ABSTRACT
The term ‘South-east Asia’ is used to describe the countries which liebetween India, China, Australasia and the open expanses of the Pacific Ocean. Diverse by race, religion and wealth, they had before the Second World War one nearly common feature: with the solitary exception of Thailand all were ruled by foreigners. The British, French, Dutch, Americans and Portuguese had spread over the area and appropriated varying amounts of it. This state of affairs was viewed with dissatisfaction within the region and also by the Japanese, whose New Order had been expanded into the Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Scheme under the direction of a special ministry in Tokyo. When war brought the Japanese to South-east Asia they came as anti-imperialist liberators, promising to remove European overlords, an operation which proved astonishingly easy. Three days after the attack on Pearl Harbor the Japanese sank the British warships Prince of Wales and Repulse (10 December 1941); Singapore fell in February 1942 and Corregidor in May; western dominance finished.
