History of Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia is made up of eleven countries that stretch from eastern India to China and is divided into two zones: mainland and island. The Asian continent extends onto the mainland (Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam). Muslims can be found in all mainland countries, but southern Thailand and western Burma have the largest Muslim populations (Arakan). Muslim Cham people live in central Vietnam and Cambodia.

Maritime or island Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Brunei, and East Timor are all part of Southeast Asia (formerly part of Indonesia). In Malaysia and Brunei, Islam is the official religion. Despite the fact that Muslims make up 85 percent of Indonesia’s population of over 234 million people, more than any other country on the planet, Islam is not the official state religion. In Singapore and the southern Philippines, Muslims constitute a minority.

Southeast Asia has struggled throughout history to maintain its traditions while accepting new ideas for a more sustainable and brighter future, recognising that it can no longer maintain its old methods of doing things. Many countries have only been independent for less than a century, so more change is to be expected as they strive to figure out how to move forward.

Facts about Southeast Asia

• Southeast Asia’s cultural diversity is a distinguishing quality. Southeast Asia is home to thousands of languages out of the six thousand spoken worldwide today. Human occupancy in Southeast Asia stretches back roughly a million years, but migration into the region has a lengthy history as well. Historically, tribal groups from the south
• China used lengthy river networks to enter the heart of the mainland. The Austro-Asian (like Cambodian and Vietnamese), Tai (like Thai and Lao), and Tibeto-Burmese languages make up the mainland’s linguistic landscape (including highland languages as well as Burmese). These groups of languages can also be found in north-eastern India and southwest China.
• Around 4,000 years ago, individuals speaking Austronesian languages (originating in southern China and Taiwan) began to migrate to the islands of Southeast Asia. This migration displaced or absorbed the original occupants of the Philippines and the Malay-Indonesian archipelago, who may have been related to tribes in Australia and New Guinea. Almost all of the languages spoken today in insular Southeast Asia are Austronesian.
• The various ways in which individuals have adapted to their surroundings is a striking feature of Southeast Asia. Many migratory communities known as orang laut, or sea people, lived permanently in small boats in premodern times. Numerous small travelling groups lived in the deep forests, and interior tribes included ruthless head-hunters.
• The fruit of the lontar palm was a main diet on certain of eastern Indonesia’s islands with a long dry season; in other areas, it was sago. Sedentary societies grew irrigated rice in the rich plains of Java and mainland Southeast Asia; along the beaches, which were less ideal for agriculture due to mangrove swamps, fishing and trade were the main activities. Women in Southeast Asia are often considered as more equal to males than in surrounding places like China and India, due to a variety of circumstances including low population, late entrance of world religions, lack of urbanisation, and descent through both male and female lines.
• Around two thousand years ago, cultural shifts began to affect Southeast Asia, with influences originating from two sources. The colonisation of Vietnam resulted from Chinese expansion south of the Yangtze River. Although Chinese rule ended in 1427, Confucian ideology remained influential after Vietnam gained independence.
• Buddhism and Taoism have made their way to Vietnam through China. Expanding trade across the Bay of Bengal meant increasing Indian influences throughout the rest of mainland Southeast Asia and the western portions of the Malay-Indonesian archipelago. These influences were especially noticeable in areas with large sedentary populations, such as northern Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, Java, and Bali, where irrigated rice was grown. In these locations, rulers and courts who adopted Hinduism or Buddhist forms fostered a culture that blended foreign concepts with characteristics of indigenous society.

Trade History of South East Asia

Southeast Asia was regarded as a land of vast richness in the pre-nineteenth-century world, and changes there were vital to the totality of world history in the pre-1600 period. Southeast Asia’s richness was known to writers, explorers, sailors, traders, and bureaucrats from every continent in the eastern hemisphere, and most were aware of its power and reputation by the second millennium of the Christian period. In contrast, today’s generation is unaware of Southeast Asia’s early history and international relevance.

Southeast Asia was named the ‘Golden Khersonese’, or ‘Land of Gold,’ by Indians and Westerners in the early centuries CE, and it wasn’t long before the country was recognised for its pepper and the fruits of its rainforests, first aromatic woods and resins, and subsequently the richest and rarest of spices. Arabs and Chinese thought about Southeast Asia’s wealth, as well as the spices that created it, from the seventh to tenth centuries; by the fifteenth century, sailors from ports on the Atlantic, on the opposite side of the hemisphere, would venture into unknown oceans in search of these Spice Islands.

They were all aware that Southeast Asia was the world’s spice capital. All world trade was more or less driven by the ebb and flow of spices in and out of Southeast Asia from around 1000 CE until the nineteenth-century ‘industrial age.’

Major Historical events of South East Asia

• Vietnam’s Independence from France- Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnam’s independence from France in 1945, setting in motion events that would eventually lead to the Vietnam War.

• India’s independence from the British- This was a British Act of Parliament that partitioned British India into the two new independent nations of India and Pakistan.

• The Korean War (1950-1953)- It all started with a civil war between North and South Korea. It spread internationally. It occurred because North Korea desired communism and South Korea did not. The war separated Korea and pushed Asia into the Cold War.

• Vietnam War (1954-1975) – It took place between North and South Vietnam. They were both backed by several countries. South Vietnam was helped by anti-communist friends, while North Vietnam was helped by communist allies. It all began when North Vietnam desired for South Vietnam to become communist like them.

• Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward (1958-1961) – Mao Zedong devised a strategy to bring China’s economy up to par with that of Western nations. Some saw this as communist because it required everyone to be equal.

• China’s Cultural Revolution (1966) – Another goal of Mao was to create a communist world without classes. He wanted Chinese culture to be pro-communist and pro-Mao in every way. Thousands of people died as a result of the incident.

Conclusion

Southeast Asia is a collection of countries, each with its own distinct qualities but a common set of experiences, influences, and struggles. External influences, primarily from India (with the exception of Vietnam, which was impacted by China), have had a significant impact on the region’s culture and religious beliefs. They all went through similar hardships as European colonies from the 19th century until the Second World War (with the exception of Thailand). They have struggled with revolution, independence, and establishing new government administrations ever then.