University of Nebraska at Omaha DigitalCommons@UNO Student Work 12-1-1976 The United States and Malaya: 1945-1953 Joseph W. White II University of Nebraska at Omaha Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/studentwork Recommended Citation White, Joseph W. II, "The United States and Malaya: 1945-1953" (1976). Student Work. 425. https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/studentwork/425 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UNO. It has been accepted for inclusion in Student Work by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UNO. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE UNITED STATES AND MALAYA: 1945 - 1953 A Thesis Presented to the Department of History and the Faculty of the Graduate College University of Nebraska at Omaha In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts by Joseph W. White, II December 1976 UMI Number: EP73063 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI EP73063 Published by ProQuest LLC (2015). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProQuest' ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 THESIS ACCEPTANCE Accepted for the faculty of The Graduate College of the University of Nebraska at Omaha, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts. Graduate Committee l ) jJ U Tfg- AU&Z Name Department 1 ' Date ^ PREFACE Historical investigation is a self-justifying effort. The discovery of the forgotten event or a different view of a circumstance or condition contributes to the total body of knowledge and needs no further defense. However, in this instance, there is a benefit in briefly tracing the rumina­ tions that lead to this particular study. In short, the historical significance of the post-World War II American- Malayan relationship is hardly self-evident. The obvious questions: why this subject and wherein lies the value? The long, tortuous involvement of the United States of America in what can be called, in an extended sense, the Indochina Wars, has precipitated a fascination in the story of America's post-World War II involvement in Southeast Asia. In the main, the objective has been to fathom the root causes for the American travail of the Sixties and Seventies in Vietnam, Laos', and Cambodia. Understandably, the retrospective efforts proceed with a singleness of -'-The term, Southeast Asia, is used throughout in the contemporary context. It apparently first came into use during World War II; e.g., the creation of a South-East Asian Command (SEAC) in 1943. Prior to the war, the British commonly referred to the area as part of South Asia; Ameri­ cans usually spoke in terms of the Far East. reference and emphasis; the subcontinent, Southeast Asia, is viewed through the optics of Indochina. As a result, terms are often casually interchanged, adding to the concep­ tual muddle; Vietnam is Indochina i£ Southeast Asia. Rarely are Southeast Asia or a specific nation outside of Indochina subjects in themselves. Often obscured or ignored is the fact that in addition to Indochina, Southeast Asia is Burma, - i Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, an area of mainland and island inhabited by diverse people. However, the extra-Indochina American experience is often relegated to footnote status. The total region and its parts are treated only insofar as they are relevant to the American involvement in Indochina. This general observation suggested a question; does the American-Southeast Asia story change in its essentials when viewed from a vantage point other than Indochina? Assuming that the Indochina involvement was motivated, more or less, by a desire to halt the spread of Asian communism, the question can be asked another way. Does that motive explain American interest, influence, and actions elsewhere in Southeast Asia? Post-World War II British Malaya suggested itself as a subject for investigation for several reasons. First, the Malayan experience contains elements which presumably might have drawn American attention in view of the general thrusts of American foreign policy as it took shape during World War II, and as it evolved in the post-war period. For example, Malaya reverted to British colonial status in Sep­ tember 1945 at a time when an accepted tenet of American foreign policy favored progress toward independence for colonial peoples. Though Great Britain had made a commit­ ment in 1943 to the post-war preparation of Malaya for self- government, progress toward that goal was frustrated. The first step proved false; the plan for reorganizing Malaya into a union of states, initiated in October 1945, drew resistance from the very people the British had tradition­ ally sought to protect, the Malays. The second attempt at a "first step," the formation of the Federation of Malaya in 1948, was threatened within months by a savage, insurgent communist activism that threatened both the British attempt to set Malaya on the path of self-government, and the then fragile sense of Malayan nationalism so necessary to an achievement of home rule. By that time, the emphasis of American foreign policy had shifted from anticolonialism to anticommunism. This study suggests that, although American foreign policy addressed itself to both colonialism and communism, neither concern adequately explains the American interest or influence in regard to Malaya. Malaya's status as a British colonial possession was never seriously questioned by the United States; therefore, the preparation of Malaya iv for self-governing status and the task of meeting the com­ munist threat remained British responsibilities. However, America did have an interest; prewar Malaya had been the world's largest producer of natural rubber, a material needed by both consumer and defense industries. In 1942, with the closure of Southeast Asia by the Japanese, ninety per cent of the world's rubber-producing capacity had been cut off; more than half of that capacity lay within Malaya. Under the pressures of war, the United States Government built a giant synthetic rubber industry where none had pre­ viously existed, an industrial miracle often described as second only to the atom bomb. By 1945, America was produc­ ing rubber at a rate equal to the total prewar world capac­ ity. The implications for the future were obvious. The American rubber products manufacturing industry would have a national source of supply independent of all foreign areas and the American military would never again be threatened by the precipitous loss of a strategic material. On the other hand, British Malaya ,was economically dependent upon the world's rubber markets and America had historically constituted half of that market; therefore, the post-war recovery of Malaya, the progress toward self-government and, after 1948, the survival of Malaya in the rising tide of Asian communism would all depend to a large degree upon her ability to produce and market rubber. V The purpose of this study is twofold: (.1) to examine the American view of British Malaya at the end of World War II; and (2) to recount the post-war Malayan expe­ rience and search for the tracks of America's interest and influence. Evidence emerges that there were two American perceptions of Malaya. The first recognized Malaya as the largest producer of natural rubber* In this context, Malaya was at once the source of a critical commodity and a poten­ tial threat to an infant, strategic industry. The second perception hazily distinguished Malaya in the regional con­ text of Southeast Asia, an area beset with confused efforts to maintain the colonial systems, and communist efforts to subvert both the colonial systems and progress toward non­ communist systems of self-government. A question persists among students of America's Post-World War II foreign affairs: did the United States have a Far Eastern policy? Writing at the close of the Korean War, Edwin 0. Reischauer put the question in the form of challenge in his work, Wanted: An Asian Policy.^ ■ 1 Writing some twelve years later in the midst of deepening 2Edwin 0. Reischauer, Wanted: An Asian Policy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1955), pp. 181, 257. For example: Dr. Reischauer takes issue with both the absence of clear policy, and the bankruptcy of policy in evidence; e.g., the reluctance of the United States to take the lead in solving colonial problems as a matter of policy and the reluctance to provide economic aid versus military aid to Asian nations. vi American entanglement in Vietnam, Richard S. Kirkendall observed that although American post-World War II policy in Europe was clear, "... a similar clarity was not to be found regarding American interests in the Far East."J As a contribution toward an understanding of the condition, this study claims value. The selection of the end-date of the period under study requires some explanation. The year 1953 was chosen for reasons to be found in events, both in Malaya and the United States. By 1953, the British and Malayan forces under British leadership had turned the corner in the mili­ tary struggle to contain communist insurgency. Though the threat remained for years to come, the heat had gone out of what was termed with typical British reserve, "the Emer­ gency." In America, 1953 saw the end of the administration of President Harry S.