The Bangkok Conference
Considerable attention has naturally been fixed on the Conference of American diplomatic and consular representatives in South-East Asia, which has just ended at Bangkok. Judging from British experience, the value of such gatherings to those who attend them is very great ; but though the horizons of the delegates at Bangkok may be enlarged it is difficult to believe that the conclusions which they reach will give much comfort to the State Department. For the main item on the agenda is the problem of how,American policy can best help to check the spread of Communism in South-East Asia, and that is not an easy problem tosolve. The lessons which the Americans learnt in China were not less harsh than instructive ; but to learn, however thoroughly, how not to do a thing is not the same as to learn how to do it, and American Asiatic policy is at the moment intelligibly fluid. Everyone understands that what IS needed is an alternative to Communism, but nobody knows where it is to be found. In Indo-China, the biggest danger spot in the whole region, the alternative on paper is the regime of Bao Dai, but American public opinion is hardly likely to endorse the active support of a restored ruler whom they regard, not without some justification, as the puppet of a colonial power precariously upheld by French bayonets. In Indonesia the issues are similarly confused by the inherent American distrust of imperialism. The basic requirement for the whole area, which alone could ensure political stability and a measure of economic security, is a raising, through- out its population of 150 million, of the standards of personal responsibility ; but you cannot distribute a sense of citizenship as expeditiously as you can distribute coca-cola, and it is to be feared that any formula which may be evolved at Bangkok will not go far beyond proposals to hold a watching brief with firmness and benevolence.
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