Southeast Asians’ attitudes toward their regional and international problems of today and tomorrow

Abstract

Now that peace seems to be very much in the offing in Southeast Asia, it is highly desirable to have a somewhat closer look at the opinions of the natives of Southeast Asia toward their regional and international concerns.

A small-scale random sampling of the opinions and attitudes of the educated citizenry of Southeast Asian countries by means of a questionnaire indicated that the leadership of tomorrow in that important part of the globe is split over questions of war and peace, East-West international relations, capitalism, communism, and socialism, the reality of China, the role of the United Nations as a peace keeping body, and the U.S. involvement or disinvolvement in Vietnam, This writer undertook a four week tour of Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, and Burma and polled public opinion by means of a questionnaire and personal interviews. The opinions discussed below are based on tabulated results of 225 questionnaires, here and there interspersed with comments stemming from personal tete-a-tetes with over one hundred persons.