- 著者
-
都丸 潤子
- 出版者
- 一般財団法人 日本国際政治学会
- 雑誌
- 国際政治 (ISSN:04542215)
- 巻号頁・発行日
- vol.2006, no.146, pp.120-139,L13, 2006
This paper analyses how British cultural policies in South-East Asia changed its scope and nature from 1942 to 1960 as her rivals shifted in the turbulent postwar international environment. The paper looks at both short-term information campaigns and long-term policies aiming at acculturation or changes in perception conducted by various government offices including Foreign Office and Colonial Office, and by more independent organisations such as the British Council and the BBC.<br>Throughout the period, as with the cases of British political and military policies, the primary objective of British cultural policies in South-East Asia was to retain her informal empire in the region despite the tide of decolonisation and Britain's reliance on American economic and military power.<br>From 1942 to 1947, when the main cultural rivals for Britain in the region were the effect of Japan's Pan-Asianism and American influence, Britain made efforts in ‘projecting’ her traditional political and artistic culture to Japan and areas which had come under the Japanese military administration. As the Malayan Emergency unfolded and through the establishment of the Communist China, Britain placed weight on defending her empire in and around Malaya by short-term propaganda against communist infiltration from China. She also competed with the expansion of American influence and anti-colonial campaign in the region. The biggest challenge to British influence in the region came between 1954 and 1956 as Afro-Asian anti-colonialism, through the Bandung Conference and the Suez War. This challenge made Britain embark on ‘A New Look for Asia’ and expand its scope of cultural policies with the idea of cooperation with America, Australia and New Zealand. Britain also stepped forward to ‘project’ modern Britain rather than ‘a country of cathedrals’. She went further beyond ‘projection’ by helping cultural transfer of British cultural elements such as technology and English as universal language and by focusing policy targets to prospective opinion-leaders.<br>In addition, through the interdepartmental discussion of possible withdrawal from the UNESCO soon after the Suez War, British cultural policy-makers recognized the shortcomings of unilateral propaganda and bilateral cultural cooperation, and realized the necessity to pursue multilateral cultural cooperation through international organization such as the UNESCO in order to retain cultural influence in Asia and Africa.<br>The choice of local elites as the main target, encompassing of Japan within the scope of South-East Asia, and social-engineering efforts for multicultural integration within her colonies are also the outstanding and continuous features of British cultural policies towards South-East Asia during the postwar period until the 1950s.