Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of acronyms
- Introduction
- 1 In the shadow of Hiroshima: the United States and Asia in the aftermath of Japanese defeat
- 2 The Korean War, the atomic bomb and Asian–American estrangement
- 3 Securing the East Asian frontier: stalemate in Korea and the Japanese peace treaty
- 4 A greater sanction: the defence of South East Asia, the advent of the Eisenhower administration and the end of the Korean War
- 5 ‘Atomic Madness’: massive retaliation and the Bravo test
- 6 The aftermath of Bravo, the Indochina crisis and the emergence of SEATO
- 7 ‘Asia for the Asians’: the first offshore islands crisis and the Bandung Conference
- 8 A nuclear strategy for SEATO and the problem of limited war in the Far East
- 9 Massive retaliation at bay: US–Japanese relations, nuclear deployment and the limited war debate
- 10 The second offshore islands crisis and the advent of flexible response
- 11 The Chinese bomb, American nuclear strategy in Asia and the escalation of the Vietnam War
- Conclusion: from massive retaliation to flexible response in Asia
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - ‘Asia for the Asians’: the first offshore islands crisis and the Bandung Conference
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of acronyms
- Introduction
- 1 In the shadow of Hiroshima: the United States and Asia in the aftermath of Japanese defeat
- 2 The Korean War, the atomic bomb and Asian–American estrangement
- 3 Securing the East Asian frontier: stalemate in Korea and the Japanese peace treaty
- 4 A greater sanction: the defence of South East Asia, the advent of the Eisenhower administration and the end of the Korean War
- 5 ‘Atomic Madness’: massive retaliation and the Bravo test
- 6 The aftermath of Bravo, the Indochina crisis and the emergence of SEATO
- 7 ‘Asia for the Asians’: the first offshore islands crisis and the Bandung Conference
- 8 A nuclear strategy for SEATO and the problem of limited war in the Far East
- 9 Massive retaliation at bay: US–Japanese relations, nuclear deployment and the limited war debate
- 10 The second offshore islands crisis and the advent of flexible response
- 11 The Chinese bomb, American nuclear strategy in Asia and the escalation of the Vietnam War
- Conclusion: from massive retaliation to flexible response in Asia
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
By early 1955, many American observers were concerned that the United States was on the way to losing the Cold War in Asia. Commentators pointed to the setback of the emergence of a Communist regime in North Vietnam as a result of the Geneva settlement in Indochina of 1954, and many worries were expressed over the apparent effectiveness of the efforts of the PRC to build new and better relationships with the newly independent states of Asia, and the vulnerability of many of those same states to domestic Communist subversion. Popular anxieties were focussed on the notion that the large and restless populations of the region were peculiarly susceptible to Communist entreaties, and that once these human resources were harnessed by a hostile ideology, there would be no place for Western influence. The image that was immediately invoked for many Americans by ‘Asia’, as Harold Isaacs highlighted at the time, was of ‘an undifferentiated crush of humanity’, ‘a dread blur of mystery and fearfulness, associated with vast numbers, with barbarism, and with disease’. What was also clear, moreover, was that Asia was restive and in ferment, consumed by the drive for self-determination and independence, with ‘dark peoples determined to assert themselves’. With the struggle against Communist China now fully engaged, adherents to an almost ‘apocalyptic’ perspective were making the free association: ‘Soviet imperialism plus Chinese imperialism, overwhelming combinations of Asian populations; Western civilization is outnumbered, white civilization is outnumbered, and could go under.’
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- After HiroshimaThe United States, Race and Nuclear Weapons in Asia, 1945–1965, pp. 240 - 288Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010