58 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
aluminium refining 82 8 per cent (6 companies)and crude oil 64.0 per cent (8 companies). The so-called "potential countries" which could fall to communism became the victims and the worst sufferers of the 'divide and rule' policy of the West. For instance, China, Korea and till June 1975 Vietnam were not only divided, but the peoples of each of these countries were made to fight amongst themselves. Undaunted by the full fledged involvement of Japan in the War aganist the Allied Forces, the Americans found a good ally in Japan. Japan on its part played an important role by staging a tremendous come-back to take an active and dynamic part in the affairs of Asia-Pacific in general and of Southeast Asia in particular. After the defeat and occupation of Japan under the stewardship of McAithur, a right-wing Republican, a constitution was drawn up for the Japanese and huge American investments started flowing into Japan.2 Though there were provisions in the Japanese constitution explicitly renouncing the right to wage a war or make war-preparations, today Japan has one of the largest military budgets among the countris of the world. The Mutual Defence Agreement (MDA) between America and Japan of 1954 promised American support for Japanese re-armament. This was further boosted with the wars in Korea and Indochina.
Renewed Military Build-up
The American military involvement in the region with Australia and Japan playing a supportive role proved to be too costly and ultimately the Americans through the Nixon Doctrine of 1969 were forced to retreat partially from the Asia-Pacific region. Dsepite the partial withdrawl from Southeast Asia in the early and mid-seventies, the United States remains a pre-eminent power in the Asia-Pacific region. Moreover there has been a renewal of military build-up in the region from the 1980s onwards. The U S has already deployed in this region a force of 150,000 service men on the Seventh Fleet and in such bases as Rokosuka in Japan, Subic Bay and dark Field in the Philippines, Cadena and Taegu in South Korea, and Anderson and Port Apra in Guam. The Japanese island Okinawa has been converted into a large weapon base. The nuclear submarine facility at Exmouth Gulf and the Pine Gap deep-space and the monitoring system along with two new facilities being constructed in Australia that will be available for U S use, the Cockburn Sound naval base, and the Omega naval base—all these testify to the magnitude of the U S military build-up in Asia-Pacific. All these, moreover, are quite apart from future U S access to Sattahip, U Ta Pao and other Thai bases vacated in the mid-seventies. Finally one needs to add Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to this list, since the U S navy has been developing the island as a major U S nuclear base. Along with this, there has been mounting U S pressure on Japan to increase its defence expenditure and take the responsibility of policing the Asia-Pacific region. Apart from the bases., the U S has military treaties