The Future of Western Dependencies in South Eastern Asia and the Pacific

Extract

The future of South Eastern Asia and the Philippines is one of the most complicated problems with which the peace settlement will have to grapple. There is a certain broad similarity between the countries concerned which is likely to be a trap for the unwary. It seems so simple to set up free and democratic governments, to equip and train citizen armies to defend their independence, and to raise the standard of living. It also seems reasonable to assume that if the 145,000,000 people of South Eastern Asia and the Philippines could be federated, their combined resources would go a long way towards enabling them to maintain their independence.

Unfortunately, deep-seated differences based on race, religion, and history are the dominating influences, and overshadow the similarities of strategic and economic weakness and lack of independence. Disunion bids fair to increase as a result of the nationalism which is beginning to appear. The Burmese regard themselves as a master race, and have an inflated sense of their own power and superiority because of their former conquests in Thailand and Assam. The Thais have something of the same feelings towards the Malays and the Cambodians of Indo-China. One reason why the Malays asked the British to establish a protectorate over the peninsula was to safeguard their independence against Thai ambitions. This fear and hostility have been strengthened by Thai annexation in 1943 of four of the nine Malay States, and a claim to most of the others. The Malays, Indonesians, and Filipinos come from the same racial stock, but so far as the latter are concerned, centuries of divergent development have made the differences more important than the similarity in racial characteristics which is noticeable among the three peoples.