VILLASIS, CHRISTINE JOY U.

ABELS 1A
Learning Activity. Evaluative Essay

History of Southeast Asia: Patterns of a colonial age

All of Southeast Asia's main nations were in crisis in the latter part of the 18th century.
Although the causes for this breakdown are not quite evident, the larger size of the nations, the
growing complexity of their societies, and the incapacity of older institutions to deal with change
all must have played a role. Even in Java, European efforts to restrict and steer the region's
commerce had already done much to ruin the general wealth that trade had previously given,
despite the fact that Europeans were neither omnipresent nor in a position to control. The most
catastrophic conditions were arguably those in Vietnam, where a struggle—the Tay Son
rebellion—raged over the state's very essence from 1771 until 1802. This uprising threatened to
wipe out Vietnam's whole Confucian establishment, and it may well have done so if its
commander hadn't tried to do too much too soon. In other places, war and chaos enslaved
civilizations for far shorter periods of time, but rulers were forced to consider the changing
conditions around them and what they meant for the future.

Three major monarchs of three new dynasties rose to prominence on the mainland: Bodawpaya
(1782–1819) in Myanmar, Rama I (1782–1809) in Thailand, and Gia Long (1802–20) in
Vietnam. All three were fully aware of the internal and external threats that they and their people
faced, and their efforts were focused on overcoming these obstacles. These monarchs zealously
pursued a combination of conventional and innovative strategies meant to enhance their domains
while their armies expanded beyond previous bounds. Efforts to put villages under greater state
control, limit changing patron-client relationships, and consolidate and strengthen the state
administrative machinery were particularly important. The institution of kingship itself appeared
to grow more active and involved in the state's orientation. In retrospect, several of these
measures had a distinctly modern ring to them, and when taken as a whole, they marked, if not a
revolution, at least a determined attempt toward change. Even Gia Long, whose conscience and
circumstances both dictated that he devote special attention to rebuilding the ancient Confucian
past, secretly absorbed Western and Tay Son ideals into his administration. The adjustments
were not ineffective, as the big mainland nations were at the pinnacle of their strength by 1820.
Nonetheless, it remained unclear if these efforts would be adequate to survive the impending
challenges. The Javanese state faced a similar issue in insular Southeast Asia, but it had
considerably less leeway in responding. The Gianti Agreement (1755) partitioned the kingdom
and gave the Dutch political and economic control. Resistance was not impossible, but it was
difficult, particularly because the monarchs and their courts were now entirely reliant on the
Dutch for their positions. The elite's reaction to these events has been regarded as a form of
cultural introversion and avoidance of reality, which is perhaps an oversimplification. The older
Javanese culture and society had become obsolete, and court intellectuals strove to find a
solution via both a resuscitation of the past and a critical assessment of the present. Neither
attempt was successful, but it wasn't for a want of trying. Furthermore, the concept of resisting
Dutch control was not totally abandoned, and it was only the terrible Java War (1825–30) that
eventually tamed the Javanese elite, leaving the Dutch to form the final shape of Javanese culture
until the mid-twentieth century. Except for Java and parts of the Philippines, the spread of
Western colonial control in Southeast Asia occurred only throughout the 19th and early 20th
centuries. Previously, Europeans acquired land as a consequence of difficult and not always
desirable entanglements with Southeast Asian countries, either through conflicts or alliances.
After approximately 1850, Western armies became increasingly intrusive, requiring only flimsy
justifications for attacking. A rising Western technical advantage, a more dominant European
mercantile community in Southeast Asia, and a competitive struggle for strategic land were the
main causes for the shift. Only Siam remains mostly intact and self-contained. The rest of the
region had been partitioned by 1886 between the British, French, Dutch, and Spanish (who were
shortly replaced by the Americans), with the Portuguese clinging to the island of Timor. What
were commonly referred to as "pacification operations" were actually colonial warfare that lasted
well into the twentieth century, particularly in Burma (Myanmar), Vietnam, the Philippines, and
Indonesia. Until the 1920s, there were also more benign Western incursions on local sovereignty.
VILLASIS, CHRISTINE JOY U. ABELS 1A
Learning Activity. Evaluative Essay

Full-fledged modern colonial nations only lasted for a brief time, in many cases less than a
generation. These colonial regimes, on the other hand, were not insignificant, as they had deep
bureaucratic roots and developed centralized regimented systems of immense authority, often by
co-opting existing administrative apparatuses. They were supported by the industrialized
Western nations' vast economic resources, and by the early twentieth century, they had
essentially disarmed indigenous communities and had a monopoly on the weapons of violence.
The effect of Western colonial administrations on their surrounds cannot be overstated, and
nowhere is this more clear than in the economic sector. Tin, oil, rubber, sugar, rice, tobacco,
coffee, tea, and other commodities grew rapidly as a result of government and private sector
action. This resulted in fast changes to the physical and people landscapes, as well as the
integration of Southeast Asia into a new global capitalist system.

Indeed, colonial dominance was a rare occurrence in an ever-changing planet. Siam,

which evaded Western dominance due to a mix of circumstance and the smart leadership of
Mongkut (ruled 1851–68) and Chulalongkorn (1868–1910), was forced to adopt policies similar
to, and frequently even modeled after, those of colonial powers in order to survive.
Modernization appeared to need such an attitude, and the Thai embraced it wholeheartedly.
Bangkok had exceeded even British Singapore as a center of contemporary amenities like as
electric lighting and medical facilities by the late 1920s, and the state had established an
outstanding level of political and economic viability among its colonial neighbors. Some
opponents have claimed that the Thai have "colonized themselves," yet they have also avoided or
mitigated some of the most corrosive aspects of Western domination, such as racism and cultural
devastation. They also don't appear to have had the same level of rural upheaval as their colonial
neighbors had in the 1920s and 1930s. However, they were unable to escape the other
consequences of state growth and modernization.

The goal of the new states was not to bring about fast or widespread societal
transformation. Their main priorities were expanding bureaucratic control and providing the
conditions for success in a capitalist international economy; the most important requirement was
stability, or rust en orde ("tranquility and order," as the Dutch put it). Boundaries were formed,
communities were established, and laws were rewritten—all along Western lines of thought,
often entirely disregarding indigenous ideas and practices—and the new system quickly
supplanted the old. Only insofar as social change might boost these activities was it wanted. As a
result, the Thai began sending princes to Europe for study at an early age, with the intention of
employing them across the government upon their return. The Dutch established special schools
for the indigenous administrative elite—a form of petty royalty—and devised methods to limit
social mobility within this group, such as making key jobs hereditary. However, most Southeast
Asians did not get Western-style education from the new governments, owing to the large,
complex, and expensive job at hand, as well as leaders' concerns about the social and political
ramifications of establishing an educated elite. Except in the Philippines, only a tiny number of
indigenous students attended government-run schools by the mid-1930s, and only a small
percentage of those who did studied beyond elementary school. Soon after, several Southeast
Asian intellectuals realized that they needed to better educate themselves, and they began to open
their own schools with contemporary, secular curricula. Some, like the Tonkin Free School in
Vietnam (1907), were shut down by colonial administrations, with faculty and students harassed
by police; others, like the many so-called "wild schools" in Indonesia in the 1930s, were far too
many to be eliminated entirely, although they were closely monitored. Nonetheless, a small but
intelligent and active class of Westernized Southeast Asian intellectuals emerged in the 1920s
and 1930s. They weren't the first to speak the colonial rulers' language and critique them; at the
turn of the century, Java and Luzon, which had been under Western authority the longest, had
already produced individuals such as the Javanese noblewoman Raden Adjeng Kartini and the
Filipino patriot José Rizal. The newer generation, on the other hand, was more adamant in its
resistance to colonial authority (or, in Siam's case, monarchical rule), clearer and considerably
more political in its definition of a country, and unafraid to claim leadership and initiative in
VILLASIS, CHRISTINE JOY U. ABELS 1A
Learning Activity. Evaluative Essay

their own society. This group in Burma was known as thakin (Burmese for "master"), a sarcastic
and prideful usage of an indigenous name that had hitherto been reserved for Burmese when
addressing or discussing Europeans. These new intellectuals were anti-colonialists rather than
anti-Western. They recognized the old state as the basis for a contemporary nation that they
would manage rather than colonial authorities. This was the generation that led the fight for
independence (in Siam, freedom from the monarchy) and rose to prominence as national leaders
in the post-World War II era. Sukarno of Indonesia, Ho Chi Minh of Vietnam, and U Nu of
Burma are the most well-known personalities (subsequently Myanmar).

The main challenge for the new intellectuals was reaching out to and influencing a larger
audience. This was something that colonial rulers feared and fought to prevent. Another
stumbling block was that ordinary people, particularly those living outside of cities and towns,
lived in a different social and cultural milieu than the emerging leaders. It was tough to
communicate, especially when it came to expressing notions like nationalism and
industrialization. Despite Western skepticism, there was widespread dissatisfaction of colonial
rule among the poorer classes. This was primarily due to beliefs that taxes were too many and
exorbitant, that bureaucratic control was too tight and prone to corruption, and that labor was
taken too coercively. In many regions, there was also a deep-seated aversion to outsiders
wielding power, whether they were Europeans or Chinese, Indians, or others who were seen as
subjects of their dominion. Most members of the new intellectual elite were only faintly aware of
these feelings, which made them uncomfortable in any event; they, too, were aliens. However, in
the 1930s, anticolonial uprisings erupted in Burma, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Despite the
fact that they failed to achieve their goals, these uprisings demonstrated that there was
widespread dissatisfaction and, as a result, radical potential among the masses. The revolts, as
well as the economic chaos of the Great Depression, revealed that European power was not
without defects or invulnerability. When war broke out in Europe and the Pacific, revealing
colonial powers to be far weaker militarily than previously thought, dismantling colonial control
and harnessing the strength of the masses became serious prospects for the first time.

However, the entrance of Japanese military troops in Southeast Asia in 1941–42 did not
result in independence. A few leaders may have been naive enough to believe it could—and
some others clearly admired the Japanese and found it acceptable to collaborate with them—but
on the whole, intellectuals were cautious and quickly realized that they were now facing another,
perhaps more formidable and ferocious, version of colonial rule. The Japanese had no intention
of radicalizing or destabilizing Southeast Asia, which was to become part of a Tokyo-centered
Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere; in the near term, they wanted to win the war, and in the
long run, they aimed to modernize the area using Japanese models. Continuity served their goals
best, and the Japanese even permitted the French to reign in Indochina in exchange for
collaboration. It's no surprise that, despite "Asia for the Asians" rhetoric, Southeast Asians soon
realized that the new and old colonial rulers shared more in common with one other than they did
with the indigenous peoples. Nonetheless, the time marks a departure from the past for two
reasons. First, the Japanese intended to rally indigenous communities to help the war effort and
cultivate contemporary cooperative behavior on a large scale, something that no Western
colonial administrations had ever done. However, almost all of the mobilization attempts were
based on Japanese patterns, and the new rulers were disappointed to learn that Southeast Asians
did not behave in the same way as Japanese. Often, the outcome was chaos, corruption, and, by
the conclusion of the war, a vehement anti-Japanese sentiment. The Japanese conquest of
Southeast Asia had an evolutionary rather than revolutionary effect. Although returning
Europeans and even some Southeast Asians claimed that Japanese fascism had profoundly
altered the communities of the area, there is no evidence to support this claim. Japanese control
had undoubtedly shattered what remained of Western supremacy's aura, but the war had also
shattered any hopes of it being replaced by a Japanese mystique. Even the collaboration question,
which was so essential to Europeans and their views about the immediate postwar era, failed to
sway Southeast Asians for long.
VILLASIS, CHRISTINE JOY U. ABELS 1A
Learning Activity. Evaluative Essay

Because of the speed with which the Pacific War ended, the former colonial overlords
were unable to return to Southeast Asia for several weeks, if not months. During this time, the
Allies forced the Japanese to preserve the peace, but actual authority transferred to Southeast
Asian leaders, some of whom declared independence and sought to construct government
structures with different degrees of success. Southeast Asians were in charge of substantial
numbers of guns for the first time since colonial authority began. This laid the foundation for the
formation of new sovereign states. For nations and cultures seeking to remake themselves in
contemporary form, the first two decades after independence were a period of trial and error.
During this time, religious and ethnic challenges to the states mostly failed to divide them, and
both communism and Western parliamentary democracy were rejected (with the exception of the
states of former Indochina). The tragic events of 1965–66, when between 500,000 and 1,000,000
lives may have been lost in a conflict between the Indonesian Communist Party and its
opponents, provided the most spectacular examples of such developments, culminating in the
tragic events of 1965–66, when between 500,000 and 1,000,000 lives may have been lost in a
conflict between the Indonesian Communist Party and its opponents. The mid-1960s marked the
start of a new age with three distinct features. First, not just in Vietnam, Burma, and Indonesia,
but also in the Philippines and, more quietly, Malaysia, the military became a powerful political
force. The military establishments saw themselves as actual or future saviors of national unity, as
well as disciplined, effective champions of modernisation, and they had widespread public
support, at least at first. Second, all Southeast Asian countries paid increasing attention to the
issue of uniting (secular and national) values and ideology during this time. In the 1940s and
1950s, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam were the pioneers in this field, but others soon
followed. Singapore and Brunei both established philosophies with the goal of forging a national
identity for their people. Finally, almost all Southeast Asian countries abandoned their efforts to
adopt foreign forms of governance and society, whether capitalist or communist, and instead
focused on developing a synthesis that better matched local needs and ideals. Each country came
up with its own answer, which varied in success. By the 1980s, quasi-military bourgeois regimes
were emerging that were ready to live along modified democratic lines—that is, with what
looked to Western eyes to be comparably high levels of personal, political, and intellectual
freedom. These were conservative regimes, regardless of their particular political makeup. Even
the most revolutionary-minded of them, Vietnam, could not bear the Khmer Rouge's far-reaching
and violent revolution in Cambodia in the mid-1970s, and by the end of the decade had moved to
smash it. As tempting as it is to believe that increasing authoritarian leadership (some of which
appears to date back to colonial times) simply stabilized Southeast Asia and allowed the area to
focus on economic growth, this method did not work everywhere. The military's semi-
isolationist, crypto-socialist development projects in Burma (named Myanmar since 1989) failed
miserably in the 1980s, exposing the regime's oppressive nature and driving the country to the
verge of civil war by the end of the decade. In the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos launched an
attack. In addition to a stunning degree of corruption and plundering of the national money,
Ferdinand Marcos and his friends from the previous governing elite class produced a similar
consequence. In Vietnam, where the country's final declaration of independence in 1975
disappointed many and left it decades behind the rest of the region in terms of economic
development, public and internal Communist Party unrest forced an aging generation of leaders
to resign, casting doubt on the country's future path as never before.

Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and, in particular, Singapore, were deemed to be the most
successful because of their moderate and pragmatic policies. All were seen as essentially stable,
which drew foreign aid and investment; all had had rapid development since the mid-1970s and
had the greatest living standards in the area. However, their success resulted in unanticipated
social and cultural shifts. Prosperity, education, and more access to international media and
popular culture all contributed to varying degrees of frustration with government-imposed
restrictions on freedom, as well as social and environmental criticism. There was a significant
tendency toward reflection and debate of national identity, particularly in Indonesia and
Malaysia, as well as a religious resurgence in the form of increased interest in Islam. The fairly
VILLASIS, CHRISTINE JOY U. ABELS 1A
Learning Activity. Evaluative Essay

tiny and united middle class, which included a largely bureaucratized military, looked to be
growing larger, more complex, and less readily pleased. Those who formed government policy
did not want for this to happen, but it was a reality they had to deal with. Southeast Asia's long-
developed polities were dragged into a Western-dominated international economy after the end
of the 17th century, diminishing regional trade networks and boosting relations with distant
colonial powers. These relationships were frequently strong enough for detractors to label them
neocolonial in the early years of independence, but from the mid-1960s, former colonial rulers
could no longer control them, and the new Southeast Asian republics attempted to industrialize
and diversify their markets. On the one hand, this meant that Japan would play a much larger
role in Southeast Asia; Japan is by far the region's most significant commercial partner. This
group's primary focus was on security, but it gradually expanded into other areas. It was
instrumental in bringing an end to the Vietnam-Cambodia conflict and finding a solution to
Cambodia's civil turmoil, for example. It worked discreetly in economic affairs to explore issues
such as the duplication of huge industrial projects. ASEAN has only been considered seriously
by major nations or even Southeast Asians themselves since the mid-1980s. During the 1990s,
the formerly Soviet-dominated republics of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, as well as Myanmar,
joined ASEAN. As a result of these conditions, new regional markets opened up, and the area as
a whole gained a more formidable global reputation. The first ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF)
was held in July 1994 to encourage discussions between ASEAN and its "dialogue partners"
throughout the world. ASEAN was a key force in encouraging regional commerce and resolving
security challenges at the turn of the twenty-first century. The ASEAN Economic Community
was founded in 2015 to promote economic integration and policy liberalization among member
states. ASEAN tried to resolve the bloodshed in East Timor and campaigned for its members in
the Spratly Islands issue with China. It also played a key part in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian
Ocean tsunami, which claimed the lives of at least 225,000 people throughout South and
Southeast Asia. In 2017, ASEAN nations and China formally accepted a framework agreement
in the South China Sea that would control the behavior of all signatories.

Reference:

A comprehensive historical overview is NICHOLAS TARLING (ed.), The Cambridge

History of Southeast Asia, 2 vol. (1992); while MILTON OSBORNE, Southeast Asia, 5th ed.
VILLASIS, CHRISTINE JOY U. ABELS 1A
Learning Activity. Evaluative Essay

(1990), is a brief survey. JOHN FRANK CADY, Southeast Asia (1964), though older and

marred by some factual errors, is well-organized. D.G.E. HALL, A History of South-East Asia,
4th ed. (1981), while thorough, is heavily slanted toward colonial topics and views.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/history-of-Southeast-Asia-556509/Patterns-of-a-colonial-age