N. 196
Summary - If in the past for the British Far East meant China as a country belonging to an area far away from London and Europa, in the USA the word Far East left place to the politically correct term East Asia. With the conquest of California, thus ending the march towards West, the Pacific became gradually more important to the States, turning it into an American lake after the Second World War.
The concept of Far East started to loose its meaning in the late '40 with the independence of India and the rise of the Popular Republic of China, but it is with the emerging of Japan as the second economic world power, the opening of China to the Western economy from 1980 onwards, the development of South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore that makes it impossible to think today of East Asia as Far East.