In thinking about the claims to independence of the large civilized nations of south and Southeast Asia, we are prone to forget or to ignore the fact that these regions also contain more than eighty million tribal minorities. These large minorities are not negligible quantities in the ethics of democracy; not even a single individual is of such trifling importance as to be brushed aside with the classical adage de minimis non curat praetor. Professor Robert M. Maclver has emphasized that, just as the human being is unable to unfold his potentialities without the protection and care of society, so society cannot attain its maximum development without granting to every individual every opportunity for full self-realization and individualization. The same is true, I think, also of minority groups.

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.

Three years of glorious revival for the Kuomintang followed Sun Yat-sen's death on March 12, 1925. Military success in the Northern Expedition transformed the embattled Cantonese Party of 1925 into the recognized national government of China. But the same period also brought about vicious squabbles over Party authority among Sun Yat-sen's disciples. Political infighting, insubordination, outright treachery, even murder, and a bewildering variety of political shenanigans shook the Party's very foundations. At the end of those three years, Chiang Kai-shek emerged in a permanent if precarious position of control of a Kuomintang that was shot through with persistent, if sometimes disguised, hatreds.

“Biography,” in the words of Hu Shih, “is the least developed branch of Chinese literature.” This statement would, at first sight, seem to have little justification when we take into account the enormous quantity and wide variety of Chinese biographical literature produced during the past two millennia, and when we consider the voluminous biographical output and the keen popular interest in biography in twentieth-century China.

The progress of India during the last fifty years in industrialization and urbanization, though considerable, has not significantly affected the predominantly agricultural and rural character of her society. Five out of every six persons live in villages and four out of every five of these live by agriculture. According to the census of 1951 there are 558,089 villages and 3,018 cities and towns in the Indian Union. Out of a total population of 357 millions, 295 millions or 83 percent live in villages and 62 millions or 17 percent in cities and towns.

When students of Japanese literary history view the latter part of the Tokugawa period, two developments stand out. First, Edo replaced Kyoto and Osaka as the center of cultural activity. Second, a baffling variety of forms of prose fiction arose. The former stemmed largely from the policies of Yoshimune, the eighth Tokugawa shogun. Although his suppression of “pernicious literature” had a baneful effect on publishing in Kyoto and Osaka, it indirectly improved the competitive position of Edo booksellers. During Yoshimune's reign, also, the city of Edo underwent enormous population growth. Many hatamoto and samurai were forced to resettle in Edo, where they lived on rice stipends rather than on the direct produce of their land. Bureaucracy expanded. Samurai turned from the rigors of rural life to polite urban pursuits. Need for additional services led to a growth in the number of merchants. Likewise, Yoshimune's personal interest in mathematics, science, and even Western learning resulted in the import of books and ideas from the outside world, particularly China. Proscriptions against foreign learning became less rigid.

IN this study Southeastern Asia is limited to the land area on the continent of Asia which is south of China and east of India. In particular it includes Burma, Thailand, Indo-China, and Malaya.

Nationalism has more than one connotation. Every people has a nationalism or a patriotism of some sort and perhaps always has had. However, in previous ages it was more the expression of a feeling of cultural, tribal or ethnic oneness. In modern times the word has acquired a political connotation so that it is possible to say that some peoples have developed a modern political nationalism and others have not.