The bond between nationalists and communists in the Indonesian independence movement was always close. For this reason the failure of the communist rising of 1926–27 was felt in nationalist circles as a blew for the Movement. It is also typical that the communist rising of 1948 did not lead to a ban on the Indonesian Communist Party, the PKI, whereas the anti-communist sweeps of 1951 were not received in outside circles with whole-hearted approval. The co-operation between nationalists and communists rested thus on more than a simple battle for independence. The nationalists, just as much as the communists, attributed a positive significance to the public masses, which were to harbour all the prosperity of the nation. These popular masses were supposed to be bowed down by imperialism and capitalilst exploitation, so that the Indonesian nationalists also made the liberation of the popular masses a point of policy.

A FORMIDABLE consensus of academic opinion exists on the question of the formation of Malaysia. In its most commonly stated form, this consensus is manifested in an explanation which specifies a date—27 May 1961—and sees Malaysia as the outcome of the attempt to solve the ‘Singapore Problem’. The movement towards Malaysia is, with dull regularity, dated from the Tunku's almost casual, certainly very vague, reference to the need for a ‘closer understanding’ between Singapore, British North Borneo (Sabah), Brunei, and Sarawak, and for ‘a plan whereby these territories can be brought closer together in a political and economic association’ which he made in the course of a speech to the Foreign Correspondents’ Association of South-east Asia on 27 May 1961.

Few documents in recent history have provoked such controversy as the so-called ‘Tanaka Memorial’. ‘Document’ is perhaps a misnomer, for the original (assuming that there was one) has never been seen by anyone willing to admit its existence. The memorial is said to be a 13,000-word secret petition presented by Prime Minister Baron Tanaka Giichi to Emperor Hirohito on 25 July 1927 outlining a program of economic penetration into Manchuria, China, and Mongolia that would prepare for Japan's subjection of Asia and Europe. Exposed by the Chinese in 1929, the document gained global notoriety during the 1930s. Over vehement Japanese objections and disclaimers, it was translated and circulated in Europe and the United States. Grandiose designs expressed in a language that might have aroused incredulity or mirth in calmer times sounded uncomfortably authentic in the context of Japanese behavior in East Asia and the Pacific between 1931 and 1945.