of the defeat of colonial regimes by the Japanese, then of the power
vacuum left by the Japanese surrender, to seize the political initiative
and mobilise popular support. Throughout the region, the struggle for
independence was underway, a struggle that would absorb all the
energies of political elites. Not until independence was achieved
would they face the task of forging new relations with what by then
would be a very different China.
Nationalist China had little time to enjoy its new international
prominence. The defeat of Japan had been in the Pacific, not in
China. Though Nationalist armies and communist guerrillas had tied
down large numbers of Japanese troops, Japanese forces in China still
remained largely intact. Japan’s surrender and withdrawal set the stage
for China to plunge back into civil war. As Nationalist and communist
forces fought for supremacy over the next four years, there was little
time to devote to, and little interest in, building relations with emerg-
ing independence movements in Southeast Asia. Contacts were
primarily with overseas Chinese communities among whom the prop-
aganda war between Nationalists and communists was intense.
Communism was not just a force in China. Throughout South-
east Asia communists had been among the most resolute and
courageous opponents of the Japanese. Where nationalist elites had
opportunistically taken advantage of the demise of colonial regimes to
further their goal of independence, even if this meant cooperating
with the Japanese (as in Burma and Indonesia), communists (at least
after Germany invaded the Soviet Union) had done all they could to
assist the anti-fascist cause. At war’s end nowhere—even in
Vietnam—could communists claim majority support, but they did
wield considerable political, and even military, power. The challenge
they posed to social democratic national independence movements
was considerable.
In both the Philippines and Burma, the first two former colonies
to gain independence, communist movements took up arms against
governments to which independence had been ceded without armed
The changing world order