Tilman Remme explores the British attempt to establish an international regional organisation in South-East Asia in the post-war period which would allow tham to dominate the region politically, economically and militarily.

By tracing Britain's foreign policy initiatives, Tilman Remme puts the issues affecting South-East Asia in the post-war period into a wider context, discussing events in the light of Japanese defeat in the Second World War, the Communist struggle for supremacy in China, the development of Anglo-American relations in Asia and the beginnings of the Cold War.