ment, businessmen and technologists are welcome
in Australia. Australians can no longer look to
Britain to safeguard its security in Asia but must
rely on its own relations with post-colonial Asian
nations, and on its alliance with the US.
For more than two decades after the Second World
War the US and Britain were Australia’s most
important allies. Together with New Zealand,
Australia concluded the defensive ANZUS alliance
with the US in July 1951. The US was only reluc-
tantly willing to extend its commitments to the
southern Pacific to meet Australian fears of a resur-
gent Japan, with whom the US was then wishing
to conclude a peace treaty. Britain, although aban-
doning its imperial role in India, was still the mili-
tary shield of its own and Australian interests in the
region, vigorously defending Malaya during the
communist insurrection in the 1950s. During that
decade aggressive communism was perceived in
Australia as posing as great a threat as Japan had
done in the past.
The Cold War, which began in Asia in 1949–
50, came to dominate relations in south-east Asia
and Australian foreign policy. The communist
victory in China in 1949 revived fears of millions
of poor Asians expanding south by direct aggres-
sion and subversion. China might repeat Japan’s
thrust south – prosperous and underpopulated
Australia would be a tasty morsel. But it was in
the north Pacific, in Korea, that war actually
broke out in 1950. Australia sent troops to South
Korea to help American and United Nations
forces to halt aggression. Still closer to Australia
lay Indonesia. Australian leaders after the war had
sought to establish friendly relations with the
newly independent states. Indonesia, after India
and Pakistan, was one of the earliest objects of
this policy, as Australia mediated between the
Indonesians and the Dutch.
But Indonesian expansion was a worry. Britain
in the 1950s and for much of the 1960s was still
the dominant military power in this region. In the
early 1960s after the formation of Malaysia,
Australia joined Britain in the confrontation with
Indonesia, though it wanted to live on good
terms with the former Dutch colony, whose pop-
ulation dwarfed its own. In 1962 Indonesia and
Australia became neighbours in New Guinea
when Indonesia absorbed West Irian. Until 1968
when Britain progressively withdrew from its mil-
itary role ‘east of Suez’, Australia maintained links
with a British and Commonwealth alliance. But
the events of the Second World War had shown
that for Australia’s and New Zealand’s security in
Asia the alliance of the US had become more
important, indeed essential.
The defeat of France in northern Indo-China in
1954 and the Geneva settlement did not bring
peace to the region. Australia became a founding
member of the South-East Asian Defence Treaty
which, under US leadership, attempted to provide
collective security. Britain and France were mem-
bers too, yet refused to send military help for the
defence of South Vietnam. But successive
Australian governments accepted the validity of the
domino theory – that communist China was fight-
ing proxy wars to advance communism and that
unless it was halted one state after another would
fall like a row of dominoes. So it was in Australia’s
own security interests to provide military help
to South Vietnam. It was no less important to
demonstrate to the US that Australia could be
relied on as an ally. But sending conscripts to
Vietnam proved controversial at home. From the
1950s to the 1990s the American alliance has
remained the cornerstone of Australia’s foreign
relations, as the ties that bound Australia to
Britain weakened. Fear of Japan has long since
been replaced by cooperation. The prosperity of
the region has been hugely promoted by Japan’s
economy and overseas investment in the non-
communist nations of south-east Asia. In the
1990s Japan has emerged not just as the most
important bulwark against communism, but its
successful example is undermining the ideology of
central planners in the remaining Asian communist
nations.
Australian politics at home revolved around three
parties, the Australian Labor Party, the Country
Party and the Liberal Party, but in practice a two-
party system operated, with the Country and
Liberal Parties forming coalition administrations.
Each party itself represented various interests
and views. The Labor Party, founded by trade
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