In 1945 to all appearances the Western nations
once more dominated the world, including all of
Asia. They had between them at their wartime
conference mapped out the global distribution of
power. They could display awesome military
power on land, on sea and in the air and their
technological superiority had been revealed at its
most ruthless in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The
once invincible Japanese had been humbled and
crushed and had become subject to American
rule. So in 1945 why should the Europeans not
regain their old colonies in Asia? Britain chose not
to maintain its imperial role in the Indian sub-
continent while resuming its control of Malaya
and Hong Kong. The Dutch, with British help,
intended to regain the Dutch East Indies, and the
French to regain Indo-China. But the peoples of
Asia were not simply waiting to welcome back
their old masters. Everywhere there were political
movements demanding independence and ready
to fight for it, generally under leadership inspired
by Marxist ideologies. The Europeans would have
to use force to regain colonial mastery.
In 1945, the Cold War had not yet become
the decisive influence on the shaping of Western
policies. The Soviet Union was not then the most
formidable opponent of British, French and
Dutch colonial policies: at most, it gave ideolog-
ical support to nationalist movements. It was the
US that opposed European colonialism.
The Second World War shattered the image of
Western superiority in Asia. Within one decadefrom 1945 to 1955, nearly all the Western
colonies and territorial empires were transformed.
The Philippines gained independence in 1946,
India in 1947, Ceylon and Burma the following
year; in 1949 the Netherlands relinquished its
300-year rule over the Dutch East Indies; the
French were defeated in Indo-China in 1954; and
the British granted independence to Malaya in- The most far-reaching transformation
occurred on the mainland of eastern Asia, in
China. The era of Chinese disintegration came to
an end with the communist victory of 1949.
During the four decades that followed, China
successfully asserted its independence from
Western controls. This pattern of enormous
change emerged during the first four critical years
following the Second World War. The first short
phase lasted for just a few weeks, from the col-
lapse of Japanese power until the British and
American military commands were able to send
troops; the Americans to the Philippines and
Korea, the British to Malaya, to ‘French’ Indo-
China and to the Dutch East Indies. During the
brief interval before the troops arrived, the south-
east Asian countries were still subject to the
uncertain Japanese military. A variety of indigen-
ous nationalist and socialist factions competed for
power. Their goal was independence, but they
had to decide what tactics to adopt towards the
expected Western military reoccupation. The
reoccupation, which opens a new phase, was
nowhere seriously resisted at first. The hope that
(^1) Chapter 33
THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE
THE PHILIPPINES, MALAYA, INDONESIA AND
INDO-CHINA