Archive Report
Archive Report
Grate-Power Contest in Southest Asia
The recent grant of limited sovereignty within the French Union to the three political units of the former colony of In do-China—the State of Viet Nam and the Kingdoms of Laos and of Cambodia—constituted one more in a significant series of postwar concessions by colonial powers to native aspirations for independence. Chief significance in this case, however, lay in the fact that the action had the effect of lifting the curtain on a new great-power struggle in a region of vast strategic and economic importance.
Alteration of Indo-China's political status, following hard on the Communist triumph in China, brought that territory into focus as the central point of developing international rivalries in Southeast Asia. A contest is now clearly shaping up ...