In both African and Asian colonies until the late 19th century, colonial medicine operated pragmatically to meet the medical needs first of colonial officers and troops, immigrant settlers, and laborers responsible for economic development, then of indigenous populations when their ill health threatened the well-being of the expatriate population. Since the turn of the century, however, the consequences of colonial expansion and development for indigenous people's health had become increasingly apparent, and disease control and public health programs were expanded in this light. These programs increased government surveillance of populations at both community and household levels. As a consequence, colonial states extended institutional oversight and induced dependency through public health measures. Drawing on my own work on colonial Malaya, I illustrate developments in public health and their links to the moral logic of colonialism and its complementarity to the political economy.
This article examines the rationale behind the Heath government's 1970 decision to negotiate a Five Power Defence agreement with Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Malaysia and to maintain a small British military contingent in Southeast Asia as a part of this new politico-military framework. It argues that while its overriding foreign policy concern was to end Britain's problematic relationship with the European Economic Community and to make membership of this grouping the cornerstone of its foreign policy, the Heath government was careful not to cast Britain's post-imperial future in purely European terms. The successful negotiation of the Five Power Defence Arrangements in 1970-71 was instrumental in achieving this by ensuring that London would maintain close links with key Commonwealth partners in the Asian region. In what was not only an attempt to neutralize potential domestic opposition to Britain's entry into the EEC, but also a lingering reluctance to do away with the rhetoric of Britain as a leading power with extra-European interests, Heath was eager to show that by making a contribution to the stability of Southeast Asia, Britain still had a role to play outside Europe.