ABSTRACT
Southeast Asia’s contemporary history in the era of globalization is impossible to comprehend without links to its complexly layered history. The importance of the region arose from its intrinsic assets and geographical position, since all shipping vessels between Europe and China/Japan must pass though the Straight of Malacca-the narrow waterbody that separates Sumatra from Malaysia. The term “Southeast Asia” is of recent origin and only became popular during World War II, when the territories south of the Tropic of Cancer were placed under Lord Louis Mountbatten’s Allied Southeast Asia command.1 It presently includes and is commonly divided into “mainland” Southeast Asia: Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and the peninsula of Thailand and “insular” Southeast Asia: Brunei, the Philippines, the island of Singapore, the peninsulas of Malaysia and Indonesia, the world’s largest archipelago. However, it is not an obvious unit in the linguistic, historical, geographical, or ethnic senses and there are at least four dierent major religions: Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity. Historically the region never underwent political consolidation as India or China did and its colonial history enhanced separate development among Southeast Asian peoples, as dierent European powers reigned over dierent territories-Dutch (Indonesia), British (Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei), Portuguese (East Timor), Spanish followed by American (Philippines) and French (Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam). Only Thailand remained free of colonial rule, but even its rulers appointed Western advisers to aid modernization; it is widely recognized to have had a process of self-colonization.2
