SEATO, it should not play too dominant a role at first. ‘The inclusion of Laos, Cambodia

102 The view from within and South Vietnam could be welcomed on all counts. Provided a balance is struck by the inclusion of some of the mainland states, there would be no objection to the participation of Indonesia in a Malaya-based association, which might even in the long run exert a moderating influence over her.’ It was ‘axiomatic’ that any British interference, if disclosed, would undermine Tunku’s proposals, but it would be worth privately offering advice. He could put emphasis on practical measures for ‘improving understanding and co-operation’, visits, courses and exchanges. He should at the same time avoid being ‘too specific’ on the association’s aims. ‘Ideas that appeal to one country will probably not appeal to another’: his idea of a friendship treaty was ‘sound, since it can be stretched to include a variety of concepts and can offend no one’. But he should not ‘overlook the basic unifying factors which exist in the area, even if they are unvoiced. The most potent of these is fear of China. Another is the desire of South East Asian countries to stand together and so enhance their collective international status. Different countries will see this in different ways; some will view association in an anti-colonial context; others as a means of resisting Communist influence in, for example, Afro-Asian counsels. The underlying motive – to combine in order better to be able to assert their independence – is the same.’23 Those perceptive comments do not suggest that the British initiated Tunku’s moves: indeed they seem rather surprised by them. They naturally saw value in them, however, at the same time recognising that open sponsorship of them would damage their prospects. The initiative was not only regional but had to be seen to be so. That did not preclude the High Commissioner’s giving advice. Some of it might have seemed grandmotherly to a statesman who so skilfully deployed an apparent naivety, but perhaps the High Commissioner could put it better than an interdepartmental committee in London. The reply sent to KL made the points the committee had made, including also a reference to the possibility of cooperating to avoid competition in developing secondary industries.24 That arose from a comment made by the French delegate at the ECAFE Trade Committee when it was discussing a common market: Southeast Asian countries should co-operate over industrialisation plans so as not to compete and eventually have goods to export.25 The reply also stressed that Britain was keen for Malaya to retain the initiative: the Thais were taking an active interest in SEAFET. Nai Sunthorn, the retiring ambassador at KL, said his government favoured the Tunku’s proposal.26 Marshal Sarit was said to be considering a meeting of the heads of government of mainland countries, not Indonesia.27 Pote Sarasin had spoken of a meeting of Southeast Asian prime ministers, not including the Philippines or Indonesia.28 Britain, C.K. Curwen wrote at the FO, would ‘prefer Malaya to make the running. If Thailand were to take the initiative it might arouse suspicions that this was SEATO in another guise.’29 Thanat Khoman was hardly enthusiastic when Serrano, visiting Bangkok 2–4 April 1959, said that the Philippines and Malaya planned a series of bilateral economic and cultural agreements, developing into a system of regional collaboration.30 That suggested to Curwen that the Filipinos were ‘not the people to inspire enthusiasm for regional cooperation’.31

ASA and ASEAN 103 Serrano also visited KL on his way to attend the SEATO conference in Wellington. En route in Hong Kong, he had suggested that developing SEATO on the economic side would be an incentive to new members, the implication being that SEAFET might become a kind of offshoot. Razak quickly denied that Malaya would join SEATO, and Serrano accepted the correction. On SEAFET he was ‘hopeful but vague’. It would at first be bilateral, he repeated, then Malaya and the Philippines would consider bringing others in. The Philippines, he said, was not seeking to eliminate American influence, but was ‘anxious to develop their Asian contacts which they felt had been neglected’.32 Serrano brought home Malaya’s ambitious draft. He told the British ambassador that Malaya and the Philippines had in mind as members of the pact Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and possibly Laos. Serrano said ‘that there was at present a regional wave of nationalism in South East Asia and both he and the President thought that Philippine policy should not be to sit back but to take the lead so that this nationalism could be directed in the right direction’.33 Following his instructions, Tory discussed SEAFET with Dr Ismail, the Minister of Home Affairs, on 5 May 1959. He was, he said, seeking an insight into the Malayan ideas for two reasons, ‘first because our policies in this area were likely to be affected, in particular if the Borneo territories and Singapore were in some way to be associated, and secondly because we were in full sympathy with Tunku’s approach’, though recognising that public support should not be expressed too loudly. The proposals for the agreement were still at the official level, Ismail said. The association would be open to all other countries except ‘Vietminh’, that is Indonesia, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, South Vietnam and Burma, with the Borneo territories and Singapore as observers ‘because of their subject status’. There would be a Council of Prime Ministers and a secretariat in Kuala Lumpur (KL). The organisation would be ‘entirely consultative’ and would use, not compete with, existing institutions like ECAFE and the Colombo Plan. The terms of reference would recognise that the countries were ‘in a sense, competitive’. They would discuss common problems in trade, administration, communications, research, culture, but not anti-subversion. Malaya and the Philippines would hold a conference which might negotiate a multilateral agreement.34 The Australians agreed with the British that the West should welcome ‘the evolution of a South-East Asian consciousness’, which Tunku’s association would assist. If it were to materialise, however, and were joined by Indonesia, it was ‘possible that that country might come to exercise a decisive influence on its activities which could be contrary to Western interests’. The Australians also questioned whether Malaya, though not as suspect as SEATO, was ‘really well placed to promote an association which would attract the neutralist countries’. Indonesia, Burma and Thailand, larger and independent for longer, might, moreover, resent its initiative.35 Tunku, McIntyre had reported, ‘has been showing too much initiative and independence for the likes of a people who promoted and staged the Bandung Conference and who confidently expected to have the new independent Malaya in their pocket’.36 The position of Indonesia was indeed crucial.

104 The view from within The draft treaty was discussed with Djuanda when he visited KL in mid-April to sign the bilateral friendship treaty,37 and the Malayans thought Indonesia was now better disposed to it following Serrano’s visit to Jakarta. In Jakarta, however, the ‘prevailing view’ seemed to be that the SEAFET proposals ran ‘counter to the Bandung spirit’ and would weaken A-A solidarity.38 The FO in London noticed that Serrano had omitted Cambodia and Burma. Perhaps they had been unresponsive to soundings already made, but to exclude them deliberately would be ‘unfortunate’. Excluding Cambodia would be particularly pointed, given its recent disputes with Thailand and South Vietnam,39 and Prince Sihanouk’s neutralist leanings. ‘These remarks would be doubly applicable if . . . Indonesia fought shy of S.E.A.F.E.T., since we would then be left with an organisation weighted heavily against neutralism’, and it would be seen as another SEATO, ‘always . . . our fear’. If that happened, SEAFET, ‘so far from contributing to the unity and stability of the region, might produce a sharpening of the division between the anti-Communist and the neutralist countries of South East Asia’. The basis of a rival ‘axis’ already existed in a recent treaty between Cambodia and Indonesia. ‘Altogether’, the FO felt, ‘the idea of the Philippines “taking the lead” . . . does not look too promising and we wonder whether it can be very much to Tunku’s liking.’ Perhaps the High Commissioner could follow up his earlier discussion and hint at ‘the opportunity which will be missed and the risk which will be run if everything possible is not done to bring Cambodia and Burma into S.E.A.F.E.T.’.40 The CRO conveyed the idea to KL. Holding the conference without the neutralist countries would make it ‘very difficult’ for them to come in later.41 Bringing Burma in might not be easy, the British embassy in Rangoon suggested, to judge by the Thai ambassador’s account of the reaction in Rangoon to the proposals made by the Thai foreign minister on his visit in July. James Barrington, the permanent secretary at the ministry of foreign affairs, doubted whether, consistent with its neutralism, Burma could enter any formal association, and he did not think it could take part in a meeting of heads of government unless all the states, including North Vietnam, were included. Both Barrington and the Foreign Minister were more attracted to the idea of ‘regular bi-lateral consultation’. The Prime Minister, Ne Win, said he would have the matter examined. The Thai ambassador thought it better not to press the matter for the time being. His impression was that Burma would like to co-operate more fully with Thailand and with countries such as Vietnam and Malaya ‘but that because of the danger of antagonising China, they would probably prefer consultations to be of an informal character’.42 Burma had been ‘neutralist’ ever since independence. That had not reduced its value in Eden’s eyes in 1954. The British FO still echoed such a view. A ‘regional’ approach would contribute to stability. Thai moves seemed also to recall earlier aspirations, envisaging some kind of leadership at least on the mainland. Thanat had spoken in Phnom Penh of ‘the need for a new practical grouping of South-East Asian countries which would have none of the characteristics of a military alliance or bloc’. Leaders might meet discuss problems, he said in Bangkok: technicians, editors, businessmen

ASA and ASEAN 105 could also meet. He opened his heart a little to the Americans, as A.C.S. Adams put it: he had long felt that Southeast Asian countries ‘should develop a greater sense of “together-ness” in the face of the common Chinese menace. If a sense of common interest could be encouraged there might in time develop on certain issues a common line. This would make it much less easy for them to be pushed around individually by the Communists.’ He was not thinking of a treaty, nor perhaps any entity save a secretariat to provide continuity and convene meetings. Pote Sarasin spoke of a mainland prime ministers’ conference, including Malaya, with similar aims: ‘to try to develop a habit of regional thought and a greater degree of regional solidarity, without seeking to embody it in treaty form’. How did fit the SEAFET idea? There was no room for two forms of organisation, Adams thought, but, when Tunku visited Bangkok, the foreign ministers agreed on the ‘desirability of closer cooperation between the two countries in matters affecting intraregional relations’. Razak suggested Thanat should draft a proposal for economic, cultural and political cooperation among all Southeast Asian countries.43 Thanat circulated a ‘working document’. The Thais wanted to attract neutral nations, but thought that to exclude politics was unrealistic. What it wanted to call SEACOR, the South East Asia Community Organization, though its focus should be economic, should be ‘allowed to take up and consider any concrete and practical problem affecting the Southeast Asian region or some of its members, regardless of whether such problem is political, economic or otherwise’. Attempts at cultural cooperation might be divisive: the emphasis should be on educational, artistic and technical activities, designed to further common economic interests. The administrative machinery should be minimal, the meetings should be in private, and no record should be kept of those among prime minister and foreign ministers.44 The British envoy in the Philippines, J.H. Lambert, met Thanat in Manila and tried to find out whether there were ‘any possible form of fusion’ between his document and the document the Malayans and Filipinos had been drafting. He said that the Thais were not participating in the drafting of the Malayo-Philippine document: ‘the Malayans and Filipinos should be permitted to claim the exclusive credit, since they had started this particular operation (he began to say “since the idea had been theirs,” but corrected himself!)’. The main point he said he had made to Serrano was the need ‘not to exclude the possibility of political discussion’. The Filipinos, Lambert gathered, were ‘somewhat puzzled as to how to meet his point and at the same time produce a document capable of being sold to a neutralist’. A mission from KL was expected in Manila, but no date was known. Lambert, however, thought Garcia might visit KL at the end of the year, and agree on a text for the Malaya/Philippines plan.45 Thailand’s view that an association would be ‘meaningless unless there is some political purpose’ was ‘sound’, Curwen thought, ‘but that the political aspect should be specified in some document or declaration is unrealistic, since neutral opinion would immediately be frightened off’. But it did seem that Thais, Filipinos and Malayans were ‘working towards the same objective’.46 By November 1959 the tactics had changed. Tunku, returning from a visit to Australia, was reported as saying that one day pacts like the Malaya–UK defence

106 The view from within agreement would be abrogated, and that it was essential that the Southeast Asian countries should get together.47 He was referring, the High Commission thought, not to Malaya’s abrogating the pact, but to the possibility of Britain’s withdrawal.48 Two days earlier Ismail said that Tunku had written to the prime ministers of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, the Philippines and Indonesia.49 Was he going ahead too quickly? wondered R.C. Ormerod at the CRO.50 There was a danger, Cradock replied, that the agreement might look too restrictive. That was probably why the Federation had dropped the original idea of a bilateral agreement with the Philippines, to which others could accede, in favour of a simultaneous approach. Even so, it was possible that the anti-communist countries would respond quickly, and that their replies, publicised, would put others off. Tory put the point to Ghazali on 19 December 1959. He said Tunku thought five the minimum: Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Burma, Laos (plus Malaya). That offered some reassurance, though only Burma was ‘sufficiently neutral to give the organisation the colour we would like. Ghazali was also hopeful – I think unduly so – that Indonesia might veer round.’51 Serrano was also ‘very keen’ on an initial membership of at least five, including Indonesia ‘(in the interest of Malaysian solidarity)’, as the Malayan chargé told the British embassy in Manila – by which, of course, he meant, years before ‘Malaysia’ was created, the solidarity of the ‘Malay world’. The objectives were, the British embassy thought, unlikely to be realised, though, according to Osman, Vietnam showed ‘signs of willingness to join’. He thought that, ‘while taking the expected line that, outside the context of Bandung, Indonesia would prefer to stick to bilateral agreements’, Foreign Minister Subandrio and First Minister Djuanda were ‘basically not unwilling’, but that President Sukarno was ‘most unlikely to react positively’. Malaya, Osman also said, hoped that the SEAFET members would offer foreign investors assurances along the line of the communique issued at the time of Tunku’s visit to Manila. The Filipinos were unenthusiastic then, the embassy noted, and the current climate of economic nationalism was unfavourable.52 The following month Prince Sihanouk made it clear that Cambodia could not join, lest it forsake neutrality. Thailand and the Philippines were both in SEATO, and only one part of Vietnam had been invited. Involvement, as the British embassy put it, might call down the wrath of the Soviet bloc, while Thailand and Vietnam supported or tolerated Sam Sary and other ‘traitors’.53 His response would deter Burma and possibly Indonesia, Moss commented at the FO in London. ‘A SEAFET without any of the neutrals except Malaya could have only a limited usefulness and might tend to sharpen existing divisions.’54 Sukarno had replied to Tunku’s letter55 by opposing a new association, but favouring bilateral contact. If multilateral cooperation were to be intensified, it could best be done within the Afro-Asian context.56 By March 1960 it was clear that the SEAFET proposal was, in the words of J.C. Crombie of the CRO, ‘doing very poorly’. Indonesia had reportedly formally rejected the idea. Burma’s reply was ‘disappointing’, and Laos had not replied at all. The Philippines and Thailand were ‘apparently in favour’, though the Thais stressed the need for more preparatory work. Visiting KL in February (15–19.2.60), President Ngo Dinh Diem of the

ASA and ASEAN 107 Republic of Vietnam had said the same. The joint communique at the end of his visit referred to economic collaboration and cultural exchange and to stabilising the price of raw materials, but not to Tunku’s scheme. The Malayans ‘may well have thought that a public declaration of support from Vietnam at this stage would remove any remaining hope of attracting neutralists and give the project altogether too restrictive a flavour’. Currently there seemed little prospect of ‘bridging the gap between the anti-Communists and the neutralists’, Crombie thought. ‘National pride’ was another obstacle. ‘The Indonesians, for example, can hardly be expected to take kindly to the idea of playing second fiddle in a project first mooted by the Malayans and others perhaps have similar feelings.’Tunku had told Tory that he had produced the suggestion ‘on the spur of the moment’ during his visit to the Philippines ‘because I could not think of anything else to say’, ‘disarming remarks’, as Crombie commented, providing ‘an ironic comment on the story that it is a Western trap’.57 The idea predated the visit, of course: Tunku liked to present himself as less methodical than he was. Early in April 1960 moreover, Mohamed Sopiee, in charge of the project in KL, visited the Philippines to discuss the proposal with Serrano. Only a limited statement was released, rather negative in character: more countries should be invited to join; the union should not be a bloc or alliance; it should not be identified with any political ideology, nor political in character, nor linked with any defence agreement; and ‘it should be in keeping with the spirit of non-interference in the internal affairs of member countries, characterised by the Bandung Conference’. According to a leak, North Vietnam’s participation was not ruled out. Osman said concrete proposals had been developed, which Md Sopiee was taking to Bangkok. Neither South or North Vietnam was to be invited to the working group that would be set up, and it would be up to the group to decide the question of participation. That course was taken because Indonesia objected to inviting only South Vietnam. Secrecy was occasioned, Osman said, by the fact that Malaya and the Philippines ‘were anxious not to appear to want to take all the limelight for sponsoring this scheme. They were afraid that the unforthcoming reaction from the neutralist countries . . . was the result of their disinclination to follow the lead of two obviously Western-inclined countries.’ They planned to make the scheme ‘appear to burgeon simultaneously from a common desire for co-operation’.58 At the end of the month, moreover, Garcia called for the enactment of common foreign investment laws to encourage foreign investors. That, as the British embassy put it, seemed to be ‘working towards the concept that trade is the best form of aid and one to be encouraged in the area as a whole’. If that was the direction cooperation was to take, ‘there seems some hope for a sensible and useful outcome’.59 In Bangkok, however, Thanat had declared that press reports from Manila and Singapore were ‘far too optimistic’. Thailand still thought that, while regional cooperation was ‘a goal at which to aim eventually, effective action along lines suggested by the Federation of Malaya was premature’.60 SEAFET seemed likely to remain earthbound, as Petersen put it.61 The CRO proposed that Tunku should be advised to proceed by bilateral agreements. The plan was to approach him during the 1960 Commonwealth Prime

108 The view from within Ministers Meeting.62 In the event the matter was not raised. Tunku reacted unfavourably when the question of Singapore’s future was raised on 13 May, and he declined to have a meeting after CPM lest, no doubt, it led on to Singapore.63 He had in fact decided to go ahead with SEAFET on the basis of membership by Malaya, the Philippines, and Thailand alone. Reminded of the danger, he said that a start had to be made somewhere: an organisation in being might be more attractive than a mere plan.64 At ECAFE in March, Khir Johari, now Minister of Commerce, had suggested SEAFET would establish a common attitude on price stabilisation and synthetics, and spoken of regional trade and communications.65 Tunku now made similar remarks to UMNO. That trend Britain might find less welcome.66 Tory explained the point. Tunku had been forthright on the need to influence the prices of primary products like rubber and tin so that member countries would no longer be ‘at the mercy of consumer countries’. Foreign Affairs said that the Tunku was ‘trying to dispose of the rumour that he was acting in some way as a stalking-horse for the United Kingdom and the United States’, and that there was no plan for a producers’ bloc. Such a bloc could indeed use its power to raise commodity prices, contrary to the UK’s view that under international commodity agreements ‘importing countries should have equal representation and equal say with exporting countries’. Malaya, Thailand and the Philippines together could not control the price of rubber and tin, ‘but the position would be somewhat different if there was a change of attitude on the part of Indonesia, which is almost as big a rubber producer as the Federation and, whether a member of SEAFET or not, would probably support any plan to keep prices up’.67 At an ECAFE meeting in Bangkok British participants found the emotional commitment to economic cooperation had become stronger. The obstacles were ‘enormous’, as J.L. Rampton of the British Treasury put it. ‘[T]here are language problems, administrations are inefficient, countries in the area tend to produce the same things and to set up new industries of similar kinds, etc., etc. And certainly the will to cooperate at all closely has never yet existed sufficiently strong to make the emergence of anything worthwhile at all possible.’ But it was ‘surprising what emotional support for an idea can lead to and what obstacles it can overcome. Having been involved for two years in the negotiations for a European Free Trade Area and seen the consequences of failure to appreciate at an early enough stage that the Common Market could come off, I feel a bit more inclined than many people might, and perhaps more than I ought, to pay attention to the chance that significant developments may take place in South East Asia.’ Should Britain support closer economic integration or oppose it or be neutral? At present it could only be a matter of a general attitude to an imprecise concept. But ‘[i]t was after all our general attitude in the early days of closer European integration which largely determined the eventual outcome for the U.K. itself’. Rampton favoured a more positive attitude. ‘If we do not start soon we shall have the same difficulty as we have in Europe of persuading South East Asian countries that our support is genuine.’68

ASA and ASEAN 109 ‘[T]he emotions which undoubtedly exist on this subject’, commented Sir Denis Allen, now in KL, arose ‘very largely by way of reaction against the movement towards economic co-operation in Europe which countries in this part of the world rightly or wrongly assume to have a protectionist purpose. They also . . . reflect a certain feeling of frustration that in the economic sphere the under developed countries are at the mercy of outside forces and arrangements made – for instance to fix freight rates or set the prices for raw materials – without their own full participation.’ The emotions could be welcomed ‘as liable to counteract the ever present tendency towards balkanisation in this part of the world’. But they could also ‘provide fertile ground for Communist mischief making. . . . Even without such interference emotions such as these can easily get out of hand.’69 The FO’s F.A. Warner – who had also been at the ECAFE meeting – supported a positive approach. If economic cooperation in Southeast Asia became a reality, there might be short-term commercial disadvantages, but the development of the area would be so much increased ‘that more new opportunities would be created than would be closed for us’. In any case, he thought Britain’s attitude would ‘make no difference to the South East Asians in the long run’. But ‘it will certainly influence our own standing with them, so had we not better put a pleasant face on it and perhaps go a little further than we would be prepared to do had we more direct responsibility for the course of events?’70 Britain was still an imperial power in Southeast Asia – responsible for Singapore and the Borneo territories and in a defence agreement with Malaya, though no longer one with Burma – and it was also a post-imperial one, interested in regionalism as providing, with the emergence of nation-states, for succession to empire. Its continued economic difficulties, and the Suez catastrophe that had led to Eden’s fall, led to a reconsideration of policies that would have both a direct and indirect effect on the region. A meeting at Prime Minister Harold Macmillan’s official home, Chequers, in June 1959, had been called in order to prepare a long-range study of overseas policy to 1970. The report was circulated in February 1960. Britain’s role in Southeast Asia could not be discarded in the following decade, it declared, but defence expenditure had to be reduced. ‘We must maintain existing Western, British and Commonwealth connexions and relations with the countries of South-East Asia, especially through economic co-operation. In our relationship with the individual Governments, we should not be unduly concerned if they find “undemocratic” solutions to their constitutional problems, or prefer to preserve their independence by following neutralist policies. We should, however, always encourage the sort of social reform which will remove the root causes of discontent and instability.’71 The FO pointed to the continuing dilemma the PRC presented. Its power was growing, though it was unlikely to be ready to be expansionist for fifteen years. Should the West try to seek accommodation or not? An answer might be to ‘concentrate on building up the strength, stability and standards of living of the individual countries of the area, and their cohesion, and represent these objectives publicly as being desirable in themselves and not as part of the cold war. Most of

110 The view from within the countries of South and South East Asia are now fully conscious of the Chinese threat. Their desire to maintain their national independence, which is common to both neutralist and SEATO countries, can be used to our advantage, and can make a contribution towards the stability of the area.’ SEATO could not be ‘regarded as the exclusive instrument of our policies in the area’. Closer association between Malaya, Burma and Thailand might ‘tend to increase the stability of all three. It would help to blur the distinction between SEATO members and neutralist countries (this is the main reason why Burma does not at present want it) and might eventually help to involve the Indians more closely, through Burma, in the survival of South East Asia.’72 Tunku had announced at the end of July that the new association would be called ASAS (Association of South East Asian States) not SEAFET. It might be more practicable, he said, to have multilateral agreements on particular projects than a treaty, and officials from Malaya, the Philippines and Thailand would draw up a list. ASAS would explore the possibilities of regional cooperation in aviation, shipping, marketing and pricing primary products, technical and administrative training and research. Though the three countries would form the working group, ‘the idea was to get as many interested countries in the region as possible into the proposed association’. He hoped the working papers would help to dispel doubts and ‘remove misgivings other countries of the region felt about joining the association’.73 He changed from SEAFET because it sounded too like SEATO, no doubt.74 Allen thought that some of the proposals, if implemented, might harm Britain’s economic interests, but it could do itself more harm than good ‘by any too obvious attempt to oppose these incipient trends towards regional integration’.75 The UK FO took a positive line. ‘We are telling the under-developed countries in general that our association with such groups as E.F.T.A. and the Common Market, although it may appear to constitute an agreement to discriminate against other non-member states, is in the general interest in the long run because the reduction of trade barriers regionally tends ultimately to increase the general volume of trade and thus help all trading nations.’ ASAS could use the argument, too. In any case, the ‘psychological aspect’ was ‘of paramount importance’. The Southeast Asian ‘have-not’ nations were ‘desperately anxious to be rid of the feelings of inferiority which they feel vis-a-vis the great industrial nations of the West’. To some extent Tunku’s ideas had ‘crystallised these aspirations’. Britain should not ‘adopt a grudging, negative or even merely a cautionary attitude at this stage’.76 The British embassy in Saigon thought the SEAFET project had from the start been ‘bedevilled’ by the ‘disparate political – and economic – preoccupations’ of the various countries. Even the committed countries had been ‘singularly unenthusiastic about getting together’, partly for ‘reasons of national or personal prestige’. Tunku and Serrano had been vying for leadership ‘with the result that they have both crowded on too much sail’. That ‘had taken them so far and so fast as to alarm not only the neutrals but also the other committed countries’. Tunku was now talking more of ‘gradualness’, starting with a minimum number, hoping others will be attracted. ‘Unfortunately, the initial membership is not calculated

ASA and ASEAN 111 to reduce the political obstacles to enrolment of neutrals.’ Nor was it clear whether Malaya and the Philippines were still contemplating the inclusion of North Vietnam. That would rule out including South Vietnam. In any case, it was likely to look to Nationalist China ‘as the repository of the ancient Chinese virtues, traditions and talents’. Its economy was ‘competitive’ rather than ‘complementary’ so far as the economies of other countries in Southeast Asia were concerned. Nor would Diem ‘relish playing among the second violins’. Perhaps the only solution after all was, however, ‘to leave SEAFET to grow by attraction as the Tunku hopes, even if it has to be built up round the committed countries, and not the neutrals as we had hoped’.77 That was the course that was pursued. Garcia visited KL in early February 1961, and Thanat followed on the 11th, for talks on ASAS with Tunku and Serrano.78 In a communique issued on the 13th, the three reaffirmed their ideal as ‘close cooperation which would be non-political in character, independent in every way of any power blocks and essentially one of joint endeavour for the common good of the region in the economic and political fields’. They would not wish to preclude other states from joining.79 Thailand, the Bangkok embassy suggested, had become more conscious of its relative isolation as a result of the crisis in Laos, where the SU was strongly backing Kong Le,80 but it was still only ‘playing it along’.81 Subandrio called the Association ‘an unrealistic endeavour’.82 The first meeting of the Thai, Malayan and Philippine working groups was scheduled for Bangkok in mid-June 1961. An article in the Manila Bulletin suggested the topics the Philippines group would put forward, including the promotion of regional trade through preferential trade agreements (PTAs), lowering of tariffs, and free trade in selective commodities, and a range of cultural, social and educational projects, including the establishment of reading centres, the exchange of publications, the teaching of the language and history of the various nations, and scholarships and academic exchange. The correspondent said the group would propose joint ventures (JVs), such as steel mills, and other JVs in aviation and shipping, designed to avoid ‘harmful competition’. The Foreign Secretary, he said, had told a Rotary Club that the organisation might be a means by which the government could ‘further its policy of promoting closer relations among Asian countries’, and ‘revive the mainsprings of its Asian identity’. Serrano told the British chargé that the report was partly accurate, partly guesswork. He had told the delegation it should have ‘modest objectives’.83 The meeting got under way on 19 June 1961. It was opened by Thanat, who spoke in ‘eloquent but general terms’ of the ‘edifice of neighbourly cooperation’: it was ‘directed against no one’, but designed to enhance the welfare of the respective nations through cooperation in the economic and cultural fields. The communique, issued on 22 June 1961, reiterated the ideals of February 1961, noting that the conference had covered a wide range of possible forms of cooperation, discussed the organisation of the Association, and prepared a draft agenda for a meeting of foreign ministers. No details had been revealed, and the British embassy remained doubtful that Thailand would ‘match the enthusiasm of the other two countries’.84 Indonesia was critical. Opinion there, said Sumito,

112 The view from within secretary-general of the ministry of foreign affairs, saw the Malayan proposal as ‘the SEATO countries’ efforts to make a subtle link between SEATO and non-SEATO countries in Asia’.85 The foreign ministers met in Bangkok and their declaration, issued on 31 July 1961, established the Association of Southeast Asian States (ASA). Its machinery was to include an annual meeting of foreign ministers, preceded by a meeting of the joint working party; a standing committee, chaired by the foreign minister of the host country, and including the diplomatic representatives in its capital; ad hoc and permanent specialist committees; and a national secretariat in each country.86 ASA means ‘hope’ in three languages, the London Times reported.87 There was a further context for these exchanges: the developments in Indonesia and in its foreign policy. The rebellion had prompted substantial acquisition of arms, particularly from the Soviet bloc. That had in turn enhanced the prospect that, once the rebellion had been suppressed, Indonesia might use its strength elsewhere, to secure the incorporation of West New Guinea, for example, perhaps even to exert pressure over the Borneo territories. It seems indeed that Tunku became apprehensive about their future during the crisis precipitated by the despatch of the Dutch aircraft carrier Karel Doorman to New Guinea waters in May 1960. On 10 June 1960 he raised the question of enlarging the Federation to include Singapore, North Borneo, Sarawak and Brunei.88 This ‘Greater Malaysia’ was not a novel idea, but one he took up. By August 1961 the British Foreign Secretary was able to report that Tunku believed he could absorb Singapore by bringing in the Borneo territories ‘to redress the racial balance; at the same time this might forestall Indonesian ambitions in the area’.89 Tunku believed Indonesia should take over West New Guinea, but decolonisation must not give it the Borneo territories, a possible step towards ‘Indonesia Raya’. But what seemed preventive to him seemed provocative to the Indonesians. They had no successionist claims to Borneo, as they had to New Guinea. But the proposal, if not a threat, was at least an affront. ASA was bad enough: this was worse. In fact ASA itself was damaged by the Malaysia plan because the Philippines disputed the incorporation of North Borneo. In Malaya’s feelings towards Indonesia, Martin Moynihan of the British High Commission had commented in November 1961, rivalry and resentment were mixed with sympathy and respect. In the late 1940s Indonesia had ‘a strong magnetism for Malaya and Malay nationalists could respectably advocate absorption into a Greater Indonesia’. Something of that attitude still survived in the PMIP and the Partai Negara: ‘witness their contributions to the recent debate on Greater Malaysia’. Two factors had led to a change of heart: the different attitudes to communism; and the rebellion of 1958, when Malaya’s sympathies, ‘though never openly expressed’, lay with the Sumatrans. Tunku had hoped to work in harmony, and appointed Senu, ‘one of his oldest and most trusted colleagues’, as ambassador in Jakarta. His initiatives had, however, never been welcome. True, he had launched ASA precipitately, but it was not by his design that the only two supporters were closely aligned with the US. There were, however, ‘acrimonious exchanges’ with Subandrio, and Malaya

ASA and ASEAN 113 and Indonesia approached other issues – like Tibet and the Congo – from different angles. Indonesia could ‘hardly be expected to overlook the fact that Malaya’s independence came ten years after her own struggle for freedom, or that Malaya is scarcely a tenth of her size. Tunku’s easy assumption of a share in the leadership of South East Asia must therefore seem an upstart one and his record of domestic success the more galling.’ When Tunku announced his plan for Greater Malaysia, Indonesia’s response was ‘distinctly cool. One wondered, indeed, whether Indonesian leaders felt that Tunku had forestalled any plans which they themselves might have had for claiming the remainder of the Borneo “mainland.” Some Malays would even say that Djakarta was disturbed lest the formation of Malaysia should encourage dissidents in Sumatra to hold out against the Central Indonesian authorities in the hope of seeking a merger between Sumatra and Malaysia.’ If it came about Malaysia would ‘inevitably enhance the Federation’s status as the anti-Communist bastion in this part of the world’, and that in itself was unlikely to commend it to Sukarno and Subandrio. The occasion for this analysis was the informal visit to KL made by Ruslan Abdulgani, Vice-President of the Supreme Council of Indonesia, in November 1961. Tunku told the British High Commissioner that Abdulgani was concerned to find out to what extent ASA was ‘an anti-Communist affair’. Indonesia’s opposition to it, he claimed, rested on its anti-communist basis: the government could not be anti-communist as it wished to use the PKI in pursuit of national objectives, though intending to sever its links with the main communist powers. ASA, Tunku replied, was ‘not properly speaking anti-Communist’, though its members happened to be so. ‘The real object of the Association was to build up economic and social standards’. Greater Malaysia would free Borneo from colonialism and prevent its becoming ‘a breeding ground for Communism’, which was consistent with Indonesia’s objective of cutting off the PKI from international communism. Abdulgani professed to be happy about Malaysia, and Tunku said he would support opposition to the Dutch resolution on West New Guinea at the UN. The visit perhaps related to a tussle in Indonesia between the PKI and those anti-communist at heart.90 The second meeting of the ASA Foreign Ministers was held in KL and Cameron Highlands 3–6 April 1962. They agreed on a number of projects in furtherance of the objectives of the Bangkok declaration: concluding a multilateral agreement on trade and navigation; moderating visa requirements; jointly promoting tourism; considering a reduced rate for press telegrams; inaugurating a through rail service between KL and Bangkok; and extending the microwave telecommunications link between KL and Haadyai. They also agreed on steps to improve technical cooperation and student exchange and decided to seek their governments’ approval for establishing an ASA fund to finance ASA projects.91 The communique, Moynihan thought, suggested that ‘progress, although real’, had not been ‘spectacular’. The three-cornered trade agreement was unlikely to stimulate trade, since the opportunities were so limited: the economies were similar. The trade agreements Malaya had so far made suggested it subscribed to

114 The view from within a multilateral policy, ‘so that the most probable outcome among the A.S.A. partners seems likely to be an innocuous type of agreement according m.f.n. treatment to each other and attaching lists of goods which each country will hope to trade in’. The ASA Fund was an idea of Tunku’s, and the Malayan government had matched the Thai offer of Straits $1 m. The communique was silent over a common line on commodity policy and over joint shipping and aviation services, though they must have been discussed. The through train had, however, been inaugurated on 22 April 1961, and the exchange of scholars and experts was to be effected ‘without further ado’. ASA meetings would now be ‘a regular feature in the South East Asia calendar’, Moynihan thought, and would serve to bring ministers into closer contact. To that extent Tunku, ‘despite initial difficulties’, had gained an objective. ‘How far friendly contact between officials and Ministers can produce any really solid results, particularly since the economies of the three countries are similar rather than complementary’, remained to be seen.92 Southeast Asia was a ‘geographical expression’, Johnson, the Deputy Under-Secretary for Political Affairs at the State Department in Washington, had declared. ‘In the conviction that any real unity must come from within the area, we have long quietly encouraged incipient movements towards some unity, especially those initiatives that have been taken by Malaya, Thailand and the Philippines’, he added. The Bangkok meeting mid-1961 suggested that such efforts were ‘bearing some small fruit’.93 In October Secretary of State Dean Rusk complimented Thanat on Thailand’s initiative in organising ASA. He replied that it was ‘a small beginning’, and that his country wanted to see it ‘strengthened and become more effective before promoting its extension to other states’.94 Soviet propaganda presented ASA as an appendage of SEATO, ‘a means for enticing Southeast Asian neutral states into SEATO’. Undoubtedly, the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research thought, the Russians were ‘concerned by the new approach to regional cooperation in Southeast Asia’, and viewed ASA as ‘a potentially effective device for arresting further communist expansion in the area’.95 The UK saw ASA not as enticing neutrals into SEATO, but as making up for its unattractiveness. In that sense it would indeed help to keep neutrals from turning to the Bloc in face of Western ‘imperialism’: hence the propaganda. The British had seen that it was necessary not to demonstrate their support for the association too obviously. Secretary of State Dean Rusk wanted them to support it, but for somewhat similar reasons. ‘Some countries in the area, who might be potential members of the organisation, appeared to be afraid that it was simply another United States device to maintain political control’, he told Lord Home, the British Foreign Secretary, in June 1962. ‘He hoped that the United Kingdom would feel able to use its influence to bring the organisation into being. . . . He hoped that, in their talks with Tunku, United Kingdom Ministers would endeavour to convince him that the proposed organisation would enhance the peace and stability of the area.’ Possibly Burma, now under Ne Win’s control, might join.96 The previous year Sir R. Allen had told the FO that Western support would be the kiss of death for ASA, so far as Burma was concerned. Was that still

ASA and ASEAN 115 the case?97 Ne Win had said he was in favour of cooperation among Southeast Asian governments. But the Revolutionary Council could not do much about it until domestic conditions were more stable, Allen thought, and his advice still stood. It would be unwise for Britain to go further than encourage Tunku to pursue the matter personally with Ne Win when opportunity offered. Perhaps he could be encouraged to set up a mission in Rangoon. Burma had one in KL.98 By this time, indeed, it seemed that ASA might not expand, but disintegrate. On its first anniversary, 31 July 1962, Thanat referred to ‘some modest achievements’ on ASA’s part. ‘[T]he realisation of Malaysia would add to the strength of ASA’, he said, and the Philippines claim to North Borneo ‘would not affect the organisation, which might in fact be of help, at least as a forum for private and friendly discussions. He said that there was no need to think of extending the membership of ASA until the practical achievements of the organisation attracted other countries to it.’99 Thanat was too optimistic over the claim, which the new President, Diosdado Macapagal, had put forward in June.100 It was a claim in which he had long been interested, and which, difficult as it had been to press against the British, he recognised would be even more difficult to pursue if the territory was incorporated in an independent state. He put it, moreover, in the context of a Malayan Confederation, initially involving Malaya, then – after the Brunei revolt of December 1962 – involving Indonesia as well.101 That would boost the Philippines’ anti-colonial image, at the same time responding to a longstanding pan-Malayan element in Filipino nationalism. It was, however, rather at odds with ASA, associated with Macapagal’s predecessor. ‘Manny, you’ve got to go slow on this ASA thing’, Macapagal allegedly told Pelaez, Vice-President and Foreign Secretary; ‘our foreign policy effort has to focus on North Borneo, and everything else must take a back seat.’102 But it may be possible to argue that – while Macapagal wanted to pursue the claim, perhaps reaching a negotiated settlement, prompted by unofficially supporting a campaign led by Muslim Filipinos, as suggested by a UP study – he also wanted to restrain Indonesia by bringing it into a confederation which – unlike ASA – it was prepared to join, and that the confederation was not, as Gordon suggests, a ‘mere tactic’.103 The Philippines, Macapagal told Congress in his State of the Nation address in 1963, had ‘a valid and historic claim to North Borneo. In addition, the pursuit of the claim is itself vital to our national security.’104 The second sentence may have had its own validity. An article by a former chief of military intelligence, Carlos J. Albert, published on 20 January 1963, called attention to Indonesia’s arms build-up: ‘an entirely new and disturbing factor’, a ‘most ominous development’. He also called attention to the possibility of an Indonesian propaganda campaign among the Muslim Filipinos, magnifying their grievances, and of ‘stage-managed incidents’ and supply of arms, creating ‘a most serious national security situation for the Philippines’.105 The authors of the UP paper had indeed considered what might happen if Indonesia were ‘left out’. Philippine–Indonesian relations would be strained. Would the defence arrangements of the confederation ‘offset or neutralise’ Indonesia’s attraction to the Muslims of Mindanao? If it was included, Indonesia

116 The view from within would overshadow the other members. It would be natural for Malaya and the Philippines to ‘gravitate closer toward each other to maintain a closer balance between member states’.106 A step towards the final decolonisation of Southeast Asia, the Malaysia plans thus proved to stand in the way of developing ASA. They also provoked Indonesia. Its reaction had initially been unenthusiastic, but, at least before the Bunker agreement for the transfer of West New Guinea was concluded in August 1962, not openly opposed. Its opposition was stepped up after the Brunei revolt in December 1962. On 20 January 1963 Subandrio proclaimed in a speech: ‘We cannot but adopt a policy of confrontation against Malaya because at present they represent themselves as accomplices of the neo-colonialists and neo-imperialists pursuing a hostile policy towards Indonesia.’107 ‘Confrontation’ had described the policy adopted towards the Dutch over New Guinea. Now it was deployed against a neighbour. Pelaez hoped to bring Sukarno to the conference table with the ASA leaders. During the ECAFE meeting in Manila in March, attended by Razak and Subandrio, Macapagal called for friendly relations. On what basis could they be restored? Indonesia could not drop confrontation without some face-saving device, while the Tunku could not admit that Malaysia depended on Indonesia’s approval. The focus might be on security: the extension of the Anglo-Malayan defence agreement to Borneo. That could be discussed within the framework of the confederation concept. Talks among officials were to prepare a foreign ministers’ meeting, itself preceding a summit.108 Before that process began, an ASA meeting in Manila had got off to ‘a none too happy start’ on 2 April 1963, thanks to the Tunku’s speech. Before he left KL, he had suggested that Macapagal might not be very well informed about Malaysia or might have been misinformed. His speech began by ‘stressing eloquently the need for ASA and the extreme importance of showing the rest of the world that, left to themselves, Asians could make regional organisations work’. He went on, however, ‘to launch a thinly-veiled attack on Indonesia’. Unlike Malaya and the Philippines, it had been unable to sustain good relations with its former rulers, and had in desperation to bring out anti-imperialism. ‘We must’, he added, ‘be on our guard against the enemies who take the guise of friends, whose aim is to break ASA.’ No doubt, the British ambassador, John Pilcher, commented, he was trying to drive a wedge between the Philippines and Indonesia before the tripartite talks. By contrast the Thai foreign minister stressed that ASA nations must ‘leave political rancours to one side and work hard together’. Only thus ‘could the organisation be saved from destruction’. Pelaez stressed that ASA was important to the three countries.109 The ASA meeting approved some 170 recommendations. Those included establishing a US$3 m fund for ASA projects, each country contributing equally; consulting on a commerce and navigation agreement; studying the possible relaxation of trade restrictions; exploring the possibility of establishing a ‘free trade area’ initially in respect of certain commodities; studying the setting-up of an ASA airline and shipping line; adding impetus to the joint promotion of tourism;

ASA and ASEAN 117 focusing particular areas of research on particular members; and setting up a working party to consider establishing a secretariat.110 But attention was clearly focused on the Malaysia question and the possibility of tripartite talks. Tunku said he had been thinking of Africa. He told a press conference that the Philippines claim could be considered after the formation of Malaysia. Privately Macapagal admitted sharing suspicion of the Indonesian leaders, and Tunku was convinced he had made no prior agreement with Sukarno to balk Malaysia.111 Three-way meetings at the official level followed, but no summit meeting. ‘Malaysia is neocolonialism’, Sukarno proclaimed. Sukarno was ‘acting like a Hitler’, Tunku riposted.112 Late in May, however, they met in Tokyo, and recalled the friendship treaty of 1959.113 The foreign ministers, meeting in Manila on 7–11 June, decided that an ‘impartial authority’ would endeavour to ascertain whether the Borneo peoples wished to join Malaysia or not, and Macapagal won approval for his confederation in the form of Malaysia–Philippines–Indonesia,114 ‘a grouping of states which would work “together in closest harmony but without surrendering any portion of their sovereignty” ’.115 The three countries, the report declared, shared ‘a primary responsibility’ for the security of the area.116 The confederation, Pelaez declared, would ‘stand as a powerful bastion against aggression from any quarter and ensure that ours would remain a region of peace and friendship’.117 The planned summit was, however, put in question when Sukarno charged that Tunku’s insistence that Malaysia be formed on 31 August 1963 – the anniversary of Malaya’s independence – was a betrayal. The summit took place on 31 July– 5 August. The joint statement now made reference to such Indonesian concepts as musjawarah or consultation and the A-A spirit. It also declared that the foreign military bases in the region were ‘temporary in nature’, and ‘should not be allowed to be used directly or indirectly to subvert the national independence of any of the three countries’. In accordance with the principle in the Bandung declaration (6a), the three countries would ‘abstain from the use of arrangements of collective defense to serve the particular interests of any of the three big powers’.118 Indonesia no doubt had in mind the rebels’ use of foreign bases in 1958, but the clause also staked a larger claim to leadership as part of the price for accepting Malaysia. Tunku said he would postpone the date for a few days if necessary. A UN team began its work, but new arguments arose over the number of ‘observers’ each country might send. The Tunku announced on 14 September 1963 – one day after Thant conveyed the conclusion119 – that Malaysia would come into being on 16 September. Indonesia and the Philippines announced that they could not at once recognise it.120 Manila–KL relations were severed. And ‘confrontation’ deepened. In May 1963 a former ambassador in Jakarta, Juan M. Arreglado, had argued in an article in the Progressive Review that the Philippines had no truer friend in all Asia than Indonesia. It was in Manila’s interest to have a strong, united and stable Indonesia ‘rather than a weak Indonesia which might become the victim of subversion and disintegrative tendencies’.121 That was an implicit criticism of Serrano. He also criticised Albert. It was for Indonesia to decide the size of its

118 The view from within forces, for it had the primary duty to defend the country and its territorial integrity. That was a criticism of the Philippines’ reliance on SEATO.122 UnderSecretary Salvador P. Lopez shared such views. Long attracted to the panMalayan idea,123 he saw little value in ASA, by contrast to Pelaez, who downplayed ‘Maphilindo’. In July he took over the Foreign Secretaryship when Pelaez resigned in the wake of corruption charges instigated by Macapagal,124 and played a leading role in the tripartite discussions of 1963–4. The subsequent development of confrontation left Macapagal and Lopez exposed to domestic criticism. In May 1964 Lopez was in turn relieved from his post. Consular relations were re-established. Eventually Macapagal declared that he deplored the dropping of Indonesian guerrillas on the Peninsula.125 The Sabah claim was not dropped. Though he was not immediately overthrown, the Gestapu coup of 30 September 1965 brought Sukarno’s career to a halt. It also held out the prospect of an end to confrontation, though the ruling triumvirate, Suharto, Adam Malik and the Sultan of Jogjakarta, did not abandon it at once.126 Late in November 1965 the Thai foreign minister expressed his hope that ASA would be revived. Tunku spoke of expanding it. One thing at a time, said Thanat, though Singapore – which had been extruded from Malaysia in August – would be welcome. Revival awaited a decision from the Philippines, and he spoke of mediation.127 ‘How would we regard a revival?’Arthur de la Mare asked at the FO in London. ‘On general grounds anything that brings the countries of the area together should be welcomed.’ ‘ASA lacks the taint of Malay ethnic grouping which makes Maphilindo anathema to Singapore and suspect to Thailand.’128 There was a need for a new approach to regionalism, Foreign Secretary Narciso Ramos told the new President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos, early in 1966, and his country was well suited to lead it, partly because the ADB headquarters had just been established in Manila. With a renewal of relations with Malaysia, reactivating ASA would be vital; but while the Philippines was ‘committed to all that ASA stands for, it would not be to its national interest to pronounce a sentence of doom for MAPHILINDO, which Indonesia might consider as a rebuff against her’. If reactivating ASA were favoured, it should be spelled out as ‘a transitory arrangement, a stepping stone, toward the formation of the Organization of Asian States, with a call for wider collective action to achieve Asian progress’.129 The Philippines ‘poured cold water’ on a revival of ASA ‘because it had no attraction for the neutrals’ and on Maphilindo ‘because it is tainted with confrontation’. At the British FO, James Cable thought that ‘the most likely possibility’ of reviving ASA might be ‘in the context of the inclusion of Singapore and a rapprochement in Singapore–Indonesian and Malaysian–Indonesian relations. Singapore might provide a neutralist ballast which could eventually attract the Burmese and perhaps even the Cambodians. But our attitude to all such endeavours ought . . . , both publicly and in private, to be as non-committal and disinterested as possible’.130 Francis D’Costa, acting Permanent Secretary of the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Singapore had no interest in joining

ASA and ASEAN 119 ASA as its members were ‘aligned’.131 ‘If there is to be a closer grouping of states in S.E. Asia, Singapore would be well-advised to push a concept that is basically economic and political, rather than ethnic, as Maphilindo is’, a British official commented.132 During William Bundy’s visit to Thailand in March, Thanat spoke of the need to build up ASA and to hold a meeting of the foreign ministers as soon as possible. The Indonesian attitude ought not to be allowed to block a very early normalisation of Malaysia/Philippines relations, he said, but he stopped short of offering mediation.133 The Malaysian ambassador said there could be a meeting even if relations had not been normalised, but Thanat said that normalisation must come first.134 It was not true that Maphilindo was dead, as Bundy seemed to think, J.M. Addis wrote from Manila: it was ‘not even moribund’. Indeed Manila and Jakarta had exchanged envoys to discuss possible Philippines mediation between Indonesia and Malaysia. True, Malaysia was suspicious of it, and, as Macapagal’s brainchild, it was not popular with his successor. The idea behind it had, however, a validity: that if there were to be ‘stability’ in Southeast Asia, ‘there must be some reasonable working arrangements for cooperation between Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines’. It was one of a number of groupings that could contribute. ASA was another, and others might emerge from cooperation under ECAFE or ADB. The former colonial territories were ‘trying to find their way out of the artificial barriers imposed by their history into a new pattern of relationships. They are not likely to find a single formula at once to satisfy their requirements.’ Maphilindo was important as the only current formula that brought Indonesia in. It would be ‘just as good if ASA were expanded to include some kind of association with Indonesia. The important point is that Indonesia, the vast and uncomfortable neighbour, must be brought into a working relationship with Malaysia and the Philippines. Even people who think principally in terms of the containment of China must surely concede that that is a sound objective.’135 At the High Commission in KL, Michael Walker agreed that it was ‘essential for Western interests to find ways and means to bring Indonesia into the comity of South East Asian nations’. Recent developments in Indonesia had made that prospect more encouraging, but, given Malaysia’s attitude, Maphilindo was not an organisation likely to contribute to the objective. Tunku’s sights were set on reviving ASA. If it prospered, the Malaysians did not exclude the possibility that Indonesia might join, ‘just as they were in favour of Indonesian participation when it was first set up in 1959’. Malaysia wanted to avoid an association based on ‘purely racial affinities’, ‘understandable enough in a multi-racial country’. It also wanted to build up a viable relationship with Thailand and the Philippines through ASA, in order ‘to produce a counterbalance to the far greater size and potential of Indonesia which will be needed when the time comes for trying to establish a sensible relationship with that country as well’. It was in Britain’s interests ‘to do what we can to see that this Malaysian policy prospers’.136 Bundy suggested that, if ASA continued in a low key, it might offer in due course ‘a haven for Ne Win’, who was conscious of Burma’s ‘isolation’.

120 The view from within The British embassy in Rangoon wondered, however, whether ‘isolation’ was the right word: ‘deliberate non-involvement’ would be a better phrase. That Ne Win thought was ‘the best, perhaps the only safe, policy for Burma to follow for the time being. He cannot afford to have any outside interference in Burma, and his efforts to keep all countries equally at arms length seem . . . to be clearly designed to give those which might be most likely to interfere with the least possible excuse for doing so.’ He also preferred bilateral relations, fighting shy of international organisations ‘because he is afraid that within them he might be compelled to take sides’. He was unlikely to join ASA, and it would not be desirable to press him to do so.137 Head of KOSTRAD, the Strategic Reserve, Suharto had even in 1964 been seeking a way of bringing confrontation to an end, and set up Operasi Khusus, headed by Ali Murtopo, to find contacts in Malaysia.138 In May 1966 high-ranking officers of KOGAM (Crush Malaysia Command) visited KL, and Malik met Razak at the end of the month in Bangkok. Razak spoke of ‘laying the foundations of peace’, but no details emerged about the Bangkok accord, perhaps because Malik still had to carry his point at home.139 After a KOGAM meeting on 10 June, Ghazali, whose wife was related to Malik, visited Jakarta for secret talks with Suharto, and then Benny Moerdani was sent to KL as de facto representative.140 After a new cabinet had met in Jakarta on 4 August, it was announced that confrontation would end before 17 August, independence day. Razak visited Jakarta on 16 August and signed an agreement covering the cessation of hostile acts and the establishment of diplomatic relations, and providing that Malaysia would give the people of Sabah and Sarawak an opportunity of ‘reaffirming’ their previous decision about their status in Malaysia through general elections,141 a ‘quick run round the course’ as the London Times put it.142 That provision, put in a secret but leaked memorandum, was made because Suharto and the army leaders thought Malik seemed too ready to appease the Malaysians, and it was designed to make the agreement look less humiliating.143 Malik had told reporters after the meeting in Bangkok that he, and the Malaysian, Thai and Filipino foreign ministers had all been thinking of an association of Southeast Asian nations ‘which might be regarded as an expansion of Maphilindo under a different name’. Indonesia was not taking part in the 9-nation meeting in Seoul that inaugurated the Asian and Pacific Council (ASPAC) – an initiative of South Korea and Thailand intended to explore cooperation against Communist expansion – but the present idea was parallel. Thanat said that any country interested in peaceful collaboration was welcome, including Cambodia. Asked whether such an association could replace SEATO, he said it might ‘bow out’ when regional cooperation was strong enough.144 He later claimed that he put forward the idea of a new organisation to replace ASA at a banquet to celebrate the post-confrontation reconciliation.145 In Jakarta Malik told the French ambassador that he would ensure Sukarno’s acceptance by assuring him he would be the first chairman.146 Thanat and the Malaysians wanted Burma to join, and the Thais had hinted that Singapore should apply.147 ‘We look forward to a regional association embracing Thailand, Burma, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam’,

ASA and ASEAN 121 Ismail, acting foreign minister of Malaysia, told the Foreign Correspondents’ Association. ‘Such a community would not be a military alliance. It would not be an anti-communist alliance. Nor, for that matter, would it be an anti-Western alliance. . . . I myself envisage an organization which would be first and last, pro-Southeast Asia, pro-development, pro-regional cooperation and pro-peace.’148 The ASA foreign ministers met in August. There was, the British embassy in Bangkok reported, ‘a good deal of loose talk in the Bangkok press about the need for a Common Market’, but the difficulties were formidable, and progress would be made in more limited spheres. The foreign ministers also discussed the expansion of ASA.149 But the main event was the appeal by the three ministers to Asian countries to take the initiative to bring about an honourable solution for the early settlement of the Vietnam conflict.150 As R.S. Scrivener reported, that overshadowed the other, mainly economic, matters ASA discussed. He thought that it was not a US initiative, but a Thai one, the object being ‘to boost ASA by giving it a part to play in the most important political issue affecting this part of the world’, to express Thanat’s feeling that Asian states should have a greater voice on the issue, and ‘to build up the Thai Government’s image and in particular Thanat’s, as the settler of disputes in this area’, following the Malaysia/Indonesia agreement.151 But it perhaps went beyond that, pointing to a wish to deal with Vietnam within a process of regionalisation. In any case the PRC rejected it: ‘The ASA countries discussed in Bangkok how they could best serve the US policies of aggression and war in Asia.’152 Malik had told Michael Stewart, the British Foreign Secretary, that neither ASA nor Maphilindo ‘corresponded to the realities of the situation’. In August 1966 he told Paul Hasluck, Stewart’s Australian counterpart, that Indonesia could not join ASA. What was needed was ‘another body which would be an expansion involving elements of ASA and Maphilindo’. Its function would be close co-operation between neighbouring countries in economic, cultural and technical matters. ‘At some time it would be rather difficult to avoid discussion of defence’; but Indonesia did not want to stress that in the first place. The founder-members would be Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand. The Thais were apparently interested in Cambodia’s joining, and the Indonesians interested in Burma’s. Singapore would be a member, Malik added, ‘though he could not yet say whether a founder-member’. Hasluck, who had been in Seoul, pointed to the advantages of ASPAC and of the now anti-communist Indonesia’s being a member of that. ‘[I]t was not merely a matter of having security arrangements which avoided minor border incidents, e.g. between Thailand and Cambodia. The defence and security of South-east Asia were part of the world power situation. The problem of China involved world security. The resources of the region alone could not do much to help if, for example, Thailand were attacked.’ ‘[T]he Indonesian approach’, Malik replied, ‘was for the countries of the region to strengthen themselves in the first place and then, if necessary, for them to join together.’ Indonesia could not see itself ‘simply stringing along with a group of South-East powers already in association’, commented Horace Phillips at the British embassy. ‘[B]y virtue of its size and position’, it

122 The view from within regarded itself as ‘the potential leader in the area and, as such, will insist on being a founder-member of some new regional grouping’.153 Ramos reportedly told reporters in Bangkok that merging ASA and Maphilindo was a possible way of associating Indonesia and the ASA states. A meeting of Maphilindo might be needed, as he and Malik could not decide its future in the absence of Malaysia. Indonesia was ‘a natural prospective member’ of ASA. The name could be changed.154 Ramos also visited Jakarta, discussing Vietnam with Sukarno and Malik, and also regional association. The Philippines ambassador, Reyes, told Phillips afterwards that the discussion had reinforced Ramos’ impression that Indonesia would not join ASA, ‘but might in time propose the formation of some new regional body of which Indonesia would be a founder-member and aspire to be leader’. The Philippines had ‘no objection in principle to the assumption of such a role by Indonesia. But the price which the Philippines hoped Indonesia would pay for this position would be acquiescence in the Philippines’ desire for the continuing presence of friendly non-Asian military power in SouthEast Asia for an interim period to give any new regional association time to cut its own military teeth.’ Phillips said Indonesia had ‘no great liking’ for the British base in Singapore, but appreciated its importance for the economy. Reyes said his government was thinking of a long period, an initial ten years, but open to extension; ‘indeed, since countries like the Philippines and Thailand were acutely aware of their weakness in the face of Chinese ambitions they would almost certainly make the running for an extension. They would hope to carry Indonesia with them in all this’, but the Philippines government feared that, while it might not object to British bases that could be removed at the wish of the host, it would find US-style 99-year lease arrangements unacceptable.155 Phillips also reported on Thanat’s visit: the discussion again indicated that Indonesia was unlikely to join ASA, ‘but might in time propose the formation of some new regional body of which Indonesia would be a founder-member and aspire to be leader’. Phillips learned from Malik’s chef du cabinet, Lubis, that he had ‘got wind of the beginnings of criticism in the Philippines of the American position there’. Indonesia had no intention of encouraging such agitation in Manila: no doubt Jakarta was ‘keenly aware’ of its need for US aid. ‘But he did not hide the fact that his Government would find it difficult to enter a regional association which included a neighbour who tolerated non-Asian privilege in its territory to the extent that the Philippines did.’ Thanat also accepted Indonesia’s offer to try to re-establish contact between Thailand and Cambodia, in return for Thailand’s help in bringing it together with Malaysia. Phillips did not think that either Malik or Suharto would move very actively on this or any other aspect of regional association ‘in the next few months at least’.156 In December 1966 Malik stated publicly ‘that Indonesia would take the lead in establishing regional economic and cultural co-operation to achieve a united South-East Asia’, in which Australia and New Zealand might ‘eventually’ take part, in order to stem what he called ‘yellow as well as white imperialism’. A week later, Maraden Panggabean, deputy Army CinC, declared that Indonesia must, in face of ‘China’s ambitions in the region and aspirations towards nuclear

ASA and ASEAN 123 capability’, strengthen its armed forces so as to be able to join in a common defence effort with its neighbours. That proposal was criticised as one that would link Indonesian defence with Britain and Australia, ‘more or less tools of the United States’. Early in January Malik rejected a regional military alliance as against the principles of Indonesia’s national policy laid down by MPRS (Provisional People’s Consultative Assembly) – ‘Independent and active, opposed to imperialism and colonialism in all their forms, and participating in implementing a world role based on independence, abiding peace and social justice’157 – and as likely to conduce to war. Indonesia took the view that Southeast Asia’s security was ‘in the first instance the responsibility of the countries of the area themselves’. Malik reiterated that when Phillips saw him on 21 and 28 January 1967. A regional defence agreement was not, he realised, incompatible with ‘Asian defence by Asians themselves’: indeed he agreed that it seemed ‘a logical concomitant. But so long as some of these Asians have bilateral defence arrangements with the Western powers Indonesia cannot go in with them. To do so would be to expose the new regime here to criticism and attack for going against the MPRS – and this at a time when the Government is invoking MPRS decisions as a basis for solution of the more pressing problem of Sukarno.’ He had therefore decided to move towards regional co-operation in the economic, technical and cultural fields, starting with KL, Bangkok and Manila. ‘India was too far out of the region.’ Burma was ‘suspicious’. Thailand had to mend its fences with Cambodia before it would come in. The question of Australia and New Zealand association lay in the future. What of Singapore? Phillips asked. Malik ‘hastily’ added he would include it, but apparently there were ‘mixed feelings’ about it in Jakarta, and he was ‘in some difficulty with the Army’ on the issue. Razak’s statement in parliament in KL on 30 January 1967 suggested that Malaysia accepted the notion in replacement for Maphilindo. But Phillips was not certain that his concept of enlarging ASA by including Indonesia was what Malik had in mind. ‘True, the elements of the grouping . . . are the same; but he sees Indonesia not as a new adherent to ASA but as founder-member of something similar by another name.’158 Malik sent Panggabean up. In the circumstances the general alluded to, ‘Indonesia’s assistance would be confined to a thought and a prayer’.159 Panggabean was not alone, however. The army wanted to appeal to Indonesian nationalism, as Dewi Fortuna Anwar points out. In a SESKOAD publication of August 1966, Brig.-General Arjodamar argued for a confederation of Southeast Asian countries, allowing the dissemination of Pancasila and the ideals of the Indonesian revolution, and forming a base for Indonesia’s leadership of the African and Asian nations. The preamble to the Army’s Three Sacred Vows, published the same month, talked of its potential as ‘a regional military force’. A SESKOAD seminar in November 1966, which included Panggabean’s working paper, emphasised regional cooperation against colonialism and imperialism in all its manifestations.160 In fact, as Malik pointed out, the Indonesian army was in no position to undertake the defence of Southeast Asia. Making a pact would

124 The view from within transgress a national taboo and provoke domestic criticism, and it would be a sensitive matter in other countries.161 It was not merely, of course, a matter of civilian-military rivalry in Jakarta, but also a question of the longer-term security of Southeast Asia. How should it be provided? and what was Indonesia’s role in providing it? Both its current weakness and its potential strength suggested that its leadership must be conciliatory rather than hegemonic and regional defence must be diplomatic and Bandung-based. Phillips had discussed the Singapore base with Suharto himself. Was it still necessary now that relations with Britain had improved? or did the British government doubt his assurance that Indonesia had ‘no expansionist ambitions or aggressive intentions’? Phillips replied that the base existed to enable the UK to fulfil its obligations in Southeast Asia, and it contributed to employment on the island. Suharto said that he recognised the dangers from Communist China’s expansionism, but that Singapore was a target for it. ‘The defence of South-East Asia ought to be a matter for the countries of the area themselves’, and if the UK and allies helped in the supply of arms, ‘Indonesia could play a leading role in this’. Suharto did not press the point, though emphasising that, while he did not expect the base to be moved ‘overnight’, he saw it as a gradual process to be aimed at. Malik dismissed what Suharto had said ‘cynically’. Singapore was ‘a favourite topic among the military’. He kept reminding them that the base was economically important to the island, and that Southeast Asia could not defend itself in the foreseeable future. ‘He confided to us that he saw it simply as gambit to equip the army ostensibly for regional defence but in fact for continuance of its control over the 100 million people of Indonesia.’162 In Singapore the US embassy had learned that Thanat had proposed to the Malaysian government ‘the setting up of a regional defence organisation’, including also Indonesia and the Philippines. ‘The Americans subsequently learned from another source that this proposal was in fact Indonesian in origin.’ The draft was ‘to the effect that the signatory States, realising that foreign bases in the area were temporary in nature and that the countries of the region must be prepared to take responsibility for their own defence, agreed to set up an organisation for “common welfare and security” ’. Tunku had apparently rejected the proposal ‘on the grounds that the time was not yet ripe for a regional organisation of this kind’. Why, wondered J.W. Maslen of the British High Commission in Singapore, did the Indonesians not approach Malaysia direct? ‘Perhaps they felt an approach through the Thais would be less likely to arouse Malaysian suspicions.’ Why did the Thais agree? ‘Perhaps because Thanat Khoman sees himself as the leading proponent of regional co-operation.’163 In KL Walter Ayathuray, head of the Malaysian ASA secretariat gave the British High Commission a copy of the first draft of an agreement Thanat had sent Tunku in December, and information of subsequent exchanges. The Tunku had replied on 3 January 1967 that he was anxious to bring Indonesia into the ‘mainstream of South East Asia’, but had ‘grave misgivings’ about the proposal. It was a problem of timing. ‘As long as Soekarno remained President of Indonesia

ASA and ASEAN 125 and the struggle for power went on it would be dangerous to embark on such an enterprise.’ ASA should not be sacrificed for ‘uncertain benefits’, though it could assist Indonesia through bilateral contacts, helping it to get into ADB and ECAFE, and persuading industrialised countries to give it more aid.164 Thanat said he felt there was some urgency, lest Indonesia were ‘enticed to co-operate or associate herself with other nations hostile to both Malaysia and Thailand’. He thought, however, that ASA could co-exist with a new organisation until such time as their members found it convenient to merge.165 That, Tunku replied, allayed his fears. He attributed his cautious initial reaction to a fear lest a new arrangement should open Suharto and his government to criticism that could be exploited by ‘our enemies’. The object must be to support them, and he was sending Ghazali to Jakarta to see how this might best be done. He would discuss the issue with Thanat at Cameron Highlands in February: ‘by that time the situation in Indonesia might be clearer.’166 The draft agreement was in the form of a joint declaration by foreign ministers. It began by reciting their belief that the countries of Southeast Asia shared ‘the primary responsibility for ensuring the stability and maintaining the security of the area from subversion in any form or manifestation in order to preserve their respective national identity and to ensure peaceful and progressive national development in their respective countries and in their region in accordance with the ideals and aspirations of their peoples’. It also stated their agreement ‘that foreign bases are temporary in nature and should not be allowed to be used directly or indirectly to subvert the national independence of their countries, and that arrangements of collective defence should not be used to serve the particular interest of any of the big powers’. Peace, freedom, social justice and economic well-being, they affirmed, could best be attained by ‘fostering good understanding, good neighbourliness and active cooperation among their nations’. Their conviction was that ‘mutual cooperation in the economic and technical fields and cultural relationship’ would contribute to the welfare of their peoples and their mutual understanding. Desiring to establish ‘a firm foundation for common action to further regional cooperation in South East Asia’, the foreign ministers declared the establishment of the South East Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SEAARC). It aimed to ‘promote mutual understanding harmonious relations and friendly cooperation among the nations of the region’, ‘strengthen regional peace and security’, co-operate in promoting Southeast Asian studies, and generally ‘consult and cooperate with one another so as to achieve the aims and purposes of the association, to contribute more effectively to the work of existing international aid agencies, as well as to resolve any problems that may arise between them’. It also aimed to establish an effective machinery for consultation, for ‘active collaboration’, and for ‘mutual assistance in the economic, social, cultural, technical, scientific and administrative fields’; to provide training and research facilities in member countries for nationals and officials of other members; to provide machinery for collaboration in using resources, developing trade and industry, improving communications, and raising living standards; and to ‘consult and cooperate . . . in the study of the problems of commodity trade’.

126 The view from within Under the draft the Foreign Ministers also declared ‘that the association is in no way connected with any outside power or power blocs and is directed against no country, but represents the collective will of the nations of South East Asia to associate themselves for the mutual benefit of their respective peoples without surrendering any portion of their sovereignty, having as its objectives and through joint endeavour, the promotion of the well-being and the economic, social, technical and cultural progress of this region.’ The draft envisaged annual meetings of foreign ministers, preceded by meetings of the joint working party; a standing committee, chaired by the foreign minister of the host country or his representative, and including the ambassadors of the others; ad hoc and permanent committees on special subjects; and a national secretariat in each country. The association would be open for participation to all the states in the Southeast Asian region that subscribed to its purposes and principles.167 The agreement would proceed by declaration rather than by treaty, a more easily negotiated process, as the Geneva conference had found. In some ways the declaration echoed Maphilindo, in particular by its provision over foreign bases. That allowed for Indonesia’s sense of leadership, though that was both boosted and challenged by the inclusion of Thailand and the potential inclusion of Vietnam and the other mainland states. Like ASA, the venture was presented as non-political, even though such provisions as that on bases showed that was not the case. It adopted ASA’s machinery. Ayuthuray told W. Bentley of the UK High Commission that the paragraph on bases would have to come out, and that his ministry thought the draft came from Jakarta. Bentley thought it was odd that the Thais were sponsoring an Indonesian draft while accepting fresh US bases, but perhaps they assumed the reference to bases would be removed once negotiations began. Ayuthuray said that the Tunku’s agreement would be subject to three conditions: that Sukarno had disappeared before the association with Indonesia was formed; that ASA should remain ‘intact and separate’; and that the draft declaration would be substantially altered.168 In Bangkok Sir A. Rumbold wondered whether it was an Indonesian initiative – the new ambassador, Gen Yusuf, claimed that Indonesia had no plans to join a regional organisation – or a genuine initiative on Thanat’s part. Why did he put in – or accept the inclusion of – the bit about bases? Bentley had pointed to an inconsistency, but it might not exist. ‘Although the Thais and Thanat in particular would certainly want to do nothing to make it more difficult for the Americans or ourselves to retain forces in South East Asia for the foreseeable future not even Thanat in his heart of hearts really desires them to remain for ever. Thanat is just as xenophobic as anyone else.’ Moreover, ‘foreign bases’ could be a term of art: US forces were seen as guests at Thai bases. Or maybe Thanat assumed that, if it was an Indonesian draft, Malaysia would strike it out. Rumbold also wondered what Thanat had in mind when he wrote of the risk that Indonesia would associate with nations hostile to Malaysia and Thailand. Cambodia? Russia? Thanat’s vanity might have something to do with the project, he thought, but ‘we ourselves ought to welcome it’.169

ASA and ASEAN 127 That view was endorsed at the Commonwealth Office in London. Now that Tunku had endorsed the proposal, ‘albeit grudgingly and conditionally’, the prospect looked ‘a little brighter’, A.K. Mason thought. He was wise to keep ASA intact, given that it was ‘the one group in the area which is beginning to function in an effective, even if limited, way. Its success may indeed stem from its modest but realistic aims.’ It was ‘as well for us’ that Malaysia was ‘ready to go along with the scheme’. If it stood aloof, the other three countries might go ahead without it. Despite ‘its nodal position and relative prosperity’, its population was only 10 m as against the total 160 m of the other three. ‘Isolation in this way would surely increase her dependence on Britain.’ The disparaging reference to foreign bases and outside blocs was, Mason thought, ‘presumably entirely Indonesian in origin’, and would no doubt disappear or be modified. The door was left open to others, including Singapore, but Indonesia and Malaysia ‘might try to find reasons to exclude her’. The UK and its friends, Mason understood, ‘would not regard the formation of a non-Communist, possibly non-aligned, grouping in the area as an unwelcome development in view of its promise of increased stability of the right kind’. At the moment there seemed, however, no room for ‘discreet action’ to help it on.170 He told Bentley that, if the association got off the ground, it seemed ‘just as well for us’ that Tunku agreed to go along with it.171 Anwar Sani, director-general of the Indonesian foreign ministry, was planning to visit KL, Bangkok and Manila, preparing for a round by Malik himself, but that could not take place before the outcome of the parliamentary proceedings against Sukarno. The Philippines ambassador, as he told Phillips and the New Zealand chargé (Edmonds), urged his government not to object to Indonesia’s taking the initiative: ‘to give this country the credit is a small price to pay for having it participate with three “committed” countries, even only in matters other than defence’, though Reyes shared Phillips’ view that Malik and his colleagues still regarded the proposed association ‘largely as a front behind which consultations will proceed privately on political and eventually security matters’. Malik told the US chargé that Jakarta had to let KL make the running on Singapore. He also told Lydman that there would be no reference to security matters in the charter of the association. Phillips thought there was no disadvantage in that, so long as it was intended to discuss such issues in private. ‘Indeed it is probably all to the good.’ The Thai ambassador thought it would be ‘unwise to have any such reference if only because some South-East Asians may not yet have lost all their suspicions of Indonesian designs’.172 Malik’s line was ‘disturbed’ on 16 February 1967 when Kartasasmita, the deputy chairman of the parliamentary defence, security and foreign affairs commission, told the press in Jakarta that it was important to set up a Southeast Asian defence pact ‘to curb Chinese communist invasion’. He was, however, contradicted by the chairman. That restored the Malik line, which Anwar Sani would follow. The Indonesians might see nothing in the draft – apparently originating with Thanat – that was inconsistent with that line, Phillips suggested. The reference to foreign bases as ‘temporary in nature’ might be ‘a sop to the Indonesians’ that would meet the point Suharto had made, ‘while not (because of the “temporary”)

128 The view from within unacceptable to Malik . . . if it meant that he obtained what is ostensibly an agreement on regional co-operation explicitly in fields other than defence’. Would the qualified reference to bases, ‘even if eventually acceptable to the Siamese’, be acceptable to Singapore?173 Anwar Sani’s itinerary included Phnom Penh and possibly Rangoon. The object, Dewi Fortuna Anwar suggests, was to show the public that the government was ‘actively trying to court these two staunchly non-aligned countries’.174 He told Phillips that his aim was to try to ensure that the governments of Cambodia and Burma did not openly oppose the initiative. The draft was generally acceptable to Malik, he said, ‘because it made it clear that the proposed regional co-operation did not extend to defence’, so that Indonesia ‘no longer had inhibitions about going into formal association in other fields even though its partners . . . might have bilateral defence arrangements with Western powers’. In deference to ‘Army thinking’, he had been required to write into the Siamese draft ‘something to the effect that foreign bases in the area must be regarded as temporary’. Malik and he did not want to pick a quarrel with the army on the issue, Sani told Phillips, ‘though they still believed that the soldiers aim was to try to build up the strength of the armed forces on the pretext that South-East Asians (given a lead by Indonesia) should be able to defend themselves and thus get rid of foreign bases’. That, Malik and Sani thought, was ‘unrealistic, besides being undesirable from the domestic point of view’. With the recent Amsterdam meeting and the prospect of further US aid in mind, Suharto had good reason to go slow on criticising foreign bases, Phillips suggested. ‘But, notwithstanding the present reservations on defence mentioned by Sani, the Generals almost certainly see Indonesia’s eventual role as that of hegemony in a non-aligned defence arrangement. Even Malik, whether of his own volition or under pressure from the Army, may come to accept this view. Since such ambitions would necessarily eventually call in question existing bilateral defence agreements between other countries of the region and the West, Indonesian promotion of a new regional association bears watching.’175 The Australian High Commission in KL discussed regional cooperation with Zainal Abidin Sulong, Principal Assistant Secretary for South East Asian Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a member of Ghazali’s team. Malaysia’s preferred vehicle was still ASA and its preferred focus economic. Malaysia would have ‘strong reservation about formalised and serious political and defence co-operation with Indonesia for some time to come’. Zainal recognised, however, that Indonesia’s ‘attitude and participation’ were ‘the key to a broader and more embracing form of regional co-operation’. There were two ‘ingredients’. First, the government had to be made stable and secure. Second, ‘other countries of the region had to accept the Indonesian characteristic of being self-centred. Co-operation would only be possible by doing everything in a manner appearing to “help” Indonesians solve their own problems.’ That was the basis on Malaysia’s recent approaches, and would probably need to be the basis in future. ‘Thus the Bangkok Accord was reached in order to “help” Indonesia overcome its problems, and not as a settlement between two equal nations agreeing to end a dispute

ASA and ASEAN 129 on parity.’ Zainal contrasted the approach of Singapore, ‘which, he said, tried to “play it tough” all the time, and insisted on being treated as a nation of equal rating and importance to Indonesia despite its size and vulnerability’. He thought that ‘acceptance of Indonesia’s self centred characteristic’ would have to extend, ‘at least for some time’, to letting it ‘appear to be the dominant participant in any grouping’, and letting it ‘do a lot of the leading’. That would involve problems. Indonesia would ‘probably propose schemes of political co-operation far beyond Malaysia’s wishes, but this was something that would have to be lived with in order to encourage stability and reasonableness in Indonesia’. It was also a reason why regional cooperation would have to be limited to Southeast Asia. Indonesia had recently rebuffed a recent Indian overture. The Australians observed that Singapore was generally left off the list of partners. ‘We said we thought this was a pity, especially as it carried an overtone of racism.’ Zainal said it was not the work of Malaysia, as some would think. ‘[F]eelers put to Singapore to seek membership of ASA had been cold-shouldered’, and Jakarta was ‘less inclined towards Singapore’ than was KL. There was an element of racialism, he thought, but it was more a matter of distrusting Lee Kuan Yew. If KL came to feel that ostracism was primarily based on distrust and dislike of the Chinese, it would have to try to counter that feeling. ‘It would be not just a case of racism being bad in itself; there would also be a danger of a racial gang-up against Singapore forcing the Republic into the hands of Peking and creating serious morale and loyalty problems amongst Chinese Malaysians.’176 In KL Sani advocated ‘a new association which would have a political flavour and would extend to countries in the region east from Burma and south from China, but excluding North Vietnam’. The Malaysians apparently responded that they had no objection to an organisation with such a membership, ‘provided it was not designed ultimately to provide an Asian alternative presence in South Vietnam instead of the Americans’. They did not, however, want the organisation to be primarily political. They advised Sani ‘not to peddle his ideas in Manila for the time being, because if he did, the Filipinos would at once leak them and everyone would assume that the Americans were behind the whole concept’. The Straits Times reported, however, that Ramos had said that Sani had arrived in Manila to propose a new grouping.177 In Washington the Australians learned that Sani got nowhere with the Burmese, who were ‘suspicious that Indonesia had moved towards an aligned rightist orientation’, or the Cambodians, who could not yet join an organisation of which Thailand was a member, nor ‘contemplate any action while the Vietnam war continued’. The Filipinos expressed opposition to the bases formula ‘as harking back too closely to Maphilindo’, but were ready to think in terms of a new organisation, rather than an extension of ASA. Thanat’s activity, the State Department thought, arose from ‘his feeling that Thailand was at present too closely tied to SEATO and the West’. It interpreted Malaysia’s caution ‘as due generally to apprehension about Indonesian Regional Hegemony and about the implications of Indonesia’a attempts to attract Burma and Cambodia’. Lee Kuan Yew, it was said, had asked Bundy ‘not to push SEAARC too fast. Bundy had replied that the US was

130 The view from within not pushing it at all, but was generally in favour of closer regional cooperation in South East Asia’.178 The Filipinos, Ramos told Addis after Sani’s visit, recognised that Indonesia did not wish to be a late entrant to ASA, but they wanted the new association to be ‘concerned in the first instance with cultural and economic affairs, leaving its political and defence aspects to be developed at a later stage’. Asked by Addis if he thought the Sabah claim would affect the current moves towards a new regional association, Ramos thought not. He had seen reports that Malaysia intended to dispose of the matter through the elections in Sabah, but the ballot papers did not offer a referendum. The elections would not alter the fact the claim was ‘still a matter lying between the two Governments’. For his part he did not therefore think that the elections would cause difficulties between Malaysia and the Philippines or ‘prove an obstacle to developments towards regional co-operation’.179 In mid-April 1967 Malik declared that plans were going ahead for a new organisation, and Tunku declared that Indonesia could join ASA. ‘We already have our regional economic grouping.’180 Ayathuray told Bentley that Gen. Soenarso had visited KL after Sani, and Ghazali had seen Malik in Bangkok on 10 April. The Indonesians said that the Cambodians were interested in joining, but were inhibited by their dispute with the Thais: Ayathuray thought Malik might offer to mediate. The Indonesians had also told the Malaysians that the Burmese were ‘sympathetic’, but not ready to join themselves ‘for the time being’. Bentley remarked that the Indonesians ‘seemed to be carrying things forward quite fast’, and asked if there were not a risk that they would establish a new organisation whether or not Malaysia were willing to join it. In Ayathuray’s response, he thought he detected a concern lest Malaysia, isolating itself, would lose an opportunity to influence, for example, the terms of the declaration. Within an hour of that conversation, Ayuthuray got back to Bentley. The Malaysians, he insisted, was not against regional cooperation with Indonesia. ‘What frightened them was the bias in the present proposal towards the establishment of a regional grouping for defence. It seemed to them that the declaration, as at present drafted, might conceivably “give the Indonesians the right” in certain circumstances to station troops in Malaysia.’ The notion was ‘far fetched’, Bentley thought, and he was ‘puzzled to know why Ayathuray took the trouble to put it to me’. He said he had consulted Ghazali, and guessed ‘that either Ghazali wants us to think, or Ayathuray wants us to believe that Ghazali wants us to think: (a) that the Malaysians are not dragging their feet on regional co-operation (though they clearly are); (b) that if we withdraw from this region, we shall leave a vacuum into which the Indonesians will move’.181 The official version of the Tunku’s speech rather differed from the reported version. According to it, he said that ‘Malaysia would consider the setting up of a new and bigger organisation if there were more than ten Asian countries willing to participate, and if the new organisation were vastly different from ASA’. Perhaps, Bentley thought, the MFA had secured some editing. Ghazali had been to see Tunku before he left for Ceylon. Ayathuray told Bentley that Malaysia was

ASA and ASEAN 131 willing to attend a meeting of Southeast Asian countries to consider forming a new regional association, but did not consider such an association necessary. Indonesia could apply to join ASA. ‘Whether all this is a result of personal feeling on the part of the Tunku that the ASA, as his brain child, should not be by-passed, or whether it springs from a genuine belief that Indonesia is less likely to dominate and control an enlarged ASA than some new organisation of which she is a founder’, Bentley could not say: perhaps a mixture of the motives. But he thought the MFA in KL now ahead of Tunku, and he could not tell which view would prevail.182 Sani gave Phillips an account of his tour – interrupted by his recall for the meeting of the People’s Consultative Assembly that relegated Sukarno – and of Indonesia’s plans. Burma and Cambodia had been contacted, not with the expectation that they would join, but in the hope that they would not oppose. Singapore, it seemed, had no objection, but ‘would want to know more about the nature and terms’ before making a decision. Siam was ‘still solidly with Indonesia’, and the Philippines would ‘go along’, though Ramos ‘would have to be given an opportunity of being more closely associated with it’. The ‘greatest difficulty’ seemed now to lie with Malaysia. Razak and Ghazali were ‘enthusiastic’, but Tunku had come out in public in support of ASA. Sani had told Malik that his declaration was for ‘home consumption’. In any case Indonesia was not going to be deterred. It would work out the mechanics for implementing the eventual agreement, and, when the other three countries were agreed, Malik would go to Manila in order to associate the Philippines more directly with the organisation. Then the procedure for a preparatory conference would be considered, to take place not before the end of July. Whatever the Indonesian generals might say, Sani stressed, ‘it was still his and Malik’s firm intention to make it clear in public that the new organisation was not a defence arrangement. The basic document was still as drafted by the Siamese and added to by the Indonesians.’ It would probably still include the reference to the bases, ‘a sop to the Indonesian military’. The main emphasis would, however, be on ‘regional, technical and cultural co-operation’. Even so, the SU, like the PRC, was attacking the plan. That made it ‘all the more important that Indonesia and her regional partners should be seen to be shaping the plan entirely by themselves. The West should not appear to be giving it loud praise. This could only give ammunition to the Russians and others (and he had had wind of this in Kuala Lumpur) who even now were putting it about that it was the United States that was pressing Indonesia to take the lead in promoting the new organisation.’ Having discussed that with Bundy and the US ambassador, Phillips told Sani that he believed ‘that the Americans, like ourselves, fully realised the danger of this kind of talk; and that they had assured me they were not pressing Indonesia or any other party’.183 The moves to establish a new grouping, it seemed to Mason in London, had their origin in Indonesia, ‘with Malik seeking to establish what he sees as Indonesia’s rightful role of political leader in the area and the Indonesian military striving to inject defence policies into the plans’. The Indonesians had used

132 The view from within a ‘willing’ Thanat and, to a lesser extent, the Filipinos, but gained no real support from Malaysia. The Tunku’s opposition ‘stems from his doubts about Indonesian reliability as a founder member; from his suspicion of a U.S. plot to draw S.E. Asian countries into Vietnam; and from his attachment to his own creation’, ASA. There was ‘some indication’ that the foreign ministry took a less ‘jaundiced’ view, perhaps seeing ‘a danger of Malaysia becoming the odd man out if feet are dragged too much’. Singapore was apparently content to await developments, ‘anxious to get in on any economic co-operation but loath to be involved politically or militarily in a band of conservative, Western aligned states’. Other potential members seemed willing to leave the decision on Singapore’s membership to Malaysia, and it seemed to be ‘in two minds’. Britain’s interests, Mason concluded, would be served if a new grouping emerged, ‘but the Malaysian antipathy towards SEAARC because they suspect U.S. backing demonstrates the pitfalls of honest brokerage’.184 External Affairs in Canberra had also appraised the situation. Not wanting to be isolated, the Malaysians had dropped Tunku’s reservation over a new organisation, but would adopt a cautious approach to any proposals going beyond the economic and cultural. ‘They have a high opinion of Suharto and, on the one hand, want to draw Indonesia into harmonious and constructive relations with its neighbours while, on the other, they are fearful of Indonesia’s size and influence.’ If Indonesia were allowed to assume leadership in the region, that would ‘magnify its capacity for harm’ in the event of changes in its foreign policy. The Malaysians had also ‘got it into their heads’ that the scheme was ‘American promoted and aimed at the establishment of a regional defence organization to facilitate a United States withdrawal from the area’. In fact, the Americans were ‘taking the view that economic and social cooperation, which is all they foresee at this time, must be fostered by the countries concerned’. Singapore was leaving it to others to make the running. If the advantages of membership were mainly economic, and the group were not ‘identified with political aims which might conflict with Singapore’s “neutral” status’, it would probably join. It would favour the inclusion of Cambodia and Burma to ensure SEAARC’s neutral appearance and ‘offset its domination by the MAPHILINDO powers’. Malaysia now favoured including Singapore, so as ‘to assuage the fears of their own Chinese population about the implications of closer co-operation with demonstrably anti-Chinese governments in Djakarta and Manila’. The Indonesians saw Singapore’s inclusion as ‘a means of diluting the pro-Western flavour’ of the grouping. The Thais supported the proposal ‘mainly as a means of getting Indonesia involved in regional affairs, and reducing the prospects of it forming less desirable associations’. They also wished to offset criticism of their Western association. The Filipinos – though equivocating – would also participate because the grouping would offer an Asian identity and ‘an outlet for the more hypersensitive nationalistic streams in Filipino thinking’.185 At his meeting with Thanat on 20 May, according to MFA officials, Tunku ‘surprised everybody’ by changing his line. ‘He apparently told Thanat that,

ASA and ASEAN 133 though he was convinced the new association would be a failure, Malaysia could not afford to stand out from it and he was therefore prepared to see its formation announced as soon as Thanat thought fit. As for the ASA, that organization was now dead.’ Thanat said there was no reason to abandon it. ‘To this Tunku replied that ASA was in any case moribund because of the Philippines increasingly difficult attitude over Sabah and that there was no point in trying to keep it going: he hoped however that Thai/Malaysia cooperation would continue bilaterally along ASA lines.’ Officials could not explain Tunku’s about-face, ‘except possibly in terms of recent reports of increased Philippine interference in Sabah’, including alleged attempts to encourage secessionism in UPKO. But Bentley thought it ‘equally possible’ that Tunku saw no point in maintaining ASA ‘once an essentially parallel organization had been set up’.186 ‘[E]verybody’ in KL was ‘distinctly sour’ at this turn of events. ‘Tunku is sour at what I think he sees as a Thai/Indonesian conspiracy to rush him into a new association and destroy his ASA brain child.’ MFA was ‘sour’ with Tunku for abandoning without warning the line they had with some difficulty been trying to support. ‘And everybody seems to be sour at the Americans who, with what justification I cannot say, are generally believed to be behind this Thai/Indonesian “plot.” ’ It now seemed ‘fairly certain’ that the new organisation would be announced in the near future and be based on the draft charter. The New Zealand High Commission had probed MFA over the preambular reference to bases. Malaysia, the MFA said, would try to secure a change, but if it failed, the Ministry did not consider ‘that it would have any practical effect on the position of foreign forces in any of the countries concerned. In other words it all depends on what one means by “temporary” and because the declaration includes this reference to what might, in an ideal world, be the most desirable arrangement one should not suppose that bases in South East Asia would disappear with the adoption of the declaration.’187 Anwar Sani was in KL in early June and took a ‘conciliatory line’. He told Razak that Indonesia admired ASA, but could not join it ‘because of previous propaganda against it in Indonesia during confrontation’. It would be ‘a pity’ to break it up, since it could still do ‘valuable work’, and it might merge with SEAARC in the future. Indonesia would be glad to see the new organisation announced after the ASPAC meeting in Bangkok in July 1967 or after the ASA meeting in KL in August. Razak favoured the latter, hoping it might be made to coincide with Malaysia’s independence day. He made no attempt to follow Tunku’s line that ASA should be disbanded. MFA officials hoped Tunku would not insist, particularly if the announcement were made in KL. But the Thais might hold out for Bangkok.188 Indonesia, Bentley later reported, wanted the announcement to be made in KL after the ASA meeting. It probably saw that as a way of neutralising Tunku’s coolness.189 In the event the announcement was made in Bangkok. Ayathuray told Bentley ‘that when Malik passed through Bangkok just after the ASPAC meeting he was “got at” by Thanat Khoman, who told him that all the others concerned were agreed that the August meeting should be held in Bangkok: Malik therefore “had

134 The view from within no choice” but to agree; Thanat then turned round and presented the Malaysians with a fait accompli.’ He showed Bentley a telegram Razak had sent to Tunku in London, suggesting they had been ‘pushed around a bit’, but had to attend for the sake of ‘peace and cooperation’. The Malaysians, Bentley concluded, were ‘pretty lukewarm’ about SEAARC, feeling that they been ‘towed in the wake of Indonesia and Thailand’, but had no choice except to go along with it. Ayathuray thought ASA would ‘die a natural though possibly slow death once SEAARC has been established – what a waste of money and effort!’190 The joint declaration was drafted and re-drafted before the meeting, and Bentley found ‘all the rivalries and manoevrings behind the establishment of this new organisation both comic and unpromising for the future. One cannot help feeling that behind all this jostling for places in the South-East Asian pecking order lie genuine and profound differences that suggest the day of successful cooperation . . . must be further away than one would hope.’191 The five foreign ministers held informal discussions at Bangsaen, then drove to Bangkok, ‘rewrote’ the draft, and issued the ASEAN declaration on 8 August 1967. Press reports indicated that the preambular statement attracted most controversy during the discussions. The resulting declaration modified the ex-Maphilindo ‘Thanat’ draft to read: ‘foreign bases are temporary and remain only with the expressed concurrence of the countries concerned and are not intended to be used directly or indirectly to subvert the national independence and freedom of states in the area’. Malik remarked after the meeting that Indonesia left it to the countries concerned to determine how long bases would remain. ‘The statement concerning collective defence arrangements that served the interests of big powers was conspicuous by its absence.’192 ‘[W]hen we had to draft our communique’, Rajaratnam, the Singapore Foreign Minister later said, ‘it was a very difficult problem of trying to say nothing in about ten pages, which we did. Because at that time, we ourselves having launched ASEAN, were not quite sure where it was going or whether it was going anywhere at all.’193 The declaration borrowed from ASA and stressed economic collaboration. That suggested an interest in development and nation-building.194 In fact, the initial emphasis on economic cooperation derived from the fact that it was ‘relatively uncontroversial compared to co-operation in political or security matters’.195 ‘Rightly or wrongly, to countries still unaccustomed to working with one another, these subjects seemed less delicate and contention-ridden than political ones.’196 Political considerations were ‘played down’, but were, as Roger Irvine puts it, ‘of primary importance’. The principles in the preamble themselves suggested ‘at least the rudiments of a common political programme for the association’, and it was acknowledged from the beginning that political matters were discussed in private sessions.197 The motivations, Thanat said in 1968, were ‘not only economic, social; the motivations are certainly – I don’t shy from saying that – are certainly political.’198 States joined, as Lee Kuan Yew later put it, for ‘political objectives, stability, and security’.199 The ‘political overtones’ led to ‘some speculation’ that ASEAN was ‘yet another anti-communist grouping designed to counter, even if only indirectly, the

ASA and ASEAN 135 allegedly expansionist ambitions’ of the PRC. Other contemporary developments could also be ‘construed to provide an anti-communist rationale for ASEAN’, Roger Irvine suggests, such as the escalation of US involvement in Vietnam, the formation of ASPAC, and the conference of allies of Vietnam, hosted by the Philippines in October 1966.200 Certainly much of the secondary literature has taken this line. For example, Boas and Hveem tell us that ASEAN was founded ‘as a deliberate political act, that is, as a bulwark against what was perceived as the spread of world communism in the region’.201 At the inaugural meeting, indeed, Ramos declared that ‘the time has come for a truly concerted struggle against the forces which are arrayed against our very survival in these uncertain and critical times’, and at the ASA meeting held in late August 1967 Thanat said that ASA, ASPAC and ASEAN would help to counter ‘the revived germs of an old disease – imperialism – which are still being cultured in a large area of mainland Asia and are threatening to spread into neighbouring lands’.202 But, as Irvine concludes, ‘[i]t is difficult . . . to sustain the contention that ASEAN was intended to be a specifically and purposefully anti-communist grouping’. There was a consensus that the association, if not its individual members, ‘would be best advised to espouse the principles of non-alignment and self-reliance’.203 Indonesia played an important role in ‘encouraging the espousal of non-alignment within ASEAN’, Irvine adds: in the basic principles underlying its foreign policy, there was ‘an important degree of continuity’ between the Sukarno and Suharto regimes. Non-alignment was becoming more attractive in other countries, too. At the inaugural meeting Razak observed that ‘even today we are not entirely free from being exposed to the struggle for domination by outside powers. Unless . . . we are all conscious of our responsibility to shape our common destiny and to prevent external intervention and interference, our region will continue to be fraught with danger and tension’.204 That was echoed by Rajaratnam. ‘If there are people who misunderstand the proposed grouping, or manifest hostility towards it’, he said after the Bangkok meeting, ‘let us explain that it can only be because as in Europe and in many parts of the world, outside powers have vested interests in the balkanisation of this region. We ourselves have learnt the lessons and have decided that small nations are not going to be balkanised so that they can be manipulated, set against one another, kept perpetually weak, divided and ineffective by outside forces.’205 The declaration itself included the assertion, adapted from Maphilindo, that ‘the countries of Southeast Asia have a primary responsibility for strengthening the economic and social stability of the region’, and that they were ‘determined to ensure their stability and security from external interference in any form or manifestation in order to preserve their national identities in accordance with the ideals and aspirations of their peoples’. ‘Regionalism in this form seemed to acquire for ASEAN members an emotional or psychological dimension comparable to that associated with nationalism’, Irvine observes, ‘and which appeared to exercise considerable appeal to the small group of elites involved in ASEAN’s formation.’206 Michael Leifer took a rather harsher view. ASEAN’s members, he

136 The view from within wrote in 1978, ‘share a common interest in preventing radical internal political change’. The five governments of 1967 ‘bear a resemblance in outlook and priorities to those who adhered to the Act of the Holy Alliance drafted by Tzar Alexander I at the Congress of Vienna in 1815’.207 Irvine’s appraisal seems to be supported by an account of the preliminaries which he was unable to provide. That account may indeed permit a further observation about the role of Indonesia. It was not simply that others were coming to share its approach. It was also that they recognised that they had to come to terms with it. It was clear that Malaysia and Singapore could less than ever rely on the British – though the actual announcement of withdrawal came only towards the end of the preliminaries – while the US more than ever would look to Indonesia. The regional leadership of Indonesia had to be accepted though without rushing to abandon AMDA or US bases. And its policy for the region – given its strategic and military weakness – might after all be the most effective. The Bandung principles of 1955 might not only regulate relations among the states in the region. In due course they might permit an accommodation with the PRC, such as Nehru had sought for India when he and Chou formulated the accord of 1954. For their part, as an American observer put it in 1968, the Indonesians had learned ‘that the aggressive policies of Sukarno did more to damage than to promote the kind of leadership the Indonesia seeks. Thus, the Suharto government has chosen to follow the path of regional cooperation instead of conflict.’208 It was a prospect to which the Australians had looked forward back in 1963. ‘Indonesia must be afforded a substantial role in the region. This has its risks but a new closer relationship with its neighbours would impose its own restrictions.’209 The British diplomats in Southeast Asia had reached similar conclusions. The inclusion of the reference to foreign bases, the dropping of the Thai ‘SEAARC’ and the Malayan ‘ASAS’ in favour of the title ‘ASEAN’ suggested by Malik, and the intention of holding the 1968 ministerial in Jakarta were all, the Bangkok mission suggested, ‘indications of how far the other four Ministers were prepared to go in order to secure Indonesian agreement’.210 Malik argued for the inclusion of the reference to bases on ‘representational’ grounds, Zainal Sulong told Bentley: without it ‘there was a real danger of “old order” critics of the Indonesian Government accusing them of having sold out to a western dominated bloc’. Zainal accepted that, but also thought the Indonesians were ‘looking to a future about which their ideas were still ill defined, but in which they would try to give ASEAN an increasingly political and military flavour’.211 Eager though they were for its participation, Addis pointed out from Manila, the other signatories ‘did not give in to Indonesia all along the line’.212 The ‘Indonesia’ element in the equation has, of course, already been recognised by a number of scholars, though seldom emphasised. They have both recognised a continuity in Indonesia’s attitudes and pointed out its neighbours’ need to accommodate them. ‘Indonesia’s insistence from the beginning that ASEAN should adopt some of the Maphilindo doctrine, particularly concerning the temporary nature of foreign bases and the fact that the primary responsibility for regional security lies with the regional members, proved the unchanging nature of

ASA and ASEAN 137 its regional outlook’, Dewi Fortuna Anwar writes.213 ‘Critics of ASEAN’s first two and a half decades overlook the political drive behind its formation’, John Ingleson adds. ‘It was a way for Southeast Asian states to cope with Indonesia by creating an organisation for on-going dialogue.’214 Indonesia’s membership of ASEAN, as Soedjati Dijawandono put it, ‘would reduce the possibility of threat to their security posed by their giant neighbour. . . . For the new leadership in Jakarta . . . it is within ASEAN that Indonesia might be provided with an opportunity to realize its ambitions, if any, to occupy a position of primacy or primus inter pares without recourse to a policy of confrontation.’215 ASEAN was envisaged as ‘the vehicle through which a willing acceptance of Indonesia’s political primacy – as opposed to hegemony – may be facilitated within Southeast Asia’.216 Ghazali himself put it more dramatically than Leifer. ASEAN was ‘a development out of the pains of “konfrontasi” ’.217 ‘ASEAN was partly and implicitly about coping with Indonesia just as the original European Economic Community (EEC) had been about managing German power.’218 In Indonesia ‘a continuous sense of vulnerability’ was combined with ‘an equally continuous sense of regional entitlement’.219 For some Indonesians that extended beyond the region: they spoke, as Weinstein reports, of the four big powers of Asia: Japan, China, India and Indonesia.220 Did Indonesia ‘aspire to medium-power status in world affairs’? T.T.B. Koh and Teik Soon Lau were to ask in 1975.221 That did not reduce the apprehensions of its immediate neighbours. As long there was a stable non-Communist government in Indonesia, ‘that’s fine’, said Lee Kuan Yew in 1968. ‘But if there is not, and we get a general melee in which any colonel or brigadier has his own band of forces, my God, we are in for trouble.’222 Later he admitted that Suharto’s role was ‘crucial’. Under him ‘Indonesia did not act like a hegemon. It did not insist on its point of view but took into consideration the policies and interests of other members. This made it possible for the others to accept Indonesia as first among equals.’223 Insisting they were focused on economic challenges and maintained nonalignment, the generals had ‘probably not changed their ideas much on their own eminence as a big power in the area’, Fred Emery suggested. They would favour a ‘purely regional’ arrangement, provided everyone paid tribute, even if only psychologically, to their big-power status which one day they might have’.224 If Malaysia or Singapore were attacked, Indonesia would send in troops at once, a minister told Emery later in 1968. ‘When it was asked whether it was known in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore that they might be the recipients of such swift aid, the assurance came: “Do not worry, they understand.” ’ It was, Emery thought, some kind of Monroe Doctrine, ‘commensurate with the basic Indonesian assumption that the country will one day come to be the leading power in a non-communist partnership in the area’.225 There remained, as Irvine says, ‘some ambiguity’ about military or defence cooperation. After the meeting Razak said ASEAN might have defence arrangements ‘once we have become good friends with a common interest and destiny’.226 In March 1968 Suharto referred to the ‘possibility’ of military collaboration, and speculation followed. The second meeting de-emphasised the prospect. After it

138 The view from within Rajaratnam said that members had been able to clarify its purpose: it was ‘to promote economic, social and cultural cooperation’. That should ‘dispose of the early misunderstanding that ASEAN had military implications’. ‘There also appeared to be general endorsement of the notion that an ASEAN military pact would be of little utility’: its members were too weak to form ‘a credible military alliance; a pact would be ‘more likely to invite hostilities than to deter aggression’. Thanat spoke of ‘collective political defence’.227 The conclusion is again endorsed by the account of the preliminary negotiations. The Indonesian military could not protect the region, and its neighbours did not want it to do so. Military cooperation would be bilateral. While Indonesia did not wish formally to lead, however, it did not want others to do so. For that reason it stood out against creating a formal organisation, at least until it was stronger. It stressed ‘national resilience’, not only as part of its state-building agenda, but as a means of deflecting or deferring the structural formalisation of the regional association. ‘If each member country develops its own “national resilience,” gradually a “regional resilience” may emerge’, Suharto said, ‘i.e. the ability of member-countries to settle jointly their common problems and look after their future well-being together.’228 The actions and debates within the region indeed took place at a time when it seemed that it might become a kind of vacuum, as decolonisation was completed, but the divisions within communism had not reduced its threat. When would the UK leave? would the US stay? would the PRC intervene? would the SU? ‘For the first time in centuries Southeast Asia will be on its own’, Rajaratnam declared. ‘It must fill what some people call the power vacuum itself or resign itself to the dismal prospect of the vacuum being filled from the outside.’229 ‘Why do we put so much faith in regional cooperation?’ Thanat asked. ‘It is simply because with the engagement of the western powers . . . there will be a vacuum of power in this part of the world, and we know that some regimes, some countries in Asia want to fill that vacuum, that gap, with their own authority and power: Communist China and North Vietnam.’230 The logic was clear. The regional states must avoid turning to outside powers if they could, and avoiding disputes with one another would be one way of ensuring that. Avoiding becoming again the focus of rivalry among the great powers or a project of recolonisation or Sphere-making would require further steps, however. They could not be military: no state wanted Indonesia to undertake the task, which was in any case beyond it. ASEAN diplomacy had to extend beyond ASEAN. And that could only be on Bandung principles, to which, fortunately, Indonesia could lay some claim to paternity. Those were, of course, the principles applied within the region, too, and their extension was in keeping with the concept of a world of states and the hope that the PRC would behave like one if treated like one. It was somewhat ironic that Indonesia could not fully apply them: the army stood against the recognition of a regime thought to have supported the communists in 1965. China’s view of ASEAN was initially very negative: it was, said the Peking Review, part of ‘an encirclement of China’ rigged up by ‘the Soviet revisionist

ASA and ASEAN 139 clique’, fraternising with ‘the followers and lackeys of US imperialism in Asia’.231 The Soviet Union itself described ASEAN as a ‘military alliance’. ‘[W]ith one clumsy boot’, the Russians ‘have trodden on a lot of feelings’, as the Times correspondent put it.232 Anti-communist countries supported the ASEAN venture, even if it was not, as so often said, primarily anti-communist. The UK was anxious, even before the announcement of July 1967, to reduce its defence burden, which had been increased during konfrontasi. It saw the advantage in a new association that would provide for the security of Malaysia over against Indonesia, though it recognised that it would be counter-productive to be too openly supportive. It also recognised some substance in the Bandung principles. In due course China must be placed within the framework of the world of states which those principles endorsed. That view the US had yet to accept, though acceptance was soon to come. Yet, even as President Lyndon Johnson was stepping up involvement in the Vietnam war, he was talking of the works of peace. His speech at Johns Hopkins on 7 April 1965 spoke of economic and social development. ‘The first step is for the countries of Southeast Asia to associate themselves in a greatly expanded cooperative effort for development. We would hope that North Viet-Nam would take its place in the common effort just as soon as peaceful cooperation is possible.’233 Those were ideas that Walt Rostow had advanced, and he himself spoke in Tokyo of the possibility, if Asians wished it, of a partnership with the US such as had been attempted in post-war Europe, and was now under way in Latin America. Regionalism was ‘a way of giving peoples the chance to deal with their own destinies’. Americans would continue their ties, but ‘hoped to see Asian nations organize the life of the region in ways permitting them to support each other more fully than in the past’.234 Such an approach foreshadowed the doctrine that President Richard Nixon enunciated at Guam in July 1969. The US would offer a shield against nuclear threat and furnish aid when requested and appropriate, but it would look to the nation directly threatened to provide manpower for defence. The doctrine, as Ronald D. Palmer and Thomas J. Reckford put it, ‘meshed well . . . with the concepts of national and regional self-reliance on which the ASEAN nations concentrated in the 1971–1975 period’.235 It is questionable that the purpose of American intervention in Vietnam was to ‘buy time’. More likely, Southeast Asian leaders recognised that that was the effect of their intervention and that the time would be limited. Lee Kuan Yew spoke on 15 June 1966 of the US ‘buying time’ for the nations of Asia: ‘if we just sit down and believe people are going to buy time for ever after for us, then we deserve to perish’.236 Even without reminders from the British, the Americans had, ever since Baguio, been anxious that regionalism should emerge rather than be imposed. Chintamaru Mahapatra argued that they ‘encouraged’ the creation of ASEAN and offered ‘discreet support and guidance’.237 His appraisal has been supported by more recent research and publication. In late June 1966, meeting Rusk and Bundy in Canberra, Thanat sought the ‘discreet blessing’ of the US. ‘The Secretary said that the Foreign Minister was apparently suggesting that the United States not

140 The view from within bestow the kiss of death by too close an embrace. Thanat smilingly assented.’238 On a visit to Southeast Asia in December 1967, for example, Johnson’s VicePresident, Hubert Humphrey, stressed the importance of regional cooperation. But ‘[u]ntil at least the end of the Vietnam War, American relations with ASEAN consisted mainly of moral and verbal support for the idea of regional cooperation without a corresponding willingness to treat the five countries as a group in any other than a symbolic way’.239 Given the political and strategic purpose of the Association, it was not surprising that its avowed economic and social objectives were difficult to realise, especially in view of the outward orientation and similarity of the economies of its members. Its successes were to be found in its promotion of stability, though that was itself economically advantageous. Initially, however, even that was difficult to secure. Not only was there was no end in sight in Vietnam. Even members of ASEAN were still at odds over what was most crucial in an association of nations, a question of frontiers. The Sabah question that had disturbed the Tunku was still unresolved. Indeed the Corregidor crisis blew up in March 1968: was the Philippines training troops to fight in Sabah?240 ASEAN might indeed not solve such issues. It could and did prevent their escalation. Bentley had asked Zainal about the possibility of wider membership. There were, he replied, two criteria: location in Southeast Asia and adherence to the Association’s aims and principles. It looked as if the first criterion might ‘quite shortly’ be extended, for Ceylon was keen to join, and the five nations agreed that it would be a good idea.241 Tunku said Malaysia would support Ceylon’s entry, though geographically it was not in Southeast Asia.242 The Colombo government did not follow up its alleged intention. The British heard that Tunku had told it not to apply, as ASEAN would fall apart.243 Again Sabah was in his mind.

7

ZOPFAN

The Marcos administration had not abandoned the claim to Sabah its predecessor had made. Talks on the claim among senior officials in Bangkok in June–July 1968 were ‘fruitless’.1 Following Malaysia’s rejection of it, the Philippines recalled its ambassador in KL on 20 July.2 The subject was kept off the agenda of the ministerial meeting in Jakarta in early August. Ramos and Razak met at Malik’s house on 6 August and agreed to a ‘cooling-off period’.3 ASEAN, the British Foreign Office suggested, might ‘remain an important factor in keeping the temperature down’.4 Relations were ‘frozen’, ‘a growing fashion in South-east Asia’, as Fred Emery of the London Times put it.5 But Congress in Manila passed a resolution delineating Philippine territorial waters alluded to ‘the territory of Sabah . . . over which the . . . Philippines had acquired dominion and sovereignty’.6 Demonstrators in Kota Kinabalu shouted ‘Traitor Marcos. Another Sukarno.’7 The British ambassador’s residence in Manila was attacked.8 Filipino diplomats at international conferences were instructed to record a reservation over Malaysia’s competence to represent Sabah.9 That, according to the British embassy in Manila, was ‘partly the result of Malaysian accusations at Bangkok that the Filipinos had let their case go by default over the years’.10 The first meeting of the ASEAN committee on trade and industry was held in Manila 30 September–5 October 1968. It attracted interest, the embassy reported, because of ‘the prospect of the first confrontation between Malaysia and the Philippines since relations between them were “frozen” ’. How far would bad relations affect co-operation in ASEAN and other regional organisations? The head of the Philippines delegation, Secretary of Commerce Marcelo Balatbat, made the required reservation right at the end of the conference, then declared it closed, giving the Malaysians no time to object.11 Until the reservation was retracted, Malaysia declared, it would attend no further ASEAN meetings. ‘Even if there is [but] one Malaysian left, President Marcos would still meet resistance from the lone survivor’, a defiant Razak announced on Banggi island.12 Regional collaboration had come to a standstill because of the Sabah claim, he told newsmen on 2 December 1968. The ASEAN machinery would not work ‘until goodwill, confidence and trust’ were restored among its members. The Eastern Sun (6 December 1968) suggested that ASEAN should carry on without

142 The view from within the Philippines: it ‘should consider itself as a central Pacific nation and move out of ASEAN and the Asian orbit’. That paper was often used by MFA as ‘a stalking horse for Malaysian policies’. But what had been said in KL so far was ‘extremely tentative’, as the British High Commission observed, and as Indonesia and others apparently attached importance to keeping both Malaysia and the Philippines in ASEAN, the Malaysians would ‘probably allow themselves to be jollied along’.13 In Singapore two Indonesian marines found guilty of sabotage and murder during konfrontasi had been hanged in October.14 The government rejected Suharto’s personal plea for clemency, ‘in part to assert the rule of law and in part to assert Singapore’s sovereignty and independence by a manifestation of strength’.15 Suharto resisted the retaliation that the ABRI advocated, and heeded Malik’s advice not to break off diplomatic relations. But with that and Sabah, Zainal Sulong of the Malaysian foreign ministry commented, ‘ASEAN was now in a very bad way’.16 Neither the angry public reaction in Indonesia to the Singapore hangings nor the Sabah question led members, however, to conclude ‘that the experiment should be concluded’, Irvine writes. ‘Instead the view seemed to be upheld that regional collaboration was an imperative that could be abandoned only at peril.’ Indonesia and Thailand played a role in holding it together, ‘but even the major disputants, Malaysia and the Philippines, stopped short of dismissing the utility of ASEAN’.17 One gain in the ‘absurd’ Sabah dispute, wrote Emery, had been ‘the survival of the fledgling ASEAN itself. Its mission of regional cooperation was not abandoned because of the Sabah dispute. This may not be much, but against the background of a Vietnam watershed it is something.’18 Malaysia had, however, taken no steps to convene the Standing Committee. The fault, Ismail bin Ambia, head of Malaysia’s ASEAN secretariat, told the New Zealand High Commission, was Manila’s. The Filipinos were ‘playing a crafty game. They keep on stressing, in the ASEAN context, that they will not recognise Malaysia’s sovereignty over Sabah.’ The tactic had two results. ‘First it “put the idea around” that Malaysia’s sovereignty was indeed in question.’ Second, ‘it forced Malaysia into the position of having to respond, and the form of the response had finally come to Razak’s statement that Malaysia would not attend ASEAN meetings unless the Philippines recognised its sovereignty over Sabah. This had made it seem that it was Malaysia that was blocking the progress of ASEAN – which of course was also part of Manila’s design.’ Ismail did not think it was necessary for the Philippines to ‘behave like this’. In dispute over Kashmir, India and Pakistan could still sit down together at Commonwealth and other conferences. ‘We forebore to say so, but it seemed to us that this gave the answer to Malaysia’s refusal to attend ASEAN meetings.’ Ismail called ASEAN ‘an economic organisation’, although he said he would not himself deny ‘that it was au fond a political association’; and, if it developed, there would ‘one day’ be a defence pact. Moerdani, counsellor in the Indonesian embassy in KL, shared that view. He was not surprised to see ASEAN stultified by the Sabah quarrel. His own country had its difficulties with Singapore a few

ZOPFAN 143 months earlier, and perhaps Malaysia and Thailand would one day ‘be at each other’s throats’. For that reason alone, it was unrealistic to forecast the emergence of a conventional ASEAN defence pact. ‘He did however see it already as a form of security organisation.’ The New Zealand High Commission concluded that ASEAN was not moribund, nor would it become so: it was ‘on ice’. Thailand and Indonesia ‘set a great deal of store’ by it, and, before the ministerial meeting in August, Thanat and Malik would probably ‘read the riot act to their recalcitrant partners’. Perhaps that was what the Malaysians were waiting for. Thanat sided with them over Sabah, and, Moerdani said, so did the Indonesians.19 Zainal Sulong told John Ross of the New Zealand High Commission that he was aware of the criticism, for example, in the Bangkok press, that Malaysia was ‘inconsistent’ in being prepared to sit down with the Philippines in the UN and ASPAC but not ASEAN. ASEAN, he said, was different. It was ‘a group of South East Asian states, an economic grouping of course, but essentially a political one. But it was even more than that. It had an identity of Asian-ness which the other groupings had not. So close were the links of race, history, aspirations, etc. between the ASEAN countries that ASEAN could not function if one member was calling into question the sovereignty of another. It was a group of likeminded nations, which of course the other bodies, and especially the United Nations, were not. If one of its members became un-like-minded, clearly it could not carry on.’20 Zainal told R.D. Clift of the UK High Commission on 6 March 1969 that Malaysia could take no action that appeared to condone the Philippines claim. That day, however, the Tunku had told a press conference that, if it was Malaysia’s ‘duty’ to call an ASEAN ministerial meeting, it would probably do so. Zainal admitted that there was some ‘rethinking’ going on. Maybe, Clift thought, that had to do with a visit from Sunarso, secretary-general of Indonesia’s ASEAN organisation.21 He had been in KL on a three-day visit. Moerdani told Clift it was one of a series of visits the Indonesians and Thais were making ‘in order to keep ASEAN going as far as possible’. He had not got far with Ghazali. No one at the MFA in KL was very sure what Tunku meant, Moerdani said, but he was himself ‘not . . . too pessimistic’. After their general elections, the Malaysians might have ‘another look at the possibility of some kind of arrangement with the Filipinos’.22 Zainal informed Ross about the Sunarso-Ghazali exchange. Sunarso had seen Romulo and Ingles in Manila. They were keen to get ASEAN going again, and had recommended that the Philippines should undertake not to make ‘reservations’ in ASEAN meetings. If their recommendation was accepted, Sunarso thought steps should be taken to convene a technical meeting, for example on shipping, ‘as a sort of tentative first step towards defrosting ASEAN’. It would, however, be for Malaysia, the current convener, to take the initiative. Ghazali, Zainal said, was non-committal. ‘It would of course be a good thing to have ASEAN working again’, he told Ross. ‘But the Philippines would undoubtedly construe their action as a concession, and they would probably expect a quid pro quo from Malaysia.’ It was, however, not a concession. ‘The claim to Sabah would

144 The view from within still be pursued, it would still be there. It would be little comfort to Malaysia to learn merely that it was not going to be raised in ASEAN.’ Ross said the Indonesian moves sounded ‘very like a tentative attempt at mediation. Zainal agreed. He said the Indonesians hoped that once they got Malaysia and the Philippines into the ASEAN bed they would stop bickering. But that would by no means follow, said Zainal.’23 Hamzah Majeed of the MFA in KL confirmed that there had been a change of policy, discussed with Sunarso: Malaysia had agreed that routine technical meetings could recommence, presumably, Clift wrote, on the basis of a Filipino assurance that they would not be used to raise the Sabah issue. No decision could yet be taken on the ministerial conference, Hamzah said. He added that the Philippines would, if it wished, be allowed to post a consul to KL, though there was no decision to reciprocate. Clift concluded that the Sunarso delegation had led to a ‘very small’ break in the rigidity of the Malaysian position.24 Ross asked Ismail if the Thais were ‘squeezing, so to speak, from the other side’. He replied that they had been ‘very quiet’ since Bangsaen. ‘Relations between Thanat Khoman and Tunku were not good anyway.’ Ismail thought the Indonesians had been ‘altogether too brash and naive’, and had counselled them not to push the Malaysians, particularly Tunku, too hard. He was ‘very lukewarm’ about restarting on the technical level, and dismissed Tunku’s remark at the press conference ‘as a typical Tunku utterance, more than implying that he did not really know what he had been saying’.25 Under-Secretary Ingles told the British ambassador in Manila on 10 April that Malaysia was ready for meetings at the technical level, provided that the Filipinos made no reservations over Sabah at such meetings.26 Ayathuray said that Malaysia would take part in a meeting of ASEAN secretary-generals in Singapore after the ECAFE meeting on 15 April. Its representative would walk out if the Philippines put in its reservation over Sabah. It would be prepared to call a ministerial meeting in KL if it secured satisfactory assurances from the Philippines. So far Indonesia had been unable to secure them.27 Malik said he had got KL’s agreement for the meeting of secretary-generals.28 Apparently the Filipinos gave no guarantees and insisted no political issues should be discussed.29 It took place on 29–31 May and set up a number of committees. The ASEAN ministerial meeting was postponed till December 1969, Malik announced in July. The disturbed situation in Malaysia after the riots in May was one factor, the elections in the Philippines in November another. Burma, Cambodia and Ceylon would be welcome, Malik said, and he also mentioned Vietnam, though which Vietnam he meant seemed unclear to his British interlocutor. He spoke against the inclusion of India, an idea raised during Mrs Gandhi’s visit. He stressed the geographical basis of ASEAN and implied ‘that even with five close neighbours there are troubles enough. An equally cogent though unexpressed reason may be that the entry of India into the Association would constitute a challenge to Indonesia’s tacitly recognised leadership of it.’30 In October 1969 Malik ‘publicly revived’ the talk of inviting Burma, Cambodia, Ceylon and Vietnam to the ministerial meeting, adding Laos, too. The Vietnam

ZOPFAN 145 invitation would be threefold: RVN, DRV and NLF. Razak denied that any such invitations were being considered, but Malik repeated his statement.31 In Singapore Nathan, the Deputy Secretary at the MFA, was asked by the Malaysians what he thought of a tripartite invitation to the Vietnamese; ‘silly’, he replied. Only Saigon would be likely to turn up, and that would damage ASEAN’s non-aligned image.32 Thanat offered a ‘delphic’ comment: invitations were a matter for the host country; but if such were issued, Thailand would not object.33 Malik told the British Secretary of State that the idea was to help find a solution to the Vietnam war.34 ‘The Malaysians have in the past generally been unenthusiastic about extended membership on the grounds that it is better to concentrate on making something out of the present organisation before considering its enlargement’, Wan Awang, desk officer in KL, told H.M.G. Stevens of the British High Commission. They had always, moreover, emphasised that it was ‘an economic organisation rather than a political bloc’, and had to insist on that ‘very strongly’ to prevent discussion of the Sabah dispute. An invitation to any group in Vietnam could only be seen as ‘a political move’, Wan Awang pointed out, ‘and if Malaysia herself introduced politics into ASEAN in this way, this would put at risk the still fragile understanding not to raise the Sabah issue’. Inviting Cambodia would raise ‘awkward political issues’ for Thailand, and ‘neither Laos nor Burma would have much to contribute to ASEAN’s economic development’. Ceylon ‘might be economically and politically compatible with ASEAN if only it could be towed across the Indian ocean’. Wan added that it was all in Razak’s hands. But clearly, Stevens concluded, MFA were advising against the invitations.35 Early in December 1969 Zainal said the idea was dead: the Malaysians could not contemplate hosting a conference including Hanoi and the Viet Cong. He was, Clift reported, more hopeful than usual over Sabah, especially as the elections had strengthened Marcos.36 The Standing Committee met on 8 December. Afterwards the Malaysian Secretary-General pointed out that Burma and Cambodia had a standing invitation to join or send observers. South Vietnam, Laos and Ceylon might be invited, but North Vietnam ‘definitely not’. On a visit to KL, Phan Quang Dan, the RVN’s Minister of State, pressed its claim, but Clift thought it ‘very doubtful whether agreement can be reached among the ASEAN members on the tricky problem of Vietnamese participation’.37 In the event South Vietnam and Laos sent observers at Malaysia’s invitation. Malik said he would like to see all Southeast Asian countries members. Rajaratnam thought there should be only five until the organisation got going.38 From the start – at least in Indonesia’s view – ASEAN was intended to include the whole region, though no state outside it, except, perhaps, for Ceylon, which had a legacy of connexion dating back to SEAC and to the Kotelawala initiatives. ‘Enlargement’ – as in Europe – raised both problems and opportunities. Within ASEAN, though it was insistent on non-intervention, it might be difficult to accommodate avowedly communist governments. Even if that were achieved, could it succeed in reducing the intervention of powers outside ASEAN? Ending the Vietnam war might be a prerequisite. But the prospect of enlargement could

146 The view from within help to end it. ASEAN was an organisation, but it was also a diplomatic instrument. Its shape varied over time, but its fundamental purpose, and its underlying principles, remained consistent. The third ministerial meeting was held at Cameron Highlands 16–17 December 1969. The Tunku announced the normalisation of relations between the Philippines and Malaysia. Romulo welcomed it. ‘He commended the idea of the establishment of a system of mutual consultation between all South East Asian countries in an Asian forum. This should be a council for the planning of peace and to work out a blueprint for the development of South East Asia.’ Malik ‘stressed the importance of events in Vietnam and the likely effects of the British withdrawal and the possible disengagement of the United States from Asia. He urged the creation of a “polarisation” of the forces of South East Asian countries.’ The reduction of the influence of non-regional powers ‘should not be understood as an invitation to the expansion of the interest of another nonregional power’, a remark aimed, Clift thought, at Russia and China. Malik also stressed the growing importance of Japan. Was it to continue a predominantly economic role or take one ‘of another kind’? It was ‘reasonable to presume’ that it would make ‘a wise choice’. Thanat emphasised the importance of ‘increased mutual consultation’, adding ‘that it was no good trying to act too swiftly’. Rajaratnam said that ‘trying to move too fast . . . might lead to the creation of the wrong type of regional organisation’. ASEAN needed the assistance of other countries. For that ‘a convincing display of internal stability in the region was necessary’. It should focus on promoting economic co-operation. ‘To try to use it to sort out ideological or military problems would be likely to introduce divisions between members.’ He added that ‘[n]othing should be done to discourage other non member countries from joining ASEAN at a future date.’39 After the closing session Rajaratnam was reported as saying that South Vietnam and Laos should not be allowed to join ASEAN ‘at the moment’. R.F. Stimson of the UK High Commission in Singapore spoke to Nathan on 22 December 1969. He said Singapore had not been pleased at the way Malaysia had handled the question of observers. Before the meeting Rajaratnam had said they should not be present at the private sessions, but Malaysia had allowed it, and invited Tran Van Lam and the Laotian observer to make statements at the end. In Singapore after the meeting, Tran Van Lam told reporters he disagreed with Rajaratnam’s view that admitting South Vietnam would weaken ASEAN. Its wish to join ‘stemmed from economic considerations. His country had no wish to embroil A.S.E.A.N. in political and defence problems.’ That was ‘all very well’, as Stimson put it, but ‘unlikely to alter Singapore’s view that for the foreseeable future A.S.E.A.N.’s usefulness to her depends on its objectives being strictly limited’. Its basic problems were the consolidation of its political position and the growth of its economy ‘in the midst of racially different and not necessarily well-disposed neighbours’. Their attitude was at present ‘satisfactory’, but might not always be so. ‘Therefore Singapore must seek to establish good working relations with as many other countries as she can.

ZOPFAN 147 Regional collaborative arrangements may pay off; but the Singaporeans will continue to be wary of political alignments which might hamper their freedom of manoeuvre. This is particularly the case so far as the communist countries, with whom she wishes to establish workmanlike relations, are concerned.’40 Early in 1970 Nathan confirmed a British official’s suggestion that his country was ‘looking towards the day when they might be able to develop working ties with both parts of Vietnam’.41 Rajaratnam’s main concern was to ‘avoid political involvement in the Vietnam war’, Nathan had told J.K. Hickman in January 1970, but also claimed that ‘an additional reason for Singapore’s opposition to the expansion of ASEAN was that they were as much interested in developing cooperation with Burma and Cambodia as with South Vietnam or Laos, but that the two former countries did not at present regard membership as compatible with their neutral position. This was one reason for the emphasis which Singapore had placed on developing practical cooperation between countries in the region, if necessary on an informal or bilateral basis, as opposed to formal expansion of the organisation.’42 Singapore was indeed seen as something of a ‘dampener’ in ASEAN’s earlier years.43 ‘[T]here was a lot of circus at the cost of less and less bread’, the Foreign Minister complained.44 Its attitude to the organisation indeed related partly to its wider commercial ambitions, but it also related to its security concerns. That helped to make it assertive in respect of Indonesia, while its arming provoked Malaysia. Its policy began to shift after 1969. The endeavour to construct a Singapore identity reassured Malaysia, since that would make it even less likely that it would meddle on the peninsula: ‘building a perceptual fence separating transnational communal groups has helped make for good neighbours’. And it increased its participation in ASEAN.45 Malik told Tran Van Lam not to press for membership: Indonesia would have to oppose it because of its policy of non-alignment. That echoed its ‘abortive attempt’ to have North Vietnam and the NLF invited as well, Mason noted. Malik saw ‘a better prospect’, however, of South Vietnam’s attending future ministerial meetings again as an observer, and ‘in his view this political exchange in a kind of Foreign Ministers club was really the most useful aspect of the Association’. The remark indicated his attitude, and probably his government’s, Mason thought: ‘Indonesia has so far got little out of the economic and allied activities of ASEAN and perhaps does not expect much. But stronger political connotations may well fit in with Indonesia’s long term aspirations and view of her role in the area.’46 Thanat professed satisfaction with the outcome of the December meeting. He was not hankering to turn ASEAN into a military alliance, and had told the press before he left that the primary issue was ‘economic togetherness’. On his return he said: ‘Security is different from a military alliance. What Thailand wants to develop is “collective political defence.” ’ Thanat, as C.W. Squire reported, was ‘very well aware that the countries of the region have little military capacity in terms of dealing with external aggression by a major power’ and had ‘expressed his scepticism about regional countries joining together in a “military collective

148 The view from within defence system” ’. That by no means precluded bilateral military cooperation to deal with specific problems, for example between Malaysia and Thailand.47 The secretaries-general met in Manila 16–17 February 1970 to review some of the proposals aired at Cameron Highlands. They decided, and the Standing Committee confirmed next day, that ASEAN should concentrate in 1970 on realising the practical projects already agreed upon rather than on ‘exploring new fields of co-operation’. Encouraged by a Romulo press conference, the Manila press sought to read more into the meeting, but neither South Vietnam’s application nor the implementation of the 1968 proposal for a payments union had in fact been discussed. Nor had a defence pact. About that concept the Philippines, with its defence agreements with the US, was ‘naturally unenthusiastic’, as P.J. Goulden of the British embassy put it. Marcos’ state-of-the-nation speech on 26 January 1970 had declared that using ASEAN as the nucleus of a defence system was ‘quite clearly not feasible at this stage’. ‘The source of these misconceptions about ASEAN’, Goulden commented, ‘lies largely in the efforts of Romulo and Marcos to project it as the main vehicle of a new and independent Philippine foreign policy. Unfortunately, the Filipinos have not yet decided in concrete terms what they can reasonably hope to get out of ASEAN and what connection if any should exist between ASEAN and President Marcos’ even more nebulous Asian Forum.’ About the latter’s purpose and membership the head of the ASEAN secretariat, to whom Goulden spoke, confessed herself ‘completely bewildered’. She was, however, ‘certain . . . that it could have nothing to do with ASEAN which for its survival must demonstrate first its effectiveness in the fields of social and economic development’.48 Sihanouk was overthrown in March 1970, and the Lon Nol government set up: there were calls for a republic, clashes with NFL, massacres of Vietnamese. ABRI hardliners wanted to send arms to Lon Nol: Malik fobbed them off with a conference.49 On 19 April he suggested that leaders of Southeast Asian countries, also Australia and NZ, should meet to resolve the question by negotiations. He met Soviet and North Vietnamese diplomats on 23 April to try to persuade them to attend. The latter made three pre-conditions: that Sihanouk be recognised as head of state; that the US withdraw from Indo-China; and that the Cambodian problem not be separated from issues in Vietnam and Laos. Malik said the conference would be held even if the communist countries declined to come, as proved to be the case. ‘Eventually held 16–17 May, the conference gave tacit recognition and a world stage to the Khmer Republic.’50 The episode might be seen from other perspectives besides that of ABRI ambitions. It may be regarded an attempt to apply ASEAN principles to other parts of the region, and it also showed that it would be difficult to do so. Cambodia was later to become both a major challenge for ASEAN and a substantial success. In June 1970 Suharto devoted a section of his speech to the Chamber of Commerce in San Francisco to regional co-operation. ASEAN was ‘only the “initial capital” of an effort which he hoped could lead to a regional organisation covering all South East Asian countries’. The British ambassador in Jakarta asked

ZOPFAN 149 a senior MFA official whether the remarks indicated ‘an Indonesian desire to institutionalise the grouping of countries which recently met here for the Conference on Cambodia’. The answer was negative, but it was a revival of the efforts to broaden the membership of ASEAN. ‘He mentioned specifically Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Burma and Ceylon as countries which the Indonesians would like to see enter ASEAN.’ He did not refer to Singapore’s hostility to the inclusion of Vietnam, but admitted that Burma was unlikely to want to be involved, and agreed that the change of government in Ceylon ‘might raise difficulties for the existing members’. The ambassador thought that, pleased with their initiative over Cambodia, the Indonesians were ‘casting round for other means of making their existence felt’, but he doubted whether they would persuade their ASEAN colleagues to accept new members.51 In December 1970 the irrepressible Panggabean said Indonesia would help neighbours under attack. Malik declared that the press had it wrong: Panggabean’s statement did not contradict Indonesia’s foreign policy ‘because help could be in the form of moral support, prayers or diplomacy’.52 The play between Malik and the generals was resumed in comments on defence arrangements early in the New Year. Commenting on a statement by Puyat of the Philippines Senate delegation, Malik said that such arrangements might be realised, though Indonesia had not been thinking that way.53 In another apparent conflict of views, Panggabean was reported as saying that steps were being taken towards closer military co-operation between Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries, particularly ASEAN members. The British ambassador asked him about the report. His view was ‘that Indonesia’s security was bound to be affected by the defence capability and security situation in other countries in South East Asia’. In no Southeast Asian country was it satisfactory, and he referred for example to Malaysia’s ‘social’ problem. ‘There was therefore a need for the countries in South East Asia to help each other. But he said emphatically that he did not have in mind any formal defence arrangements inside or outside ASEAN (the latter in any case being too narrow). He was thinking rather of economic co-operation, assistance over training and exchanges of intelligence. He then went on to say that other countries (possibly he was referring to Cambodia) tended to expect too much of Indonesia. Indonesia would like to help over training but her facilities were limited and expansion would cost money which was not available.’ The British embassy guessed that Panggabean was ‘reflecting the concern felt by the military here about the situation in Cambodia. While he probably does not envisage anything like formal arrangements for mutual help, it is likely that he and his military colleagues would at least like to see more consultation on bilateral nets [sic]’. That, the embassy thought, was not inconsistent with Malik’s view. He told the ambassador that Indonesia had had discussions with Malaysia and was interested in having discussions with Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore. In parliament the chairman of the defence committee pronounced in favour of closer collaboration. A communist attack on any of Indonesia’s neighbours was a threat to its security. ‘If the situation continues to deteriorate in Indo-China’, the

150 The view from within embassy concluded, ‘we may expect increasing support for a more active defence policy from the Indonesian Government’, but it was ‘extremely difficult’ to see what it could do. ‘As General Panggabean said, the money is just not available. Apart from a modest expansion of training facilities and exchanges of intelligence, Indonesia is not at present in a position to play a more active military role in South East Asia.’54 Indonesia’s claim to leadership meant that it would have to be able to ensure not only peace in the region but peace for the region. Such a defence it could not provide militarily, nor would others in the region have wanted it to be so capable of dominance. The region had to rely on ‘diplomatic defence’, all that Indonesia could hope to provide, all that others would wish to receive. Would that be sufficient? Would outside powers accept the position, even perhaps guarantee it? Those issues were raised in the discussions on ‘neutralisation’, themselves a further development of ‘regionalism’ that reflected both ideas in the region and the changing circumstances in which it found itself. The emergence of ‘multipolarity’ was seen in ASEAN ‘with a mixture of hope and apprehension’.55 The major shift was to be accomplished when the US abandoned its long-standing China policy, and the Sino–Soviet rift was coupled with Sino–American rapprochement. In that there might be something to fear. Would the US permit or even encourage the PRC to take a larger role in Southeast Asia? Would the SU attempt to counter it? There might also be ‘an opportunity and a challenge to shape a new pattern of international relationships in the region that would seek to assign a greater role in the management of regional affairs to the countries of the region and to exclude the disruptive effects of major power intervention and competition.’ The outlook ‘took a concrete and specific form’ in the proposal for neutralisation.56 Perhaps with an eye to its great island neighbour as well as to ‘multipolarity’, it was again Malaysia that took the initiative. Tun Ismail, former Malaysian Minister of Home Affairs had presented the idea in a debate on defence in the Dewan Rakyat back in January 1968, his aim being to save money that could be spent on social services. ‘The time is . . . ripe for the countries in the region to declare collectively the neutralization of South-East Asia. To be effective, the neutralization . . . must be guaranteed by the big powers, including Communist China . . . it is time that the countries in South-East Asia signed non-aggression treaties with each other. Now is also [the] time for the countries in South-East Asia to declare the policy of co-existence, in the sense that the countries in the region should not interfere in the internal affairs of each other and [should undertake] to accept whatever form of government a country chooses to elect or adopt’.57 Tunku did not think the time had come, but Razak thought the concept ‘wise, imaginative and far-sighted’,58 and he came to power after the 1969 riots in KL. Not long before, the British had announced their plans for halving their forces in the Malaysia–Singapore area during 1970–1 and completely withdrawing them by the mid-1970s.59 ‘[T]he British lion no longer had any teeth, the Australian umbrella was leaking, and the American eagle was winging its way out of Asia’, Noordin Sopiee was to write. The concept, he added, was also learnt from

ZOPFAN 151 Vietnam: foreign intervention is no substitute for popular backing; and ‘where insurgents use and exploit nationalism, outside intervention can be extremely counter-productive’.60 It was a point French President de Gaulle had made when arguing that the settlement in Laos could be a precedent for one in Vietnam.61 Back in January 1964, he had indeed called for a ‘treaty of neutrality for the countries of Southeast Asia . . . a neutrality which would be accepted by all, guaranteed internationally, and outlaw all forms of subversion, whether internal or external’.62 Ten years earlier, of course, Eden had sought a partial neutralisation at Geneva, and in a pamphlet he published in retirement in 1966 he looked again for ‘a system of the Locarno type’. For North Vietnam, the PRC and the US, ‘the solution of a neutralized area in Indo-China could have a growing appeal . . . as a compromise which would fairly safeguard their principal security needs in the area’.63 The concept had also been investigated in the US in 1966 at the behest of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.64 The authors of the study pointed out that neutralisation, a position of permanent neutrality, had generally applied in the past only to a single state or piece of territory, most recently Laos in the 1962 settlement. There was a possibility, however, that ‘a successful neutralization of South Vietnam might produce, at least temporarily, important advantages for the management of power within Southeast Asia itself’, and lead to further arrangements over Laos and Cambodia, even ‘a de facto deal on Thailand based on a withdrawal of American troops in exchange for meaningful arrangements designed to minimize external support for indigenous insurgents in the country’.65 Covering several states would, however, be more or less a novelty. There was to be another novelty: the US study had focused on ‘outside’ initiatives. The State Department had been critical of the study, and the chief of staff of the Committee was told that it ‘did not foreclose neutralization, but the final solution would depend on the desires of all the parties at interest’.66 The Department was opposed to its publication, but a book based on it appeared in 1968. It was known to Malaysian policy-makers, Marvin C. Ott tells us,67 though Ismail’s speech preceded its publication. In the midst of konfrontasi the British Foreign Office had seen the long-term advantage of neutralising the whole region, once it was over. If ‘some agreement, tacit or formal’, were reached with the communist powers, SEATO could be disbanded and the UK could ‘retire gracefully’ from Singapore.68 ‘Communist absorption of South East Asia can best be avoided by working for the ultimate neutralization of the area. . . . any excessive desire to retain a military presence and direct political influence in the area is likely to encourage an unnatural alliance between local nationalism and communism.’69 Now the initiative came from Malaysia itself. ‘It is Malaysia’s hope’, Ghazali stated at the Preparatory Non-aligned Conference at Dar-es-Salaam in April 1970, ‘that non-aligned countries will be able to endorse the neutralisation of not only the Indo-China area but of the entire region of Southeast Asia, guaranteed by the three major powers, the People’s Republic of China, the Soviet Union and the United States, against any form of

152 The view from within external interference, threat or pressure’.70 Just before he became prime minister in September 1970, Razak repeated the call at Lusaka at the NA conference itself. ‘It is my hope that in reaffirming the right of self-determination and noninterference in the Indo-China area, the Non-Aligned Group would at the same time take a positive stand in endorsing the neutralisation of the area and possibly of the entire region of Southeast Asia, guaranteed by the three major powers.’71 Ismail, now Deputy PM, led the Malaysian delegation at the 4th ASEAN Foreign Ministers meeting (AMM) in Manila in March 1971. ‘The tragedy of Vietnam’, where, despite the Paris peace talks, no settlement was in sight and war continued to ‘wreak havoc’, was, he declared on 12 March 1971, ‘a telling testimony to the dangers of big power interference, involvement or intervention in the internal affairs of small countries’. The lesson of the war was clear: ‘big powers should leave small countries to themselves, to evolve their own systems of government and to work out their own programmes for progress and prosperity’. With Vietnam in mind, ‘together with the withdrawal of the American and British from Southeast Asia’, Malaysia advocated ‘a policy of neutralisation for Southeast Asia to be guaranteed by the big powers, viz. the U.S., the U.S.S.R. and the People’s Republic of China. The policy is meant to be a proclamation that this region of ours is no longer to be regarded as an area to be divided into spheres of influence of the big powers. It may be regarded as a project to end or prevent small countries in this region from being used as pawns in the conflict between the big powers. The policy of neutralisation represents a programme to ensure stability and preserve peace in this area so that we may get on with the urgent task of developing our countries and improving the wealth and welfare of our people.’ Before ‘we’ were in a position to seek ‘an undertaking from the three big powers to guarantee our independence, integrity and neutrality’, Ismail continued, it was ‘imperative . . . that we develop a strong sense of regional consciousness and solidarity.’ Regional co-operation was essential to economic growth, as the examples of the Latin American Free Trade Area, the East African Community and the EEC suggested. But, while regional co-operation was ‘very valuable as an instrument for the pursuit of economic and social development of the region’, it was ‘also very valid for the evolution of regional solidarity and enduring stability in the region. By complementing the criss-cross of bilateral connections between the countries of this region with a framework of multilateral relations to bring about an extra dimension to the diplomacy of this area, we are slowly but surely strengthening further the existing bonds of friendship and understanding between us. The edifice that we have created will bring our peoples and enmesh our interests even closer together so as to evolve a sense of regional identity and a feeling of regional consciousness that will effect a climate of peace and stability which is . . . a vital prerequisite for a progressive and prosperous Southeast Asia.’ Meetings of officials on the various permanent committees had ‘generated a growing and genuine habit of cooperation and produced a practice of thinking and working together’, and the implementation of short-term projects showed that ‘the climate of this region is not inimical, indeed it is conducive to cooperative endeavours’.72

ZOPFAN 153 Ismail made two other public statements after the meeting. He told a press conference in Manila on 14 March 1971 that ‘Malaysia’s concept of a neutral South East Asia envisaged increased relations with other countries of the world whatever their ideology. He rejected any suggestion that ASEAN countries would come under economic domination by seeking greater cooperation in the economic field with developed countries.’ Back in KL he appealed for ‘a little give and take’ in implementing regional projects. He said he was impressed by the growing interest of ASEAN members in neutralisation. ‘He reiterated that Malaysia wanted the whole of South East Asia neutralised and not any particular country. This neutralisation should be guaranteed by the big powers.’73 In his speech in Manila, and in these statements, Ismail moved from ASEAN to region and back again without always signalling the distinction. Clearly, however, he assumed, like its founders, that ASEAN would in due course cover the whole region, and so would neutralisation, perhaps sooner. His rhetoric, like others’, also stressed the role of outside powers in creating division in the region. They had, of course, not been the only source of division. But directing the accusation at them brought out what all the states had in common and played down their differences. Rajaratnam was ‘reassured’ that ASEAN had attempted no ‘great leap forward’: it would have been the last.74 He had, as J.N.O. Curle reported from Manila to the FCO in London, ‘nothing to fear: all that we have indicates a realistic awareness of the limitations and problems of the Association’. Romulo told ASPAC afterwards that the foreign ministers discussed the affairs of the region ‘thoroughly and informally’, in particular ‘the politico-military problems’. Contacts suggested ‘that these candid exchanges were the most valuable feature of the meeting’. The Philippine proposal for a secretariat was thought ‘premature’, neither was its suggestion that ASEAN should develop into a Common Market supported, nor a payments union. The ministers took ‘a cautious attitude’ to the recruitment of new members, ‘though even Thailand and the Philippines expressed readiness to admit those who applied, “regardless of ideology” ’. Given Communist denunciation of ASEAN, ‘the risk of an application from Hanoi seems slight’. Romulo had invited observers from the Khmer Republic and from South Vietnam, and allowed them to address open sessions, but others, notably Malik, ‘successfully opposed their attendance in closed session’. Earlier Malik had vainly suggested that North Vietnam should be invited to attend as an observer. ‘Malaysian proposals for the neutralisation of the ASEAN area’, as Curle confusingly called them, ‘. . . evoked among the other members a reaction rather like that of St. Augustine on chastity: “Lord, neutralise us, but not yet.” ’ Thanat referred to the fate of Belgium. Marcos said the concept would take decades to realise, not years, ‘and reaffirmed in another context that the American umbrella was necessary for the security of the smaller Asian Powers’. The consensus was apparently ‘that it was pointless to pursue neutralisation until the conflict in Indo-China . . . had been resolved’. Meanwhile members had to develop ‘a sense of regional consciousness’.

154 The view from within ASEAN economic projects, Romulo said, had ‘a dual purpose’. Intended to meet ‘some of the pressing problems of the region’, they were ‘also meant to initiate the process of building confidence in ourselves . . . to solve the region’s problems’. Ministerial statements contained ‘the usual references fostering “the spiritual values of ASEAN” and arriving at a “moral consensus,” and that invited ‘the cynical conclusion that ASEAN was inclined to feed on hogwash rather than substantial fare’. But, Curle concluded, ministers had moved ‘a few steps forward toward establishing the mutual confidence to which any further progress is inevitably tied’.75 ‘The Meeting displayed the cautious progress that has been characteristic of ASEAN from the beginning’, commented Le Breton at the FCO. ‘The doubts entertained by certain members (especially Singapore) about the enlargement of the organisation appear to have lessened’, and it was reported that there was agreement that the Khmer Republic might become a member ‘after all foreign troops have been withdrawn. But even this more flexible attitude has an air of the Greek Kalends about it.’ ASEAN, however, remained ‘the grouping in the region with the best chance of successfully developing a respectable amount of meaningful cooperation between its members’.76 In a speech in July 1971 Razak argued that the involvement of major powers was the essential reason Southeast Asia had not been at peace for twenty years. Peace and security could be safeguarded only by ‘a policy of neutralisation which will ensure that this region will no longer be a theatre of conflict for the competing interests of the major powers’. That required that the states in the region had to ‘work to bring about the conditions which are necessary for the realisation of the neutralisation proposed and show that a neutralised Southeast Asia meets the basic legitimate interests of the great powers themselves’. Malaysia’s ‘vision’ was of ‘a Community of Nations. . . . When we look at the map of Asia, it is possible to see that Southeast Asia is a clear and coherent unit which through the vicissitudes of history has not been able to play its proper part in the world.’77 It is surely not fanciful to see this as inter alia a comment on Indonesia’s aspirations to be a ‘big’ or ‘middle’ power. Malik indeed responded. How should Southeast Asia react to the ‘vast and decisive changes’ among the major powers? Not by alignment with any one power or combination, he thought, nor, he added, by neutralisation. There was no similarity between Southeast Asia and Switzerland. The prospect of great power agreement was ‘a rather distant possibility’, and at that stage neutralisation that was ‘the product of “one-way” benevolence on the part of big powers’ might prove ‘as brittle and unstable as the inter-relationship’ among them. It was ‘only through developing among ourselves an area of internal cohesion and stability, based on indigenous socio-political and economic strength, that we can ever hope to assist in the early stabilisation of a new equilibrium in the region that would not be the exclusive diktat of the major powers’.78 In October 1971 Ghazali published a defence of the proposal and outlined the steps Malaysia envisaged for implementing it.79 At the first level, he argued, the individual countries of the region must ‘respect each other’s sovereignty and

ZOPFAN 155 territorial integrity, and not participate in activities likely to directly or indirectly threaten the security of another. Non-interference and non-aggression are basic principles which Southeast Asian countries must unequivocally accept before any further steps can be taken.’ All foreign powers were to be ‘excluded from the region, which ‘should not be allowed to be used as a theatre of conflict in the international power struggle’. The countries of the region should ensure peace among member states, and present ‘a collective view before the major powers on vital issues of security’ and ‘promote regional cooperation’. At the second level, the three major powers had to agree that Southeast Asia was ‘an area of neutrality’, and ‘undertake to exclude countries in the region from the power struggle amongst themselves’. They should ‘devise the supervisory means of guaranteeing Southeast Asia’s neutrality in the international power struggle. Just as the Southeast Asian countries will be responsible, under the neutralisation plan, for maintaining peace among themselves, so will the guaranteeing powers be responsible for preventing externally-inspired conflict in the region.’ Ghazali alluded to the International Control Commission set up at Geneva in 1954 as providing ‘valuable lessons’ in respect of an effective method of supervision.80 The Malaysians were hoping that the AMM, due to meet in KL late in November 1971, would produce ‘some kind of public declaration about the desirability of neutralisation of South East Asia’. Jack de Silva, Deputy High Commissioner in London, told Hickman that they hoped that Thanat would be the primary sponsor. De Silva ‘assumed that it would be sufficiently vague and general in content for the Indonesians and the Thais to be able to subscribe to it and did not think that the Philippines or Singapore would be inclined to oppose it. He said that it would be proposed that a study group of ASEAN officials would then be instructed to work out in detail the implications of their Ministers’ declaration!’ The second main topic would be ‘the likely policy of China’ towards Southeast Asian countries after its admission to the UN, ‘linked with consideration of the future role of Japan in the area’. His government thought Beijing might press Kuala Lumpur for the development of diplomatic relations before it pressed other capitals. ‘The Malaysians are apparently hoping to agree on a common ASEAN policy towards Chinese initiative[s] of this kind.’ De Silva said Ismail was ‘quite relaxed about the prospect of a Chinese mission in Kuala Lumpur’. The third topic for the meeting, de Silva suggested, was Marcos’ longstanding proposal for an Asian summit. Malaysia thought that would be ‘too large to be useful’, and intended to counter it by proposing an ASEAN summit which ‘in due course’ would ‘give a blessing’ to what they already called the ‘Kuala Lumpur Declaration’ on neutralisation.81 The British High Commissioner in Kuala Lumpur, Sir J. Johnston, had similar information, though he thought that the Malaysians did not want the declaration to be ‘vague and general’. It was possible, he believed, that the meeting might consider ‘some larger initiative’ – a conference of all the Southeast Asian countries, ASEAN, Burma, Laos, Cambodia, North and South Vietnam, with a possible extension to North and South Korea – ‘designed to evolve a concept of neutrality for the region which external powers would then be invited to accept and

156 The view from within underwrite’. Johnston thought Britain should ‘react as positively as possible’. Earlier in the year the Malaysians’ pronouncements ‘seemed no more than pious and rather naive hopes that in the long term the super powers could be brought to a joint guarantee of non-interference in the affairs of the region’. Now they were ‘concerned with the much more down-to-earth problem of how the countries of the region can themselves promote its peace and stability in the context of American withdrawal from Viet Nam and the emergence of China’. Johnston believed they were seeking a formulation of Southeast Asian neutrality ‘which the Chinese would find it difficult not to respect, but which would leave South East Asian countries free to maintain their traditional connections’. If ‘anything constructive’ emerged, the Malaysians would look to their friends ‘to applaud their efforts to promote stability’, and France and other countries would be ‘swift to endorse the concept of a neutral South East Asia’. Britain, he suggested, should let it be known ‘that we welcome any policies that contribute to the peace and stability of an area with which we have so many ties’.82 The FCO in London thought that it would be able to take a positive attitude to a declaration of neutralisation which the Chinese would find it difficult not to respect, but which would not inhibit regional cooperation or ‘the freedom of South East Asian countries to maintain arrangements with friendly powers which they think necessary for their security’. The suggestion that external powers – presumably US, SU, PRC – should ‘underwrite’ it would, however, be difficult to endorse publicly. ‘There is a distinction between self-denying ordinances whereby the great powers would undertake not to interfere in the affairs of South East Asian countries and to respect their territorial integrity, sovereignty and existing systems of government and an international agreement (which in itself would give the outside signatories a droit de regard in the area) under which each great power would guarantee the neutrality of countries in the area. A positive agreement of this sort would involve reconciliation of differing interests of the powers concerned to an extent which is not practical politics at present. It could also involve weakening of existing Western position in the area. Furthermore, Malaysians would presumably want above all to obtain undertakings by China not to support Communist subversive movements in the area: we cannot expect the Chinese to give any undertakings of this sort in the foreseeable future. Experience of the Geneva agreements is not encouraging and demonstrates how agreements of this sort do not necessarily prevent outside interference.’83 Anthony Royle, the British Parliamentary Under-Secretary, then in Southeast Asia, discussed the declaration with Romulo. ‘He said that the Philippines Foreign Affairs Council had authorised him to agree to a formula looking forward to neutralisation of S.E. Asia or to any comparable objective which might be achievable in the future.’The Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia were all ‘rather chary’ of such a commitment, Romulo thought, ‘and would want to ensure that it was not regarded as more than a long-term (5–10) years objective since if adopted it would involve the phasing out of existing defence arrangements’. Whether such a declaration served any purpose would depend on how the great powers reacted to it ‘by way of support’.

ZOPFAN 157 Royle also spoke to Thanat, who had discussed the officials’ work on the declaration with Razak. ‘He said that they were drafting more a statement of principles for example that they believed in peaceful cooperation, coordination of regional policy etc., rather than a declaration of neutralisation (underline two following words) per se.’ Clearly, Royle concluded, both Thanat and Romulo believed that any declaration could only be ‘a long-term statement of intention’, with no immediate effect on SEATO or US/Thai or US/Philippines defence arrangements. ‘Despite the buffeting which relations with the U.S. had suffered as a result of President Nixon’s China policy, Thanat seemed convinced that the U.S. would maintain close relations with its allies, and above all with Japan and Taiwan, even if at a more modest level than in the past.’ Royle said he agreed. Romulo seemed ‘less certain’.84 The foreign ministers met in KL 26–27 November 1971 and signed a declaration announcing their agreement ‘that the neutralisation of Southeast Asia was a desirable objective’ and that they should ‘explore ways and means of bringing it about’. The preamble alluded to UN principles, Bandung, and the Bangkok declaration of 1967, and took cognisance of the move towards nuclear-free zones in Africa and Latin America. The declaration itself stated that Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand were ‘determined to exert initially necessary efforts to secure the recognition of, and respect for, Southeast Asia as a Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality, free from any form or manner of interference by outside Powers’.85 A joint communique indicated that the ministers would encourage other countries in Southeast Asia to associate themselves with the declaration and would establish a committee of senior officials ‘to study and consider what further steps should be taken’.86 Hänggi suggests that ‘peace’ was there because the NAM had formulated the idea of a zone of peace in the Indian Ocean, and ‘free’ could mean the ‘end of imperialism’ but also ‘opposition to communism’.87 Great powers and guarantees were not mentioned. The FCO in London was ‘reassured’ by the ‘moderate tone’ of the declaration and by the remarks Razak made to its High Commissioner to the effect that it contained long-term objectives and did not affect the consultative Five Power Defence Arrangement, negotiated earlier in the year in replacement of AMDA.88 ‘We welcome the emphasis on freedom from “interference” by outside powers, with its implication that South East Asian Nations should still be free to invite cooperation of friendly powers when they saw fit.’ The telegram endorsed Royle’s statement in KL.89 He had described the declaration as ‘a most important step towards peace and stability in the region’. His government ‘fully supported their determination that there should be no outside interference in the internal affairs of states in the region’. It was ‘delighted’ that they had reached an understanding on how to shape their destiny.90 The main concern in London was over FPDA. The impression the FCO gained was that, even if a formal neutrality scheme were agreed upon in the relatively near future, the Malaysians would not necessarily regard that as obliging them to abandon the 5-power arrangements: they had been at pains to say that the KL accord was not inconsistent with their other commitments.91 The Thai and

158 The view from within Philippines governments were also concerned about retaining their US links for the time being. L.J. Middleton of the British High Commission in KL summed up the information it had collected from Johnston’s talk with Razak, Royle’s conversation with Razak, Zaiton and Ghazali, the New Zealand High Commission, and conversation with Abdullah Zawawi in MFA. Apparently officials had been divided not only among delegations but within them, the divisions resolved only when it was accepted they were discussing ends not means. Intervention by ministers was needed, and they agreed to present ‘a broad united front’. There was, it seemed, no separate discussion on China, but it was very much in the minds of those discussing the declaration, ‘and it is generally thought that a desire on the part of some of the other countries to exert a restraining influence on the Malaysians in this respect was an important factor in preserving ASEAN unity’. Razak told Johnston that the declaration would ‘provide a context in which to handle relations with China’. Ghazali spoke ‘very forcefully’ to Royle on the topic, asserting that, ‘although this could not be said publicly, the real importance of the declaration – and the extension of support for it amongst the other South East Asian powers – lay in the defensive position it gave them against moves by China to assume leadership of South East Asian countries, through another “Bandung” type conference with China in the chair: and in the framework of principle (especially as regards non-intervention) it provided for handling the question of Chinese representation’. The declaration was minimal: ‘about as little as could possibly have been agreed on if anything at all meaningful was to be said’. The Malaysians appeared, however, to be ‘quite satisfied’. They started off with ‘limited objectives’ and were ‘content to have achieved them’. De Silva’s forecast was ‘on the right lines’, though the description ‘vague and general’ might be considered ‘a little too harsh’. He was also right about the study group. ‘The Malaysians now take the attitude that the meeting achieved its objective by agreement on the principle of neutralisation.’ Now senior officials had to examine the concept and its political and economic implications. The British High Commission had tried to discover what the significance of the word ‘initially’ in the phrase ‘initially necessary steps’ was and whether it ‘concealed a difference of opinion and represented a limitation on the agreement’. Zawawi said it was to be ‘interpreted literally’: the declaration was to be ‘the starting point for work on the detailed problems which still face them now that agreement on principle has been reached’. There was, it seemed, no pressure to achieve quick results, however: the main purpose of the summit meeting to be held in March 1972 was to ratify the declaration. Extension would be ‘premature’, the Malaysians thought. It had, however, been agreed that they would approach the Burmese and Laotians, while the Thais would approach the Cambodians and the Vietnamese. ‘The North Vietnamese will be left to the Indonesians.’ The timing and method of approach would be left to the governments concerned. That might, Middleton thought, reflect ‘differing views as to what should be done and when. But Zawawi at any rate described the

ZOPFAN 159 search for support from the other five countries as the “crux of the matter” and there is no doubt that the wider the acceptance of the idea the greater the prospect of reality it assumes.’ Razak and Zaiton doubted if Burma would be willing to join in the declaration. Zawawi thought it ‘might not disagree’ with the declaration, but, as Razak said, it was unlikely ‘to do anything that might displease China’. Cambodia and South Vietnam had shown some interest, and the Laos prime minister was due in KL. North Vietnam, however, seemed ‘a doubtful starter’. Handling relations with China was ‘the major dynamic’ so far as the Malaysians were concerned, Middleton believed. ‘They are under no illusions that China will alter her methods or intentions, but they are concerned to construct a situation in which they will have some cards in their hands when they have to deal with for example pressures for the establishment of the same kind of diplomatic relations with China which the Western powers seem so concerned to achieve.’ In his concluding speech Razak stressed that the objectives could be attained only if all countries ‘scrupulously’ respected ‘our independence and integrity’ and neither overtly nor covertly interfered in ‘our internal affairs’. No one had ‘a right to expect us to be neutral’ if there were ‘any form of interference in our internal affairs’. The more Southeast Asian countries were persuaded to ‘join in a common front on the declaration, the stronger the tactical hand would be. And the problem of handling internal Chinese opinion in Malaysia and at the same time defeating the Malayan Communist Party makes it of the greatest importance to the Malaysians to put themselves in the strongest position they can vis a vis the CPG [PRC].’ They were ‘being realistic rather than naive’. No one had been specific about the eventual ‘guarantee’ by the super-powers. ‘There is a world of difference between an active “guarantee,” which gives the guarantor some status in the region, if not an active right of intervention; and a self-denying ordinance on the part of the super powers by which they severally undertake not to interfere. We suspect that it is the latter which the Malaysians would like (and which they would be wise to go for) but no pronouncements have yet been made – perhaps because they themselves regard this as a remote development for the distant future: or because this is one of the subjects the officials now have to consider.’92 De Silva made it clear, the South West Pacific Department commented, that what Malaysia wanted was undertakings not to interfere, rather than guarantees.93 Prior to the KL meeting, the British embassy in Jakarta reported, the Indonesians had thought Razak’s proposal ‘somewhat impractical and possibly dangerous’, and their delegation was instructed to get it ‘watered down’ without offending the Malaysians or their other ASEAN colleagues. ‘The Indonesian view appears to be that a declaration of neutralisation guaranteed by the great powers would be undesirable because it would provide a stepping-stone for great power intervention in the area and also make the South East Asian situation too rigid. Moreover, they like to point out that they themselves, unlike other ASEAN countries, have had experience in the past of dealing with the Chinese on a nominally friendly basis. As a result of this experience they are not prepared to put any faith in declarations of friendship etc by the Chinese and they believe that such

160 The view from within declarations would not inhibit the Chinese from continuing their subversive activities in the region.’ The Indonesians also pointed out ‘that they are the only one of the ASEAN countries which is not involved in a defence pact with countries outside the region. They therefore have some claim to regard themselves as more non-aligned than the other members of ASEAN. While in principle the Indonesians have some sympathy for the idea of neutralisation in the sense of excluding the great powers from the area, they see it as a very long term possibility’, and not as ‘practical politics at present.’ The Indonesian reaction to the declaration had been ‘fairly muted’. The press generally welcomed it, ‘though without any great enthusiasm’. Officials gave the impression that they had succeeded in ‘seeing that the conference produced a suitably watered down version of the declaration’. The issue had been ‘conveniently shelved’.94 Indonesia was supportive of ZOPFAN, Anwar argues, but it was opposed to the outside guarantee Malaysia had proposed.95 That ‘irked Indonesian leaders because it could only be realised at the expense of Jakarta’s aspirations to achieve at least Middle Power status’.96 ‘No country with aspirations to big or middle power status could accept neutralization’, said Tommy Koh of Singapore.97 Great power guarantees would be ‘a new form of colonialism’.98 Nor were they anxious – least of all ABRI leaders – for the early resumption of relations with the PRC, ‘frozen’ since 9 October 1967,99 though that was the implication of the project. ‘We cannot ask Communist China to guarantee the neutrality of Southeast Asia’, as Ismail put it, ‘and at the same time say we do not approve of her.’100 If Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand were in no hurry to abandon their existing outside ties, sceptical Singapore favoured a continued great power presence. Great powers could be ‘ “be policemen on the beat” against an over-ambitious regional power, whether outside ASEAN or within’.101 For Malaysia, the great powers were important as guarantors, but, even without them, the project would have its value: it was a way of approaching China that offered it ‘an honorable bridge to the normalisation of relations with the region on mutually satisfactory terms’.102 Perhaps somewhat ironically, it echoed the Bandung principles, while pre-empting an Indonesian approach that might both consolidate its regional leadership and make it more difficult to handle the Malaysian Chinese community. For all the ASEAN states the concept had implications for relations within and outside the region, and the modifications the foreign ministers made at their meeting reflected that. The ‘zone’ idea was itself a compromise, inasmuch as it implied that there might be other routes to the objective. ZOPFAN, as Daljit Singh later put it, was ‘a philosophy and a vision. In practice it meant that gradually, and as far as possible, the countries of Southeast Asia should seek to be in charge of their own destiny and should try to refrain from doing anything which would lead to outside power intervention’.103 It was vague; it was also declaratory, as was much of ASEAN’s diplomacy in this phase; a ‘proclamation’, to use Ismail’s word. It also, of course, provided ‘a normative context for the integration of Vietnam into a peaceful Southeast Asia’.104

ZOPFAN 161 ‘[W]e have begun’, Romulo proclaimed, ‘we are no longer content to be passive spectators in the shaping of our destiny.’105 But in Manila, as the British embassy reported, the ‘euphoria’ which had greeted the declaration rapidly gave way to ‘the doubts and scepticism which originally accompanied the Malaysian proposal’, and Marcos claimed, despite Razak’s denial, that the ministers’ agreement had to be ratified by a summit. The ‘foremost problem’ was the future of the American bases, which, the Department of Foreign Affairs stressed, would have to be dismantled. The US was unlikely to respond favourably, and, although they were ‘the central target of nationalist sentiment’, the government recognised their value, in respect of defence and of employment. ‘The Sabah issue, which refuses to lie down, could also prove a stumbling block to any agreement, whether used as a negotiating point or as an internal political embarrassment.’ The SEATO commitment gave ‘less cause for concern’, for it was seen as a ‘dead horse’. The President was, however, taking the declaration seriously, for it represented a victory for his call for a Manila summit, though it would be an ASEAN not an Asian one, as the opposition press had pointed out.106 The Malaysians had stressed that the Kuala Lumpur meeting was ad hoc and the committee set up was not an ASEAN one. The Thais, the UK High Commission in Kuala Lumpur learnt, had asked that its meeting be delayed, so that they could ‘put their thoughts in order following their recent change of government’, Field Marshal Thanom’s ‘coup against himself’ in November 1971.107 Bertie Talalla, now dealing with the proposals in the Malaysian MFA, said that his government was ‘in no hurry; they are content to take things slowly and their main target at the moment is to increase basic support for the Declaration’. The prime minister of Laos had offered support on his visit in December and so did the ambassador of the Khmer Republic when he presented his credentials on 10 January 1972. The question of the ‘guarantee’, Talalla said, was one that had to be studied by the officials. Ismail had recently told the German Association for Foreign Policy that ‘what we are asking for is very simple, namely an open guarantee by the three great powers to respect the integrity and neutrality of South East Asia’. In ‘its simplest form’, that ‘need only to take the form of an oral pronouncement at the United Nations’. Other countries in the region, Middleton commented, had ‘good reason to be sceptical of guarantees of neutrality’ and it was not clear what, if anything, could be agreed upon. Razak told parliament on 19 January 1972 that the time had not yet come to approach the big powers: ‘they would take up this subject only when they had got the agreement of all the countries in the region’. The reaction of South Vietnam, Thai doubts, and Lao scepticism suggested that was a long way off.108 Suharto visited Manila 13–15 February 1972. Speaking to Congress, he set store by ASEAN. It should continue to be an organisation reflecting the will of its members that the future of Southeast Asia should be decided by Southeast Asian nations: ‘he hoped that a strong ASEAN could become the nucleus for a wider regional organisation which would encompass all nations of South East Asia irrespective of differences in political systems.’ The theme was echoed in the communique at the end of the visit. The two presidents, it announced, ‘agreed to

162 The view from within intensify their efforts, along with those of the other ASEAN countries, in making ASEAN a more effective instrument of peace, progress, and stability in the region’. They referred to the declaration of 27 November.109 So far as the great powers were concerned, an article by V. Kudryavtsev in Izvestia [6.1.72] had suggested something of the Soviet Union’s attitude. Apprehensive of ‘American imperialist designs’, but also fearful lest, ‘for the sake of its flirt with the Maoist leadership of China’, the US might co-operate with that country at their expense, Southeast Asian countries were looking for new means of securing their independence, alarmed as they also were by the rise of Japan and the hegemonistic aspirations of the Chinese. ‘The achievement of neutrality depends to a large extent on the states who have proposed it.’ As Nhan Dan put it, the first thing to be done to turn Southeast Asia into a zone of peace, freedom and neutrality was to end US intervention, withdraw all US and allied troops, and reject the Nixon doctrine. At present Thailand was taking an active part in the Indo-China war, the Philippines was in SEATO, and Malaysia and Singapore had concluded FPDA. The ASEAN states needed to be consistent if they really wanted to put life into the idea of neutralisation, which could further the establishment of a system of collective security in Asia.110 But the collective security proposal – despite being coupled with the Bandung proposals – had not been taken up: Asean understood that ‘sooner or later a modus vivendi with the northern neighbours would have to be established and that embroilment in Sino–Soviet rivalry would have dislocating consequences for the region’.111 ‘What do we want these pacts for – to fight who?’ Malik asked. ‘China? I don’t think China will want to attack us.’112 France supported neutralisation, as Jean de Lipkowsky, the Deputy Foreign Minister, said in Jakarta on 9 March 1972. Malik stressed the importance of the statement: France was one of the five nuclear powers, ‘a country of considerable importance in world affairs’. He considered that the joint communique issued at the end of Nixon’s visit to the PRC indirectly supported the Kuala Lumpur declaration, ‘since it recognised the principle of non-interference in a country’s internal affairs’. Suharto was more cautious: he reportedly called for further study of the communique, especially the part about the Bandung principles.113 In it the US declared that the peoples of Indo-China ‘should be allowed to determine their destiny without outside intervention’. China had rejected ‘hegemony’. All peoples had ‘the right to choose their social systems . . . and the right to safeguard the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of their own countries’.114 Ismail visited Indonesia mid-March 1972. On his return he said he had agreed with Suharto ‘that guaranteed neutrality would not mean big power protection’. That would be ‘another form of collective colonialisation for the whole of South East Asia’. He had explained to the President that ‘our concept of a guarantee means acceptance by and respect for neutralisation by the big powers. This does not include protection. We can take care of ourselves.’ Middleton asked Talalla if the statement represented a significant development in Malaysian thinking. As usual, he replied that the committee of officials had yet to discuss the question, but he added that Ismail’s statement did reflect what

ZOPFAN 163 Malaysia had in mind. ‘Neutralisation would be based on strength and not on weakness.’ Previous declarations of neutrality ‘had been of small weak countries surrounded by larger and more powerful neighbours. Neutralisation had been a way of trying to prevent the major powers struggling over them’. Malaysia by contrast ‘sought the neutralisation of a whole region and saw it coming as a result of a significant build up of strength which would enable them to declare themselves independent of big power support. Until this stage had been reached it would, of course, be quite proper for the countries concerned to continue to depend on their alliances.’115 The 5th ASEAN ministerial meeting was held in Singapore 13–14 April 1972. Ismail’s speech seemed to J.S. Chick at the FCO in London to be designed to press the Malaysian view that governments should make greater use of ASEAN but ‘to avoid any statement which could easily excite members to resist pressure for a move in this direction’. In that context, Chick read his reference to ‘national resilience’ as ‘a polite bow in the direction of the Indonesians, who have expressed scepticism about the wisdom of Malaysian proposals for neutralisation, and who have sought to portray ASEAN as a body with a very limited political role’. It was reported that ASEAN ministers had agreed to meet informally once a year ‘to review international developments’, Chick added. If that were true, then Malaysia had ‘made some headway’ in its endeavour to make ASEAN ‘an accepted clearing house for the exchange of view on political events’.116 The Khmer and South Vietnamese ambassadors attended the open sessions of Singapore meeting as guests of the Singapore government, and the former announced his government’s intention of seeking full membership. Lee Kuan Yew’s opening speech dwelt on ASEAN’s limitations: only a small proportion of the economic recommendations had been implemented. That was ‘to some extent . . . inevitable’, since the various economies were not complementary, and their consumers were extra-regional. Lee’s aim, it seemed, was ‘to delineate what Singapore has always regarded as ASEAN’s proper field of activity, economic cooperation’, and to indicate that even in this field not too much should be expected. Other speeches had ‘a high political content’, including Rajaratnam’s. Recent developments in international politics, it was agreed, ‘had enhanced the value of such regional groupings’. The Singapore Foreign Minister put the point ‘most effectively; he argued that the change from a bipolar to a multipolar world and the detente between the US and China meant that the developed countries were no longer so concerned about the Third World. Developing countries would increasingly have to stand on their own feet – “the big powers believe they can pursue their great-power game even if the Third World is permanently impoverished and increasingly turbulent.” The necessity of giving aid to poor countries to save them from communism was becoming less and less accepted.’ But, despite some pressure from other members to include political matters on the official agenda, Rajaratnam ‘reiterated Singapore’s long-standing view that ASEAN is not the proper forum for political discussion, and suggested that periodic discussions among the foreign ministers of member countries should take place outside the framework of ASEAN’. The suggestion was accepted.

164 The view from within Jose Ingles – standing in for Romulo, injured in a recent motor accident – made the most ambitious suggestions: he revived the proposal for a permanent secretariat that the Philippines had made in 1968 and he reiterated the notion of a common market Marcos had made in 1971. Neither proposal was welcomed. The first, it was agreed, should be ‘studied’, which, Rajaratnam said, meant ‘shelved’. The second, as Lee saw it, was ‘premature and unrealistic’. The main aim was ‘to strengthen and consolidate domestic economies, not to integrate a regional economy’. That view was reflected in the communique. As Keith Manning of the UK High Commission put it, that was ‘not a very exciting document’. The meeting could, however, be described as a success. Singapore would be pleased that its views prevailed on political discussion, common market and secretariat. ‘Indonesia will no doubt be happy that the communique includes the affirmation that “it was necessary for member countries to develop national resilience which would enable them to face the present changes and challenges of the future with greater confidence”.’ The most important achievement of the meeting was, as Lee said, that it increased understanding of each other’s problems. ‘[T]o the outsider’, Manning concluded, ‘the sight of the representatives of five countries of such diverse character and background deliberating together and to some extent finding common cause remains the most impressive feature of ASEAN.’117 In a conversation with K.M. Wilford, private secretary to the British Foreign Secretary, in Jakarta early in July 1972 Djajadiningrat, the director-general for political affairs at MFA, ‘made no secret of the fact that he regarded Tun Razak’s plan for neutralisation under a great power guarantee as wholly unacceptable to Indonesia in present world circumstances – that is so long as the Vietnam war was still on, the Russians seeking to expand their influence and the Chinese determined to resist this’. He agreed that one of Razak’s aims was to ‘improve his internal image’. Singapore, he said, was ‘wholly opposed to the neutralisation concept’, and the Thais, after ‘flirting’ with it, had realised ‘that the American doctrine of disengagement meant neither total withdrawal or disinterest’ and so ‘saw no need to take up Tun Razak’s ideas’. Only the Filipinos might have ‘some enthusiasm’, and that, he agreed with Wilford, might be designed to get better terms for the US bases from the Americans. The Secretary of State avoided endorsing neutralisation. He followed the line Royle had taken, linking it with Malik’s concept of ‘national resilience’, which Wilford thought was ‘a good one and worthy of support’.118 The senior officials met in Kuala Lumpur on 6–8 July 1972. Their press statement indicated that they had exchanged preliminary views on ‘neutralisation’ as a means of establishing a zone of peace, freedom and neutrality. Alternative means had to be considered.119 The committee, the UK High Commission in Kuala Lumpur learned, had a number of papers before it. Despite their saying earlier that they intended the meeting to be essentially exploratory, the Malaysians produced ‘a very detailed account of the steps necessary to achieve neutralisation, down to the production of a draft treaty and the procedure necessary to register it with the UN’. The others, ‘somewhat taken aback’, would not discuss it in detail. An

ZOPFAN 165 Indonesian paper outlined steps necessary to achieve a zopfan through ‘national resilience’. A Thai paper concentrated on existing examples of neutrality, such as Austria and Laos. Neither the Philippines nor Singapore produced a paper. After a day’s discussion the officials decided to limit their terms of reference to that part of the November declaration which stated that the five nations would take initial steps to secure recognition of and respect for the zone. The word ‘neutralisation’ – included in November only in the preambular paragraph in November – thus did not appear. That must have been a reverse for the Malaysians, Middleton thought. A working group, headed by Talalla, was set up to produce acceptable definitions of ‘peace’, ‘freedom’, and ‘neutrality’. ‘Peace is a condition where the prevalence of harmonious and orderly relations exists between and among states; no reference is hereby made to the internal state of affairs in each of the zonal states.’ ‘Freedom means the freedom of states from control, domination or interference by other states in the conduct of their national and external affairs.’ Neutrality meant, in the context of the KL declaration, ‘that zonal states shall undertake to maintain their impartiality and shall refrain from involvement directly or indirectly in ideological, political, economic, armed or other forms of conflict, particularly between powers outside the zone, and that outside powers shall not interfere in the domestic or regional affairs of the zonal states.’ The group’s efforts were presented to the committee on the third day, and a final definition emerged: ‘A “zone of peace, freedom and neutrality” exists where national identity, independence and integrity of the individual states within such a zone can be preserved and maintained, so that they can achieve national development and well-being and promote regional cooperation and solidarity, in accordance with the ideals and aspirations of their peoples and the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, free from any form or manner of interference by outside powers.’ Agreement on the definition did not, however, solve the semantic problems. In particular, ‘there was a long discussion on whether “neutralisation” could be regarded as the end or only as the means to an end. Indonesia and the Philippines apparently regarded neutralisation as the state of being neutral. Singapore on the other hand argued that it was only the means to the end and that other means to achieve the same ends were possible, for example, demilitarisation, denuclearisation etc.’ Indonesia’s viewpoint – that neutralisation should come about through ‘national resilience’ – was discussed. The Indonesians argued ‘that they could not afford to become neutralised if this meant the abandonment of foreign influence and therefore aid’. The Singaporeans were ‘unenthusiastic about a rapid withdrawal of the major powers’. Officials generally agreed on ‘the need to increase regional cooperation in order to further “national resilience” ’. The discussion, Middleton thought, might have suggested military cooperation, but there was, he was told, ‘no suggestion of a regional security arrangement’. Guarantees were also problematical: could they exist ‘without giving the major powers a right to interfere in the area’? The Malaysians were to reformulate their ideas.120 Middleton reported further after meeting Zainal and, with his Australian and New Zealand colleagues, Talalla. The Malaysians, the latter said, had begun by

166 The view from within proposing ‘a zone in which countries would be neutral and non-aligned’. It would be ‘free from outside interference; in return the states within it would not take sides in a cold war struggle’. Talalla envisaged its covering all ten Southeast Asian countries. It would be ‘guaranteed’ by the major powers. That was the Malaysians’ position in November 1971. They wanted the committee to define ‘the rights and obligations of members of the zone and, having worked it out amongst themselves then attempt to “hawk it around” (his term) the rest of the region’. In talking of neutralisation, Talalla said, ‘the Malaysians did not wish to give the impression that they wished to bury their heads in the sand. They were not opting out and the countries of the zone would remain free to take part in normal international activities. What they wanted was merely to limit foreign presence in the region to a level that was acceptable.’ He thought that it was ‘generally accepted’ that that meant ‘doing away with bilateral defence arrangements’. Even ‘purely consultative’ ones would not be acceptable. If consultative arrangements were considered desirable, ‘they would have to apply to the whole zone and not to individual countries’, and the initiative ‘would have to lie with the countries within the zone’. Arrangements inconsistent with the principle of non-interference could not be accepted. ‘The countries of the zone would have to come clean in this respect otherwise they could not hope to win the support and acceptance of the major powers.’ Excluding interference did not necessarily exclude bilateral aid, including military aid. ‘But it would have to be without unacceptable strings.’ Talalla said ‘they had no fixed ideas’ about guarantees. ‘In its simplest form a guarantee might be no more than a declaration of recognition and respect for the zone; it alternatively might be something more positive.’ Zainal said it was one of the points of disagreement: some thought there should be ‘some deterrent element’ for the guarantees to be effective. ‘Talalla recognises very clearly that the problem is to construct a form of guarantee which has some real meaning while avoiding giving the major powers any licence to interfere in the affairs of the zone that is without bringing about the very state of affairs they wish to avoid.’ It was also understood that ‘some price might be exacted for a guarantee’, and that would have to be ‘limited to what the countries of the zone were willing to pay. In fact recognition and respect for the zone would go a long way to meeting Malaysian objectives since it would imply an interest in the continued existence of the zone.’ Malaysia was disappointed by the Singaporeans’ ‘stonewalling’. They did not want to give up the advantages of their current bilateral relations, Talalla thought, but they would jump on the bandwagon when it suited them. Neutralisation, he said, was ‘a long term objective’ for the Malaysians, but they did not want it to be ‘simply a Utopian dream’. They were ‘conscious of developments in the world about them for example the possibility of a settlement in Vietnam and of detente between the major powers (especially China and the US) and do not want to be caught out by a sudden change in the situation in the area. They want to have a blueprint worked out and a large measure of agreement, at least between the 5 ASEAN countries, so that they are ready for any eventuality.’ Talalla denied that

ZOPFAN 167 the urgency the Malaysians felt related to ‘anxieties about relations with China’. The ASEAN states had agreed to consult over that question, though retaining freedom of action. ‘Their concern was more that changing events would pre-empt their plan and lead to a solution to the region’s problems being imposed on them.’121 The Malaysian eagerness to press ahead could be explained, Chick speculated in London, ‘in terms of a natural desire on the part of Tun Razak, coming after the Tunku, to establish the identity of his Government, and perhaps to win the support of Chinese voters in Malaysia’. Recent reports had, however, referred to neither factor. ‘A stronger influence on the Malaysians appears to be the idea that South East Asian nations need to move quickly and in concert to take advantage of the present shifting of the balance of power in the region to secure South East Asia for the South East Asians. Otherwise, they seem to think, a valuable opportunity will have been lost.’ Chick doubted that such an opportunity existed. ‘But . . . a better complexion is put on the Malaysian initiative, looked at strictly from a western point of view, if short term considerations are disregarded.’ In any case, they were not consistent with the time-scale of the neutralisation proposals. ‘In the long term, the Malaysians could argue, China is bound to exert greater influence in South East Asia. This could be more or less damaging to western interests. If the Malaysians and their ASEAN colleagues were to remain where they were (in the western camp, both formally and effectively) it would be more likely that they would attract hostile attention from China. If, on the other hand, they could move on to some well chosen middle ground, they may escape close attention on the part of China and if they cohere, they may even find themselves in a better position to resist Chinese pressure when it is exerted. This would be to the advantage of both South East Asians and the West.’122 ‘Neutralisation can mean different things to different people’, Rowland, the Australian High Commissioner in KL, suggested; ‘it offers a long-term objective without giving a realistic account of how to reach it’. That enabled Malaysia to ‘look nonaligned while not altering the present realities of foreign support in the region’; a ‘ “smokescreen” aspect’ to their proposal. But they also saw it as a guide to future policy. Neutralisation was ‘not intended to open the way to Chinese or Communist domination, but is regarded as the best strategy of defence. It emerged not only from the domestic need of the leadership under a new Prime Minister . . . for a “new look,” but also from Malaysia’s twin preoccupations of Communist insurgency and relations with China, in the situation arising from the continuing war in Indochina, the British withdrawal, the Guam doctrine, and now the Nixon visit. Though Malaysia feels that it has no alternative internationally but non-alignment, it cannot but be anticommunist in fact.’ There was ‘some tendency’ in Kuala Lumpur ‘to overestimate the likely extent of American withdrawal’. But the Malaysians also believed that ‘the best way in practice to preserve or even attract American support is not to put up a public appearance of relying on it, but rather to display independence and self-reliance, for which “neutralisation is another name” ’. At the last Manila meeting, however, ‘the Malaysian ideas apparently ran more or less completely aground’. That development held ‘some possible dangers’.

168 The view from within It would be unfortunate if ASEAN reached deadlock, or came to ‘an open split over failure to conceal disagreement’ about the November declaration, its ‘first important joint effort in regional affairs’. Relations with Thailand post-Thanat were no longer so good, Marcos was distrusted, Singaporeans were ‘spoilers’. The Malaysians were concentrating on the Indonesian connection, in particular, ‘hedging their bets against a loss of influence by Adam Malik’, on the generals. But it would be a pity if close relations with Indonesia, desirable as they were, developed at the price of the broader ASEAN approach. On balance the neutralisation idea was ‘a useful and creative one’, and it might over a period be adapted to ‘a more realistic form’, emphasising the aspect of regional strength and self-reliance.123 Putting the proposal on the table – and Malaysia had at least done that, without shouting out that it had not been fully accepted – itself discouraged any early move by China. As Chick wrote, ‘the present situation whereby the proposals are kept aloft and in the public eye by periodic meetings suits the Malaysians in the context of their relations with China’.124 Ghazali was ‘one of the first enunciators of the doctrine’ of neutralisation, David Aiers commented from Canberra. The proposition might indeed be ‘a development from an idea of the Tunku who . . . said some years ago that there would be no question of Malaysia’s fighting if China were to attack her’. In March 1970 Ghazali told Commonwealth representatives in KL ‘that the best basis for improved relations with China was a series of interlocking alliances, some multi-lateral and some bi-lateral’. Ismail and Razak took up the idea ‘that by projecting an image of non-alignment and advocating a rather hazy idea of neutralisation they would improve relations with China’. Neutralisation was ‘an amorphous concept and surely it is in the Malaysian interest to let it remain so. They would not then have to indulge in rigorous thought in an attempt to produce a precise definition and they could continue to make it appear to be all things to all men, as they do at present.’125 Talking of ZOPFAN had another purpose: it might help to end the second Indo-China war. ‘The Malaysians have often said that neutralisation must apply to the ten countries of South East Asia if it is to be effective.’126 Hashim bin Sultan, secretary-general at the MFA, said that Malaysia was convinced that there must be ‘a political solution’ in Vietnam. ‘This was why the recent ASEAN proposals had been put forward by Malik.’ They had been rejected, but ASEAN might submit amended proposals.127 ASEAN Foreign Ministers had discussed Vietnam in Manila on 13–14 July 1972 at their first ‘informal’ meeting ‘outside the purview of ASEAN’. A subsequent press statement indicated that the meeting had decided to urge the parties to intensify their attempts to reach a settlement. They also agreed that ASEAN countries should ‘explore the possibility of making concrete contribution towards the final settlement of the Indochina question’. Reports indicated that ASEAN members had formulated a five-point proposal which North Vietnam rejected.128 Early in December 1972 the British embassy in Jakarta learnt that a foreign ministers’ conference might be held later in the month, the main topic to be the aftermath of a Vietnamese settlement if one were reached. Nurmathias, head of

ZOPFAN 169 the Asia Pacific directorate at MFA, hoped that proposals for a conference of the ten Southeast Asian nations would emerge, including Burma, ‘now slightly less isolationist’. The idea would be to concentrate on encouraging economic development and co-operation, downplaying political differences.129 In fact only what the FCO in London termed an ‘uneventful’ officials’ meeting was held,130 the Vietnam peace settlement having not been reached. A ministerial meeting was expected as soon as it was. At the end of January 1973 Talalla gave Middleton a more positive account of the Jakarta meeting. The officials ‘had sought to establish the principles on which neutralisation should be set up and to consider the ways of promoting the conditions in which a zone of peace would prosper and survive. They had succeeded in establishing a code of conduct for states both within and outside the region and they had made some progress on lines of action for the promotion of the zone.’ The guidelines were to be referred to the Foreign Ministers, perhaps at their regular meeting in April. Talalla admitted that there was a long way to go. ‘In particular time had not permitted the completion of their study of guarantees or on the mechanism of conflict resolution (and this, of course, could be much more contentious).’ But he was pleased with the cooperation received: even the Singaporeans were in a ‘less argumentative frame of mind’. He claimed that the concept of a neutralised zone had now been accepted by all the countries in the region. Middleton queried acceptance by North Vietnam. He responded that a North Vietnamese spokesman in Paris had said it wanted ‘true neutrality’ for the region. ‘This the Malaysians interpreted as the same objective as their own.’They had always recognised, he declared, ‘that no progress could be made on neutralisation until the ending of the war in Vietnam’. Now that a cease-fire had been agreed [27.1.73], their work was ‘much more relevant’. Certainly, Middleton commented, they had worked hard. ‘Whatever happens there is no doubt that the Malaysians have done well so far in staking a claim to have their scheme for the future of the region prominent in any discussions that may take place.’131 ‘The picture given by our brief for Lord Carrington is different’, Chick noted. ‘Mr Talalla will brook no disappointment.’132 Indeed Tan Boon Seng, Deputy Secretary at MFA in Singapore, offered a different assessment of the Jakarta meeting. He told John Watts of the UK High Commission that Singapore was no longer ‘the nigger in the woodpile’ on neutralisation. The other ASEAN countries had also adopted a ‘realistic’ attitude to neutralisation. Ingles had insisted ‘that the idea of a neutral South East Asia was not incompatible with defence pacts outside the region even where this included the presence of foreign bases (provided that these were for defensive purposes only)’. The Thais now agreed that progress towards neutralisation must be ‘slow and cautious’.133 As put by Razak to Lord Carrington, Malaysia’s attitude proved ‘more realistic’.134 Lord Carrington visited Kuala Lumpur just after Vice-President Agnew, who had been there to explain the future of US relations with Southeast Asia after the cease-fire. When he left he issued a statement including ‘some approving words about regional cooperation’, but he ‘avoided saying anything about neutralisation or non-alignment’. He told the Malaysians he thought the South Vietnam government

170 The view from within would survive. Perhaps, Middleton thought, that would persuade the Malaysians – who had hitherto assumed that it was ‘only a matter of time’ before South Vietnam went communist – to take ‘a more robust view of Saigon’s chances of survival’. They had, however, been working on the premise – not shared by the Indonesians – that, ‘having secured a dominant position in Indo China, Hanoi will not have designs on other countries in South East Asia’. The MFA had been considering recognising North as well as South Vietnam. ‘Insofar as the Malaysians aim eventually at an expanded ASEAN grouping to include the four countries of Indo China and Burma, recognition would indeed be a logical premise: and might strengthen South Vietnam’s own claim to continued recognition as a distinct state.’ But Hashim said that they did not want to ‘rush things’.135 Razak told Carrington about his talks with Agnew and ‘indicated that he himself was in favour of a strong American presence in South East Asia, although he thought that the United States would eventually have to withdraw from the mainland and rely on their island bases. He apparently saw the US policy and involvement in the area as essentially a part of their global power relationship with the USSR and China. He seemed to think that in the long term the USA and China would come to some sort of understanding which would required the countries of South East Asia increasingly to look after themselves.’ On neutralisation Razak took ‘a rather more cautious and realistic line’ than MFA, ‘who are perhaps more Royalist than the King on this subject’. Neutralisation was a long-term aim. He had mentioned 3–5 years to Agnew, ‘but accepted under questioning by Lord Carrington that this might be an underestimate’. In the meantime he wanted the FPD Arrangements to continue.136 The cease-fire agreement covered the withdrawal of US forces from Vietnam, and of all countries’ forces from Laos and Cambodia. ‘The problems existing between the Indo-Chinese countries shall be settled by the Indo-Chinese parties on the basis of respect for each other’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity and non-interference in each other’s affairs.’137 The post-settlement ‘informal’ ASEAN ministerial meeting was held in KL on 15 February 1973. It ‘warmly welcomed’ the Vietnam cease-fire agreement and noted that it stipulated for the independence, sovereignty, unity, territorial integrity and neutrality of Laos and Cambodia. ‘The Meeting recognised’, the press statement continued, ‘that the peace and stability of the area are the primary responsibility of all South East Asian countries. The sense of identity and regional cohesion engendered through ASEAN cooperation and the developing national and regional resilience could be the foundation on which South East Asian countries could assume this responsibility.’ The meeting was gratified that the agreement contained ‘elements in many respects similar to the Kuala Lumpur Declaration and that this might signify the beginning of the realisation of a South East Asian zone of peace, freedom and neutrality, free from any form or manner of interference from outside powers’. It called for ‘the development of mutual trust and understanding among the countries of the region’, to be facilitated by a meeting ‘at an appropriate time in the future’ of all the Southeast Asian countries to constitute an ‘Asian Forum’. ‘[E]very effort’ was to be made towards ‘establishing and furthering contacts and

ZOPFAN 171 promoting interlocking relationships amongst these countries’. It was desirable ‘at an opportune time’ to expand ASEAN membership to include all the countries in Southeast Asia. The press statement also spoke of participating in the work of rehabilitation and reconstruction.138 The British High Commission gathered information about the meeting from M.G.G. Pillai of the Far Eastern Economic Review, Razali Ismail of MFA, and Phan Wanamethee of the Thai delegation. There was, it seemed, little discussion, though the Malaysians had hoped for it. Instead Malik and Romulo made set statements and Ismail had to follow suit. The press statement ‘was produced by officials quite separately from and prior to the foreign ministers’ discussion. It therefore does not relate directly to that discussion, but represents the furthest extent to which officials were prepared to allow their ministers to be committed.’ The Malaysians had wanted a stronger reference to the KL declaration, suggesting that the similarities between parts of the Paris agreement and the 1971 declaration ‘meant that all countries of the region supported the idea of neutralisation’. The Thais could not accept that, Asa Sarasin, their member on the drafting committee, arguing that, while they were ‘prepared to go along with the idea of neutralisation and to attend the meetings of senior officials, they were not prepared to commit their minister to anything quite so definite’. Nor did the Philippines support the Malaysian draft, so it was made weaker. The Thais had come with a proposal for a meeting of ten countries – that is including two Vietnams – ‘but the Malaysians pointed out the difficulties involved, particularly with regard to the recognition of Hanoi and the question of who should represent the Khmer Republic’. The Filipinos had been keen on an Asian Forum, which the Thais had understood to mean a meeting of the five heads of state. The drafting group finally married the two ideas, giving the title ‘Asian Forum’ to something like the Thai proposal, but putting off the meeting to ‘an appropriate time in the future’. On expanding the membership of ASEAN, the key words were ‘at the opportune time’. Malaysia was again conscious of the problems of representation. ‘The Thais saw no objection to expanding ASEAN if the other countries wanted to come in, but were opposed to touting for members.’ The Malaysians wanted a coordinating committee to deal with reconstruction in Vietnam, to which the US was expected to contribute, but no agreement could be reached, and it was left to the standing committee. The Malaysians thought that governments should focus on providing expertise, leaving material help to private enterprise.139 Middleton asked Yusoff Ariff, the Malaysian Secretary General for ASEAN affairs, for an assessment of ASEAN’s economic role and of ‘what it could offer to the other states of South East Asia who might be interested in joining it’. He described the work of the various committees and said Singapore had recently agreed to the creation of a permanent secretariat. He admitted that so far the ‘concrete results’ had been ‘small’, but they had been important, and he thought a regional approach to trade negotiations, with Japan, for example, might have more effect than merely bilateral ones. Equally or more important was ‘the growing

172 The view from within political confidence which had been established between the countries of the region’. Without the contacts fostered by ASEAN it might not have been possible to deal ‘so quietly’ with a recent incident on the Malaysia-Thai border or with the question of Malaysian assistance to Muslims in the embattled southern Philippines. The meetings had led to a clearer understanding of each other’s problems ‘and everyone involved was anxious to keep the political temperature down in order to preserve the longer term benefits of ASEAN’. Yusoff’s attitude, Middleton thought, clearly reflected his government’s desire ‘to expand ASEAN in a first step to the eventual neutralisation of South East Asia’. It was, however, ‘conscious of ASEAN’s present limitations’. A meeting of ASEAN officials was to be held to assess the economic requirements of the Indo-China states. Speaking to the press Yusof put the emphasis on technical co-operation rather than multilateral aid ‘because ASEAN nations might count on the Indo-Chinese States for aid in certain (unspecified) fields “in the spirit of regional cooperation” ’. Officials would also discuss inviting observers from Burma and the Indo-China states to the next ASEAN ministerial meeting.140 That was held at Pattaya on 16–18 April 1973. The prime minister’s welcome ‘mercifuly took only about 4 minutes’, Sir Arthur de la Mare, the British ambassador, reported, ‘but he then spent another 15 going round the room shaking hands with everybody he could grab’. He thought Rajaratnam’s the best speech. ‘He accepted that recent developments in American policy meant that the nations of South East Asia would have to fend for themselves more than they had done in the past but he strongly underlined the point that as developing nations they could not be entirely self-reliant even as a group and must still continue to rely a good deal on foreign aid.’141 Prior to the meeting, the host country issued invitations to Burma, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Laos and the Khmer Republic to send observers. Laos and the Khmer Republic did so, and the Burmese ambassador attended the opening ceremonies and social functions, as did most of the diplomatic corps. North Vietnam declined to attend, pointing to the Thais’ involvement in the Indo-China conflict in support of the US.142 No South Vietnamese observer appeared, though there had been observers at earlier meetings. Perhaps the South Vietnamese were too preoccupied with their own affairs. Some suggested they were offended by the report that the ASEAN countries were setting up a committee to aid in reconstruction, ‘a proposal which they regarded as being arrogant in view of the limited means at the disposal of ASEAN states’. Thanom’s opening speech – albeit short – set the guidelines for the political discussions. It contained ‘the main theme the Thais wished to promote, viz their desire to convene a conference of the ten nations of South East Asia’. They had obviously adopted this objective, the British embassy reported, as ‘their contribution to the evolution of ASEAN just as the Malaysians have been promoting their concept of neutralisation’. The original proposal had been put forward by the Thais in Kuala Lumpur in January. Thanom now went a step further, saying the conference should ‘serve as a forum for the discussions first and foremost of the problems of security for one

ZOPFAN 173 and all in this region’. That alarmed some participants, according to J.L. Jones of the British embassy: they thought it a reference to military security. The Thais then went to some lengths to clarify what was meant, and the press statement contained ‘an extensive definition of their common understanding, viz that Ministers agreed that “security” was to be interpreted in its broader sense “that is the establishment of political and economic stability, general peace and tranquillity in the region” ’. With that the Thai proposal was endorsed, the words ‘Asian Forum’ appended in deference to the Filipinos. The ‘preoccupation with the ten nation conference’ made it clear, the British embassy thought, that the political discussions at Pattaya ‘concentrated to a considerable extent on the problems of bringing North Vietnam into the South East Asian grouping. There was no talk of formally broadening the membership of ASEAN at this stage, which is recognition of the unlikelihood of countries like Burma and North Vietnam agreeing to join at this juncture (and the certainty that they would not join were the present governments in Laos, South Vietnam and the Khmer Republic to do so). However, the Thais obviously felt that it was now essential at least to indicate to the North Vietnamese that the doors to a new relationship within the region were at least ajar if not wide open.’143 ASEAN had not grown in membership, Jones commented, ‘but its stature gains little by little as these meetings go by’.144 Despite earlier suspicious that it might be ‘a vehicle for Indonesia’s regional ambitions, possibly in collusion with Malaysia’,145 the Singaporeans now appeared to think it had become useful for the exchange of views and consultation, the British High Commission reported. They had ‘particularly welcomed what they consider the realism of the general ASEAN agreement to discuss political and security matters, while sharing the ASEAN view that such discussions should not evolve into an internationalised form such as a pact’.146 ‘ASEAN must be strengthened’, Rajaratnam declared.147 No enthusiast for ZOPFAN, however, Singapore continued to want a US presence in the region.148 A ‘Shangri-la Southeast Asia’ – Lee Kuan Yew’s derisive phrase – was not on.149 Tan Boon Seng of Singapore’s MFA, along with the desk officer, Miss V. Menon, attended the follow-up meeting of ASEAN officials on neutralisation, held at Baguio, 19–21 June 1973. The statement they issued referred to the steady progress that had been made towards realising the objectives of the Kuala Lumpur declaration. Instead of seeking guarantees from the outside powers, ‘the conference was reported to have agreed . . . on letting the big powers recognise and respect the zone’. To do that, one source said, ‘we have to be ready with a specific blueprint which we could show these big powers so that it would be also to their own interest to insure the neutrality of the region. Of course we cannot impose on the big powers although we can initiate dialogues with them.’150 Singapore’s contribution to the discussion of the ‘guiding principles’ of the neutrality zone was mainly ‘reactive’. ‘The main running was made by the Malaysians and, to a lesser extent, the Indonesians. There was a difference of view between the Malaysian and Philippine delegations over the nature and timing of regional machinery for peaceful settlement of inter-Asean disputes. The Filipinos

174 The view from within were against the Malaysian proposal to set up machinery for political conciliation and negotiation before the neutrality zone itself had been established.’ Recourse to the UN or the International Court would meanwhile suffice. Menon thought no progress would be made on procedures before the next meeting, largely because of the Sabah question. Nor would there be much evolution towards the ‘blueprint’ – the principles – ‘beyond the already agreed long-term goals of no foreign troops, no nuclear weapons, and non-interference by outside powers’.151 In Kuala Lumpur the desk officer, Azzat, said delegates had expressed differing views about the ‘guarantees’, some wanting them carefully defined, others happy with ‘a purely token expression by the super-powers of their recognition and respect of the concept of neutralisation’. The Malaysians were somewhere in between. ‘They wanted guarantees to be meaningful but not so firm as to give any of the super-powers the right of intervention.’ ‘Azzat gave no indication that China had at any time suggested to the Malaysians that she was opposed to an increase in ASEAN membership’, but they were realistic about extending it to include the two Vietnams, Burma, Laos and Cambodia. ‘They still see this enlargement as a long term aim. Meanwhile, they will continue to foster the ideals of neutralisation amongst ASEAN as it now is.’ They were not ‘disheartened’ by the Baguio meeting. Neutralisation was still being discussed. ‘They have never expected anything other than a long haul on neutralisation and the success of the policy may be seen to lie not so much in its eventual fulfilment but in the sense of direction and the cooperation among ASEAN countries which it promotes.’152 Sir J. Johnston suggested in October 1973 that regionalism was ‘a present reality’, and neutralisation ‘a convenient aspiration, of which we must take account not because of its realism, but because of its convenience to its proponents’. ASEAN was no longer, as in 1967, ‘a talking shop’, but a ‘genuine vehicle for consultation and cooperation, with increasing political content, and . . . on the way to being institutionalised’. It consulted on neutralisation, the recognition of Bangladesh, relations with China, and over the southern Philippines ASEAN had priority over Islam. In the economic field members were working more closely together, trying to present a common front to the EEC and in international negotiations. With enlargement, the discussion moved from ‘reality’ to ‘aspiration’, and regionalism began to link up with neutralisation. ‘The aspiration is that at some time in the future the association will extend to include the other five SE Asian countries: and that together the Ten will form an area of “peace, freedom and stability,” collectively persuading the super powers to remain at a political equidistance which none singly could hope to achieve.’ No one in Malaysia thought that enlargement or neutralisation was ‘on the discernible horizon’. They might never happen. But they were ‘a present convenience’, providing ‘an immaculate set of foreign policy objectives now, to which neither East nor West can object. . . .’ ‘Faced with prospect of an assortment of SE Asian States, appearing in the aftermath of one or another kind of colonialism, disunited, uncertain and obvious take-over targets – the classic “power vacuum” after British French and partial US

ZOPFAN 175 withdrawal – the Malaysians believe that the regional acceptance of the common policy goals they have described as neutralisation will give the region the appearance and possibly a genuine sense of direction and unity of purpose, and strengthen its position vis-a-vis the super powers.’ They believed, perhaps rightly, ‘that if these aims and objectives are sufficiently reiterated and successfully put across, they may possibly derive from their acceptance as objectives some of the benefits that in theory would flow from their eventual realisation’. The other ASEAN countries were less convinced. Lee, however, seemed to have no alternative but ‘putting one’s money on a continued American presence’. Neither the Filipinos or the Thais were ‘in any hurry to be parted from the American defence presence’. Indonesia did not apparently have ‘quite the same sense of vulnerability’ as Malaysia: hence Malaysia’s leadership. ‘The neutralisation policy ingeniously puts Malaysia in a “heads I win, tails you lose” position.’ It sanitised the FPD arrangements, while it pursued ‘the search for a security which does not depend on a defence relationship with a Great or Super Power and which therefore has to be based on non-alignment’. The Malaysians’ hand might not be a winning one if they had to play it out; ‘but what they are interested in is a finesse in the early stages of the game’.153 A non-official US commentator made a similar appraisal of what might be called the realist’s constructivism. The current attempt to gain a formal agreement was ‘probably futile’, Marvin Ott wrote, but the initiative might be ‘crucial in laying the groundwork for a less structured variant. It offers for the first time the possibility of a common political programme and set of objectives among the states of Southeast Asia.’ The proposal helped to sort out the prerequisites and priorities ‘for achieving regional peace and stability’. Consultations over neutralisation fostered ‘integrative tendencies among the states involved’ and might in time persuade outside powers of ‘the necessity of approaching the region as a unit on crucial political and security matters’.154 The 7th meeting, held in Jakarta 7–9 May 1974, concentrated on trade and coordination, settling that the secretariat would be based in Jakarta. The sudden collapse of the regimes in Phnom Penh and Saigon in April 1975 caught ASEAN countries ‘unprepared’, Irvine suggests.155 Many speeches over the previous years had been filled with hope/foreboding, but ‘swiftness . . . caught nearly everybody by surprise’.156 ‘[T]he fall of American dominoes need not presage the fall of local political dominoes’, Ghazali, now Malaysian Minister of Home Affairs, argued in a broadcast. Whether a country went communist or not depended on the success of its internal and foreign policies. ‘Malaysia pursued national resilience as its first premise of national security and independence, and tried to maximise its security through a policy of neutralization.’157 At the 8th AMM, held in Kuala Lumpur on 13–15 May 1975, Razak ‘adopted the most conciliatory response’. He expressed a ‘fervent hope’ that the countries of Indo-China would join in building ‘a strong foundation of regional cooperation and regional peace’. The founders of ASEAN had envisaged that it would eventually include all the countries of Southeast Asia. ‘When I look at the map of the world, I see Southeast Asia as a cohesive and coherent unit. . . . Surely the

176 The view from within moment has come for that community of Southeast Asia, which has been our dream, to be realised?’158 Before the meeting Razak had said it was too early to extend an invitation to the new governments in Vietnam and Cambodia: they had ‘more urgent matters’ to deal with.159 The ministers might choose not to appear too concerned, lest they gave the impression of ganging up, Hugh Mabbett thought: a regional summit was now ‘more remote’.160 But in his opening speech Razak called on the Indo-China countries to work to build a peaceful, prosperous and neutral Southeast Asia. ‘It is a historic choice, a historic opportunity and a historic responsibility.’161 Singapore, as Irvine puts it, was more ‘circumspect’. ASEAN should not appear to be ‘disconcerted’, Rajaratnam argued, nor give ‘the impression that we are prepared at any cost to readjust ourselves to win the favour of the Indochina states’. He saw the strength and potential of the existing membership as ‘a practical way of safeguarding against the possible adverse circumstances of the emergence of revolutionary Indochina’.162 He also ‘urged ASEAN countries to make their decisions on the basis of a continuing Western presence in the region’.163 Unsurprisingly Malik evoked Bandung. Adjustment to the new situation should not be inspired by fear, nor by perceived vacuums in power relationships. ‘He proposed instead a framework of power relationships based on the Bandung principles of peaceful coexistence, noninterference, respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, equality and justice.’164 In their final statement, the foreign ministers expressed their willingness to enter friendly relations with the Indo-Chinese countries – differences in social and political systems should not be ‘an obstacle to the development of constructive and mutually beneficial relations’165 – and to co-operate in ‘the common task of national development’, but made no mention of expansion.166 The meeting agreed to accept for consideration by governments a draft treaty of amity and cooperation. ‘This was hailed as an important step towards the realisation of the Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality. It was moreover noted with satisfaction that progress was being made by Senior Officials in working out a “blueprint” for the Zone.’167 The Thai foreign minister proposed ‘a forum of all Southeast Asian countries . . . to discuss and settle differences between the communist and non-communist states’ – echoed by the retired Tunku’s call for ‘a Council of Peace in South-East Asia’ – but the prospects for such a forum ‘quickly faded’ with skirmishes on the Thai-Cambodian border and between Vietnam and Cambodia over islands in the Gulf.168 Malik took up a proposal, made earlier by the Philippines, for a meeting of ASEAN heads of government. During a tour of other capitals, Kukrit, the new Thai PM, secured the agreement of the other leaders.169 A ‘flurry of meetings’ preceded the summit,170 including the first-ever meeting of Economic Ministers, held in Jakarta, 26–27 November 1975. But if economic items were more squarely on the agenda of strengthening ASEAN, military items remained off it. The Indonesians suggested closer military cooperation, but not in the form of a pact; rather in the form of joint exercises, equipment standardisation,

ZOPFAN 177 establishment of an ASEAN staff college, and directed against insurgency. But ‘Malaysia argued that ASEAN diplomatic overtures to Hanoi would be prejudiced by open discussion of a military role for ASEAN.’171 In January 1976 Panggabean made it clear that there would be no pact – that would only produce a counter-pact – but that did not mean there would be no collaboration.172 On the agenda, however, was a draft treaty of amity and cooperation, already seen by the Foreign Ministers in May 1975, when they had also noted the progress officials had made with the ‘blueprint’ for the Zone.173 Much had thus been resolved before the summit held in Bali 23–25 February 1976. The host, Suharto, was under pressure to ensure its success and was ‘the main architect of the compromises’.174 The preamble alluded inter alia to the desire ‘to enhance peace, friendship and mutual cooperation’, consistent with the UN Charter, the 10 principles of Bandung, the Bangkok declaration of 1967, and the KL declaration of 1971. Article 1 declared that the object was to promote peace, amity and co-operation, and Article 2 that the parties would be guided by the principles of ‘a. Mutual respect for the independence, sovereignty, equality, territorial integrity and national identity of all nations; b. The right of every State to lead its national existence free from external interference, subversion or coercion; c. Non-interference in the internal affairs of one another; d. Settlement of differences or disputes by peaceful means; e. Renunciation of the threat or use of force; f. Effective cooperation among themselves.’ The parties agreed to promote mutual understanding and co-operation, and to collaborate (Article 6) ‘for the acceleration of the economic growth of the region in order to strengthen the foundation for a prosperous and peaceful community of nations in Southeast Asia’. The parties were ‘to strengthen their respective national resilience in their political, economic, socio-cultural as well as security fields in conformity with their respective ideals and aspirations, free from external interference as well as internal subversive activities in order to preserve their respective national identities’ (Article 11). They were also to ‘cooperate in all fields for the promotion of regional resilience, based on the principles of self-confidence, self-reliance, mutual respect, cooperation and solidarity’ (Article 12). Articles 13–17 covered the pacific settlement of disputes. Article 13 required the parties to have ‘the determination and good faith to prevent disputes from arising’. If they did, they were to refrain from force or the threat of force, and to settle the disputes through friendly negotiations. ‘To settle disputes through regional processes’, Article 14 prescribed the setting up of a High Council, a continuing body comprising a representative of each of the parties to the treaty, ‘to take cognizance of the existence of disputes or situations likely to disturb regional peace and harmony’. In the event that no solution was reached through direct negotiations, the High Council was, under Article 15, to recommend appropriate means of settlement, or offer its good offices, or, with agreement of the parties in dispute, ‘constitute itself into a committee of mediation, inquiry or conciliation’. That provision was not to apply unless the parties to the dispute agreed, but, under Article 16, that would not prevent parties to the treaty not party to the dispute

178 The view from within ‘from offering all possible assistance to settle the said dispute’, and parties to the dispute were to be ‘well disposed’ to such offers. Nothing, said Article 17, precluded recourse to the modes of peaceful settlement prescribed in the UN Charter, Article 33 (1). But parties to a dispute were ‘encouraged to take initiatives to solve it by friendly negotiations before resorting to the other procedures provided for in the Charter of the United Nations.’ The mechanism, as David Irvine says, was not ‘watertight’, since parties were not bound to accept the mediation of the High Council. ‘Malaysia, it seemed, wish[ed] to avoid being placed in a position where it might have to respond to respond to a Philippine attempt to use the ASEAN machinery to settle the dispute over Sabah. (This was in spite of a clear statement by Marcos in January 1976 that the Philippines did not intend to pursue its fourteen-year [old] claim . . . )’175 At least the section of the treaty established the principle that intra-ASEAN disputes were if possible to be settled within the region.176 It has not been invoked: perhaps its existence was sufficiently effective. Its formality was indeed rather at odds with ASEAN’s emphasis on consensus-seeking and quiet diplomacy. ‘The best guarantee that the treaty will be effective’, Harvey Stockwin wrote at the time, ‘. . . lies in the fact that, having signed it, no ASEAN country now has an interest in demonstrating its weakness.’177 The treaty was signed by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. It was, Article 18 declared, ‘open for accession by other States in Southeast Asia’.178 The Heads of Government also agreed on a Declaration of ASEAN Concord, which adopted a plan of action put up by the meeting of Economic Ministers, and covered, less specifically, co-operation over social development, population programmes and narcotics control. It also stated – ‘allaying fears about incipient militarism’ – that there should be a ‘continuation of cooperation on a non-ASEAN basis between member states in security matters in accordance with their mutual needs and interests’.179 The treaty’s terms were ‘conventional’, as Leifer later commented, ‘drawing its primary inspiration from the Charter of the United Nations.’ It ‘placed prime emphasis on the sanctity of national sovereignty’. An accord on state practice, ‘especially a common respect for the national sovereignty of all signatories’, would serve as ‘a political bridge’ to other states in the region, in particular Vietnam. ‘The treaty was designed to provide a basic code of conduct for stable state relationships which Vietnam might be persuaded to endorse in the interests of regional accommodation and order.’180 ZOPFAN might be another ‘bridge’. Officials told Kevin Rafferty of the London Financial Times that they were preparing a document to put to Communist neighbours, Burma and the great powers to try to effect neutralisation. Indonesia opposed a ‘guarantee’. It would regard it ‘as a slur on its independence. It argues that its independence was hard fought for and does not depend on any guarantees.’ Probably ASEAN would seek ‘an informal but public promise’. Only China had backed the idea. The SU countered with its idea of an Asian security system, but that was rejected by ASEAN ‘as too obviously a scheme to contain China’.181

ZOPFAN 179 Kukrit had announced in March 1975 that his government would recognise the PRC and secure the withdrawal of US troops within a year. ‘[N]oting that it had served its purposes commendably’, he and Marcos had agreed in July 1975 that, though the treaty should remain, the SEATO organisation should be ‘phased out to make it accord with the new realities in the region’.182 The US accepted this at the 20th Council meeting in New York that year.183 Vietnam, however, saw had ASEAN as a ‘new SEATO’.184 On the eve of the Bali summit, it charged that the US had mounted it in order to erect a scheme ‘of intervention and aggression’ against the states of Indo-China.185 After the Bali summit, it alleged that the ASEAN countries were ‘colluding with one another to repress the revolutionary movements in their countries’.186 In March 1975 Foreign Minister Nguyen Duy Trinh announced a programme for Vietnam’s foreign policy, and the last of its four points called for ‘the development of cooperation among the countries of the region for the building of prosperity in keeping with each country’s specific conditions, and for the cause of independence, peace and genuine neutrality in South East Asia’.187 But that was a different formula and it did not represent a meeting of minds. Vietnam and Laos attacked ZOPFAN at the NAM meeting at Colombo in July 1976.188 The Kuala Lumpur Declaration, the Laotians claimed, was issued ‘to cover up the participation in the U.S. war of aggression . . . and to fool world opinion into thinking that ASEAN countries had good intentions’.189 ‘Is this the precursor of a kind of double definition of independence which will classify a Marxist state as genuinely independent and others as being not genuine, so that their peoples are to be supported to overthrow by violence established democratic governments?’ Lee Kuan Yew asked.190 In June 1977 the ASEAN foreign ministers reiterated their desire ‘to promote peaceful and mutually beneficial relations with all countries, including Kampuchea, Laos and Vietnam, on the basis of mutual respect for each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and of non-interference in each other’s internal affairs’.191 ‘Why should we be absorbed into an already existing organisation whose past is known?’ Phan Hien, the deputy Foreign Minister, asked in June 1977. ‘. . . when it is a question of the cooperation of nine Southeast Asian countries a new formula has to be worked out to assure equality between the five ASEAN members and the four other nations’, he declared, in a perhaps unintended echo of Indonesia’s earlier attitude to ASA. ‘. . . Basic new components would have to be introduced to meet the new situation in Southeast Asia in a new spirit.’192 The Vietnamese attitude softened with the deterioration of its relations with the PRC, which Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand had formally recognised, though Indonesia and Singapore had not. In December 1977–January 1978 Foreign Minister Trinh visited all the ASEAN states except Singapore. Though he stated that ASEAN was still ‘inappropriate’, he spoke of a new and wider organisation for Southeast Asia, based on ‘peace, independence and neutrality’.193 In New York in May 1978 Vietnam proposed discussing with ASEAN the concept of a Zone of Peace, Independence and Genuine Neutrality. This Phan Hien followed up in another visit in July 1978 but the word ‘genuine’ remained suspect.194

180 The view from within Then Prime Minister Pham Van Dong visited ASEAN capitals in September and October 1978. He brought to Bangkok a draft treaty of friendship and co-operation with Thailand, but, like other ASEAN leaders, General Kriangsak rejected a bilateral approach. Pham Van Dong nevertheless endorsed a communique that included an anti-subversion clause. But ASEAN leaders were aware of the deterioration of Vietnam’s relations with China and suspected that its courtship was ‘part of the wider battle for influence between the Soviet Union and Vietnam on the one hand and China on the other’. Pham Van Dong, it was thought, was trying to pre-empt Deng Xiaoping, due in ASEAN and Japan later in the year.195 Vietnam was a ‘Cuba in the East’, said the Chinese leader.196 In their contest with the US, the Vietnamese leaders had looked both to the PRC and the SU, however complex the changing trends in Sino-Soviet relations made their task. But their triumph in 1975 had made that impossible to continue. China’s distrust of its southern neighbour became evident: it sought in vain to fit Vietnam into a satisfactorily compliant relationship. It gave the newly-unified state only limited aid and the Vietnamese emissary, Le Duan, went on to Moscow, where in October 1975 he secured four times as much. China aided the Khmer Rouge government in Cambodia – which had refused a special relationship with Hanoi and was deeply inspired by Pol Pot’s anti-Vietnamese nationalism and increasingly raiding Vietnamese territory – as a means of constraining the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, and when the Chinese minority became the target of ‘socialist transformation’, it cut off aid. The tensions only expanded the Chinese exodus. For China and Vietnam, ‘the Chinese minority was a weapon to be used against each other’.197 Other Southeast Asian countries saw the refugee problem in a different light, and the West’s attitude was different again. Moscow airlifted arms to Vietnam, and on 3 November 1978 – just as Deng was setting out to visit Bangkok and KL198 – concluded a 25-year treaty of friendship and co-operation that offered it sufficient international reinsurance for it to risk going to war with the already internationally discredited Khmer Rouge regime.199 That it did on Christmas Day 1978. Phnom Penh fell on 7 January 1979 and the Soviet leaders congratulated the leader of the new regime, Heng Samrin. The following month PRC troops invaded Vietnam in order, it said, to ‘punish’ it. ‘Instead of America the world policeman we now have China the world magistrate’, a Filipino commented.200 But the ‘lesson’ their incursion gave the Vietnamese was less effective than the one given India back in 1962. Furthermore the SU sent ships into Vietnamese waters, and Cam Ranh became a base for the ‘blue water’ navy it had been building up.201 The SU also became the chief source of aid to the People’s Republic of Kampuchea. The ASEAN leaders were ‘deeply concerned but largely powerless spectators who saw some of their worst fears fulfilled’.202 Southeast Asia had indeed become once more a field for struggles among the great powers, fomenting or taking the opportunity of differences among Southeast Asian states, while Vietnam might be on the way towards rebuilding the Indo-China federation, said to have been Ho Chi Minh’s dream,203 its post-invasion treaty with the PRK referring to ‘fraternal friendship between the Khmer, Lao and Vietnamese peoples’, though avoiding the

ZOPFAN 181 ‘special relationship’ phrase used in the treaty made with Laos in 1976.204 But ASEAN was not quite powerless. While ultimately the resolution of the long crisis that followed depended largely on the actions of the major powers – in particular the collapse of Soviet power and policies – the ASEAN states were able to contribute to the outcome and benefited from doing so and being seen to do so, even though that involved association with China and association with a distasteful regime. Their policy rested upon the integrity of states and non-intervention, their long-sustained principles. Its success re-endorsed the basic principles of ASEAN itself and cleared the way for its extension. Early in 1979 the ASEAN foreign ministers had deplored Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia as an inroad upon its independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity and called for the withdrawal of ‘foreign forces’. Vietnam had broken promises ‘to scrupulously respect each other’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity’.205 Not surprisingly, the ASEAN states stood together on these points, and the flow of refugees, largely ethnic Chinese, enhanced their solidarity, especially when it reached Indonesia.206 Vietnam was blamed for not stemming it: ‘each junk-load of men, women and children sent to our shores’, said Rajaratnam, ‘is a bomb to destabilise, disrupt and cause turmoil and dissension in ASEAN states’.207 Again perhaps not surprisingly, even given the nature of the displaced Khmer Rouge regime, the ASEAN states enjoyed success at the UN in denying the Cambodian seat to the Heng Samrin regime. At a UN-sponsored conference on Cambodia in July 1981, ASEAN legitimated its programme in the international community: cease-fire, withdrawal of foreign forces, and free elections under UN supervision. To give added respectability to the cause, it supported non-Khmer Rouge opponents of the new regime, including Son Sann’s National Liberation Front and Sihanouk’s National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful and Cooperative Cambodia, and it hammered together the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea in June 1982, designed to keep the Khmer Rouge forces in the field, but at a political distance. That, of course, ASEAN had to persuade China to accept, a task carried out by General Prem of Thailand and Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore. Arms were supplied, Malaysia and Singapore aiding the non-communist elements through Thailand, where refugee camps offered sanctuaries and bases. ASEAN demonstrated its unity as well as its determination, but its members still differed, particularly over the role of China. Its invasion of Vietnam had enhanced the suspicions felt by Malaysia and Indonesia. They were also concerned about the close relations that developed between the PRC and Thailand,208 which was apprehensive over Vietnam’s de facto control over neighbouring Cambodia. In the Kuantan declaration of March 1980 Indonesia and Malaysia suggested that Vietnam had a strategic interest in it, but that it was not intrinsically hostile, and, if it were truly independent, would have a part to play in containing the PRC and helping to fulfil ZOPFAN. That initiative came to nothing, partly because of Vietnam’s incursion into Thailand in June.209 Indonesia, however, continued to seek a conclusion, for it believed a prolonged conflict would only tie the Chinese and the Thais more closely together, while it saw Vietnam,

182 The view from within not as a threat but as a buffer against China. ‘Some countries say that Vietnam is a threat to Southeast Asia’, said Suharto’s trouble-shooter, Moerdani, on visiting Hanoi in February 1984, ‘ but the Indonesian army and people do not believe it.’210 ‘Some people are talking about a Vietnamese buffer between Southeast Asia and China – I don’t want to put it that bluntly, but maybe that’s what we’re all thinking of.’211 ABRI remained suspicious of China, but Moerdani had to conciliate the Thais and other ASEAN colleagues, apprehensive of Indonesia/Vietnam closeness, when he attended the Brunei independence celebrations soon after.212 ‘We would like to see a solution (to the Kampuchea problem) in solidarity with ASEAN’, a leading Indonesian expert, Jusuf Wanandi, nevertheless repeated the following year, ‘but we also feel that for our strategic interests, our relationship with Vietnam is important.’213 Indonesia indeed played a leading role in the tortuous negotiations that led to the Cambodian settlement of 1991. The main decisions were, however, still taken outside the region. For Vietnam’s venture Soviet backing had been essential, and Soviet aid helped to keep it going. India initially supported Vietnam, since it saw a strong Vietnam as a guarantee against Chinese dominance over Southeast Asia. But the convergence of ASEAN and China in opposition to Vietnam and its Soviet backer led to a change in India’s policy in 1987–8: it should try to narrow the differences between ASEAN and Vietnam, lest they promoted China’s dominance. The essential change was, however, in Soviet policy. Under Gorbachev it sought to normalise relations with China in order to relieve the pressure the US was exerting, and to open the way to sharing in the development of the Asia-Pacific, the climax of the diplomacy being a meeting in Beijing in May 1989. For that to succeed it was important to remove the Vietnam-Cambodia irritant in the relationship. Vietnam had already announced troop withdrawals, and perhaps Gorbachev took more credit than he deserved. But while Vietnam’s reformist leaders had domestic motives, they were also aware of the shift in PRC-SU relations. An international conference on Cambodia, chaired by the French and Indonesian foreign ministers, produced the Paris agreement of October 1991. ‘ASEAN did not necessarily solve the Cambodian conflict – but rather won it.’214 An Indonesian scholar had predicted in 1988 that neither ASEAN nor an ASEAN country could solve the Cambodia problem. ‘The desire that regional problems should be solved regionally without external interference will continue to be what it is – essentially a slogan, at best an aspiration, at least as far as the Kampuchea problem is concerned.’ A solution would be reached only if the major powers played their roles.215 But if, as Narine says, the China, the US and the SU set the parameters of the Cambodia conflict, ‘the ASEAN states’, as he goes on, ‘gained a level of prominence and diplomatic influence that they had never enjoyed before, and far more than they would have attracted as individual states’.216 The following year Vietnam and Laos acceded to the Treaty of Amity and Co-operation and were given observer status in ASEAN. Though only after a substantial Chinese intervention, it was at last possible to take a further major step towards realising the objectives ASEAN had set itself in the 1970s.

ZOPFAN 183 The Cambodia crisis had intensified the divisions within Southeast Asia and then diminished them. During the 1980s, indeed, the parties had in a sense signalled to each other through the ZOPFAN principles. The communique of the Indo-China foreign ministers of 28 January 1984, for example, had suggested, among the options, a solution that involved the withdrawal of all foreign armed forces, an end to external intervention, and the establishment of ‘a zone of peace, friendship and cooperation’.217 At Indonesia’s suggestion, the working group on ZOPFAN was revived, and instructed to work on the proposed nuclear-free zone, taken up at the Manila summit in December 1987.218 Vietnam sent an amicable message to the summit: ‘[ASEAN] created a new opportunity to enable all the regional states to coexist peacefully’.219 ASEAN, as Leifer observed, was not obliged to accommodate Vietnam ‘in the way that ASA was subsumed to accommodate Indonesia. . . . Vietnam’s political will was broken on the anvil of Cambodia, having been undermined also by a self-destructive attachment to economic dogma.’220 Direct outside intervention in the region had now ceased. ASEAN could resume its search for regional security, at once fending off the intervention of outside powers, and avoiding or resolving intra-regional disputes that might invite it. ASEAN was strengthened in other ways, too. In these years it developed, partly but not wholly for economic reasons, the practice of post-summit meetings, starting with the attendance of Japan, Australia and New Zealand at KL in 1977 and with the additional attendance of the US and the EC at Bali in 1979. ‘We will stand by our commitments in the region’, Cyrus Vance declared. ‘. . . We have made these clear to all concerned – and directly to the Soviet Union and Vietnam.’221 It also expanded to include Brunei. That had not joined Malaysia in 1963, and the Malaysian government subsequently challenged its protectorate status: in 1975 it sponsored a Partai Rakyat Brunei delegation that presented a case to the UN Committee on Decolonisation; in 1976 it sponsored a resolution in favour of elections in Brunei, the end of the ban on political parties, and the return of exiles; and in 1977 the resolution was adopted.222 Such actions only made the sultanate more unwilling to relinquish Britain’s protection. Razak’s successor, Hussein Onn, took steps to improve relations, however, and, meeting in nearby Labuan in May 1978, he and Suharto expressed the hope that the sultanate would join ASEAN when it became independent.223 That line was supported by Singapore, ‘which had come to regard membership as a political asset’,224 and Lee became in March 1979 the first ASEAN leader to visit Brunei. Attending the 1982 AMM as observer, Prince Md Bolkiah said Brunei was now ‘more confident of the support and cooperation of ASEAN countries, and stressed ‘mutual respect for the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity’ as ‘the basis for good relations’.225 ASEAN thus helped Brunei towards ‘full independence’ in 1984, and itself moved a step towards regional inclusion on the basis of national sovereignty. Brunei retained a close connexion with Singapore: both were ‘wary of their giant neighbours’, as V.G. Kulkarni put it.226 These moves were undertaken not only in the context of a change in Malaysia’s policy, but also in reference to a move Indonesia had undertaken, ending Portuguese colonial rule in Timor by annexing it. That had indeed made Brunei

184 The view from within apprehensive, and Singapore was sufficiently ‘disturbed at this dangerous precedent’ to abstain on the UN vote, rather than support Indonesia.227 ‘Timorization’ remained a Singaporean concern, Indorf suggested in 1984.228 Though prospering, Indonesia still sought, however, to avoid an alienating assertion of supremacy. There was even so a change of attitude. In 1985 it celebrated the 30th anniversary of Bandung: the Chinese foreign minister came; and so did the aged Romulo, the only one of the original leading delegates still alive.229 ‘Suharto now has Sukarnoist ambitions’, one Jakarta diplomat was reported as saying. ‘Having presided over Indonesia’s economic progress, he now wants to be considered a statesman of world stature.’ ‘We played a key part in the post-colonial era’, said Mochtar Kusumaatmadja, the foreign minister; ‘we can so now.’230 In 1989 Suharto went to the NAM summit, the first time Indonesia had been for 18 years. Amidst world-wide change Indonesia was taking a ‘more assertive’ position. There were risks. ‘Officials are anxious not to reawaken regional sensitivities among much smaller neighbours. In particular President Suharto is keen to reaffirm his commitment to ASEAN.’231 How that related to the mainland neighbours was less clear. There the Indonesians, though initially antagonistic, had sought to conciliate Vietnam, and their objective was finally to be secured when it joined ASEAN. That must largely be seen in the China context, but it also had implications for intra-ASEAN relations, in particular those involving Thailand. Late in 1988 Prime Minister Chatichai Choonhavan visited Vientiane as the start of a more positive economic diplomacy, influenced by Sukhubhand Paribatra.232 He was also reviving in a new form the Suwannaphum ideas of his youth: Thailand could harness the resources of the mainland and help to turn Indo-China from ‘a battlefield to a trading market’ competing with maritime Southeast Asia.233 Badawi, the Malaysian Foreign Minister, called for preserving the cohesion of ASEAN.234 That was no doubt necessary for its Cambodian diplomacy. But the episode once more showed the need to reckon with intra-ASEAN tensions as well as with external threats. If Indonesia was the largest state in the region, Thailand and Vietnam were substantial states on the mainland. States in a world of states indeed have different interests and capacities. One way of regulating their relationships is the collection of principles that were developed in the West but rearticulated in the East, sovereignty, territorial integrity, non-interference. Upon those, indeed, ASEAN depended. Arguably, too, there was an ‘ASEAN’ if not yet at least an ‘Asian’ way, in which those principles inflected the practice of interstate diplomacy. ‘[W]e have enacted them, we have imbibed them, and most important, we have acted and lived by them’, Musa Hitam, the Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister, declared in 1985.235 Southeast Asian leaders, Hiro Katsumata was later to write, ‘reconstructed the diplomatic norms at the global level in the regional context, thereby constructing the “ASEAN Way”, through the process of interaction over decades’.236 The ‘ASEAN way’, as S. Jayakumar, the Singapore Foreign Minister, put it, stressed ‘informality, organization minimalism, inclusiveness, intensive consultations leading to consensus and peaceful resolution of disputes’.237 Perhaps the

ZOPFAN 185 definition could be expanded to include, on the one hand, an emphasis on procedural secrecy, and on the other, a practice of proclamatory diplomacy, rather than a diplomacy of tightly negotiated contracts. That did indeed contrast with many of the practices of traditional European diplomacy, though not with all. It had enjoyed considerable success in the political field. How did it cope in the economic field? And would it cope in either field as circumstances changed in the 1990s?

8

AFTA and ARF

Both ASA and ASEAN stressed economic, social and cultural cooperation, rather than political. Yet it is clear that they had a political purpose or political purposes – ‘ASA was never non political’, as Richard Butwell put it1 – and that those they retained, even if their nature and emphasis changed over the years in response to changing circumstances and initiatives inside and outside the region. In some measure, indeed, it was a matter of camouflage. The stress on the non-political was in itself a political act. In the Cold War period others were suspicious of the organisations even so. But to set out on an avowedly political path would have placed an obstacle in the way of achieving the main objective, political security in post-colonial Southeast Asia. What took place behind the scenes was more important than what appeared on stage. Something had to happen onstage, however: the audience would expect it and consult its programme. In some ways, the hopes associated with these organisations were, indeed, not unlike those the British associated with the Colombo Plan, though their ultimate objectives were rather different; not unlike indeed what proponents of closer relations within the British empire had advocated forty years earlier: ‘ “doing things together” a great deal more, especially on economic matters’.2 Countries would form a habit of working together, playing up what united them, playing down what divided them. But it was soon recognised that it was easier to talk of economic cooperation than it was to implement it. The programme seemed a little thin and the performance more than a little unconvincing. They risked showing up the divisions in the region rather than promoting its unity. In particular, of course, there was little potential for economic interchange. The countries in ASEAN traded much more with the outside world than with each other, though no longer so much with their former metropolises. Economies were rather competitive than complementary. The two most complementary were often at odds. Singapore’s entrepot activity was resented in Indonesia. Even moderates like Sumitro had welcomed konfrontasi because, cutting the resented contacts with the entrepot, it was seen as ‘completing’ Indonesia’s independence.3 And Singapore’s industrial advance must not prevent Indonesia’s realising its industrial potential. What was achieved in the economic field was in a measure the result rather than the source of the political stability the members established.

AFTA and ARF 187 At the Bali summit – when the triumph of the Communists in Indo-China made it more important than ever for ASEAN to demonstrate its strength and its success – the leaders reasserted and endeavoured to realise its economic purpose. Here, however, politics was once more playing too forward a role. The economic programme that was adopted could not be fulfilled. It put special emphasis on industrialisation. But it transpired that there was little potential for regional projects. The countries of the area were for the most part pursuing ISI strategies. In fact their economic policies were ‘nationalist’, or at least nation state-oriented. In political terms ASEAN put its emphasis on the integrity of the nation state, the basis for its success. It was impossible to run counter to that in the economic field. ‘[I]n the final analysis’, Harold Crouch wrote in 1984, ‘the balance sheet remains national rather than regional.’4 Attempts to go beyond that could only lead to disappointment. To speak, as some did, of a path towards ‘integration’, perhaps with EEC in mind, was to mistake the nature of ASEAN’s regionalism, and perhaps to provoke an unjustified sense of disappointment. It was only – if significantly – in international trade negotiations that the states were able to benefit from their ASEAN association. There they carried more weight together than apart, and they recognised that when it was a question of getting better commodity prices or dealing with the EEC or engaging in multilateral trade rounds. There the Indonesians readily took a positive view. ‘It is clear that in setting up regional and international cooperation, Indonesia should commence with cooperation that is not big but strong’, Ali Murtopo wrote in 1973. ‘The international economy serves as the main reason why regionalization is of great importance in the endeavours of creating world stability leading towards more balanced structure.’5 In time, however, the political success of ASEAN began to contribute to its economic advance. Its activities – together with those of the major powers – helped to change the perception of Southeast Asia: it was no longer a region of turmoil but one of development. ‘In my view’, S. Dhanabalan declared in 1983, ‘the biggest contribution of ASEAN towards economic development has been the way we have presented to the rest of the world a picture of ASEAN cooperation and neighbourliness’. That had ‘created an image of ASEAN as an area of stability’.6 ‘None of the ASEAN countries would have developed economically if their political wranglings could not be resolved’, the Malaysian Prime Minister said four years later. ‘Imagine what would happen to the economies of Malaysia and Indonesia if Konfrontasi had continued and escalated.’7 That stability, the policies its leaders pursued, and the changing nature of international finance, conduced to increasing investment in the region, no longer through government aid but from the private sector (FDI). It began to appear that, focusing, as Singapore had done since the early 1970s, on export oriented industrialisation (EOI), more than one of its original members might join the economic tigers of East Asia. Then the 1997 crisis changed the image again: talk of the miraculous changed to talk of corruption and crony capitalism.8 ASEAN’s role on the international scene had in any case been changing. It had to deal with the tendencies towards both ‘globalisation’ and ‘regionalism’ in the 1990s.

188 The view from within At the same time, though less obviously, ASEAN was faced with a new political situation, and it remains important to remember its political purpose, though, in different circumstances and under different leaders, it might be framed in a different way. The question of its relations with China – an important issue from the start – re-emerged in a new context. China was no longer an ideological threat, nor – it had at last agreed – a supporter of subversive activities. The collapse of the SU, however, enhanced its political confidence, and the economic success that Dengist policies promoted enhanced its political influence. It became in some respects an economic competitor with ASEAN, both in terms of trade and investment potential, and its political aspirations, though no longer couched in ideological terms, certainly extended to Southeast Asia. It was important for ASEAN to ensure that the ‘neutralisation’ of Southeast Asia did not amount to de facto Chinese dominance. Instead, indeed, it shifted more to the ‘balance of power’ approach that Singapore had long preferred. It also attempted, however, to apply ASEAN principles and practices to the larger East Asian region. How realistic that was has yet to be shown. Tunku’s original plan had appeared to emphasise the economic and cultural: he spoke of SEAFET, a Friendship and Economic Treaty. He had also suggested that it might be a means of hoisting commodity prices. In shifting to ASA, he talked of cooperation in a number of fields, including marketing and pricing primary products and the communique of 22 June 1961 spoke of collaboration in the economic and cultural fields. Further steps were taken at the 1962 meeting, including the creation of an ASA Fund. ASA’s successor, ASEAN, was presented, too, as a means of cooperation in economic, cultural and technical matters, though political implications were evident even in the declaration of 1967. But, if it was difficult to speak on what was in effect the main focus, the political, it was difficult to act on what was said to be the main focus, the economic. Members sought to give it some momentum, but could readily reach agreement on issues that, though not insignificant, were but marginal. On others their aspirations or interests clashed. And that was not simply because their economies were similar rather than complementary. It was also because they wanted to do a similar thing, to carry out a programme of industrialisation, seen, in some sense, like independence, as a necessary reaction to colonialism. The sharpest distinction in the economic, as in the political context, involved Indonesia, the largest state with the greatest potential. The concept of a free trade area was sure to make slow progress. The idea that economic activities could bring about a wider cooperation was less valid than in Europe. Even there, of course, there were massive compromises. Hardly disturbed by the Sabah reservation, the ASEAN meeting on Trade and Commerce took place in Manila in September–October 1968. ASEAN took over all the ASA economic projects. It discussed a Filipino project for a free trade area, though it was reported that Malaysia and Singapore wanted a further study to be made. A proposal for joint participation in trade fairs and commercial missions was also subjected to further study. But members agreed to exchange information on ‘primary commodities, price fluctuation, movement of goods, economic research and presence of supplies’.9

AFTA and ARF 189 In the speech at 4th AMM that included the ZOPFAN proposal, Ismail, Malaysia’s Deputy Prime Minister, described regional cooperation as valuable for promoting regional identity as well as economic advance. The short-term projects ASEAN was implementing showed that the climate was not inimical but conducive to cooperative endeavours. But he recognised in the speech that the projects represented ‘but cooperation based on the lowest common factor’.10 On his return from Manila he appealed for ‘a little give and take’ on the implementation of ASEAN regional projects. ‘There is now a growing appreciation that ASEAN must move forward from the phase in which cooperation is based on the lowest common factor – in which everybody gains and nobody loses – to the more sophisticated phase in which we are prepared to lose a little in an exercise of cooperation.’11 How realistic was that? At the meeting, only the Filipinos thought ASEAN should eventually develop into a common market. Nor did others support a payments union. The Ford proposal for a car manufactured part-by-part in various ASEAN countries was, on the other hand, attacked in the Filipino press, though supported by the government.12 At the 5th AMM in April 1972 the host, Lee Kuan Yew, dwelt on ASEAN’s limitations, ‘not to denigrate what has been done but rather to remind us of what needs to be done’. Of the 685 recommendations adopted by the meetings since 1967, only 80 had been implemented. Since 1967 members’ trade with each other had grown more slowly than their trade with other countries, 5.2% as compared with 9.1%. In 1966 trade with other members of ASEAN represented 18.3% of their total trade; now it was 15.7%. Lee pointed out that ‘to some extent this situation was inevitable as the economies of ASEAN countries were not complementary and the consumers for their products were in the industrialised countries outside the region which provided them with their capital equipment, manufactured goods, and so on’. He referred to ASEAN’s achievement in tourism, communications, training courses, and civil aviation and to its pavilion at the Jakarta trade fair. He referred to the work of the UN group.13 When they met in Cameron Highlands in December 1969, the Foreign Ministers had accepted an offer from ECAFE, which they had sought the previous year, to conduct a survey of the potential for economic cooperation in the ASEAN region.14 Early in 1970 an advisory committee with members from the five countries was set up to work with the UN experts, who were led by Gunal Kansu of Turkey and advised by E.A.G. Robinson of Cambridge. The report was finally submitted in April 1972, though not made public till 1974. The experts initially argued for efficiency and productivity as short-term goals and balance and equity as long-term goals. The argument was not politically sustainable, they found. ‘The objectives of ASEAN policy that appear to be clearly emerging are those of achieving such a measure of specialization and exchange and such a concentration of particular industries in particular countries as is consistent with a reasonable equitable over-all distribution of these industries and of all industrial activity generally, so that no ASEAN country shall be left behind.’15 Would development proceed via trade or via industrialisation? Could they be facilitated equally well by regional cooperation? Singapore’s example was

190 The view from within advanced in favour of the former. But Indonesia rejected the economic logic: Singapore’s success was based initially on processing and transhipping Indonesian and Malaysian primary products. A 1969 ADB report had assumed national autonomy would persist: ‘removing internal distortions and inequalities were the top priorities’; the scope for regional cooperation was ‘very narrow’; and ‘reorientation policies should focus on relationships with the rest of the world’, not the region.16 In 1971 the ADB counselled against pursuing ISI: its possibilities were soon exhausted. It favoured an ‘outward-looking industrialisation strategy’.17 ‘The U.N. Team concluded by hedging its bets on either principle gaining acceptance by all five nations.’18 It recommended the use of three techniques, each with its part to play. They included selective trade liberalisation, industrial complementarity agreements, and ‘package deals’, involving the agreement to ‘allocate among the ASEAN countries certain large scale industrial projects’.19 The team also called, however, for commitment, and suggested that ASEAN should state that the creation of a free trade area was a long-term objective, for example, by 1990. ASEAN officials talked of ‘pie in the sky’.20 At the 1975 Economic and Planning meeting in Jakarta (26–27 November 1975), consensus was expected on a 10% tariff reduction as a step towards the free trade area. Those ideas, supported by Singapore and the Philippines, were rejected by Indonesia. In his opening speech Suharto spoke of cooperating to expand international markets and of mutual assistance over energy and rice. Widjojo Nitisastro, the Indonesian Minister of State for Economic, Financial and Industrial Affairs, argued that free trade made poor countries poorer, rich richer. A free trade zone, said Indonesian analysts, would be ‘a Trojan horse’ from which MNCs would emerge to capture all the advantages.21 The difference – along with the East Timor crisis, the challenge to Kukrit in Thailand, and the death of Razak – delayed the summit. When it was set for February 1976, the arguments were renewed. A preliminary foreign ministers meeting removed ‘free trade zone’ as a topic, preferring ‘preferential trading agreements’. Even that was controverted: Indonesia saw them as long-term and unspecific. At a second preliminary meeting, Indonesia proposed including in the already drafted Declaration document a protocol under which the five countries would carry out ‘joint industrial projects’.22 At the Summit the five could agree only on industrial cooperation through the package deal technique. And that could mean nothing ‘dramatic’, since implementing it would require long negotiations. Indeed they proved disappointing. Besides producing the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation and the agreement on the establishment of a secretariat, the Bali summit of 1976 also issued the Declaration of ASEAN Concord. That covered four main areas. (1) Cooperation over basic commodities, particularly food and energy, giving each other priority in times of shortage. (2) Industrial cooperation, entailing the establishment of large-scale plants. (3) Cooperation in trade, in particular ‘the establishment of preferential trading arrangements as a long-term objective . . . through rounds of negotiations subject to the unanimous agreement of member states’. Members

AFTA and ARF 191 would also ‘accelerate joint efforts to improve access to markets outside ASEAN for their raw material and finished products by seeking the elimination of all trade barriers in those markets . . . and . . . adopting common approaches and actions in dealing with regional groupings and individual economic powers’. (4) Joint approaches on commodity problems.23 In a joint communique the economic ministers were instructed to begin discussion on the programme of action, including ‘[t]he formulation of appropriate measures for initiating cooperative action toward establishing ASEAN large-scale industrial projects’, in, for example, urea, superphosphates, potash, petro-chemicals, steel, soda ash, newsprint and rubber products.24 They were to investigate other projects and ‘exchange information on various sectors of national economic development . . . with a view to identifying possibilities for complementation among existing industries’.25 The communique also listed the instruments to be used in preferential trading arrangements, though they were confined to the expansion of trade in ‘basic commodities, particularly food and energy and the products of ASEAN industrial projects’.26 The Summit was a major achievement in political terms but not in economic terms. Yet in some respect the issues were similar. Indonesia was the largest state and ASEAN was intended to recognise and contain its primacy. It also had great economic potential, yet to be realised, and it was not prepared to accept policies that stood in the way or pre-empted its realising that potential for the purpose of national development. An association that had set out on a path of economic cooperation found that, somewhat paradoxically, that was more difficult to achieve than political cooperation. The economies, it had been said, were similar. Their difference also inhibited their cooperation. Indonesia, in particular, was opposed to early moves towards free trade in the region. The free trade area was dropped, as Lee put it, in the interests of all. Instead ASEAN adopted the Indonesian proposal for liberalising intra-ASEAN trade by tariff reduction on a commodity-by-commodity basis.27 Leaders turned to joint industrial projects as a focus or an emblem of their collaboration. But they were, of course, to be bedevilled by the same concerns, and others as well. How was the urge to develop the nation to be reconciled with regionalism? If the development involved industrialisation, would there not be more competition than collaboration? The leaders had given their economic ministers an intractable task. Indeed they had set aims that – despite their normal caution – were bound to be disappointed. The UN team had carried out preliminary studies on a number of chemical and engineering projects ‘where a prima facie case exists for cooperation in their establishment in the region’. The studies ‘revealed the very substantial economies, and the large savings in capital and production costs that can be secured by taking advantage of the economies of scale that will be possible if the projects can be developed to serve the whole ASEAN market’.28 Discussion of its proposals had made slow progress. That was perhaps a warning. But now the summit had injected a new sense of urgency. Yet each project was bound to become the subject of interstate diplomacy, set in an unfavourable context of national aspiration. ‘[T]he approach to industrialization

192

The view from within

in each ASEAN country has been mainly national rather than regional’, wrote Chaiyong Satjipanon in 1987. ‘National conceptions of each country’s own industrial development are still prevalent.’29 If the countries succeeded in creating economic complementarity, that would not guarantee competitiveness on the world market, and might involve continued protection in the ASEAN market. The scheme in fact hardly got going. What it did get going was Japanese investment, complementarity being effected within Japanese MNCs along the lines Ford had conceived. ASEAN committed itself to industrial projects that were politically unrealistic because of its need to make a political statement. They were perhaps economically unrealistic in any case. The economic ministers met, as bidden, in KL in March 1976. The Filipinos identified topics for discussion: equity participation in the project by the host and other member countries; long-term quantity commitments for purchase and supply; pricing of the product for other members; possible establishment in other members of plants making a product the same as an ASEAN one; and the role of non-ASEAN countries in ASEAN projects. The Indonesians thought that ‘too farreaching’. First it was necessary to define ‘large scale’ and ‘ASEAN industrial projects’. Malaysia sought to avoid an impasse. Hamzah Abu Samah, its trade minister, suggested a focus on ‘moderate-sized industries’, ‘viable and capable of being established within three years without massive capital outlay’. He included those previously studied within the ASEAN working group on industrial complementation: urea, phosphates, soda ash. The first was assigned to Indonesia and Malaysia, the second to the Philippines, the third to Thailand. The ministers also agreed on Singapore’s selection of the diesel engine industry, small engines having agricultural applications being in mind. These were to be called ‘ASEAN projects’.30 ‘If the heads of government had hastily designated the package deal technique as the vehicle for cooperation, then the economic ministers just as hastily improvised on the assignment of one specific industry to each country.’ What was ‘good politics’ turned out, however, to be ‘bad economics’. Some study had taken place, but only now was there to be a full evaluation. There was to be plenty of scope for argument, particularly since there were uncontrollable variables such as world prices. There were other intrinsic difficulties. Were competitive projects to be discouraged? The ‘give-and-take’ element had been reduced since so few projects were involved. Some, like steel and petrochemicals, were so significant that they could not be allocated at all.31 Largely at Indonesia’s insistence, they were excluded, and so was newsprint.32 Nor was there any agreement on the joint mechanisms needed to ‘make the package deal a regional endeavour’. Designing the projects ‘took the form of national plans in search of financing’.33 Some ASEAN leaders became impatient over tariff reduction, and Marcos announced in January that the Philippines – where the possibilities of ISI had been exhausted – and Singapore – where they had never existed – had made bilateral arrangements to institute the 10 percent tariff reductions.34 He hoped that this would ‘create the milieu for the eventual ASEAN-wide implementation of this scheme’.35 In April the Malaysian Prime Minister, Hussein Onn, called for

AFTA and ARF 193 patience and ‘mutuality of purpose’.36 ASEAN did, however, take what the London Financial Times termed its ‘first step’ towards ‘its long-term goal of an ASEAN common market’. The preferential trading arrangements, however, covered only seventy-eight items. Indonesia had resisted adopting a longer list, for its industries could not yet compete.37 In May 1977 Ridzwan Dzafir, Director of Singapore’s Department of Trade, conceded that the five projects were being deferred. The economic ministers began discussing another set of industries, smaller in scale. But at the second summit, held in KL August 1977, the package deal had, as in Bali, to ‘serve symbolic and political functions’ since there was but limited commitment to industrial complementation – under study in the private sector – or preferential trading arrangements. The summit sought Japan’s help for the five projects, at the same time attempting to secure its recognition of ASEAN ‘as a viable regional grouping’.38 ‘It is easier psychologically to deal with ASEAN’s external partners than to sort out the intra-regional relations between the ASEAN partners’, Lee Kuan Yew claimed.39 That dealing with the outside world was easier than dealing with intraASEAN economic issues had indeed been illustrated by the ready development of contacts with the EC after 1972. Post-colonial links, ‘or rather the fear of actually losing benefits associated with them’, led to the first move. Anticipating the UK’s accession to the EC in 1973, Singapore and Malaysia sought contacts with Brussels, ‘with a view to incorporating their Commonwealth preferences in British markets within the EC’s own scheme’, the Generalised System of Preferences arrangement.40 A Joint Study Group was established in 1975, and an inaugural ministerial meeting was held in Brussels in 1978.41 In December 1979 the EC approved a cooperation agreement, seen ‘mainly as a political gesture’,42 and it was signed in KL in March 1980. One task was to monitor the GSP.43 The agreement was renewed in 1985. ASEAN welcomed the latest improvement in the EC’s rules of origin, but won no concessions over GSP. ‘We’ve been flirting, and now we’ve got engaged’, said Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, Malaysia’s Minister of Trade and Industry. ‘It will take time to get married and produce children.’44 The 1977 Summit had adopted another approach: the Japanese, Australian and New Zealand Heads of government were invited to attend separate one-day meetings after it.45 But dealing with Japan tended – unlike the EC talks – to show up differences within ASEAN. Japan was, of course, already deeply involved in trade, manufacturing and investment in Southeast Asia. The involvement was, however, mainly on a bilateral basis, and its focus suggested that the Japanese were merely ‘economic animals’. Now that the US was reducing its political commitment in Southeast Asia, it could be urged to assume a more responsible stance. Its interest in a new Vietnam market prompted Marcos to suggest that Japan and ASEAN should hold a summit ‘because Japan should consider how best to assure continued access to ASEAN markets’. Japan needed oil, Marcos said after a meeting of the foreign ministers in February 1977, ‘which is why we want Indonesia to “front” for us’. Encouraged by the US, the new Japanese premier, Fukuda, was responsive. ‘My Government will be warmly receptive to ASEAN requests for cooperation of various region-serving projects.’46

194 The view from within A preliminary forum was held in Jakarta on 23 March 1977. ASEAN representatives suggested a major loan, to cover the $1–1.5bn needed to get the five projects started. The Japanese responded that solid feasibility studies were needed first. Other Japanese officials suggested a commitment only to broad proposals, the ‘New Economic Diplomacy’, leaving specifics to be worked out post-summit.47 ‘To forestall the prospect of an impasse due to Japanese equivocation’, Lee outlined ASEAN’s plan for economic accord with the three industrialised nations of Asia, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. It was, he said, akin to the EC arrangements with African, Caribbean and Pacific countries (Lomé Convention), providing favoured access to markets in the industrialised countries, offering them secured supplies of raw materials and markets for their machinery. Lee also covered the political logic: it would link non-communist states; increase regional trade; and enhance the eight countries’ influence in world affairs. The main advocates for the package deal were the Indonesians, who were ‘fronting’ for ASEAN. Heading an ASEAN delegation to Tokyo in July, Radius Prawiro, Trade Minister, put $1bn for the five projects at the head of the ASEAN list, ‘as part of the total list within a Lomé-type arrangement’.48 The Summit in Kuala Lumpur 4–8 August 1977 reaffirmed commitment to the Bangkok Declaration of 1967 and to the Declaration of ASEAN Concord of 1976. But there were difficulties. ‘[W]e have to accept a pace of intra-ASEAN economic cooperation which is more congenial to all of us, even though it may be less than what is achievable if we all set our sights higher’, Lee concluded. It was important, as Hussein Onn put it, to adopt an approach that kept intact the ‘basic equation and balance between national and regional interests that have been ASEAN’s cornerstone since its inception, [and must remain] applicable if our organization is to endure’.49 The joint statement at the end of ASEAN-Japan Summit was set in general terms. It included an indication that Japan was ready to extend financial assistance to five projects, one in each country, ‘provided that each project is established as an ASEAN project and that its feasibility was confirmed’. Despite Japan’s reluctance, a figure of $1bn was mentioned. Prime Minister Fukuda gave an assurance that bilateral aid would not be affected as a result.50 The Fukuda doctrine was presented at the end of his tour, which also included Burma, a further gesture to counter the perception that the Japanese were economic animals. Support for the projects was in fact symbolic. Substantive support remained bilateral. If ASEAN members thought it had helped to resolve the problems the projects involved, they were mistaken. The basic agreement on industrial projects, drawn up by the Committee on Industry, Metals and Energy (COIME) was presented at the sixth meeting of economic ministers in June 1978 and finally accepted at the seventh in December 1978.51 It sought to handle the question of priority in relation to national projects. Article 2 stated that, upon the allocation of an ASEAN industrial project to a member country, ‘similar new national projects can only be established after consultation with member countries and also on condition that the basis for the

AFTA and ARF 195 ASEAN industrial project is not affected by the proposed new national project’. Similar projects already planned, or in the early stage of implementation, were, however, to be allowed to continue. Given the vagueness of those provisions, Suriyamongkol concludes, the agreement ‘assured the primacy of national interests over regional ones’.52 The original plan for the equity arrangements was that the host country would take up 60% of the equity in each plant and the remaining 40% would be shared equally by the other four countries. The final version of the agreement (December 1978) removed the word ‘equally’. Singapore had withdrawn its diesel plant as an ASEAN project, and suggested its withdrawing from the others, since it had no market for them and had no reason to be a shareholder in them. On Japanese insistence, however, it agreed to minimal participation, 13%, 13%, 13%, 1%. The governments were to nominate shareholder equity. The host government would decide how its 60% would be divided among government, private or non-ASEAN interests, but had to hold a minimum of 20%. It was to negotiate project loans, as far as possible untied, a provision directed against the Japanese preference for requiring the purchase of Japanese equipment. No special incentives were offered under the preferential trading arrangements. There were also pricing arrangements, designed to relate both to the return on investment and the world market price. There was no provision against a customer buying from other sources. Nor was there any provision against ending participation in a package deal.53 The soda-ash project was subject to controversy within Thailand, and its location was settled only when, in 1981, the government announced that the Eastern Seaboard Industrial and Deep-Sea Port Development Committee approved plans for a heavy industrial zone in the Sattahip area. But then Indonesia announced that it planned to develop a national soda ash project, to be ready, like the ASEAN project in Thailand, by 1985. That appeared to breach the agreement. Some recalled the scuttling of Singapore’s diesel project. Questions also hung over the Philippines ASEAN project, phosphate fertiliser. There was a world glut, and some thought the Philippines intended to secure a switch to a pulp and paper project, excluded in 1976 because all members were interested.54 At the Kuala Lumpur summit Indonesia had objected to the diesel project, since Singapore proposed to produce diesel engines in all horsepower ranges. Indonesia wished to limit it to the higher ranges, so that its diesel plant at Surabaya could supply the smaller engines mainly required in the agricultural sector. It suggested 500hp upwards. A compromise was sought, but when Singapore suggested that preferential treatment from other members might be set off against the limits imposed by Indonesia, they expressed concern at the threat to their own diesel industries. Mindful, perhaps, of their own diesel industry, the Japanese offered no support to this project.55 ‘The difficulties involved in agreeing upon and implementing the AIPs led to the establishment of the ASEAN Industrial Complementation Scheme (AIC) in 1980.’56 That was ‘designed to encourage intra-regional trade in components within a vertically-integrated production process’. Different components for the automobile industry, for example, would be manufactured in different ASEAN

196 The view from within countries. In the first AIC package, Indonesia would manufacture diesel engines, Malaysia wheel spokes, grease nipples and drive chains, the Philippines and Thailand body panels, and Singapore universal joints. In the second package, Indonesia would manufacture steering systems, Malaysia headlights, the Philippines rear axles, Thailand carburettors, and Singapore fuel injection pumps. The components would be exported to other ASEAN countries with 50% tariff preferences. The private sector – too little involved in the AIP schemes – would have a role in identifying and submitting suitable projects. Vetted by COIME, the projects would be approved by governments.57 The scheme was a failure. Some 30 AIC projects were considered, but only two were approved, and neither was successful. The requirement that at least four countries had to be involved ‘made it difficult to identify suitable projects’, as Gerald Tan puts it. The allocation of products to participating countries was also problematic: countries wanted to manufacture higher value-added products. The proliferation of different models and brands, for example in the automobile industry, was also a problem. In the event all the ASEAN 5 countries were, with participation from MNCs, mainly Japanese, to develop their own automobile industries.58 The problem presented by the proliferation of brands had led to brand-to-brand complementation (BBC), where the project was limited to a specific brand or model. By 1990 several such projects had been approved, involving a number of major car manufacturers, but only Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines took part. Such projects were attractive because they ensured an actual exchange of products. In fact the practice was already in operation. Conferring BBC status merely granted a tariff preference to an existing trade in components, on which, indeed, tariffs were already low.59 Indonesia had withdrawn from the scheme, having decided to build an Indonesian car, through a joint venture between PT Astra and Toyota.60 In 1980, at a meeting with the private sector (ASEAN-CCI), another new scheme had been announced, the ASEAN Industrial Joint Ventures. These had to involve at least two of five ASEAN countries and allowed the participation of non-ASEAN countries, provided that majority ownership was held by one or more ASEAN country. The products of approved AIJV projects would be granted tariff concessions of up to 90% of those offered under the Preferential Trading Arrangements. They could be protected for a limited period of time, but were expected to be ‘internationally competitive, both in terms of price and quality’. The projects proposed in the early 1980s were large-scale, concerned for example with paper and tractors. ‘[V]ery few were implemented.’ Identification, formulation and approval made up a long process, and the projects also suffered ‘because of an unwillingness of member countries to participate in such joint ventures which would be accorded preferential tariffs, and thus pose a competitive threat to their own domestic industries’.61 The various regional investment schemes were, as Tan puts it, ‘disappointing’. He clearly explains the reasons. First he puts ‘the precedence of national over regional interests’, which made agreement ‘difficult to obtain’. Product allocation

AFTA and ARF 197 required prolonged negotiation, in which each member sought ‘the manufacture of the most technologically sophisticated and highest value-added products’. Second, granting preferences to the products threatened domestic producers in the various member countries. Third, relations between the private sector and the ASEAN committees were ‘not close’. Fourth, protection against competition was insufficient. Tariff preferences were eroded by across-the-board tariff cuts under the Preferential Trade Arrangements. Fifth, the process was unduly lengthy. Sixth, the schemes were ‘not widely known’.62 Essentially, however, the schemes were simply impractical, in some cases for technical reasons, but most of all for political reasons. The idea that the ASEAN nations could and should collaborate economically was borne of political necessity rather than economic rationality, but attempts had to be made to realise it, even at the risk of producing disappointment, both to carry out a commitment, and to continue to demonstrate that it was not – as in fact it was – a political/ security grouping. Yet the countries were similar, first, in their emphasis on commodities for the world market and, then, in their ‘nationalist’ desire to industrialise. The countries were also different, and that was shown in the economic sphere, as indeed it was shown in the political sphere. In particular Indonesia was bigger than the rest and had more potential, more, however, difficult to realise. The ‘solution’ to these tensions was, however, at hand. ISI gave way to EOI. The failure of the projects pointed that way. But so did the improved climate for investment in the region and the world-wide economic and financial trends of the later 1980s. Aside from Singapore, Gerald Tan wrote in 1987, ASEAN countries were still ‘predominantly primary producers specialising in the export of food, raw materials and minerals, and whose major markets are in advanced industrial countries’. Industrial development had ‘progressed significantly’ since the formation of ASEAN, but much of it was ‘still inward-looking and concentrated on import replacement’. Where EOI industries had been established, ‘many are directed towards markets in advanced industrial countries, either in the form of components manufacture (such as electronics components) or in finished products such as textiles and garments.’ The ‘lack of complementarity’ in the region was marked.63 Singapore, as Tan says, was an exception: it did not have a predominantly agricultural base, was an outward-looking economy, had few ISI industries protected by high tariffs; and it had advanced from components assembly and labourintensive manufactures to those involving middle and higher technology. Arguably, as he says, that could provide for regional complementarity which PTA might enhance.64 It was also, however, an argument against it. Singapore had long dominated regional trade. ‘Indeed, much of the post-war period was marked by the various countries in the region making efforts to reduce this dominance.’ At the same time national economic priorities looked to industrialisation. The experience of the AIPs and AIC scheme, as Tan says, illustrated the dominance of national interests.65 They also illustrated Singapore’s singularity. If these factors inhibited the development of AIPs and AICs, they also, however, stood in the way of the development of intra-ASEAN trade, for which in some

198 The view from within sense those schemes were both a substitute and a preparation: they were intended to demonstrate cooperation, and to prepare the way for complementarity. The PT Arrangements, for which Singapore and the Philippines argued, not surprisingly made slow progress, too. The main thrust was liberalisation through the exchange of tariff preferences, either through a member’s volunteering a list of products, or through multilateralising the results of a bilateral concession, or through an across-the-board approach. By 1980 some 6188 items had come under the PTA scheme. The 16th AEMM in May 1984 approved 20–25% tariff cuts ‘on all items with import value of less than US$10 m with a new exclusion list’, that is exclusions were to be re-examined with a view to reducing them.66 By March 1986, 18,907 items had been placed under the PTA, and over 3,500 had been given deeper margins of preference (MOP). ‘Though the number of items placed under the PTA agreement was impressive, its impact on intra-regional trade has been minimal.’67 The reasons are familiar from the discussion on industrial projects. ‘The Asean countries are similar in many respects and yet different in others’, Meyanathan and Haron wrote in 1987. ‘It is these similarities and differences which pose obstacles to greater cooperation in trade.’ A basic obstacle was ‘the considerable difference in the economic structures and levels of development among member countries’. That made it difficult to draw up ‘regional cooperation programmes of equal relevance or which confer equitable benefits to each country’. Indonesia had less developed ISI industries: it ‘feared its market would be flooded by Filipino and Singaporean manufactures since its manufacturing sector was being sustained by a very high level of protection’.68 Intra-ASEAN trade expanded from 15% of total ASEAN trade in 1973 to 21% in 1983, but only to a limited extent as a result of the PTA scheme. ‘Regional interests were only accorded priority if they coincided with or promoted national interests. . . . The problem was compounded by differences in tariff levels of member countries.’ High-tariff countries were ‘reluctant to cut tariffs because of perceived inadequate reciprocity from low tariff countries’. The rules of origin requirement was another inhibiting factor. ‘The tariff cuts in intra-Asean trade . . . had been carefully designed to ensure that they made no serious inroads into tariff protection for domestic producers.’ Tariff preferences could be suspended if ‘the import of a product enjoying trade concession was increasing at such a rate that it threatened “serious injury” to sectors producing similar products in the importing country’; if there were ‘overriding balance of payments considerations’; or if a member felt that another member was not fulfilling its obligations under the PTA programme.69 The ASEAN–CCI pushed for an economic treaty along the lines of Europe’s treaty of Rome, but its report, put to AEMM in January 1982, was not officially considered. The 15th AMM appointed an ASEAN Task Force in June 1982, and its report was presented to the 16th AMM in Bangkok in June 1983. It was referred to the senior officials committee, but not made public.70 By 1987, as Meyanathan and Harun wrote, ‘only some aspects of the report [had] been considered by the ASEAN governments’.71 ‘After 19 years of existence’, President

AFTA and ARF 199 Corazon Aquino had declared the previous July, ‘ASEAN should already be evaluating the impact of regional cooperation, instead of endlessly discussing how to get it off the ground.’72 In 1986/7 ASEAN-CCI ‘mooted’ a major review by a Group of 14, chaired by Dato’ Paul Leong Khee Seong, a former Malaysian Minister for Primary Industries. ASEAN’s record on economic cooperation was one of ‘protracted negotiations, exasperation and frustration’, he declared. Goodwill prevailed; ‘but why have we been too sluggish, even indifferent at times, in implementing the economic programmes . . . after two summits why have we not been able to go beyond the rhetoric?’ Dato Leong pointed to the challenges. One was ‘the politics of market protectionism and control of international market niches’. Another was ‘the uncertainty of the world’s financial stability, international debt and the fluctuations of foreign exchange’. A third included technological breakthroughs, playing havoc with ‘the steady development of the primary commodities industry’. Last there was ‘the challenge of emerging economic powers like China’, Brazil, India, Mexico. ‘We are now pressed between the advanced industrial economies and the low-wage countries. The competition is intensifying.’ These uncertainties had ‘created new uncertainties which threaten our comparative advantages in industries and the very foundation of our long-term economic growth’. To respond, consensus suggested, required free enterprise and minimal government intervention and regulation.73 The Group of 14 published its report, ASEAN The Way Forward, in 1987. It wanted the Third Summit ‘to take a firm and decisive step on the economic road’. While ‘[t]he political and peace dimensions of Asean must remain permanent’, economics must ‘truly be a central game’. The message was: ‘Maximise free enterprise. Minimise government intervention. Deregulate.’ The private sector had to be ‘the primary engine of growth’. The report favoured a market liberalisation initiative, a ‘rapid multiplication’ of AIJVs, a boost to infrastructure, and institutional reform, to include regular meetings of Heads of Government.74 Writing also in 1987, Chee Peng Lim put the case for ASEAN cooperation in industry once more, but in a context of EOI rather than ISI. ‘Apart from embarking on a second round of import substitution, Asean countries are also intensifying their export orientation strategy. This is where industrial cooperation can link up with a more positive industrialisation strategy based on shared export expansion. This can be done by structuring regional cooperation arrangements towards the promotion of more outward-looking industries and towards capturing worldwide opportunities for trade expansion.’75 The earlier schemes appeared to be ‘conceptually sound’, he rather politely suggested, but they had ‘certain flaws’. They put too much emphasis on import substitution. No doubt that was because it was difficult to sell to an outside world marked by restrictive trade practices, strong competition, and the dominance of business giants. But, Peng pointed out, ‘there is less conflict of national interests with regard to exportation to the outside world’. ASEAN countries worried lest the expansion of intra-ASEAN trade might hinder the development of their national industries, and projects were delayed by the problem of market sharing.

200 The view from within ‘Such a delay could have been avoided if these projects had been planned from the beginning as an export-oriented operation geared to the international market rather than as national or regional concerns which would require protection and subsidies to be viable.’76 Perhaps that was being wise after the event. But whether or not his suggestion was apt for the 1970s and early 1980s, it had become relevant by the late 1980s. The nature of the ASEAN economies was changing, and so was the international context. The recession of the mid-1980s ‘provoked a rethinking of the basis of economic policy throughout the developing world’. Cartels, other than OPEC, had proved disappointing, nationalised firms a burden, indigenised enterprises poorly managed, national self-reliance unattainable. That left room for the assertion of neo-classical ideas emanating from the US and the UK, from IMF and the World Bank, and apparently exemplified by the success of NIEs.77 Moreover, ‘the mid-1980s, when these ASEAN countries began to learn and absorb the lessons of the NIEs’ success through the outward-oriented development strategy and were keen to liberalise and reregulate their economies to welcome the inflow of foreign capital and technology, coincided with the outflow of direct foreign investment from the NIEs and Japan’. Capital outflows from Northeast Asia, under the pressure of the US and EC protectionism, rising domestic costs and strengthening currencies, were ‘searching for cheaper offshore production bases’.78 Lacking a domestic market, Singapore had quickly moved to EOI. Now its ASEAN colleagues followed.79 ‘Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand implemented export-oriented industrialization by reducing tariffs and deregulating their economies. The resistance to lowering tariffs within ASEAN had begun to wane. This movement towards more liberal trade regimes was accompanied by policies designed to attract foreign investment.’80 If the shift was, however, a response to changing conditions, it was surely made possible, in part, by what earlier ISIoriented policies had achieved. In 1978 manufactured exports as a percentage of total exports were 3.7% in Indonesia, 30.1% in Malaysia, 20.5% in the Philippines, 29.4% in Thailand, and 42.2% in Singapore. By 1990 the percentages were 34.6% in Indonesia, 54% in Malaysia, 38.2% in the Philippines, 62.2% in Thailand and 66.1% in Singapore.81 It also became possible to take up the longdeferred ‘common market’ line. The prospect would help to attract foreign investment, which might otherwise go to China. After the collapse of the SU, there was a risk, moreover, that FDI might be diverted to East European countries.82 Accepting such a goal was a response to changing international conditions in another way, too. Though the scope of the neoliberal policies was intended to be world-wide, they also prompted what some have termed a ‘new regionalism’, with the completion of the internal EU market and the creation of a North American Free Trade Area. The Uruguay round of GATT talks was subject to ‘seemingly intractable problems’.83 Regional organisations might turn out not to be a means of bringing about its successful conclusion, but to be a substitute for it. The prospect of a world of trading blocs was a further spur to the decision to create an ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA). That notion – earlier advocated by Singapore and the Philippines – became ASEAN policy at the Singapore summit

AFTA and ARF 201 in 1992, when the leaders announced that they planned to bring it about in fifteen years. Indonesia, still wary, had preferred twenty years, Singapore had wanted a shorter period, Thailand had suggested ten.84 ‘Unless Asean can match the other regions in attractiveness, both as a base for investments as well as a market for their products’, said Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, ‘investments by multinational companies are likely to flow away from our part of the world to the single European market and NAFTA’.85 Between 1985 and 1991, as P. Bowles puts it, ‘the whole rationale for a regional trading area had changed: the primary economic purpose was no longer trade creation but the avoidance of investment diversion to other parts of the world economy and in this the leaders of all of the ASEAN-4 countries were united not least because the legitimacy of governments in the region had increasingly relied on their ability to “modernise” their economies’.86 ‘If hindsight is any help, ASEAN countries do not need regional economic cooperation to prosper’, Md Ariff wrote in 1997. But that did not mean that ASEAN was ‘of no economic consequence. Far from it. ASEAN has helped to defuse tension and prevent conflicts in the region so that its members could concentrate on economic pursuits.’87 The long-sought integration was effected by the MNCs. French, American, German and Japanese multinationals invested on a regional basis, locating different activities in different countries, often with Singapore as regional headquarters.88 ‘Big Japanese companies such as Mitsubishi and Toyota, with their investments spread through various Asean countries, have done far more for Asean economic integration than the states themselves’, Mochtar declared in 1995.89 The creation of APEC had also ‘served as a wake-up call to ASEAN’.90 In Seoul in February 1989 Bob Hawke, the Australian prime minister, had revived an earlier proposal for an Asia-Pacific caucus, ‘a sort of Pacific OECD’, which was supported by the US as sending a signal to the EC as it moved towards the single market.91 ASEAN foreign ministers met their counterparts from Australia, Canada, Japan, ROK, New Zealand and the US in Canberra in June at the first ministerial meeting of APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation). Hitherto, Ali Alatas of Indonesia pointed out, the only intergovernmental AP forum had since 1984 been provided by ASEAN with its Post-Ministerial Conferences with dialogue partners. In any enhanced scheme, he insisted, ‘ASEAN’s identity and cohesion should be preserved and its cooperative relations with dialogue partners and other third countries should not be diluted’.92 The Canberra meeting agreed that future meetings would be held in ASEAN cities in alternate years and acknowledged ASEAN’s role in initiating economic cooperation. ‘ASEAN is regarded as APEC’s co-pilot.’93 In face of US opposition, the Prime minister Mahathir of Malaysia – who had criticised the concept of a Pacific community when Ohira and Malcolm Fraser proposed it in 198094 – advocated an East Asian Economic Caucus. AFTA, as he put it in 1992, consisted of economically and politically powerful countries. NAFTA could become ‘a world apart’, and so could the EC if it got together with Eastern Europe. ‘Our worry is that we are living in an unequal world, with one

202 The view from within superpower dominating. Power tends to corrupt . . . .’ EAEC would provide ‘a consultative forum where we will discuss matters related to the state of free trade in the world’.95 Paul Keating dismissed EAEC. APEC was potentially more powerful and was the right instrument for trade liberalisation ‘as well as the background overlay to a successful completion of GATT (Uruguay) round’.96 President Clinton used it to warn Europe to show flexibility over GATT, lest the US turned to Asia, and he seized the initiative at the 1993 Blake Island Summit. ASEAN’s answer was to accept APEC but to work as a grouping within it. That was made easier by the modification of the original recommendations of the Eminent Persons Group (EPG), which had suggested a free trade area, reached by 1996. Now it proposed a dropping of trade barriers by 2020. ‘We are strongly opposed to a trade bloc as well as inward-looking regionalism.’97 Suharto was able to secure an agreed set of recommendations at Bogor in 1994, though Malaysia added some reservation.98 The mid-1990s marked a boom for the ASEAN economies. Several countries published upbeat projections for the twenty-first century. In 1994 Mahathir produced Vision 2020. Indonesia published a set of targets extending over the succeeding 25 years: growth would accelerate from 6.2% p.a. under the Sixth Plan (1994–9) to 8.7% during the 10th (2014–19).99 Boom was, however, followed by bust. Some overconfident ASEAN governments had deregulated foreign exchange transactions as well as the financial sectors. Manufacturers and local financial institutions had actively imported capital during the boom, but, as investors came to doubt the sustainability of foreign borrowing, deregulated foreign exchange transactions triggered huge capital outflows.100 ‘While financial panic may have been the proximate cause of the crisis, the real culprit was a failure of banking regulation, at both the national and international levels. East Asia opened itself to the free flow of international capital while lacking the proper instruments needed to regulate and control that capital.’101 To some extent, moreover, the success of ‘regionalisation’ ensured that the crisis was ‘regional’. Though it began in Thailand, the panic among foreign investors spread quickly to other countries. The effects on Indonesia were particularly devastating and triggered the overthrow of the Suharto regime itself. It was, moreover, not only a crisis within ASEAN, but a crisis for ASEAN. Yet there was, of course, little that it could do. Its whole approach was based on nonintervention and on consensus. That was the source of such political will as it could muster, and Indonesia, in some sense its leader, was the worst hit. In August 1998 the Singapore prime minister proposed that AFTA should be implemented sooner than planned. Rising unemployment during the financial crisis suggested that the proposal was unlikely to be supported, but it was. The crisis reaffirmed the fear that trade liberalisation would benefit only the more developed, and that countries with high levels of protection would have to give up more than others. But, demonstrating interdependence, it also strengthened the political will to proceed towards integration.102 The date for reducing tariff rates was indeed brought back to 2001, and in September 1999 the target for a zero rate came back to 2015–18.

AFTA and ARF 203 There were other moves. In response to the EU’s decision to formulate a new Asia strategy, ASEAN had, on Goh’s initiative, proposed the Asia-Europe meeting (ASEM), which first took place in Bangkok in March 1996,103 and became a biennial fixture. The preparations for the first meeting also led to the first steps towards ASEAN ⫹ 3 (APT), an idea that had been put forward by the South Korean Minister of Commerce, Young-Ho Kim.104 The first meeting of the APT heads of government took place in 1997, and the crisis gave it an impulse. No treaty was made, but the 1998 meeting set up a ‘vision group’ designed to explore ways of expanding cooperation in all sectors. At the Manila summit in 1999 the leaders agreed to work together on a range of issues at the UN and in WTO, and in Singapore the following year they decided to explore formalising ties and creating an East Asian free trade zone. A meeting in Chiengmai in May 2000 agreed to establish a regional currency swap facility to help protect against further currency crises.105 APT was in many ways a de facto realisation of EAEC.106 At a meeting in Phnom Penh in 2003 economic ministers noted the recently concluded China-ASEAN economic cooperation agreement and the Japan-ASEAN Comprehensive Declaration on Economic Partnership. They suggested an East Asia Free Trade Area as a long-term goal.107 By this time, ASEAN 6 were only a component of ASEAN 10. Once the Cambodia issue was resolved, it had become possible to realise the long-term objective of the founders of ASEAN, the inclusion of all the countries, ‘One Southeast Asia’. The Laos and Vietnam foreign ministers had attended the 25th AMM at Manila in July 1992 a guests, and in July 1993 at Singapore they were observers. In July 1995 at Bandar Sri Begawan Vietnam was admitted as a seventh member. At the fifth summit, held in Bangkok on 15 December 1995, the heads of government met the heads of Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar informally, ‘the first meeting of all leaders of Southeast Asian countries’. The Summit declaration announced that ASEAN would ‘work towards the speedy realization of an ASEAN comprising all Southeast Asian countries as it enters the twenty-first century’. At their first informal summit, held in Jakarta on 30 November 1996, the Heads of Government ‘reaffirmed their strong commitment to the speedy realisation of an ASEAN comprising all ten Southeast Asian countries’, and decided to admit Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar simultaneously.108 In the event Laos and Myanmar were admitted on 23 July 1997, just before the 30th AMM in KL, also marking ASEAN’s 30th anniversary. Suharto had argued that human rights issues should not delay Myanmar’s entry.109 But because of a political crisis in Phnom Penh following Hun Sen’s coup, Cambodia was not admitted till 30 April 1999 at a special ceremony in Hanoi.110 All joined by acceding to the 1976 treaty. These moves were in part directed by economic objectives, both on the side of the original ASEAN members and the joiners. ‘ASEAN 10 was mooted as the transitional economies emerged following the economic reforms in both China and Russia. . . . A stable and peaceful Southeast Asia means more resources and market potential. Greater economic inter-dependence in the region is also superior to fragmented and isolated development when regionalism is growing

204 The view from within unabated elsewhere. Very obvious too is that the transitional economies would need technical as well as financial assistance. This translates to business opportunities as well as challenges for ASEAN. Many ASEAN economies are already diversifying in and around the region.’111 ‘ASEAN represents another channel for us to integrate into the region’, said the Vietnamese foreign minister, Nguyen Manh Cam, ‘and allow us to join the process of globalization.’112 The new members were given extensions for joining AFTA, Vietnam 2006, Laos and Myanmar 2008, Cambodia 2009. Had they joined earlier, economic cooperation would have been still more problematical. Once more, ASEAN, and the relations within it, were being shaped by changes in the outside world seen as a challenge demanding a positive initiative. Even in discussing the economic factors, however, the political and strategic objectives should not be forgotten. ‘Again, the current emphasis is clearly on geopolitical security and stability’, Md Ariff wrote in 1997, ‘with economic cooperation serving as a means rather than and.’113 Perhaps that was to go too far. From the start, of course, ASA/ASEAN had de-emphasised the political and strategic objectives, so far as public discussion was concerned, and presented itself as a means of economic collaboration. That had now become more important, as international relations increasingly turned on the ‘globalisation’ of free trade principles and on its inter-action with a ‘new’ regionalism. ASEAN had indeed already shown that it was easier for its members to cooperate in international fora than it was either to promote regionalised industrialisation or free trade. Now its role in international trade negotiations became still more prominent. It may, however, be the focus of too much of the commentary on ASEAN. Its political and strategic significance has, designedly or not, been still somewhat obscured. Yet there it had to deal with changes that in part contributed to economic ‘globalisation’, and in part resulted from it. The most important was the ‘rise’ of China, dramatically affirmed by its economic expansion under Dengist policies, but not less significant politically. Arguably China had been in the forefront of ASEAN’s strategic thinking since at least 1971. Now it was asserting its influence in a new way and acquiring a new potential. That was, moreover, within a different international context, provided by the collapse of the SU. At the same time as it responded to the changes in the economic arena with the creation of AFTA, ASEAN responded to changes in the political arena. One outcome was the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), which first met in Bangkok in July 1994. The expansion on which ASEAN 6 embarked was both an investment in security and a risk. ‘When ASEAN expands to include all of Southeast Asia, our borders with China will grow too. Even more than now, China will become very much a fixture in our strategic environment’, wrote Zainal Abidin Sulong in 1997. ‘We must make China a partner in our quest for peace, stability and prosperity, not an impediment.’114 China had finally dropped the strategy of supporting armed insurgency in 1989, but it could still be a threat. A regional security network would de-emphasise the threat ‘while simultaneously asserting the need to contain China’.115 How would China behave in the future when it became stronger? ASEAN attempted ‘a proactive policy’ based on constructive engagement and

AFTA and ARF 205 confidence-building measures.116 The China ‘problem’ was, as John Ingleson put it, ‘an economic issue, but more importantly, it is also a political and security one’. Engagement was ‘a sensible strategy’.117 ‘[R]econciling China with international order represents the biggest political challenge that the world is facing today’, Hans Maull wrote in 1997.118 ASEAN’s new approach to China not surprisingly included a renewed evocation of the Bandung principles, which had partly been designed for that purpose. Suharto had avoided meeting Wu Xuequan at the 30th anniversary meeting at Bandung in 1985.119 When Indonesia finally restored diplomatic ties in August 1990 – ‘recent developments demonstrate that a new configuration has emerged in the world’, said ABRI commander Try Sutrisno120 – the PRC stated that it would abide by them.121 Now they were reutilised, it seemed with success. ‘Observance of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, the purposes and spirit of the UN Charter as well as the principles enshrined in the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia is the soul of China-ASEAN relations’, Tang Jiaxuan, the PRC Foreign Minister declared in 1999. ‘It is also of vital significance in the international relations and international order in the 21st century.’122 There was, however, a need for a balance of power as well. That Singapore had always stressed, partly because of its own position within the region. It was not unwelcome to the great powers. China did not want Japan to dominate the region, and for that reason it welcomed the continued US presence as well as adopting a ‘smiling diplomacy’ in Southeast Asia.123 Singapore’s neighbours were more equivocal. In 1991 the Philippines had finally decided to close the American base at Subic. The Maphilindo aim was at last achieved. Lee Kuan Yew did not, however, think the Americans would make a complete withdrawal, which, he said in 1989, would ‘arouse great consternation’,124 and he sought to offer an alternative in Singapore. The offer was criticised in Malaysia: it would jeopardise the efforts to establish ZOPFAN, Tengku Ahmad Rithauddeen, the Defence Minister, declared.125 ‘Only after it was clear that no new bases would be built . . . did its suspicious neighbours relax.’126 By the end of the decade attitudes had shifted. In 1999 the Philippines concluded the Visiting Forces Agreement with the US, providing for joint exercises and naval visits,127 and in 2000 it was announced that Singapore would make a deep-water berth available to the US at its new naval base at Changi.128 The concept of ZOPFAN also changed. Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta spoke of its ‘actualisation’. But what was being sought after 1989 was an equilibrium among the major powers rather than an insulation from them.129 The signing of a treaty declaring that Southeast Asia was a nuclear weapons free zone – the highlight of the 1995 ASEAN summit at Bangkok – was in part a gesture. Involving Burma, Laos and Cambodia as well as current members, it was a demonstration of Southeast Asian unity.130 It was also an endorsement of ‘an important component’ of ZOPFAN,131 but only of a component. The main mechanism through which ASEAN sought its security objectives was the ARF. In 1990–1 the ASEAN Institutes of Strategic and International Studies (ASEAN-ISIS) had proposed using the post-ministerial conferences with other

206 The view from within powers (ASEAN-PMC) as a forum for security dialogue. The idea was opposed by the US, supported by Japan,132 seen differently by various ASEAN leaders.133 At the Singapore summit in 1992, however, ASEAN leaders agreed to ‘intensify’ its external dialogues on political and security matters by using the post-ministerial conferences.134 In 1993 the new Clinton Administration lent its support. Ali Alatas expressed Indonesia’s doubts. ‘We don’t think that a multilateral, pan-East Asia institutional framework should be undertaken prematurely.’135 The doubts were assuaged by making it a ‘forum’ and naming it after ASEAN. The inaugural meeting in July 1994 included ASEAN 6, the seven dialogue partners, China and Russia, and observers from Vietnam, Laos and Papua New Guinea.136 ASEAN was, as Michael Leifer put it, taking ‘the calculated risk that the central diplomatic role which the Association had hitherto assumed within Southeast Asia might well be diminished by the intervening political weight of the major Asia Pacific powers which it was deemed imperative to include within the new multilateral enterprise’.137 There was a second risk. The creation of ASEAN 10 – pushed in 1995–6 by Thailand which perceived itself more than ever as the mainland hub – was accepted by others because of ‘the need to underpin the diplomatic centrality of ASEAN within the ARF’.138 But widening had its own problems, political as well as economic. ASEAN also attempted to sustain its role by offering its practice as an example. The Singapore meeting had endorsed the treaty of 1976 [TAC] ‘as a code of conduct governing relations between states and a unique instrument for regional confidence-building, preventive diplomacy, and political and security cooperation’.139 The ARF Regional Concept Paper of 1995 – the final draft of which was prepared in Singapore, though it was put forward by Brunei, chair of the ASEAN standing committee – emphasised the ‘ASEAN way’. It had de-legitimised challenges to sovereignty in the region. If it won support from the major powers, ‘the political costs of the latter not adhering to them vis-a-vis ASEAN countries would significantly increase’.140 More than that, the ‘ASEAN way’ might contribute to the prevention and resolution of conflict in East Asia.141 But could it play ‘a pivotal role’ there?142 Leifer was doubtful. There was no stable balance of power to underpin the ARF: ‘its validity seems to depend on the prior existence of a stable balance, but it is not really in a position to create it’.143 ‘[A] kind of tug-of-war exists between ARF’s organizer – ASEAN – and the external powers involved’, wrote Takano in 1999. ‘ASEAN is confident in its role as a driving force in regional security dialogue, but it recognizes that security cooperation arrangements such as those under ARF are possible only when the regional environment is stable and is maintained by positive relations among the major powers.’144 When they developed the ASEAN way, the ASEAN powers had indeed to deal with an unstable distribution of power among themselves, and their mixture of ‘realism’ and ‘constructivism’ had proved remarkably effective. One reason, however, was their concern about the impact of outside powers, especially China. Could its practices apply among more potent states who were under no such threat? One aim was, indeed, to ‘incorporate’ China, to ‘hoist this fellow on board’, as Lee Kuan Yew put it.145

AFTA and ARF 207 The outcome was indeed uncertain. It was surely, however, an initiative, however bold, that was worth undertaking. ‘Multilateralism’ might be used to ‘moderate and maintain’ a balance of power.146 The constructionism was once more not without realism. In 1986 PNG, an observer, had asked to join ASEAN by acceding to the TAC. At the 1987 Summit, ‘a protocol was signed to allow the accession of nonmembers to the Treaty . . . , without necessarily becoming members of ASEAN’. That allowed PNG to take a step closer towards membership without becoming a member.147 Indonesia had some reservations: the change ‘would allow interference by external owners in certain domestic and regional problems and may abuse the Treaty’s provision relating to the pacific settlement of disputes’.148 In the new century, however, ASEAN sought the accession to the Treaty of its dialogue partners, ‘arguing that this will encourage constructive engagement in political and security matters and thus help reinforce regional peace and stability’.149 Supporters, Cameron Hill and William Tow tell us, say that ARF has served as a ‘braking mechanism’ for what would otherwise be a more contentious regional power balance’, and ‘elevated the diplomatic status of small and regional powers beyond that which they would have in a more polarised regional order’. Detractors say it diverts attention from the need to defuse tensions in Korea and the Taiwan Straits and in the long term between China and Japan. It ‘perpetuates a myth that ASEAN states can shape Northern Asia’s security destiny when all they can actually do is to withstand external (mostly Chinese) pressure in their own neighbourhood’.150 Robyn Lim is among the critics. China is using ARF to exert regional influence ‘while undermining the stabilizing effect of U.S. power’.151 ARF ‘distracts attention from the roots of strategic problems’, Korea, the nature of the Beijing regime, and gives the latter ‘the opportunity to play the multipolarity card against the United States’.152 ‘ASEAN-sponsored multilateralism in security affairs has . . . offered China a chance to question the United States leadership role in the Asia-Pacific Region, to attempt to play ASEAN off against the United States, and to argue against Japan assuming a more prominent regional political-military role’, Haacke adds.153 Is ASEAN simply appeasing China? It should rather be seen as a continuing attempt to integrate China into the international system. It relies largely on China’s self-restraint to achieve the outcome, but couples that with building economic and institutional linkages and supporting a balance of power.154 These transactions must indeed be seen against a background of tension in the South China Sea, focused on the Spratley islands, even if the ARF was not, as Takano suggests, ‘devised primarily’ to resolve it.155 There China had deployed less a ‘smiling diplomacy’ than what Leifer called a ‘steely assertiveness’.156 Sea and islands had long been of strategic importance, demonstrated for example when the Japanese had seized the Spratleys and made them a staging post for their rampage. Discoveries of gas and oil enhanced their economic importance. Their political importance was increased by the tendency – particularly where communist ideologies had ceased to legitimate regimes – to invest claims with nationalist emotions.

208

The view from within

In 1974 South Vietnam claimed that two-thirds of the Tonkin Gulf were territorial waters. That prompted the PRC to occupy the Paracels. South Vietnam then occupied two Spratleys.157 In 1975 unified Vietnam seized six Spratley islands. China reasserted its claims to both groups, perhaps apprehensive lest the SU used its friendship with Vietnam to set up a naval base.158 In May 1983 – though by then the SU was based at Cam Ranh Bay – parts of the PRC’s Southern Fleet circumnavigated the region and went as far as the southernmost point it claimed, James Shoal, 20 miles north of Sarawak.159 By 1989 China had 7 Spratleys, Vietnam more than 20. Taiwan had troops on Itu Aba, occupied since 1946. The Philippines had 8 islands, and Malaysia – concerned lest China sooner or later might be in a position to sever communications between the peninsula and Borneo160 – three atolls, one garrisoned. In March 1988 there was a skirmish between Vietnam and China, each side blaming the other. The US was silent, and the SU, withdrawing from the South China Sea and bent on improving its relations with China, declared it had no interest in the matter.161 At the 25th AMM in July 1992 Raul Manglapus of the Philippines secured a Declaration on the South China Sea, urging self-restraint and invoking the principles of the 1976 treaty. China, a guest, was lukewarm,162 and what interest there was in Sino-Philippine cooperation vanished when it was discovered, late in 1994, that the PRC had built structures on stilts on Mischief reef. The ASEAN ministers issued a joint statement in March 1995, urging adherence to the 1992 declaration. Quan Qichen told the ARF in Brunei in July 1995 that the PRC was ready to continue dialogues on the South China Sea and would abide by international law, though reiterating its claim to sovereignty over the islands. In August, China and the Philippines agreed on a code of conduct which Rodolfo Severino hoped could be accepted by other claimants.163 That was not secured, but a Declaration was agreed upon at the 8th Summit in November 2002.164 The Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea included a commitment to the UN Charter, UNCLOS, the 1976 treaty and the five principles of coexistence. The parties agreed to cooperate, to resolve differences by peaceful means, and to exercise restraint.165 The Chinese did not want to drive ASEAN further into an American embrace. ‘Southeast Asia should no longer be at sixes and threes’, Mahathir had declared in 1991.166 The extension of ASEAN and the emergence of ASEAN 10 were designed to enhance both its economic and its strategic roles. By accepting Vietnam’s membership, as Gen. Sutrisno had said in 1989, ASEAN could ‘rid the region of antagonism and be a force for cooperation, even with . . . [Vietnam’s] communist ideology’.167 Though there were differences among its members, overall it seemed clear that the fulfilment of the objective of ‘One Southeast Asia’ would help to promote development in the region, by attracting investment and influencing international fora. It would also be a means of building security among its members and within the larger region of which Southeast Asia was now increasingly seen as a part. Once feared, Vietnam, one Asian diplomat was reported as saying in 1995, was now ‘seen as a possible bulwark against China’.168 Giving Myanmar prompt entry was a means of lessening its dependence on the

AFTA and ARF 209 PRC,169 which had been the first to recognise the SLORC regime, and subsequently developed close ties, helping to upgrade naval bases along the Bay of Bengal and promoting trade from Yunnan.170 ‘If you isolate Myanmar you leave them with only one option: the China option’, said Ajit Singh, the ASEAN secretary-general.171 Perhaps, Narine wonders, it was all done too hastily, pushed, he argues not unreasonably, by intra-ASEAN tensions: bringing Vietnam in was ‘an effort on the part of the other ASEAN states to keep Thailand from monopolising the mainland’.172 There were certainly drawbacks. If five or six members had differed, the differences among ten might be greater. ‘It is a different thing to generate consensus amongst a group of ten, many of whom have little experience in the Asean tradition of “agreeing to disagree without being disagreeable,” while working very hard to secure the highest possible common denominator’, as Noordin Sopiee put it.173 Nor would negotiating with other groups be easier. Because of its treatment of Aung San Suu Kyi and her opposition party, and its deplorable human rights record, the admission of Burma/Myanmar into ASEAN was opposed by the EU, and after it took place the dialogue was ‘scaled back and held hostage to the situation in Burma’.174 Several meetings were cancelled before a compromise was reached, and dialogue resumed at Vientiane in 2000. After all the new members had, like the old, joined with their national interests in mind. Vietnam stood to gain, Hoang Anh Guan, a Hanoi researcher, argued, by joining AFTA: it could capitalise on lower wages and large resources and would be able to attract investment. Politically, China would find it more difficult to isolate Vietnam and would ‘no longer treat it indifferently in the settlement of the disputed Spratlys’.175 By improving relations with ASEAN and other regional states, a foreign ministry official argued, ‘Sino-Vietnamese relations will be meshed within the much larger regional network of interlocking economic and political interests. It is an arrangement whereby anyone wanting to violate Vietnam’s sovereignty would be violating the interests of other countries as well.’176 At the same time, it was argued that membership would limit ASEAN’s interference over democracy and human rights, since it was committed to non-interference. Vietnam would indeed seek the support of its colleagues in ‘weathering the human rights offensive spearheaded by the United States’.177 ‘Vietnam shares the view of many countries that economic sanctions are imposed with the aim of interfering in the internal affairs of a nation’, the Foreign Minister said in 1997.178 That acquiring new members would give ASEAN additional burdens was even clearer in the case of Burma. Foreign Minister U Ohn Gyaw had sought to present its aspirations positively. He alluded to the end of the Cold War and the ‘shared destiny’ of the 10 Southeast Asian Nations. Myanmar, he declared, is ‘a Southeast Asian nation and we would like to aspire to the prosperity of Southeast Asian nations’. Since ASEAN was ‘now very much solid in a leading role . . . we would like to be part of it’.179 Critics, on the other hand, saw the attempt to join ASEAN as a means of giving SLORC legitimacy at home and abroad, and as a means of countering sanctions and criticisms from the so-called government-in-exile, and from pro-opposition lobbies and foreign governments.

210 The view from within Two different policies indeed emerged. Various US states announced bans and selective purchase laws on companies doing business with Myanmar, and in April 1997 President Clinton announced a ban on new American investments in Myanmar, citing ‘large-scale repression of the democratic opposition’. The EU had withdrawn the GSP benefits from Myanmar’s industries, and imposed a ban on visas for SLORC members and senior officials. Those who became its fellow members criticised such an approach as discriminatory, preferring a policy of ‘constructive engagement’.180 That was, of course, entirely in keeping with the essential basis of ASEAN, characterised by non-interference, informal interaction, consensus decisionmaking. But would it work? would it persuade the US and the EU that it would work? or would it damage the relations between ASEAN as a whole and the outside world and so be self-defeating? Several regional thinkers were clearly doubtful. Anwar Ibrahim of Malaysia favoured ‘constructive intervention’.181 Surin Pitsuwan, the Thai foreign minister, argued for ‘flexible engagement’. Respect for the sensitivity of neighbours was still essential, but members could perhaps no longer afford ‘a non-committal stance’ or ‘avoid passing judgments on events in a member country, simply on the grounds of non-interference’. He argued that ‘if domestic events in one member’s territory adversely impact on another member’s internal affairs, not to mention regional peace and prosperity, much can be said in favour of ASEAN playing a more proactive role’.182 Only the Philippines was in support. But a compromise emerged, which spoke of ‘enhanced interaction’.183 ‘If the proposition is to replace the principle of non-intervention or in any way to tinker with it, then Indonesia won’t accept’, Ali Alatas said. But if the proposition were that ASEAN countries should be ‘more active in dealing with one another on problems that may originate in one country but may have an impact on the other ASEAN countries, then by all means let us talk about it’.184 Little interaction followed. In July 2000 ASEAN agreed to set up a ‘Troika’, formalising a device it had used at the time of the Hun Sen coup.185 It would still have to consult all members, and the first chair was Vietnam, quite unwilling to convene it.186 The Thais – for whom it was part of an ‘unstated objective’ to renew ASEAN while securing ‘a position of moral leadership’187 – were disappointed. The troika was ‘just another brand name’, said Chayachoke Chulasiriwongs of Chulalongkorn University. ‘Flexible engagement cannot work if it is predicated on noninterference.’188 Certainly it did not work in Burma. The major crisis ASEAN faced in these years arose, however, not from the acquisition of new members, but from the weakness of the largest. The 1997 economic crisis and the fall of the long-standing Suharto regime led to a long period of readjustment which some believed might lead to the disintegration of the state. The referendum that Suharto’s successor, Habibie, allowed in Timor indeed went in favour of independence. ABRI could not accept the result and contributed to the violence and destruction that followed. That in turn led to international action, with Australia taking a leading role in a UN force. ASEAN took a low profile. Its preference was, of course, for non-interference, but it was sensitive over Myanmar, and its image as a whole was further damaged by the behaviour of the

AFTA and ARF 211 Indonesian army. ‘We in ASEAN have been saying since 1971 that we want the region to be free from outside interference’, said Sukhumbhand Paribatra, the Thai deputy foreign minister. ‘Now a problem has arisen that can lead to outside interference in regional affairs. So we must do something about it.’189 Four ASEAN members contributed to INTERFET and the Thais provided 1000 soldiers and the deputy commander. The move was a gesture of support for Habibie, who resented Australia’s role.190 But the Thai role must have seemed somewhat ambiguous. Malaysia had refused to take on the deputy leadership.191 It was ready to lead the subsequent peacekeeping force. Jose Ramos-Horta said Timor would not accept the leadership of any member of ASEAN: ‘They’ve been accomplices of Indonesia.’192 After it became independent, however, Timor-Leste sought to join the Association, though its human rights activism was something of an obstacle.193 Even before the collapse of the Suharto regime, Indonesia had been the focus of other international issues. The ‘haze’ that arose from forest clearance in Sumatra and Kalimantan in 1997 readily crossed the frontiers of neighbouring Brunei, Singapore and Malaysia. That issue was still squarely regional, though it strained the ‘non-interference’ policy.194 The so-called ‘war on terror’ that followed the ‘9/11’ attack was wider in scope. Indonesia attracted international attention as the most populous Muslim country in the world. The Bali bombing of 2002 suggested it was a source of ‘terror’. But what was a national and also an international problem was a regional one, too. What were the implications for ASEAN and what role should or could it play? No ASEAN state wanted Indonesia to break up, the nation to disperse, ‘all the silas violated’, as a Flores fisherman put it to Mus Wanggut.195 Its potential ‘Balkanisation’ was the greatest security threat in Southeast Asia, Najib Tun Razak, Malaysia’s defence minister, declared in February 2001.196 That could only provide precedents for the break-up of states and pretexts for outside intervention. It could, moreover, damage the prospects of ASEAN, of which it had been the leader. There seemed little reason to fear that, out of Indonesia’s crisis, there would emerge ‘a belligerent regime that questions the need for regional and international integration’.197 ASEAN states had to consider how best to help in restoring Indonesia and in enabling it to resume the moderate exercise of its primacy in the region. There is ‘no obvious successor’.198 For some, indeed, the future of ASEAN itself came into question. There were certainly arguments for ‘reform’. Writing in 2001, Jusuf Wanandi acknowledged its past achievements. The Balkans of Asia had been turned into a zone of peace.199 ASEAN had helped to find a solution to the Cambodia problem. It had established ARF in 1993. Its ‘contribution to regional peace, stability, and security’ had ‘indirectly given a tremendous boost to economic development in each of the member countries’. Its economic cooperation programmes had indeed been of ‘minimal’ effect. But it had provided a secure environment for foreign investors. Moreover, ‘the successful development of one member economy has significant demonstration effects on other members’, and an ‘incentive to catch up’ was also important. ‘The model of an open and deregulated economy, which

212 The view from within is export-oriented and private sector-led, and has high savings and low inflation rates, is accepted because it has been successfully practised by other members.’ ASEAN, Jusuf added, had also begun to deal with non-traditional security issues, the environment, drug-trafficking, migration, AIDS, piracy and transnational crime. Finally, the establishment of ‘one Southeast Asia’ was ‘a remarkable achievement’.200 That, Jusuf said, set down ‘the basis for a cohesive and cooperative subregion, not only for promoting peace and security for the whole region but also for creating a strong and united Southeast Asia that can influence developments in the region, and that can balance the influence of the great powers in the future’. Expanding the membership had created new challenges, ‘especially in forging cohesion and unity’, but it should in the longer term be ‘of great strategic importance’. In the medium term ASEAN had to overcome the financial and economic crisis and ‘the divide between the old and new members’. To achieve that, however, the ‘ASEAN way’ had to be ‘radically changed, if not completely done away with’, Jusuf believed.201 The leaders had adopted ASEAN Vision 20/20 at their informal summit in KL in December 1997. They looked forward to ‘an ASEAN as a concert of Southeast Asian Nations, outward-looking, living in peace, stability and prosperity, bonded together in partnership in dynamic development and in a community of caring societies’.202 But for Jusuf that was only a first step. New principles of cooperation were also needed and new institutions. ‘[T]he principle of “non-intervention” is passé’, Jusuf wrote. ‘Most important for ASEAN is to decide how the principle of “non-intervention” can be overcome, and in so doing upgrade and intensify cooperation.’ He instanced cases where ‘beneficial intervention’ might have worked in the past, such as ‘the surveillance of macroeconomic indicators’, haze, migration, drugs, transnational crime. He went on to consider domestic disturbances, such as those in Maluku, Irian Jaya, Aceh, and suggested that ‘support and assistance should be given if needed by and at the request and invitation of Indonesia’. Another case: ‘how the region can constructively engage in assisting Myanmar’. That ‘should involve extending assistance to the regime for promoting a peaceful and democratic transfer of authority’, which could be done ‘through the establishment of a transitional authority over a certain transition period’. That could happen ‘only if ASEAN can fully engage the Myanmar Government. This may happen gradually and second track efforts can be useful to promote exchanges initially.’203 Simon Tay, chair of ASEAN-ISIS, suggested that ASEAN should have ‘a peacekeeping capability, for instance in assisting Indonesia’, Jusuf added. That suggestion should be worked out. ‘The case in mind is East Timor, where on hindsight a more active and immediate engagement by ASEAN could have prevented much of the havoc through preventive security measures. Of course, these should be made only with the consent of Indonesia.’204 At first sight the recommendations seemed impractical. The success of ASEAN, which Jusuf accurately summarises, has been dependent on the acceptance of the principle of non-intervention and consensus at the government level,

AFTA and ARF 213 principles that emerged in decolonisation and the creation of nation-states. If progress required their abandonment, it was not likely to be achieved. But read more closely, Jusuf seems in fact to be advocating something different, and more in keeping with the ASEAN way. He is suggesting that members develop a habit of cooperation that will in fact sustain the states, in particular Indonesia, the largest of them. Non-intervention was a tradition that had to be revisited, Simon Tay and Jesus P. Estanislao argued in the same volume as that in which Jusuf wrote, but – ‘a foundation stone of the ‘ASEAN way’ – ‘it need not be abandoned. Indeed, nonintervention is a cornerstone of all interstate relations.’ Exceptions had, however, to be found, and ASEAN to become ‘more closely integrated’. At the same time, they pointed to the need to develop APT both on economic and strategic grounds.205 Tay questioned, however, whether the ASEAN way could be ‘effectively adopted in larger and more diverse new institutions such as the ARF’.206 That was an ambitious undertaking, Hadi Soesastro argued. ASEAN has given birth to wider regional arrangements, but could be ‘diluted by them if they are “hijacked” from ASEAN’. ASEAN must remain the core, he argued, and, to do so, it had to be reinvented.207 The conclusion the present narrative suggests is rather at odds with that. ASEAN’s survival within the region depends surely on retaining its core principles, as a close reading of Jusuf suggests. Uncomfortable though David Morris Jones and Mike Lawrence Smith are with the ‘non sequitur’ involved in building ‘a community among neighbouring states on the basis of official indifference to those neighbouring states’,208 modifying the ASEAN Way would, as Hiro Katsumata puts it, be ‘premature’.209 Its potential leadership role also depends on the extension of the ‘traditional’ ASEAN way, developed on the basis of the UN principles and those of Bandung. Only that, indeed, offered a principle or framework that could enable ASEAN to promote APT and ARF as a source of prosperity and security. In 2003 Indonesia hosted the ninth formal summit in Bali. That signed Bali Concord II, which rededicated ASEAN to the objectives of the first summit in 1976. It called for the creation of ‘a dynamic, cohesive, resilient and integrated ASEAN Community’ by 2020. That would be supported by an ASEAN Security Community, an ASEAN Economic Community, and an ASEAN Social and Cultural Community. The ASC concept was, as Weatherbee writes, ‘vigorously promoted by Indonesia’. ln the context of the ‘war on terrorism’, ‘[i]t allowed Jakarta to reclaim its position as the strategic center for regional security’. It was, however, based on existing instruments, ZOPFAN, SEANWFZ, the Treaty of 1976. ‘Rather than an organization or institution, it is conceived as a future condition of peaceful relations for which the ASEAN states should strive.’210 ‘We have just witnessed a watershed in the history of Asean’, said President Megawati.211 In fact the emphasis on consensus and non-interference continued, along with the declaratory style. But that did not necessarily prescribe failure. Indeed it was followed by the renewal of ASEAN’s ambition to promote cooperation and security in East Asia as a whole. The Laos meeting in July 2005 – at

214 The view from within which Burma agreed to relinquish its right to take the chair in 2006 – formalised the arrangements for an East Asia Summit to be attended by the ASEAN 10, the PRC, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India. To gain access to it, participants had to accede to the treaty of 1976.212 It was held at KL in December 2005. Leaders agreed to meet annually. The Singapore Foreign Minister, George Yeo, had emphasised the importance of including India. ‘In every area, we have to think and act strategically so that South-east Asia becomes a major intermediary between China and India. This is our historical position and this should also be our future.’ China’s growth was bringing prosperity. So would India’s. ‘What we must watch carefully is the improvement of relations between China and India.’213 Economically ASEAN had enjoyed considerable success. In face of the determination to develop and protect national industries, its attempts at industrial cooperation were a failure. But the adoption of common procedures and standards helped to promote intraregional transactions, and as ‘integration’ progressed, ‘their regional market became increasingly attractive to nonmembers as well’.214 Despite the avowal that economic cooperation would spin off into political cooperation, it was, however, political cooperation that, creating a new image of Southeast Asia as a region of stability, did most to attract foreign investment when it became available in the 1980s. ‘ASEAN’s great achievement was to secure security by preventing the balkanisation of Southeast Asia’, writes Anthony Smith.215 In part it acted, as Dewi Fortuna Anwar put it, not by resolving conflicts among its members, but by defusing them.216 Rather extraordinarily, G. Boyd alluded in 1982 to ‘the fairly modest skills of the ASEAN government leaders’.217 More convincingly Suthiphand Chirathivat, after alluding to the role of Jean Monnet, Robert Schuman and Konrad Adenauer, suggested that ‘ASEAN too has some strong leaders to take care of its pragmatic approach’.218 They would not take the European route, but their pragmatism does not preclude innovation. Their practice has been elitist, and they responded rather slowly, even reluctantly, to the civil society organisations that burgeoned after the economic crisis of 1997–8 undermined legitimation by performance. In November 2000, hosted by the Indonesian CSIS, the first Asean People’s Assembly (APA) met, however, in Riau. It saw itself as a civil society counterpoise to the ‘fraternity of government officials’ in ASEAN. Haacke suggested that it might lead to a further development of the ASEAN way,219 embracing the wider concept of human security. Indeed a second APA met in Bali in September 2002, and a third, meeting in Manila in September 2003, took as its theme the third pillar of Bali Concord II, ‘Towards an ASEAN Community of Caring Societies’.220 Regionalism is not a ‘unified concept’ nor an organising principle, Hurrell and Fawcett remind us. But it ‘may come to constitute one of the many pillars supporting an evolving international order’.221 Similarly, Jesus P. Estanislao argues that ASEAN has an ‘opportunity’. States face enormous challenges from globalisation. Each state can choose to work with its neighbours or leap straight into the global community. ‘Precisely because of the complexity of the challenge,

AFTA and ARF 215 countries do well by pulling together rather than by setting out separately. . . . as the nation states have become too small, the entire globe is still too big. So, regional groupings such as ASEAN may prove to be “just about right”, at least for the next 33 years.’222 In the theorising on regionalism, Southeast Asia has been rather neglected. Yet the experience of ASEAN suggests the danger in basing theory too exclusively on a single case. It also suggests that a sharp distinction between ‘realism’ and ‘constructivism’, not made by practitioners, may be unhelpful to theoreticians. The present narrative has also emphasised that the regional organisation has been shaped and reshaped over time in largely creative response to changing circumstances, economic and political, in the wider world. At the same time, it has stressed the need to take account – in this case, and perhaps in others, too – of intra-regional tensions and relationships. If one looks back on this book, and its two predecessors as well, the nation-state seems to be the central concern. It emerged from the world of imperialism, responsible for the creation of frontiers. Leaders fought for it in the age of nationalism. It remains in many ways central in the days of regionalism. States deliver many services to their citizens, as Reiterer writes. ‘In attempting to meet the challenge of globalisation’, they ‘form global, regional and subregional intergovernmental organisations dealing with political, economic and technical matters.’ Transnational corporations may administer budgets larger than those of many states and the financial markets have escaped the control of the individual state, he says. They do not, however, ‘compete with the core functions of states and they could not function without them’. States indeed compete with each other to ‘attract the attention of these private global players for trade and investment’.223 Only Western thinkers can, as Alexander Woodside has put it, ‘enjoy the quite provincial luxury that nation-states are obsolescent’.224 ‘What concepts of peace . . . motivated the founders of ASEAN?’ Paul M. Evans asked in 1996. It was ‘a subject of intellectual and historical interest’. But it was also ‘an inherently practical one, first in laying the foundations for an Asiacentred or at least Asian-informed theory of international relations that will be needed in the next century; and second, by more immediately informing the Asia Pacific investigation of trans-Pacific frameworks, principles, and activities that can get us safely into that century.’225 Over the period covered by these books, the world became a world of states, and it is so still. That ‘Southeast Asians’ work so closely by that principle makes their experience of global interest.

Part IV

Historiography

The ideal situation is one in which there are continual debates and dialogues, especially between the insiders and the outsiders. (Khoo Kay Kim, 2004)

9

Historiography

The development of an empire in Southeast Asia was accompanied by the emergence of elites within the colonial territories that aspired to rule them as nation-states. Their triumph imposed on them the obligations of the state, the first of which is to provide security. The departing imperial powers – or at least the chief of them, Britain – saw that in regional terms, though their concept of the ‘region’ extended beyond a strictly geographical Southeast Asia. A more purely Southeast Asian approach originated within Southeast Asia, perhaps partly as a result of a British inheritance, but, more obviously, as part of a search for security within Southeast Asia vis-a-vis its leading state, Indonesia. Only over the subsequent decades did it more clearly become as well a means of providing for the security of the region as a whole and the states within it. The essential feature in both cases was acceptance of the nation-state as the basis of regional and international politics. The ‘regnant paradigm’ in contemporary Southeast Asian historiography is, as Ruth McVey says, ‘national’ history.1 A striking feature of the historiography of Southeast Asia as such – as distinct from history-writing about parts of Southeast Asia – is the absence of authors from the region itself. The word was used before SEAC was set up, for example by J.S. Furnivall, and authors used it used quite frequently in the late 1940s and early 1950s, including the present author’s supervisor, Victor Purcell.2 The first major history was that of the late D.G.E. Hall, the first Professor of the History of Southeast Asia at London University, which appeared in 1955. Brian Harrison’s shorter history dates from 1954, John F. Cady’s Southeast Asia; Its Historical Development from 1964, and the present author’s own Southeast Asia Past and Present from 1966. None of these writers came from the region, though many had worked in it. The same remained true, more surprisingly, in subsequent decades. Witness the collaborative American volume In Search of Southeast Asia dating from 1971. The Australian Milton Osborne’s introductory history was first published in 1979 and is now in its seventh edition. The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia, which appeared in hardback in 1992, and was reprinted in paperback in 1999, included contributions from a more limited number of historians of Southeast Asia than the editor sought, though a panel of them was invited to consult with the contributors in Singapore. None of the historians from Southeast Asia included in the collection New Terrains in Southeast Asian History advocate writing regionally.3

220

Historiography

Those advising the authors of the replacement of In Search of Southeast Asia urged them ‘to break the original book completely open’ and ‘take a fresh look at modern Southeast Asian history’. But neither group included writers from the region, though many, of course, had much experience of it, and the editor felt that his contributors ‘reached an acceptable consensus (a thoroughly Southeast Asian process)’.4 There is clearly something of a demand for histories of Southeast Asia. Clearly, too, it is a difficult subject to tackle on a regional basis. In almost every case the contributors to the multi-authored Cambridge History were, as the preface suggested, ‘taken out of their particular area of expertise’, though they ‘felt that the challenge of the regional approach was worth the hazardous departure from research moorings’. The new history did, however, ‘give them the chance – perhaps already enjoyed in many cases in their teaching – to extend into other parts of the region and to adopt a comparative, regional approach’ (I, p. xiv). The authors who attempted the history of Southeast Asia on their own found themselves even more challenged. Certainly that was true in the present author’s case, both with Southeast Asia Past and Present, and more recently with Southeast Asia: A Modern History (OUP, 2001). Difficulties of this nature do not, however, offer a convincing explanation. They rather raise again the larger questions. To what extent is Southeast Asia as a region an outsiders’ construct? Is it, as it were, a post-colonial creation, in succession to the imperial structure of Southeast Asia created under the auspices of the British, and overthrown by the Japanese in the name of another regionalist construct, the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere? Even if the answers to those questions must now be doubted, and ‘Southeast Asians’ themselves have by practice as well as precept defined the region more precisely both geographically and politically, another yet remains: is the concept, though influential among the policy-making elite – in some sense their ‘construction’ – not yet shared outside it? There is, of course, a constructive element in the historical discipline itself – it urges practitioners to make connexions and comparisons – particularly when they are under the necessity of sustaining a book. ‘Historians’, Craig Reynolds writes, ‘are never in want of continuities; indeed it is in the nature of the historian’s craft to construct them. The fissures, breaks, and discontinuities are there only to be explained, bridged over, sewn together, or contextualized in larger, all-embracing continuities.’5 But that comment must apply to modern ‘Southeast Asian’ historians as well as others. ‘Southeast Asians themselves seem not to have have had a common term for the region.’6 Not surprising. Even external descriptions of it, such as ‘Further India’, tended to emphasise only a feature of the region, even if they purported to see it a whole. Others were broader and vaguer, like the Nanyang or the Nanyo. ‘Southeast Asia’ thus had its convenience, embracing the area quantitatively rather than qualitatively. Even such a geographical denotation has, however, its own fragility. For a while there was a tendency among non-historians to include Ceylon, where Mountbatten based the South East Asia Command that made the

Historiography 221 term familiar. Among historians Hall himself was uncertain about the inclusion of the Philippines, which is not covered in his first edition, and Filipinos themselves seemed to question their ‘Southeast Asian-ness’.7 Drawing a line in New Guinea was and is fraught with political significance. Only the present author’s histories include some consideration of the Andaman and Nicobar islands, which India insisted on retaining in 1947;8 yet a glance at the map suggests that they are part of a geographically determined ‘Southeast Asia’. If characterisations like ‘Further India’ or the Nanyang were but partial, historians have nevertheless sought to characterise the region they accepted as Southeast Asia by other than simply geographic terms. Sometimes such characterisations are reflected in the title of their books; they are certainly enforced by their structure. Hall’s book – neutral in title, save for its use of the phrase ‘SouthEast Asia’ and his assertion that it was ‘an area worthy of consideration in its own right, and not merely when brought into contact with China, India or the West’9 – was structured as a series of narratives, divided into periods, pre-European, the earlier phase of European expansion, the period of European territorial expansion, nationalism and the challenge to European domination. In his first book the present author sought as it were to square the circle: the characteristic feature of the region was its diversity. The somewhat tentatively titled In Search of Southeast Asia was a compilation of country histories written by individual experts, though working in consultation. Some historians have, however, given the region a more positive connotation. For Anthony Reid, writing in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Southeast Asia was a region in the sense that the Mediterranean was a region for Fernand Braudel, and it possessed at a deeper level a unity which an emphasis on event-oriented history tended to conceal. It was thus possible to go beyond the acceptance of diversity, even beyond a comparative approach. In his Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce (Yale UP, 1988, 1993), Reid suggested ‘that treating Southeast Asia as a whole makes it possible to describe a number of areas of life which would otherwise remain in the shadows’. For each cultural area sources for his period, the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, are fragmentary; but studying them together offers ‘a coherent picture . . . of the life-styles of the region as a whole’.10 ‘Southeast Asians’ thus appear on the scene, though they would not have recognised themselves as such. In the later 1990s, by contrast, some historians outside Southeast Asia wondered whether they had not begun to over-emphasise the commonalities in the experience of its peoples, and at the same time to cut off that experience from the experience of peoples in other regions. The first might underplay the particularities of the societies and polities in the region. The second might reduce the chances of understanding them more fully by opening up a wider range of comparisons and connexions. The leading figure in this thinking is Vic Lieberman, and his focus has been on the ‘early modern’ period. A seminar in London in 1995 was followed by the publication of papers in Modern Asian Studies,11 later republished in book form with a new introduction, Beyond Binary Histories Re-imagining Eurasia to c.1830 (Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 1999).

222 Historiography The papers cover France and Russia, Japan, Dai Viet and Mataram. None of the contributors came from Southeast Asia. Lieberman is developing his line of thinking in a new work, Strange Parallels Southeast Asia In Global Context, c.800–1830, the first volume of which was published by Cambridge University Press in 2003. Historians from the region meanwhile focused on the nation-state rather than the region, though a few, like Danny Wong and Aruna Gopinath, ventured to study their neighbours. There was a clear sense of duty towards the nation-state, enforced by the struggle for independence, though how that was best fulfilled might be, as Soedjatmoko recognised,12 the focus of dispute. ‘[I]ndigenous scholars have no need to justify their national focus’, as Hong Lysa pointed out, ‘and in fact have a compelling sense of mission in pursuing their work, which often simply cannot be divorced from their responsibility as members of that society’.13 Writing on ‘region’ in the other, more local, sense only seemed to be contradictory, Sartono Kartodirdjo argued: ‘it is not if we take into account the fact that the formation of national identity and nationhood does not exclude the need of possessing an identity of a lower order, i.e. regional or local identity. The reconstruction of regional or local history will facilitate the rediscovery or the formation of national identity’.14 In an article published in the Journal of Southeast Asian Studies in 1984, Donald K. Emmerson asked, in an echo of Shakespeare’s Romeo, what was in a name. Some names acknowledge what exists, others create what would otherwise not exist. ‘In between lie names that simultaneously describe and invent reality. “Southeast Asia” is one of these.’ Creating ‘a need to talk about the region’, Emmerson suggested, international conflicts ‘underwrote the popularity of the name in the very act of undermining its empirical prospects’. His aim was ‘to help indigenous scholars increase understanding and reduce mistrust by getting out from under the imprint of the nation-state – for example, through collaborative research on Southeast Asian topics that are nonpolitical, crosscultural and sub- or supra-national’. The question was ‘not whether regional unity is a fiction. The question is how to make the fiction useful enough to become true.’15 His intervention did not change the situation. There was, however, something in his notion that international conflicts created a need to talk about the region, though less in his suggestion that they undermined its empirical prospects. A sense of region indeed developed as a result of an interplay between character and circumstances, initiative and conditions. But it continued to develop, so that it realised prospects that Emmerson thought in 1984 were fatally undermined. While the regional political leaders were ‘constructivist’, its historians, however, were not. Another outsider’s concept, Emmerson’s words may nevertheless add something to the explanation. It is not merely a question of one’s own nationalism, but sensitivity about that of others. Writing might reduce the prospects of regional understanding, rather than increase it. Emmerson himself appeared to advocate starting with ‘non-political’ topics, rather as ASA and ASEAN had presented themselves as doing. The explanation is supported, too, by some of the trends in Southeast Asian historiography in a globalising world. At a workshop on national historiography in Brunei in 1994 some participants argued that, as national

Historiography 223 history was most important to the nation concerned, and best understood by it, the involvement of foreign historians was ‘both unnecessary and undesirable’.16 Ferdinand Llanes outlined the development at the University of the Philippines of the pantayong pananaw school associated with Zeus Salazar. It criticises what it terms pangkaming pananaw, the traditional way of writing Philippine history, as ‘a discourse that defensively reckons with the view of the foreigner’. An apologia, it is more concerned ‘with proving the existence of our own civilisation or justifying our country’s state of development than inquiring into the internal dynamics of Philippine society as it evolved over the centuries’.17 Yet that presentation was made at an international conference, and if it is possible to feel that a country’s history has itself been colonised or orientalised, so exclusive an approach may only add to its impoverishment. ‘If one believes with Gramsci that an intellectual vocation is socially possible as well as desirable’, as Edward Said wrote, ‘then it is an inadmissible contradiction at the same time to build analyses of historical experience around exclusions that stipulate, for instance, that only women can understand feminine experience, only Jews understand Jewish suffering, only formerly colonial subjects can understand colonial experience.’18 In his inaugural lecture of 1965 Herbert Butterfield pointed to the contributions to the historiography of England that non-English historians had made. Paul Vinogradoff’s experience in Russia helped him to write Villeinage in England, and F.W. Maitland was thus persuaded to go to the Public Record Office in 1884. Sir Lewis Namier approached English history ‘without the prepossessions of an Englishman’, and that, Butterfield said, perhaps rather dismissively, was ‘extremely likely’ to have led to ‘some of the profounder things’ in his work.19 How does this contention over the national and regional elements in the historiography of Southeast Asia relate to a form of study that aspires to objectivity? why should it be a matter of interest that a Russian writes English history or indeed Malaysians write the history of Vietnam or the Philippines? Such questions prompt an examination of another still ‘regnant paradigm’ in modern historiography, that associated above all with Leopold von Ranke, and a reminder that it developed alongside the European emphasis on the nation and the nation-state. The two developments were in fact in fruitful tension. In the preface to his Histories of the Latin and Teutonic Nations (1824) Ranke wrote: ‘To history has been assigned the task of judging the past, of instructing the world of today for the benefit of future years. The present attempt does not claim such an exalted function; it merely wants to state what actually happened (er will bloss sagen, wie es eigentlich gewesen).’20 He was criticising the long tradition that saw history as a source of ‘lessons from the past’. ‘Strict description of the fact, although it might limit us and prove to be unpleasant, is without doubt the supreme law.’ It was, of course, no ‘mere’ task.21 ‘The main task of the historian’, as John Tosh puts it, ‘became to find out why people acted as they did by stepping into their shoes, by seeing the world through their eyes and as far as possible judging it by their standards.’22 History, Thomas Carlyle said, was ‘an address (literally out of Heaven, for did not God order it all?)

224 Historiography to our whole inner man’. He insisted that ‘the first indispensable condition’ was that we see the things transacted, picture them wholly as if they stand before our eyes’.23 But was it possible? J.A. Froude thought Carlyle’s condition could not be met. ‘In the alteration of our own character, we have lost the key which would interpret the characters of our fathers, and the great men even of our own English history before the Reformation seem to us almost like the fossil skeletons of another order of beings. . . . Now all is gone; and between us and the old English there lies a gulf of mystery which the prose of the historian will never adequately bridge. They cannot come to us, and our imagination can but feebly penetrate to them.’24 The relationship between the present and the past is at the core of the problem. ‘We do call the past, as such, into being by recollecting and by thinking historically; but we do this by disentangling it out of the present in which it actually exists.’25 Can that be done? ‘For the facts of history, even those which in historical parlance figure as “hard and fast,” are no more than relevances: facets of past phenomena which happen to relate to pre-occupations of historical inquirers at the time of their inquiries.’26 The ‘truth’ about the past cannot indeed be recaptured, but that is not a reason for abandoning the task, nor for seeing it, as some postmodernists would, as a matter of ‘stories’, all equally valid. And if there is always the risk that ‘presentism’ will be present in the historiographical process, it can also be an advantage. It is useful, Gertrude Himmelfarb has written, for historians ‘to be reminded of what they have always known – the frailty, fallibility and relativity of the historical enterprise – if only’, she cruelly adds, ‘to realize that these ideas are not the discoveries of post-modernism’. But the post-modernists go further: ‘the presumption of post-modernism is that all of history is fatally flawed, and that because there is no absolute, total truth, there can be no partial, contingent truth. More important still is the presumption that because it is impossible to attain such truths, it is not only futile but positively baneful to aspire to them.’ Himmelfarb suggests that the creation of a ‘discipline’ of history was in a sense designed ‘to forestall the absolutistic relativism of post-modernism’. Aware of the deficiencies of the historian and the historical record, ‘of the ambiguous relationship of past and present’, the historical profession created the checks and controls associated with ‘critical history’. The aim was to encourage ‘a maximum exertion of objectivity’.27 Hence the recourse to ‘original sources’, the cross-checking of ‘evidence’, the intervention of reviewers and editors. The present, however, is not something to be driven out of the discourse, the present author believes, but rather recognised, and indeed turned to account. Like other intellectuals, historians are bound to be affected by the ‘spirit of the age’. What the historical discipline in fact seeks to do is to accept that ‘presentism’, but to use it so as to encourage new perceptions of the past and new interpretations of its ‘evidence’, in the belief that, while there may be no final truth, that may be the way to a closer approximation. In writing a history of a Southeast Asian nation, the historian, whether or not a citizen or a ‘Southeast Asian’, will be affected by its present existence, and indeed affect or contribute to its future, the writing itself being an historical as well as an

Historiography 225 historiographical act. There have indeed been a number of debates, particularly among Indonesian historians, as to the nature of ‘national’ history. So far as the discipline is concerned, a ‘national’ thrust will bring out truths that may have been ‘lost’ in the colonial phase. They cannot become the only truths. A similar consideration applies to writing the history of the region, itself again, as Emmerson recognised, an historical as well as an historiographical act. It may bring into focus parts of the past that a colonial or national emphasis neglected. It may even, as Reid conceived, fill some of the gaps in the evidence about parts of the region that the record does not cover. Again, however, its truth must not obscure other truths. The ‘national’ historian might be especially sensitive on that point, but any properly disciplined historian would have to deal with the issue, too. A regional approach risked increasing rather than reducing the ghettoisation of the study of Southeast Asia, Lieberman argued. There was also the risk that it would distort the history of component parts of the region. He thought Reid’s magisterial work presented as valid for the region as a whole a thesis better fitted to the archipelago than the mainland. He suggested ‘that the closest archipelagic analogies to Burmese, Thai and Vietnamese integration can be found in the early history of the Spanish and Dutch colonial systems’, though he did not ‘deny the value of regionwide syntheses’.28 This book has argued that regionalism has emerged from the creation of nationstates and that regional organisations have built upon that basis. The historiography of the region has, however, adhered to the ‘regnant paradigm’. Much has indeed been written about ASEAN. It has attracted the interest of students and theorists of international relations, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, that of think-tanks, second-track institutions, and political commentators. Those studies have rarely been historically grounded. The major exception is the work of Amitav Acharya, The Quest for Identity (Singapore: OUP, 2000), and Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia (London and New York: Routledge, 2001). Vision 20/20, adopted by the leaders in 1997, envisaged a community of caring societies. ASEAN, Hernandez argues, will have to become more institutionalised, and the Secretary-General and secretariat given greater powers. ‘The challenges in the social field will also lead ASEAN to work more closely with track-two actors and with elements of civil society in track-three activities.’29 Civil society, says Hadi Soesastro, has to be ‘incorporated into the agenda setting of the new ASEAN, otherwise, people will have a totally wrong idea about what ASEAN is all about’.30 Started by Foreign Ministers, taken up by Heads of State, ASEAN has seemed too remote, too bureaucratic. In the Declaration of ASEAN Concord, it was agreed that members should ‘vigorously develop an awareness of regional identity and exert all efforts to create a strong Asean community, respected by all and respecting all nations on the basis of mutually advantageous relationships, and in accordance with the principles of self-determination, sovereign equality and non-interference in the internal affairs of nations’. A programme of action included introducing the study of ASEAN, its member states and their languages into the curricula of schools

226 Historiography and other institutions of learning, and promoting Southeast Asian studies through closer collaboration among national institutes. The Group of 14 urged fostering ‘Asean consciousness’, looked for the introduction of ASEAN studies at all levels of education and for the creation of ‘Asean chairs’ at one or more university in each country, and in the longer term envisaged an ‘Asean University’, ‘a centre for the comprehensive study of Asean’ that would ‘ensure that some of the best and brightest in Asean are brought together into one institutional setting’.31 But if the ASEAN committees of which Ungku Aziz wrote so wryly32 can do no more than prod, it is arguable that the development is in any case better not forced. Pushing ‘regionalism’ could – like pushing nationalism – be counter-productive. It might emerge over time as a consequence both of circumstance and initiative. Hong Lysa took that view of the prospects of historiography. Writing in 1997, she thought that the nationalist emphasis in historiography was ‘not permanent’. The region was being redefined as one of economic growth and political stability. ‘Southeast Asians’, she wrote, ‘may well find impetus, and indeed sponsorship, to master a second language and to research the history of their neighbours’.33 And – if that trend might apply in fields other than the historiographical – Anthony Milner has more recently put the case for history. In his Raffles lecture of December 2002, he took issue with those who condemned ASEAN as a ‘talk-shop’. The criticism he associated with the 1990s, ‘a period when the liberal convergence of value systems was widely judged to be as unstoppable as the rising economic prosperity’, and ASEAN’s sensitivities, ‘all this talk-talk’, seemed to be ‘a waste of time’.34 A decade later much had changed. Milner did not want to characterise the new period in terms of a Huntingtonian clash of civilisations. Instead he wanted to speak of a ‘return of history’, countering Fukuyama’s view that it had ended, countering, too, the non-dynamic element in the concept of ‘civilisation’. The new situation requires not less ‘talk-talk’ but more. And it requires an historical perspective, since that will identify difference as well as commonality, ‘and on that basis, . . . assist in the extension – the broadening of the reach – of ASEAN talk and ASEAN regionalism’. ‘The talk has been important in the past; it has drawn upon a remarkable patience and a sensitivity to culture and history that is very likely to be even more important in the future.’35 The founders of ASEAN themselves had a sense of history. It drew, like their nationalism, on a construction of imperialism. ‘The policy of the colonial powers was divide et impera, so that for many years we were estranged from each other’, Romulo declared in 1977. ‘Now we are independent, no longer chained to the colonial power and we can at last talk to each other. I can pick up the telephone now and talk direct to Adam Malik or Rajaratnam.’36 There is now a wider public in the Southeast Asian states. It should be informed by ‘Southeast Asian’ historians as well as historians of Southeast Asia. They should write of the divisions of the past, not only those colonialism brought. Only upon ‘what actually happened’ may a true sense of regionalism be built.

Notes

1 Definitions 1 Arnfinn Jorgensen-Dahl. Regional Oranization in South-East Asia, New York: St Martin’s, 1982. 2 Ibid., pp. xiv–xv. 3 H. Indorf, Impediments to Regionalism in Southeast Asia, Singapore: ISEAS, 1984, pp. 5–6. 4 V. Cable, ‘Overview’, in V. Cable and David Henderson, eds, Trade Blocs? The Future of Regional Integration, London: RIIA, 1994, p. 2. 5 James Mayall, ‘Regionalism and National Identity’, in Louise Fawcett and Andrew Hurrell, eds, Regionalism in World Politics: Regional Organization and International Order, OUP, 1995, p. 171. 6 Michael Haas, The Asian Way to Peace, New York, Westport, London: Praeger, 1989, p. 2. 7 Craig J. Reynolds, ‘A New Look at Old Southeast Asia’, Journal of Asian Studies, 54, 2 (May 1995), p. 427. 8 Walter Mattli, The Logic of Regional Integration, CUP, 1999, pp. 21–3. 9 Andres Malamud, ‘Presidentialism and Mercosur’, in Finn Laursen, ed., Comparative Regional Integration, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003, p. 60. 10 J.S. Nye, ‘Comparing Common Markets’, in Leon N. Lindberg and Stuart A. Scheingold, eds, Regional Integration Theory and Research, Harvard UP, 1971, p. 195. 11 Mattli, The Logic of Regional Integration, p. 28. 12 Robert O. Keohane, International Institutions and State Power, Boulder, CO: Westview, 1989, pp. 8–9. 13 Emanuel Adler and Michael Barnett, ‘Security Communities in Theoretical Perspective’, in Adler and Barnett, eds, Security Communities, CUP, 1998, p. 4. 14 Björn Hettne, ‘The New Regionalism Revisited’, in F. Söderbaum and T. Shaw, eds, Theories of New Regionalism, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2003, p. 27. 15 Hiro Katsumata, ‘Reconstruction of Diplomatic Norms in Southeast Asia: The Case for Strict Adherence to the “ASEAN Way” ’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 25, 1 (April 2003), p. 106. 16 Keohane, p. 65. 17 Richard Higgott, ‘Ideas, Identity and Policy Coordination in the Asia Pacific’, The Pacific Review, 7, 4 (1994), p. 367. 18 Amitav Acharya, ‘Collective Identity and Conflict Management in Southeast Asia’, in Adler and Barnett, eds, p. 206. 19 Söderbaum in Söderbaum and Shaw, eds, Theories of New Regionalism, Basingstoke: palgrave, 2003, p. 6. Used differently by Fawcett and Hurrell, p. 3. 20 Andrew Wyatt-Walter, ‘Regionalism, Globalization, and World Economic Order’, in Fawcett and Hurrell, eds, p. 76.

228 Notes 21 Barry Buzan, ‘The Southeast Asian Security Complex’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 10, 1 (June 1988), p. 2. 22 Michael Antolik, ASEAN and the Diplomacy of Accommodation, Armonk: Sharpe, 1990, p. 97. 23 Paul Evans, ‘Economic and Security Dimensions of the Emerging Order in the Asia-Pacific’, in David Wurfel and Bruce Burton, eds, Southeast Asia in the New World Order, New York: St Martin’s, 1996, p. 11. 24 In Söderbaum and Shaw, Theories of New Regionalism, p. 28. 25 Andrew Hurrell, ‘Regionalism in a Theoretical Perspective’, in Fawcett and Hurrell, eds, pp. 38–9. 26 In Söderbaum and Shaw, Theories of New Regionalism, p. 7. 27 Morten Boas and Helge Hveem, ‘Regionalisms Compared: The African and Southeast Asian Experience’, in Björn Hettne, Andras Inotai and Osvaldo Sunkel, eds, Comparing Regionalisms: Implications for Global Development, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001, p. 94. 28 Mark Beeson, Introduction to Mark Beeson, ed., Contemporary Southeast Asia: Regional Dynamics, National Differences, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, p. 7. 29 Charles Oman, ‘Emerging Business Opportunities from European and ASEAN Integration’, in Chia Siow Yue and Joseph L.H. Tan, eds, ASEAN and EU, Singapore: ISEAS, 1997, p. 156. 30 Sheila Page, Regionalism among Developing Countries, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000, p. 5. 31 Louise Fawcett and Hurrell, Andrew, Introduction to Fawcett and Hurrell, p. 4. 32 In Söderbaum and Shaw, Theories of New Regionalism, pp. 33–4. 33 Introduction to Söderbaum and Shaw, p. 4. 34 B. Hettne, ‘Regionalism, Security and Development: A Comparative Perspective’, in Hettne et al., eds, Comparing Regionalisms, p. 2. 35 q. Mattli, p. 69. 36 Hettne, p. 3. 37 Michael and Söderbaum, ‘Key Issues in New Regionalism: Comparisons from Asia, Africa and the Middle East’, in Comparing Regionalisms, p. 235. 38 In Fawcett and Hurrell, p. 73. 39 F.H. Hinsley, ‘The Causes of War. The Two World Wars Compared’, New Zealand Journal of History, 1, 1 (April 1967), pp. 1–10. 2 Chronologies 1 Coral Bell, Survey of International Affairs 1954, OUP, 1957, p. 244. 2 A. James Gregor, In the Shadow of Giants: The Major Powers and the Security of Southeast Asia, Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1989, p. 37. L. Buszynski, Gorbachev and Southeast Asia, London and New York: Routledge, 1992, p. 7. 3 L. Buszynski, Soviet Foreign Policy and Southeast Asia, London and Sydney: Croom Helm, 1986, p. 42. 4 The Times, 15.3.72. 5 Vladimir Rakhmanin, ‘Soviet and Russian Policy Towards Southeast Asia (1986–93)’, in Wurfel and Burton, eds, p. 129. Financial Times, 17.9.88. 6 In Björn, Inotai and Sunkel, Comparing Regionalisms, p. 25. 7 Charles F. Keyes, ‘Cultural Diversity and National Identity in Thailand’, in Michael E. Brown and Sumit Ganguly, eds, Government Policies and Ethnic Relations in Asia and the Pacific’, Cambridge, MA, and London: MIT Press, 1997, pp. 213–14. 8 Amitav Acharya, The Quest for Identity, Singapore: OUP, 2000, p. 166. 9 Alex J. Bellamy, ‘The Pursuit of Security in Southeast Asia’, in Beeson, ed., Contemporary Southeast Asia, 2004, p. 204.

Notes 229 10 q. Dona Torr, Introduction to Marx on China, London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1951, p. xvi. 11 q. G. Bennett, ed., The Concept of Empire, London: Black, 1962, p. 47. 12 q. Martin J. Wiener, English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit, CUP, 1981, p. 28. 13 q. B. Semmel, Imperialism and Social Reform, London: Allen and Unwin, 1960, p. 141. 14 W. Knapp, A History of War and Peace, OUP, 1967, p. 552. 15 Ibid., p. 553. 16 Ibid., p. 554. 17 Ibid., p. 555. 18 Ibid., p. 556. 19 Jagdish Bhagwati, ‘Regionalism and Multilateralism: An Overview’, in Jaime de Melo and Arvind Panagariya, eds, New Dimensions in Regional Integration, CUP, 1993, p. 22. 20 q. ibid., pp. 22–3. 21 Eric Holleiner, States and the Reemergence of Global Finance, Cornell UP, 1994, pp. 3–4. 22 Ibid., p. 4. 23 Ibid., p. 103. 24 Ibid., p. 120. 25 Ibid., p. 114. 26 Ibid., pp. 129–30. 27 Ibid., p. 147. 28 Ibid., p. 184. 29 Ibid., p. 202. 30 Bernard M. Hoekman and Michael M. Kostecki, The Political Economy of the World Trading System, OUP, 1995, p. 13. 31 De Melo and Panagariya, p. 3. 32 Bhagwati, p. 25. 33 Ibid., p. 28. 34 q. Sylvia Ostry, The Post-Cold War Trading System, Chicago UP, 1997, p. 17. 35 Bhagwati, p. 29. 36 Ostry, pp. 17, 57. 37 Ibid., p. 85. 38 Ibid., pp. 88, 94–5. 39 Ibid., p. 97. 40 Ibid., p. 97. 41 q. ibid., p. 103. 42 Ibid., p. 192. 43 Ibid., p. 194. 44 de Melo and Panagariya, p. 3. 45 Sung-Hoon Park, ‘Regionalism, Open Regionalism, and Article XXIV GATT’, in Francis Snyder, ed., Regional and Global Regulation of International Trade, Oxford and Portland: Hart, 2002, p. 266. 46 In Comparing Regionalisms, p. 37. 47 Andrew Gamble and Anthony Payne, ‘The World Order Approach’, in Söderbaum and Shaw, eds, p. 57. 48 Park, p. 270. 49 Boas and Hveem, in Comparing Regionalisms, p. 96. 50 Hurrell in Fawcett and Hurrell, p. 56. 51 Dilip K. Das, Global Trading System at the Crossroads, London, New Tork: Routledge, 2001, p. 35.

230 Notes 52 Reviewing M. Moore, A World without Walls, CUP, 2003, in TLS, 26.9.03. 53 Das, p. 45. 54 Peter J. Lloyd, ‘The Systemic Effects of Recent Regionalism’, in Tran Van Hoa and C. Harvie, eds, New Asian Regionalism, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2003, p. 33. 55 q. M. Antolik, ASEAN and the Diplomacy of Accommodation, Armonk: Sharpe, 1990, p. 16. 56 Cf. Zhang Yuejiao, ‘Economic Law Reform Dealing with the Asian Financial Turmoil’, in Snyder, ed., p. 286. 3 Further India 1 Acharya, Identity, p. 32. 2 Denys Lombard, Le carrefour Javanais, Paris: École des hautes études, 1990, III, pp. 156–7; as translated in J. Revel and Lynn Hunt, eds, Histories. French Reconstructions of the Past, New York: New Press, 1995, p. 465. 3 Richard W. Mansbach, ‘Southeast Asia in the Global Political System’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 9, 1 (March 1978), p. 115. 4 q. W.S. Desai, History of the British Residency in Burma, Rangoon: University of Rangoon, 1939, p. 297. 5 q. D.R. SarDesai, British Trade and Expansion in Southeast Asia, Columbia: South Asia Books, 1977, p. 115. 6 q. C.L. Keeton, King Thebaw and the Ecological Rape of Burma, Delhi: Manohar, 1974, p. 243. 7 q. P. Tuck, The French Wolf and the Siamese Lamb, Bangkok, Cheney: White Lotus, 1995, p. 72. 8 q. B.L. Evans, ‘The Attitudes and Policies of Great Britain and China towards French Expansion in Cochin China, Cambodia, Annam and Tongking 1858–83’, PhD thesis, University of London, 1961, p. 41. 9 q. Ibid., p. 101. 10 q. C.M. Andrew and A.S. Kanya-Forster, ‘Centre and Periphery in the Making of the Second French Empire’, in Andrew Porter and Robert Holland, eds, Theory and Practice in the History of European Expansion Overseas, London: Cass, 1988, p. 20. 11 q. N. Tarling, The Burthen, the Risk and the Glory, OUP, 1982, p. 20. 12 Memorandum, 15.1.1824, with Mr Canning’s notes. Dutch Records 1/2//31, India Office Records, British Library. 13 G.J. Resink, Indonesia’s History between the Myths, The Hague; Van Hoeve, 1968, p. 136. 14 M. Leifer, The Foreign Relations of the New States, Camberwell: Longmans Australia, 1974, p. 4. 15 Statement at Conference on ASEAN, 18–20 December 1975, q. Chaiyong Satjipanon, ‘Economic and Political Collaboration of the Southeast Asian Nations’, PhD thesis, Fletcher School, 1987, p. 31. 16 WM (41), 127th, 12.12.1941, item 2. CAB 65/20, National Archives, London. 17 Report by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, 29.10.1941. WP (41) 286. CAB 66/20. 18 Minute, 10.12.41. FO 371/27856 [F13798/6887/61], National Archives, London. 4 Nan-yo 1 q. Mary E. Berry, Hideyoshi, Harvard UP, 1982, p. 212. 2 Rafael H. Soriano, ‘Japanese Occupation of the Philippines’, PhD thesis, University of Michigan, 1948, p. 29. 3 q. Berry, p. 207.

Notes 231 4 Yoneo Ishii, ed., The Junk Trade from Southeast Asia, Singapore: ISEAS, 1998, p. 1. 5 q. S. Lone, Japan’s Modern War, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1994, p. 42. 6 J.M. Saniel, Japan and the Philippines, Quezon City: University of the Philippines, 1962, p. 182. 7 Usha Mahajani, Philippine Nationalism, University of Queensland Press, 1971, p. 405. 8 q. Saniel, p. 232. 9 Kimitada Miwa, ‘Japanese Policies and Concepts for a Regional Order in Asia 1938–1940’, in James W. White, Michio Umegaki and Thomas R.H. Havens, eds, The Ambivalence of Nationalism, Lanham: UP of America, 1990, p. 134. 10 q. Tsunoda Ryusaku et al., eds, Sources of Japanese Tradition, Columbia UP, 1964, II, p. 210. 11 q. N. Tarling, ‘A Vital British Interest’, JSEAS, 9, 2 (September 1978), p. 192. 12 Memorandum, 8.9.21. FO 371/6696 [F3600/901/23]. 13 Shimizu Hajime, ‘ “Nanshin-ron”: Its turning point in World War I’, The Developing Economies, 25, 4 (December 1987), p. 396. 14 James B. Crowley, Japan’s Quest for Autonomy, Princeton UP, 1966, pp. 296–7. 15 q. Crowley, ‘Japan’s Military Foreign Policies’, in J.W. Morley, ed., Japan’s Foreign Policy, Columbia UP, 1974, p. 78. 16 P. Baudouin, The Private Diaries, London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1948, pp. 199, 203. 17 q. Tarling, Britain, Southeast Asia and the Onset of the Pacific War, CUP, 1996, p. 147. 18 q. ibid., p. 14. 19 N. Graebner, ‘Hoover, Roosevelt and the Japanese’, in D. Borg and S. Okamoto, eds, Pearl Harbor as History, Columbia UP, 1973, pp. 47–8. 20 Miwa, in Ambivalence, p. 149. 21 Crowley, ‘Intellectuals as Visionaries of the New Asian Order’, in James W. Morley, ed., Dilemmas of Growth in Prewar Japan, Princeton UP, 1971, pp. 324–5. 22 Miwa in Ambivalence, pp. 148–9, 151. 23 M. Peattie, ‘Nanshin: The “Southward Advance”, 1931–1941, as a Prelude to the Japanese Occupation of Southeast Asia’, in P. Duus et al., eds, The Japanese Wartime Empire, Princeton UP, 1996, p. 211. 24 q. Nagaoka Shinjiro, ‘Economic Demands on the Dutch East Indies’, in J.W. Morley, ed., The Fateful Choice, Columbia UP, 1980, p. 128. 25 q. Tarling, Pacific War, pp. 72–3. 26 q. Akira Iriye, War and Culture, Harvard UP, 1981, p. 64. 27 Miwa in White et al., eds, p. 34. 28 q. Crowley, ‘A New Asian Order’, in Bernard S. Silberman and H.D. Harootunian, eds, Japan in Crisis, Princeton UP, 1974, pp. 293–4. 29 q. Ken’ichi Goto, ‘Returning to Asia’: Japan-Indonesia Relations, 1930s–1942, Tokyo: Ryukei Shyosha, 1997, pp. 150, 151. 30 q. Tsunoda, II, Sources if Japanese Tradition, pp. 294ff. 31 q. Joyce C. Lebra, Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere in World War II, KL: OUP, 1975, pp. 79–80. 32 Ken’Ichi Goto, Tensions of Empire, Ohio UP/Singapore UP, 2003, p. 54. 33 Peattie in Duus et al., p. 236. 34 q. Ooi Keat Gin, Japanese Empire in the Tropics, Athens: Ohio UP, 1998, p. 30. 35 q. Iriye, p. 69. 36 Ibid., pp. 69–70. 37 q. H. Benda et al., Japanese Military Administration in Indonesia, Yale UP, 1965, p. 48. 38 Ibid., pp. 49–52. 39 q. Duus et al., p. xxvi. 40 Shigemitsu Mamoru, Japan and her Destiny, trans. O. White, London: Hutchinson, 1958, pp. 289–90. 41 q. Lebra, pp. 88ff.

232 Notes 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80

q. Lebran, p. 93; Iriye, p. 119. Ibid., p. 119. Ibid., p. 164. Ibid., p. 170. q. Benda et al., pp. 240–3. q. ibid., pp. 257–9. L.D. Meo, Japan’s Radio War on Australia, Melbourne UP, 1968, p. 189. Iriye, p. 241. q. Otabe Yuji, ‘Japanese Occupation Policy in Singapore, 1942–45’, in P. Lowe and H. Moeshart, eds, Western Interactions with Japan, Folkestone: Japan Library, 1990, p. 89. Sudo Sueo, The International Relations of Japan and South East Asia, London, New York: Routledge, 2002, p. 6. Times, 16.12.87. Ibid., 4.5.91. q. Sudo, p. 83. q. John Bresnan, From Dominoes to Dynamos, New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1994, p. 86. q. Chaivat in Chaivat Khamchoo and E.B. Reynolds, eds, Thai-Japanese Relations in Historical Perspective, Bangkok: Innomedia, 1988, p. 239 I.I. Kovalenko, q. R.A. Longmire, Soviet Relations with South-East Asia, London: Kegan Paul, 1989, p. 149. John Halliday and Gavan McCormack, Japanese Imperialism Today, Penguin, 1973, p. 21. Lawrence Olson, Japan in Postwar Asia, London: Pall Mall, 1970, p. 19. Sudo, p. 2. Yoshide Soeya, ‘Japan’s Policy towards Southeast Asia’, in Chandran Jeshurun, ed., China, India, Japan and the Security of Southeast Asia, Singapore: ISEAS, 1993, pp. 97–8. Edward J. Lincoln, ‘The Asian Development Bank’, in M. Beeson, ed., Reconfiguring Southeast Asia, London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002, p. 207. Times, 10, 17.1.74. q. D.F. Anwar, Indonesia and the Security of Southeast Asia, Jakarta: Centre for Strategic and International Studies, 1992, pp. 35–6. q. Sudo Sueo, The Fukuda Doctrine and ASEAN, Singapore: ISEAS, 1992, p. 158. Chaiwat Khamchoo, ‘Japan’s Role in Southeast Asian Security: Plus ca change . . .’, Pacific Affairs, 64, 1 (Spring 1991), p. 9. P. Charrier, ‘ASEAN’s Inheritance: The regionalism of Southeast Asia, 1941–61’, Pacific Review, 14, 3 (2001), p. 320. Rolf Tanner, A Strong Showing, Stuttgart: Fritz Steiner Verlag, 1994, p. 23. Memorandum, 8.6.45. FO 371/46328 [F3943/149/61]. Memorandum, 26.6.45. FO 371/46328 [F3944/149/61]. Minute by Bourdillon, 27.6.45. CO 273/677/50908, National Archives, London. Mountbatten/Stanley, 18.6.45. CO 537/1547. Bovenschen/Sargent, 21.8.45. FO 371/46238 [F5598/149/61]. Minute, 24.8.45. ibid. Dening/Bennett, 2.8.45, 1691. FO 371/46434 [F5022/47/23]. Jacob/Dixon, 13.9.45, and draft. FO 371/54020 [F5385/333/61]. Minutes on ibid. Dening/Bennett, 18.9.45. FO 371/46434 [F496/47/23]. B. Barrington, ‘New Zealand and the Search for Security 1944–1954: “A modest and moderate collaboration” ’, PhD thesis, The University of Auckland, 1993, p. 49. Tilman Remme, Britain and Regional Cooperation in South-East Asia, 1945–49, London, New York: Routledge, 1995, pp. 16–18.

Notes 233 81 Memorandum, The South Pacific and South-East Asia as possible Regions for International Organisations, 4.4.44. FO 371/41727 [F2196/168/61]. 82 Minutes, 9, 12.10.45, n.d. FO 371/46434 [F8195/47/23]. 83 GEN 97, 1st, 18.10.45. CAB 78/39, National Archives, London. 84 Minute, 2.11.45. FO 371/46329 [F5645/149/61]. 85 Minute, 17.11.45. CO 273/677/50908/1. 86 Minute, 28.1.46. CO 537/1568. 87 Telegrams, 5.1.46, 43; 15.1. FO 371/54017 [F333, 822/333/61]. 88 Minute, 27.1.46. F822. 89 Minute by R.H.S. Allen, 6.4.46. FO 371/54020 [F6079/333/61]. 90 Telegram, 25.4.46, 31. FO 371/54020 [F6353/333/61]. 91 Minute, 13.6.46. FO 371/54021 [F8998/333/61]. 92 Telegram, 9.7.46, 1084. FO 371/54021 [F9713/333/61]. 93 q. Remme, p. 53.

5 Colombo, Geneva, Bandung 1 Charrier, Pacific Review, p. 320. 2 K.M. Panikkar, The Future of South-East Asia, London: Allen and Unwin, 1943, pp. 7, 17. 3 q. Amry Vandenbosch and Richard Butwell, The Changing Face of Asia, Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1966, p. 341. 4 Abu Hanifah, Tales of a Revolution, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1972, p. 235. 5 Memorandum by John Coast, 12.1.48. FO 371/69686 [F1216/286/61]. 6 Bangkok Post, 1.7.47. Minute, 16.7.47. FO 371/63577 [F9373/9373/61]. 7 11.7.47, q. C.Goscha, Thailand and the Southeast Asian Networks of the Indonesian Revolution, Richmond: Curzon, 1999, p. 256. 8 q. ibid., p. 257. 9 q. p. 259. 10 q. ibid., p. 260. 11 Ibid., p. 261. 12 Minute, 7.10.47. FO 371/63577 [F13408/9733/61]. 13 Whitteridge/Drumright, 11.10.47. ibid. 14 Thompson/SEAD, 12.1.48, enclosures, and minutes, 26, 29.1. FO 371/69686 [F1216/286/61]. 15 FEER, 18.2.77. 16 Memorandum, 7.7.48. FO 371/69769 [F9629/5/62]. 17 PMM (48) 3rd, 12.10.48. CAB 133/88. 18 FE (O) 48 (34) (Revise), 10.12.48. CAB 134/285. 19 Dening/Syers, 18.3.49. FO 371/76023 [F4486/1023/61]. 20 Draft. ibid. 21 Foreign Relations of the United States [FRUS] 1949, VII, pp. 1135–7. 22 Graves/Dening, 16.4.49. FO 371/76023 [F5743/1023/61]. 23 N. Mansergh, ed., Documents and Speeches on British Commonwealth Affairs 1931–1952, London: OUP, 1953, p. 1179. 24 Minute, 27.1.49. DO 35/2858, National Archives. 25 Minute, 22.2.49. ibid. 26 Dening/Syers, 4.4.49. FO 371/76031 [F2191/1072/61]. 27 Minute, 21.4.49, P.M. 49/71. FO 371/76031 [F5863/1072/61]. 28 MacDonald/Strang, 3.4.49. FO 371/76032 [F5864/1072/61]. 29 Minutes, 24.5.49. FO 371/76034 [F8338/1075/61]. 30 CP (49) 207, an amalgam of PUSC 32 and 53, to be found in FO 371/76030 [F17397/1055/61].

234 Notes 31 Telegram, 6.11.49, 928. FO 371/76010 [F16631/10110/61]. CP (49) 244, 26.11.49. CAB 129/37. 32 FMM (50) 2nd, 9.1.48, 4th, 10.1, 8th, 12.1. CAB 133/78. 33 Notes on the Colombo Conference, 2.50. DO 35/2773. 34 Lockett/SofS, 4.8.49, 1894. FRUS VII, pp. 1182–3. 35 Graves/Scarlett, 14.2.50, and minutes, 27.2. FO 371/83011 [F1017/1]. 36 Tripartite Sub-committee, 2.5.50. FO 371/84517 [FZ 1025/6]. 37 q. Ton That Thien, India and South East Asia 1947–1960, Geneva: Droz, 1963, pp. 270–1. 38 M. Leifer, ASEAN and the Security of South-East Asia, London: Routledge, 1989, p. 2. 39 Telegram, 17.3.51, 1379S. FO 371/93078 [FZ1197/6]. 40 COS (51) 49th, 16.3.51. FO 371/93078 [FZ1197/9]. 41 JP (51) 54, 30.3.51. DEFE 6/16, National Archives. 42 Brief for Military Staff Talks, [5.51]. FO 371/93079 [FZ1197/39]. 43 Minutes, 3.5.51. FO 371/93028 [FZ1071/1]. 44 Telegram, 17.5.51, 548. FO 371/93079 [FZ1197/50]. 45 Telegram, 17.5.51, 549. ibid. 46 Minute by Dixon, 15.10.51. FO 371/93028 [FZ1071/4]. 47 Minute, 24.10.51. ibid. 48 Brief, 3.11.51. FO 371/93028 [FZ1071/3]. 49 Minute, 11.2.52. FO 371/10127 [FZ1195/2]. 50 Minute, 23.2.52. ibid. 51 Memorandum, 21.2.52. FO 371/101260 [FZ1193/29]. 52 q. A. Adamthwaite, Introduction, in John W. Young, ed., The Foreign Policy of Churchill’s Peacetime Administration, Leicester UP, 1988, p. 9; Henry Pelling, Churchill’s Peacetime Ministry, Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1997, pp. 57–8. 53 Minute, 30.8.52. FO 371/101263 [FZ1193/99]. 54 COS (52) 147th, 21.10.52, 3, confidential annex. DEFE 4/57. 55 Telegram, 24.12.52, 4424S. FO 371/101265 [FZ1193/152]. 56 Telegram, 27.3.54, 524. FO 371/112049 [DF1071/100]. 57 Conversation, 27.3.54. FRUS XIII, p. 1180. 58 Telegram, 29.3.54, 534. FO 371/112049 [DF1071/102]. FRUS XIII, pp. 1181–2. 59 Telegram, 30.3.54, 548. FO 371/112049 [DF1071/107]. 60 Memorandum, 5.4.54. FO 371/112049 [DF1071/121]. 61 in Aldrich/Churchill, 5.4.54. PREM 11/645, National Archives London. 62 C (54) 134, 7.4.54. CAB 129/67. 63 CC 26 (54), 7.4.54, 4. CAB 128/27. 64 Minute by Tahourdin, 7.4.54. FO 371/112051 [DF1071/183]. 65 Minute, 8.4.5. FO 371/112051 [DF1071/197]. 66 Minute, 8.4.54. ibid. 67 Minutes, 7.4.54, n.d. FO 371/112004 [DB1632/15]. 68 Record of Conversation, 11.4.54. FO 371/112054 [DF1071/267]. 69 Minutes, 12.4.54, and Appendix B. FO 371/112054 [DF1071/268]. 70 Minutes, 12.4.54, as above. 71 SofS/State, 13.4.54, Secto 1. FRUS XIII, p. 1320. 72 Record, 13.4.54. FO 371/112054 [DF1071/252]. 73 FRUS XIII, p. 1321. 74 GEN 463, 1st, 12.4.54, CAB 130/101. Undated draft in PREM 11/645. 75 Aldrich/Churchill, 18.6.54. PREM 11/646. 76 Telegram, 21.6.54, 2883. FO 371/125141 [ZP28/7]; PREM 11/646; FRUS VI, pp. 1069–71. 77 C (54) 207, 22.6.54. CAB 129/69. 78 CC (54) 43, 22.6.54, 2. CAB 128/27. 79 Hansard, 529, col. 433.

Notes 235 80 Minute by Allen, 24.6.54. FO 371/111867 [D1074/155]. 81 Telegram, 27.6.54, 299S. FO 371/111867 [D1074/151]. FRUS VI, pp. 1094–6; XIII, pp. 574–6. 82 Telegram, 27.6.54, 298S. FO 371/112075 [DF1071/792]. 83 Memorandum, 2.6.54. FRUS VI, pp. 1091–2; XII, pp. 576–7. 84 Telegram, 11.5.54, 242. FO 371/111862 [D1074/2]. 85 SofS/US Del, 20.5.54, Tedul 99. FRUS XVI, p. 869. 86 Makins/Eden, 3.8.54, 388. FO 371/112084 [DF1071/1012]. 87 State/JCOS discussion, 29.7.54. FRUS XII, pp. 654–7. 88 Conversation, 30.7.54. FRUS XII, p. 685. 89 Telegram, 29.7.54, 1645. FO 371/111874 [D1074/283]. 90 COS (54) 83rd, 16.7.54, 3. DEFE 4/71. 91 Telegram, 31.7.54, 3825. D1074/283. 92 Conversation, 17.8.54. FRUS XII, p. 735. 93 Dudley/Tahourdin, 14.9.54. FO 371/111888 [D1074/655]. 94 Minute, 24.2.54. FO 371/112033 [DF1016/12]. 95 FO/Graves, 8.3.54, 29. FO 371/111929 [D2231/7]. 96 Communique, 2.5.54. FO 371/111929 [D2231/30]. 97 Printed in G. McT. Kahin, The Asian-African Conference, Cornell UP, 1956, pp. 39–51. 98 Copy of speech. FO 371/116982 [D2231/295]. 99 Copy in FO 371/116981 [D2231/249]; also in G.V. Ambekar and V.D. Divedar, eds, Documents on China’s Relations with South and South-East Asia (1949–1962), Bombay: Allied, 1964, pp. 22–30. 6 ASA and ASEAN 1 Barry Buzan, ‘Regional Security Complex Theory in the Post-Cold War World’, in Söderbaum and Shaw, eds, 2003, p. 141. 2 MacDermot/Morland, 28.10.57. DO 35/9951. 3 Telegram, 8.11.57, 374. FO 371/129518 [DH 1022/53]. 4 P. Cradock/R.W. Newsam, CRO, 21.2.58. DO 35/9913[1]. 5 Tory/A.W. Snelling, CRO, 3.5.58. DO 35/9913[4]. 6 Audrey R. and George McT. Kahin, Subversion as Foreign Policy, New York: New Press, 1995, pp. 132–4 and passim. 7 MacDermot/Selwyn Lloyd, 28.11.58, 110. FO 371/135649 [D10362/11]. 8 Tory/Home, 19.12.58, 19. DO 35/9951. 9 Clutton/Lloyd, 22.1.59, 15. DO 35/9913[27]. 10 Clutton/Lloyd, 22.1.59, 14. DO 35/9913[12]. 11 Telegram ex Clutton, 6.1.59, 3. FO 371/143793 [D1633/1]. 12 Clutton/Lloyd, 22.1.59, 15. DO 35/9913[27]. 13 Ibid. 14 Telegram, 13.1.59, 6S. DO 35/9913[13]. 15 Cradock/J.R. Williams, CRO, 21.1.59. DO 35/9913[16]. 16 Telegram, 27.1.59, 12S. DO 35/9913[20]. 17 q. Johan Saravanamuttu, The Dilemma of Independence, Penang: Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia, 1983, p. 42. 18 Proposal for Closer Association of South East Asian States, sent to CRO, 13.2.59. DO 35/9913[22]. 19 Gordon P. Means, Malaysian Politics, London: Hodder, 1976, p. 211. 20 Telegram, 16.2.59, 106. DO 35/9913[24]. 21 Hunt/Nick Larmour, CRO, 20.2.59. DO 35/9913[29]. 22 Clutton/Lloyd, 22.1.59. FO 371/143793 [D 1633/1]. 23 C.K. Curwen FO/Williams CRO, 13.3.59. DO 35/9913[34]. 24 W.J. Smith CRO/Hunt, 9.4.59. DO 35/9913[42].

236 Notes 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75

F. Lacey BoT/Williams, 13.3.59. DO 35/9913[33]. Chancery Bangkok/UKHCKL, 6.3.59. DO 35/9913[35]. Telegram ex Australian embassy, 10.3.59. DO 35/9913[36]. Scott/MacDermot, 23.2.59. FO 371/143725 [D1024/1]. Minute, 17.3.59. ibid. Chancery Bangkok/Chancery Manila, 9.4.59. FO 371/143725 [D1024/3]. Minute, 22.4.59. ibid. Hunt/Smith, 8.5.59. DO 35/9913[53]. J.H. Lambert Manila/Moss SEAD, 30.4.59. DO 35/9913[51A]. Note by Tory, 5.5.59, in Hunt/Smith, 8.5.59. DO 35/9913[53]. Extract from Canberra memorandum, 7.4.59, 189. DO 35/9913[47]. q. Joseph Chinyong Liow, The Politics of Indonesia-Malaysia Relations, Abingdon: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005, p. 86. Times, 18.4.59. Chancery Jakarta/SEAD, 22.5.59. DO 35/9913[56]. See Roger M. Smith, Cambodia’s Foreign Policy, Cornell UP, 1965, pp. 141ff, 163. Heppel/Williams, 26.5.59. DO 35/9913[55]. Smith/Hunt, 29.6.59. DO 35/9913[57]. Chancery Rangoon/SEAD, 2.9.59. DO 35/9913[62]. Adams/Heppel, 14.7.59. FO 371/143725 [D1024/5]. B.K. Gordon, The Dimensions of Conflict in Southeast Asia, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1966, pp. 167–8. Lambert/Lloyd, 11.9.59, 103. FO 371/143725 [D1024/7]. Minute, 21.9.59. ibid. Telegram, 18.11.59, 727. DO 35/9913[63]. Telegram, 18.11.59, 728. DO 35/9913[64]. Telegram, 18.11.59, 182S. DO 35/9913[65]. Ormerod/J.C. Fraser KL, 4.12.59. DO 35/9913[67]. Cradock/Ormerod, 28.12.59. DO 35/9913[74]. Manila Chancery/SEAD, 15.1.60. FO 371/152140 [D1022/2]. Garner/Lloyd, 1.2.60, 6. FO 371/152140 [D1022/3]. Minute, 10.2.60. ibid. q. Gordon, pp. 170–1. Jorgensen-Dahl, p. 18. Crombie/Smith, 3.3.60. DO 35/9913[83]. Chancery Manila/SEAD, 13.4.60. FO 371/152140 [D1022/8]. Chancery/SEAD, 30.4.60. FO 371/152140 [D1022/11]. Chancery Bangkok/SEAD, 21.4.60. FO 371/152140 [D1022/8]. Minute, 23.5.60. ibid. CPM 1960, UK Delegation, C.34, 14.4.60. DO 35/9913[92]. Ormerod/Cradock, 15.6.60. DO 35/9913[112]. Telegram, 28.4.60, 258. DO 35/9913[94]. Fortnightly Summary, 1-13.3.60. DO 35/9913[87]. Telegram, 28.4.60, 259. DO 35/9913[96]. Tory/D.W.S. Hunt CRO, 7.5.60. DO 35/9913[106]. Rampton/A.W. Taylor Treasury, 29.4.60, in Allen/Warner, 11.5.60. FO 371/152140 [D1022/13]. Allen/Warner, 11.5.60. FO 371/152140 [D 1022/13]. Warner/Taylor, 14.7.60. ibid. C (60) 35, 29.2.60. CAB 129/100]. SC (59) 25 Final, circulated 16.6.60. FO 371/152125 [ZP16/10]. Telegram, 5.8.60, 165S. FO 371/152141 [D1022/30]. Background Note, Brief, 14.10.60. FO 371/152141 [D1022/34]. Allen/Warner, 22.8.60. FO 371/152141 [D1022/33].

Notes 237 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124

Warner/Smith, 12.10.60. FO 371/152141 [D1022/33]. Chancery Saigon/SEAD, 14.10.60. FO 371/152141 [D1022/35]. Telegram, 14.2.61, 120. FO 371/159704 [D1022/8]. Times, 14.2.61. See Arthur J. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, London: Pall Mall, 1964, pp. 178–9. Chancery Bangkok/Chancery KL, 17.2.61. FO 371/159704 [D1022/9]. Chancery Jakarta/SEAD, 21.2.61. FO 371/159704 [D1022/10]. Chancery Manila/SEAD, 16.6.61. FO 371/159704 [D1022/20]. Chancery Bangkok/SEAD, 23.6.61. FO 371/159704 [D1022/22]. q. Jorgensen-Dahl, p. 18. Ibid., pp. 21–2. Times, 1.8.61. Matthew Jones, Conflict and Confrontation in South East Asia, 1961–1965, CUP, 2002, p. 62. Record of a Meeting at the Quai, 7.8.61. FO 371/159727 [D2231/26]. Moynihan/Ormerod, 28.11.61. CO 1030/1122. Communique in Telegram ex UKHCKL, 10.4.62, 97S. FO 371/166363 [D1121/7A]. Moynihan/T. Crosthwait CRO, 1.5.62. FO 371/166363 [D1121/10]. Johnson/Bowles, 24.6.61. FRUS 1961–3, XXIII, Document 5. Conversation, 2.10.61. ibid., Document 419. State Department Research Memorandum, Bloc Criticism of the Association for Southeast Asia, 12.4.62. FO 371/166362 [D1121/9]. Record of Conversation, 25.6.62. FO 371/166362 [D1071/83]. Warner/Allen, 9.7.62. FO 371/166362 [D1121/11]. Allen/Warner, 25.7.62. FO 371/166362 [D1121/12]. T.T. Gatty Bangkok/C.J. Howells SEAD, 2.8.62. FO 371/166362 [D1121/13]. J.A.C. Mackie, Konfrontasi, OUP, 1974, p. 145n. Gordon, pp. 22–3. q. ibid., pp. 25–6. Ibid., p. 23. q. J. Dizon, ‘The Foreign Policy of the Philippines: With Special Emphasis on the Macapagal Administration, 1961–1965’, PhD thesis, The American University, 1969, pp. 218–19. q. Gordon, pp. 27, 34–5. q. ibid., p. 35. q. Mackie, p. 125. Ibid., pp. 129–31. Pilcher/Warner, 3.4.63. FO 371/169731 [D1121/5]. Telegram ex Pilcher, 4.4.63, 344. FO 371/169731 [D121/4]. Press Release in M.F. Chapman/Howells, 4.6.63. FO 371/169731 [D1121/9]. Pilcher/Home, 6.4.63, 25. FO 371/169731[D1121/6]. Gordon, p. 70. Mackie, p. 148. Gordon, pp. 70–1. Jorgensen-Dahl, p. 26. q. Gordon, p. 102. Times, 8.6.63. q. Gordon, pp. 104, 102n. Gordon, p. 107n. Ibid., p. 71. q. Gordon, p. 27. Ibid., p. 27. Ibid., p. 24. Ibid., p. 25.

238 Notes 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173

q. Gordon, p. 40. Mackie, p. 318. C.L. Booth Bangkok/Donald Murray SEAD, 17.12.65. FO 371/180221 [D1121/5]. Minutes, 23.12.65, 26.1.66. ibid. Memorandum, 6.1.66, q. Bernard K. Gordon, Towards Disengagement in Asia, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1969, p. 117n. Minute, 7.1.66. FO 371/185931 [D1121/1]. T.A. Evans UKHC Singapore/A.K. Mason CRO, 6.1.66. ibid. Minute, 12.1.66. ibid. C. Booth for R.S. Scrivener/ /Cable, 11.3.66. FO 371/185931 [D1121/6]. Booth/Murray, 24.3.66. FO 371/185931 [D1121/8]. Addis/de la Mare, 20.4.66. FO 371/185931 [D1121/13]. Walker/J.O. Moreton CRO, 6.5.66. ibid. L.J.D. Wakeley/de la Mare, 10.5.66. ibid. D.F. Anwar, Indonesia in ASEAN: Foreign Policy and Regionalism, New York: St Martin’s; Singapore: ISEAS, 1994, pp. 28–30. Mackie, pp. 320–1. Ibid., p. 321. Ibid., p. 322. Times, 31.5.66. Franklin B. Weinstein, Indonesian Foreign Policy and the Dilemma of Dependence, Cornell UP, 1976, pp. 339–40. Telegram ex Rumbold, 3.6.66, 410. FO 371/185931 [D1121/15]. Thanat Khoman, ‘ASEAN in a Regional and Global Context’, in Karl D. Jackson, Sukhumbhand Paribatra and J. Soedjati Djiwandono, eds, ASEAN in a Regional and Gobal Context, Berkeley, CA: Institute of East Asian Studies, 1986, p. 9. Telegram, 7.6.66, 1025. FO 371/185931 [D1121/15]. Booth Bangkok/Stanbridge SEAD, 16.6.66. FO 371/185931 [D1121/16]. Straits Times, 24.6.66, q. Saravanamuttu, p. 73. Booth/Stanbridge, 4.8.66. FO 371/185931 [D1121/26]. Telegram, 7.8.66, 572. ibid. Scrivener/D.F. Murray, 18.8.66. FO 371/185931 [D1121/30]. The Australian, 9.8.66. Phillips/Murray, 16.8.66. FO 371/185931 [D1121/31]. Telegram, 24.8.66, 610. FO 371/185931 [D1121/32]. Telegram, 30.8.66, 42S. FO 371/185927 [D1075/3]. Telegram, 9.9.66, 45S. ibid. q. M. Leifer, Indonesia’s Foreign Policy, London: Allen and Unwin, 1983, p. 115. Phillips/Murray, 30.1.67. FCO 24/16[5], National Archives, London. Jorgensen-Dahl, p. 115. Anwar, pp. 127–9. Ibid., pp. 131–2. Phillips/Murray, 30.1.67. FCO 24/16[6]. Neville Jones for Maslen/R. Blair, 23.1.67. FCO 24/16[1]. Enclosure B in Bentley/Mason, 7.2.67. FCO 24/16[4]. Thanat/Tunku, 18.1.67, Enclosure C in ibid. Summary of Tunku/Thanat, 21.1.67, Enclosure D in ibid. Enclosure A in ibid. Bentley/Mason, 7.2.67. FCO 24/16[4]. Rumbold/Murray, 10.2.67. FCO 24/16[7]. Minute by Mason, 15.2.67. FCO 24/16. Mason/Bentley, 23.2.67. FCO 24/16[8]. Phillips/Murray, 14.2.67. FCO 24/16[10]. Phillips/Murray, 21.2.67. FCO 24/16[14].

Notes 239 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216

Anwar, p. 52. Telegram, 28.2.67, 6S. FCO 24/16[16]. Memorandum by C.E. McDonald, in McDonald/Bentley, 7.3.67. FCO 24/16[19]. Bentley/Mason, 31.3.67. FCO 24/16[24]. Telegram ex Australian embassy, 6.4.67, 1353, in O’Leary/Mason, 12.4.67. FCO 24/16[30]. Addis/Murray, 7.4.67. FCO 24/16[29]. q. Jorgensen-Dahl, p. 33. Bentley/Mason, 14.4.67. FCO 24/16[28]. Bentley/Mason, 18.4.67. FCO 24/16[33]. Phillips/Murray, 25.4.67. FCO 24/16[36]. Memorandum, May 1967. FCO 24/16. SAV.AP.63, 20.5.67. FCO 24/16[54]. Telegram, 22.5.67, 496. FCO 24/16[40]. Bentley/Mason, 23.5.67. FCO 24/16[44]. Telegram, 6.6.67, 26S. FCO 24/16[47]. Bentley/Mason, 12.6.67. FCO 24/16[54]. Bentley/Mason, 21.7.67. FCO 24/17[70]. Bentley/Mason, 28.7.67. FCO 24/17[74]. Roger Irvine, ‘The Formative Years of ASEAN: 1967–1975’, in A. Broinowski, ed., Understanding ASEAN, New York: St Martin’s; Australian IIA, 1982, p. 13. q. Frank Frost, Introduction to A. Boinowski, ed., ASEAN into the 1990s, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1990, p. 5. cf. M.L. Suriyamongkol, ‘The Politics of Economic Cooperation in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’, PhD thesis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1982, pp. 50–1. Irvine, ‘The Formative years of ASEAN’, p. 14. Evelyn Colbert, ‘ASEAN as a Regional Organization’, in Jackson et al., ed., p. 195. Irvine, ‘The Formative Years of ASEAN’, p. 14. q. Gordon, Disengagement, p. 85n. Lee Kuan Yew, From Third World to First, New York: HarperCollins, 2000, p. 330. Irvine, ‘The Formative Years of ASEAN’, p. 15. In Hettne, Inotai and Sunkel, eds, Comparing Regionalisms, p. 114. q. Irvine, ‘The Formative Years of ASEAN’, p. 15. Ibid., pp. 15, 16. q. ibid., p. 16. q. Jorgensen-Dahl, Regional Organization in South-East Asia, pp. 73–4. Irvine, ‘The Formative Years of ASEAN’, p. 17. M. Leifer in ASEAN Reader, pp. 379–81, at p. 381 [abridged from ‘The Paradox of ASEAN’, The Round Table, 271, July 1978, pp. 261–8]. q. Liow, The Politics of Indonesia – Malaysia Relations, pp. 109–10. DEA/Barwick, 13.4.63, 1273. Moreen Dee, ed., Australia and the Formation of Malaysia 1961–1966, Canberra: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2005, p. 100. Telegram, 8.8.67, 441. FCO 15/23[2]. Bentley/Mason, 14.8.67. FCO 15/23[12]. Addis/Murray, 25.8.67. FCO 15/23[18]. D.F. Anwar, ‘Changes and Continuity in Indonesia’s Regional Outlook’, in Chandran ed., 1993, pp. 221–2. Ingleson, ‘The Post-colonial Construction of Asia’, in J. Ingleson, ed., Regionalism, Subregionalism and APEC’, Melbourne: Monash Asia Institute, 1997, p. 27. Soedjati Dijawandono q. Acharya 2001, p. 49. Leifer, The Foreign Relations of the New States, p. 103.

240 Notes 217 Ghazali Shafie, ‘ASEAN – Today and Tomorrow’, Foreign Affairs Malaysia, 14, 4 (December 1981), p. 336. 218 Ralf Emmers, Cooperative Security and the Balance of Power in ASEAN and the ARF, London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003, p. 55. 219 Leifer, Indonesia’s Foreign Policy, p. 173. 220 Weinstein, p. 196. 221 T.T.B. Koh and Teik Soon Lau, ‘Regional Cooperation in South-East Asia’, pp. 112–21 in Hedley Bull, ed., Asia and the Western Pacific. Towards a New International Order, Melbourne: Nelson/AIIA, 1975, at p. 118. 222 The Australian, 17.1.68. 223 Lee Kuan Yew, From Third World to First, New York: HarperCollins, 2000, p. 330. 224 The Times, 15.1.68. 225 Ibid., 9.7.68. 226 q. Irvine, ‘The Formative Years of ASEAN’, p. 17. 227 Ibid., p. 18. 228 q. Leifer, ASEAN, p. 4. 229 q. Chaiyong thesis, p. 33. 230 q. Jorgensen-Dahl, p. 80. 231 q. ibid., p. 120. 232 The Tunes, 28.4.69. 233 q. W.W. Rostow, The United States and the Regional Organization of Asia and the Pacific, 1965–1985, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986, p. 7. 234 Times, 30.4.65. 235 Ronald D. Palmer and Thomas J. Reckford, Building ASEAN Twenty Years of Southeast Asian Cooperation, New York: Westport, London: Praeger, 1987, pp. 15–16. 236 q. Rostow, p. 14. 237 Chintamaru Mahapatra, American Role in the Origin and Growth of ASEAN, New Delhi: ABC Publishing House, 1990, p. 75. 238 Memorandum of Conversation, 28.6.66. FRUS 1964–68 XXVII, Document 75. 239 Kai Dreisbach, ‘Between SEATO and ASEAN’, in Marc Frey et al., eds, The Transformation of Southeast Asia, Armonk: Sharpe, 2003, pp. 255–6. 240 Times, 25.3.68. 241 Bentley/Mason, 14.8.67. FCO 15/23[12]. 242 Statement, 29.9.67. FCO 15/23[22]. 243 Bentley/Mound, 6.9.68. FCO 15/23[58]. 7 ZOPFAN 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Irvine, ‘The Formative Years of ASEAN’, p. 19. Times, 22.7.68. H.C. Hainworth/Foreign Secretary, 13.8.68. FCO 15/23[52]. Murray/Hainworth, 30.8.68. FCO 15/23[55]. Times, 20.9.68. q. Irvine, ‘The Formative Years of ASEAN’, p. 19. Times, 26, 30.9.68. The Australian, 21.9.68. Times, 28.9.68. Irvine, ‘The Formative Years of ASEAN’, p. 19. O.G. Forster/P.L. O’Keeffe SEAD, 14.10.68. FCO 24/341[1]. Ibid. The Australian, 28.10.68. H.M.G. Stevens KL/T.E.J. Mound SWPD, 6.12.68. FCO 24/341[5]. Irvine, ‘The Formative Years of ASEAN’, p. 20. Haacke, p. 48. S.A. Budd KL/Mound, 25.11.68. FCO 24/341[2].

Notes 241 17 Irvine, ‘The Formative Years of ASEAN’, p. 20. 18 Times, 16.12.68. 19 C.J. Ross/Secretary Wellington, 14.2.69 in Stevens/Le Breton, 26.2.69. FCO 24/341[15]. 20 Note for file, C.J.M. Ross, 4.3.69 in Clift/Ward, 14.3.69. FCO 24/341[19]. 21 Extract Clift/Aiers, 7.3.69. FCO 24/341[17]. 22 Clift/A. Ward SWPD, 14.3.69. FCO 24/341[18]. 23 Memorandum by Ross, 14.3.69 in Clift/Ward, 14.3.69. FCO 24/341[19]. 24 Clift/Alec Ward SWPD, 14.3.69. FCO 24/341[18]. 25 Memorandum by Ross, 14.3.69 in Clift/Ward, 14.3.69. FCO 24/341[19]. 26 Addis/Murray, 1.4.69. FCO 24/341[23]. 27 Telegram, 14.4.69, 385. FCO 24/341[20]. 28 Telegram, 25.4.69. FCO 24/341[25]. 29 Telegram, 28.4.69, 201. FCO 24/341[26]. 30 Mason/Le Breton, 8.7.69. FCO 24/341[33]. 31 Mason/Le Breton, 28.10.69. FCO 24/341[38]. 32 R.F. Stimson/Le Breton, 31.10.69. FCO 24/341[39]. 33 C.W. Squire/Le Breton, 5.11.69. FCO 24/341[40]. 34 Minute by Le Breton, 13.11.69. FCO 23/341. 35 Stevens/Le Breton, 7.11.69. FCO 24/341. 36 Clift/Le Breton, 1.12.69. FCO 24/341[43]. 37 Clift/Le Breton, 9.12.69. FO 24/341[45]. 38 Telegram, 15.12.69. 1071. FCO 24/341[47]. 39 Clift/Le Breton, 31.12.69. FCO 24/341[51]. 40 Stimson/Le Breton, 31.12.69. FCO 23/341[52]. 41 Samuel/Le Breton, 6.3.70. FCO 24/620[12]. 42 Hickman/Aiers, 6.1.70. FCO 24/620[3]. 43 Antolik, p. 35. 44 q. Bucklin, ‘Regional Economic Cooperation’, p. 40. 45 Antolik, p. 41. 46 Mason/Le Breton, 13.1.70. FCO 24/620[2]. 47 Squire/A.M. Goldsmith SEAD, 8.1.70. FCO 24/620[5]. 48 Goulden/F.B. Richards SEAD, 9.3.70. FCO 24/620[14]. 49 Hugh Mabbett in NZH, 5.1.71. Cf Leifer, Indonesia’s Foreign Policy, p. 134. 50 Justin Corfield, Khmers Stand Up, Monash University, 1994, p. 97. 51 Telegram, 5.6.70, 4S. FCO 24/620[21]. 52 Mabbett, as above. 53 R.M. Hunt/P.J. Sullivan SWPD, 26.1.71. FCO 24/967[2]. 54 Hunt/Sullivan, 2.2.71. FCO 24/967[3]. 55 Irvine, ‘The Formative Years of ASEAN’, p. 24. 56 Ibid., p. 24. 57 q. H. Heiner, ASEAN and the ZOPFAN Concept, Singapore: ISEAS, 1991, p. 13. 58 q. Noordin Sopiee, ‘The “Neutralisation of South-East Asia” ’, in Hedley Bull, ed., Asia and the Western Pacific, Melbourne: Nelson, 1975, pp. 137–8. 59 Chin Kin Wah, The Defence of Malaysia and Singapore. The Transformation of a Security System 1957–1971, CUP, 1983, p. 138. 60 Sopiee in Bull, pp. 136–7. 61 Fredrik Logevall, ‘De Gaulle, Neutralization, and American Involvement in Vietnam 1963–1964’, Pacific Historical Review, 61 (1992), p. 75. 62 q. Marvin C. Ott, The Neutralization of Southeast Asia, Athens: Ohio Center for International Studies, Southeast Asia Program, 1974, pp. 9–10. 63 Anthony Eden Earl of Avon, Towards Peace in Indo-China, OUP, 1966, pp. 25, 14. 64 Cyril E. Black, Richard A. Falk, Klaus Knorr, Oran R. Young, Neutralization and World Politics, PUP, 1968, p. v.

242 Notes 65 Cyril E. Black, Richard A. Falk, Klaus Knorr, Oran R. Young, Neutralization and World Politics, PUP, 1968, pp. 159–60. 66 Memorandum by Read, 15.8.66. FRUS 1964–1968, XXVII, item 79. 67 Ott, p. 29. 68 David Easter, Britain and the Confrontation with Indonesia, 1960–1966, London and New York: Tauris, 2004, p. 111. 69 q. Jones, Conflict and Confrontation, p. 283. 70 q. Irvine, ‘The Formative Years of ASEAN’, pp. 24–5. 71 q. Hänggi, p. 14. 72 Speech, 12.3.71, in Clift/Le Breton, 17.3.71. FCO 24/967[10]. 73 Clift/Le Breton, 17.3.71. FCO 24/967[10]. 74 q. Irvine, ‘The Formative Years of ASEAN’ p. 21. 75 Curle/Douglas-Home, 22.3.71, FW 1/1. FCO 24/967[11]. 76 Memorandum by Le Breton, 7.5.71 FCO 24/967[15]. 77 q. Dick Wilson, The Neutralization of Southeast Asia, NY, Washington, London: Praeger, 1975, p. 43. 78 FEER, 25.9.71. 79 Ghazali bin Shafie, ‘The Neutralisation of Southeast Asia’, Pacific Community, 3, 1 (October 1971), pp. 110–17. 80 Ibid., pp. 115–16. 81 Hickman/A.A. Duff KL, 12.11.71. FCO 24/967[25]. 82 Telegram, 18.11.71, 1019. FCO 24/967[27]. 83 Telegram, 25.11.71, 769. FCO 24/967[32]. 84 Telegram, 26.11.71, 1041. FCO 24/967[33]. 85 Hänggi, pp. 59–60. 86 q. Irvine, ‘The Formative Years of ASEAN’, p. 28. 87 Hänggi, pp. 19–20. 88 Chin Kin Wah, pp. 175–8. 89 Telegram, 30.11.71, 787. FCO 24/967[41]. 90 Times, 1.12.71. 91 Hickman/Richards, 6.12.71. FCO 24/967[45]. 92 L.J. Middleton/S.W.F. Martin SWPD, 8.12.71. FCO 24/967[49]. 93 Payne/Middleton, 22.12.71. FCO 24/967[53]. 94 John R. de Fontblanque/Sullivan, 21.12.71. FCO 24/967[57]. 95 Anwar, pp. 177–8. 96 Haacke, pp. 56–7. 97 q. Wilson, p. 82. 98 Colbert in Jackson, p. 202. 99 Sukma, p. 34. 100 q. Sheldon W. Simon, The ASEAN States and Regional Security, Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1982, p. 94. 101 FEER, 18.2.77. 102 Wilson, p. 67. 103 Daljit Singh, ‘ASEAN and the Security of Southeast Asia’, in Chia Siow Yue and Pacini, eds, 1997, p. 124. 104 D.E. Weatherbee, Southeast Asia Divided. The ASEAN-Indochina Crisis, Boulder, London: Westview, 1985, p. 8. 105 NZH, 29.11.71. 106 J.J. Taylor/Miss A. Grant, 2.12.71. FCO 24/1269. 107 D. Wyatt, Thailand A Short History, Yale UP, 1984, p. 298. 108 Middleton/A.J. Payne, 25.1.72. FCO 24/1269[7]. 109 Curle/Douglas-Home, 21.2.72, 3/3. FCO 24/1269[11]. 110 Telegram ex Moscow, 7.1.72, 3. FCO 24/1269[2]. 111 Buszynski, pp. 84–5.

Notes 243 112 q. J.M. van der Kroef, ‘Asean’s Security Needs and Policies’, Pacific Affairs, 47, 2 (Summer 1974), p. 159. 113 Hunt/Sullivan, 14.3.72. FCO 24/1269[13]. 114 Times, 28.2.72. 115 Middleton/A.J. Payne, 29.3.72. FCO 24/1269[15A]. 116 Minute, 27.4.72. FCO 24/1269[20]. 117 K.Q.F. Manning/B.R.T. Langridge SWPD, 12.5.72. FCO 24/1269[22]. 118 Minute, 11.7.72. FCO 24/1270[29]. 119 Press Release, 8.7.72. ibid. 120 Middleton/Chick, 18.7.72. FCO 24/1270[29D]. Wilson, pp. 31–2. 121 Middleton/Chick, 25.7.72. FCO 24/1270[32]. 122 Minute, 1.8.72. FCO 24/1270[34]. 123 Report from Rowland, 27.7.72. FCO 24/1270[36]. 124 Minute, 6.11.72. FCO 24/1271[62]. 125 Aiers/Hickman, 14.11.72. FCO 24/1271[63]. 126 Ibid. 127 Gordon/Hickman, 3.10.72. FCO 24/1271[54B]. 128 Irvine, ‘The Formative Years of ASEAN’ p. 30. 129 Telegram, 8.12.72, 968. FCO 24/1271[65A]. 130 Minute, 10.1.73. FCO 24/1529[7]. 131 Middleton/W.K. Slatcher SWPD, 30.1.73. FCO 24/1529[13]. 132 Minute, 1.2.73. ibid. 133 Manning/Slatcher, 13.2.73. FCO 24/1529[16]. 134 Minute, 16.2.73. ibid. 135 Middleton/Slatcher, 13.2.73. FCO 24/1529[16A]. 136 Gordon/Douglas-Home, 13.2.73. FCO 24/1529[16B]. 137 Times, 25.1.73. 138 Press statement, 15.2.73. FCO 24/1529 [20]. 139 Middleton/Slatcher, 27.2.73. FCO 24/1529[27]. 140 Middleton/Slatcher, 30.3.73. FCO 24/1529[31]. 141 de la Mare/Squire, 18.4.73. FCO 24/1530[43]. 142 Irvine, ‘The Formative Years of ASEAN’ p. 31. 143 Jones/Hood SEAD, 1.5.73. FCO 24/1530[43]. 144 Ibid. 145 Leifer, ASEAN, 1989, pp. 18–19 146 Hay-Edie/Paul, 25.5.73. FCO 24/1530[44]. 147 q. Jorgensen-Dahl, p. 80. 148 Tim Huxley, ASEAN and Indochina, Canberra: ANU, 1985, p. 29. 149 van der Kroef, Pacific Affairs, 47, 2, p. 164. 150 Straits Times, 23.6.73. 151 Hay-Edie/Paul, 9.7.73. FCO 24/1530[47]. 152 Tony Ford/Chick, 14.8.73. FCO 24/1530[50]. 153 Regionalism and Neutralisation, Notes for Opening Remarks, ?15.10.73. FCO 24/1530[59]. 154 Ott, p. 50. 155 Irvine, ‘The Formative Years of ASEAN’, p. 32. 156 Jorgensen-Dahl, p. 83. 157 Summary by Hugh Mabbett, Times, 7.5.75. 158 q. Irvine, ‘The Formative Years of ASEAN’ p 32. 159 FT, 5.5.75. 160 Times, 7.5.75. 161 FT, 14.5.75. 162 q. Irvine, ‘The Formative Years of ASEAN’ p. 32. 163 FT, 14.5.75.

244 Notes 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207

Times, 14.5.75. q. Jorgensen-Dahl, p. 84. Irvine, ‘The Formative Years of ASEAN’ p. 35. Ibid. Jorgensen-Dahl, p. 84. Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra, Looking Back, KL: Pustaka Antara, 1977, p. 161. Jorgensen-Dahl, p. 84. David Irvine, ‘Making Haste Less Slowly: ASEAN from 1975’, in Broinowski, ed., Understanding ASEAN, p. 42. Ibid., p. 45. Ibid., p. 46. R. Irvine, ‘The Formative Years of ASEAN’, p. 35. D. Irvine, ‘Making Haste Less Slowly’, p. 42. Ibid., p. 48. Ibid., p. 49. FEER, 5.3.76. Copy in Hänggi, pp. 65–8. D. Irvine, ‘Making Haste Less Slowly’, p. 49. Leifer, ASEAN, 1989, p. 9. FT, 10.7.75. q. L. Buszynski, ‘SEATO: Why It Survived until 1977 and Why It Was Abolished’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 12, 2 (September 1981), p. 295. Buszynski, Soviet Foreign Policy, p. 101. Allan Gyngell, ‘Looking Outwards: ASEAN’s External Relations’, in Broinowski, ed., Understanding ASEAN, p. 129. q. Jorgensen-Dahl, p. 124. q. Gyngell, ‘Looking outwards’, p. 130. q. ibid. Huxley, ASEAN and Indochina, p. 19. q. Johan Saravanamuttu, ‘ASEAN Security for the 1980s: The Case for a Revitalized ZOPFAN’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 6, 2 (September 1984), p. 189. q. Times, 27.8.76. q. Leifer, 1989, ASEAN, p. 76. FEER, 24.6.77. Gyngell, ‘Looking Outwards’, p. 131. According to Huxley, p. 36, he said peace, independence, freedom and neutrality. Gyngell, ‘Looking Outwards’, p. 131. Jorgensen-Dahl, p. 126. Times, 9.11.78. Buszynski, Soviet Foreign Policy, p. 163. FT, 4.78. Times, 13.11.78. Thu-huong Nguyen-vo, Khmer-Viet Relations and the Third Indochina Conflict, Jefferson: McFarland, 1992, p. 123. Reported by Philip Bowring, FT, 1.3.79. Ian Storey and Carlyle A. Thayer, ‘Cam Ranh Bay: Past Imperfect, Future Conditional’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 23, 3 (December 2001), p. 455. Jorgensen-Dahl, p. 126. David Housego, FT, 10.1.79. FT, 20.2.79. Joint statement, 12.1.79, q. Antolik, p. 116. Antolik, pp. 117–18. q. Stuart Drummond, ‘Fifteen Years of ASEAN’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 20, 4 (June 1982), p. 366.

Notes 245 208 Stephen Leong, ‘China’s Military Policies’, pp. 109–22 in Joyce K. Kallgren, Noordin Sopiee, and Soedjati Djiwandono, eds, ASEAN and China An Evolving Relationship, Institute of East Asian Studies, UC Berkeley, c.1988, pp. 115–16. 209 Sukubhand Paribatra in Jackson et al., eds, p. 224. Huxley, pp. 53–5. 210 FEER, 1.3.84. 211 q. Harlan W. Jencks, ‘Counter-Encirclement or Hegemonism? PRC Security Strategy in Southeast Asia’, in Kallgren et al., eds, p. 67. 212 Leifer, ASEAN, 1989, p. 130. 213 Reported in Times, 21.2.85. 214 Michael Schulz et al., ‘Key Issues in the New Regionalism’, in Comparing Regionalisms, p. 258. 215 q. Acharya, Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia, p. 42. 216 Narine, Explaining ASEAN, Boulder and London: Lynee Rienner, 2002, pp. 59–60. 217 Weatherbee, p. 124. 218 Hänggi, p. 42. FEER, 3.12.87. 219 q. Takano Takeshi, ‘The ASEAN-10 and Regional Political Relations’, in Sekiguchi and Noda, eds, p. 18. 220 M. Leifer, ‘Indochina and ASEAN: Seeking a New Balance’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 15, 3 (December 1993), p. 273. 221 q. Antolik, p. 141. 222 Andrew Tan, Security Perspectives of the Malay Archipleago, Cheltenham: Elgar, 2004, p. 93. 223 Antolik, p. 87. 224 Leifer, ASEAN, 1989, p. 46. 225 Indorf, p. 45. 226 FEER, 26.1.84. 227 Antolik, p. 48. 228 Indorf, p. 13. 229 Times, 23.4.85. 230 FT, 23.7.85. 231 FT, 7.9.89. 232 Sheldon W. Simon, ‘ASEAN Security in the 1990s’, Asian Survey, 29, 6 (June 1989), p. 593. 233 Khatharya Um, ‘Thailand and the Dynamics of Economic and Security in Mainland Southeast Asia’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 13, 3 (December 1991), p. 246. 234 Acharya, Constructing a Security Community, p. 106. 235 q. ibid., p. 71. 236 Hiro Katsumata, ‘Reconstruction of Diplomatic Norms in Southeast Asia’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 25, 1 (April 2003), p. 116. 237 q. ibid., p. 63. 8 AFTA and ARF 1 Richard Butwell, ‘Malaysia and its Impact on the International Relations of Southeas Asia’, Asian Survey, 4, 7 (July 1964), pp. 941–2. 2 Richard Jebb, q. Simon J. Potter, News and the British World, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003, p. 57. 3 Weinstein, pp. 169–70. 4 H. Crouch, Domestic Political Structures and Regional Economic Cooperation, Singapore: ISEAS, 1984, p. 2. 5 q. W. Stargardt, ‘Neutrality and Neutralization in South East Asia’, in B. Dahm and W. Draguhn, eds, Politics, Society and Economy in the ASEAN States, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1975, pp. 58–9.

246 Notes 6 q. Indorf, p. 62. 7 Keynote, pp. 1–4, in Noordin Sopee et al., eds, Asean at the Crossroads, KL: ISIS, ?1987, p. 2. Also in Mahathir Mohamed, Reflections on ASEAN, KL: Pelanduk, 2004, p. 66. 8 Beeson, ‘Theorising Institutional Change in Asia, in M. Beeson, Reconfiguring East Asia, London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002, p. 7. 9 Forster/O’Keeffe, 14.10.68. FCO 24/341[1]. 10 Speech, 12.3.71, in Clift/Le Breton, 17.3.71. FCO 24/967[10]. 11 q. Clift/Le Breton, 17.3.71. FCO 24/967[10]. 12 Curle/Douglas-Home, 22.3.71. FCO 24/967[11]. 13 Manning/Longridge, 12.5.72. FCO 24/1269[22]. 14 Wilson, p. 164. Jorgensen-Dahl, p. 50. 15 q. M.L. Suriyamongkol, ‘The Politics of Economic Cooperation in the Association of South East Asian Natons’, PhD thesis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1982, p. 131. 16 Ibid., p. 147. 17 q. Iyanatul Islam and Anis Choudhury, The Political Economy of East Asia, Melbourne: OUP, 2000, p. 5. 18 Suriyamongkol, p. 132. 19 q. Jorgensen-Dahl, p. 51. 20 Suriyamongkol, pp. 156, 157. 21 Ibid., pp. 184–5, 186. 22 Ibid., pp. 192–3. 23 Jorgensen-Dahl, p. 52. 24 Suriyamongkol, p. 195. 25 q. Jorgensen-Dahl, p. 53. 26 q. Suriyamongkol, p. 195. 27 Chaiyong Satjipanon, ‘Economic and Political Cooperation of the Southeast Asian Nations’, PhD thesis, Fletcher School, 1987, p. 90. 28 q. Jorgensen-Dahl, p. 51. 29 Satjipanon, p. 139. 30 Suriyamongkol, pp. 213–15. 31 Ibid., pp. 216–18. 32 Ibid., p. 229. 33 Ibid., p. 240. 34 Ibid., p. 271. 35 FT, 21.1.77. 36 Suriyamongkol, p. 272. 37 FT, 4.1.78. 38 Suriyamongkol, pp. 260, 274–5, 270. 39 q. Palmer and Reckford, Building ASEAN, p. 56. 40 Christopher M. Dent, ‘The ASEM: Managing the New Framework of the EU’s Relations with East Asia’, Pacific Affairs, 70, 4 (Winter 1997–8), p. 502. 41 Chee Peng Lim, ‘ASEAN’s Policies Towards the European Union’, pp. 11–32, in Chia Siow Yue and Joseph L.H. Tan, eds, ASEAN and EU: Forging New Linkages and Strategic Alliances, ISEAS, 1997, p. 11. 42 FT, 19.12.79. 43 Drummond, ‘Fifteen Years of Asean’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 20, 4 (June 1982), p. 312. 44 FT, 19.10.85. 45 Suriyamongkol, p. 276. FEER, 10.6.77. 46 Suriyamongkol, pp. 279–80. 47 Ibid., pp. 281–2. 48 Ibid, pp. 282–3, 286.

Notes 247 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92

q. ibid., pp. 288, 290. q. ibid., p. 293. Copy in ibid., pp. 368–75. Ibid., p. 297. Ibid., pp. 298–302. Ibid., pp. 312–14. Ibid., pp. 317, 319. G. Tan, ASEAN Economic Cooperation and Development, 3rd edn, Singapore: Eastern UP, 2003, p. 249. Ibid., pp. 249–51. Ibid., pp. 250, 252. Ibid., pp. 250–1. FT, 4.1.90. G. Tan, pp. 252–3. Ibid., pp. 253–4. G. Tan, ‘ASEAN Preferential Trading Arrangements’, in Noordin Sopiee et al., eds, ASEAN at the Crossroads, KL: ISIS, 1987, p. 66. Ibid., p. 66. Ibid., p. 67. S. Meyanathan and Ismail Haron, ‘Asean Trade Cooperation’, in Sopiee et al., eds, p. 24. Ibid., p. 24. Ibid., p. 26. Ibid., p. 27. Palmer and Reckford, p. 111. Meyanathan and Haron, ‘Asian Trade Cooperation’, pp. 13–14. q. Chaiyong, p. 99. q. Ranjit Gill, ASEAN Towards the 21st Century, London: ASEAN Academic Press, 1997, pp. 124–6. ASEAN The Way Forward, KL: ISIS, 1987, pp. ix–xi. Chee Peng Lim, ‘Asean Co-operation in Industry’, in Sopiee et al., p. 96. Ibid., pp. 100–2. Thomas J. Biersteker, ‘The “Triumph” of Neoclassical Economics’, in James N. Rosenau and Ernst-Otto Czembiel, eds, Governance without Government, CUP, 1992, p. 123. Tan Kong Yam, ‘ASEAN in a New Asia . . .’ in Chia Siow Yue and Marcello Panini, ASEAN in the new Asia, ISEAS, 1997, p. 5. Teofilo C. Daquila, ‘Obstacles to Closer Trade and Investment Links’, in Yue and Tan, p. 126. G. Tan, ASEAN Economic Cooperation, p. 263. Ibid., p. 268. Ibid., p. 267. Ibid., p. 263. Gill, p. 137. q. FT, 28.1.92. P. Bowles, ‘ASEAN, AFTA and the “New Regionalism” ’, Pacific Affairs, 70, 2 (Summer 1997), p. 224. Md Ariff, ‘Intra-Regional Trade Liberalization in ASEAN’, in Chia Siow Yue and Pacini, eds, p. 68. Linda Y.C. Lim, ‘ASEAN: New Modes of Economic Cooperation’, in Wurfel and Burton, p. 31. q. FT, 27.7.95 Gill, p. 131. Ibid., p. 128. FT, 11.8.89. q. Gill, p. 131.

248 Notes 93 Hadi Soesastro, An ASEAN Economic Community and ASEAN ⫹ 3. How Do They Fit Together? Canberra: Asia-Japan Research Centre, 2003, p. 2. 94 Lim Kian Tick, ‘Competing Regionalism: APEC and EAEG, 1989–1990’, in Andrew H. Tan and J.D. Kenneth Boutin, eds, Non-Traditional Security Issues in Southeast Asia, Singapore: Select, 2001, p. 55. 95 q. Gill, pp. 188–9. 96 q. ibid., p. 189. 97 q. ibid., p. 196. 98 Gill, pp. 196–7. Times, 16.11.94. FT, 16.11.94. 99 Gill, p. 176. 100 Sekiguchi Sueo, Introduction to Sekiguchi Sueo and Noda Makito, eds, The Road to ASEAN-10, Singapore: ISEAS and Tokyo and New York: Japan Center for International Exchange, p. 8. 101 Narine, Explaining ASEAN, p. 140. 102 Jos L. Tongzon, ‘Singapore’s Extra-ASEAN Free Trade Agreements and their Implications for ASEAN’, in Fredrik Sjoholm and Jose Tongzon, eds, Institutional Change in Southeast Asia, London and NY: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005, p. 151. 103 Jacques Pelkmans, ‘Bond in Search of More Substance’, in Yue and Tan, eds, pp. 35–6. 104 Tran Van Hoa, Introduction, pp. 9–22 in Tran Van Hoa and Charles Harvie, eds, New Asian Regionalism, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2003, p. 10. 105 Douglas Webber, ‘Two Funerals and a Wedding’, pp. 125–57 in Finn Laursen, ed., Comparative Regional Integration, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003, p. 126. R. Stubbs, ‘ASEAN: Building Regional Cooperation’, in M. Beeson, ed., Contemporary Southeast Asia, pp. 228–9. 106 Beeson in Beeson, Reconfiguring, p. 197. 107 Soesastro, ASEAN Economic Community 2003, pp. 6–7. 108 Estrella D. Solidum, The Politics of ASEAN, Singapore: Eastern Universities Press, 2003, pp. 24–5. 109 Takano Takechi, ‘The ASEAN-10 and Regional Political Relations’, in Sekiguchi and Noda, eds, p. 20. 110 Solidum, p. 26. 111 Linda Low, ‘ASEAN Economic Cooperation in the New Millennium’, in Wong Tai-Chee and Mohan Singh, eds, Development and Challenge, Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1999, p. 44. 112 q. Nguyen Phuong Binh and Luan Thuy Duong, ‘Expectations and Experiences of the New Members: A Vietnamese Perspective’, in Tay et al., eds, Reinventing, p. 188. 113 Md Ariff in Yue and Pacini, p. 68. 114 Zainal Abidin Sulong, ‘The Meaning of ASEAN in Peace and Cooperation’, in Kao Kim Hourn and Don Merican, eds, Peace and Cooperation in ASEAN, London: ASEAN Academic Press, 1997, p. 46. 115 Boas and Hveem in Containing, p. 116. 116 Lee Tai To, China and the South China Sea Dialogues, Westport and London: Praeger, 1999, p. 146. 117 J. Ingleson, ‘The Post-colonial Construction of Asia, pp. 21–36 in J. Ingleson, ed., Regionalism, Subregionalism and APEC, Monash Asia Institute, 1997, pp. 30, 32. 118 Hans Maull, ‘Reconciling China with International Order’, Pacific Review, 10, 4 (1997), p. 466. 119 L. Suriyadinata, ‘Indonesia-China Relations. A Recent Breakthrough’, Asian Survey, 30, 7 (July 1990), p. 689. 120 q. Sukma, p. 127. 121 Suryidinata, Asian Survey, 30, 7, p. 692. 122 q. Haacke, p. 137.

Notes 249 123 Robert S. Ross, ‘China and Southeast Asia: The Challenge of Economic Competition’, in Wurfel and Burton, eds, pp. 142–64, at pp. 151–2. 124 Times, 16.7.89. 125 FT, 11.8.89. 126 NZH, 3.1.92. 127 FT, 28.5.99. 128 FT, 28.3.00. 129 Haacke, pp. 73–5. 130 Ted Bardacke in FT, 11.12.95. 131 D.F. Anwar, ‘ASEAN Enlargement: Political, Security and Institutional Perspectives’, in Mya Than and Carolyn L. Gates, eds, ASEAN Enlargement: Impacts and Implications, ISEAS, 2001, p. 35. 132 Wilfrido V. Villacorta, ‘Political Relations between Japan and the Philippines during the Aquino and Ramos Administrations’, in Ikehata Setsuho and Lydia N. Yu Jose, eds, Philippines-Japan Relations, Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila UP, 2003, pp. 585–6. 133 Ralf Emmers, ‘The Influence of the Balance of Power Factor within the ASEAN Regional Forum’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 23, 2 (August 2001), pp. 277–8. Mely Caballero-Anthony, Regional Security in Southeast Asia, Singapore: ISEAS, 2005, pp. 165–7. 134 q. Singh in Chia and Panini, eds, p. 133. 135 q. Michael Antolik, ‘The ASEAN Regional Forum: The Spirit of Constructive Engagement’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 16, 2 (September 1994), p. 120. 136 R. Foot, ‘Regionalism in Pacific Asia’, pp. 228–49, in Hurrell and Fawcett, eds, p. 242. 137 Leifer, ‘International Dynamics of One Southeast Asia’, in Soesastro, ed., 1997, p. 193. 138 Leifer in Soesastro, p. 195. 139 Haacke, pp. 77–8. 140 Ibid., p. 78. 141 Schulz et al., in Comparing, p. 259, quoting Dominic Kelly in Glenn Hook and Ian Kearns, eds, Subregionalism and World Order, Macmillan, 1997. 142 Concept Paper, q. Narine, p. 108. 143 q. Acharya, Constructing a Security Community, p. 179. 144 Takano in Sueo, 1999, pp. 28–9. 145 q. Antolik, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 16, 2, p. 118. 146 Acharya, Constructing a Security Community, p. 182. 147 Donald Crone, ‘The ASEAN Summit of 1987 Searching for New Dynamism’, Southeast Asian Affairs 1988, Singapore: ISEAS, 1989, pp. 45–7. 148 Mely Caballero-Anthony, ‘Mechanisms of Dispute Settlement: The ASEAN Experience’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 20, 1 (April 1998), p. 51. 149 Matthew Richardson and Chin Kin Wah, Australia-New Zealand and Southeast Asia Relations, Singapore: ISEAS, 2004, p. 72. 150 Cameron J. Hill and William T. Tow, ‘The ASEAN Regional Forum’, in Beeson, ed., Reconfiguring East Asia, pp. 161–2. 151 q. Narine, Explaining ASEAN, p. 110. 152 Robyn Lim, ‘The ASEAN Regional Forum: Building on Sand’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 20, 2 (August 1998), p. 116. 153 Haacke, p. 117. 154 Narine, Explaining ASEAN, p. 90. 155 Takano, p. 30. 156 Leifer in Soesastro, p. 193. 157 NZH, 2.2.74. 158 D. Bonavia in Times, 25.11.75. 159 Sheldon W. Simon, ‘The People’s Republic of China and Southeast Asia’, in Jackson, ed., pp. 341–2.

250 Notes 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173

174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200

Khoo How San, ‘ASEAN and the South China Sea problem’, in Chandran, ed., p. 196. Ibid., p. 190. Lee Tai To, p. 103. FT, 11.8.95. L. Buszynski, ‘ASEAN, the Declaration on Conduct, and the South China Sea’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 25, 3 (2003), p. 357. Solidum, pp. 112–13. Speeches, p. 119. q. Acharya, ‘The Association of Southeast Asian Nations: “Security Community” or “Defence Community?” ’, Pacific Affairs, 64, 2 (Summer 1991), p. 176. q. James Pringle in FT, 28.7.95. Takano in Sekiguchi and Noda, pp. 23–4. FT, 27.12.94 Times, 22.7.96. Narine, Explaining ASEAN, p. 122. q. Mya Than and Tin Maung Maung Than, ‘Implications of Joining ASEAN for Myanmar’, in Wong Tai-Chee and Mohan Singh, eds, Devlopment and Challenge. Southeast Asia in the New Millennium, Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1999, p. 29. M. Reiterer, Asia–Europe: Do they Meet?, Singapore: Asia-Europe Foundation, 2002, pp. 34–5. Gill, p. 227. q. Donald S. Zagoria, ‘Joining ASEAN’, in J.W. Morley and Masachi Nishihara, eds, Vietnam Joins the World, Armonk and London: Sharpe, 1997, p. 156. Gill, p. 227. q. David Wurfel, ‘Between China and ASEAN: The Dialects of Recent Vietnamese Foreign Policy’, in Carlyle A. Thayer and Ramses Amer, eds, Vietnamese Foreign Policy in Transition, New York: St Martin’s, 1999, pp. 165–6. q. Mya Than and Tin Maung Maung Than, ‘Implications of Joining ASEAN for Myanmar’, in Wong and Singh, eds, p. 26. Ibid., pp. 27–8. Ibid., pp. 29–30. q. Forbes and Tow in Beeson, Reconfiguring, p. 175. Smith, Centrality, p. 55. Robin Ramcharan, ‘ASEAN and Non-interference: A Principle Maintained’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 22, 1 (April 2000), p. 81. q. Caballero-Anthony, Regional Security, p. 211. C. in S. Tay et al., eds, Reinventing ASEAN, Singapore: ISEAS, 2001, p. 111. FT, 26.1.00. Haacke, p. 205. q. FEER, 10.8.2000. q. Haacke, pp. 200–1. Alan Collins, ‘ASEAN: Challenges from Within and Without’, in Dent, ed., p. 142. Smith, Centrality, p. 62. Sydney Sunday Telegraph, 17.10.99. Smith, ‘Constraints and Choices: East Timor as a Foreign Policy Actor’, New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies, 7, 1 (June 2005), pp. 18–19. Smith, Centrality, p. 43. q. Maribeth Erb, Priyambudi Sulistiyanto and Carole Faucher, eds, Regionalism in Post-Suharto Indonesia, Abingdon and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005, p. 15. T. Huxley, Disintegrating Indonesia?, Adelphi Paper 349, OUP, 2002, p. 75. Smith’s phrase, Centrality, p. 39. Ibid. Jusuf Wanandi, ‘ASEAN’s Past and the Challenges Ahead’, in Tay et al., eds, p. 27. Ibid., pp. 28–9.

Notes 251 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208

209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225

Ibid., p. 29. q. Solidum, pp. 234–9. Wanandi, pp. 30–2. Ibid., p. 32. Simon Tay and Jesus P. Estanislao, ‘The Relevance of ASEAN’, in Reinventing, pp. 19, 17. Tay, ‘Institutions and Processes Dilemmas and Possibilities’, in Tay, Estanislao and Soesastro, eds, p. 262. Soesastro, ‘Towards an East Asian Regional Trading Arrangement’, in Reinventing, p. 309. David Martin Jones and Mike Lawrence Smith, ‘An Imitation Community for Imitation States: The Myth of ASEAN’s Success Story’, in Andrew T.H. Tan, Michael L.R. Smith and Khoo Kay Kim, eds, Seeking Alternative Perspectives of Southeast Asia, Ipoh: Perak Academy, 2004, p. 127. Katsumata, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 25, 1, p. 118. Donald E. Weatherbee et al., International Relations in Southeast Asia The Struggle for Autonomy, Lanham: Bowman and Littlefield, 2005, pp. 107–8. FT, 8.10.03. New Sunday Times, 31.7.05. Straits Times, 8.9.05. Sueo, Introduction to Sekiguchi Sueo and Noda Makito, The Road to ASEAN 10, Singapore: ISEAS; London and NY: Center for International Exchange, 1999, pp. 3–15, at p. 5. Centrality, p. 2. ‘ASEAN’s Enlargement’, in Mya Than and Carolyn L. Gates, eds, ASEAN Enlargement, ISEAS, 2001, p. 30. G. Boyd, ‘ASEAN Regional Policies’, in G. Boyd, ed., Region Building in the Pacific, NY: Pergamon, 1982, p. 89. Suthiphand Chirathivat, ‘What can ASEAN learn from the Experience of European Integration?’, in Yue and Tan, eds, 1997, pp. 206–33 at p. 216. Haacke, p. 232. Caballero-Anthony, Regional Security, p. 244. Conclusion in Hurrell and Fawcett, p. 327. Jesus P. Estanislao, ‘Southeast Asia: Development, Finance and Trade’, in Tay et al., eds, p. 88. Reiterer, p. 98. Alexander Woodside, ‘The Empowerment of Asia and the Weakness of Global Theory’, in The Empowerment of Asia: Reshaping Global Society, Vancouver: Institute of Asian Research, University of British Columbia, 1996, p. 25. Paul M. Evans, ‘The Age of the Pacific: Why Growth and Democratization are not enough’, in ibid., pp. 46–7.

9 Historiography 1 Ruth McVey, ‘Change and Continuity in Southeast Asian Studies’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 26, 1 (March 1995), p. 1. 2 Anderson, The Spectre of Comparisons, London, New York: Verso, 1998, p. 4. See also Russell Fifield, summarised in K.S. Sandhu, ed., The ASEAN Reader, ISEAS, 1992, pp. 20–4. 3 Abu Talib Ahmad and Tan Liok Ee, eds, New Terrains in Southeast Asian History, Athens: Ohio UP; Singapore UP, 2003. 4 Norman G. Owen, ed., The Emergence of Modern Southeast Asia. A New History, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005, pp. xiv–xv.

252 Notes 5 C. Reynolds, Thai Radical Discourse, Cornell University, 1987, pp. 9–10. 6 Fernando Zialceta, ‘Is Southeast Asia a Jigsaw Puzzle or a Collage?’, in Shinji Yamashita and J.S. Eades, eds, Globalisation in Southeast Asia, New York, Oxford: Berghahn, 2003, p. 22. 7 Ibid., p. 22. 8 A. Martin Wainwright, Inheritance of Empire. Britain, India, and the Balance of Power in Asia, 1938–55, Westport, CT and London: Praeger, 1994, pp. 111–12. 9 D.G.E. Hall, A History of South-East Asia, London: Macmillan, 1955, p. vii. 10 A. Reid, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, Yale UP, 1988, I, p. xiv. 11 Modern Asian Studies, 31, 3 (1997), pp. 449–762. 12 Soedjatmoko, An Introduction to Indonesian Historiography, Cornell UP, 1965, pp. 408–9. 13 In Mohammed Talib and Tim Huxley, eds, An Introduction to Southeast Asian Studies, London: Tauris, 1996, p. 66. 14 Sartono Kartodirdjo, Indonesian Historiography, Yogyakarta: Kanisius, 2001, p. 27. 15 D.K. Emmerson, “Southeast Asia”: What’s in a Name?’, JSEAS, 15, 1 (March 1984), pp. 1, 10, 21. 16 Putu Davies, ed., Constructing a National Past, Brunei: Universiti Brunei Darussalam, 1996, introduction, p. 23. 17 F. Llanes, ‘A New National Perspective in Philippine Historiography’, in Davies, ed., p. 315. 18 Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism, New York: Knopf, 1993, p. 31. 19 Herbert Butterfield, The Present State of Historical Scholarship, CUP, 1965, pp. 15–16. 20 q. F. Gilbert, History: Politics or Culture. Reflections on Ranke and Burckhardt, Princeton UP, 1990, p. 19. 21 Ibid. 22 John Tosh, The Pursuit of History, London and New York: Longmans, 1984, p. 14. 23 q. J.R. Hale, The Evolution of British Historiography, London: Macmillan, 1967, p. 42. 24 q. David Rosenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country, CUP, 1985, p. 233. 25 Collingwood, q. Lowenthal, p. 186. 26 M. Postan, Fact and Relevance, CUP, 1971, p. 51. 27 Gertrude Himmelfarb, Times Literary Supplement, 16 October 1992. 28 V. Lieberman, ‘An Age of Commerce in Southeast Asia?’, Journal of Asian Studies, 54, 3 (August 1995), pp. 796–807. 29 Hernandez in Tay et al., eds, Reinventing ASEAN, pp. 114, 118. 30 Ibid., p. 309. 31 ASEAN The Way Forward, pp. 86–7. 32 Ungku A. Aziz, ‘Co-operation on education in ASEAN’, in Sopiee et al., Croossroads, p. 407. 33 in Halib and Huxley, p. 66. 34 A. Milner, Region, Security and the Return of History, Singapore: ISEAS, 2003, p. 11. 35 Ibid., pp. 33, 42. 36 FEER, 18.2.77.

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Index

Abdulgani, Ruslan 113 Abdul Rahman, Tunku 96–103, 105–08, 110, 112–14, 116, 117, 119, 124, 125, 127, 130–3, 140, 143, 145, 150, 168, 176, 188 Abdul Razak 98, 100, 103, 105, 116, 120, 123, 131, 133, 135, 137, 141, 142, 145, 150, 152, 154, 157–9, 161, 164, 167–70, 175, 176, 183, 190 Abdullah Ahmad Badawi 184 Abdullah Zawawi 158, 159 Abu Hanifah 70 Aceh 43, 212 Acharya, Amitav 35, 225 Acheson, Dean 74 Adams, A.C.S. 105 Addis, J.M. 119, 130, 136 Adenauer, K. 15, 214 Afghanistan 21 Africa 3, 13, 14, 157 Afro-Asian diplomacy 91, 97–100, 104, 117, 123; see also Bandung, Five Principles AFTA [ASEAN Free Trade Area] 200–2, 204, 209 Agnew, S. 169 Ahmad Rithaudeen 205 AIC [ASEAN Industrial Complementation Scheme] 195, 196 Aiers, D. 168 AIJV [ASEAN Industrial Joint Ventures] 196, 199 Ajit Singh 209 Akira Iriye 58, 60 Albert, Carlos J. 115, 117 Ali Atas 206, 210 Ali Sastroamidjojo 91, 92 Allen, R. 114, 115 Allen, W.D. 84, 109

Alliance 96, 100 Americans see United States Andaman islands 221 Andaya, Leonard 23 Anderson, Ben 6, 7 Angkor 40 Anglo-Malayan Defence Agreement [AMDA] 96, 105, 109, 136, 157 Anti-Comintern Pact 51 Anwar, Dewi Fortuna 128, 137, 160, 214 Anwar Ibrahim 210 Anwar Sani 127–31, 133 ANZAM [Australian, New Zealand, and Malayan (Area)] 96 ANZUS [Australia, New Zealand, United States treaty] 77, 79, 83, 85, 89 APA [Asean People’s Assembly] 214 APEC [Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation] 10, 30, 31, 201, 202 APT [ASEAN Plus Three] 203, 204, 213 Aquino, Corazon 199 Ara Sarasin 171 ARF [ASEAN Regional Forum] 204–8, 213 Arita Hachiro 53 Arjodamar 123 Arreglado, Juan M. 117 ASA [Association of South East Asia] 96, 110, 112–16, 118–22, 125–9, 131, 133–5, 179, 186, 188, 204, 222 ASEAN [Association of South East Nations] 4, 7, 12–15, 23, 29, 31, 32, 45, 61, 72, 76, 90, 92, 134–50, 153–5, 159–64, 167–84, 186–214, 222, 225–6. see also projects ASEAN Concord, Declarations of 178, 190, 191, 194, 213, 214, 225 ASEM [Asia-Europe Meeting] 203 Ashton-Gwatkin, F. 50, 51, 62

Index 269 Asian Development Bank [ADB] 62, 118, 119, 125, 190 ASPAC [Asian and Pacific Council] 120, 121, 133, 135, 143, 153 Atlantic Charter 20, 57, 60 Attlee, C.R. 67 Aung San 65, 70 Aung San Suu Kyi 209 Australia, Australians 24, 35, 63, 66, 73, 75, 76, 79, 82, 84, 85, 87, 96, 97, 100, 103, 105, 121, 123, 128, 129, 132, 136, 148, 150, 165, 167, 183, 193, 194, 201, 202, 214 Austria, Austria-Hungary 23, 165 Ayathuray, Walter 124, 126, 130, 133, 134, 144 Azzat 174 Baguio 76, 139 Bali 43, 72, 177, 187, 191, 211 Balatbat, Marcelo 14 Balkans, Balkanisation 8, 22, 45, 71, 135, 211 Bandung 72, 91, 92, 103, 104, 106, 107, 138, 157, 158, 160, 162, 176, 177, 184, 205, 213; see also Afro-Asian diplomacy, Five Principles Banggi 141 Bangkok, Bangkok declaration 40, 62, 71, 112, 113, 128, 134, 157, 177, 194 Bangsean 134, 144 Bao Dai 59 Barrington, James 104 Battambang 40 Baudouin, P. 52 Beeson, Mark 9 Bennett, J. Sterndale 47, 64–7 Berlin Conference 1884–5 19, 43 Bevin, E. 67, 68, 73, 75 Boas, Morten 9, 31, 135 Borneo, North Borneo 41, 42, 64–6, 98, 103, 109, 112, 113, 115, 117, 118, 120, 130, 133, 140–5, 161, 174, 211 Bovenschen, F. 65 Bowles, P. 201 Bowring, J. 40 Boyd, G. 214 Braudel, F. 221 Brazil 14 Bretton Woods 26, 27 Brezhnev, L. 21 Britain, British see United Kingdom British North Borneo Company 42, 43, 65 Brooke, C. 42

Brooke, J. 42, 47 Brunei 42, 112, 115, 183, 206, 211, 222 Bundy, W. 119, 129, 131, 139 Burma 36, 38, 51, 55–7, 59, 60, 63–5, 67, 70, 71, 75, 77–80, 82, 84, 85, 87, 91, 97, 101, 103, 104, 106, 109, 110, 114, 115, 118–20, 123, 128–32, 144, 145, 147, 149, 155, 158, 159, 170, 172–4, 194, 203–5, 208–12 Burney, H. 40 Butterfield, H. 223 Butwell, R. 186 Buzan, Barry 8, 95 Cable, James 91, 118 Cable, Vincent 4 Caccia, H. 88 Cady, John F. 219 Cam Ranh 21, 180, 208 Cambodia 36, 38–40, 59, 61, 71, 78, 79, 81, 84, 87, 96, 97, 101–4, 106, 118, 120–3, 126, 128–32, 144, 145, 147–9, 151, 154, 155, 158, 159, 161, 163, 170–6, 179–84, 203–5, 211 Canada 201 Canning, G. 43 CAP [Common Agricultural Policy] 29 Carlyle, T. 223, 224 Carrington, Lord 169, 170 Ceylon, Sri Lanka 42, 48, 63, 73, 75, 79, 88, 91, 92, 96, 97, 101, 130, 140, 144, 145, 149, 220 Changi 205 Charrier, P. 69 Chatichai Choonhavan 61, 184 Chee Peng Lim 199 Chiang Kai-shek [Jiang Jieshi] 51, 52 Chick, J.S. 163, 167, 168 China, Chinese 19–21, 24, 29, 32, 35, 36, 39–41, 43, 46, 49, 50, 53, 56, 58, 61, 64, 70, 74–8, 80–3, 85, 89, 90, 96, 100, 102, 104, 105, 109, 111, 121, 122, 124, 129, 131, 132, 135, 137, 138, 146, 150–2, 156–60, 162–4, 166–8, 170, 174, 178–84 Chou En-lai [Zhou Enlai] 70, 72, 136, 188, 199, 204–9, 214, 221 Chulalongkorn 40 Churchill, W.S. 63, 83, 86, 88 Clift, R.D. 143–6 Clinton, Bill 202, 206, 210 Clutton, G.L. 98, 99 Coast, John 71 Cobden, R. 24, 37

270 Index Cochin-China 39 Cold War 11, 13, 14, 20–3, 27, 32, 61, 63, 69, 70, 72, 78, 90, 95, 186 Colombo Conference 1964 91, 92 Colombo Plan 70, 75–7, 103, 186 Commonwealth of Nations 67, 73, 74, 81, 85, 91, 108, 109 Communism 20, 21, 73–5, 78, 79, 82, 83, 87, 90, 97, 99, 102, 105, 109, 113, 127, 135, 151, 153, 156, 157 Confrontation 116, 133, 137, 142, 151, 186, 187 Congress of Vienna 136 Cooper, Duff 46, 47 Corregidor 140 Courbet, A.-A.-P. 40 Cradock, P. 97, 99, 106 Crombie, J.L. 106, 107 Crouch, Harold 187 Curle, J.N.O. 153, 154 Curwen, C.K. 102, 105 Dalhousie, Lord 38 Daljit Singh 160 Davies, Derek 72 D’Costa, Francis 118 de Gaulle, C. 6, 15, 151 de la Mare, A. 118, 172 de Lipkowsky, Jean 162 de Silva, Jack 155, 158, 159 Delhi 70, 74, 75 Delors, J. 30 Deng Xiaoping 180, 204 Dening, Esler 64–7, 73, 74, 76 Depression 25, 51 Deutsch, Karl 6 Dhanabalan, S. 187 Diah, B.M. 62 Dien Bien Phu 82 Djajadiningrat 164 Djuanda Kartawidjaja 99, 100, 104, 106 Dudley, A.A. 89 Dulles, J.F. 82–9 Dupré, J.-M. 39 Dutch 19, 36, 37, 41–4, 49, 52, 53, 64, 69, 73, 74, 96, 112, 113 East Asia Economic Caucus [EAEC] 201–3 ECAFE [Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East] 25, 97, 99, 100, 102, 103, 108, 109, 119, 125, 144, 189, 190 Eden, A. 79, 80, 84–9, 104, 109, 151 Eisenhower, D. 82, 83

Emergency 77 Emery, F. 137, 141, 142 Emmerson, D.K. 222 Estanislao, Jesus P. 213, 214 Europe, European Economic Community [EEC], European Community [EC], European Union [EU] 3–6, 10–12, 14, 17–19, 22, 23, 27, 29, 30, 36, 37, 95, 108, 109, 137, 152, 183, 187, 193, 200–2, 209, 210 Evans, Paul 8, 215 Fawcett, Louise 10 Five Principles of Co-Existence 20, 70, 72, 91, 92, 205, 208 Five-Power Defence Arrangement [FPDA] 157, 170, 175 Five-Power Staff Agency 81, 83, 84 Ford 189, 192 Formosa see Taiwan France, French 19, 22, 23, 25, 37, 39–41, 49, 50, 59, 60, 64, 69, 71, 74, 76, 78–86, 88, 102, 120, 151, 156, 162, 174, 201, 222 Frank, Andre Gunder 24 Fraser, Malcolm 201 Friedman, Milton 28 Froude, J. 224 Fukai Eigo 56 Fukuda Takeo 62, 193, 194 Furnivall, J.S. 219 Galsworthy, A.N. 67 Gamble, Andrew 31 Gandhi, Indira 144 Garcia, Carlos 98, 99, 105, 107, 111 Garner, J.J.S. 75 Garnier, Francis 39 GATT [General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade] 27–31, 200 Geneva agreement 83–8, 90, 91, 95, 126, 151, 155 Germany, Germans 19, 23, 25, 39, 41, 43, 50, 53, 64, 137, 201 Ghazali bin Shafie 7, 98, 106, 120, 125, 128, 130, 131, 137, 143, 151, 154, 155, 158, 168, 175 Ghulam Mohamed 75 Goh Chok Tong 201, 203 Gorbachev, M. 21, 182 Gordon, B.K. 115 Gorshkov, S. 21 Goulden, P.J. 148 Graves, H. 74

Index 271 Great Asia Society 53 Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere [GEAPS] 54–63, 69, 138, 220 Grey, P.F. 73 Haacke, Jürgen 214 Haas, Ernest 6 Haas, Michael 5 Habibie, B.J. 210, 211 Hadi Soesatro 213, 225 Hainan 51 Hall, D.G.E. 219, 221 Hamzah Abu Samah 192 Hamzah Majeed 144 Hänggi, Heiner 157 Haron, Ismail 198 Harrison, B. 219 Hashim, Sultan of Brunei 42 Hashim bin Sultan 168 Hasluck, P. 121 Hawke, R.J. 201 Hayek, F. 27 Heng Samrin 180, 181 Hettne, Björn 6, 9, 10, 12, 22, 30 Hickman, J.K. 147, 155 Hideyoshi Toyotomi 49 Higgott, Richard 7 Hill, Cameron 207 Himmelfarb, G. 224 Hinsley, F.H. 15 Hitler, A. 52 Ho Chi Minh 44, 180 Hoang Anh Guan 209 Holleiner, E. 27, 28 Home, Lord 114 Hong Kong 29, 55, 78, 79 Hong Lysa 222, 226 Hudson, G.F. 66 Hull, Cordell 52, 58, 70 Hun Sen 203, 210 Hurrell, Andrew 9, 10, 15, 31 Hussein Onn 183, 192, 194 Hveem, Helge 9, 13–15, 31, 135 India, Indians 14, 19, 20, 35, 36, 38, 41, 42, 48, 57, 63, 70, 73–6, 78–80, 82, 84, 85, 87, 88, 91, 100, 110, 123, 137, 142, 144, 180, 182, 214, 221 Indo-China 51, 52, 57, 59, 60, 66, 68, 70, 76, 78–80, 82–8, 91, 96, 151–3, 167, 168, 170, 172, 176, 180, 183 Indonesia 19, 32, 36, 44, 45, 50, 52, 53, 57–60, 66–71, 73, 75, 78, 85, 91, 92, 96, 98–103, 106, 107, 111–13, 115–38,

142–50, 154, 156, 159, 160, 162–4, 173, 176, 178, 179, 181, 183, 184, 186, 187, 190–6, 200–2, 206, 210–13, 219 Indonesia, Armed Forces of the Republic of [ABRI] 142, 148, 160, 182, 205, 210 Indonesian Communist Party [PKI] 113 Ingles, Jose 143, 144, 164, 169 Ingleson, John 137, 205 International Monetary Fund [IMF] 26, 200 Irvine, David 178 Irvine, Roger 134–7, 142, 175, 176 Isan 8, 22 Ishikawa Yozo 61 Islam 36, 43, 44, 99, 115, 172, 211 Ismail bin Ambia 142, 144 Ismail bin Dato Haji Abdul Rahman 103, 106, 121, 150–3, q55, 160–3, 168, 171, 189 Jakarta 62 Japan, Japanese 19, 24, 25, 27–9, 46, 49–65, 70, 77, 80, 95, 100, 137, 146, 171, 180, 183, 192–6, 201, 205–7, 214, 220, 222 Java 36, 43, 57, 58, 60, 64 Jayakumar, S. 184 Jayawardene, J.R. 75 Johnson, L.B. 32, 62, 139, 140 Johnston, C.H. 80 Johnston, J. 155, 156, 158, 174 Johore 41 Jones, David Morris 213 Jones, J.L. 173 Jorgensen-Dahl, Arnfinn. 3, 4 Joubert, P. 65 Kaifu Toshiki 61 Kampuchea see Cambodia Kansu, Gunal 189 Karel Doorman 112 Kartasasmita 127 Kashmir 142 Katipunan 50 Katsumata Hiro 6, 184, 213 Keating, P. 202 Kedah 36, 41 Keeble, H.R.C. 77 Keohane, R. 7 Keyes, Charles F. 22 Keynes, Lord 26 Khir Johari 98 Khmer Republic see Cambodia Khmer Rouge see Cambodia

272 Index Killearn, Lord 67, 68, 70 Kim Young-Ho 203 Kirkpatrick, I. 84 Kishi Nobusuke 62 Kiyosawa Kiyoshi 57 Koh, T.T.B. 137, 160 Koiso Kuniaki 59 Konfrontasi see Confrontation Kong Le 111 Konoe Fumimaro 51, 53 Korea, Korean War 19, 49, 50, 53, 61, 70, 76–8, 80, 81, 85, 90, 99, 120, 155, 210, 207, 214 Kosygin, A. 21 Kotelawala, J. 91, 145 Kra 77, 78, 84 Kriangsak Chomanan 180 Kuala Lumpur, Kuala Lumpur Declaration 96, 100, 103, 107, 157, 162, 165, 170, 171, 177, 179 Kudryavtsev, V. 162 Kukrit Pramoj 176, 179, 190 Kulkarni, V.G. 183 Kumitada Miwa 53 Lambert, J.H. 105 Laos 39, 40, 59, 71, 78, 79, 81, 84, 87, 96, 97, 101, 103, 106, 111, 120, 144–51, 155, 158, 159, 161, 165, 170, 172–4, 179–82, 184, 203–6 Latin America 3, 152 Lau Teik Soon 137 Le Breton, D.F.B. 154 Le Duan 180 Le Myre de Vilers, C.M. 39 League of Armed Neutrality 22 Lee Kuan Yew 60, 129, 134, 137, 139, 163, 164, 173, 175, 179, 181, 183, 189, 191, 194, 205, 206 Leifer, Michael 45, 76, 135, 137, 178, 183, 206, 207 Lenin 20, 21 Leong Khee Seong, Paul 199 Lieberman, Vic 221, 222, 225 Lim, Robyn 207 List, Friedrich 24 Llanes, Ferdinand 223 Lloyd, Selwyn 84 Locarno 87, 90, 151 Lombard, Denys 35 Lomé convention 194 Lon Nol 148 Lopez, Salvador P. 118 Lubis 176

Mabbett, Hugh 176 Macapagal, D. 115, 116, 118, 119 MacArthur, D. 63, 64 MacDonald, Malcolm 74, 75, 78 McIntyre, L. 103 MacMichael, H. 65 Macmillan, H. 109 McVey, Ruth 219 Mahapatra, Chintamaru 139 Mahathir Mohamad 187, 201, 202, 208 Maitland, F. 223 Makins, R. 82, 84, 88, 89 Malaya 37, 40, 41, 44, 55, 60, 63–6, 70, 71, 77, 79, 80, 82, 86, 92, 96–114, 116 Malaysia 32, 61, 112, 113, 115–17, 119–30, 132, 134, 136, 137, 141–6, 148, 150–75, 178, 179, 181, 183, 184, 187, 192, 193, 196, 199, 200, 208, 210, 211, 223 Malik, Adam 118, 120–4, 127, 128, 130, 131, 133, 134, 136, 141, 142, 144–9, 153, 162, 164, 168, 171, 176, 226 Maluku 36, 212 Manchuria 19, 49, 51–3 Manglapus, R. 208 Manila 43, 49, 50, 61, 90, 100, 116, 119, 120, 122, 148 Manning, K. 164 Mansbach, Richard W. 35 Maphilindo 115, 117–19, 121–3, 126, 129, 132, 134–6, 205 Marcos, F. 118, 141, 145, 148, 155, 161, 164, 168, 178, 179, 193 Marx, K. 24 Maslen, J.W. 124 Mason, A.K. 127, 131, 132, 147 Mataram 222 Maull, Hans 205 Megawati Sukarnoputra 213 Mekong 8, 40 Melaka 36, 41 Mendès-France, P. 86 Menon, V. 173, 17 Merchant, L. 76 Mercosur 14 Meyanathan, S. 198 Middle East 78, 81, 84 Middleton, L.J. 158, 159, 161,162, 165, 169–71 Midway 56 Milner, Anthony 226 Mindanao 36, 115 Mindon 38 Mitrany, David 6

Index 273 Mochtar Kusumaatmadja 184, 201 Moerdani, Benny 120, 142, 143, 181 Md. Ariff 201, 204 Md. Bolkiah 183 Md. Sopiee 107 Moravcsik, Andrew 6 Monnet, J. 7, 15, 214 Moss, E.H. St G. 106 Mountbatten, Lord 63–7, 220 Moynihan, M. 112–14 Mudaliar Ramaswami 76 Murray, Dalton 77 Murtopo, Ali 120, 187 Musa Hitam 184 Myanmar see Burma Najib Tun Razak 211 Namier, L. 223 Napoleon III 39 Narine, S. 182, 209 Nathan 145–7 Ne Win 104, 114, 115, 120 Nehru 70, 72, 74, 75, 91, 136 Netherlands see Dutch Netherlands India see Indonesia New Zealand 66, 73, 76, 79, 84, 85, 87, 133, 142, 143, 148, 158, 165, 183, 193, 194, 201, 214 Ngo Dinh Diem 106 Nguyen Duy Trinh 179 Nguyen Manh Cam 204 Nixon, R. 32, 90, 139, 157, 162, 167 Non-Aligned Movement [NAM] 151, 152, 157, 179 Noordin Sopiee 61, 209 North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement [NAFTA] 10, 14, 30, 201 North Atlantic Treaty Organisation [NATO] 79, 81, 82, 85, 87 Nuclear-free zone 157, 183, 205, 213 Ohira Masayoshi 201 Ohn Gyaw 209 Oil 50, 193, 207 Okinawa 49 Ojendal, J. 12 Olver, S. Oman, Charles 9 OPEC [Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries] 28, 200 Ormerod, R.C. 106 Osman 106, 107 Ostry, S. 30 Ott, Marvin C. 151, 175

Page, Sheila 9 Pakistan 70, 73, 75, 78, 84, 88, 91, 142 Palembang 41 Palmer, Ronald D. 139 Panggabean, Maraden 122, 123, 149, 150, 177 Panikkar, K.M. 70 Papua New Guinea 206, 207 Park Sung-Hoon 31 Paracel islands 208 Paris agreement 1973 169–71 Pavie, Auguste 40 Payne, Anthony 31 Peattie, Mark 55 Peiris, Denzil 72 Pelaez, Emmanuel 115–18 Penang 36, 41 Petersen, J.C. 107 Petrie, J.C. 79 Pham Van Dong 180 Phan Hien 179 Phan Quang Dan 145 Phan Wanamethee 171 Philippines 43, 44, 50, 51, 55–7, 59, 61, 63, 70, 75, 79, 82, 84, 85, 98–101, 103, 105–8, 111, 114–20, 124, 130–2, 135, 140–5, 148, 149, 153, 155–8, 160, 162, 164, 165, 171–3, 176, 178, 188, 190, 192, 200, 205, 208, 210, 221, 223 Phillips, Horace 121–4, 127, 128 Pibun Songkram 57 Pilcher, J. 116 Pillai, M.G.G. 171 Plaza Accord 30, 32 Pol Pot 180 Portugal, Portuguese 36 Pote Sarasin 102, 105 Prawiro, Radius 194 Prem Pitsulanon 181 Pridi Phanonyong 71 Projects, ASEAN 152, 188, 190–8 Purcell, V. 219 Puyat 149 Quan Qichen 208 Quezon, M. 44 Radford, Arthur W. 88, 89 Raffles, T.S. 41, 42, 47 Rajaratnam, S. 134, 135, 138, 145–7, 153, 163, 164, 172, 173, 176, 226 Ramos, Narciso 118, 122, 129–31, 135, 141 Ramos-Horta, J. 211

274 Index Rampton, J.L. 108 Rangoon 64 Ranke, Leopold von 223 Razaleigh Hamzah 193 Razali Ismael 171 Reading, Lord 84 Reagan, R. 21, 28 Reckford, Thomas J. 139 Reid, Anthony 35, 221, 225 Resink, G.J. 45 Reyes 122, 127 Reynolds, Craig 6, 220 Riau 36 Rice 60, 67, 68 Ridgway, M. 89 Ridzwan Dzafar 193 Rivière, Henri 39 Robinson, E.A.G. 189 Robinson, K.E. 67 Romulo, Carlos 75, 76, 143, 146, 148, 153, 154, 156, 161, 164, 171, 184, 226 Ross, John 143, 144 Rostow, W. 139 Rowland, J.R. 167 Royama Masamichi 53 Royle, Anthony 156–8, 164 rubber 37, 44, 100, 108, 191 Rumbold, A. 126 Rusk, Dean 114, 139 Russia 19, 25, 49, 62, 206, 222, 223; see also Soviet Union Sabah, Sabah claim see Borneo Said, Edward 223 Salazar, Zeus 223 Sarawak 42, 65, 112, 120, 208 Sargent, O. 67 Sarit Thanarat 102 Sartono Kartodirdjo 222 Sato Eisaku 62 Scott, R.H. 76, 77, 81 Schuman, R. 15, 214 Schulz, Michael 12 Scrivener, R. 121 Serrano, Felixberto 99, 102–4, 106, 107, 110 Shan States 60 Shattock, J.S. 76 Shidehara Kijuro 50 Shigemitsu Mamoru 56–60, 62 Shimizu Hajime 51 Showa Study Association 53 Shuckburgh, E. 84 Siam see Thailand

Siemreap 40 Sihanouk 59, 106, 148, 181 Singapore 29, 37, 41, 47, 51, 61, 63–5, 78, 89, 103, 108, 109, 112, 118–24, 127–9, 131, 132, 134, 136, 137, 142, 145–7, 149, 151, 154–7, 160, 162, 164–6, 168, 171, 173, 176, 178, 179, 181, 183, 184, 186, 188–93, 195–7, 200–2, 205, 206, 211 Smith, Adam 24, 37 Smith, Anthony 214 Smith, Bedell 83, 88 Smith, Mike Lawrence 213 Sneevliet, H. 44 Söderbaum, F. 9, 11 Soedjati Dijawandono 137 Soedjatmoko 222 Son Sann 181 South Asian Association for Regional Collaboration [SAARC] 14 South East Asia Command [SEAC] 63–9, 145, 219, 220 South East Asia Friendship and Economic Treaty [SEAFET] 100, 102–8, 110, 188 South East Asia League 71 South East Asia Treaty Organization [SEATO] 70, 82, 86, 89, 90, 989, 101–4, 106, 110, 112, 114, 118, 120, 129, 151, 157, 161, 179 South East Asia Union 71 South East Asian Association for Regional Cooperation [SEAARC] 125, 126, 129, 132–4, 136 Soviet Union 11, 20, 21, 23, 25, 29, 32, 52, 59, 73–5, 78, 82, 83, 86, 106, 11, 112, 114, 126, 131, 138, 139, 146, 148, 150–2, 156, 162, 164, 170, 178, 180, 182, 200, 204, 208 South China Sea 61, 176, 208 Spain 22, 36, 37, 43, 50 Speaight, R.L. 84 Spender, P. 75 Spratley islands 51, 207–9 Squire, C.W. 147 Sri Lanka see Ceylon Stalin 86 State and Order Restoration Council [SLORC] 209, 210 Stevens, H.M.G. 145 Stewart, M. 121 Stimson, Henry L. 52 Stimson, R.F. 146 Stockwin, Harvey 178

Index 275 Street, John 71, 72 Subandrio 106, 111, 112, 116 Subic 205 Suharto 118, 120, 122, 124, 125, 127, 132, 136–8, 142, 148, 161, 162, 177, 183, 184, 190, 202, 205, 210, 211 Sukarno 91, 116–18, 122–4, 126–7, 141, 184 Sukhubhand Paribatra 184, 211 Sulawesi 64 Sulu 36, 42 Sumatra 36, 42, 44, 63, 98, 113 Sumito 111 Sumitro 186 Sunarso 143, 144 Sunthorn 102 Surabaya 44 Surin Pitsuwan 210 Suthipand Chirathivat 214 Sutrisno 205, 208 Suwannaphum 71, 184 Tahourdin, J. 83, 84 Taiwan 21, 29, 50, 80, 85, 208 Takano Takeshi 206 Takeshita Noboru 61 Tallala, Bertie 161, 162, 165, 166, 169 Tan, Gerald 196, 197 Tan Boon Seng 169, 173 Tan Malaka 44 Tanaka Kakuei 62 Tang Juxuan 205 Tay, Simon 212, 213 Thailand 22, 36–41, 44, 45, 57, 60, 61, 63, 70–2, 75, 78, 79, 82, 85–7, 97, 101–8, 110, 114, 118–29, 131–4, 143–5, 147–9, 151, 153, 156–8,160–2, 164, 165, 171–3, 176, 178–81, 184, 192, 195, 196, 200–2, 206, 209, 210 Thanat Khoman 45, 102, 104, 105, 111, 114–16, 119, 120, 122, 124–6, 129, 132–5, 138, 139, 143, 145–7, 157, 168 Thanom 161, 172 Thibaw 38 Tibet 20 Timor 36, 183, 184, 190, 210–12 tin 44, 100, 108 Togo Shigenori 56, 59 Tojo Hideki 55–7 Tonkin 78 Tory, Geofroy 96–9, 103, 107 Tow, William 207 Tran Van Giau 71

Tran Van Lam 146–7 Treaties: 1814 42; 1824 41, 42; 1847 42; 1906 42; Bali 1976 [TAC] 177, 178, 182, 190, 203, 205–8, 213,214 Kanghwa 49; Shimonoseki 49, 50; Washington 1921 51 Triple Intervention 1895 49 Tu-duc 39 Turkey 23, 189 Twenty-one Demands 1915 50 UNESCO 98 Ungku Aziz 216 United Kingdom 19, 20, 22, 24–6, 28, 32, 36–44, 46, 47, 51, 58, 63–92, 95–116, 118–27, 132, 136, 138, 140–6, 148–51, 154–8, 161, 163, 164, 167–74, 186, 200, 219, 220 United Nations [UN] 20, 21, 25, 58, 59, 70, 74, 82, 85, 87, 100, 113, 157, 164, 165, 177, 178, 181, 205, 208, 213 United States 14, 20, 21, 25–30, 32, 36, 43, 44, 50–2, 57, 58, 60, 61, 64, 66, 70, 73–90, 98, 105, 108, 114, 121, 122, 124, 126–9, 131–3, 135, 136, 138–40, 148, 150–2, 156–8, 161–4, 166, 167, 170, 172, 174, 175, 179, 182, 200–2, 205–8, 210 UPKO [United Pasok-Momogun Kadazan Organisation] 133 Vance, C. 183 Vietnam 21, 36–40, 59, 60, 62, 69–71, 78, 79, 81, 82, 84, 89, 90, 96, 97, 101–4, 106, 107, 111, 120–2, 126, 129, 135, 138–40, 142, 144–53, 155, 156, 158, 159, 161–4, 168–76, 178–82, 184, 203, 204, 206, 208–10, 222, 223 Vietminh 82, 83, 86, 90 Vinogradoff, P. 223 Wakeley, L.J.D. 74 Walker, Michael 119 Wallerstein, I. 12, 24 Wan Awang 145 Wanandi, Jusuf 182, 211, 212 Warner, F.A. 109 Watts, John 169 Weatherbee, D. 213 Weinstein, F. 137 West New Guinea/Irian/Papua 96, 98, 112, 113, 116, 212 Westphalia 18–20

276 Index Widjojo Nitisastro 190 Wilford, K.M. 164 Wilson, Woodrow 20, 60 Wilson-Young, I.A.D. 65 Wolters, Oliver 35 Woodside, Alexander 215 World Bank [IBRD] 26, 200 World Trade Organization [WTO] 29, 31 Wu Xuequan 205

Yamagata Aritomo 50 Yeo, George 214 Yoshida Shigeru 61 Yunnan 209 Yusof Ariff 171, 172 Zainal Sulong 142–5, 166, 204 Zaiton Ibrahim bin Ahmad 158, 159 ZOPFAN [Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality] 90, 151ff, 188, 205, 213