Canberra, 19 March 1963
Confidential
Australian Attitude Toward Malaysia
I have the honour to report in greater detail the very welcome decision of the Australian Government to give its full benediction and backing to the formation of the Federation of Malaysia reported briefly in my telegram No.189 dated 6th March.
2. In my despatches Nos. 3 and 4 about the visits of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff and the Commissioner–General for South–East Asia, I touched briefly on some of the problems posed for the Australian Government by the increasing hostility of Indonesia toward Malaysia. In this despatch I shall try to explain why an Indonesian attitude which seems so inherently unreasonable should have led the Australian Government to hesitate before declaring their support for another Commonwealth country, with which they have such close defence ties, through their association with the British–Malaya Defence Agreement of 9957.
3. The fact is, as members of my staff have mentioned in semi-official correspondence with your Department, in the field of foreign affairs—at any rate at working level—we must in future expect Australian officials (and even some Ministers) in considering any particular question to pay less attention to the importance of the Commonwealth connexion as such and more to the possible effect of their policy on that question in the non-Commonwealth countries of Asia. The Australians are anxious nowadays, perhaps because they will soon be one of the few remaining colonial Powers, to dissociate themselves in Asian eyes from the colonial policies of others. Some, though not many, Australian officials doubt whether the Tunku is really a democrat at heart, and few genuinely believe that the Indonesian charges that Malaysia is an example of neo-colonialism are not altogether without foundation. There is also a feeling in some Australian circles, particularly in the Department of External Affairs, that the British have dreamed up Malaysia as a rather transparent, intrinsically flimsy and probably impermanent device for solving their colonial problems in Singapore and the Borneo Territories. They suspect that in the long term we will withdraw from South-East Asia and leave them, with New Zealand, to hold the baby. In Defence circles, too, there has been some slight distrust of Malaysia, but for rather opposite reasons. At least one of the Service Chiefs here, initially at least, was opposed to Malaysia because it was felt that in spite of what we had said to the contrary it would lead to the early loss of Singapore as a British base and to the progressive diminution of their ability to use forces based in Malaysia in operations elsewhere. This difference of departmental approach represents one of the main dilemmas of Australian thinking. Whilst on the one hand they are genuinely anxious that countries in South-East Asia should emerge from their colonial status yet on the other they are fearful for their own security when that happens. Because of this dilemma and perhaps because they have not really thought through the problem, the Australians have never been completely convinced about the formation of Malaysia. Sir Robert Menzies, it is true, had joined his Commonwealth colleagues in endorsing it in London at the Prime Ministers’ Conference in 1962, and Sir Garfield Barwick had on several occasions mildly expressed Australia’s somewhat detached benevolence. But at the same time Australia has been at pains to make it clear that, though interested, she is not directly involved.
4. In more recent months the Australians have moreover felt that in the Malaysian context we have not handled the Filipino claim particularly well.1 They believe that, by initially refusing to talk with the Filipinos, we encouraged them to build up what started off as something of a gambler’s throw into a formal Government-supported claim which it is now difficult for them to modify. They believe that had we been more flexible earlier we might well have been able to solve this particular problem, or at any rate to have prevented it from developing into an impediment to the formation of Malaysia. Filipino susceptibilities count for something in Australia because the Philippines are fellow members of SEATO, which is, after ANZUS, the main linchpin of Australian defence policy.
5. It is thus clear that from the start the Australians have not given unqualified support to the Malaysian concept; though the probability is that they would have accepted it with equanimity had not the Indonesians come into the picture. There seems no doubt that the Australians were taken by surprise by the vehemence of the Indonesian reaction, and this imported a wholly new factor into their calculations, which might well have swung the final balance the wrong way. Policy towards Indonesia is nowadays the most important external problem for the Australian Government (though it has also of course deep domestic political implications). Their volte face early last year, largely on the personal initiative of Sir Garfield Barwick, against the advice of his senior officials but supported by Sir Robert Menzies, has been far from popular with large sections of the Press and with some of the more vociferous and perhaps influential sections of public opinion. The Department of External Affairs, who, until the end of 1961, had been strong advocates of a policy of supporting the Dutch in West New Guinea, when ordered into reverse have gone in that direction with enthusiasm. The result has been that in considering their attitude to almost any problem (even those, e.g., Cuba, which appear to have no direct South-East Asian connexion) they are very careful to have very much in mind the views of Djakarta. Their able Ambassador2 there has been told personally by the Prime Minister that it is his main task to maintain good relations between Australia and Indonesia by every possible means, and the Australians have been going to great lengths to avoid upsetting the Indonesians, even in cases where their interests were more directly concerned than in Malaysia. It was no doubt their desire to keep on good terms with the Indonesians, who are now their close neighbours, that led to earlier Press speculation about the possibility of Australia mediating in the dispute between Indonesia and Malaya, and this may have been the origin of the stories, like that of Mr. Dennis Bloodworth3 from Singapore (your telegrams Nos. 393 and 394 dated 4th March) which claimed that official opinion in Canberra was stressing the dangers for Australia of taking sides.
6. The Press and public attitude has, however, been very robust, and in the last few weeks Press comment has been virtually unanimous in calling on the Government to be firm. Even so, I have reason to believe that as recently as early in February the attitude of Sir Garfield Barwick was still very much that of his Department, i.e., that Australia should avoid committing herself too far in favour of Malaysia lest she should damage her long-term relations with Indonesia. It would seem, however, that this is yet another instance where Sir Robert Menzies has exerted his influence in a direction helpful to Britain. This may have been due partly to his wish as a Commonwealth man to support another Commonwealth country; but it was probably due to his quick realisation of the strength of public feeling in this country. At all events, when the Australian Cabinet finally took its decision on Malaysia, the outcome was highly satisfactory from our point of view. Sir Garfield Barwick’s public statement,4 the text of which I have already telegraphed, leaves little to be desired; but it is, I understand, moderate compared with the very vigorous way in which he expressed himself when he saw the Indonesian Ambassador a few days earlier.
7. The Australian view, as now stated by Sir Garfield Barwick has been widely welcomed by the Press, particularly by the normally critical Sydney Morning Herald, and there seems no doubt that it is popular with the country. It remains to be seen what the Indonesian reaction will be, but already the Australians, both here and elsewhere, e.g., in New York, are taking steps to explain that their support of Malaysia does not imply any hostility to Indonesia. In off the record guidance to the Press, Sir Garfield Barwick made it plain that he did not wish to see a Press campaign mounted against Indonesia on this or any other issue.
8. There still remain some important details to be settled, not least the question of how far the Australian Government will feel able to associate themselves with the United Kingdom–Malaya Defence Agreement when it is extended to cover Malaysia. It may be that they will consider whether they should make some reservations of a kind which would water down their existing obligations, in the event of Indonesian aggression or infiltration. This is not an easy matter for the Australian Government because they, and still more the Australian Opposition, are extremely wary about the implications of the possible use of Australian troops in operation in Malaysia which might well appear to be more of an internal security than a straight military nature. My impression is that in the event they will associate themselves with the proposed revised Defence Agreement in a way that will commit them neither more nor less to Malaysia than they are at present committed to Malaya.
9. After the Cabinet meeting which took the decision on Malaysia, Sir Robert Menzies made a brief statement in which he said that he and his colleagues had closely examined Australian security ‘in relation to the developing situation, and had called for further reports on the progress of security and defence measures which would be promptly considered by the Government’. This is being interpreted as meaning that the Government intend to re-shape their defence policy as a direct result of the Cabinet decision to support Malaysia. This, no doubt, is the immediate occasion of the review but its timing may owe something to the fact that the Americans have recently made it clear, as I said in paragraph 4 of my despatch No. 3 of 15th March, 1963, about the C.I.G.S.’s visit, that they regard the defence of Malaysia as primarily a Commonwealth affair. It is in any case an open secret that ever since the last ANZUS Council Meeting in May 1962 the Americans have been pressing the Australian Government to make a greater defence effort in this part of the world.
10. I am sending copies of this despatch to the British High Commissioners in Wellington and Kuala Lumpur, the Commissioner-General in Singapore, to Her Majesty’s Ambassadors in Washington, Djakarta, Manila and Bangkok, and to the Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom at the United Nations, and I enclose spare copies in case you wish to pass them to other departments.
1 The Philippines claimed Sabah.
2 K.C.O. Shann, Australian Ambassador to Indonesia, 1962–66.
3 The Singapore–based Far East correspondent for the London Observer.
4 On which see Dee, Australia and the formation of Malaysia , Documents 43 and 45.
[UKNA: DO 164/39]