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Despite the end of Canadian historians’ neglect of Asia suggested by a developing body of monographs and articles, an Atlantic bias has kept Canada’s history in the Pacific out of the national narrative. Before World War Two, Canada’s interest in Asia was largely confined to the regulation of immigration, the possibilities of trade and the potential for Christian missionary activities. These limited interests surely informed the views of External Affairs officials who guided Canada’s participation in post-war commissions involved in the protracted de-colonization of East Asia. If Canadian involvement in East Asia has seemed to pale in comparison to its involvement in Europe, its impact might not be seen that way by the East Asian states affected by Canada’s post-war policies. Canada’s role in the post-war international bodies at work in Indochina, Korea and Japan placed it in the middle of efforts to manage Japan’s defeat, and the decolonization that this produced. In spite of this, conventional scholarship on Canadian foreign relations rarely addressed activities in East Asia. This story of the Far Eastern Commission and Canada’s continuing presence in East Asia is an endeavour to fill in one of those gaps.

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