to root out the Huk militia in central Luzon
Island. The Huk responded with an all-out
armed rebellion in 1948, their supporters nearly
200,000 strong. In 1949 they were joined by the
Philippine Communist Party and set up a provi-
sional revolutionary government. The struggle
went on for years; by 1954 they were worn down
and superior government forces crushed them.
The government had also won some of the peas-
ants away from supporting the rebels by offers of
land and resettlement in protected villages.
In the US, by then, the Huk were identified
as forming part of the worldwide communist con-
spiracy of subversion in Asia, rather than as an
extreme socialist–communist Filipino movement
resorting to terrorist tactics and deriving their
support from the economic condition of landless
peasants. Communist international support was
negligible. The chief victims of Huk recruitment
and terrorism and of government reprisals were
the peasants caught in the nutcracker of Huk
guerrillas, the landlords and the government.
In 1946 the US granted formal independence to
the Philippines, but it came with strings attached.
The US required that 100 locations should be
reserved for US military bases and leased for
ninety-nine years, though in 1959 this was
reduced to twenty-five. The US constructed two
great naval bases, an airbase and a rest camp,
which formed a key to US security planning in
the Pacific until the 1990s. The US–Philippine
defence agreement, their alliances and the pres-
ence of the bases with thousands of US person-
nel were regarded by Filipino nationalists as
giving them a semi-colonial status. The US did
not hold itself aloof from internal politics either.
Special economic rights for American business-
men were also secured, and all these conditions
were linked to large-scale US aid and privileged
access to the US market.
The Philippine government has introduced
limited land reforms since 1954 but has rejected
socialism. The landlord–tenant relationship was
upheld, but the harshness of landlord exploitation
was somewhat limited. With American support
the Filipino ruling groups retained power. They,
in turn, were not anxious to cut the connection
with the Americans. The US has suffered from
being identified with the wealthy and corrupt
ruling circles amid widespread poverty. Despite a
large amount of US financial aid intended to
restore the war-shattered Philippines and to help
the peasants and the urban poor, little recon-
struction was undertaken and the majority of the
poor did not benefit: the wealthy Filipinos lined
their own pockets. The continuation of distress
among the peasantry provided the seedbed that
nourished the Huk movement.
The diversity of American objectives in what
had virtually been a colony could not be recon-
ciled satisfactorily: to grant independence, to pre-
vent a communist–socialist alliance from attaining
power by the ballot box or arms, to ensure gen-
uine basic economic reforms, to provide for the
global security interests of the US in Asia, and to
find friendly and reliable partners among the
Filipino political leadership. The US, as a result,
strengthened the few who exploited the weak and
was blamed for their corruption. But US policy
was overshadowed, especially after 1950, by one
aim: to stem the advance of communism in Asia.
This was seen primarily not as an internal Asian
problem. The overriding objective was to create a
defensive Asian block against the external enemy,
the Soviet Union, and its ally, communist China.
In pursuit of this aim, the US felt its options were
limited to supporting political leaders it would not
otherwise have backed. It also led the US, despite
its earlier disapproval, into a policy of backing the
French, who sought to restore their colonial
empire in Indo-China.
Of all the attempts by European nations to
reclaim their former empires in south-east Asia, it
looked as if Britain’s return to the Malayan penin-
sula and Singapore would be the least trouble-
some. During the war the most active resistance
to the Japanese had been mounted by the
Chinese in Malaya, the majority of whom identi-
fied themselves with the communist leadership of
the Malay Communist Party; the party was, in
fact, almost totally composed of Chinese immi-
grants to Malaya. The Allies had supported them
during the war and, afterwards, had recognised
their contribution. They alone among the three
races in Malaya had actively fought against the
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