Careful study of the mistakes which caused the failure of United States foreign policy in China is necessary for the development of a southeast Asia policy, John K. Fairbank, associate professor of History, told a meeting of the Cambridge Chapter of the ADA at the Faculty Club Wednesday night.

Once the United States is aware of its errors in China it can apply an opposite policy to southeast Asia to keep that area from Communist domination, he explained. One of this country's chief mistakes, Fairbank said, has been emphasis on granting military assistance to governments we favor or making use of our own military prowess. What the United States must concentrate on in Asia is agricultural assistance and selling the intellectual elements of our culture.

War Won't End Soon

Fairbank does not see a swift end of the Chinese civil war if the Communists continue their present use of the "cell system." This method, necessarily time consuming, involves infiltration of certain sections by Chinese Communists who work to prepare the population of these areas to receive Communist troops, rather than to help Nationalist troops fight them. "By this means of warfare," Fairbank noted, "it will take another year for the Communists to get to Canton."

Wolf Also Speaks

Charles Wolf, the other speaker at the meeting, declared that the United States should back all liberal, moderate governments in southeast Asia with more than just lip service. It should do so by giving such governments active support in the UN, by exchanging students, and by sending economic aid, Economic aid should not come on a Marshall Plan basis, however, Wolf was quick to point out, but should be sent through private investments. By doing so the United States could bring about what Wolf called multilateral world trade. This term means that once Indonesia received help to get on its economic feet it could buy European exports and in turn self its own products to Europe. Increased trade with the United States would also be a result of multilateral world trade.

Like European Revolutions

Wolf compared the present nationalist movement in southeast Asia to similar expressions of nationalism in the European revolutions of the mid-nineteenth century. What is remarkable about the Asian movement, Wolf said, is that it has all been telescoped into the last 30 years. At the turn of the century nationalist sentiment hadn't even begun to brew there.

Wolf, at present a student at the School of Public Administration, was formerly vice-consul at Batavia.

Fairbank agreed with the analogy and pointed out that China is one generation ahead of the general nationalist movement in Asia and is already engaged in problems of economic reform. Though China is out of our hands we can still aid in working economic reform on democratic lines in southeast Asia, he pointed out.

Fairbank is the author of the recent book. "The U. S. and China," a volume in the Foreign Policy series