Our position in Southeast Asia

Title

Creator

Corpus, O.D.

Identifier

At last, recognition!

Language

English

Source

Volume XII (Issue No.4) April 1960

Year

1960

Subject

Philippines -- Foreign relations

International relations

International economic relations

Political leadership

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Fulltext

At last, recognition! Owe w SouiJwtii /ta By 0. Z-* TILTED CRESCENT, of which the horns are Burma at the northwest, and the western half of New Guinea at the lower southeast, defines what the map-makers call Southeast D. Corpus Asia. In this sense, the region is made up of nine independent countries; Burma, Thailand, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Malay, Indone sia, and the Philippines, with the latter lying aDout mid-way athwart the imaginary line bet ween the two horns. In addition, some commentators frequently use the term “Southeast Asia” more loosely to include, besides the countries named above, also Pa kistan, India, and Ceylon. For convenience, the more comprehensvie meaning of the latter us age is used in this discussion. It has been fashionable for some time now to say that the Philippines belongs to Southeast Asia, by reason of its geography; therefore, it is urged, our foreign policy should be Asian in orienta tion, both in terms of our rela 76 Panorama tionships with our neighbors and in our outlook upon the non Asian world. We all quite widely accept this point of view in prin ciple. However, there are tnose of our countrymen who are quick to observe that it is one of those nice principles that are custom arily forgotten in practice. They maintain that recent as well as present Philippine foreign poli cies are actually West-oriented rather than Asia-oriented. They further point out the ironical fact, possible perhaps only in the Phil ippines, that the majority parties avoid the slogan “Asia for the Asians” as if it were some awful and dreaded affliction. Thus, in this Asian country, “Asia for the Asians” is perforce a slogan of the political opposition. Why the apparent inconsist ency between the policy we ought to profess and those which we actually practice? We can begin to understand the problems of Philippine policy in Southeast Asia only by understanding the nature ot Southeast Asia itself. Southeast Asia as an area is rich in manpower; it has some oil and tin, and a great deal of rubber. It is, likewise, one of the three areas in the world that periodically produce disorders or threats to the peace in seeming ly calculated fashion—the other two are the Arab Middle East, and the Soviet satellite complex in Eastern Europe. But these characteristics are not our main concern. We are interested primarily in the question, whether the dozen countries which we collectively denote as Southeast Asia possess or share enough common charac teristics or circumstances, besides geographical proximity, that would justify our treating them as a single whole. This is im portant for our analysis because, if it turns out that there is no shared sense of identity among those countries, then we cannot say that the Philippines belongs to a community of states known as Southeast Asia. To say so would have little meaning be cause we cannot belong to a com munity that exists only in name. April 1960 77 6n fact, the countries of the area are similar in at least three important respects: (1) Their national economies are all underdeveloped. (2) With the single exception of Thailand, they all share a common history of cq lonial subjection under western powers. (3) Finally, and almost without exception, t h e twelve countries are all nationalistic in temper and outlook, and have only recently acquired independ ent political status. It remains to find out what these similarities really mean. The underdeveloped economies in Southeast Asia give the dif ferent countries, as it were, a common face. The cities, great urban centers are few and far between. The soil and its pro ducts are more important, support ing the population and earning the foreign exchange. Production methods and implements are gen erally labor-consuming, a condi tion which conceals a great deal of disguised employment. Popu lation pressure bears down heavily on the national product. The eco nomic situation has sociological concomitants. There is a great deal of corruption in politics, and administratvie organization and techniques are notoriously inept and patronage-ridden. The Bandung Conference of 1955, in its final communique, gave primary emphasis to "the urgency of promoting economic development in the Asian-African region.” The participants called for economic cooperation cover ing a long list of measures and actions. These included: techni cal aid to one another, the estab lishment of regional training and research institutes, collective ac tion for stabilizing international commodity prices, trade fairs, ex change of information and of samples, and the establishment of regional banks and insurance com panies. The Asian-African dele gates, nevertheless, stated that: "It is, however, not intended to form a regional bloc.” Needless to say, the coopera tive and collective measures called forth at Bandung have not been undertaken, and there is no in dication yet that they will be undertaken in the near future. One suspects that the communi que as such did not so much express a sense of common inter est, as it was an incident in the temporary gathering together of men who wanted to be nice to each other. For the truth is, that economic relationships, to be meaningful, must be expressed in actual trading and exchange. In this respect, the economies of Southeast Asia, all primarily ag ricultural and raw material ex porting, do not complement each other. There is very little intraregional trade. It must be recalled that production, practices, con sumption behaviors, industrial re 78 Panorama quirements, and trading patterns and outlets were established dur ing the period of each country’s dependency under the West, dur ing which time the dominant country and its economic needs occupied the preferred and pre eminent position. These lastnamed factors, inasmuch as they have been institutionalized, will persist for a long, long time. Fur thermore, it will be noted that two of the critical needs of un derdeveloped economies are capi tal assistance and technical aid, and the countries of Southeast Asia are competitors and rivals, rather than mutual cooperators, in these respects. the sum, the fact that the countries of the area are all in a stage of economic under development has endowed them with similar problems, but that in itself has not proved to be a sufficient force for welding the various countries into the sem blance of an economic commun ity. The shared history of colonial subjection which the Southeast Asian countries (except Thai land) have undergone under the domination of western powers has bequeathed a common me mory and attitude to the former dependencies. This is most evi dent in their readiness to spon sor declarations against the con tinuation or resumption, in any form, of western imperialism. The Philippines, indeed, has consist ently sided with its neighbor countries in this respect, to the extent, we are officially remind ed, of occasionally being on op posite sides with the United States. So far as it goes, the common anti-western imperialism of the SEA countries is an unassailable fact. But it would not do to overburden it, by inferring from it that it makes the countries of the area into a solid regional bloc. An attitude against imper ialism in the past does not itself create common objectives for con structive action or behavior in the present and future. As has been pointed out, no collective action in the form of concrete measures for economic coopera tion and development have been undertaken by the SEA coun tries towards meeting the declared intentions of the Bandung meet ing. One of the most obvious facts of Philippine foreign rela tions is the fundamental differ ence in the way we and our SEA neighbors look at problems of re gional security, diplomacy and trade with Red China, foreign aid, American military assistance, Soviet Russia, and other issues of similar import. It appears clear that the colon ial experience of the Southeast Asian peoples has not up to the present provided a basis for com April I960 79 mon objectives and common ac tion. The main reason for this is the nature of the colonial exper ience. During the period of de pendency, the countries of South east Asia were colonies of differ ent western powers. Burma, Cey lon, India, Pakistan, and Malaya were dependencies of the United Kingdom; Indo-China, of France; Indonesia, of The Netherlands; and the Philippines, of the Unit ed States. What happened then was that the dependencies were practically isolated from each other, and their contacts with the outside world and the outside influences upon them, were limit ed to those of the corresponding western power. In each case, the decisive in fluence upon the dependency came from the culture, institu tions, and decisions of the domi nant country. This is the explana tion for die fact that today the political system in each of the former colonies reflects in vary ing degrees of faithfulness to form and spirit the political institutions and practices of the former poli tical master. In the Philippines, our political vocabulary, electoral practices, system of party govern ment, doctrines on constitutional ism, and theories of administra tive organization were evolved from American principle, practice, and prescription exported to a Filipino situation. The same holds true with equal validity for each of the other SEA countries. But the impact of the colonial experience went far beyond the merely political sphere. The do minant power also exported its own[ language, ideas of education and educational administration, currency, industrial products, and other less tangible aspects of its way of life, such as its movies, fashions, and fads, and, to a greater or less extent, its hier archy of social values. The im pact has proved to be lasting, for, while the formal political con nections have been severed, the other influences, which we may sum up in the term “cultural im perialism,” continue to influence the life of the once dependent country. Thus, during the period of de pendency, the web of pervasive influence woven by the dominant power over and around the sub ject country not only tied them 80 Panorama together into a tight and intimate relationship, but also cut off the latter from any significant asso ciations or contacts with other countries. This is the fundamental explanation for the absence of frequent interaction and associa tion among the SEA countries today. Qt only remains now to deal with the nationalistic temper and the newly independent status of the SEA peoples and states. Like the other two similarities already discussed, the similari ties in temper and status of the countries of SEA today are often supposed to give them a common personality. From our point of view, however, they have not made the individual states of SEA region-conscious. The evidence is obvious, and all around us. There is no regional approach to prob lems which logically require re gional study and action, such as subversion, the overseas Chinese and economic underdevelopment. The SEATO, which is the only organized approach to military preparation and defense in the area, has no less than five non area and non-Asian members (the United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand, France, and Aus tralia), and no more than three Asian members (Thailand, Pakis tan, and the Philippines). New Delhi, Jakarta, Manila, Karachi, and Bangkok do not con sult regularly on regional or glob al policies, and are as likely as not to take different sides of in ternational issues and controver sies. Filipino delegates in inter state meetings, moreover, usually find themselves having a choice of separate blocs, depending on the occasion—the American, the Catholic, the Latin, and the Southeast Asian. he truth is that a national istic temper makes a people inner-directed, rather than region al minded. The masses in each of the countries of the area to day are being exhorted more than ever before to look to their na tional past, to emulate their na tional heroes, and, in general, to "think for themselves.” National ism permeates and pervades their respective educational systems, and is being tapped to provide the propulsive psychology for ecoApril 1960 81 nomic and social development. There are variations among the dozen countries in the intensity of their nationalisms. Those whose demands for self-government were satisfied only recently appear to be the more nationalistic, and more inner-directed, than those in which the independence issue had been settled at an earlier time. The existence or absence of a well-established indigenous culture also seems relevant, with those countries being more na tionalistic which have ancient and distinctive cultures of their own. Beneath these variations, how ever, the nationalistic temper is expressed in a self-oriented out look; it emphasizes the "interests of the nation” over divisive group interests in domestic policies, and over distracting involvements in world and regional politics. The self-oriented outlook of na tionalism is a natural condition for the newly independent states of SEA. The change of political status from dependent colony to sovereign state has in each case required major adjustments and confronted the new state with a series of domestic crises. There is mass poverty and economic un derdevelopment in all countries; political corruption, tax evasion, and unassimilated minorities in most; and civil war, subversion, banditry, and serious boundary problems in a few. Each country nas had to face these difficulties practically without appropriate in stitutions, without enough skilled personnel, without adequate ca pital, and without strategic mate rial resources. What, then, can be more natural, than that these * countries should wish to be left alone, in order to apply their un divided attention and energy to their domestic difficulties? Exter nal commitments and relation ships become unnecessary abstrac tions, except when they can be made the means to provide the wherewithal for the solution of domestic problems. has been suggested in the foregoing analysis that similari ties of colonial history, of econo mic underdevelopment, and of na tionalistic temper have not suf ficed to create a Southeast Asian community. It has been shown that similarities among the coun tries of the area serve to divide, as well as to unite, them. The only bases at present that may underlie a sense of community among the peoples of SEA are geographical proximity and a gen eral, but vague, feeling that they are all Asians. Even the geo graphical nearness must be quali fied. Burma, Vietnam, India, and Pakistan are at least as close to Red China, Central Asia, and to West Asia as they are to their SEA neighbors. But geography and the Asian feeling are merely predisposing 82 Panorama factors; they have not produced community interaction. Compared to other distinct regions in world politics, the SEA states do not have the doctrinal and military solidarity of the Soviet eastern European satellites, the emotional fervor that excites the Arabs of the Middle East, the cultural ho mogeneity of Latin-America, or the intense political, economic, and cultural inter relationships within the NATO arc of Europe and America. The countries of SEA may be likened, paradoxically, to big-city neighbors whose relationships are intermittent and haphazard. They are too occupied with their pri vate problems to pay sustained attention to each other, and their individual histories have given them habits, institutions, and in terests that lead to associations outside of the neighborhood. They are all in Southeast Asia, but they are in a geographical area, and not in a political or econo mic community. / * et us now inquire how our analysis of SEA as a whole bears upon the problem of Philip pine political relations in the area. Actually, some implications are obvious. For instance, it is clearly suggested that we must as certain whether the conditions re quisite for sustained and sympa thetic interaction between the Philippines and other SEA coun tries exist. These requisites in clude (a) a mutually shared sense of common interest, reci procally oriented institutions, com plementary economic systems, and adequate information about each other interpreted sympathetically. In addition (b) there must be no commitments outside the area that occupy us so much as to disallow opportunities for engag ing ourselves in area activities and affairs. Finally, (c) our own domestic affairs must be in some degree of order. If they are not, either we will be constrained to wihtdraw from foreign distrac tions in order to solve our domes tic problems, or we enter into relationships with other coun tries in order to secure aid for solving those problems. In the latter case, the commitments re ferred to (b) might crystallize. These requisites apparently do not exist at present. Mutual senti ments and appropriate area insti tutions are not in evidence. The Philippines itself is committed and bound to relationships with the United States covering a broad area of mutual concern. Because of these conditions, we rely for assistance in coping with our ur gent needs not on SEA but on the United States; this reliance reenforces our commitments out side of the area, and orients us away from it. Were we to decide, therefore, on a drastic shift in our foreign policy orientation April 1960 83 from America to Asia, it seems that we would have to maintain a foreign policy from which the necessary conditions do not now exist. The intimacy, strength, and variety of the sentiments, bonds, and chains that tie us tightly to America simply have no counter parts in our relations with our SEA neighbors. So much for our American or ientation. The foreign policy of the Philippines in SEA involves two other aspects, which are not usually considered in popular or partisan discussions. The thought ful reader, however, will require their consideration, or at least their mention. ^he eibst is the problem of v area leadership, the second involves philosophy and foreign policy. There is an indeterminate ness about our position in the hierarchy of influence among the countries of SEA. Our resources constrain us to resign ourselves to a position of less than leadership, but our stature does not allow us to take up the role of a mere follower. This indeterminateness necessarily prevents us from for mulating or adopting forthright area policies and straightforward or consistent area relationships. Equally important, it makes it difficult for our neighbors to in terpret our declarations and ac tions without doubt or suspicion. The task of finding an appro priate political role for ourselves in SEA is further complicated by the different types of leadership found in the area. The late Mag saysay, Nehru, U Nu, and Soekarno represent leader-types that show up our deviation from what seems to be an Asian norm. Lead ership in almost every SEA coun try except the Philippines rests on traditions and institutions which make it possible, if not customary, for the same one man to dominate his country’s politics for a long time. In addition, the contemplative nature that seems common to the leaders of other Asians has been conspicuous for its absence in the crop of post war Filipino leaders. The prob lem of leadership is important, because a country’s voice in for eign affairs is usually that of its national leader. The second problem requires little elaboration. It is related to the fact that the leading SEA countries aside from the Philip pines pursue foreign policies which are rather faithfully and consistently derived from distinct philosophies of humanity and of world politics. These countries are India, Indonesia, Burma, and per haps Ceylon also. It is perhaps no accident that it is the policies of these countries that are usually regarded as expressing the "true" Asian point of view, with the suggestion that the policies of other countries, including that of 84 Panorama the Philippines, do not do so. Lacking a distinct philosophical basis, Philippine foreign policy must derive consistency from nonphilosophical sources, which hap pen to De our “special historic ties with the United States.” This immediately disqualifies us in the eyes of Asian militants from re presenting the spirit and view point of Asia. This is another obstacle that the Philippines must overcome in order to develop poli tical rajjport, and thereby acquire “status, with its neighbors in SEA. Qt appears now that the road that will take us to Southeast Asia, foreign policy-wise, is not a straight and obstacle-free road. Actually, our reasons for wishing to get on that road are of cru cial importance. Essentially, those of us who believe in a South east Asia-oriented policy may be divided into: (a) those who be lieve in that policy because they reject our American orientation; and (b) those who believe that policy because they consciously feel that Philippine interests are best met by our active involve ment in mutual relationships with our neighbors. These two reasons are independent of each other. This discussion’is not an argu ment for the status quo. It does not assume that the present dis unity of Southeast Asia and our ties to the United States are eter nal and unchangeable verities'. Rather, it is an attempt to ex plain why rejection of the condi tions that underlie our present relationships with the United States cannot by itself bring about and sustain a SEA-oriented policy. While that rejection leads us away from old relationships, it does not ver se create new ones ready to band. This discussion is also a pres entation of some important objec tive conditions necessary to a po licy of close and sustained rela tionships with our SEA neigh bors. It is a plea for a return to intellectualism in the analysis of foreign policy. Nothing is more ineffectual than a sentimental ap proach to the politics of nations, in criticism as well as in con duct. ¥ ¥ So Be It The parents of a large brood of children deserve a lot of credit; in fact, they can’t get along without it. April 1960 85

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76-85

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