ABSTRACT
Southeast Asia also has a variety of religions: Buddhism is very widespread on the mainland (see Box 15.1), Islam strong in most of Malaysia (over half of the population) and Indonesia (85 per cent), and Christianity (85 per cent Roman Catholic) remains strong in the Philippines after four centuries of Spanish rule and almost half a century of US domination. Indian settlers have brought Hindu and Sikh religions into western Malaysia. In spite of their relative proximity, in recent centuries China and Japan have not made much direct impact on Southeast Asia, at least until almost all the area was briefly held by Japan between 1942 and 1945, and since 1949, when Communist China with its Soviet ally was furthering the cause of communism in the region in the 1950s.
