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III --

A. Southeast Asia comprises some 170 million people in an area just emerging from the colonial era. Standards of living and of literacy are very low. With the exception of Viet Nam, military forces are inconsiderable. The number and quality of leaders, administrators, and technicians is far below minimum requirements. The prospects of political or economic stability during this generation are dim, except in the Philippines and perhaps in Thailand.

B. The peoples of Southeast Asia are accustomed to the rule of the many by the very few at the level of their central government. Their principal national political vitality expresses itself as "anti-colonialism" and the termination of all foreign domination rather than in a desire for political democracy or for the political liberties upon which the Western concept of the world ideological struggle is based.

C. Southeast Asia is a part of and ethnically associated with the Asian continent, principally China. China today is the base of international Communism in the Far East. With the exception of Australia, to which Southeast Asian states are not ideologically oriented, anti-Communist bases are very distant. Certain of then are associated with colonialism in the minds of the people of Southeast Asia. Western influence, both in Southeast Asia and in Korea, has not been effective in preventing the spread of Communism. This results in increased vulnerability of some Southeast Asian countries to Communist influences. Rh