South Pacific In Deadly, Growing Danger

From ‘Red’ Asia

Valuable Data Made Available In Two New Books

THE future of all the peoples who live in the Territories of the Pacific, in cluding Australia and New Zealand, is affected profoundly by recent events in Asia.

Across practically every country in Asia there has swept, first, a wave of national

ism, or conscious racialism, followed im mediately by another wave of aggressive Communism. The countries which re cently sought—and, for the most part, gained—a large degree of administrative independence are India. Ceylon, Burma, Indo-China, and Indonesia. Immediately after securing “freedom,” and under the influence of an under-cover drive directed from Moscow, most of them have swung towards Communism.

Communism already is seen as active in Burma, Indo-China, Malaya and In donesia, and it is a growing force already in India. In addition, a third of China and half of Korea now are Communist.

Communism, under European condi tions, has been described as Socialism with bloodshed. It is more than that — it is the seizure of political power by hoodlums, by means of criminal con spiracy against peace, order and good government. In Asia, Communism is uglier and even more sinister than any thing seen in Europe.

Generally speaking, Asiatics are not yet fit to exercise the kind of political power given to the masses by the system of Western Democracy: are still in the con dition when they can be most effectively ruled by strength, tempered with strict justice. The action of Britain, France and Holland, in conceding to Asiatics the institutions of Western Democracy, in it self a stupid and short-sighted thing, be comes a world tragedy as the new Asiatic democracies fall one by one before the oncoming wave of Russian Communism.

PRIOR to 1942, the countless masses ol Asia—more than half the human race is in that continent—were kept in something like order by the great colonial Powers. Britain guarded the peace in Southern Asia; France and Holland in South-east Asia; and Japan in East Asia.

Except in the East, the prestige of the white man was supreme and unchallenged.

Japan made her treacherous attack in December, 1941. Within six months, the Indo-Chinese, Malays, Burmans. Indo nesians and Indians saw the white men overwhelmed and driven away by Asiatics.

The crushing defeat and surrender of Japan in 1945, and the return of the Europeans, gave us a chance to restore the prestige of the white man. It could have been done by strength, firmness, and a display of ruthless power.

Instead, the blundering Socialist Planners of Western Europe, enjoying temporary political authority, chose this most critical moment to confer “self government” and “brotherhood” upon the countless millions of South and South east Asia. Instead of maintaining their hold, backed by implacable force, if necessary, over India, Ceylon, Burma.

Malaya, Indo-China and Indonesia, and gradually permitting self-government— but only to the extent that it would not add political and economic disruption to a world already JponvulsedJ—they have thrown what they call “national in dependence” to all those Asiatic countries with both hands. The effect already has been terrifying; but we have not seen anything yet, compared with what is to come.

The Kremlin directors of the Com munist “cold war,” whether by brilliant discernment of sheer good luck is not yet clear, chose this moment in humanity s tortured history to release upon all the

countries of South and South-east Asia a terrific flood of propaganda, carried and directed by secret agents. Almost before the flags of the new-born nations were unfurled, to receive the maudlin blessings of London and Paris, the political parties responsible for electing the new governments were reacting to the Communist drive.

The rest of the story is known to every reader of the newspapers of 1948. Burma is Communist. India and Siam are honey combed with Communism. Ceylon is feel ing the influence. Pakistan, staunchly Mohammedan, is resisting it. Communists have started revolutions in Malaya and Indonesia —and, to a lesser extent, in Indo-China and have had astonishing success.

Around the corner, in Eastern Asia, the Chinese National Government is fighting a losing battle against enormous forces of Chinese Reds, backed by the Soviets.

The plan to create a new State of Korea is collapsing, because Northern Korea, under Russian influence, is Communist.

To the average man, who sees only the thunder-clouds in the northern sky, but does not understand their origin or significance, the Asiatic situation to-day must seem like a mad-house. He can appreciate the sequence of events only if he goes back far enough, and sees them against the correct background and in their proper order, like this: • The collapse of Prance, the battering of Britain and the near-collapse of Russia in 1940-42 greatly weakened the Euro peans’ hold in South and South-east Asia. • The successes of Japan, in 1942-44, confirmed that weakness and destroyed the ancient prestige of the white man. • The accession to power in Western Europe of Socialist Governments, with story-book ideas of racial brotherhood, encouraged all the Asiatic races (still far

from competent to exercise the powers of free nationhood in a complex world) to demand and receive national inde pendence. • Russia’s Communist emissaries came swarming into these new South Asiatic countries, to reap extraordinary success amid the political confusion and economic chaos which they love.

To help the average man to better understand these events and develop ments, which are of incalculable danger to all orderly communities in the Pacific, two books have been published recently— “NEW CYCLE IN ASIA.” by Harold R.

Isaacs, published at $3 by the MacMillan Company of New York, under the auspices of the Institute of Pacific Relations: “NEAR NORTH,” by Robert J.

Gilmore and Denis Walker, published at 16/- A by Angus and Robertson Ltd., of Sydney, 11/|R. ISAACS’S book is mostly a selec tion of all the official documents bearing on major political and war time developments in Japan, China, Korea, the Philippines, India, Burma, Indo-China and Indonesia: and the notes which accompany each are well-informed illuminating. A knowledge of the documents, and of the developments so clearly described in this book, is necessary to an understanding of what is happen ing’ and likel y to happen, in Southern , T „ r . ‘‘Near North” supplies an extraordinary amount of information about not only the Asiatic countries to which we have re ferred, but also the Territories immedi ately northward of Australia, like Timor,

the southern islands of the Netherlands Indies, and New Guinea. As a carefully arranged, well-indexed work of reference,

it should be in the hands of every man who proposes to write or speak ’ about Australian history, the romantic trade de

velopments of the western Pacific, or the new and incalculable racial and political developments in South and East Asia, Many writers are quoted. The two well known Australian journalists who com piled “Near North” not only have given us a volume of fascinating interest, but also something that every Pacific states man and thinker will find indispensable to his work.

Probably, none of the writers concerned —Mr. Isaacs, and the dozen able men whose work has been collected in “Near North”—will subscribe to the forthright opinions expressed in the early part of this article. I can only say that most of the valuable data they have made available in these compilations leads me to an even stronger belief in the con clusions I have indicated. I believe that all the communities of the South Pacific —and especially the European and part- European peoples—are now in deadly and growing danger—R.W.R.