Book excerpt: With the disappearance of the imperial structures that had dominated Southeast Asia, newly independent states had to develop foreign policies of their own. But so far few if any of these states have been willing to allow the public to explore any documentation of their activities. Building on his earlier work that drew on U.K. records, the author incorporates material from New Zealand archives -- which also contain reports from Australian and Canadian diplomats -- to provide a historical analysis of the foreign policies of Southeast Asian nations from a New Zealand perspective.