The Development of Regionalism in Southeast Asia

Abstract

One of the major premises of United States policy in Southeast Asia, as it has evolved during the past few years, appears to be that effective regional organization is a practical political possibility. To an increasing extent we have sought to implement policy objectives in the area through the development of regional institutions. Thus the United States took the lead in the negotiation of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty (the Manila Pact), which is a mutual security arrangement for the defense of Southeast Asia against aggression by means of armed attack or subversion. In the economic field we joined, after an initial period of hesitation, in the British Commonwealth-sponsored Colombo Plan for Cooperative Economic Development in South and Southeast Asia. While American economic assistance to Asian countries has always been, and still is, extended primarily on a bilateral basis, the government let it be known early in 1955 that it would be prepared to establish a special regional fund of about $200 million to be used for projects benefiting more than one country, if the nations concerned could themselves devise a satisfactory program. The fact that the Simla Conference, called soon thereafter by India to discuss the American proposal, failed to reach agreement on regional use of the fund does not negate the general impression of American concern for a regional approach.