The colorful term Bamboo Curtain was derived from Iron Curtain, a term used widely in Europe from the mid 1940s to the late 1980s to refer to that region's Communist boundaries. In particular, following the Korean War, the Korean Demilitarized Zone became an important symbol of this Asian division (though the term Bamboo Curtain itself is rarely used in that specific context). However, after the wars the new countries of Vietnam, Laos, and Democratic Kampuchea became Communist states.

Before the Indochina Wars the non-Communist bloc included French Indochina and its successor states South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. To the south and east lay the capitalist and non-Communist countries of India, Pakistan, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, Taiwan, South Korea, British Hong Kong, and Portuguese Macau. To the north and northwest lay the Communist states of China, the Soviet Union, North Vietnam, North Korea, and Mongolian People's Republic. The Bamboo Curtain is a Cold War political demarcation between the Communist states of East Asia, particularly People's Republic of China, and the capitalist and non-Communist states of East, South and Southeast Asia. Mao Zedong (Chairman of the Communist Party of China), Kim Il Sung (Chairman of the Workers' Party of Korea) and Ho Chi Minh (Chairman of the Communist Party of Vietnam) were the three emerging communist leaders in East Asia at the beginning of the Cold War.

Indian independence pro profs