ABSTRACT
The Japanese newspapers feature bold headlines of Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda’s visit to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit meeting. The participants in the dialogue with Japan are an elite educated in the United States who envision the modernization of their nation along European or US lines. The largest portion of Japanese assistance goes to Southeast Asia, but the impression cannot be avoided that our aid policy is makeshift. The left-wing parties, who could pay attention to nothing but the domestic power struggle, had little interest in what was going on in Southeast Asia. Asia’s leaders were groping for a way to achieve autonomy and to develop without adopting communism or falling under US control. They envisaged a system of mutual economic assistance encompassing all nations of Southeast Asia. The majority of Japanese continue to want to know more about the United States and Europe; their interest in Southeast Asia is virtually nil.
