Asia and the consequences of the Korean War

The outbreak of the Korean War had a profound effect on the development of the Cold War in Asia. The most obvious consequence was that it further exacerbated the divide between the PRC and the United States.

Republic of China (ROC) The official name for the government of China in Taiwan.

see Chapter 15

was viewed in Beijing as an unwarranted intervention in China's unfinished civil war. On the American side, its failure to appreciate the nationalist element in the Chinese Revolution led it to perceive the PRC as an unbalanced threat to the international order, which was perhaps even more dangerous, owing to its unpredictability, than the Soviet Union. Twenty years of mutual hostility were to follow.

see Chapter 14

South-East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO)

An alliance organized in 1954 by Australia, France, Great Britain, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand and the United States. SEATO was created after the Geneva conference on Indochina to prevent further communist gains in the region. However, it proved of little use in the Vietnam War and was disbanded in 1977.

In addition, the Korean War helped to polarize the continent into hostile alliance systems. On the communist side, the war brought the Soviet Union and the PRC closer together and encouraged the latter to expand its military assistance to the Viet Minh. In response, American fear of the Sino-Soviet bloc, particularly after the dramatic events of November/December 1950, led Washington to rationalize and expand its commitment to the region. In September 1951 the United States agreed to end the occupation of Japan, but in return forced the government in Tokyo to agree to limited rearmament and to sign a bilateral security treaty that guaranteed the United States unrestricted use of military bases on Japanese soil.

The American determination to contain the threat posed by communism was, however, to lead to serious problems, for it prompted the United States to adopt policies that in some ways only exacerbated the tense situation in the region. One important error was that in its effort to ensure political stability, Washington tended to tie its fortunes to the conservative forces within its client states, such as the Philippines, Thailand and what, in 1954, was to become South Vietnam. So important were these conservatives that they were able to resist American pressure to introduce progressive policies, such as land reform, that might have the effect of quelling internal discontent. The unfortunate result was that, with peasant grievances largely ignored, fertile breeding grounds remained within which communism could flourish. In addition, the focus on security rather than on developing prosperity for all led to much of the financial assistance to these regimes being in the form of military rather than economic aid. Thus, despite attempts by the Japanese to argue that a large-scale aid programme was needed for the region to fuel economic growth, the states of South-East Asia continued to rely on the extraction but not the processing of raw materials.

In addition, the American concentration on the Cold War above all other issues led to difficulties. The problems arose because the United States felt that the need to contain ‘Red China' was so self-evident that it found it hard to tolerate those who disagreed with its viewpoint.

the American obsession with the threat from communism seemed to have blinded it to the real causes of instability in Asia, namely the perpetuation of colonialism and its unwelcome progeny, neo-colonialism. Moreover, they resented the way in which their own relationships with Washington came to be defined by the Cold War. For example, in 1951 ill feeling was generated when the American Congress attempted to link urgently needed food aid for India to Nehru's neutralism. Meanwhile American-Indonesian relations were hurt in 1952 by a clumsy American attempt to make economic aid conditional on Jakarta taking an overtly pro-Western attitude in the Cold War.

neo-colonialism

The process whereby a colonial power grants juridical independence to a colony, but nevertheless maintains de facto political and economic control.

neutralism

The policy whereby a state publicly dissociates itself from becoming involved in Great Power conflicts. The first major advocate of the policy was Jawaharlal Nehru on behalf of post-independence India.

Another grievance was that America's narrow policy led to its being mani­pulated into intervening in regional disputes. The most notable example was Washington's increasingly close relations with Pakistan, which it viewed as playing an important role in the defence of the Middle East and South-East Asia. To Nehru, this reeked of naivety, for he was certain that Pakistan only sought access to American weaponry in order to strengthen its position vis-à-vis India. Concerned therefore that the emerging Cold War paradigm was a recipe for continued war and instability, leaders like Nehru and Sukarno sought to create an alternative international system, stressing neutrality from Great Power conflicts and a concentration on the fight against the perpetuation of colonialism in Asia and Africa.

see Chapter 13