Imperialism in Asia: Encyclopedia II - Imperialism in Asia - Postwar era

Imperialism in Asia - Postwar era

Imperialism in Asia - Decolonization and the rise of nationalism in Asia

In the aftermath of the Second World War, European colonies, controlling more than one billion people throughout the world, still ruled most of the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and South Asia. However, the image of European preeminence was shattered by the wartime Japanese occupations of large portions of British, French, and Dutch territories in the Pacific. The destabilization of European rule led to the rapid growth of nationalist movements in Asia—especially in Indonesia, Malaya, Burma, and French Indochina.

The war, however, only accelerated forces already in existence undermining Western imperialism in Asia. Throughout the colonial world, the processes of urbanization and capitalist investment created professional merchant classes that emerged as new Westernized elites. While imbued with Western political and economic ideas, these classes increasingly grew to resent their unequal status under European rule.

In India, the westward movement of Japanese forces toward Bengal had led to major concessions on the part of British authorities to Indian nationalist leaders. In 1947, Britain, devastated by war and embroiled in economic crisis at home, granted the subcontinent its independence as two nations: India and Pakistan. The following year independence was granted to Burma and Ceylon.

In the Middle East, Britain granted independence to Jordan in 1946 and two years later ended its mandate of Palestine, an action that led to the creation of the state of Israel and decades of bitter wars between this new nation and the Arab world continuing to this day. (see Arab-Israeli conflict)

Following the end of the war, nationalists in Indonesia demanded complete independence from the Netherlands. A brutal conflict ensued, and finally, in 1949, through United Nations mediation, the Dutch East Indies achieved independence, becoming the new nation of Indonesia. Dutch imperialism molded this new multi-ethnic state comprising roughly 3,000 islands of the Indonesian archipelago with a population at the time of over 100 million.

The end of Dutch rule opened up latent tensions between the roughly 300 distinct ethnic groups of the islands, with the major ethnic fault line being between the Javanese and the non-Javanese.

In the Philippines, the U.S. remained committed to its previous pledges to grant the grant the islands their independence, but on its own terms. The Philippines remained under pressure to adopt a political and economic system derived from their old imperial masters.

This aim was greatly complicated by the rise of new political forces. During the war, the Hukbalahap (People's Army), which had strong ties to the Communist Party of the Philippines (PKP), fought against the Japanese occupation of the Philippines and won strong popularity among many sectors of the Filipino working class and peasantry. In 1946, the PKP participated in elections as part of the Democratic Alliance. But with the onset of the Cold War, its growing political strength drew a reaction from the ruling government and the United States, resulting in the repression of the PKP and its associated organizations. In 1948, the PKP began organizing an armed struggle against the government and continued U.S. military presence. In 1950, the PKP created the People's Liberation Army (Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan), which mobilized thousands of troops throughout the islands. The insurgency lasted until 1956, when the PKP gave up armed struggle.

In 1968, the PKP underwent a split, and in 1969 the Maoist faction of the PKP created the New People's Army. Maoist rebels re-launched an armed struggle against the government and the U.S. military presence in the Philippines, which continues to this day.

France remained determined to retain its control of Indochina. However, in Hanoi, in 1945, a broad front of nationalists and socialists led by Ho Chi Minh established an independent Republic of Vietnam, commonly referred to as the Vietminh regime by Western outsiders. France, seeking to regain control of Vietnam, countered with a vague offer of self-government under French rule. France's offers were unacceptable to Vietnamese nationalists; and in December 1946 war broke out between France and the Vietminh. Meanwhile, the French managed to set up a puppet regime in Saigon in 1950. The U.S. then recognized the regime in Saigon, and provided the French military effort massive military aid.

The French were also forced to deal with resistance in Cambodia. In 1945, Cambodia declared gained its independence as the Kingdom of Kampuchea, with Sihanouk installed as monarch and Son Ngoc Thanh acting as prime minister. The French wanted to reassert control, but were unable to act at the time. Braitain supported France's efforts to reassert its control of Cambodia, but were unable to act. Britain supported Frence's attempts to reassert its influence in Cambodia. On October 8, 1945, the British arrived in Phnom Penh with a detachment of Nepali Gurkhas. Thanh was arrested; and the government was overthrown, with the French put back in charge.

Later, anticolonial militants retreated into the countryside and formed armed groups known as the Khmer Issarak ("Khmer Independence"). They operated initially along the border with Thailand and were assisted by the Thai government. In the countryside, French forces fought the Khmer Issarak. However, the French were not able to fully regain their control of Cambodia. On April 17, 1950 the first national conference of the Khmer resistance was held and the United Issarak Front was created, with Son Ngoc Minh at the head. Sihanouk demanded sovereignty from the French and on November 9, 1953, Cambodia was granted independence.

Meanwile, in Vietnam, the French's war against the Vietminh regime, begun in 1946, continued for nearly eight years. The French were gradually worn down by guerrilla and jungle fighting. The turning point for France occurred at Dien Bein Phu in 1954, which resulted in the surrender of ten thousand French troops. Paris was forced to accept a political settlement that year at the Geneva Conference, which led to a precarious set of agreements regarding the future political status of Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

As France washed its hands of Indochina, the U.S. moved into France's old role in supporting the pro-Western Saigon regime.

The U.S. also became involved in Cambodia's domestic politics. The U.S. became increasingly unhappy with Sihanouk because of his non-aligned stance in the Cold War and the war between the Saigon and Hanoi regimes in Vietnam.

The U.S. supported a coup by Lon Nol against Sihanouk in 1970. U.S. armed forces then entered Cambodia from the Vietnam-Cambodia border. However, massive protest by students and workers in the U.S. forced the US to withdraw its land forces from Cambodia. Sihanouk declared Lon Nol's government illegitimate and formed a government-in-exile in Beijing known as the Royal Government of the National Union of Kampuchea (GRUNK) and a political coalition in Cambodia known as the National United Front of Kampuchea (FUNK), which in turn was aligned with the Cambodian People's National Liberation Armed Forces (CPNLAF). The U.S. Air Force attacked the base of the CPNLAF, the Cambodian countryside, dropping hundreds of thousands of tons of bombs, killing many people. By 1975, the CPNLAF had defeated Lon Nol's army and on April 17, 1975 the CPNLAF entered Phnom Penh and ousted Lon Nol's regime. However, the loose coalition behind CPNLAF proved unable to establish itself as a stable postcolonial regime; the ensuring Cambodian Civil War resulted in decades of politcal turmoil and the emergence of the Khmer Rouge, making Cambodia the stage to one of the bloodiest conflicts in the 20th century.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Postwar era", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki