Division of Humanities and Social Sciences

This article focuses on the racial aspect of Pan-Asianism and argues that Pan-Asianism movements were radicalized as a reaction against the White superiority network which was created by excluding Japanese and other Asian immigrants from the British White Dominions and United States. Particularly for a country like Australia, it was important to form national solidarity under the name of White superiority in order to fill the gap between Anglo-Saxons and Celts (Irish), which appeared following the Easter Uprising in 1916. The Australian Prime Minister, Billy Hughes, was thus responsible for rejecting the racial equality clause presented by Japanese government during the Paris Peace conference of 1919. Since the Triple Intervention of 1895, the 'Yellow Peril' outcry during and after the Russo-Japanese War, the rejection of the racial equality clause, the dissolving of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance in 1922, and ultimately the anti-Japanese immigration laws passed by the United States government in 1924 and the Canadian government in 1928, Japan felt racially humiliated and started to seek racial solidarity with other Asian peoples under the name of

This article seeks to explore the arguments that occurred mainly within the British Foreign Office and in its discussions with other government ministries in the early 1970s concerning the matter of affording diplomatic recognition to North Korea and the unique challenge that this diplomatic conundrum presented to Britain's traditional approach in recognising states. The early 1970s was a time of both anxiety and anticipation for East Asia, the region which had been affected most by the choking grip of the Cold War. On his ascendency to the Presidency of the United States of America in January 1969, Richard Nixon had, with his formidable National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, inherited from the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson the seemingly insolvable problem of the Vietnam War. Nixon, who was 'keen to negotiate and reach agreements with America's Cold War adversaries' upon coming to power, 2 intended to pursue a policy of easing tensions, better known as 'détente', with the Communist bloc. Such perspective on foreign policy by the Nixon administration, and by much of the Washington elite, was based on 'the concept that the global disorder of the late 1960s could be dealt with through an understanding with the other superpower [the Soviet Union] and be based on an implied recognition of its "interests"'. 3 To achieve this, Nixon and Kissinger sought to bring a quick end to

This article examines the discussions and decisions which occurred within the British government concerning Britain's military involvement in the Korean peninsula at a time when Britain was pulling out of its military obligations in Asia-colloquially known as the 'retreat East of Suez'-in the late 1960s and the early 1970s. By the early 1960s, Britain's commitments and obligations in its 'Indo-Pacific theatre' were considerable, the most daunting of which was the defence of the newly-created Malaysia against the hostility of its neighbour Indonesia: the period of Confrontation (Konfrontasi) between the two regions from 1963 to 1966 resulted in the British deployment in Southeast Asia of 68,000 personnel, 200 aircrafts, and 80 ships. 2 The first Labour administration of Harold Wilson, which came into power in October 1964, was initially committed to maintaining Britain's military role in the area out of a mix of fear of Conservative attacks on a Labour inclination to reduce British power and influence in the world, the Bevinite tradition of claiming Britain to be the world's third great power, and the reluctance to yield influence and status until it became absolutely untenable. 3 Naturally, such commitments to protect British interests surrounding the Indian Ocean would have forced Britain to incur enormous defence costs in maintaining planes, aircraft carriers, and deployment bases. However, the

This article explores the diplomatic challenges which confronted the first Margaret Thatcher administration in regard to Britain's Cold War policy of non-recognition of North Korea. The request of St. Vincent and the Grenadines to simultaneously appoint its resident High Commissioner to London as its non-resident Ambassador to Pyongyang had to be opposed by the British Foreign Office despite the fact that St. Vincent was not a party to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, while London had to consider breaking the provisions of the 1883 Paris Convention in order not to recognize the 'right of priority' of patents which had been approved in Pyongyang as was required. Also, North Korea's stated intention to join the InterGovernmental Maritime Consultative Organization and therefore establish its permanent mission in London forced the Foreign Office to attempt to block North Korea's admittance to the IMCO despite the principle of universality of international organizations, while Britain's inability to talk directly to the North Koreans deprived London of an important means with which to stop North Korean military aid from arriving in Zimbabwe.