Britain and regional cooperation in South-East Asia, 1945-49

Britain and Regional Cooperation in South-East Asia, 1945-49 traces plans by the British Foreign Office to establish an international regional system in South-East Asia, that would allow Britain to dominate the region politically, economically and militarily. Tilman Remme explores the changing emphasis of Britain's regional policies, from plans in 1945 for cooperation with other colonial powers to the aim of drawing India and other fledgling Asian states into a Singapore-based regional organisation. Dr. Remme examines the effects of nationalism and of the colonial wars in Vietnam and Indonesia, as well as competing regional initiatives by India, Australia and the United Nations which threatened British dominance in the region. He further shows how, after the Malayan Emergency of 1948, regional cooperation became Britain's key strategy to contain communism in Asia. . By tracing Britain's foreign policy initiatives, Tilman Remme puts the issues affecting South-East Asia in the postwar period into a wider context, discussing events in the light of the sudden Japanese defeat in the Second World War, the transfer of power in India, the communist struggle for supremacy in China, the development of Anglo-American relations in Asia and the beginnings of the Cold War.