Southeast Asia 190045:
The Rise of
Nationalism
March 12, 2013
Review:
• How is Communism different from
Fascism?
• Why did the Chinese Nationalist Party
and the Chinese Communist Party Split?
• How did the growing war with the
Japanese influence the images of the
Nationalist Party and the Communist
Party?
The Battle for Okinawa
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In spring, 1945, the US invaded the Japanese
homeland, picking Okinawa as the place to
establish a beachhead. (p. 423)
What was the impact of the Battle of Okinawa on
the Okinawans? Did it make them feel more
Japanese?
What was the impact of the Battle of Okinawa on
the Japanese? Did it convince them to surrender?
What was the impact of the Battle of Okinawa on
the Americans? Did it lead to the A-bomb?
The Atomic Bomb
• Why did the US drop atomic bombs on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
• Were the atomic bombs worse than the firebombings that preceded them? (p. 423)
• Were such attacks on civilians justified?
• What convinced the Japanese to surrender on
August 15? (p. 423)
• What role did the Soviet attack play in that
decision?
Rise of Nationalism
• Lockard defines nationalism as follows:
• nationalism involved a sense of common feeling
transcending class and ethnicity among people
who desires to express that wider community by
establishing an independent country.” (p. 135)
• But isn’t ethnicity, newly defined, an important
feature of nationalism? And doesn’t that make it
possible for nationalism to shade over into
racism?
the Philippines
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Under US control, the Philippines became the first colony to
promote mass education. 65% of Filipinos were literate in one
language or another by 1935. Tagalog (Filipino) was declared
the national language in 1939, along with English.
In 1936, the US government promised to grant the Philippines
complete independence by 1946.
The Japanese did not find as much support in the Philippines
as they did in much of the rest of Southeast Asia.
During the Japanese occupation, resistance to the Japanese
took two forms: a pro-American underground movement, and a
Communist underground movement. The latter wanted to seize
land from rich landlords, some of whom collaborated with the
Japanese, and give it to landless peasants.
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Indonesia
The Dutch finally conquered Aceh in the early part of
the 20th century, with the help of Javanese troops.
In the last decades of colonial rule, a Muslim League
and an Indonesian Communist Party appeared, but
the lead in the nationalist movement was taken by
Sukarno’s Indonesian Nationalist Party.
Sukarno was a charismatic speaker who worked
hard to create an inclusive Indonesian identity: “One
Nation, Indonesia; One People, Indonesian; One
Language, Indonesian” (He ignored religious
differences) None of these were an accurate
depiction of the Dutch East Indies before 1900.
Malaya
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Most of the people on the Malay peninsula today are the
descendants of people who immigrated from Indonesia, China, or
India starting in the late 19th century. The population of the
Federated Malay states was 218,000 in 1891 but 1.7 million by
1931, 41% of whom were Chinese.
Weak nationalism because Chinese identified with China, Malays
with other Malays, Indians with India, etc. Imagining a new nation
of Malaysia did not bring those three groups together.
The Malays began emphasizing their religion (Islam) and their
purported local roots to distinguish themselves from the Chinese
and the South Asians, and to claim that Malaysia is their country.
A Malay Communist Party emerged, but the vast majority of its
members were Chinese.
Burma (Myanmar)
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There was a long history of kingdoms in what is now Myanmar,
but it was under the British that the Burmese were placed
together with tribal peoples under one government. (Until
1937, the British also treated Burma as a province of India
rather than as a separate colony)
For the Burmese, just as we will see with the Sinhalese in Sri
Lanka, Buddhism became a vehicle for asserting a distinctive
national identity. This caused tension with the Christian tribal
peoples in the north, as well as with Chinese and Indians living
in Burma.
Some young Burmese formed a Burma Independence Army,
which sought Japanese help in expelling the British.
Siam (Thailand)
• Changed name from Siam to Thailand in 1939
• The modernizing Thai government (especially
the king Rama VI) used Buddhism to unify the
country, creating a national Buddhist hierarchy. It
also build modern schools to teach Thai identity.
• The military seized control of the country in 1932
and created a constitutional monarchy. Under
military rule, we see Thailand moving closer to
Fascism. There was also some official antiChinese sentiment until the government realized
it needed Chinese help in running the economy.
Indochina
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Five separate administrative regions under overall French colonial
rule: Cochinchina (south), Annam (central), Tonkin (north),
Cambodia, and Laos.
Vietnamese nationalists formed a Vietnamese Nationalist Party
modelled after the Guomindang (KMT) in China. It was crushed
when it rose up in revolt in 1930.
Then a new nationalist party arose: the Indochinese Communist
Party, led by Ho Chi Minh. Ho Chi Minh was able to link nationalism
and Communist and, by doing so, create a powerful anti-Japanese
force. (To do that, he formed a united front called the Viet Minh.)
Japanese did not assume direct control of Indochina until 1945.
The Appeal of Communism
to Some Nationalists
• Communism criticized imperialism.
• It promised a chance to jump ahead of
capitalist countries and take the lead in
human history
• It offered techniques for creating highly
disciplined revolutionary (Leninist) parties.
• However, it wasn’t successful in countries
in which one religion (Islam, Catholicism,
Theravada Buddhism) was dominant.
Impact of Japanese rule
in
Southeast Asia
• Showed that the West was vulnerable --The
British, the Dutch, the Americans, and the French
had all been defeated by an Asian people.
• The Japanese claimed to be liberating Southeast
Asians from Western domination, and they
actually brought some local people into their
puppet governments. This gave local leaders a
taste of self-government, which stimulated an
even greater desire for self-rule.