By the early 1960s, Southeast Asia is home to much of the world’s heroin production, due largely to the settlement in northeastern Burma of CIA-trained nationalist Chinese forces in the wake of the failed operation to invade Communist China.

The Chinese strongmen have terrorized local villagers into growing opium for them and made the so-called Golden Triangle the world’s leader in opium production.

Western avant-garde influenced Japanese writer Abe Kobo publishes his surrealistic urban nightmare The Woman in the Dunes.

Saudi relations with Egypt have often been strained following the rise to power of Egypt's Pan-Arab nationalist president, Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Egyptian propaganda has made frequent attacks on the Saudi system of royal government.

Egyptian troops lend immediate support to the Yemen Arab Republican Army in Yemen's civil war starting in 1962, which make tensions between Saudi Arabia and Egypt become more acute.

The Saudis, together with Iran and Jordan, help the Yemeni royalist forces against the Egyptian-backed Yemen republic.

Abu Dhabi begins to export offshore oil in 1962.

The British had set up a separate agency in Abu Dhabi town in 1961 for Abu Dhabi affairs only.

In 1962, there is further communal conflict in Bengal.