Canberra, 5 May 1967
Top Secret
External Affairs Assessment: Britain East of Suez
Looking at it in retrospect it was something of a tour de force of the British White Paper of 1966 to assert baldly Britain’s intention to maintain its bases in Singapore and Malaysia so long as they could remain in acceptable conditions. This was an attempt to hold to a fixed attitude in changing circumstances. It has been a continuing point of friction in the British Labour Party.
It seems clear that the sudden collapse in British East of Suez policy is due to the decision to apply for membership of the E.E.C.
I do not put this in the same terms as Rusk, when he asked Brown whether Britain’s new attitude on ‘East of Suez’ was because they were clearing their decks for entry to the Common Market1—the implication being that they were making themselves more acceptable to de Gaulle. More fundamental is the effect of Callaghan’s arguments about the heavy cost of joining E.E.C.2 And bargains are undoubtedly necessary within the Labour Party to produce a workable pro-E. E.C. policy. Something had to be done about the divisive issue of East of Suez if the central policy was to be secured within the Party.
It is very questionable whether the present policy adopted by Australia and America is going to work. Despite the Prime Minister’s impressive message3 and Rusk’s weighty memorandum4 Healey was authorised to outline the intentions in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.5
Australia and the United States are trying to hold the British to the 1966 White Paper. We want Britain to refrain from long term decisions and freeze on a position of cutting forces in half by 1970. But this makes no sense as a defensive posture or a British ‘role’. It can have no appeal as a perspective, a workable policy, or a rationale. If adopted the reason would purely be Australian and American pressures and, perhaps, an internal stalemate within the British Government. It is unlikely that we can succeed. It does not make for healthy and productive relations if we do.
I also think Australia is trying to cast the British in a larger role than they can play. This effort to stimulate them has its risks if we sustain it too long. The risk is that we leave the field in Britain to those who want to ‘pull-out’ without offering a realistic, attainable alternative. Moreover, if we want the British to stay, we must somehow be able to present the future in a new light and the continuing role as unconnected with all the obligations of the colonial power of the imperial past.
Malaysia and Singapore seem ready to look for realistic alternatives. They want a British presence (although their wants are not the same). They, with Thailand, are the bright spots of stability and development in South East Asia. They are acutely conscious of the insecurity and instability of the area around them. They want their security effectively guaranteed.
With their help it should be possible to retain indefinitely a worthwhile British presence and contribution in South East Asia. But we need to put aside (without discarding) our larger ideas about substantial forces on the ground, and ‘forward defence’, and a significant standing contribution to SEATO plans.
The Commonwealth effort has secured the stability of the Malaysian region. It is now a matter of maintaining the stability, of preserving the balance and not allowing a vacuum. The British could conceivably be persuaded to keep a smaller standing element as underwriting the Anglo-Malaysian Defence Treaty and as providing for the stability of the region comprising Thai-Malaysian border regions, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. If this region remains peaceful, the type of contribution which Australia is now making is well justified. Very large forces should not be necessary. It is not a matter of Australia doing more, but of allowing Britain to reduce to something comparable to our own performance (on the ground).
If we were able to contemplate this as an ultimate objective, then it would open the way for Britain to make some sort of public announcement of long term policy now. That public announcement could be in terms which we could accept (expressing Britain’s intention to honour its treaty obligations in the Malaysian region, to support and work for regional defence arrangements, and so forth). There would also be a larger prospect of acceptance within Britain for a continuing British role since this could be presented in the announcement as in important respects a break with the past, as a more limited and constructive role (tied to national development rather than operations against local political forces) and as a lesser burden and larger partnership with Commonwealth partners.
In all this, it would be crucial to carry Malaysia, particularly, and Lee with us, for without their agreement and support our influence on the British will hardly be sufficient. Moreover, it will greatly strengthen the British Government’s hand if it can present new arrangements as resulting from requests from the two Governments for the British to stay. (A further point is that the whole base of our operation could be much strengthened could we bring the Singaporeans and Malaysians together in some defence understanding, and we should work for this. This would allow the British to point to some regional co-operation with which they were associating.)6
1 See Document 60, note 3.
2 See Document 66.
3 See Document 64.
4 See Document 63.
5 Healey’s memorandum, 4 May 1967, for the Cabinet’s Defence and Oversea Policy Committee on his visits to Malaysia and Singapore, is published in ESAC, Part 1, Document 25. See Document 74, note 3.
6 A Department of External Affairs paper later in May 1967 provided more detail on Plimsoll’s views. It argued that Holt needed ‘flexibility’ when he visited London. ‘He needs an alternative which offers the British a realistic and convincing role and which presents the British future in South East Asia in a politically attractive light. Casting modern Britain in too large a mould will not do, nor will appeals to stand by the Americans in Asia.’ The paper suggested there were important groups within ‘the British establishment’ which did not want total withdrawal. This was the view of Healey and ‘Commonwealth-minded elements’, as well as the service leaders and officials in the civil service. Australia should ‘take a positive view of this’, and exploit the fact that Malaysia and Singapore were countries which had been ‘formed and shaped by Britain’. Specifically, the DEA suggested the following strategy. (1) Ask Britain to drop plans for a total withdrawal by 1975 and to enter consultations. (2) Australia, and the US, are to recognise that not much can be expected of the UK in SEATO in future and that association with the UK should be adapted primarily to the security and stability of the Malaysian region. (3) Accept reductions in British strength of 40,000 by 1970–71, and affirm to the UK that Australia will maintain its own contribution in full, and accept additional burdens (e.g. at Butterworth) arising from the British withdrawal. (4) Ask Britain to enter discussions with Australia and New Zealand in the first place on the rationalisation of military arrangements in the light of the UK’s reductions by 1970–71. (5) Offer early consultations to Singapore and Malaysia on defence planning and co-operation. (6) Accept that a UK statement in July 1967 on the 1970–71 cuts is unavoidable because of domestic pressures and anticipate that the statement, while reaffirming the UK’s obligations under the AngloMalaysian Defence Agreement, will also commit the UK to remain in Malaysia and consult with allies. The DEA did not believe Australia should offer to become a partner in the agreement. It was important for Australia to avoid making an independent and direct commitment to Malaysia which it could not hope to sustain. The current basis of ‘association’ was adequate for Australia’s purposes. In carrying the US with this strategy, it was also important to abandon as unrealistic and counter productive the idea that the UK’s commitment in the region might be extended to Thailand (NAA: Al209, 1967/7334 Attachment 1. ‘Australian Policy on British Policy East of Suez’, DEA Working Paper sent to Griffith, Prime Minister’s Department, 19 May 1967).
In preparation for his London visit, Holt requested of the relevant departments an assessment of their current relationships with their British counterparts. The DEA responded that although there was still a large exchange of information, relations were not characterised as they used to be ‘by instinctive intimacy, warmth, generosity and genuine appreciation of each other’s position’. Not enough was done to bring opinion-making people in the UK to Australia and Southeast Asia. ‘We cannot rely on the strength of influence in Asian matters of traditional forces in Britain such as the upper class administrators, the business houses, and the Conservatives.’ On defence issues, and leaving aside Britain’s current problems East of Suez, the UK believed Australia did not spend enough on defence. ‘We, for our part, have been consistently suspicious of British attempts to get us to do more and open the way for Britain to do less. This has seriously inhibited realistic and constructive discussion’ (NAA: Al838, 67/1/3 part 3, letter and note, Plimsoll to Bunting, 22 May 1967).
[NAA: A1838, TS691/1 PART 8]