Ten Basic Facts About Asia
ROMULO, CARLOS P.
ASIA: TEN BASIC FACTS FOR AMERICANS The Philippine delegate to the United Nations, a devoted friend of the U. S., offers a set of principles for the defense of democratic institutions in Asia By...
...This article is based on a recent address by General Romulo at the commencement of the University of Seattle...
...they will fight on the side of the free world only if they have a stake in freedom themselves...
...5. Military measures are at best a short-term device for staving off an immediate threat of Communist aggression...
...I do not speak as an expert on Asia, or even as a spokesman for Asia...
...Once it is realized that Asia is in a state of revolutionary ferment, one knows for a certainty that there is going to be an explosion of some kind, unless we do something to prevent it...
...The objective must be to isolate Communist agitation from the legitimate nationalist aspirations of the Asian peoples...
...Therefore, to us in Asia the most significant fact of our time is rather America's awakening to the awakening of Asia...
...To me, as a child of Asia and...
...7. As there can be no world peace without Asia, so there can be no economic stability in the world without Asia...
...What they want is a status of equal partnership and voluntary cooperation with other peoples...
...To these questions we have so far no clear answers...
...But the American is also a generous, warmhearted human being, and this quality appeals strongly to the Asian character...
...rather, they will adopt it with necessary modifications and only as it demonstrates its superiority in the actual experience of daily life...
...The long-term struggle against Communism, however, requires economic and financial assistance that will enable the Asian peoples to raise their standards of living...
...And their sense of gratitude is the type that leans over backward and manifests itself to excess...
...But let us not reduce them to wringing their hands helplessly, not knowing what to do about it...
...After all, it was the Chinese who invented gunpowder, though they left it to the Western peoples to use it to propel bullets to kill fellow human beings...
...Wherein, then, lies the mystery or the enigma...
...To understand Asia, it is necessary, first of all, to realize that many of its problems will not yield to pat, easy solutions...
...For it is not true that Asia is mysterious, enigmatic and unpredictable...
...By denouncing and opposing genuine freedom movements in Asia as Communist-inspired, the West in fact exposes such movements to Communist infiltration and control...
...At this juncture of history, America has a splendid opportunity to proffer the hand of friendly understanding to Asia, in the certain knowledge that the hand will be grasped with equal friendliness and with gratitude...
...However, anyone who has studied the situation in Asia no further back than the last decade will be in substantial agreement with a capsule analysis of the Asian problem which I have tried to formulate in the following terms: 1. The Asian peoples will no longer tolerate the shackles of colonialism...
...9. Asian neutralism must be recognized partly as the result of a genuine desire for peace, partly as dictated by the serious internal problems of many countries in the region, and partly as inspired by a lingering distrust of the motives of the colonial powers...
...It is not wholly certain that it is meant to save Asia in the interest of its own peoples...
...Saved from Communism, we are told...
...Therefore, beneath the outward differences there is much that Americans and Asians have in common...
...This outdated notion is merely an excuse for insufficient action or postponement of action or no action at all...
...They are quite human that way, too...
...Skin pigmentation has nothing to do with it, nor the fact that they subsist on rice...
...This must be true, because everybody outside of Asia seems to know about it and speaks about it constantly...
...You cannot neglect Asia and, by continuing to pour dollars into Europe, expect to stabilize the world economy, including the European economy itself...
...The hardheaded, practical American will sometimes be embarrassed by this Asian trait...
...Friendly cooperation between Asia and America is the greatest thing that can happen in the world...
...Asia has become too real, challenging and proud to warrant further recourse to such illusions...
...Asians are also human beings, and what Europeans or Americans would do or have done in the same circumstances the Asians will do also...
...8. Asian political, economic and social organization is predominantly on an authoritarian pattern...
...In whose interest...
...People who have traveled in Asia will testify that its people are the humblest, most hospitable and friendly you can find in the world...
...Though we are racing toward catastrophe, there is still time to do some hard thinking and intelligent planning for the difficult tasks that confront us...
...The Asians will also react just as quickly to sympathy and understanding, and will prize no less dearly the blessings of prosperity and freedom...
...And by what means...
...Since the end of World War II, he has been the Philippines' permanent delegate to the United Nations, serving as President of the UN General Assembly in 1949...
...Asia is no longer mysterious, resigned or meek...
...General Carlos P. Romulo, 55, is a Renaissance personality: He has been a playwright, college teacher, newspaperman, radio broadcaster, Boy Scout leader, soldier, public-relations man, political leader and diplomat...
...The method of trial and error, the technique of improvisation, no matter how cleverly managed, will no longer do...
...But saved for what ends...
...Nor is it unmistakably plain that the intention is to save Asia by means other than military...
...They have all the fine qualities of men who live close to the soil and cleave to it as to a mother...
...It is important to remember that there is no mystery about what hungry, impoverished and oppressed peoples will do in the end, if no relief is forthcoming...
...In Asia, however, since we are right in the middle of it, we do not talk about it...
...We simply adjust ourselves to the fact, and we keep on with the process of awakening...
...4. The West must work with and through the responsible nationalist movements in Asia rather than through puppet regimes that have no popular support...
...The Asian peoples will not give their support to any program, policy or course of action affecting Asia that is taken without consulting them...
...ASIA: TEN BASIC FACTS FOR AMERICANS The Philippine delegate to the United Nations, a devoted friend of the U. S., offers a set of principles for the defense of democratic institutions in Asia By Carlos P. Romulo The most dynamic single fact of our time is the awakening of Asia...
...Let us alert the American people to the present crisis in Asia...
...In the Southeast Asia Conference held in Baguio in May 1950 on the invitation of the Philippine Government, the representatives of seven countries in the region solemnly affirmed that "in the consideration of the special problems of South and Southeast Asia, the point of view of the peoples of this area be kept in mind, by any conference dealing with such problems, so that better understanding and cordial relations may subsist between the countries in the region and other countries in the world...
...One such solution is embodied in the common notion that Asia must somehow be saved...
...A veteran of Bataan, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished correspondence in 1941 before entering Philippine President Manuel Quezon's war cabinet...
...Therefore, it should not be assumed that the Asian peoples will automatically adopt democracy of the Western type...
...After achieving independence, countries like India, Indonesia, Burma and the Philippines have shown themselves quite capable of combating Communist influence in their midst...
...6. Assistance should be offered on a basis of equality and mutual respect, and not as a special favor with political strings or as a disguised survival of colonialism...
...as it were, a foster-child of America, nothing could be more inspiring than the spectacle of the oldest and the youngest of continents clasping hands and standing together to defend the frontiers of freedom...
...That is almost as certain as the physical fact that the dynamite stick with a lighted fuse will explode unless we step on the fuse and put it out in time...
...There is no excuse for hazy thinking about Asia...
...2. The Asian peoples are fired with an aspiration to human dignity and economic well-being which can no longer be held in abeyance...
...The Asian peoples are so much older than the peoples of the West that the latter can hardly claim to have invented revolution...
...3. The Asian peoples will not fight for the vague concept of a free world...
Vol. 37 • June 1954 • No. 25
