history
The Colombo Plan
By Ingeborg van Teeseling on May 6th, 2019
At the end of WWII, Australia was in two minds about its future. On the one hand, it was relieved. With help from the Americans it had managed to get out of the war with relatively minimal damage. A few places had been bombed, Darwin in particular, and at the end of the conflict 28,000 people were dead, mostly soldiers. That was not great, but compared to other countries in the world (the Russians, for instance, lost 11 million soldiers and somewhere between 7 and 20 million civilians, the Americans 400,000 soldiers), Australia was lucky. [1][2] So that was a plus. But at the same time, Australia was worried. As far as its leaders could see, the war had proven four things: first of all, that the era of Empire was over. You can read more about this elsewhere in the history section, but the bottom line was that Britain was clearly no longer the Motherland or the protective force she had been in earlier times. That role had been taken over by America, but Australia had paid a price for that. From 1942 onwards, it had been General MacArthur who was in charge of the country, not PM Curtin, and this still grated a little. Australia, now more than ever, realized how vulnerable it was, especially as a white island in a sea of Asia. The White Australia Policy was still firmly in place as the core of its identity and that was becoming a liability.
Particularly, because the world was changing. From the Boer War onwards, countries, or groups within countries, had been trying to throw out their imperial masters. Local elites, often educated in the nations that ruled them, formulated alternatives to colonialism and dependency. Roughly, there were two lines of thought, centering around either nationalism or communism (and sometimes a mix of both). Soon, those ideals were accompanied by independence movements, who fought, often with gun in hand, to gain their own sovereignty. For Australia, there were two developments in particular that made an impression. The first one was the independence and subsequent partition of India in 1947, the second the nationalist struggle against the Dutch colonialists in what would become Indonesia, from 1945 to 1949. It was clear to Labor Prime Minister Ben Chifley, that with all this ferment going on in the world, Australia had a problem. There were millions and millions of people in Asia, and they were poor, hungry and obviously getting angrier by the day. Australia was very close, in fact, geographically part of Asia. What would happen if ‘the hordes’, as they had always been described, would come to take over the country? What had happened to Australian soldiers in prisoner of war camps in Japan was for many people an extra warning of what that kind of take-over would look like. So something needed to be done.
First port of call for Chifley’s Minister for Immigration Calwell was to set up an impressive system of post-war migration (see elsewhere in the history section). This way, the amount of (white) people in Australia would be given a boost, which would be helpful in case the worst happened. Now something needed to be invented to minimize the threat from Asia itself. According to the principle of ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’, Chifley decided to offer the hand of friendship. Carefully, of course, and with lots of conditions. One of the ideas was to allow Asian students into Australian universities. That could be a win-win: it would create a western-oriented elite in the countries closest to us, which would hopefully feel indebted to its host instead of wanting to attack it. At the same time, it would give Australia an opportunity to get to know these people and form ties with them before they became important leaders. The White Australia Policy made it difficult to let them in, though. According to its rules, non-white people were not welcome, because, as the political secretary of the Australia Commission in Singapore wrote in 1947, the fear was of ‘coolie labour competition’. [3]
Nevertheless, sometimes needs must (when the Devil drives), and this became clear when Mao Zedong’s Communist forces came closer and closer to defeating the Nationalists in China in 1948. Also, Cold War tensions were starting to heat up and Australia was getting more and more nervous. So in 1948, the Chifley government set up two scholarship schemes for South East Asian students, to ‘give practical evidence of the goodwill of the Australian people’, as the Prime Minister said. Those students were carefully selected and the numbers were small, but it was hoped the PR value would be enormous. This, though, was made more difficult by the fact that under the White Australia Policy (WAP) people were still being deported from the country, or refused access. Even people who had been living here for decades, and the Japanese brides of Australian servicemen were treated with racist disdain. This negated the publicity campaign and a number of Asian countries made their displeasure very clear. They felt they were treated with contempt and handouts, instead of equality and genuine goodwill and friendship. [4]
Then, in 1949, a number of significant things happened. In January, the New Delhi Conference was held, attended by 18 Asian countries and Australia, as ‘the only Western nation fully participating’, as the Cairns Post proudly proclaimed. [5] Although it was mostly concerned with what was going on in Indonesia, it also tried to come up with a continuing mechanism for regional cooperation. And on the sidelines, the Indian ambassador to China, alarmed by Mao’s advance, held meetings with the Australian and British ambassadors, in which he proposed to set up a fund to help SA Asia battle communist movements. [6] For the moment, this fell on deaf ears where the Australians were concerned. Herbert Vere Evatt, Chifley’s Minister for External Affairs, was more focused on the United Nations. Not only was he the President of the UN General Assembly at the time, he was also busy drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Communism, he agreed, was a worry, but could wait for the moment.
But in October, Mao proclaimed the People’s Republic of China, and in December the Australian people threw out Chifley and voted in Robert Menzies and his Liberal/National Coalition. Menzies was both more and less ideologically driven than Chifley had been. On the one hand, he was hugely anti-communist, and, like Chifley, a great believer in the WAP. But he was also a Liberal and therefore motivated by the economic bottom-line. He realized that antagonizing Asian countries was a bad idea, because they could be future economic partners. And although millions of poor people were scary, if they could be turned into consumers, they could also be an enormous opportunity for Australian business. So one of the first things Menzies did was stop the deportations and allow the Australian servicemen who had married Japanese women to bring their partners home. It was time, he said, to administer the WAP ‘in a more humane and liberal manner’. To appease Asia, he also let 800 Chinese wartime refugees stay in the country. [7] Then he picked a new Minister for External Affairs, Percy Spender. Spender, a lawyer of some note and a Minister in Menzies’ first cabinets, before and during the war, had literally written the book on diplomacy: Australia’s Foreign Policy: The Next Phase had come out in 1944. Spender and his wife had been travelling extensively through SA Asia and the Pacific and he had realized that Australia could ill afford to isolate itself. This was now, as he wrote ‘One World’, and connections were going to be the new black. [8]
In January of 1950, the Foreign Ministers of the Commonwealth met in Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and Spender decided to turn that occasion into his first diplomatic strike. First of all, he thought it would be a good idea to adopt Chifley’s student plan, but in a different way. Under what would become known as the Colombo Plan, students from countries in SA Asia could apply for scholarships to study in Australia. Spender’s Department would decide who would be accepted, but the aim was to create a pool of people who could help their countries grow and thrive after having gained an Australian degree in public administration, engineering or agricultural science. Because the WAP was still firmly in place and the fear of communism growing, the students had to sign a contract, vowing to not engage in politics while they were here and return home directly after they had finished their studies. But in return they got their degree for free and an education officer from the Commonwealth Office of Education each, who was in charge of their welfare and daily needs. [9]
The Colombo Plan wasn’t just concerned with building a new Asian elite and influencing their values, though. Spender also wanted to secure diplomatic and commercial relationships with Asia and help lift people out of poverty. In order to do that, there was money for technical equipment, education supplies, medical services and infrastructure, like airports, roads, hospitals, factories and schools. And, although that was not made public, as time went by, the Colombo Plan budget was also spent on anti-communist activities in Asia. It ran Radio Australia, trained police officers in ‘anti-subversive techniques’ and funded ‘information offensives’. [10][11] Percy Spender called it ‘a dramatic example of how a small nation may influence history’, and although he meant that, that is a statement that might need a little unpacking. Daniel Oakman, Australia’s leading academic on the Colombo Plan, says the plan was ‘a complex mix of self-interest, condescension and humanitarianism’. Although the focus was on Asia, it also told the ‘story of how an insular society, deeply scarred by the turbulence of war, chose to face its regional future’. Australia felt, in the words of the Japanese wartime PM, like ‘the orphan of the Pacific’ and any outstretched hand was mainly to protect us from what the future might hold. Spender tried to ‘build a bridge to Asia’ and ‘establish Australia as a force in regional affairs’, because, as Labor MP Kim Beazley sr. said in early 1950, hungry people are dangerous, and ‘the key to the political problem of SA Asia is food’. So by instituting a kind of Asian Marshall Plan, it was hoped that we would be orphans no longer. [12]
Another aim of the Colombo Plan was to involve the Americans in the region. Realising that we needed the protection of the now-biggest boy in the class, Australia went to great lengths to engage the Americans. First, Spender proposed an Australian-New Zealand-Britain anti-communist defence pact, with hopefully later US Participation. This would, in 1951, turn into the ANZUS Treaty (see elsewhere in the history section). In the mean time, Spender held talks with the Americans, trying to convince them that money spent on Asia, inside or outside of the Colombo Plan, would come back with interest. He had to do this, also because Australia was forced to count the pennies after the war. The campaign to attract as many migrants as possible was expensive, post-war development also cost a lot, and the country was experiencing the start of a baby boom. So any help was much appreciated. Nevertheless, Spender and Menzies considered Colombo a priority, for all the reasons already mentioned, but also because there was growing resentment in Asia about both the WAP and the glaring difference in living standards between Australia and the continent surrounding it. The fear was not just for invasion, but also that poverty would make communism look attractive. And tying Asia to the West instead of the Soviet Union and China was considered very important. So, the Colombo Plan was a weapon in the battle for ‘the hearts and minds’. And it helped Australia make the painful transition from concentrating on Britain and Europe to Asia. [13]
1950 was a year of momentous developments. In May, Australia agreed to provide military support for British forces fighting in Malaya (now Malaysia). In June, North Korea launched its first offensives across the 38th parallel and almost immediately after the US got itself involved in what would become the Korean war, so did Australia. In October, Menzies declared the Australian Communist Party illegal, a move that ended up in the High Court not long after. To top off the year, Minister Spender told Parliament in December that the government would spend about 35 million pounds on the Colombo Plan in its first six years, and that it would start with its first successful students shortly. That happened in March of 1951, when the first six people arrived from Ceylon, newly independent Indonesia, Malaya and Sarawak. It was, as Spender proudly proclaimed, a shining example of the ‘quest of democracy to establish conclusively its superiority to Soviet communism as a system of government’. [14] A month later, Spender left the Ministry, to become Australian ambassador in Washington, and Richard Casey took over. Casey, who came from a wealthy family of pastoralists and politicians, already had a long career as a diplomat behind him when he started in his new role. Unlike Spender, he was not a great orator, but like his predecessor he believed in the importance of Asia for the future of Australia. [15] After the Colombo Plan was officially launched in April 1951, Casey went on an extensive tour through the region, trying to sell the plan. Understanding that he needed some PR material, he had a booklet printed called New Hope for Asia, that was distributed in bulk to participating countries that same year. Also good news was that the US joined the Plan as a member of the Consultative Committee, and that more and more Asian countries decided to become part of the group as well.
A little more difficult was the way Australia dealt with these new Asian faces on its streets, and how the students responded to their new surroundings. Basically, there was confusion all round. Some of the students were not served in pubs and other public conveniences, ironically because they were mistaken for Aboriginal people. Menzies was immediately clear about that, telling Australians he ‘deplored any discourtesy to any visitor from overseas, whatever the colour of his skin’. Which, of course, was an interesting statement, given the fact that the WAP was still very much part of the Liberal leader’s ideals and practices, and Aboriginal people at the bottom of the pile. Parts of the Australian media and the newly inaugurated spy agency ASIO were also worried that the students would fall under the influence of the Australian Communist Party, or, the other way around, that they would ‘convert’ Australian students to the dark side. And then there was the Asian press, who often considered the students stooges, selling their soul in return for an education. The students themselves were not uncomplicatedly happy either. The WAP was one of the reasons for that, with a student calling Australia ‘the South Africa of Asia, the white house on the hill’. [16] But there were also more personal reasons for discontentment. Language difficulties made communication with the outside world complicated. Students had problems integrating and dealing with cultural issues, inside and outside of their courses. Teachers and students often misunderstood each other, there was home sickness, inadequate housing, isolation, culture shock and often a lack of money, because the living allowance the Department paid was not very big. On the positive side of the ledger stood the impact the students had on their host families. They suddenly realized that Asian people were ‘normal’, ‘generally of excellent character, good intelligence, with fine sensibilities and very likeable’, as one woman wrote. ‘To know these students better is to regret very much that we are debarred by our own immigration law from having them as our real next-door neighbour’, she continued, putting her finger on at least one sore spot. [17]
Nevertheless, as time went on, more and more Asian students came to Australia. Not just as part of the Colombo Plan, but also because the Plan had opened the doors for other overseas students. They, of course, did not get their degree sponsored by the Australian government, and so a lucrative sideline for the universities was born that is still evident today. By 1955, when the 1000th CP student arrived, only 23% of overseas students were part of the Plan. That would be even lower ten years later, when it fell to 16%. [18] The type of students allowed in under the Plan also changed. By the mid-1950s, more than a quarter of the CP scholarships were offered to Indonesian students, for a number of reasons. The Americans, who had been giving aid to Indonesia until the early 1950s, now favoured India and Indo-China, which left the door open for Australia to become Indonesia’s new benefactor. Of course, that was fortuitous, because the country was its closest neighbour and getting more and more powerful in the region. As Casey wrote to Menzies at the time, any help Australia offered was ‘a good shoe-horn for our interests’. Because ‘what we most want to see is the development of stable, democratic and friendly governments….a group of reliable buffer states between ourselves and the communist drive to the south, although we must never call them that’. [19]
The students and the other components of the CP were very helpful in that aim, but Casey went much further. In 1959, he engaged a journalist and writer to produce books meant for the Asian market, extolling Australia’s virtues: ‘The kind of themes I have in mind would include the absence of racial prejudice in Australia, Australia’s continuing pioneering efforts, the absence of that decadence attributed to capitalist societies in communist propaganda, our progressive social reforms and the egalitarian nature of Australian society…[as well as] the primitive nature of our Aborigines and even the beneficial aspects of colonial regimes’, the Minister wrote. In 1960, a booklet called The seed of freedom: Australia and the Colombo Plan was published and all 100,000 copies distributed around Asia. Unfortunately, its writer, journalist Osmar White, also wrote a report that same year, in which he talked about the corruption, wastage, gross mismanagement and ineptitude of the Australian practice of the Plan. Inexperience, lack of a systematic approach to international aid and deficient knowledge of the area were all undermining the good intentions, White said, just before the report was put in the back of a drawer and forgotten. [20]
Back home, the students, both those part of the Plan and the private ones, were having a better time than before. The government, scared that bad treatment would get back to the home countries and destroy the PR aims, first increased the allowance and then started organizing housing and welfare in a more systematic way. In 1953, Casey set up the ‘meet your neighbours campaign’, part of the Good Neighbour Council (see elsewhere in the history section). Casey thought it would be a good idea for the students to ‘get to know the average Australian working man in his own home surroundings’. Also, this way the Minister could engage middle-class community organisations like the Rotary, YMCA, the Country Women’s Association, churches and others to coordinate the students’ welfare. They organised picnic dinners, formals and outings, while the students paid them back with film nights and cultural evenings. It was all becoming a bit confusing, especially for the Australians. Getting to know these men and women was, as Daniel Oakman wrote, a ‘powerful challenge to stereotypes of Asian intellectual backwardness’. In fact, in 1954, a Reverend of the Brisbane City Congregational Church wrote that he thought the students ‘could elevate Australian standards’. That, of course, was a problem, because the White Australia Policy was still in place, and was starting to look a bit odd now it was confronted with actual non-white people. If that was difficult for Australians, it was infuriating for some of the Asian media. As the Times of Indonesia wrote at the time, it considered the CP ‘empty tokenism’, even ‘blood-money, to silence Australia’s guilty conscience’. [21]
It was a schizophrenic situation, especially because the Menzies government actually tightened the rules of the WAP, particularly for the Chinese. On the other hand, in 1957 it became possible for long-term Asian residents to get permanent residence and even citizenship after fifteen years. That was still discriminatory, because non-Asians could apply after five. But at least it was something, and over time other things changed as well. Now entry was allowed to ‘distinguished and highly qualified’ Asians, if only ‘for an extended stay’ and as an ‘exemption’. The year after, the Dictation Test was abolished, signaling the beginning of the end of the WAP. Although that would not officially happen until 1973 (see elsewhere in the history section), and many of those measures were ‘deemed potentially too damaging to publicise’ and migration rates remained very low for decades. [22] Who were staying more and more were the CP and other Asian students. And for diplomatic reasons it was difficult to deport them. Even those who were not performing or trying to use their study as a stepping stone towards citizenship could not just be removed. Some universities were also withholding information about the students, because they thought that the government’s motives were ‘WAP in action’. Only in the 1960s did this change. With more private students arriving, there were stricter conditions on entry and a little more oversight.
In the mean time, the CP had done at least part of its work, although not the part for which it had been set up. According to a 1954 Gallup Poll, 61% of Australians disapproved of Asian migration. Eleven years later that figure was 16%. Australia had learnt to live, a least a little, with Asian faces in its midst. [23] Of course, the 1960s would also bring a direct confrontation with Asia. After the fairly small-scale military efforts in Korea, the war in Vietnam brought the region into every Australian lounge room. And for those who were paying attention, Indonesia’s so-called Konfrontasi also made the point that Asia was now no longer a poor relation waiting for hand-outs. The Colombo Plan petered out during the 1970s, although it was never officially would up. And in 2013, the Liberal/National Coalition government even decided to bring it back. The New Colombo Plan is a different version of the old one, though. It has a two-way flow, with Asian students coming here and Australian ones going there. There are far more locations, mentorships, research possibilities and jobs available. But the aim is the same. It is ‘Australia’s most successful soft-power initiative’, a mixture of ‘public diplomacy’ and ‘vernacular internationalism’, as historian David Lowe called it. [24] The Colombo Plan also still exists as a regional organization for Cooperative Economic and Social Development in Asia and the Pacific. It currently consists of 27 member states, with the most recent one, Saudi Arabia, joining in 2012. The language of aid and paternalism has disappeared and replaced by words like ‘South-South Cooperation’. [25] And Australia is now a more-or-less comfortable part of its geographical location. Although we sometimes forget and give ourselves over to the old story of the invading hordes again. ‘Swamped by Asians’ comes to mind. But then we breathe and get over it. And that all started in 1950, with the Colombo Plan. Lessons learnt, value for money.