WEST’S AID TO ASIA

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 71, Issue 36, 22 November 1950, Page 8

WEST’S AID TO ASIA

EAST JEALOUS OF INDEPENDENCE LONDON, Nov. 21. Some Asian countries will be suspicious of the West offering them capital and technicians, Mr Malcolm MacDonald, the Commissioner-Gen-eral for South-East Asia, said in a recorded interview which was broadcast to-day. Mr MacDonald, commenting on the Commonwealth economic aid plan for South-East Asia, said that the feeling of nationalism was so strong in Aslan countries that it cut across all ideological or economic factors, and coloured all dealings between Asia and the West.

“But under this Commonwealth plan financial aid will be without political strings of any kind, and the Western technicians who go to Asia to help under the plan will not be going to take over the rule of the countries from the Asians themselves.

“They will be going out to work for Asian Governments as their servants.” Mr MacDonald said that the fear of Western imperialism was the fear on which Communist propaganda was constantly playing. . 'The weakness of the Communist attempt was that the Asian peoples who had already achieved independence and those soon to achieve it, valued it above everything else. The British Commonwealth had shown it believed in that independence.