Book Review: South-East Asia: Southeast Asia's Second Front
| Published date | 01 March 1967 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206702200160 |
| Date | 01 March 1967 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
152
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
available
at
the time
for other
periods
(Day's
listed
bibliography
in-
cludes
few
primary
sources).
Even
so,
later
research
has
not
wholly
sustained
Day's
interpretation
that
the
Company
was
"a
bad
specimen"
of
the
corporate
overseas
organizations
of
its
own
epoch,
nor
that
it
was
prosperous
only
for
a
few
decades in
the
latter
half
of
the
seventeenth
century.
On
the
other
hand,
Day's description
of
the
Com-
pany's
government
and
impact
upon
the
Indonesian
economy
is
a
model
of precision
and
compactness
that
long
deserves
to
be
reread.
University
of
Bridgeport
JUSTUS
M.
VAN
DER
KROEF
South-east
Asia
SOUTHEAST
ASIA's
SECOND
FRONT.
The
Power
Struggle
in
the
Malay
Archipelago.
By
Arnold
C.
Brackman.
1966.
(New
York:
Frederick
A.
Praeger.
Toronto:
Burns
&
MacEachern.
xv,
341pp.
$8.50)
Geopolitics
appears
to
be
the
underlying
reason
for
Mr.
Brack-
man's
choice
of
the
"Malay
triangle"-that
is,
Malaysia,
Indonesia
and
the
Philippines-as
the
focus
of
his
second book.
(His
first
was
on
Commuimsm
in
Indonesia.) He
feels,
in
brief,
that
the
next
episode
in
the
"Communist
enterprise"
after
Vietnam,
is
likely
to
unfold
in
this
complex
region. Happily
his
account
of
developments
in
the
triangle
does
not
rely
exclusively
on
this
interpretation
of
the
"com-
mumst
enterprise"-an
interpretation
which
is
of
course both hypo-
thetical
and
arguable.
Having
stated
his
geo-political
premise,
he
settles
down
to
a
workmanlike
description
of
the
political
course
in
his
area
during the
past
decade
or
so.
Mr.
Brackman
begins
with the
problem
of
Singapore
and
its
dominant
Chinese
element,
vulnerable
to
influence
from
Peking.
He
traces
the
success of
the
P.A.P
under the
skillful
leadership
of
Lee
Kuan
Yew
and
the
subsequent efforts
of
Lee
and
Tungku
Abdul
Rahman
of
Malaya
to
create
a
new
state
capable
of
burying,
through merger,
the
festering
troubles
of
communal
and racial
rivalry
For
a
time
they
succeed.
But
the
growing
might
of
Indonesia
and
the
calculated
Leftist
course
of
Sukarno,
urged
on
by
the
P.K.I.
and
by
Peking,
prove
more
than
the fragile
union
can
stand.
In
the
end
Sukarno's
extremism,
in
the
guise
of
"confrontation"
stimulates
extremism within
Malaysia
(demands,
for
instance,
that
Lee
himself
be
arrested
for
disloyalty)
and
causes
Singapore
to
secede
from
the
union. The
final
chapter
seeks
to
distinguish,
on
slender
evidence,
between
Moscow's
role
and Peking's
in
these
developments, both
before
and
after
the
September
30th
(1965)
episode
which
loosened-and
eventually
destroyed-Sukarno's
grip
on
Indonesian
policies.
These
events,
known
in
the
main
to
students
of
South-east
Asian
affairs,
are
plausibly
presented
here
for
a
wider
audience.
Mr. Brack-
man,
a
journalist
by
profession,
does
not
attempt to
render
a
scholarly
analysis.
His
sources
are
his
own
notes
while
living
in
South-east
Asia
on
several
extensive
assignments,
interviews
with
major
leaders
To continue reading
Request your trial