Re-making Asia. Essays on the Uses of Power

398 Pages·1974·54.103 MB·English

by  Mark Selden

Remaking Asia
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are;
The Parzfheon Asia Library
New Approaches to the New Asia
i
No part of the world has changed so much in recent years as Asia, or
awakened such intense American interest. But much of our scholar-
ship, like much of our public understanding, is based on a previous
era. The Asia Library has been launched to provide the needed in»
formation on the new Asia, and in so doing to develop both the new
methods and the new sympathies needed to understand it. Our pur-
pose is not only to publish new work but to experiment with a wide
variety of approaches which will reHect these new realities and their
perception by those in Asia and the West.
Our books aim at different levels and audiences, from the popular
to the more scholarly, from high schools to the universities, from pic-
torial to documentary presentations. All books will be available in
paperback.
Suggestions for additions to the Asia Library are welcome.
aK1NG
ASIA
Essays on the American
of Power
Nillvl.
I
E D I T E D BY
MARK SELDEN
PANTHEON BOOKS
A Division of Random House
N E W Y o R K
Copyright © 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974 by Random House, Inc.
Introduction copyright © 1974 by Harry Magdoff
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copy-
right Conventions. Published in the United States by Pantheon
Books, a division of Random House, Inc., and simultaneously in
Canada by Random House of Canada, Limited, Toronto.
"_ '[apart: The Roots of Militarism," by Herbert P. Bix, was originally
published in the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars. "Dependence
and Imperialism in India," by Thomas E. Weisskopf, was originally
published in the Review of Radical Political Economics.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to
reprint previously published material:
Pacific Basin Reports: for an excerpt from pages 83-85 of Pacific Basin
Reports, April 1, 1971.
Aoki Shoten: for the chart on page 306 of Moriya Fumio, Sengo Nihon
shihonshugi-sono bunsen to hihan.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Selden, Mark.
Remaking Asia: Essays on the American Uses of Power.
(The Pantheon Asia Library)
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Asia-Foreign relations--United States.
2. United States--Foreign relations-Asia.
3. Asia-Foreign economic relations--United States.
4. United States-Foreign economic relations-Asia.
1. Title.
DS33.4.U6S44 327-73'05 73-7011
ISBN 0-394-48185-0
ISBN o~394-70670413 (pack.)
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition
To the People of Indochina and
to men and women everywhere who
have linked arms in their struggle.

Contents
Preface ix
Introduction by Harry Magdoff 3
PART I
OIL IMPERIALISM IN SOUTHEAST ASIA 21
by Malcolm Caldwell
THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND
AND INDONESIAN DEBT SLAVERY by Cheryl Payer 50
THE ASIAN DEVELOPMENT BANK: An Imperial Thrust
into the Pacific by Richard de Camp 71
THE VIETNAM WAR AND THE CIA-
FINANCIAL ESTABLISHMENT by Peter Dale Scott 91
PART I I
THE PHILIPPINES' A Case History of Neocolonialism
by William J. Pomeroy 157
DEPENDENCE AND IMPERIALISM IN INDIA
by Thomas E. Weisskopf 200
MODERNIZATION AND PEASANT RESISTANCE
IN THAILAND by Ralph Thaxton 247
OKINAWA AND AMERICAN SECURITY IMPERIALISM
by Mark Selden 279
vii
viii Contents
PART IH
JAPAN: The Roots of Militarism by Herbert P. .8ix 3°5
.
NOTES ON THE CONTRIBUTORS 365
INDEX 367
3
Preface
ac.
Asia and the United States stand at the brink of a new era defined
by the relative decline of American power and the emergence of
powerful competitors:
.
The United States' defeat by popular forces in Indo-
china has forced large-scale military withdrawal from much
of the area and an overall outback of its armed forces based
.
in Asia.
President Nixon's normal zation of relations with the
People's Republic of China marks the final collapse of the
polit.ic al cornerstone of two decades of Asian policy predi~
cared on the encirclement of China.
.
In the economic sphere, the twenty-seven-year reign
of the dollar as an international currency collapsed on Au-
gust 15, 1971, as the United States abaNdoned gold conver-
tibility of the dollar. Subsequent abortive efforts to halt the
decline have further exposed the dollar's weakness, and suc-
cessive protectionist trade moves reflect an overall erosion of
.
American economic supremacy.
On the ideological level the banner of freedom and
democracy has been unobtrusively furled (consonant with
increasing U.S. support for military dictatorships), and even