The Communist Problem in East Asia-A Western View

To think clearly about the problems of East Asia, it is desirable to distinguish between the aims of Western policy, the methods available for pursuing them, and the conditions in East Asia to which the methods must be adapted in order to succeed. People in the West have for long had a rich variety of interests in East Asia-economic, cultural and humanitarian. But, for Western governments today, fear of the Soviet Union dwarfs all other interests. Hence their primary concern with East Asia is to prevent the direct or indirect extension of Soviet power. They generally assume that any success for communism, however indigenous its form, will be likely or certain to add strength to the Soviet Union. No doubt the programmes to promote health and welfare win a measure of support on moral and humanitarian grounds, but it is the spur of fear that has awakened Western governments to a new sense of those moral obligations. Three methods are available to the West in this contest with the Soviet Union and communism-military, economic and psychological. The military method may involve direct intervention with military forces, as in Korea, or be limited to the provision of advice, equipment and supplies, as in Indochina. The economic method may take a hundred different forms, from the direct supply of immediate needs, such as food and clothing, to the provision of technical assistance in the planning of long-range development; or it may take the negative form, the embargo. The psychological method is a direct effort, usually through the spoken or written word, to convince East Asians that their true interests are identical with Western interests, not with the interests of the Soviet Union; that they can be allies of the West, but only satellites of the Soviet; that they can be free men if they reject communism, but only slaves if they accept it. This at least is the line set by United States official propaganda, though other Western governments do not always fully adhere to it

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