Implementación del concepto de patrón a través de la PAL

vote against the seating of Communist China in the United Nations, claiming that it was an absurdity to suggest that the U.N. should accept regimes openly committed to inevitable war and the destruction of the

'Free World'. Manila Chronicle, 9 October 1960. 2 Manila Bulletin, 10 February 1961.

3 Roger Tilman, Malaysian Foreign Policy, Research Analysis Corporation, McLean, Virginia, 1969, p.14.

border conflict, and both supported the government of 2

South Vietnam« This mutual perception of a communist threat contributed significantly to the formation of the Association of Southeast Asia (ASA) in August 1961.

The Philippines and Thailand

Diplomatic relations between the Philippine and Thai governments were established in April 1949, but

1 these remained little more than expressions of mutual 3

friendship.' There were no border problems between the two countries as there were between the Philippines and

Indonesia, and except for Philippine rice imports from 4

Thailand, trade between them was insignificant.

1 Manila Chronicle, 1 November 1962; Straits Times, 2 November 1962.

2 Malayan aid to South Vietnam took the form of shipments of surplus arms and the training of Vietnamese officers

in intelligence work, although it was stressed that Malaya's actions were completely independent of U.S. policy. Straits Times, 1 February 1961; 16 May 1962. The Tunku's first state visit was to South Vietnam,

and when Ngo Dinh Diem visited Malaya in February 1960, it was agreed that the two governments would cooperate to fight the 'ever-menacing threat of communist

subversion'. Straits Times, 20 February 1960. Similar sentiments of anti-communist solidarity were expressed when Diem visited the Philippines in March 1958, and when President Garcia went to South Vietnam in April

1959.

3 Meyer, op.cit., p.115.

4 In 1959, 1960 and 1961, Philippine imports from Thailand were worth $US0.11, 0,07 and 1.17 million respectively.

Exports to'Thailand were worth $0.02, 0.15 and 0.23 million respectively. United Nations Yearbook of

Unlike the Philippines, Thailand had never been colonized, and the Thai military government with a hereditary monarch in titular authority contrasted with the more Westernized republicanism of the Philippines.

Despite these differences of political style, the most significant aspect of Philippine-Thai relations in the postwar period was the perception by the ruling elites of both countries of a communist threat. It was this mutual perception of a communist menace which led both governments to contribute troops to the Korean war,^ and soon after the war both concluded military assistance agreements with the United States. When SEATO was formed in 1954, Thailand and the Philippines became the only

Southeast Asian members of the alliance. Both governments, however, became disillusioned with the inactivity of SEATO

in the Laotian crisis of 1961. To policymakers in Bangkok and Manila, the unwillingness of the British and French governments to become militarily involved in Indochina seemed to point to the need for an alliance of Asian

states, supported by the United States, which could counter communist expansionism' in Southeast Asia and which would not be rendered ineffective by the Western powers'

preoccupation with Europe. ASA was the logical outcome of this perception of a mutual need.

The Philippines and Indonesia

Geographically closer to the Philippines than either Thailand or Malaya, Indonesia had a population

1 For an analysis of Thai-American relations, see David A. Wilson, The United States and the Future of Thailand

(Praeger, New York, 1970); Frank C. Darling, Thailand — — — y.lf'_United States (Public Affairs Press, Washington,

three times that of the Philippines, and the border between the two archipelagoes was a frequent source of difficulty. The existence of a large Muslim state to the south was also a problem for the Manila government in view of its neglect of the Muslim southern islands of

the Philippines. Whereas the Thai, Malayan and Philippine elites shared the perception of a communist threat to the region, the Indonesian government pursued a non-aligned foreign policy which successive Philippine governments regarded as vulnerable to communist domination. Willard Hanna has aptly described the national stereotypes which underlay the latent hostility between the two governments in the 1950s:

In the Philippines, Indonesia has been very commonly regarded... as a nearby strategic area dangerously infiltrated with Communist ideology, woefully unstable in politics and economy, unsafe for travel, sticky about visa and trade regulations, and probably unhealthful. In Indonesia, on the other hand, the Philippines has been very commonly branded...as the tool of American manipulations,

an Asian front to Western designs, phenomenally corrupt and extravagant. The recurring

suggestion in the Philippines that Indonesia is both subject and agent of Communist

infiltration, and the equally recurrent

suggestion in Indonesia that the Philippines is a stooge for the United States have become, consequently, the two reckless stereotypes which serve most to exacerbate relations.12

1 In 1960, Malaya s population was 6,909,000, while that of Thailand was 26,258,000. Indonesia's population in 1960 was 92,600,000 compared with 27,792,000 for the Philippines. United Nations Demographic Yearbook 1961, p p .130-2.

2 Willard A. Hanna, 'New Starts in Indonesian—Philippine Relations', American Universities Field Staff, Southeast Asia Series, Vol.III, No.27, p.15. 31 October 1955.

This mutual hostility had not always been endemic in Philippine-Indonesian relations, Before World War II, the relations between the two countries, both of which were still under colonial rule, were not close but were fairly cordial. The Philippine government showed a considerable degree of sympathy for the Indonesian republican cause during the Indonesian independence struggle after 1945,1 234 and at

the New Delhi Conference of 1949 called for support of the 2

Indonesian nationalists. The Philippine government also participated in the Security Council debates on Indonesia in 1947-1949, during which General Romulo took a strong stand against the two Dutch 'police actions.'^ Soon

after Indonesia achieved its independence, the Philippine government proposed the establishment of diplomatic relations

the ambassadorial level, and an Indonesian embassy was 4

established in Manila.

In soon became clear, however, that the foreign policy orientation of the new state would be very different

from that of the Philippines. Profoundly affected by

their protracted and bitter struggle against the Dutch, the new Indonesian leaders saw their state as surrounded by the

same imperialist forces against which they had been fighting, and their foreign and domestic politics were both moulded in the framework of the revolution and the continuing

1 When the Philippines gained its independence in 1946,