Colonialism

While this article is not concerned with the history of the colonialism in Southeast Asia per se, a brief overview highlighting some of its key points is necessary. The history of Southeast Asia's encounter with Europe begins as early as the first decades of the sixteenth century, an occurrence that is indeed one of the earliest episodes in the history of colonialism as a global phenomenon. In many respects, some of the "classical" features of colonialism—such as territorial conquest; the intervention and disruption of local socioeconomic networks; and the introduction of new cultural regimes and models through various missionary and educational activity—first came into play in Southeast Asia before they appeared later elsewhere. All major colonial European powers (as well as, later, the United States and Japan) took part in the long history of colonialism in the region: In the twentieth century the Netherlands was in control of Indonesia; Portugal, of East Timor; the United States, of the Philippines (taken from Spain after 1898); France, of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia (so-called French Indochina); and Great Britain, of Malaya and Myanmar (Burma). The region also provides the unique example of Thailand (Siam), which was never colonized, though institutional and cultural changes were significantly connected to European diplomatic pressures along its borders. During World War II most of these territories were occupied by Japan, whose imperial designs, cultural sensibilities, and economic initiatives disconnected Europe and America's hold on the region, which indirectly contributed to the tensions of a nationalist sentiment and Cold War competitions within the former colonies. Most of the European powers, weakened by the war, would lose their colonies after the war, though attempts were made (in varying degrees) to regain their original foothold within the region.

As the cases of the Mayla Emergency, the Indonesian Revolution, the Indochinese War, and, later, the Vietnam War show, the response to colonialism in Southeast Asia continued in the form of anticolonial resistance movements, though external observers tended to regard these wars in the context of the Cold War.