Southeast Asia has been poorly treated by the world's press. For over a decade, while the Vietnam war raged, the region provided by far the greatest amount of foreign news in the rich countries of North America, Europe, Japan, and Australia. Every news agency, TV station, and newspaper that could afford it maintained a bureau in Saigon and other regional centers. While most headlines were captured by the hostilities in Indochina, editors mindful of the “domino theory” paid great attention too to the situation in neighboring countries.The result was that the region quickly acquired an “image” of violence, political instability, communal unrest, intraregional disputes, and a capacity for coups and countercoups rivaled only by Latin America. The “image” was implanted in the mind of the man in the street in New York, Washington, London, Tokyo, Sydney, Paris, and Frankfort, but also found its way into the investment calculations of those cities’ bankers and industrialists—those whose decisions affected the levels of investment in and trade with Southeast Asia.
