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1 778 THE NEW STATES OF ASIA A Political Analysis by MICHAEL BRECHER LONDON OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW YORK TORONTO 1963 Oxford University Press, Amen House, London B.C.4 GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS KARACHI LAHORE DACCA CAPS TOWN SALISBURY NAIROBI IBADAN ACCRA KUALA LUMPUR HONO KONG Oxford Press (g) University 1963 Printed in Great Britain by Richard Clay and Company, Ltd. Bungay, Suffol\ To LEORA, DIANA, and SEEGLA whose generation must not be indifferent to the fate of Asia and her peoples INTRODUCTION ASIA has various meanings. To some it is a geographical expression, the and largest most populous of the continents. And so it is, with 17 million miles square and if billion people, covering one-third of the earth's surface and nearly two-thirds of mankind. Other think of people Asia as the home of the great religions. This image, too, is well-grounded in fact, as revealed by a glance around the 'Rimland'. From South-West Asia, better known as the Near or East Middle East, came Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. India gave the world Hinduism and Buddhism, while China contributed a Confucianism, really philosophy with the power of religion, and Japan added Shinto. No wonder that Westerners talk about the mystical and spiritual East. If one adds to the list such faiths as Zoroastrianism, the religion of the Persians before the coming of Islam, Sikhism and Jainism in India, Taoism in China, and Lamaism, a form of Buddhism in High Asia, along with a host of less sophisticated beliefs, the spiritual image becomes almost a self- evident truth. Asia also suggests an area of coloured peoples. This too is accurate, although there is no such thing as an Asian 'racial type', except in the minds of special pleaders. All of the races of man are found there and most of the sub-races. There are Caucasians and Negroes and Mongolians. There are Aryans and Dravidians. There are white-skinned and brown and black and yellow and various shades of each. Millennia of migration and mixture have produced a milange of physical types. An important feature of Asia, perhaps the most crucial in the struggle for the minds of men, is its intense poverty and under- devdopment. Statistics often conceal important truths but not so in this case. One illustration conveys the magnitude of Asian poverty. In 1950 the annual per capita income in North America was $1,100. For Europe it was $380 and for Latin America $170. Then for came another sharp dip for Africa, $75, and finally, Asia, $50. is three earth an aver- That to say, two out of every persons on had stimulated age yearly income of $50! That fact, among others, has the great contest for the friendship of Asia. V1U INTRODUCTION lands of Asia can be The grim poverty that stalks the only partly record itself is portrayed by words and statistics. Yet the dramatic enough to convey the image. Hundreds of thousands make their 'homes' on the streets of her overcrowded cities. The slums of Calcutta and Singapore are among the foulest in the world. Millions suffer from malnutrition; the average daily consumption per person in 1958 was 2,070 calories, less than the minimum required for health; in Europe and North America it was more than 3,000, and even in Africa it was almost 2,400. The average per capita annual income today is about $60 or about 17 cents a day, and this must cover all expenses food, clothing, shelter, medicines, and education. Millions of landless labourers have, at most, half that income. is for life in the If life in the city a perpetual struggle survival, village is devoid of material comfort for all but a few. The typical peasant home is a windowless mud hut with a few cooking utensils and a string cot. It is almost always dark; less than i per cent of streets are Asia's villages have electricity. Few village paved and sewage disposal is rare. Sanitation in the village is abominable. Famine takes its toll periodically and malnutrition saps the strength of the majority. Most Asians eat only twice a day. Few get meat, fish, eggs, or fruity certainly not in sufficient quantities. The result has been a very high death rate and the lowest life expectancy in the world; in India it was 32 years in 1941-51, raised to 47-5 by 1961. Another image of Asia prevalent in the West was coloijial rule, Western rule, white rule. A map of Asia in 1939, on the eve of the war, showed virtually the entire continent under British, French, Dutch, or American control. In South and East Asia only Japan was fully sovereign, with China in the throes of long-term civil war and Thailand holding on to a precarious independence. War is often a catalyst to political change. The Second World War provides a dramatic example. Within five years of its conclu- sion Pakistan, India, Ceylon, Burma, the Philippines, and Indo- nesia had joined the community of independent states. The nations of Indo-China were added in 1954 and Malaya in 1957. The age of colonialism in Asia had virtually come to an end. Asia did not cease to be important nor did it vanish from the news. During the past fifteen years it has occupied a key role in world affairs. A few examples will suffice : the struggle between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, including military hostilities in 1947-48; fre- quent civil war in Indonesia; widespread rebellion of communists in INTRODUCTION IX and the Burma Malaya; Korean War from 1950 to 1953; protracted war between France and the Viet Minh culminating in the Geneva Conference on Indo-China in 1954; periodic tension over the off- shore islands of China with threats and counter-threats from Peking and Taipeh, and from Moscow and Washington; the Tibet uprising of 1959; and frontier skirmishes between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Geneva Conference on Laos in 1961-62 and the Sino-Indian border war on the 'Roof of the World' demonstrated once more that Asia is a of region turmoil and travail, and of rivalry among out- side Powers. are There deep urges in these lands of transition : the urge for social welfare and economic change, for better health and housing and education; the desire for recognition by non-Asians, respect for their cultures, and, most important, for their right to seek the 'good society' without foreign interference or control. Among the leaders and middle class there is a demand for equality of status, compensa- tion for the long night of alien rule. Asia is important for all these reasons: because it is the largest and most populous of the earth's continents; because it has created High Cultures of lasting value; because the human family is repre- sented in all its diverse creeds and colours and physical features; be- cause it is a region of colonial rule recently emerged as politically independent; because this provides a great challenge to former rulers and ruled alike to create a new and more healthy relationship of co-operation and respect. Asia is significant, too, because it is the its are Achilles Heel of a future world society. As long as millions as poor and hungry, illiterate and easily struck down by disease, long as this is in glaring contrast with the more fortunate peoples of Europe and America, Asia will remain a focal point of tension and a danger. Temptations from without and expectations within can lead to serious conflicts from which no one would be immune. Asia was virtually ignored in the West before 1945. The reasons are not difficult to find. Most Asian countries were objects not sub- until the late that is to jects of political behaviour 1940$; say, they were appendages of European or American Powers, economically, did not their politically, and strategically; they shape own destiny and so could be safely ignored. Their cultures were alien and com- of South East Asia had no relevance to plex. The religions and Western thought and experience. Their languages were not essential to their for Western peoples and were difficult master. And X INTRODUCTION customs were without any bearing on Western modes of life. Still another source of our ignorance was the lack of communications, apart from colonial officials, a few businessmen, journalists, and tourists. Awareness of Asia has grown in the past decade, largely under the as a impact of events. Much has been written about Asia a whole or of life in one or more countries. As a re- specific region or an aspect and the sult, our knowledge has been enriched, following pages duly acknowledge my indebtedness to many researchers in this field. If there is any distinctiveness in the present volume it is the focus, the 'new states' of Southern Asia. There is an attempt to combine breadth, an area extending from Pakistan to Indonesia, is devoted to a 'new state' with political analysis in depth. One essay outside this region, Israel, but this too concerns relationships within the community of newly-independent states. There is, necessarily, some overlapping, both to 'old* states in Asia and 'new states' else- the where. But for the most part these political essays deal with states of Southern Ask which have become independent since the Second World War. The rationale is the conviction that the future of all peoples is bound up with the course of events in those lands. These essays, now slightly revised, were written during 1961 and 1962. The first two, dealing with the colonial epoch and its impact, and the arduous quest for internal political stability, were, in their original form, research papers prepared for the National Film Board of Canada.