Vietnam and Eastern Asia

Extract

Last March, the Inter-Asian Conference at New Delhi gave clear expression to the sympathy of Asia's peoples with Vietnam in its fight against colonial imperialism. And this was not just an empty gesture. The Hindu government has decided to place limits on the passage of French airplanes over India; and Indian longshoremen have refused to work for the revictualling of French troop transports.

There are those who will see an “Asiatic racism” in such manifestations as these. They will recall the Japanese propaganda for a “Greater Asia” which in fact would but have been an Asia dominated by Nipponese imperialism. The Inter-Asian Conference assumes an entirely different significance. It resumes the long-term trend which began in the first decade of this century, for the renovation of Asia by the democratic ideal of Western Europe.