Conflict and Confrontation in South East Asia, 1961–1965
Britain, the United States, Indonesia and the Creation of Malaysia

A detailed insight into the Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation in Southeast Asia during the 1960s.

Matthew Jones (Author)

9780521144018, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 29 March 2012

348 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.51 kg

Review of the hardback: 'Jones's book is essential reading for those who wish to understand the realities behind the rhetoric that masked the motives and actions of the politicians in Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, London, and Washington as they maneuvered to shape island Southeast Asia into a form that accorded with their individual priorities. Scattered too within his account are flashes of clarifying honesty and insight by the actors themselves into the actual situation that are usually concealed by policy needs and ideological imperatives. … Jones's meticulous analysis of so many of the relevant documents provides a firm bas from which to view the Southeast Asia that emerged from this period of turbulence into a form that basically endured for the rest of the twentieth century.' Indonesia

In the early 1960s, Britain and the United States were still trying to come to terms with the powerful forces of indigenous nationalism unleashed by the Second World War. The Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation - a crisis which was, as Macmillan remarked to Kennedy, 'as dangerous a situation in Southeast Asia as we have seen since the war' - was a complex test of Anglo-American relations. As American commitment to Vietnam accelerated under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, Britain was involving herself in an 'end-of-empire' exercise in state-building which had important military and political implications for both nations. In this book Matthew Jones provides a detailed insight into the origins, outbreak and development of this important episode in international history; using a large range of previously unavailable archival sources, he illuminates the formation of the Malaysian federation, Indonesia's violent opposition to the state and the Western Powers' attempts to deal with the resulting conflict.

List of maps
Preface and acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
Introduction: Britain, the United States and the South East Asia setting
Part I. Build-up: 1. The Kennedy Administration, Indonesia and the resolution of the West Irian crisis, 1961–2
2. The Greater Malaysia scheme I: the move toward merger
3. The Greater Malaysia scheme II: the Cobbold Commission and the Borneo territories
4. Britain, Indonesia and Malaya: from West Irian to the Brunei revolt
Part II. Outbreak: 5. The emergence of confrontation, January–May 1963
6. The path to the Manila Summit, May–July 1963
7. From the Manila Summit to the creation of Malaysia, August–September 1963
8. Avoiding escalation, September–December 1963
Part III. Denouement: 9. The diplomacy of confrontation, Anglo-American relations and the Vietnam War, January–June 1964
10. Escalation, upheaval and reappraisal, July 1964–October 1965
Conclusion: the Western presence in South East Asia by the 1960s
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: National liberation & independence, post-colonialism [HBTR], Colonialism & imperialism [HBTQ], Postwar 20th century history, from c 1945 to c 2000 [HBLW3], Asian history [HBJF]