ABSTRACT
Throughout the four decades of the Cold War, the countries of East Asia, whether separately or as a grouping, were only marginal players in world affairs. In the early 1950s, most of the countries of the Asia-Pacific were economically and politically insignificant, having either just emerged from a long period of colonial domination (e.g. Indonesia and the Philippines), or were preoccupied with the task of economic reconstruction after the Second World War (e.g. Japan), or were wracked with domestic social and political upheavals (e.g. China and Vietnam). Of the two potentially significant regional powers, China and Japan, the latter appeared to have shed its Asian identity to establish closer links with the USA and the West. It maintained a low international political profile, opting instead to focus on economic objectives. China, on the other hand, following the socialist revolution of 1949, had limited involvement and influence in global affairs. Later in the 1960s, during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, China became even more deeply isolated.
