Southeast Asia has secured over the past half century both a large measure of interstate peace and cooperation and a degree of autonomy from great powers outside the region that few observers had hoped for and scarcely any anticipated. Those have been coupled with a measure of economic and social development that, though far from equitable in its coverage and set back by a major crisis in the late 1990s, also indicated a remarkable transformation. A region of revolt had become a region that invited investment, though also speculation. To that the work of ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) has made a substantial contribution. Many were disappointed with its slow progress towards the cooperative economic projects that it set out as its priority. What was achieved was what that vaunted priority in fact, by design or otherwise, tended to conceal, a practice of political collaboration that in the event was to open up much wider economic prospects.

By contrast to the European regional project, ASEAN was avowedly based on the nation-state. That was the prime source of its success, though some would also say its ultimate limitation. The region had come almost entirely under the formal rule of Western powers and been segmented into parts of their empires. Within the frontiers they had created or affirmed, however, their rule had come to be contested by a nationalism that they had also helped to create. Within the colonial states they built up, an alternative leadership offered the way to modernity. The destruction of the Western empires by the Japanese gave it, rather unwittingly, an opportunity it would not otherwise have had so soon or perhaps so amply. But its achievement, the winning of independence, was won piece-by-piece, colony by colony, and the new states, though claiming as modern states now did, to be nation-states, inherited the colonial frontiers. Just as the colonial states had little in common but their colonialism, those that replaced them had little in common but their nationalism. Any attempt to build regionalism had to take that into account.

Politically, the outside powers rather stood back from the region-building of the 1960s and 1970s, though the Soviet Union (SU) thought ASEAN was a US plot and it was indeed often presented as anti-communist, to some extent another piece of its own camouflage.

India and the United States

In their approach to Southeast Asia in the late 1940s the British not only had recent experience in mind, but experience of the early years of the Pacific war. Their image of the advance of communism was coloured not only by their understanding of its ideological threat and of Russian leadership. It was also coloured by a comparison between the threat of China in 1948–9 and that of Japan in 1940–1. Now, as then, Britain could dispose of little force. But it was important to bolster friendly regimes, to inhibit de facto penetration, and to elicit US support. Mutatis mutandis, the same strategies were again invoked. The significance of Indo-China and Siam was assessed in a similar way. If they fell, the Peninsula and the islands would be exposed. The ‘domino’ theory evolved in part from British experience and British perceptions of the past.

The British had recognised that, while the Far East was the main area of US responsibility, Southeast Asia was the main area of theirs. Their recipe was based on an East-West rapprochement, accommodating nationalism and the European presence, the aim being stability and prosperity. In the territories for which they were or had been responsible, their remedies were under challenge in 1948. Elsewhere the reconciliation of Indonesians and Dutch still evaded them, and in French Indo-China reconciliation seemed almost inconceivable. The prospect of communist triumph in China redoubled the attempt to make Southeast Asia a zone of peace and stability before it was too late.

Regionalism and nationalism

The British had set out on an ambitious policy in Southeast Asia, and by March–April 1946 they had achieved some of their major objectives. They had returned to Burma, Malaya and Borneo. Their allies had returned to Indo-China and to Indonesia, and had apparently been prompted to work with the nationalist movements they found. In the coming months, the British were to discover some of the weaknesses in their position. They conceded power to the AFPFL. They abandoned the Malayan Union. By a substantial diplomatic effort they pushed the Dutch and the Indonesians into the Linggadjati agreement. But they did not prevent the unleashing of war in Vietnam.

Southeast Asia was, of course, not dealt with in a vacuum. Britain's interests, and indeed its responsibilities, were worldwide; yet its power was limited. Its policies in Southeast Asia were thus affected by its own priorities and by the attitudes of other powers. Southeast Asia was important to the British, both for specific reasons and for general ones. Britain needed access to the dollars Malaya could earn, and it needed the base facilities that Singapore could offer. It also saw Southeast Asia as a potential zone of stability in which the commercial interests of Britain could survive and develop long-term. But Southeast Asia was less important than Europe and less important even than the Middle East. Its position vis-à-vis India was to become more equivocal, but at this time India was still a prime interest.

The crises of 1947

The British government's task was to balance the demands for reconstruction at home and those for reconstruction abroad. No clear choice was made between them; none could be made. Subsequent criticism that Britain's priorities were mistaken misses the mark. The British government retained the longstanding view of British governments that the essential basis of Britain's survival and welfare was a thriving economy. But that would not be possible unless it were part of a stable world. Britain must make its contribution to that, too. The crucial issue was indeed a compromise between these commitments, not a choice between them.

The criticism, if due, should be applied, too, in the context of the time. At the end of the Second World War, the Cold War pattern had not emerged. The focus of the Soviet Union was on Europe, but what policy it would pursue could not be ascertained, and US policy was also unclear. The fate of Europe and the fate of the ‘Third world’, as it was later to be called, had still to be decided. Given the limited role of the super-powers, Britain had to take on worldwide reponsibilities. In Europe it contemplated a relationship with France and the other Western states. Overseas, in particular in Southeast Asia, what it sought was a new relationship between Europe and emergent nationalism. Without that it feared an East-West polarisation from which communism would benefit. It was an ambitious programme, but no one else was there to undertake it.

This book gives an account of Britain's policy towards Southeast Asia in the years 1945–50. Aspects of this topic have been dealt with by other writers, but there are gaps. The present book aims to fill some of these, but its main novelty is its overall approach, placing the policy towards the various countries in the region both in juxtaposition with one another and in the larger international context.

A great deal has been written on Malaya and Borneo, and the book does not aim to repeat that. It is more concerned with Burma before and after 1948 and with Britain's post-war relations with Siam. I recognise that much has also been written on the international aspects of the Indonesian revolution, but this book carries the account of Britain's policy beyond the Linggadjati agreement of November 1946. Britain's dealing with French Indo-China is also taken beyond the departure of Gracey earlier that year.

Though its focus is on British policy, the book throws light on that of the Dutch and of the French, and in particular on the impact on it of metropolitan politics. It also throws light, of course, on the nationalists, and in particular their relative ability to exploit the international situation in pursuit of their goals.

The book is divided into six chapters. The chronological divisions employed correspond to major changes within and outside the region. Each chapter has an introduction on the changes and then deals with the several countries concerned, bringing out the general themes and interrelationships.