Introduction to Southeast Asia

8/13/2019 Introduction to Southeast Asia

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By Clarence Ngui Yew Kit


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Week 17 - Clarence Ngui Yew Kit

Imperialism and Western Colonialism

MinoritiesChinese, Indians and Vietnamese

Cold War

Nation Building

Regional Conflict

Regionalism

Week 8-14Dr Ahmad Ali Seman

Nationalism

Japanese Occupation

Independence & Decolonisation

Regional Cooperation


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Individual Essay30%

Project Paper30% (2-3 people per group)

New Themes in Southeast Asian HistoryThemes must be approved first!!!

Final Exam40%

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

enumerated!


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Something New or Something Old?

A Natural Geographical Region? Natural orCreated?

An appendage of India or China?


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DGE Hallthe first major historian to write the history of

Southeast Asia as a regionthough his workis 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


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Southeast Asia is not an area of

great political homogeneity.

Politically as well as culturally, itscomponent states are more varied

that those of Europe

George McKahin


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Diversity?Same same but different


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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 knewSoutheast Asia as the spice capital of the world.


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Yavadvipa = Millet Island

Suvarnabhumi () =Islands of Gold


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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


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Southeast Asians - first to domesticate rice-plantingand todevelop 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 isbelieved Southeast Asians were also among the first todomesticate chickens and pigs.


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Wet rice or sawah cultivation Milletcultivation decline.

Sawah cultivation = High population densityand burgeoning non-food producers

What made wet-rice cultivation successful was

the control of water.


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Southeast Asians

independently discovered

bronzeand discover

sophisticated metallurgicaltechniques 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.


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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.


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Pliny: Southeast Asias cinnamon traders rode thewinds from gulf to gulf between Asia and Africaon

rafts or the double outrigger canoes of the Malays.
http://bp3.blogger.com/_Ne5_ig7nnao/Rv7e5PGLDuI/AAAAAAAAAFM/s23LBHv9Vi0/s1600-h/pic+8-t.jpg


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Another unique characteristic of

Southeast Asias economy was therole of women in the local market

systems.

SEAsian women enjoyed a high

degree of economic and social

statusa contrast to the low

economic and social status of

Chinese and Indian women.


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Southeast Asias earliestknown polity.

Funanscapital Vyadapurawas near Ba Phnom intodays Prei Veng Provinceof Cambodia.

Why did Funan emerge in

such an obscure location?


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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 threeyears before they have to replant]. [Customs] taxes are paid

in gold, silver, pearls, and perfumes ...]."


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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 dependedupon trade and Chinas sponsorship


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Precious Western goods including forest productsbelieved to have medicinal qualities were exchanged in

China for silks and porcelain, lacquers and other

manufactured items.

Srivijayassuccess 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.


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But one of the most

important secret in

Srivijayassuccess was

something not yet

discussed: its curious

relationship with theSailendras, a royal

lineage located outside

Srivijayasrealm in

central Java


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During the 8-10th centuries, Java witnessed aconstruction boom of Hindu complexes like the CandiPrambanan and the Buddhist temples like Borobudor.

While Srivijaya represented the river mouth economicsystem, Central Java points out to the emergence ofrice plains polities

SrivijayaCentral Java relationship was mutuallyadvantageous, a symbiotic linkage between a statedependent on the control of international trade and arice-plain that remained somewhat distant from that

trade.


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In a little more than 200 years, the mountain-sides and

plains of the central Java were covered withmonuments of exquisite designs.

What these temples represented was the culmination

of an acute irrigation systemdevoted not only to the

Hindu-Buddhist Gods but also to the human-made

intersection of river system and rice paddies.


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In the 9th century, the first Angkorian kings developedtechniques to master the environment.

It was this mastery that provided the economic base formilitary 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 WatHowever, in the broadest sense, Angkorian Cambodia

was not a state that depended on tradefor itsexistence


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Within the Khmer realm, religious foundations and

family temples were subordinated to centraltemples 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.


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Khmer temples were not just religious centres but important

links in the states economic and political network.


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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, toprovide at least a primary level of technological

expertise to develop hydro-agriculture systems in

Burma


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While the state revenue flows to the centre, it wasredistributed as payments and rewards by the Pagan

Monarchs.

However, not all flowed to the centre. Alot of the localrevenue 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 wealthone accumulated.

Thus, the Bagan Monarchs received merit andconsequent legitimacy in return for their generosity.


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Baganspolitical economy was characterised

by:-o Salvation was achieved through good works

and the sharing of merit

o Religious endowments were a practical meansof achieving ones religious, social and political

goals

o The political economy depended upon theassorted redistribution of material wealth.


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By the 10th century, Vietnamese society was based onvillages with elaborate dyke and drainage systems tocontrol raging monsoons .

Staples of Vietnamese life - fish and rice - a special early-

ripening strain of rice.

Vietnam borrowed largely from China.

Early Chinese political interest in Vietnam was aconsequence of the desire by Chinese rulers to secure thesouthern trade routes to gain access to luxury goods likepearls, incense, drugs, elephant tusks, rhinoceros horns,tortoiseshell, coral, parrots, kingfishers and peacocks.


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With an influx of Han officials, new patterns of Chinese ruleemerge. 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 Chinesealso 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. Thepromotion of a stable family unit made societies settled in

one place and the increase the desire to hold land as wellas extend wet-rice cultivation to new territories.


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Organised Islamic trading networks.

The reopening of the Straits of Melaka for commercial traffic coupledwith 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 toreceive ships from both directions.

Because of Melakas rapidly expanding trade volumes with the Islamic

world, the Sultanate developed into a wealthy entrepot, wherevirtually every type of merchandise was available.


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Melakas commercial pre-

eminence and its aggressivelyMuslim leadership gave

remarkable impetus to the

expansion of Islam

But who were these Islamic

traders?


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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.


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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 plainsbetween the South China Sea

and the mountains.


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Floating rice that was quick-

growing hundred day and could

be grown even under watercover 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.


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In the absence of a sufficientresource base to support their

political aspirations, Cham

kings by necessity depended

on periodic military

expeditionsto acquire

plunder.


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What are the commonalities that bind these kingdoms

together?

Two factors are the strongest;- the attraction of a rice-planting base and the hub of a prosperous entrepot

trade.

Almost all early states in Southeast Asia had a certaindegree of both economic propensities. Yet, some states

have a stronger propensity for one factor than another.


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Introduction to Southeast Asia

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