This article reviews recent research on the history of maritime Southeast Asia during the 1960s. It was a period when War in Indochina was being escalated and the decolonization of the archipelago had reached its final phase. Indonesia took over West Irian, and Malaya incorporated the Borneo territories into its federation. In addition, a new regional league of nations emerged in the form of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The research was based on recently declassified documents coming mainly out of the English-speaking countries and attempted to clarify Anglo-American Cold War strategy as the background for decolonization and regional cooperation.
In order to encounter the communist threat in the region, the Americans and the British promoted both the decolonization of Southeast Asia and regional cooperation. Originally, decolonization was embedded in their imperial discourse. As the communist threat escalated, the Americans and the British went on to guide Southeast Asia towards developing democratic institutions.
During 1960s, the US forced the Dutch to disengage from West Irian, and Britain asked Tunku Abdul Rahman to form a federation, which later became Malaysia. Both the US and Britain also supported the formation of Southeast Asian regional cooperation against the communist contagion.
The Southeast Asians, while manipulating US-British power politics skillfully, constructed their nations and formed regional cooperation for themselves. The Indonesians took the opportunity to occupy West Irian, and Malaya easily incorporated Sarawak and Sabah. Later, the Indonesian Army led five nations of the region in establishing a new form of regional cooperation under the banners of anti-communism and anti-China.
While this body of research clarifies Anglo-American Cold War strategy and its impacts on the decolonization of Southeast Asia, it is also a fact that neither the US nor Britain took their imperialist duties seriously and were ambivalent towards human rights issues. The US ignored the Dutch promise to the Papua New Guineans for self-government, while the British discarded the Sabahans' claim for separation from the Malay federation. The ideal of imperialism, however, survived decolonization and could be the origin of new imperialism. To redress human rights violations involving backward peoples, a new imperialism began to infiltrate the region.