Southeast Asia?

What is Southeast Asia?

•A History of South-East Asia (1955) by D.G.E. Hall

•In Search of Southeast Asia (1971) ed. David Joel Steinberg

•Early South East Asia: Essays in Archaeology History and Historical Geography (1979) ed. R.B. Smith and W. Watson

What is Southeast Asia?

•During the WWII, the term was used to designate the area south of China occupied by the Japanese. The term gained wide currency during the Vietnam War of the 1960s and 1970s.

What is Southeast Asia?

Geographical considerations

•Southeast Asia covers 3 percent of the world land area and has 8 percent of its people. The region situates in the middle of the two great oriental civilized zone, the Indian Subcontinent and China.

Crossroads

•Southeast Asia is the central intersection of the sea routes. The lands bounded by the Indian subcontinent on the west, China on the north, Australia on the south, and the Pacific to the east.

Western Travellers/Administrators

•East India Island: (1812)

•Further India

•British India 19th century

• Indochina/French Indochina :19th century

•Asia of the Monsoons prior ww2

SEA as an organizationthe American era

• SEATO (Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, 1954)

Members – Thailand, the Philippines, Britain, New Zealand, Australia, France, Pakistan, United States

• ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations, 1967)

Members – Non-socialist countries; Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia (1967), Brunei (1984), Vietnam (1995), Myanmar (1997), Cambodia (1999)

Emergence and Development of Early States

• The Arakan Mountains/ArakanYoma

• The Tenasserim Range

• The Annam Range

• The Irrawaddy and the Chindwin

• The Saween

• The Chao Phraya

• The Red River and the Mekong

Mainland Southeast Asia

Geographical Setting

•Insular Southeast Asia, comprising Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

•The Malay Peninsula’s greater exposure to the sea and its ethnic, cultural, religious, and geographical affinities with Sumatra and Java

In conclude

Southeast Asia is part of the world trading system that linked China to the middle East and Europe, and as a crossroads in this system, experienced various forms of cultural/religious penetration from Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity