ABSTRACT
During the colonial era the armed strength of the European nations had by and large subdued factional and national struggles in south-east Asia. The British tried to leave Asia in an orderly way. Even so the partition of India was accompanied by internal upheaval and great bloodshed, and the legacy of partition was two more wars between independent India and Pakistan. Seen in terms only of British interests, the Labour government had acted wisely in disentangling Britain from direct responsibility for the conflicts of southern Asia. The Dutch attempted to hold on too long to their empire. Even after they left in December 1949, they retained West New Guinea, to which Indonesia laid claim, though its mainly Stone Age peoples were not Indonesian. After years of conflict the Dutch gave way and the renamed West Irian was transferred to Indonesia by the United Nations in 1963. The French also tried to turn the clock back and to re-establish their pre-war colonial domination, fighting a bitter war with Indo-China until 1954.
