CHAPTER XV

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Southeast Asia:
Diversity and Change

SOUTHEAST Asia’s record of instability since the Second World War and the massive American military involvement in Indochina have tended to repel public opinion in the United States and much of the rest of the world and threaten to make the region become the object of comparative international neglect. This is an unfortunate trend, since Southeast Asia remains an important and interesting region, the only one in the world that contains valuable natural resources, includes some ten recently independent states in varying conditions of vigor, and is still a theater of interaction among four major external powers. In a case like this, public neglect is not the proper corrective to official overinvolvement. Whatever else happens to Southeast Asia, it will not evaporate.

Burma: Socialism via Military Dictatorship

Early in 1960 the civilian U Nu resumed office as Prime Minister of Burma following an interval of military rule (1958-60). His fervent piety and talk about a Buddhist state tended to alienate the predominantly non-Buddhist border minorities, while his geniality led him to promise them increased autonomy. Fearing that this trend might give rise to secessionist movements and to Thai control over the Shan States (in the northeast), and convinced that parliamentary government had failed in Burma, the military under General Ne Win seized power for the second time in March 1962.

Governing through a self-appointed Revolutionary Council composed of military leaders and leftist intellectuals, Ne Win set out to achieve a socialist political and social system for Burma via a military dictatorship, and to gain the kind of immunity from interference by foreign powers (above all China and the United States) that was conspicuously lacking in Indochina, by means of an isolationist foreign policy. He began to build a one-party state by forming in 1962 the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP), which consisted of only a handful of members at first but began to acquire something of a mass base about 1970. Shortly before that, elective councils had been formed in both the urban and the rural areas, as a means of political mobilization of the population; they were wholly controlled by the BSPP and performed few useful functions except to serve as a channel of communication between the leaders and the led.

Ne Win tried to cope with the several ethnic and leftist insurgencies by inviting their leaders to a conference in 1963. In the case of the Burma Communist Party (BCP, the orthodox or White Flag Communists), he had been encouraged to do this by Liu Shao-ch’i, who visited Burma in the spring of 1963 in his capacity as Chairman of the People’s Republic of China. Although some of the other negotiations achieved limited results, those with the BCP broke down. The BCP went back into insurgency but was soon driven out of Lower Burma by the Army. It then withdrew to the vicinity of the Chinese border and became increasingly dependent on support from Peking, which at first proved to be very limited in nature (apart from propaganda).

Ne Win tried to cope with the problem of disaffection and continuing, although not very serious, insurgency among the ethnic minorities by a policy of very limited concessions combined with an essentially assimilationist policy backed by much repression. Much of the Indian community, which contained valuable entrepreneurial skills, was compulsorily repatriated. The Chinese community was left largely alone at first, because of the peculiarly important place that China occupies in Burma’s view of the world.

To a large extent Ne Win’s isolationist foreign policy, which reduced Burma’s role in regional and international organizations almost to zero, was motivated by fear of the giant Chinese neighbor and a desire not to give it the slightest pretext to intervene in Burma—apart conceivably from supporting the BCP. This objective was largely achieved, not only through Ne Win’s efforts but on account of Peking’s preoccupation with other matters (such as Vietnam) and the countervailing diplomatic roles in Burma of the Soviet Union and the United States. Peking conceded a rather favorable (to Burma) settlement of the Sino-Burmese boundary dispute in 1960-61, for roughly these reasons and greatly to Rangoon’s relief. Peking’s growing propaganda support for the BCP after 1963 placed no great strain on official Sino-Burmese relations as long as it was accompanied by no overt action. Nevertheless, Ne Win was disliked by the radical Maoists in China because of his association with Liu Shao-ch’i (who was purged in 1966-67) and his campaign against the BCP. It was probably as a result of this attitude that Rangoon witnessed a more violent explosion of militancy during the Cultural Revolution on the part of Chinese radicals, especially students, than did any other area outside China with the possible exception of Hong Kong. The resulting demonstrations (in June 1967) were first banned by Ne Win and then became the object of retaliation by troops, police, and mobs. A huge diplomatic and propaganda crisis in Sino-Burmese relations ensued, and Peking terminated its economic aid program in Burma.

In 1969, as part of his program for institutionalizing the BSPP’s rule, Ne Win solicited the constitutional advice of the civilian leaders whom he had ousted in 1962, including U Nu. The majority of them favored a return to parliamentary government. When Ne Win rejected this idea, U Nu went abroad and for about four years led an insurgent movement based just across the Thai border; although backed to a limited extent by the Thai government, by some Hong Kong Chinese business interests angered by Ne Win’s nationalization program, and by some others hopeful of offshore oil leases if U Nu returned to power, this movement achieved few results apart from exercising some influence in the adjacent Karen State (in southeastern Burma).

In the early 1970s, Ne Win proceeded with his political program. He declared himself a civilian in 1972 and the following year had the BSPP draw up a draft constitution purporting to legitimate its own rule. A referendum and election held at the beginning of 1974, also under the BSPP’s leadership, ratified the constitution and put it into effect. In reality, the regime’s political repressiveness, although not unusually severe, had alienated many of the students and intellectuals, and its economic policies had antagonized the peasants. On the other hand, at least in rural areas the Burmans (the majority community, as distinct from the ethnic minorities) had a tradition of acquiescence in existing authority as long as it was not impossibly severe or inefficient.

In the industrial sector, or what little there was of it, Ne Win’s policy of nationalization (i.e., expulsion of foreign capital) and socialization (i.e., elimination of private enterprise) did not work too badly. But in the rural areas limited incentives, including low state-fixed prices for agricultural products, and official propaganda (not backed by much action, to be sure) in favor of collectivization contributed to a virtual stagnation of rice output and therefore of the export of Burma’s main foreign exchange earner. Indeed, the economy as a whole was stagnant, and absolute production levels declined in some sectors. Since this situation could not reasonably be attributed to Burmese culture and society, which showed considerable creativity and vigor, it had to be due largely to the stultifying effects of Ne Win’s brand of authoritarianism and socialism.

Next to the economic situation, Ne Win’s most serious problem was probably the Communist insurgency and its relationship with Peking. In 1967 the BCP became the only non-Chinese Communist Party to take Peking’s advice to launch its own Cultural Revolution; the major reason for this decision was probably a desire to make Peking take the BCP seriously for the first time. The main practical effect was that by the end of 1968, the party’s top leaders had killed each other off. Peking, presumably under the pressure of its own radical elements, then decided to rebuild the party as an effective guerrilla movement. Under leaders with strong pro-Chinese sympathies and with Chinese equipment (including pack and anti-aircraft artillery), a new model BCP manned largely by local (non-Burman) tribesmen soon emerged in the small but strategically situated Wa State, just on the Burmese side of the border with China. For six weeks in November-December 1971, this force besieged Kuenlong, the main town of the Wa State, but ultimately without success. After that the insurgents expanded southeastward into the Eastern Shan States, in the direction of northern Thailand. Meanwhile, as though to support the new model BCP and prevent it from becoming depressed by the resumption of full-fledged ambassadorial relations between China and Burma in 1970-71 after a hiatus of about four years, Peking started a “liberation radio” in Yunnan in April 1971 that beamed anti-Ne Win revolutionary propaganda at Burma. Apart from the Chinese radicals’ dislike of Ne Win and their sense of commitment to the BCP, plausible explanations for this pattern of Chinese behavior included a desire to warn Rangoon against an abandonment of its isolationism and above all against affiliating in any way with the Indo-Soviet entente, and a desire for a base area that could be helpful in subverting northern Thailand; the latter consideration grew in probable importance as Peking withdrew most of its military personnel from northwest Laos in 1973-74, following the agreement on ending the civil war in that country, and as Chinese involvement in Burmese insurgency appeared to increase.

Less serious, but still a problem, was the presence in northeast Burma of Chinese soldiers and adventurers referred to by the Burmese as KMTs (for Kuomintang), or KMT Irregulars. Some of them apparently remained in contact with Taiwan, which presumably thought that it got some value from them, but for the most part they simply engaged in smuggling opium out and guns in and generally lining their own pockets. The United States was concerned over their activities in connection with its campaign against the international drug traffic, but Rangoon showed little interest in cooperating in an opium suppression campaign until it became clear in the early 1970s that some children of high Burmese officials had become addicted to heroin. At that point the Burma Army began to intensify its activities against the KMTs and in 1973 drove the “opium king” of Burma, an overseas Chinese named Lo Hsing-han, into Thailand, where he was promptly captured and returned to Burma to stand trial. Obviously opium suppression in Burma, where more opium was produced than in any other Southeast Asian country, was making at least some progress.

By about 1973, Ne Win’s twin policies of socialism and isolationism were under sufficient strain so that some minor modifications were beginning to be made. Ne Win traveled increasingly abroad, partly on account of illness but also in order to establish closer ties with foreign countries. Burma showed a gradually increasing interest in an informal invitation that had been extended to it to join the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN; see below), as well as in United Nations aid and Japanese credits. All this reflected a perception of Burma’s economic difficulties and the increasingly fluid international situation in Asia resulting from American disengagement from Indochina and the Sino-American détente, and probably also concern over Chinese policy toward Burma.

Thailand: Away from Dictatorship

The powerful and effective Marshal Sarit Thannarat, who governed Thailand for five years (1958-63), was succeeded by a duumvirate consisting of two more marshals, Thanom Kittika-chorn and Praphat Charusathien, the latter being in effective control of the police. Theirs was a corrupt, inefficient, and increasingly unpopular regime, but the devotion of most Thai to Buddhism and the monarchy kept active opposition at a minimum as long as the King, the widely revered Bhumibol Aduldet, refrained from speaking out against the duumvirate. It was not a very repressive regime by the standards of modern garrison or police states, but the level of active political freedom was rather low, and the process of economic development, fueled by American aid and Japanese investment, tended to produce increased social inequalities.

In the early 1960s, as the crisis in Indochina escalated, the Thai government grew increasingly concerned over the presumed threat by China and North Vietnam to Laos and the adjacent regions of north and northeast Thailand. Indeed, an insurgency, more of a political than a military variety and supplied and directed to a considerable extent by China, North Vietnam, and the Pathet Lao, began among the population of the Northeast, who are Thai but are closely related to the Lao. By the late 1960s a guerrilla insurgency, supplied by China but not really Communist in nature, began among the non-Thai Meo mountaineers of Northern Thailand. Since the late 1950s, the ethnically Chinese Malayan Communist Party had been maintaining its major base areas in extreme Southern Thailand, where although its main thrust was against Malaya it posed something of a threat to Bangkok’s control over the rather disaffected Moslem minority in the South. In addition to these domestic problems, the Thai government’s relations with all its neighbors were uneasy at best; with Japanese support, it had taken territory from all of them during the Second World War only to be compelled to return it afterward and was still suspected of wanting to regain it.

Bangkok reacted to this difficult situation by a combination of modest and none-too-successful counterinsurgency programs (except in the South, where progress was achieved in the early 1970s) and closer alignment than before with the United States. In 1965 Bangkok began to allow American aircraft to be based in Thailand and to bomb the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos and Communist installations and forces in both halves of Vietnam; in early 1967 this American presence was expanded to include B-52S. In addition a small contingent of Thai troops went to fight in South Vietnam, followed by a larger one that went to Laos (see Chapter X). All this naturally hardened Peking’s and Hanoi’s attitude toward Bangkok more than ever.

Accordingly, the Thai government was seriously concerned when its supposedly powerful and reliable American patron began to indicate in March 1968 an apparent intention to reduce its military involvement in Vietnam and the rest of Southeast Asia; the Nixon Doctrine of 1969 was of course a still more positive affirmation of this intention. Bangkok’s response was an effort to render itself less dependent on the United States, to improve its relations with the non-Communist Southeast Asian countries and with the ASEAN nations (Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines, in addition to Thailand) in particular, and to establish private contacts with Peking aimed at a lessening of Sino-Thai hostility. Some progress was made in all of these directions, but with characteristic Thai caution; Foreign Minister Thanat Kho-man, who wanted to move farther and faster along these lines than his military colleagues cared to go, was ousted in 1971. Peking showed an interest in trade, cultural relations, and diplomatic recognition—provided Bangkok broke with Taipei—but was unwilling (presumably for domestic political reasons for the most part) to reduce its support for insurgency in Thailand.

In 1968-69, the ruling duumvirate implemented a constitution (the latest of several that Thailand had had since 1932) and permitted a parliamentary election and a limited emergence of party politics. One reason for this interest in institutionalization was that both Thanom and Praphat were approaching the legal retirement age for Army officers, that the King expected them to retire on schedule, that Thanom at least intended to comply, and that they were not likely to be able to retain their political power for long after their retirement from the Army. Several factors combined, however, to render this turn toward parliamentary government a short-lived one. Praphat intrigued actively to succeed Thanom after the latter’s retirement and to postpone his own retirement somehow. The military elite as a whole and the bureaucracy rapidly became irritated at the inevitable bickering among the politicians and the efforts by the latter not only to criticize the government but to influence its behavior. Given the already-discussed and difficult international situation facing Thailand, the military elite wanted greater freedom of action than it was likely to have under a semiparliamentary system. Accordingly, in November 1971 the government executed a “coup in office” that put ai. end to the constitution and the parliament. Apart from opposition politicians and students, the population took the coup fairly calmly, but it sowed the seeds of serious future trouble for Thanom and Praphat.

For a number of reasons, Thailand was struck by serious economic difficulties, including inflation and labor unrest, in 1972. Partly as a distraction, the government encouraged students to stage demonstrations against Japanese economic influence in Thailand. But once aroused the students soon began to direct their activities against a more meaningful target, the government. There was a series of student demonstrations in 1973 over a variety of issues, of which the most important was Praphat’s ambition to succeed Thanom. In October the demonstrations swelled to massive proportions over the government’s arrest of a group of student leaders. Thanom apparently differed with Praphat and with his own son, the powerful and unpopular Colonel Narong, who was Praphat’s son-in-law, over how to handle the crisis, which was marked by the killing of a few hundred demonstrators by police and troops—the first such tragedy in Thailand’s history. Significant elements of the Army refused to support Thanom and Praphat. Most important of all, the King sided openly with the students and insisted successfully that Thanom, Praphat, and Narong resign and leave the country. The King then appointed a conservative civilian, Sanya Thammasak, as Premier and in effect forbade the Army to overthrow him.

The public euphoria that greeted this sudden and potentially important change of government tended to evaporate as the leaders of the student organizations, although not especially leftist, were excluded from real political influence by a coalition of military men and bureaucrats almost as conservative, although not so dictatorial, as the preceding one. Growing political turbulence led to a cabinet reorganization in May 1974. Thailand still had a long way to go before it could claim to be a genuine parliamentary democracy. But it had apparently begun to move in that direction, at a time when most of the non-Communist Asian states were moving in the opposite one, and it might conceivably serve as a valuable example for the others.

The Sanya government made only marginal changes in the foreign policy of the old one. It appeared slightly more favorable to the withdrawal of the American military presence, which actually began in 1973. It was somewhat more conciliatory toward Peking, which responded with some vague and not necessarily binding pledges about reducing its support for insurgency in Thailand. Peking was interested not only in conciliating the new Thai government but in encouraging the United States not to withdraw too rapidly, since its military presence in Thailand tended to serve as a check on possible increased Soviet influence and to deter Hanoi from re-escalating the war in Indochina.

As a relatively homogeneous and self-confident country located in the center of continental Southeast Asia and lacking the unsettling legacy of a colonial tradition, Thailand is one of the two intrinsically most important countries of the region, the other being Indonesia. Its future political development is likely to exert a considerable influence not only on the welfare of its own people but on its neighbors and on the international politics of Southeast Asia. This fact, which has been obscured by the general preoccupation with Vietnam, has emerged more clearly into view as the military situation in Vietnam and Laos has quieted down, for the time being at any rate.

Vietnam “at Peace”

It is obvious to even the most casual newspaper reader that the January 1973 agreement brought peace to Vietnam only in theory. In reality, the struggle went on, although to date at a level of violence significantly lower than before the signing of the agreement. As nearly always in the past, the Communist side was basically on the offensive. As usual in the past, the cause and eventual outcome of the struggle seemed likely to depend on the degree of viability of the non-Communist regime and the policies of the major foreign powers.

The question of the viability of the Saigon government is a complex one, and the answer is uncertain. President Thieu appears determined to keep Communists and possibly pro-Communist neutrals from entering it in the manner envisaged eventually in the January 1973 agreement. Instead he has been trying to prolong his own grip on the presidency by various maneuvers. In 1973 he formed a government party, the so-called Democracy Party, and although he has allowed a slightly greater degree of personal and political freedom to his non-Communist opponents than used to be the case, he has effectively prevented them from coalescing into a third force. Although his government is neither the most repressive nor the most inefficient in Southeast Asia, it ranks fairly high on both counts. Authoritarianism of this kind is perhaps understandable in a regime fighting for its life but is not necessarily the best system under which to do so. From the standpoint of ideology and organization, the two main sources of dynamism and effectiveness in politics, the Saigon government is clearly inferior to its Northern adversary and the latter’s Southern allies. In the rural areas, landlords have been reacquiring land once distributed to peasants under the land reform program, and local government is closely controlled from Saigon. The economy has been hit by commodity shortages and a galloping inflation, in spite of the virtual disappearance of spending by American military personnel. The partial Americanization of the regime has probably made it less able in some ways than it would otherwise be to cope with its problems, notably its contest with the North.

In the North, in spite of war weariness and extensive bomb damage the Hanoi leadership shows no signs of slackening in its determination to dominate the South, at first through the NLF and then directly, and Laos and Cambodia through local proxies. To be sure, Hanoi is heeding Soviet and Chinese advice, and the call of common sense, to the extent of devoting considerable energy and funds to economic reconstruction. Clearly it would be reluctant to sacrifice this to American bombing through overeagerness in the South. On the other hand, Hanoi regards its economic program as a basis for, not an alternative to, further efforts to “liberate” the South. To the latter end it is trying hard to build up the so-called Third Vietnam, the substantial territory along the western edge of South Vietnam controlled by the NLF and its Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam (PRG), as a rival to and eventual replacement for the Saigon government. Hanoi has tried, with some success, to insist that countries wishing to establish diplomatic relations with itself must also recognize the PRG, and in this way the PRG has gained a few diplomatic recognitions from non-Communist as well as Communist countries. A choice of sorts is involved; a government can maintain relations simultaneously with Hanoi and Saigon, but not with Saigon and the PRG. North Vietnam has effectively annexed the northern portion of the territory nominally controlled by the PRG. The North Vietnamese Army has been rapidly extending and expanding the road network linking the DRV with the Third Vietnam, as an alternative or supplement to the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Artillery, armor, and other military equipment have been accumulated in the Third Vietnam via these roads at levels higher than those that existed at the time of the Easter offensive. Since the Soviet Union and China have apparently reduced their deliveries of military equipment to North Vietnam since January 1973, this must mean that nearly all the DRV’s stocks of such equipment are in South Vietnam. By the same token, nearly the whole of the North Vietnamese Army is outside its home territory, in South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia—a phenomenon unique in the world. North Vietnamese troops being withdrawn from Laos are apparently being moved into South Vietnam.

All this means, of course, that Hanoi is in a strong position to launch a major offensive in South Vietnam at any time it chooses. It has been restrained, however, by a number of considerations. One obviously is Saigon’s military powers of resistance, which are fairly formidable even in the absence of further American air support, as a result of the Vietnamization program. Another is the attitude and policy on military aid of Peking and Moscow, which are essentially unfavorable at present to another offensive. Most important of all, probably, is uncertainty regarding the American response to a North Vietnamese offensive; Hanoi evidently has no desire to see any more B-52S and probably is not sure the United States would refrain from using them if challenged. In addition, there is the fact that the Viet Cong infrastructure is rather weak in the largely government-controlled areas (i. e., outside the Third Vietnam). For these reasons, more or less, North Vietnamese Defense Minister Vo Nguyen Giap, who apparently favors another major offensive, has not been able to make his views prevail. Instead, the strategy to date has essentially been one of keeping limited military pressure on the South Vietnamese Army in the hope of eroding its morale and producing defections, and of trying to rebuild the Viet Cong infrastructure, especially in the Mekong Delta. This strategy has achieved some success, but obviously not decisive success. Its implementation has involved Hanoi in substantial violations of the restrictions on infiltration of personnel and equipment imposed by the January 1973 agreement. There is evidence that the Viet Cong leadership would like to see an even higher level of such violations than the North Vietnamese have so far been willing to commit.

Given this situation, the political contacts looking toward elections and a coalition government provided for in the January 1973 agreement have gotten nowhere. There have been no secret negotiations between Saigon and the NLF, such as would be needed to produce a workable compromise, but only exchanges of propaganda broadsides. In May 1974 the Two-Party Joint Military Commission and the political talks between the two sides at Paris virtually broke down. Neither side has felt enough confidence in itself and trust in the other side to go through with the arrangements envisaged in January 1973 on some mutually acceptable basis. The main achievement was the exchange by March 1974 of all political prisoners that the two sides had admitted to holding; Saigon released approximately 31,000 (as against the 200,000 it was alleged by Hanoi, probably with much exaggeration, to be holding), and the NLF 6,000. Saigon complicated the process by trying to turn over to the NLF some of its leading non-Communist political prisoners on the ground that they had pro-Communist sympathies, but most of them refused to be released under these conditions.

American aid and support obviously remain critical to the survival of the Saigon government. The United States is reasonably enthusiastic along these lines, because it based its military withdrawal from Indochina on the public premise that Vietnamization could be made to work. But since 1970 the administration has been subjected to gradually increasing pressures from Congress, in the form of bills, amendments, and failures to vote the full appropriations for Indochina requested by the administration, to lower its profile still further. The administration’s reply has been that, although the January 1973 agreement may have terminated previous American commitments to the survival of the Saigon government, the agreement itself has created a new commitment of this kind. This ingenious proposition has not been convincing to congressional critics.

The situation in South Vietnam is complex and obscure enough so that a fairly wide variety of outcomes is possible. The most probable outcome, however, appears to be one in which American aid and support for Saigon are reduced gradually, and perhaps rapidly after 1977, and Hanoi’s significant superiority in ideology, organization, and geopolitics begins to tell, eventually to the point of victory. If so, the outcome may not be pretty to watch; the long struggle has generated enormous bitterness, and there is abundant evidence in North Vietnamese and NLF documents of a plan for systematic “repression” of political enemies after victory, perhaps on the scale of a blood bath.

Malaysia: Prosperous but Tense

Malaysia’s basic problem is the cultural antipathy between its two major ethnic communities, the Malays and the Chinese. The Malays, who constitute a plurality of the total population, are Moslems and for the most part farmers and fishermen. The Chinese, who are almost as numerous, are far ahead in commerce and industry and are therefore resented by the Malays. During the colonial period the British favored the Malays in a variety of ways as the original inhabitants and the underdogs. Before the attainment of independence in 1957 by Malaya (known as West Malaysia since the formation of Malaysia in 1963), the leaders of the two communities agreed that the political system would be essentially Malay-dominated, but that the Chinese and other minorities should enjoy reasonable freedom of economic activity and access to citizenship. This compromise was not too difficult to reach, because the country as a whole basked in the glow of comparative prosperity based on abundant rubber and tin, and political tempers were not yet running high. The compromise was reflected in the makeup of the dominant political party, the Alliance Party (or Alliance); its major component was the United Malay National Organization (UMNO), and the other principal component was the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA). Under the firm but benevolent rule of the Alliance and its leader, Prime Minister Tengku Abdul Rahman, and given general prosperity (by Asian standards), Malaya had few serious problems during its first few years of independent existence. The insurgency maintained by the Malayan Communist Party had already been reduced to almost negligible proportions by the British.

But this happy situation rested on two foundations that were not necessarily stable: prosperity and a continued willingness on the part of the Chinese community to accept what amounted to second-class citizenship. Prosperity was threatened by the competition of synthetic rubber produced in industrialized countries and had to be maintained through an indigenous industrialization program that produced strains of its own. Chinese political passivity (apart from the activities of the Chinese-controlled Malayan Communist Party) began to be eroded in the 1960s. The first influence in that direction came from neighboring, and overwhelmingly Chinese, Singapore. An apparent sharp leftward trend in Singaporean politics in 1961 led Prime Minister Rahman to accept the British idea that a federation, to be known as Malaysia, should be formed out of Malaya, Singapore, and the British territories in Borneo; within this wider framework, it was hoped that Singapore could be prevented from going Communist, by external intervention if necessary. But in reality Singapore was in little danger of going Communist; the position of its vigorous Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew was never seriously threatened. The main practical results of the formation of Malaysia in 1963 were two: the outraged Indonesians proclaimed a state of “Confrontation” with Malaysia and Britain that lasted until 1966, and Lee Kuan Yew and his dynamic People’s Action Party (PAP) began to extend their organization onto the Malayan mainland. This intrusion constituted a serious challenge to the flabby MCA, to the Alliance as a whole, and to the notion of second-class citizenship for Malayan Chinese. Singapore was accordingly expelled from Malaysia in 1965 and became an independent state. This action was an insult not only to Singapore itself but to the politically conscious elements of the Malayan Chinese, especially the youth.

Following this episode, some new Chinese political parties emerged that were both more radical and much more anti-Malay than the MCA. On the Malay side, this development was paralleled by the formation of new parties some of which were more radical, and some of which were more conservative (i. e., Islamic), than UMNO. In general elections held in May 1969, some of these parties scored impressive electoral triumphs at the expense of the Alliance; the MCA in particular suffered losses to the new Chinese parties. Postelection celebrations turned rapidly into widespread communal riots, which were suppressed by the overwhelmingly Malay Army and police. The government promptly declared a state of emergency, suspended the parliamentary system, and governed by decree until early 1971, when the parliamentary system was restored. During that interlude Prime Minister Rahman retired and was succeeded by the slightly more Malay-minded Tun Abdul Razak. In effect, the Malay-dominated establishment had showed its teeth, and the lesson was widely understood. The new parties lost much of their support to the Alliance, and the MCA in particular staged something of a comeback. On the other hand, the basic issue persisted.

As a counterpart and stimulus to this trend toward domestic restabilization, Razak launched a program of creative diplomacy. In mid-1971 he proposed that Southeast Asia (meaning really the states belonging to ASEAN) be “neutralized” under the guarantee of the major powers, which he listed as China, the Soviet Union, and the United States (note the order, and the omission of Japan). He also favored an improvement of relations, and the establishment of diplomatic relations, with Peking, because it was illogical not to have such relations with a power that Malaysia was inviting to help guarantee its security, because he hoped for increased trade with China, and because he hoped to persuade Peking to stop supporting the Malayan Communist Party. This policy reflected a realization that Britain and the United States were withdrawing militarily from Southeast Asia, that the Soviet Union was showing an increasing interest in the region, and that many Malaysian Chinese were in favor of relations with Peking. Relations between Kuala Lumpur and Peking have warmed up somewhat, and diplomatic recognitions were exchanged in mid-1974. Peking has produced a split within the leadership of the Malayan Communist Party by urging it to give up insurgency and stress political action.

Singapore: One-Party Democracy

Singapore is a small country with interesting problems and policies. Its population is about three-fourths Chinese, but its neighbors (Malaysia and Indonesia) are predominantly Malay and tend to regard Singapore as a potential Trojan horse for future expansion of Peking’s influence in Southeast Asia. In order to help calm this suspicion, or more accurately in order to avoid intensifying it by appearing as Chinese as it really is, and also with the aim of avoiding communal tensions like those that erupted in Malaysia in 1969, Singapore officially stresses what it calls the “Singaporean identity” of the country and its population. Being small, largely urban, and highly vulnerable to external events and pressures (such as expulsion from Malaysia, and the British military withdrawal from Singapore in 1971), Singapore cannot afford to move so far to the left that it scares away foreign trade and investment or alarms its neighbors.

Singapore’s politics and general situation reflect these conditions and the personality of Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, who is highly dynamic and leftist but anti-Communist. He expelled the Communist elements from his People’s Action Party (PAP) by 1960, and when they went into active opposition he put their leaders in jail, where they have been ever since. What political opposition remains is divided and ineffective, and the PAP normally gets about 70 percent of the popular vote in elections. It earns this impressive level of support not only by having the only effective political organization in the country but by running a highly efficient welfare state that provides the population with good social services. The PAP government has been imaginative and successful in attracting foreign capital and improving the level of skills of its own people, so that Singapore is emerging as a regional headquarters for foreign firms operating in Southeast Asia and as the repository of many modern skills and processes needed by the rest of the region.

Whether trusted or not, Singapore has therefore made itself more or less indispensable. It has tried with some success to cultivate better relations with its closest neighbors, Malaysia and Indonesia. Prime Minister Lee has encouraged the United States not to reduce its military presence (especially in Thailand), which he regards as important to the stability of the region. He pursues a warily friendly policy toward the People’s Republic of China; he is determined not to go too far or too fast in that direction because of the possible impact on both Singapore’s Chinese majority and its neighbors.

The Philippines: Martial Law

As a combined result of its Malay, Spanish, and American heritage, the Philippines passed through a quarter century of independence (1946-71) with glaring social inequalities, a high level of concentration of economic and political power in the hands of a few dozen families, and considerable potential for unrest. The political system, modeled outwardly on that of the United States, was democratic in form, but not in essence. The existence of a huge number of firearms in private hands, another point of resemblance to the United States, was conducive to a high level of violence, although it also acted as a deterrent to any possible trend toward a centralized dictatorship.

Ferdinand Marcos, who was elected President in 1965, was a brilliant lawyer and an ambitious politician. He also claimed, perhaps sincerely, to be anxious to find a solution for the country’s serious economic and social problems. This goal and his own ambitious temperament led him into increasingly autocratic behavior. He was determined to be the first Philippine President to be reelected, and he achieved this result in 1969 through an election campaign that was corrupt even by the standards of the Philippines. Among other things, it left the public works budget badly depleted. His second inauguration was greeted by some fairly serious student demonstrations, which were forcibly suppressed.

Soon afterward a Constitutional Convention met and began to debate ways in which the obviously unsatisfactory political and social systems could be improved. The Convention showed itself unreceptive to some of Marcos’s ideas, including his tentative suggestion that his beautiful and imperious wife might be a candidate to succeed him. There can be little doubt that Marcos’s personal ambition and sense of mission contributed heavily to disgusting him with this sort of bickering and to pushing him toward drastic action.

In September 1972, following a period of serious floods and an alleged attempt on the life of the Secretary of Defense, and insisting that there was an urgent need to cope with Communist insurgency, Marcos proclaimed a state of martial law and moved to cement his political relationship with the military leadership in a variety of ways. He jailed a number of political opponents, imposed heavy censorship on the previously exuberant press, and terminated the existing constitution and the Constitutional Convention. In 1973, with the support of a rigged referendum, he began to introduce a new, more or less parliamentary (as contrasted with presidential) constitution under which he would serve as both President and Prime Minister. As time went on, he relied less and less on the none-too-credible argument that the country had been seriously threatened with insurrection in 1972 and emphasized instead the need for a strong government to implement vital social reforms. In this connection he inaugurated a land reform program that had at least the possibility of becoming the first effective one in the country’s history. Administrative efficiency was considerably improved. Increased political and economic stability attracted the approval and capital of foreign (especially American) investors, to the point where the regime’s critics sometimes suggested—not necessarily correctly—that Marcos’s coup had had active foreign backing from the beginning.

Even if exaggerated in official statements, there was a leftist insurgency of sorts. In protest against the degeneration of the earlier Huk movement into banditry, a Maoist party was formed in 1968 and proceeded to generate a guerrilla arm calling itself the New People’s Army. It flourished best in the traditionally discontented area of central Luzon but also began to send offshoots into some of the islands farther south. Although troublesome, it was not a serious threat to the government’s survival, and there was no convincing evidence that it received much more than propaganda support from Peking.

There was a more serious insurgency in the large southern island of Mindanao. The predominantly Moslem population had resented for some years an influx of Christian settlers, whom they regarded, apparently correctly, as enjoying governmental support. In addition, the Moslems objected to the operations of large logging companies in their area. This situation worsened after the proclamation of martial law, because the new regime made a serious effort to collect a large number of private firearms. These were particularly numerous in the Moslem area, where they were regarded as necessary protection against oppression from the outside. The result was a sizable revolt, against which the Philippine armed forces employed aircraft and artillery. In spite of frequent and alternating official claims that the Moslem insurgency had been crushed or had been ended through a negotiated settlement, the fighting went on. The revolt could not really be suppressed, because the government was unable to isolate it from the south. From that direction arms flowed to the insurgents by sea from Sabah (in North Borneo), whose Chief Minister was a militant Moslem; there were credible reports that this flow of arms was financed with Libyan funds.

Apart from continuing to enjoy the benefits of American aid, military as well as economic, the Marcos government in its foreign policy devoted considerable attention to trying to establish some sort of relationship with Peking. There were two main considerations behind this: a desire for trade, and a hope of insuring against serious Chinese support for the New People’s Army. More generally, the Philippines tried to eradicate its widely held image as some sort of American satellite and to gain acceptance as an authentically Asian nation.

Indonesia: Is Development Enough?

A period of rapid leftward movement in Indonesian politics and foreign policy came to an abrupt end in late 1965 after President Sukarno and the Communist Party (PKI) attempted a disastrously unsuccessful coup against the comparatively conservative Army leadership. There ensued a huge massacre of actual and alleged leftists, the fall of Sukarno, the reduction of the PKI to the status of an ineffective underground organization, a massive setback for Peking’s previously considerable influence in Indoneisa, and a negotiated settlement of the “Confrontation” with Malaysia.

A further consequence was that Indonesia came to be, and has remained, essentially under the political leadership of the Army and the security forces, with General Suharto as President of the Republic. To a large extent the military exercise their political influence through what is actually a government party (although theoretically a nation-wide movement) usually known by its acronym, Golkar. The military thoroughly dislike the other political parties, which they regard as divisive, and the Islamic elements of Indonesian political culture, which they consider reactionary. The military themselves have a progressive, even revolutionary, ideology derived from the post-1945 struggle against the Dutch, but their practice tends to be more conservative than their ideology. Having overthrown Sukarno’s leftist “Guided Democracy,” they have replaced it not with the obvious alternative of parliamentary democracy but with an authoritarian military regime devoted to economic development and rationalizing the absence of democracy on that ground. Partly sincerely and partly opportunistically, the military also cultivate the image of a security threat from Peking and the Indonesian Chinese community, which does not in fact exist to any significant extent (since 1965) but is a useful myth for the regime’s purposes.

Although potentially very wealthy on account of its abundant natural resources, Indonesia faces serious economic and social problems. Population growth and the mushrooming of urban slums are proceeding rapidly and almost unchecked. There is a strong inflationary trend that is sometimes compounded by governmental economic mismanagement, as was notably the case at the time of a rice shortage in 1973. Official corruption and unemployment are widespread. The educational system is inadequate in size and inadequate in quality to a near-disastrous degree. Development, the regime’s watchword, is realistically possible only through letting in foreign (mainly Japanese) capital or unleashing the economic energies of the local Chinese, or both. In reality both these things have been done to a degree, and there has certainly been some development, but as usual in non-Communist countries the process has widened the range of social and economic inequality. Furthermore, Japanese investment, which has gone mainly into extraction, has been carried on with a get-rich-quick mentality and as a strip-mining operation. The Chinese are an even more serious problem; by no means all of them are Indonesian citizens, and they are all disliked, distrusted, and oppressed in various ways by the military-security establishment and by many ordinary Indonesians, for a number of reasons some of which have validity but most of which do not.

The current Indonesian political system concedes its citizens some passive freedoms but not many active ones (such as the freedom to organize and propagandize). West Irian, acquired from the Netherlands in 1962-63, was integrated into the country as a whole in 1969 in a way that left almost no room for any opposition to express itself. The elections in 1971 to the People’s Consultative Assembly (not a true parliament) were managed by the Army and Golkar so effectively, through a combination of coercion and persuasion, that Golkar got 63 percent of the popular vote. In 1973, under governmental pressure, the Moslem parties merged themselves into one, and the non-Moslem opposition parties did the same. The establishment portrays itself as the main barrier to a resurgence of the PKI, which is a possible although not probable development, and uses this as one argument for the maintenance of fairly rigorous security controls. It was against all this—lack of democracy and social justice, economic problems, etc.—that large-scale student demonstrations amounting to riots occurred in January 1974, on the occasion of a visit by Premier Tanaka of Japan. The demonstrations were directed at first against exploitation by Japanese and local Chinese capital but soon turned into an anti-establishment movement; troops and police suppressed the demonstrations with considerable force.

What economic development has occurred since 1965 has resulted to a large extent not only from foreign investment but from funds loaned by what is known informally as the Aid to Indonesia Club, one-third of whose capital is contributed by the United States government, one-third by the Japanese government, and one-third by other governments (especially the West German). Although very helpful, this aid has added significantly to the large foreign debt inherited from the pre-1945 period. A major bright spot on the economic horizon is the government oil monopoly, known as Pertamina, which sells licenses for petroleum extraction (mainly in Sumatra) to foreign enterprises and distributes refined fuels within Indonesia; it is well run, and its profits finance most of the military budget over and above housekeeping expenses.

Indonesia has always visualized itself as the major indigenous power, actual or potential, of Southeast Asia. In Sukarno’s time it tried to play up to this role rather actively, and after 1960 in close cooperation with Peking. Like Sukarno’s other policies, this one was substantially reversed after 1965 in favor of a low profile and a cautious approach, although Indonesia sees itself as intrinsically the leading member of ASEAN. The situation is complicated by the absence of any real external threat against which Indonesia can claim to provide leadership and protection, although Jakarta tries to cast Peking and the local Chinese in this role. Relations with Indonesia’s neighbors have improved considerably since the end of “Confrontation.” Post-1965 relations with the United States have been reasonably good; President Nixon visited Jakarta in 1969, and it was at American initiative that Indonesia was invited in 1973 to serve on the ICCS for South Vietnam. Relations with the Netherlands, which were very bad under Sukarno, have also improved, and Dutch capital and skills are now welcomed. As part of its general campaign of normalizing its foreign relations and competing with Soviet influence, Peking would like to establish diplomatic relations with Jakarta (they were broken off in 1967), as well as with the other ASEAN states. But for reasons already suggested Jakarta has been fairly cool to the idea, and Indonesia is likely to be the last of the ASEAN states to act on it.

The Emergence of Regionalism

The countries of Southeast Asia are so geographically divided, politically dissimilar, and economically competitive (i. e., similar) that the emergence of regional sentiment, regional organization, and regional cooperation has been a slow and tentative process. In the course of it, some regional organizations have fallen by the wayside. SEATO (the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization), which was formed by the United States in 1954, essentially to protect Thailand, has slowly disintegrated through the inactivity or withdrawal of France, Britain, Pakistan, and Australia. ASPAC (the Asian and Pacific Council), an Asia-wide anti-Communist organization whose moving spirits have been the Republic of Korea (South Korea) and the Republic of China (Taiwan) virtually collapsed in 1973 because some of its members wanted to expel Taiwan as an aid to improving relations with Peking.

Practically speaking, there remains only one functioning regional organization in Southeast Asia. Beginning with some very limited and tentative cooperation among Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand in the early 1960s, ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) was formally established in 1967, after the end of the “Confrontation,” through the inclusion of Malaysia and Singapore in addition to the three states already mentioned. Given the inherent obstacles, cooperation among the five members has grown slowly, but it has grown. ASEAN has survived, and there is at least a reasonable chance that it will prove viable and will continue to survive; whether it will ever become truly important is another matter. To date it has only a weak central organization, and no joint military headquarters or staff. Its main activities and achievements have been in the economic field; it has negotiated with some success with the industrial countries (especially the Common Market) for better prices for its primary products, and at the time of the oil crisis of late 1973 it persuaded Japan to limit its exports of synthetic rubber (which is produced from petroleum). It has tried to promote coordination among its members in collecting economic data and framing their economic plans. It coordinates the planning of (anti-Communist) counterinsurgency operations, especially in regions bisected by national boundaries (in particular Thailand-Malaysia and Indonesia-Malaysia). All this is not much, but it is something, and it is one reason for not accepting uncritically the notion that Southeast Asia is a “power vacuum” in which the major external powers can act as they please.

Interaction among the Major Powers

Enough is said in other chapters about the roles of the major powers in Southeast Asia so that this discussion can be brief.

Japan’s political influence and military power were of course eliminated from the region in 1945, have not returned since, and show no signs of returning in the near future, in spite of the rapid growth of Japanese trade and investment in the region in recent years.

Weakened by war although not defeated, Britain began to withdraw from the region, politically and militarily, in 1947. The process was accelerated after the end of the “Confrontation” in 1966 and was virtually completed (except for Hong Kong, which of course is not usually considered a part of Southeast Asia) in 1971.

After a decade or so of increasing political and military involvement in the affairs of the region (especially Indochina), the United States began in 1969 what looked likely to become a complete military disengagement (except perhaps for its bases in the Philippines). This has inevitably been reflected in a decline of American political influence, although by no means to zero. The United States still aspires to play a significant role in Southeast Asia, if only as a counterweight to the other major powers.

Australia has decided not to try to fill the partial vacuum created by British withdrawal and American disengagement. Nor does it have the resources to do so even if it wished. Australia’s military involvement in Malaysia and Vietnam, which was significant at one time, has been terminated, and there remains only a modest Australian military presence in Singapore. The Labor government of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, which came to power at the end of 1972, opposes overseas activity of this kind and is interested in improving its relations with Peking. Early in 1974, it granted at least formal independence to Papua New Guinea, which occupies the eastern half of that island and which until then had been controlled by Australia.

Soviet diplomatic, commercial, and naval activity in the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia have increased somewhat since about 1969, when Brezhnev announced his vague proposal for a “collective security” system in Asia as a means of enhancing Moscow’s influence and coping with Peking’s. But the process has not been a dramatic one, and there are serious geographic, cultural, and political obstacles in the way of significant progress in the future. China and the United States, on the whole, probably have capabilities for exercising influence in Southeast Asia that are superior to those of the Soviet Union; there are some local exceptions to this generalization, notably the case of North Vietnam.

For obvious geographic and cultural reasons, it would appear that if any power were in a position to “dominate” Southeast Asia it would be China. And in fact Peking probably entertains ambitions for ultimate pre-eminent influence in the region. But influence, even of the pre-eminent kind, is not the same thing as domination; the latter condition is almost certainly unattainable, and on the whole Peking behaves as if it is aware that this is so. Its power, prestige, dynamism, and diplomatic skill are in its favor, but it lacks military “reach,” is regarded with considerable suspicion by local elites (especially military elites), and is counterbalanced to a significant extent by the other major powers. At present it is preoccupied much less with any thought of “dominating” Southeast Asia than with coping and competing with the other major powers. This requires a policy of conciliating the regional governments, except for those in Saigon and Phnom Penh. That in turn requires a reduction of efforts by Peking to support local Communist insurgencies and manipulate local Chinese communities to roughly the minimum level acceptable to Peking’s radical Maoists; Burma appears to be an exception to this generalization. On the whole, Peking benefits from a widespread belief that China will always be a significant factor in the international politics of Asia, including Southeast Asia. Accordingly, there is a general, although not universal, tendency on the part of the regional governments to accommodate to Peking as the United States disengages.

Under the impact of American disengagement and the Sino-Soviet confrontation, Sino-American relations in Southeast Asia have become much less contentious than they once were. Peking wants at least passive American support against the Soviet Union, and it wants the United States not to reduce its military presence in Southeast Asia (and the rest of Asia with the possible exception of Taiwan) any further, at least in the near future, because such disengagement might create a “vacuum” that would be “filled” by the Soviet Union.

Soviet-American relations in Southeast Asia have developed along somewhat similar lines. The Soviet Union is anxious not to antagonize the United States to an extent that would be counterproductive in connection with the Sino-Soviet confrontation. Moscow does not want an American military withdrawal from Asia to occur under conditions that would benefit Peking. On the other hand, Southeast Asia is much less important to the Soviet-American relationship than it is to the Sino-American relationship, and Moscow can therefore afford to be somewhat more difficult with the United States over Southeast Asia (especially Indochina) than Peking can without seriously endangering the overall détente. This fact, as well as the Soviet Union’s superior ability as compared with China’s to supply heavy industrial and military equipment, goes far toward accounting for Moscow’s somewhat greater influence on Hanoi (as against Peking’s).

Ideological, political, and diplomatic rivalry between Peking and Moscow is at a high level in Southeast Asia, as elsewhere. Above all, China is determined to frustrate the Soviet design for some sort of “collective security” arrangement. In this Peking has been successful so far, largely because the regional states are reluctant to antagonize it by adhering openly to the Soviet proposal. Peking remains anxious on this score, however. Its action in driving South Vietnamese troops forcibly off the disputed Paracel Islands (in the South China Sea) in January 1974 was probably not motivated solely by territorial claims and the possibility that there is offshore oil near the islands. Soviet naval vessels had been in the vicinity of the Paracels shortly before the clash; if Saigon should make its claim to the islands good and then succumb to North Vietnam, Hanoi might decide to make the islands available to the Soviet Union as a base for the Soviet fleet, under the rubric of “collective security.”

In 1971 Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore declared the narrow Straits of Malacca to be their territorial waters. Although they are not yet in a position to deny passage to foreign naval or commercial vessels, this claim could be a problem for Japan, which gets most of its oil from the Middle East via the Straits of Malacca. There have been some vague proposals, including one by Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, that Japan strengthen its navy and patrol the straits, but this is very unlikely to happen unless the situation becomes much more serious than it is at present. The United States and the Soviet Union both continue, for naval and commercial reasons, to regard the straits as an international waterway; China, which so far has no naval presence and few commercial interests in the region, has endorsed the Indonesian-Malaysian-Singaporean position for the sake of improving its image in the region.

There does not appear to be much of a future in Southeast Asia for Soviet-style “collective security,” Malaysian-style “neutrality,” or Chinese “domination.” Except for the three non-Communist Indochinese governments, none of the regional governments is in serious danger of being overthrown from within (by a Communist revolution, at any rate), or coerced from without to an unmanageable degree. For this situation to change significantly, some dramatic development not now in prospect—and it is hard to imagine one—would have to occur. The probable outlook is for uneven but real progress by the regional states (again with the possible exception of the non-Communist Indochinese states) toward political stability and some degree of economic development, under cover of a mutual standoff or multipolar balance among the major powers.