Colonial Rule in Southeast Asia

Question 1

What is imperialism?

Answer 1

The extension of a nation’s power over other lands.

Question 2

Where did Europeans set up colonies?

Answer 2

Europeans had set up colonies and trading posts in North America, South America, and Africa by the sixteenth century.

Question 3

How did Europeans initially were?

Answer 3

Earlier, European states had been content, especially in the case of Africa and Asia, to set up a few trading posts where they could carry on trade and perhaps some missionary activity. Now they sought nothing less than direct control over vast territories.

Question 4

Why did Westerners begin to increase their search for colonies after 1880?

Answer 4

There was a strong economic motive. Capitalist states in the West were looking for both markets and raw materials such as rubber, oil, and tin for their industries. The issue was not simply an economic one, however. European nation-states were involved in heated rivalries. They acquired colonies abroad in order to gain an advantage over their rivals. Colonies were also a source of national prestige. To some people, in fact, a nation could not be great without colonie

Question 5

To what ideologies was imperialism tied to?

Answer 5

Social Darwinism and racism.

Question 6

How did the process of colonial takeover begin? Which colony was the first taken one and by whom?

Answer 6

The process began with Great Britain in 1819. Singapore (located in the Malay Peninsula) was taken by Thomas Stamford Raffles.

Question 7

What happen after the next few decades after Singapore was taken? Which was the next colony to be taken? Where Britain successful?

Answer 7

The British advance into Southeast Asia continued. Next to fall was the kingdom of Burma (modern Myanmar). Britain wanted control of Burma in order to protect its possessions in India. It also sought a land route through Burma into southern China. Although the difficult terrain along the frontier between Burma and China caused this effort to fail, British activities in Burma led to the collapse of the Burmese monarchy. Britain soon established control over the entire country.

Question 8

How did France influenced in Vietnam befero they colonialised it?

Answer 8

At first, France had missionares established in Vietnam who saw how Great Britain was trying to take power of near places. The local Vietnamese authorities, who viewed Christianity as a threat to Confucian doctrine, persecuted the French missionaries. Vietnam failed to stop the Christian missionaries. Vietnamese internal rivalries divided the country into two separate governments—the north and the south.

Question 9

What did France was alarmed about? (Vietnam) What did they do to calm their alarmation?

Answer 9

France was alarmed of Britain colonizing Vietnam. In 1857, Fance obligated Vietnam to accept their protection. So France protected Vietnam to colonize it.

Question 10

Did France succed in Receiveing territories from Vietnam? Hoe did they avanced the control of Vietnam?

Answer 10

Yes, the Vietnamese ruler give up territories in the Mekong River delta. The French occupied the city of Saigon and, during the next 30 years, extended their control over the rest of the country. In 1883 France seized the city of Hanoi and later made the Vietnamese empire a French protectorate (a political unit that depends on another government for its protection).

Question 11

Into which other places did France expanded their rule?

Answer 11

In the 1880s, France extended its control over neighboring Cambodia, Annam, Tonkin, and Laos. By 1887 France included all its new possessions in a new Union of French Indochina.

Question 12

Which was the only land who succed in their attempt of rejecting French rule?

Answer 12

Thailand.

Question 13

What made Thailand an interesting place for colonialism?

Answer 13

The rivalry between the British and the French threatened to place Thailand under colonial rule.

Question 14

Which rulers prevented Thailand from colonialization?

Answer 14

King Mongkut (known to theatergoers as the king in The King and I), and the other was his son, King Chulalongkorn

Question 15

What agreement did France make with Thailand?

Answer 15

In 1896 Britain and France agreed to maintain Thailand as an independent buffer state between their possessions in Southeast Asia.

Question 16

Which land did USA wanted to colonize? Why? Who was the president back then?

Answer 16

President William McKinley wanted to colonize the Philippines. The islands gave the United States convenient access to trade with China.

Question 17

Who was in control of the Philippines before USA? Who started the movement to revolt from the Spanish rule?

Answer 17

Spain. Emilio Aguinaldo, he began his revolt against the Spanish and went into exile in 1898.

Question 18

How did Aguinaldo reacted to USA´s rule?

Answer 18

When the United States acquired the Philippines, Aguinaldo continued the revolt and set himself up as the president of the Republic of the Philippines. Led by Aguinaldo, the guerrilla forces fought bitterly against the U.S. troops to establish their independence.

Question 19

Who succeded in the war between USA and the Philippines?

Answer 19

USA. The fight for Philippine independence resulted in three years of bloody warfare. However, the United States eventually defeated the guerrilla forces, and President McKinley had his stepping-stone to the rich markets of China.

Question 20

What was the most common goal of colonialism?

Answer 20

The exploit (to make use of meanly or unfairly for one’s own advantage) of the natural resources of the land.

Question 21

What is the difference between direct and indirect rule?

Answer 21

An indirect rule is a colonial government in which local rulers are allowed to maintain their positions of authority and status. An indirect rule colonial government in which local elites are removed from power and replaced by a new set of officials brought from the colonizing country.

Question 22

How was indirect rule good?

Answer 22

This made access to the region’s natural resources easier. Indirect rule was cheaper because fewer officials had to be trained. It also affected local culture less.

Question 23

Give an example of an applied indirect rule.

Answer 23

For example, the Dutch East India Company used indirect rule in the Dutch East Indies.

Question 24

What happened when indirect rule is not possible?

Answer 24

In cases in which local elites resisted foreign conquest, the local elites were replaced with Western officials.

Question 25

Give examples of applied direct rule?

Answer 25

Great Britain administered Burma directly through its colonial government in India. In Indochina, France used both systems. It imposed direct rule in southern Vietnam but ruled indirectly through the emperor in northern Vietnam.

Question 26

How did western powers justified their conquests?

Answer 26

To justify their conquests, Western powers spoke of bringing the blessings of Western civilization to their colonial subjects, including representative government. However, many Westerners came to fear the idea of native peoples (especially educated ones) being allowed political rights.

Question 27

How did colonial powers prevented their colonies from becoming industrial colonies?

Answer 27

Thus, colonial policy stressed the export of raw materials. This policy often led to the development of plantation agriculture. In this system, peasants worked as wage laborers on the foreign-owned plantations. Plantation owners kept wages at poverty levels to increase profits. Conditions on plantations were often so unhealthful that thousands died. Also, peasants bore the burden of high taxes.

Question 28

Which benefits did colonial rule bring to Southeast Asia?

Answer 28

A modern economic system began there. Colonial governments built railroads, highways, and other structures that benefited native peoples as well as colonials. The development of an export market helped create an entrepreneurial class in rural areas. In the Dutch East Indies, for example, small growers of rubber, palm oil, coffee, tea, and spices began to share in the profits of the colonial enterprise. Most of the profits, however, were taken back to the colonizing country.

Question 29

Explain the resistance to colonialism?

Answer 29

Many subject peoples in Southeast Asia resented colonization. At first, resistance came from the existing ruling class. In Burma, for example, the monarch himself fought Western domination. By contrast, in Vietnam, after the emperor had agreed to French control of his country, a number of government officials set up an organization called Can Vuong (“Save the King”). They fought against the French without the emperor’s help.

Sometimes resistance to Western control took the form of peasant revolts. Peasants were often driven off the land to make way for plantation agriculture. Angry peasants then vented their anger at the foreign invaders. For example, in Burma, in 1930 the Buddhist monk Saya San led a peasant uprising against the British colonial regime.

Early resistance movements failed. They were overcome by Western powers. In the early 1900s, however, a new kind of resistance emerged that was based on nationalism. The leaders were often from a new class that the colonial rule had created: Westernized intellectuals in the cities. They were the first generation of Asians to embrace the institutions and values of the West. Many were educated in the West, spoke Western languages, and worked in jobs connected with the colonial regimes.

At first, many of the leaders of these movements did not focus clearly on the idea of nationhood. Instead, they simply tried to defend the economic interests or religious beliefs of the native peoples. In Burma, for example, students at the University of Rangoon formed an organization to protest against official persecution of the Buddhist religion and British lack of respect for local religious traditions. They protested against British arrogance and failure to observe local customs in Buddhist temples. Not until the 1930s, however, did these resistance movements, such as those begun in Burma, begin to demand national independence.