No imperial power, from the Maurya in the fourth and third centuries B.C., to the British in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries A.D., could really simplify the political geography of the Indie world from the Himalaya to the sea, from the Hindukush to the Brahmaputra. At some stage of their growth and expansion, every great, or imperial, power in this vast land of diverse peoples found it necessary to reconcile themselves to the separate existence of numerous units of polity in various degrees of subordination and dependence to superior powers.

Chinese state and society underwent a profound change in the Former Han period. During the early years of the Former Han the exact nature of state and society was by no means clear, but by the end of this period, the broad outlines of the imperial system had been established for all subsequent Chinese history. The Ch'in Dynasty had indicated one direction, but its collapse had revived many of those elements present at the end of the third century B.C. which could logically have developed into a limited open society.

Perhaps no other area of comparable size presents such geographical, racial, climatic, political, linguistic and economic complexities as are found in Southeast Asia. This region may be delimited roughly as a parallelogram extending southeastward from the Burma-Assam-Sikang frontier through Burma, Thailand, and Indochina and including part of Yunnan and all of the Malay peninsula with the adjacent islands. Those who prefer their geography in circles may think of Southeast Asia as the mainland and peripheral islands embraced within a circle having Bangkok as a focus with a radius of 1000 miles; i.e. from Singapore to Fort Hertz and from Brunei to Chitta-gong.

The Major steps taken in the settlement of the Indonesian dispute on November 1, 1949, at the Hague and the subsequent transformation of the East Indian Archipelago into a modern national state have thrown into even sharper focus the recent significant changes in the political constitution of the once great colonial powers. The solution of the Indonesian problem has in no small measure been based on a recognition of the mutual economic and cultural interdependence of the two disputants. With this recognition the political factors of the problem have lost much of their controversial nature. The future of the Netherlands Commonwealth, on the basis of a harmonious co-operation in the realms of trade, agriculture, industry, and cultural exchange between the various partners, seems assured. Although the period of armed conflict between Indonesians and Dutch would justify the assumption that the Dutch wished to continue exclusive political control over the Indies it now seems that Dutch recognition of Indonesian national sovereignty might eliminate any lingering suspicion in the minds of Indonesian nationalists. The question of political liberty, once regarded, even by the United Nations mediators, as the nub of a possible settlement of the conflict has lost much if not all of its meaning. Colonial sovereignty, and all that it entails, has now come to an end.