The Penguin History of the World

The implication of the term ‘Third World’ was that this was more a political project than a geographic one. These were the countries that were disregarded by the great powers and excluded from the economic privileges of the developed countries. Plausible though this combination might sound, the expression ‘Third World’ actually masked important differences between the members of the group from the beginning, not least in terms of plans for economic progress. In the 1950s and 1960s the principles of mutual solidarity, development and non-alignment made the Third World concept viable, though, and it was not until economic demands took the upper hand in the 1970s that the grouping split apart.

The coherence of the Third World was therefore not to prove very enduring, and by the twenty-first century many more people had been killed in wars and civil wars within that world than in conflicts external to it. Nevertheless, ten years after the end of the Second World War, the Bandung meeting forced the great powers to recognize that the weak had power if they could mobilize it. They bore this in mind as they looked for allies in the Cold War and courted votes in the UN.

By 1960 there were already clear signs that Soviet and Chinese interests might diverge as each sought the leadership of the under-developed and uncommitted. It was in the end to be a worldwide contest. One early result was the paradox that, as time passed, Pakistan drew closer to China (in spite of a treaty with the United States) and the USSR closer to India. When the United States declined to supply arms during its 1965 war with India, Pakistan asked for Chinese help. It got much less than it hoped for, but this was early evidence of a new fluidity that was beginning to mark international affairs in the 1960s. No more than the USSR or China could the United States ignore it. Indeed, the Cold War was to produce an ironic change in the Americans’ role in Asia; from being enthusiastic patrons of anti-colonialism and demolishers of their allies’ empires, they began sometimes to look rather like their successors, though in the East Asian rather than in the Indian Ocean sphere (where long and unrewarded efforts were made to placate a suspicious India; before 1960 it received more economic aid from the United States than any other country).

A very specific example of the new difficulties facing great powers was provided by Indonesia. Its vast sprawl encompassed many peoples, often with widely diverging interests. Although Buddhism had been the first of the world religions to establish itself there, Indonesia has the largest Muslim population under one government in the world, while other religions are now a small minority. But Indonesia also has a well-entrenched Chinese community, which had in the colonial period enjoyed a preponderant share of wealth and administrative jobs, and differences even among Muslim groups can be very large. The new post-colonial state wanted to create one integrated Indonesia, but was always under pressure from poverty and an under-developed economy. In the 1950s the central government of the new republic was increasingly resented; by 1957 it faced armed rebellion in Sumatra and elsewhere. The time-honoured device of distracting opposition with nationalist excitement (directed against a continued Dutch presence in west New Guinea) did not work any more; popular support for President Sukarno was not rebuilt. His government had already moved away from the liberal forms adopted at the birth of the new state and he leant more and more towards authoritarian rule, in alliance with a strong local Communist party. In 1960 parliament was dismissed, and in 1963 Sukarno was named president for life.

American attempts at winning him over enabled Sukarno to swallow up (to the irritation of the Dutch) a would-be independent state that had emerged from west New Guinea (West Irian). He then turned on the new federation of Malaysia, put together in 1957 from fragments of British South-East Asia. With British help, Malaysia mastered Indonesian attacks on Borneo, Sarawak and the Malaysian mainland. This setback seems to have been the turning-point for Sukarno. Exactly what happened is still obscure, but when food shortages and inflation went out of control, a coup was attempted (it failed) behind which, said the leaders of the army, were the Communists. The generals turned on the Communist party, which was at one time alleged to be the third largest in the world. Estimates of the number killed vary between a quarter and half a million, quite a few of them Chinese or of Chinese extraction, most of whom had no connection with the Communists. Sukarno himself was gradually set aside during the following years. A solidly anti-Communist regime was in power and broke off diplomatic relations with China (they were not to be renewed until 1990). The dictatorship was to last until 1998.