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British Foreign Policy and Southern and Far Eastern Asia
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
Extract
The postwar course of British foreign policy in Southern and Far Eastern Asia was foreshadowed in September and October, 1945. Then, in compliance with a decision of the Potsdam Conference, British forces landed in Java to receive the surrender of the Japanese in the Dutch colonies. Though the British government recognized Dutch sovereignty over the colonies — its leaders had second thoughts after encountering the new Asia in Java. With Japanese support an Indonesian republic had been proclaimed. To enforce strictly the recognition of the Dutch claim would have required forces far more numerous than the British had at their disposal, and there were rumblings in India against the use of British Indian forces in restoring colonial government. Indonesian resistance in some areas revealed an intensity and determination that led the British government to decide that fighting might be formidable and dangerous. Thus, though Britain did not favor the raising of the Indonesian issue in the United Nations, for to do so was to have the United Nations intervene in a colonial dispute, Britain did favor negotiations between the Dutch authorities and the Indonesian leaders. In its first major confrontation with postwar Asian nationalism Britain sought to avoid commitment to serious military action and recognized the necessity of coming to terms with Asian nationalism and its leaders.
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References
1 Taylor, Alastair M., Indonesian Independence and the United Nations (Ithaca, 1960)Google Scholar.
2 Sir Robert Scott, replacing MacDonald in 1955, was made the representative of the Prime Minister rather than of the Colonial and Foreign Offices. Fifield, Russell H., The Diplomacy of Southeast Asia: 1945–1958 (New York, 1958), pp. 439–440. The Commissioner-General served as United Kingdom delegate to the SEATO Council of Representatives in BangkokGoogle Scholar.
3 The prominence of Australian initiative, notably that of External Affairs Minister, Percy C. Spender, in the inception of the Plan, is evidence of Australia's lively concern with the area. With Indonesia independent and British influence declining, as the war itself witnessed, Australia was alert to the necessity of changing policies including some modification of the White Australian policy and a closer association with the United States in the ANZUS Pact. Benham, F. C., The Colombo Plan and Other Essays (New York, 1956)Google Scholar.
4 ‘Fact Sheets on Colombo Plan,’ British Information Services, April, 1961, and speech of Bernard Braine, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, Commonwealth Survey, July 18, 1961.
5 Weekly Hansard, Commons, No. 141, col. 2231.
6 Interview with Frank Bourgholzer, May 18, 1951. Text issued by British Information Services.
7 Speech at Charlottesville, Virginia, July 6, 1953. Text issued by British Information Services.
8 In 1954 Eden said that the British Chargé d'Affaires had been only accorded a limited degree of recognition by the Chinese Government. Parliamentary Debates, Commons, Fifth Series, 524, col. 18. The Chinese Government did not appoint a Chargé d'Affaires in London until September 11, 1954. Although Britain had been prepared for an exchange of ambassadors in 1950, the Chinese Government indicated in 1954 ‘that they did not want to raise the status of representation to ambassadorial level.’ Prime Minister Macmillan, January 22, 1957, Commons Debates, Fifth Series, 563, cols. 6–7, Written Answers to Questions. On May 20, Foreign Secretary Eden announced that British firms had decided to leave China. The British losses were estimated as between £200,000,000 and £250,000,000. “It is clear that it is the deliberate policy of the Chinese Government to render it impossible for most British and foreign firms to remain in China and to force them to surrender their assets. The reduction in assets is mainly due to the Chinese authorities forcing British firms into debt by restrictions, regulations and taxes et cetera, so that they have been unable to carry on, and in order to be able to liquidate and leave China they have had to surrender all their assets to the Chinese authorities. Only a comparatively small part of the reduction in assets is due to direct expropriation and confiscation by the Chinese.” The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, the Marquess of Reading in Parliamentary Debates, Lords, October 20 1954 Fifth Series, 189, col. 504.
9 Department of State Bulletin, XXII (01 23, 1950), 115Google Scholar.
10 Higgins, Trumbull, Korea and the Fall of MacArthur (New York, 1960), p. 55Google Scholar. This British action was reluctantly taken as loyal support of an ally. The American policy was a response to domestic political pressure.
11 The debate was interrupted by news of the death of King George VI. Upon its resumption (Parliamentary Debates, Commons, Fifth Series, 497, cols. 951–1072) the Labour Party ingenuously challenged Churchill for not maintaining the continuity of British policy. Partisanship, thus, was to be confined to persons rather than to policy. The debates largely served to inflame Anglo-American suspicions and to humiliate the Labour leaders, for Churchill's defense removed the grounds of their charge and revealed their political tactics as unusually inept. Macmillan in closing for the Government described (col. 1064) the Labour motion of censure as “a little bit of fresh ground in that great contest which is the sort of big sporting event of the year — the battle for leadership of the Labour Party. We hope that one of these days the thing will be settled.” Aenurin Bevan disclaiming personal responsibility for Labour's commitments demanded the production of the papers cited by Churchill. This involved an attack on Churchill for parliamentary impropriety and an attempt to embarrass Labour's leaders. Finally, Bevan brought his view of the basic issue into the open, “the end of what may be described as bipartisan foreign policy in this country.” The Memoirs of Anthony Eden: Full Circle (Boston, 1960), pp. 18–22Google Scholar, does not mention Churchill's speech to Congress or the later incident. There is an amusing story about Churchill's speech in Acheson, Dean, Sketches from Life of Men I Have Known (New York, 1961), pp. 71–75Google Scholar.
12 In his memoirs Eden does not mention Eisenhower's initiative.
13 Parliamentary Debates, Commons, Fifth Series, 510, col. 1673, February 3, 1953.
14 Captain Waterhouse, a prominent Suez rebel, suggested that upon the admission of Red China the Security Council's name should be changed to the Insecurity Council. July 14, 1954, Parliamentary Debates, Commons, Fifth Series, 530, col. 511.
15 This policy formed an important basis for the recommendation of General Marshall in 1946, who had reported to Washington the confident belief of the Nationalist generals that the United States could be involved in China's civil war. Later, in 1958, Dean Acheson noted a similar Chinese intention. Referring to the argument that a Nationalist withdrawal from the offshore islands would be bad for Nationalist morale, a British editorial writer said if the Nationalists remained, they might be totally defeated. If the United States permitted a Nationalist delay and, later, their forces could not be removed, there might then be the choice between a more-resounding military defeat and a general war, neither likely to improve morale. As to the report of Admiral Radford's confidence in the strength of Nationalist and American forces, the writer recalled MacArthur's confidence in Korea. Manchester Guardian, April 7, 1955. In American eyes the British position often appeared to be that the Chinese Communists should not attack but that the area was not a place to take a major defensive stand.
16 A writer in Round Table recognizing that lines of demarcation were being drawn between the Communist and “free world” spheres, argued that “the interest of the Commonwealth is in establishing the widest possible belt of separation between the contending forces in the Formosa Strait.” XLV (1954–1955), 106Google Scholar.
17 See the excellent article by Tsou, Tang, “The Quemoy Imbroglio: Chiang Kai-Shek and the United States,” The Western Political Quarterly, XII (12, 1959), 1075–1091Google Scholar; the Labourite, Healey, Denis presents his view in “Formosa and the Western Alliance,” New Republic, 10 13, 1958, pp. 11–12Google Scholar; the Canadian proponent of Anglo-American unity, Gelber, Lionel gives his critical account in America in Britain's Place (New York, 1961), pp. 303–310Google Scholar. On Dulles see Drummond, Roscoe and Coblentz, Gaston, Duel at the Summit (Garden City, 1960), p. 128Google Scholar.
18 He was peculiarly unsuited for resolving the dilemma expressed in The Memoirs of Anthony Eden, p. 89: “Moderate nationalists were consequently forced to choose between a government which, though Communist, stood for independence, or a return to colonial rule.”
19 The Memoirs of Anthony Eden: Full Circle, p. 97.
20 Beal, John Robinson, John Foster Dulles (New York, 1957), p. 205Google Scholar. The ambiguity in American discussion of the proposed intervention is well revealed on pp. 207–8 of Beal's work. Dulles, he tells us, was not minded to wait for “engraved invitations before deciding what to do” with American “interests vitally at stake.” But, then, we are told that Dulles, also, agreed with Congressional leaders “that the United States should not undertake the bailout of the French alone.” Dulles did not think that air strikes would be sufficient but for ground fighting looked to local forces. This last point brought him up against British questions about the willingness and effectiveness of such forces.
21 The Memoirs of Anthony Eden, pp. 126–7. ‘I said that if they were so anxious to fight I could understand why they did not do so. The Americans had put in nine times more supplies of material than the Chinese, and plenty must be available for their use. I had no faith in this eagerness of the Vietnamese to fight for Bao Dai.’
22 Green, Fred, “The Impact of Military Factors on American Foreign Policy,” in Stephen Kertesz, D. (ed.), American Diplomacy in a New Era (Notre Dame, 1961), pp. 540–41Google Scholar. Green noted that massive retaliation, as used by Dulles, “placed a double burden on a weapon selected basically for defensive purposes.” “This diplomatic overcommitment of a military capability” caused much debate and misunderstanding ”of an attempt to turn temporary conditions, created by military priorities, to our political advantage.”
23 Champassak, Sisouk Na, Storm over Laos: A Contemporary History (New York, 1961), p. 169Google Scholar. On pp. 103–4, the author pays a notable compliment to the British Government for the energy and consistency with which British representatives have sought to maintain peace and stability in Laos.
24 The Guardian, March 30, 1961.
25 March 2, 1955. In Commonwealth Survey, March 23, 1955, p. 266.
26 “We have to look at the fixing of the frontier, not as the final solution of our dispute with Communism, but as a step to the attainment of tolerable relations. It may take a generation to stabilize this frontier in Asia, but all the time the objective, according to British thinking, will not be to prevent, but to regulate, intercourse across it.” It was important not to think of those beyond the line as Communists and irredeemable, but as people with whom one can come to terms. “For the chances of any durable world peace depend upon the prospect that sooner or later Communism will become a non-belligerent creed, and we must needs be alert to encourage any sign, however slight, of a development in that direction.” “Coexistence,” Round Table, XLIV (1953–1954), 324–5Google Scholar. The hope may be fully shared without accepting the rest of the position.
27 December 12, 1960, Parliamentary Debates, Commons, Fifth Series, 632, col. 97.