Borneo in the Cold War 1950-1990

Although by about 1950 both British Borneo, including the protected sultanate of Brunei, and Indonesian Borneo, seemed settled under their different regimes, and well on the way to post-war reconstruction and economic development, the upheavals which affected Southeast and East Asia during the Cold War period deeply affected Borneo also. Besides the impact of the Korean and Vietnam Wars and the Malaysian Emergency and communist uprisings in other Southeast Asian states, there was within Borneo itself the attempted communist takeover of Sarawak from 1952, a failed coup d’état in 1962, Sukarno’s confrontation with Malaysia and the horrific purge of leftists in 1965-66. This book outlines these events and assesses their impact on Borneo and its people. It is a sequel to the author’s earlier books The Japanese Occupation of Borneo, 1941-45 and Post-war Borneo, 1945-50: Nationalism, Empire and State-Building.

Ooi Keat Gin is a Professor of History at Universiti Sains Malaysia