The Resurrection of the East

It is a historical misperception that the British Empire ended in 1945. Britain's security and military commitiments were enormous between 1945 and 1965. This was especially true in the Persian Gulf region where she had security agreements and/or troops in all the principalities of the Gulf. This included in Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, and the UAE. It wasn't until 1971 that Britain abandoned this area. This was included in her decision to abandon all of her security arrangements east of the Suez Canal, save Hong Kong. No doubt the Empire was declining after World War Two, but 1971 was the true "fall of the British Empire."

The declining Empire after 1945 was the great catalyst of the Cold War, especially by 1961 when Kennedy decided to fight Communist National Liberation movements with Special Forces. This British decline and the halting, failed attempt by the US to take up Britain's burdens, were both exacerbated by by the political and subsequent economic awakening of the nations of the "third world."

The political rise of the third world was characterized initially by the postwar nationalism that swept over Africa, South Asia and East Asia.This constituted a national awakening in these regions akin to the European national formations in the post-Roman 5th and 6th centuries, the post Carolingian 10th and 11th centuries, and the 1860s and 1870s with the formation of Italy and Germany It is indeed informative that all these events were accompanied by international crises, namely Justinian's attempt the reconstitute the Roman Empire, the Crusader's attempted reconquer of the Holy Land, and the attempted German hegemony over Europe that only failed in 1945.

Asia's political reawakening began in Japan in 1868 with the Meiji Restoration and in China with Sun Yat Sen's revolution overthrowing "the last emperor" in 1911. In India it began with the founding of the Indian National Congress in 1923. The awakening continued in earnest however post-1945 with violence in India in 1947, China in 1949, Algeria in the early 1960s and Vietnam throughout the entire era from 1945 until 1975.

This political rise unltimately fostered an economic rise where stability and sound economic policies were introduced. First and foremost this was true in Japan which began rapid growth and modernization in 1960. One cannot avoid the conclusion that Japan's decision to pursue economic prosperity at the expense of military might was a conscious decision to avoid the mistake of World War Two which was to confront the US from a position of economic weakness. Beginning in 1960 Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong and Singapore all began rapid economic growth. This was helped in some measure by the American war contracts for the Korean and Vietnam Wars. However, the growth was mainly due to an emphasis on primary education, sound free-market macroeconomic policies, with more heavy government involvement in key microeconomic parts of the economy.

It is indicative and educative that these prosperous nations were all non-Communist. The Communists, however, were expert at exploiting the growing Nationalism in the third world.

Communism in Asia, both in China and elsewhere is a virulent combination of radical nationalism and one-state Communism. (and yes this is still true today). The radical nationalism is ancient. China has always considered herself the "middle kingdom", the nation with the "mandate of heaven." The one-state Communism was a 20th century phenomena. It was different from Soviet COmmunism in the revolutionary era in that the Chinese leadership rarely advocated exporting the revolution. In this sense it was Stalinist. It was also an agrarian revolution, rooted in a Chinese peasantry that was xenophobic and rabidly patriotic. There was rarely talk of the abolition of the State in China.

Today Chinese Communism has saddled capitalism and is riding it for Communistic ends. There is nothing contradictory in this for a Communist. (for the Communists contradictions are essential in any system). Communists have always viewed capitalism as the avenue to reach Communism. Indeed, Communism is an idea with more cultural meaning and implications going far beyond an economic system. In fact, in purely economic terms it is the greatest nonsense ever devised by the mind of Man. But for the Communist it not an economic panacea that is sought but a cultural utopia. Capitalists and democratics, thinking in economic terms exclusively, have never grasped this.

So we see the profound effects of the rise of nations and nationalism in the east. This rise was fostered under British tutelage and then in large measure became the force that shattered the yoke. Even areas like China that had never been formerly under British rule had been so dominated by Britain economically as to be a virtual colony. When British power declined and then collapsed in 1971 the effects were earth shattering. In many respects we are still feeling them today both economically and poltically. We are living still through the crisis created by the fall of the British Empire.