By Clarence Ngui Yew Kit

Week 1 7 - Clarence Ngui Yew Kit Imperialism and Western Colonialism Minorities Chinese, Indians and Vietnamese Cold War Nation Building Regional Conflict Regionalism Week 8-14 Dr Ahmad Ali Seman Nationalism Japanese Occupation Independence & Decolonisation Regional Cooperation

Individual Essay 30% Project Paper 30% (2-3 people per group) New Themes in Southeast Asian History Themes must be approved first!!! Final Exam 40%

*** - Marks for attendance and class participation will be enumerated!

 Something

New or Something Old?

Natural Geographical Region? Natural or Created? appendage of India or China?

An

DGE Hall the first major historian to write the history of Southeast Asia as a region though his work is a bare outline, perilously compressed and overly simplified

Inspired a new wave of Southeast Asianist like John F Cady, Nicholas Tarling, and many people in America, Europe, Japan and Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia is not an area of great political homogeneity. Politically as well as culturally, its component states are more varied that those of Europe

George McKahin

Diversity? Same same but different

Suvarnabhumi = The Golden Khersonese or The Land of Gold.

Southeast Asia noted for its riches in pepper, rainforest products, aromatic woods, resins, and the rarest and finest spices. From the 7th to the 10th centuries, the Arabs and Chinese knew Southeast Asia as the spice capital of the world.

Yavadvipa = Millet Island

Suvarnabhumi (

) =

Islands of Gold

By the beginning of the CE, Southeast Asia already had skilled farmers, musicians, metallurgists and mariners. But Early SEA had no written language, no large urban concentrations and no bureaucratic states of recognisable proportions

Southeast Asians - first to domesticate rice-planting and to develop wet-rice cultivation.

Early archaeology sites in Northeast Thailand showed a rice culture as early as 2000BC. Other crops = sugar cane, yam, sago, bananas and coconuts. It is believed Southeast Asians were also among the first to domesticate chickens and pigs.

 Wet rice

or sawah cultivation Millet cultivation decline. Sawah cultivation = High population density and burgeoning non-food producers What made wet-rice cultivation successful was the control of water.

Southeast Asians independently discovered bronze and discover sophisticated metallurgical techniques based on the qualities of the bamboo. Archaeologists have dated bronze objects uncovered in Northeast Thailand to 1400BC and iron bracelets and spearheads to about 500BC.

Discovery of Dong Sons ceremonial drums all over Southeast Asia showed early watercraft development Early Southeast Asians knew how to ride the monsoons and use the seasonal winds to sail thousands of kilometres from their homes to as far as the East African Coasts to Easter Islands on the Pacific.

Pliny: Southeast Asias cinnamon traders rode the winds from gulf to gulf between Asia and Africa on rafts or the double outrigger canoes of the Malays.

 Another unique characteristic of Southeast Asias economy was the role of women in the local market systems. SEAsian women enjoyed a high degree of economic and social status a contrast to the low economic and social status of Chinese and Indian women.

 Southeast Asias

known polity. Funans capital Vyadapura was near Ba Phnom in todays Prei Veng Province of Cambodia. Why did Funan emerge in such an obscure location?

earliest

 Oc-eo

wa nestled on coastline that offered sailors protection from the troubled waters of Vietnam. A combination of agricultural surplus and trade made Funan a rich state. A third-century Chinese visitors, Kang Tai and Zhu Ying, were impressed and reported back to their ruler that the people of Fu-nan live in walled cities, palaces, and houses. ... They devote themselves to agriculture. In one year they sow and harvest for three [i.e., they leave it in and it will grow back three years before they have to replant]. [Customs] taxes are paid in gold, silver, pearls, and perfumes ...]."

 By

the 7th century, Srivijava emerged victorious as the paramount power in Island Southeast Asia. Srivijaya did not have immense or great agricultural resources. Instead, Palembang offered a fine natural harbour and a river that was navigable for long distance. It was said the sea-borne empire of Srivijaya depended upon trade and Chinas sponsorship

 Precious

Western goods including forest products believed to have medicinal qualities were exchanged in China for silks and porcelain, lacquers and other manufactured items. Srivijayas success was related to its good location on a major international trade route, its fine harbour, its heavy and navigable river, and the political and economic talents of its rulers.

 But

one of the most important secret in Srivijayas success was something not yet discussed: its curious relationship with the Sailendras, a royal lineage located outside Srivijayas realm in central Java

 During

the 8-10th centuries, Java witnessed a construction boom of Hindu complexes like the Candi Prambanan and the Buddhist temples like Borobudor. While Srivijaya represented the river mouth economic system, Central Java points out to the emergence of rice plains polities Srivijaya Central Java relationship was mutually advantageous, a symbiotic linkage between a state dependent on the control of international trade and a rice-plain that remained somewhat distant from that trade.

 In

a little more than 200 years, the mountain-sides and plains of the central Java were covered with monuments of exquisite designs. What these temples represented was the culmination of an acute irrigation system devoted not only to the Hindu-Buddhist Gods but also to the human-made intersection of river system and rice paddies.

 In the 9th

century, the first Angkorian kings developed techniques to master the environment. It was this mastery that provided the economic base for military expansion and great temple-building. Angkorian wealth was in its people and its agricultural capacity. Without the combination of these two assets there could not have been an Angkor Wat However, in the broadest sense, Angkorian Cambodia was not a state that depended on trade for its existence

 Within

the Khmer realm, religious foundations and family temples were subordinated to central temples placed strategically throughout the realm. A portion of the production collected by private temples was channelled to the state temples. In return, the priests of local family temples received validation through periodic participation in the rituals of the central temples.

Khmer temples were not just religious centres but important links in the states economic and political network.

 In

Burma, King Anawratha (1044-1077) imported Theravada Buddhism from Thaton to Bagan. Buddhism provided the Bagan Kings with two needs:o Allow the Bagan Monarchs to establish their authority, economic and ideological superiority over their rivals o The Buddhist Sangha, as a body of learned people, to provide at least a primary level of technological expertise to develop hydro-agriculture systems in Burma

 While

the state revenue flows to the centre, it was redistributed as payments and rewards by the Pagan Monarchs. However, not all flowed to the centre. A lot of the local revenue was paid in lieu of tax to Buddhist institutions or local monks. In Burma, social status is determined by how much one gives to the Buddhist Church rather than the wealth one accumulated. Thus, the Bagan Monarchs received merit and consequent legitimacy in return for their generosity.

Bagans

political economy was characterised

by:o Salvation was achieved through good works

and the sharing of merit o Religious endowments were a practical means of achieving ones religious, social and political goals o The political economy depended upon the assorted redistribution of material wealth.

 By

the 10th century, Vietnamese society was based on villages with elaborate dyke and drainage systems to control raging monsoons . Staples of Vietnamese life - fish and rice - a special earlyripening strain of rice. Vietnam borrowed largely from China. Early Chinese political interest in Vietnam was a consequence of the desire by Chinese rulers to secure the southern trade routes to gain access to luxury goods like pearls, incense, drugs, elephant tusks, rhinoceros horns, tortoiseshell, coral, parrots, kingfishers and peacocks.

 With

an influx of Han officials, new patterns of Chinese rule emerge. The Chinese administrators foremost concern was how to pay for their expanded administration. To do this, the Chinese promoted the development of the local agrarian economy as a stable tax base. The Chinese also promoted greater efficiency as well as extension of agriculture into previously uncultivated lands. Like the Chinese political economy, Vietnamese promoted all men aged 20-50 and women 15-40 to be married. The promotion of a stable family unit made societies settled in one place and the increase the desire to hold land as well as extend wet-rice cultivation to new territories.

Whoever is lord of Malacca has his hands on the throat of Venice. Tome Pires If Cambay were cut off from trading with Melaka, it could not live. Tome Pires

Organised Islamic trading networks. The reopening of the Straits of Melaka for commercial traffic coupled with expanding Islamic trading networks brought upon the rise of Melaka and later, Acheh in Sumatera. Melaka good harbour productive agricultural region, but located at the narrowest part of the straits and conveniently situated to receive ships from both directions. Because of Melakas rapidly expanding trade volumes with the Islamic world, the Sultanate developed into a wealthy entrepot, where virtually every type of merchandise was available.

 Melakas commercial pre-

eminence and its aggressively Muslim leadership gave remarkable impetus to the expansion of Islam But who were these Islamic traders?

 However, what

foreign trade had provided for these Islamic sultanates, foreign trade could also take away. For instance, the more effective Dutch monopoly of the 17th century, supported by local Chinese trade, had a reverse effect to the commercial stimulus in in the Malay Archipelago. Foreign trade can also mean a lack of security as well as less autonomy for the domestic merchant vis-a-vis the state.

 Based

in modern-day Southern Vietnam, Champas represents an accomplishment of a culturally integrated yet decentralised polity. Like the Malay riverine states in the Malay Peninsula, the Chams consisted of scattered communities in river valleys and coastal plains between the South China Sea and the mountains.

 Floating rice that was

quickgrowing hundred day and could be grown even under water cover of up to five metres. Without a relatively stable agricultural base, the Chams could not expect a sufficient flow from agricultural surpluses to finance political ambitions.

 In

the absence of a sufficient resource base to support their political aspirations, Cham kings by necessity depended on periodic military expeditions to acquire plunder.

 What

are the commonalities that bind these kingdoms together? Two factors are the strongest;- the attraction of a riceplanting base and the hub of a prosperous entrepot trade. Almost all early states in Southeast Asia had a certain degree of both economic propensities. Yet, some states have a stronger propensity for one factor than another.

ykngui@yahoo.com