ABSTRACT
The countries of the region known as Southeast Asia make, on face value, an odd combination. They comprise some very dierent countries, one being the world’s fourth largest state by population – some 250 million predominantly Muslim people living on around a third of its almost 18,000 islands across a 5,000 kilometre-wide archipelago of almost two million square kilometres. This country, Indonesia, achieved independence in 1949, prior to which its constituent parts comprised the Dutch East Indies. At the other end of the scale is Timor-Leste, one of the world’s smallest states by population, with around 1.2 million predominantly Catholic people living on little more than half of an island of a little over 15,000 square kilometres. It achieved independence in 2002, prior to which it was colonised by Indonesia for 24 years and, before that, by Portugal. All of the countries in between have been European colonies but for Thailand, which managed to avoid the formality of that arrangement by being allowed to remain as a buer between British and French colonial interests.
