A Research In Britain's "South-East Asian Regional Cooperation" Policy And Its Effects,1945-1967

In the regional study,the modern Southeast Asian Regional Cooperation rised in the intra-regional cooperationn after the Second World War.At present,there is a general lack of studying in the multilateral and even regional practices promoted by extra-regional actors in the process of the rise of endogenous regional cooperation in Southeast Asia,and also in the relationship between such practices and modern Southeast Asian regional construction and regional cooperation.Among the extraregional actors in SA,Britain was the first one put forward the idea of “South-East Asian Regional Cooperation” in a cabinet paper in December 1944,and the idea then became the core in Britain's SA policy.But there is a doubt in whether the Britain's “South-East Asian Regional Cooperation” and modern Southeast Asian Regional Cooperation are equivalent in meaning or not.And there is a confusion in the relation between these two concept.This dissertation is based on UK's National Archive and some existing research,it explores the process of the Britain's ”South-East Asian Regional Cooperation” from 1945 to 1967,and explains the nature and impact about it.Furthermore,it studies the actions and their nature,influence over SA region construction and ASEAN.For the purpose,this dissertation constructs a framework of extra-regional nations to study the case of Britain's “South-East Asian Regional Cooperation”,the key concept of this framkework is “identity-statuslization”.This dissertation also make a case study in SEAC,Special Commissioner in South-East Asia,the Commissioner-General,the Colombo Plan and the Britain's South-East Asia Regional Defence Organization.The case study is aimed at calirifying different stages in the Britain's South-East Asian Regional Cooperation from 1945 to 1967,and showing the relation among different stages as to explain the Britain's “South-East Asian Regional Cooperation”'s influence on the origin of SA regional cooperation.The dissertation argues that Regional identity cognition and its practice,that is,the status of regional status is the main factor that promotes the staged characteristics of Britain's “South-East Asian Regional Cooperation”.It can be divided into 5 stages,that is,from the period of World War II Policy to the first phase of preliminary attempts to rely on SEAC in the early post-war period;from March 1946 to May 1948,the second phase of technical cooperation at the regional level centered on the food crisis by the Special Commissioner and the Special Commissioner's Office;1948 From May 1955 to May 1955,the Commissioner-General and its affiliates merged the Special Commissioner and the Special Commissioner's Office,the third phase of the shift in policy practice;in May 1955,Commissioner-General Mac Donald resigned until the “Indonesia-Malaysian Confrontation” in 1965.At the end,the regional practice developed from national institutions to regional mechanisms,and the fourth stage of regional economic and security cooperation showed a different pattern.The fifth stage is from 1965,the “Indonesia-Malaysian Confrontation” ended to the establishment of ASEAN in 1967,Britain's “South-East Asian Regional Cooperation” failed.The first and second phases were generally “colonial regional cooperation”.Specifically,in the first stage,the Britain's South-East Asian Regional Cooperation was mainly implemented by the SEAC,which is in a civilized reform then.However,this civil reform has not been successful,and Britain's South-East Asian Regional Cooperation has not been effectively implemented.In the second stage,in response to the Southeast Asian food crisis,special commissioners and special commissioners established based on previous regional hegemony identities became the main practice institutions.The Britain's “South-East Asian Regional Cooperation” policy was “institutionalized” and started its regional hegemony “identity-statuslization” in SA.During this period,British regional recognition and construction of SA was still a legacy of the thinking of the British Empire.The cooperation carried out by the Special Commissioner 's Office is not strictly an international level region Cooperation is a “technical cooperation” with colonial nature and model characteristics.In terms of regional influence,the practice of the Special Commissioner is stronger than the multilateral cooperation promoted by actors in Vietnam and other regions in the same period.Therefore,the practice of the Britain will have a deeper standard and system in terms of regional construction and regional cooperation in SA.On the basis of Westphalian norms such as the nation-states that have proliferated in Southeast Asian colonies before the WWII,the Special Commissioner's Office further penetrated Southeast Asia 's two core norms of regional and regional cooperation,as well as “intergovernmental cooperation” and “negotiation”,“unanimity” and other sub-specifications.The third phase is the transition phase from “colonial regional cooperation” to modern regional cooperation.At this stage,the Commissioner-General and its subsidiary bodies merged with the Special Commissioner's Office to become the main practice body.Regarding the recognition of regional identity,Britain tried to further rely on the cooperation of the Commonwealth to restore its empire status on the basis of regional hegemony that had not yet been achieved,which started the new round of “identity-statuslization” of Britain in SA.Britain's “South-East Asian Regional Cooperation” has undergone significant changes during this period,showing a transition from cooperation based on traditional colonial ties to international cooperation between nations,and from domestic institutions leading cooperation to international mechanism leadership.In terms of regional influence,the Commissioner-General plays an important role in promoting the rise of the Cold War in SA.However,since the endogenous regional cooperation in the same period aimed to seek regional autonomy and neutrality in SA,Britain has sharp conflicts with SA.The fourth stage is generally in line with the characteristics of modern regional cooperation.This modernity is mainly reflected in the international institutional framework,actors,and cooperation methods.In addition,the regional practice during this period also reflects regional economic cooperation and regional political-security cooperation.The trend of separation from each other.In terms of identity,Britain attempts to seek dual leadership in the economic and political-security areas of the Southeast Asian region.In general,this period is still in the third round of identitystatuslization.At the regional economic level,the Colombo Plan has become the main carrier of the mechanism;the Commonwealth has been identified as a link of cooperation;in addition,the Colombo norm has been successfully constructed with the combination of bilateral and negotiated norms and inclusive regional cooperation rules as the core content;The collective identity of the Colombo Powers was shaped,which provided the organizational basis for endogenous regional cooperation in Southeast Asia during the same period.At the level of regional politics and security,the security interaction between Britain and the United States in SA has gradually formed a pattern of “the former subordinate to the latter”.With the “IndonesiaMalaysian confrontation”,Britain became the target of public criticism in the field of security in SA.The spillover of the regional economy into the security field that it originally intended to seek also ended in failure.In the fifth stage,Britain's “South-East Asian Regional Cooperation” has shown an irreversible weakening trend.The above-mentioned position competition and regional influence in the political-security field have forced Britain to withdraw from SA,and the development of Southeast Asian regional cooperation in endogenous regional cooperation enters “ASEAN time”.Britain's identity-statuslization in SA was also forced to became an ordinary extraterritorial power in SA.Finally,by comparing the above-mentioned five stages with the endogenous regional cooperation in SA in the same period,this dissertation argues that the British “South-east Asian Regional Cooperation” has an important impact on the endogenous regional cooperation in SA and the later ASEAN regional cooperation.This kind of influence is manifested by sharing cooperative members,collective identity shaping,accumulation of organizational experience and regional norms.This kind of influence involves both the practice and the idea level,reflecting the characteristics of indirect influence as the main and direct influence as the supplement.In addition,the Britain's “South-east Asian Regional Cooperation” is actually a national policy aimed at realizing the national interests and maintaining Britain's influence in the SA,rather than building regional public goods based on regional public goods.