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The relationship between Southeast Asia and the United States: a contemporary analysis
Social Research, Winter, 2005 by Chandra Muzaffar

SOUTHEAST ASIA EXHIBITS TREMENDOUS CULTURAL AND RELIGIOUS diversity; all the major religions of the world can be found in the region. It is also marked by vast economic disparities. At one end of the spectrum is Singapore, which has a standard of living higher than that of Spain or Portugal. At the other end are countries like Laos and Burma (Myanmar), which are desperately poor. There is also a great deal of variety in the types of political systems that characterize the region. The Philippines is a democracy, the Republic of Vietnam a one-party state, and Brunei a semi-feudal monarchy. Yet all these countries are part of a regional grouping called ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which was founded in 1967. It is the second most important and the most viable regional grouping in the world after the European Union.

That is the backdrop to a region with which the United States has had a long and complex relationship. In the distant past, America's interaction with the region was confined largely to the Philippines, which among the countries of Southeast Asia has had the longest ties with the United States. It was colonized by the United States after the American-Spanish War, at the end of the nineteenth century. The conquest and subjugation of the archipelago cost tens of thousands of Filipino lives, a figure not often reported in history books. It was a bloody, brutal massacre. The United States brought democracy to the Philippines, but it reinforced the huge economic and social iniquities that were already entrenched from the Spanish colonial era. The new colonial power further emasculated indigenous Filipino cultures.
There is an interesting twist to the story of how Washington decided to annex the Philippines to its nascent empire. It was a very difficult decision for the president at that time, William McKinley, to make. And he, like another president we know today, consulted God. It was after his "conversation" with God that he decided that he must liberate the people of the Philippines, enlighten those poor souls. So American presidents every now and then have this habit of consulting God. And very often, they come up with the wrong answers, which leads us to conclude that God could not have advised them!

To examine the relationship between the United States and Southeast Asia after the end of colonialism, the postcolonial era may be divided into five periods: the first from 1945 to 1961; the second from 1961 to 1975; the third from 1975 to 1997; the fourth from 1997 to 2003; and the fifth and final period from 2003 to the present. The year 1945 is important because that is when Indonesia, Southeast Asia's most populous and most important nation, proclaimed its independence and the United States endorsed its independence. Nineteen sixty-one is important because it marks the year in which the US first became politically involved with Vietnam, and 1975 is the year the Vietnam War came to an end with Vietnam's victory over the United States. A major financial crisis hit Southeast Asia in 1997 and several Southeast Asian nations became critical of Washington's economic role in the region. In 2003, the United States invaded Iraq and perceptions of America began to change within a significant segment of Southeast Asian society.

FROM 1945 TO 1961

For Southeast Asians, the major concern during the first period of the relationship was decolonization: freeing their countries from the colonial yoke, establishing independent states, and seeking sovereignty. There were two high points in this period. The Vietnamese defeated the French, a major colonial power, at the famous battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Their victory resonated throughout the region, and is mainly credited to Ho Chi Minh, the illustrious nationalist who brought a measure of pride to Vietnam and Southeast Asia.

The other name that stands out in Southeast Asian history, which was made memorable in 1955, is Bandung. In that year Bandung, Indonesia's city of flowers, played host to the leaders of Asia and Africa seeking liberation from colonial rule. At the time, parts of Asia and much of Africa were still under Western colonial rule, though the colonial era, it was obvious, was coming to an end. Bandung was the rallying point. It brought together some of the giants of the two continents, such as President Sukarno of Indonesia, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Prime Minister Zhou Enlai of China, President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, and the nationalist leader from Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah. They adopted five principles known as the "Pancha Sila," which focused on encouraging national sovereignty and independence, social justice, mutual cooperation, and noninterference in each other's affairs.

What was Washington's relationship with Southeast Asia from 1945 to 19602 For the United States, the major concern in Southeast Asia was stemming the communist tide. China had undergone a Communist Revolution in 1949, and the Korean War, which raged from 1950 to 1953, had resulted in the establishment of a communist North Korea. Policymakers in Washington were consumed by their fear of communism spreading to Southeast Asia. They wanted to "protect" Southeast Asia from this "evil ideology," so the United States set up a military alliance called SEATO, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, which included some countries in the region under its protective umbrella. At the same time, the US forged informal alliances with other countries in the region. But it is important to remember that Washington at that time did not directly challenge the nationalistic aspirations of people in the region. In fact, the United States backed Indonesia in its attempt to free itself from Dutch rule in 1945, and it supported Egypt against Britain, France, and Israel in 1956 during the Suez crisis.
BETWEEN 1961 AND 1975

It was during this period that the obsession with curbing communism culminated in US policymakers fighting a genuine nationalist movement in Vietnam. Washington interpreted the attempt by the Communist party of Vietnam to unite the whole of Vietnam--because South Vietnam was not part of liberated Vietnam at that time--as the spread of the contagion of communism. It had to be stopped. But the United States made a fatal mistake: it became involved in a war against a nationalist movement. Ho Chi Minh was basically a nationalist who had no deep relationship with communist ideology. The United States, however, did not understand this, and it grew embroiled in a war that went on and on for a decade and a half, eight years of which saw the United States locked in active combat against a people who were seeking reunification through liberation. The Vietnamese rightly viewed the United States as an imperial power, bent on subduing them and occupying their land. They paid a heavy price for defending their freedom. Three million Vietnamese were killed. The US armed forces used napalm and the herbicide Agent Orange against a largely impoverished and militarily ill-equipped people. Of course, about 60,000 American soldiers also died in the war.

For the Vietnamese, and for Southeast Asia, the resistance of the Vietnamese people and their eventual victory were two of the most important revolutions in the history of the region. This was the first time that a nation, a small nation, comprised of the "little men and women in black pajamas," as they were called, had defeated the greatest military power on earth. It was because of the sheer grit and tenacity of the Vietnamese--they refused to be occupied and subjugated--that they emerged victorious.
The Vietnam debacle was not the only major error that Washington committed in the period under review. Washington was also involved in the tumult in Indonesia. The United States believed that there was going to be a coup in Indonesia in 1965--that the communists who were allied to the nationalists under President Sukarno were going to seize power, use Sukarno's patronage, and assert their authority over the nation. Now we know that there was no plan for a communist coup. Those who were planning a coup were actually pro-US generals, which is why the right wing coup of 1965 brought to power an army general, Suharto. He established a dictatorship that lasted for the next 32 years--a dictatorship that, for the most part, was supported by the United States. It was oppressive; it was authoritarian; it was corrupt. But it also brought about some positive changes for the Indonesian people: agricultural productivity increased, absolute poverty was reduced significantly, and family planning programs achieved some success.

AFTER VIETNAM: 1975 TO 1997

After its ignominious defeat in Vietnam in 1975, the United States, as Americans know, did not dare to occupy other lands in Southeast Asia but it continued with its policy of ensuring that governments in the region were sympathetic to US occupation--that is, that they supported the global capitalism helmed by Washington and the geopolitical interests that the superpower represented. In Southeast Asia, Washington had succeeded in installing the Suharto regime. But it had installed similar regimes in other parts of Southeast Asia that had lasted for much longer. One of these was, of course, its former colony, the Philippines.
Washington's man in the Philippines during this period was President Ferdinand Marcos. Close to the United States, Marcos set aside the Philippines' democratic constitution in 1972 and ruled by decree. His friends in Washington had no qualms about continuing to support him. Neither his corruption nor his crony capitalism bothered them. The Filipino people, however, were opposed to Marcos. A popular revolt in 1986 led to the dictator's overthrow. Parts of the mass movement that grew out of the uprising demanded the closure of American bases--Clark Air Base and the Subic Naval Base--in the Philippines, the predictable result of operating through a client regime. When the regime becomes unpopular, Washington has to pay the price. Of course the Aquino government that succeeded the Marcos regime was also close to the United States. But it could not tilt too much toward Washington because there was at the popular level some commitment to a less subservient, more independent foreign policy. This has waned since the 1980s partly because of schisms within the progressive forces but also because of the tendency of the elite stratum of Filipino society to gravitate toward the United States.

The Philippines and Indonesia were not the only Southeast Asian states that were pro-Washington during this period. Since the early 1970s, the Singapore leadership had consciously sought to develop a close relationship with Washington, which was motivated to a great extent by economic and security considerations. Brunei was another US ally. So was Thailand, which for decades had remained within the sphere of US influence. Malaysia was also a friend of the United States. Washington had massive investments in the Malaysian economy and the two countries enjoyed a vibrant trade relationship, even in security matters: Malaysia had entered into an agreement with the United States in 1984 that allowed the two nations to undertake joint military exercises and provided Malaysian port facilities to US warships. However, what made Malaysia different from some of the other Southeast Asian states was the readiness of its prime minister in the eighties and nineties, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, to criticize various aspects of US foreign policy, especially in relation to Palestine, Iraq, and Bosnia.

Unlike Malaysia, Thailand, Brunei, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines, Vietnam adopted a lukewarm attitude to the United States through the eighties and early part of the nineties, though it had begun to embark upon some market reforms and was seeking to integrate into the global capitalist economy. Laos, another small communist state, was much more wedded to a command economy and made no attempt to interact with Washington. Likewise, Cambodia, which was under the influence of Vietnam from the late seventies into the eighties, had little to do with Washington. It will be recalled that Vietnam had in fact invaded Cambodia in 1978 to "liberate" the people from the clutches of the murderous Khmer Rouge. Burma (Myanmar) also chose not to link itself to the United States. In fact, the military junta in power in Rangoon (Yangon) angered and alienated not just the United States but most other nations by refusing to allow the party that had won a general election in 1990 from assuming the mantle of authority. The leader of the National League for Democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi, who remains under house arrest, has become the symbol of the struggle of the people of Burma for freedom and dignity.
This slight shift in attitude should not, however, be interpreted as a sign of a radical change in Southeast Asia's relationship with the United States. At the end of the period under review, the United States remained the major external actor in the region. As the world's sole superpower, the United States is in a position to flex its muscles everywhere and anywhere. This explains to some extent why even its one time adversary, Vietnam, has chosen to adjust to the realities of a unipolar world.

FROM 2003 TO THE PRESENT

Those realities became even more stark, and somber, when considered along with the American invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, carried out in tandem with the British. The governments of Indonesia and Malaysia, like the governments of Vietnam, Laos, and Burma, were opposed to this Anglo-American act of aggression, while the governments of Singapore, the Philippines, and Thailand supported the illegal war. From what we know, Brunei and Cambodia did not take public positions on the issue.

However, it was at the level of the citizenry that opposition to the invasion was more vocal and organized. Muslims, not only in Indonesia and Malaysia but also in countries such as the Philippines and Thailand, where they are a minority, protested.
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So did Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Confucians, and those without any particular religious affiliation, all over Southeast Asia. Like people in other parts of the world, Southeast Asians felt that the American invasion of Iraq was contrived and concocted to enable Washington to gain control over the world's second largest oil reserves. They knew that it was a part of the invaders' drive for global domination and control. For many people in the region, since the UN had not sanctioned the war, it lacked both moral legitimacy and legal validity.

The Muslims in Southeast Asia had an added reason to oppose the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. The occupation of Iraq was a grim reminder of the Israeli occupation of Palestine since 1948. This is why in many of the demonstrations and public rallies held in Indonesian and Malaysian cities prior to the March 2003 invasion, the tragedy of the subjugation and oppression of the Palestinian people was often emblazoned across banners and buntings. It is partly because of the injustice done to the Palestinians--for which Muslims hold the United States responsible, given the latter's unabashed, unalloyed bias toward Israel--that the invasion of Iraq has inflamed Muslim passions throughout the world.

This anger and outrage explains to some degree the emergence of fringe groups in Indonesia, in particular those that have chosen to resort to violence and terror in order to achieve their political agenda, which includes overcoming what they perceive as the "Anglo-American Zionist" global hegemony. Of course, the situation in Indonesia itself--mass unemployment and social dislocation in the wake of the collapse of the Suharto regime in 1998--has also been a contributing factor. But it is important to emphasize that the overwhelming majority of Indonesians has vehemently rejected political violence in all forms. This is borne out by the fact that in every election since 1998, political parties that have adopted an uncompromising stand against violence and terror have been the biggest winners. Besides, Muslim mass movements in Indonesia with millions and millions of members, such as the Nahdatul Ulama and the Muhammadiyah, have openly denounced terrorist groups and their leaders.
It is all too apparent from our analysis that the occupation of Iraq, exacerbated by episodes such as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, has had a profound effect on the consciousness of a significant segment of the Southeast Asian populace, especially its Muslim component (Muslims are the largest religious community in the region, accounting for some 250 million of its 550 million people). At the popular level there is today a much more critical attitude toward the United States than there has been at any time in the past. By way of comparison, the anger generated by US aggression toward Vietnam in the sixties and early seventies was not as widespread in Southeast Asia.

CONCLUSION

The history of the postcolonial relationship between Southeast Asia and the United States reveals that when Washington acts aggressively against a sovereign nation or occupies someone else's land, whether within or without the region, its image suffers badly. Similarly, if some action or policy of the superpower is perceived as being severely detrimental to the national interest, it is likely that the ruling elite will stand up. American bases in the Philippines in the context of the popular uprising against Marcos, and the stand of the Malaysian leadership vis-a-vis the IMF and the Washington Consensus during the 1997 financial crisis, are two outstanding examples. Otherwise, Southeast Asian elites and peoples, on the whole, are quite happy to maintain harmonious ties with the United States.
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