The First Phase of Western Imperialism: Mercantilism; The Coming of the

Westerners to Asia; Struggle Over the Moluccas and India; Colonization of the
Philippines
There are two sides to consider when looking at the mechanism of Western
imperialism and colonialism in Asia: the motives of the westerners and the Asian
reactions. But before all these developments, are the factors that motivated the western
imperialists/colonialists to seek routes for trade, expansion and exploitation.
The 1492, saw in the Iberian peninsula the culmination of the victories of the
reconquista (the wars undertaken by the Christian Spanish to retake the territories
formerly held by the Moors), that saw the united kingdoms of Castille and Aragon finally
take Granada, the last stronghold of the Muslims. Seville and Barcelona became Spains
centers of mercantilism and industrialization. Wide varieties of fabrics were
manufactured, as well as potteries, barrels, rope, glass and many other articles. Portugal,
for its part, became a maritime power under Prince Henry the Navigator, who promoted
the study of navigation and sponsored the expeditions that colonized the Azores and other
islands, where slaves imported from West Africa worked sugar plantations.
The wars of the crusades undertaken by Christian Europe from the 11th to the 13th
Centuries had brought the people of Western Europe into closer contact with the East and
had created among the crusaders new tastes, in food, luxuries, and other refinements of
living. Europeans learned to prize cinnamon, pepper, nutmeg, ginger and other spices.
These spices, together with dyes, perfumes, precious stones, and other items of luxury
were transported by ship or caravan to ports in Eastern Mediterranean. Venetians and
Genoese merchants gained monopoly over the trading of these goods between the
Ottomans and the Europeans since the fall of Constantinople on 1453.
The Spaniards and the Portuguese were interested in participating in this lucrative
trade, but the Mediterranean was closed to them by Venetian naval power. The only
option was to finance voyages in search of new routes. Advances in navigation enabled
Europeans to bypass Muslim traders and seek maritime routes to Asian markets. In the
late 1400s, Portuguese navigators rounded Africa and reached India while the Italian
mariner Christopher Columbus opened a transatlantic route for Spain to what he thought
were the Indies but proved to the islands of the Caribbean. On 1488, Portuguese explorer
Bartholomew Dias round the Cape of Good Hope, the southern tip of Africa. From 1502
to 1510, the Portuguese establish colonies on the Indian coast at Cochin and Goa.
After defeating a Muslim fleet at Dui in 1509, the Portuguese, under Alfonso de
Albuquerque take over Goa, and sacked Malacca in 1511 (Majul 1999:47). Believing that
controlling Malacca would lead to controlling the trade monopoly between the Indian
Ocean and the South China Sea, as well as dealing a mortal blow against Islam in the
Malaysian area, the event even contributed to the spread of Islam in Southeast Asia for in
less than a decade after the fall of Malacca, Sukadana, Banjarmasin, and Ambon became

Islamized. These were followed by Bantam and Mataram, in Java; and in 1521 Brunei
demonstrated determined efforts to convert its nearby neighbors. In 1575, Sultan Babulla of Ternate completed the work of this father, Sultan Harun, in destroying the labors
of the Portuguese missionaries in the Moluccas. Bornean missionary activities in Luzon,
although of a limited character, appeared around the 1570s. According to Bertram
Shrieke, the missionary work of the Portuguese, and later or, the Spaniards, led even to
Islams accelerated expansion in the 16th Century in Southeast Asia (Ibid., p. 49).
An insight was presented by William Henry Scott (1992:29): termed by him as
the Mediterranean connection, that Magellan, who was a part of Albuquerques forces
that took the Malaccan Sultan Mahmouds kingdom in 1511, happened to be informed of
the sources of spices by a letter from Albuquerque which is Moluccas. At that time,
Magellan was still under the service of the king of Portugal and he replied that if the
Portuguese would not be able to find the way to the spice island, he would, under the
Spanish, sail west across the Atlantic.
Magellan left the Far East in 1513 after lending 110 cruzados to a Portuguese
merchant in Goa to be repaid in pepper in Lisbon at 82 percent interest and had a falling
out with the king back in Portugal in 1517 and left for Spain. According to Joao de
Barros (Scott 1992:32, quoting Barros Decada terceira deAsia de Joao de Barros dos
Feitos que os Portugueses fezarao no Descobrimiento & Conquista dos Mares & Terras
de Oriente (Lisboa, 1628, book 5, fol. 139), Magellan was always hanging around pilots
and sea charts. In Seville, he married the sister of the author of the latest travel books on
Indian Asia, and signed a contract with Spanish king for 15 percent of the profits to be
realized from what turned out to be an unsuccessful attempt to sabotage the Portuguese
spice trade. He left Spain with instructions to find a new route to the Spice Islands,
discovered the strait which bear his name, and headed across the Pacific on a course of
northwest by west. When he came to the equator, he strangely did not veer west in search
for the Moluccas he knew to be on that line; rather, he continued on and only changed
course when he reached the latitude of Luzon, and then headed direct for the Philippines.
There, instead of carrying out his orders, he spend six weeks merchandising, baptizing
and politicking in Cebu, and died trying to force a beachhead in Mactan. Crewman Gines
de Mafra speculated that this unauthorized behavior was motivated by Magellans desire
to have Cebu as one of two islands to be granted him in perpetuity (Underscoring
provided)because he had said so many times. Perhaps the easiest way to explain this
whole scenario is to assume that Magellan knew where he was going and wanted to get
there (Scott 1992:32).
The drugs and aromatics which made up the spice trade were carried from their
islands of origin by Javanese traders or Buginese from Makassarall the way to the
hands of Arab and Indian traders, up to the route controlled by the Egyptian ruler the
Portuguese called the Sultan of Babylon. The Portuguese hoped to break the monopoly
by sailing from India to Europe around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of
Africa. The first spices to reach the European market in Flanders completely by sea
and bring almost their weight in goldwere delivered by two Portuguese carracks in
1499. Five years later, the Venetian Senate was shocked to have its galleys return from

Alexandria empty, no spices having reached that port that year across the Mediterranean
connection.
What are the other events in Asia with regards to the Portuguese and the Spanish?
In 1514, the Chinese encountered Portuguese who sailed from India. In 1523, the Chinese
expelled the Portuguese.
There were several examples given by Scott (1992) where de Conti left Venice on
business in 1419, crossed Syria, Iraq, Persia, India and Ceylon and got as far as Sumatra;
25 years later, he returned through the Red Sea and Egypt with an Indian wife and family,
and sought the Popes absolution for having abjured his faith in Jiddah (Scott 1992:25,
quoting Rodrigo Fernandez de Santa ella, Cosmographia breve introductoria in el Libro
de Marco Polo. . . con otro tratado de Micer Pogio florentino que trata delas mesmas
tierras & yslas (Seville, 1554), pp.160-1900). In 1505, Ludovico de Varthema of
Bologna also reached Sumatra, having become a Muslim and picked up a Persian partner
and two Chinese Christian companions on the way: one would wander what language
they used to hire ships complete with captain and crews in Malacca, Atjeh and Borneo
(Scott 1992: 25-26, quoting Itinerario de Lucovico Barthema Bolognese, in Gian
Bauttista Ramusio, Delle Navigationi et Viaggi, Vol. I (Venice, 1554), pp.160-190).
Another example given by Scott (Ibid.) was an event when the first person that
Vasco da Gama happened to meet when he arrived in India in 1498, happened to address
him in Spanish.
In 1549, the Jesuit missionaries entered Japan. In 1570, Japan opens the port of
Nagasaki to Western traders. In 1610, European powers skirmish over trade rights in
India. In 1620-1630, The Japanese, under the Tokugawa military government, expel
foreign traders (except the Dutch) and repudiate foreign influences.
The Impact of the West on India
Early in the 16th Century, the Portuguese founded the first European trading
stations and settlements in India. They were followed by the Dutch, British, Danes and
French, and throughout the 17th Century the number of European factories increased.
In the 18th Century, with the breakup of the Mughal empire, the Europeans began to take
greater interest in local politics. Around 1763, the French had been eased out of India. By
the early 19th Century, the British East India Company had virtually pushed out its rivals
and dominated the sub-continent. The comparative ease with which the British
established their supremacy is a measure of the political decadence of India at that time.
By the middle of the 19th Century, the whole of India was either directly ruled by Britain
or governed through petty princes with local autonomy. A new emperor had became, a
conqueror far more alien to the Hindu than the Muslims had been, with an aggressive
culture and immense technical superiority.

The following data are taken from the Government and Politics of Southeast Asia by
George McTurnan Kahin (Ed.). London: Cornell University Press. 1969.
The Impact of the West on Southeast Asia
Burma
In the Treaty of Yandabo of 1826, the British were able to acquire Arakan and
Tenesserim from Burma while the state of Assam was given up, even the right to interfere
in the affairs of Manipur. A trivial incident provided the British with a new pretext to
renew the fighting in 1852.
The arrival of the French as a major power in Southeast in 1870s and 1880s
alarmed the British and caused them to use an incident between an English commercial
firm and the Burmese king in 1885 as a pretext to start the third Anglo-Burmese War.
British operations began in November, and by the end of the month, the Burmese king
was captured. Following their victory, the British, on January 1, 1886, proclaimed the
annexation of the remainder of Burma.
Under the British, several changes took place in the social organization and in the
political and economic institutions which thrust Burma from the backwater into the
mainstream of world events. The introduction of law and order throughout Burma
brought changes in local government and destroyed the traditional pattern of authority.
The conversion of Burma into a commercial granary and the worlds biggest rice exporter
brought with it tenancy, money-lending, and land alienation.
Indonesia and the Spice Islands
The early 16th Century was the beginning of European expansion in Indonesia.
The first Europeans were the Portuguese, who came to enter and then monopolize the
much-coveted trade in the spices of the Moluccas, the Spice Islands, as well as to
spread Catholicism and wage the world-wide battle against Islam. For seventy years from
the time of their capture of the important Islamic center of Malacca in 1511, the
Portuguese engaged in intensive military exploits in the archipelago. They did not
succeed in monopolizing the spice trade completely but gained enormous profits from it
nevertheless. Their missionary successes, on the other hand, were modest at best. Rather
than winning them converts, their penetration induced a rapidly increasing number of
Indonesian princes (who were Hindus) to accept Islam as political counter to their power.
The Portuguese were followed by the Dutch at the very end of the 16th Century
who came primarily to trade. Their United East India Company was a commercial

concern, whose directors had no lust for territorial expansion as such. But its mercantilist
methods inevitably involved it in political and military tasks. Thus it wrested the spice
trade from the Portuguese and then held it against the competition of British, Spanish,
and Indonesian and other Asian traders.
To keep its monopoly, it established forts and maintained garrisons in various
parts of the archipelago; it also controlled a number of small Moluccan islands
territorially to restrict output and so maintain high prices.
Once its powerful commercial and maritime position had been established, the
company was a standing challenge to the interests and prestige of the states of the area.
And these statesparticularly the inland kingdom of Mataram in Central and East Java
and the port-centered commercial and maritime powers of Bantam in West Java, Atjeh in
North Sumatra, Makassar in South Sulawesi, and Ternate in the Moluccaswere by no
means weak in relation to the Westerners. Thus the 17th Century saw the Dutch company
forced more and more into military and political activitiesagainst the wishes of its
directors in Amsterdam. By the end of the century, not only did it hold several Moluccan
islands and in addition, forts at a number of points on the Moluccan trade route, but also
its control of the straits of Malacca and Sunda had had the effect of weakening many of
the Indonesian states. And from its center in Batavia (Jakarta), it had succeeded in
dominating the ports on the north coast of Java.
The 18th Century saw a further consolidation of the companys power in Java. For
most of this century, it was receiving tribute from the petty rulers of the island, as
Mataram had in the 16th and 17th Centuries. But although dominating Java, it
administered only a small part of it directly. In fact, its governmental impact was in
many ways similar to that of the Javanese kingdoms. This period saw the introduction of
coffee and sugar cultivation, however, on a system of forced deliveries. It also saw the
rapid growth of the hitherto small Chinese community now used by the company as
intermediaries in tax collection and trade. And it saw a concomitant decline in the scope
of indigenous Javanese trade.
Due to mismanagement of the company and corruption, its debt by 1799 stood at
134 million guilders, and its charter was about to expire. The charter was not renewed;
instead the Netherlands government took over the companys holdings and its debts.

The Arrival of Westerners to India and Southeast Asia

India
May 27, 1498 Vasco da Gama sailed into the Malabar Coast, Port of Calicut. He
brought spices from Zamorins petty princes, along the Malabar Coast at twice
the price paid by other Asian merchants but sold them at 60 times the total cost

earning a 3000% profit. When news spread through Lisbon, 11 new Portuguese
ships were assembled and set sail for India under Pedro Alvarez Cabral on March
1500. Only 6 reached Calicut.
The Zamorins allowed Cabral to purchase a warehouse and left
54merchants, called factors, to buy spices when prices were low and keep
them stored near the dock until the next fleet returns.
Cabral plundered a Muslim ship laden with spices and in
retaliation, the
Moors, attacked Cabrals Portuguese factory, and
killed all Westerners found.
Vasco da Gama returned with a fleet of 15 heavily-armed ships on
1502 and blasted the Calicut Port then captured several Muslim vessels
and cut of the hands, ears, and noses of some 800 Moorish seamen.
Under the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494, Spain held monopoly of
new land
including India and Brazil to Portugal.
1509-1515 Don Alfonse d Albuquerque viceroy of Portugal in the East became the
master architect of Portugals Indian Empire.
1510 Albuquerque seized control of Goa, being the best Malabar base for his
headquarters and as Portugals capital on the Indian soil.
Portuguese spice imports rose from less than a quarter of a million pounds
in 1501 to more than 2.3 million pounds per year by 1505. When Venetian
merchants found that they could buy only 1 million pounds of spices in
Alexandria, they were surprised that these were so less to that of 1495
when they used to buy 3.5 million pounds.
1511 Albuquerque seized Malacca and defeated Sultan Mahmoud.
1515 He got hold of Ormuz, Diu, and Socotra.
1542 The first Jesuit missionaries arrived in Goa.
1548 St. Francis Javier arrived in Goa.
1554 Englands Muscovy Company was launched in order to rival Englands East India
Company.
1558 Defeat of the Spanish Armada by Sir Francis Drake. Dutch and English sea
captains hoisted sails to join the journey the Cape of Good Hope.

1595-1601 The Dutch sent 65 ships to Java, Sumatra, and the Moluccas as blockade
runners and as spice traders.
March 20, 1602 States-General in Lisbon issued a charter to Vereenigde Oostindische
Compagne (United East India Company or VOC) granting its 75 directors who
have invested some 6.5 million guilders: (10x the total capital invested for the
English East India Company in 1600) a monopoly of all trades between the
Capes of Good Hope and Magellan for 21 years.
1602-1605 VOC sent 38 ships into the Indian Ocean defeating the Portuguese fleet
off Java and seized the Spice Islands at Amboina.
December 31, 1600 Queen Elizabeth I granted her Royal Charter to The Government
and Company of Merchants of London, providing their monopoly privileges in
all trade with the Indies (between the Cape of Good Hope and Magellan)
August 24, 1608 English East India Companys first visit to India, arriving at Surat,
Mughal Empires Principal Port.
1619 Surat became the site of Englands first factory in India and remained the west
coast headquarters for John Company (East India Company) until the time that
her role be taken by Bombay in 1687.
1608 Captain William Hawkin arrived with 25000 pieces of gold and a letter from
James I to the Mughal Emperor Jahangir.
1611 First English ship to reach eastern India at the Coromandel Coast of Calicut.
November 29, 1612 Captain Bests ship Red Dragon dispensed with wellaimed cannon fire to no fewer than 4 Portuguese galleons.
1616 Sir Thomas Roe, King James, Ambassador to Jahangirs court
1619 Jahangir allowed Roe, and the East India Company to build a factory at Surat.
1622 Britished seized the area of Omrmuz at the Persian Gulf.
February 23 1623 Anglo-Dutch cooperation ended in the Indies when Dutch
massacred 10 English merchants at Amboina.
Triangular Trade
Dutch got slaves from southern India for the Spice Islands plantations and
also to buy cotton cloth. Dutch invest in coromandel cloth which would then be
sold for spices in the Moluccas and Batavia. This technique was followed by the
British.

1633 Chief Merchant Ralp Cartwright ventured as far north as Orisa.

1654 Oliver Cromwells Treaty with Portugal gave English ships full rights of trade in
any Portuguese possession in Asia.
1660 There were more than a hundred English factors residing in India.
Closing decades in the 17th Century the British strengthened their positions in the
western and eastern coast under the just and stout leadership of the brothers Sir
John and Sir Josia Child
1682 1690 Sir John, president of the Companys factors at Surat and as governor of
Bombay
1664 French East India Company started by Jean-Baptiste Colbers instigation with the
capital of 15 million livres tournois (about 600,000 pounds)
1674 Francois Marin established its Indian headquarter at Pondicherry, some 85 miles
south of Madras on the Coromandel Coast.
1732 1788 Warren Hastings appointed governor at Fort Wilm
1765 Robert Clive appointed governor of Fort Wilms
1738-1785 Lord Cornwallis appointed governor of Bengal
Indonesia
In the early part of the 19th Century, a deepening impact in the realm of
government and economics developed in Java as an indirect result of the Napoleonic
warsfirst between 1808 and 1811, when the Dutch Bonapartist Marshal Daendels
governed the Netherlands Indonesian possessions on Frances behalf, and later, between
1811 and 1816 under Lieutenant-Governor-General Raffles in the period of British
interregnum. In this period of accelerated road-building and systematized rural
administration, Raffles monetary land taxes brought with them the first direct contact
between the government and the village heads of the island.
But the crucial acceleration of the pace of change came after the colony reverted
to the Netherlands in 1816 and particularly after 1830, with the introduction of extensive
forced cultivation under what is known as the Culture System.
Unchallenged in its political dominance in Java, Holland could now organize the
systematic and intensive exploitation of the island's land and labor. Thus the Javanese

peasant was obliged to grow commercial crops for the government legally in 1/5 of his
land, in practice, generally 2/5s or more.
As a revenue-raising technique, this was a success. Between 1834 and 1877,
Netherlands Indies made a net contribution of 837,400,000 guilders to the Dutch treasury
and in their way helped to industrialize the Netherlands.
In Java, the system brought vast economic changes. The island now came to
produce a great variety of crops, coffee, sugar, tea, tobacco, indigo, cinnamon, and
cotton.

Malaysia
Europeans, specifically the Portuguese, first made contact with Eastern Asia at
Malacca in 1509. Motivated by the desire to control and strategic location and destroy the
Moors, the Portuguese destroyed Malacca in a bloody struggle 1511.
Aside from controlling the flow of trade between the Indian Ocean and the Spice
Islands, it became a jumping-off point for intrusion to China and Japan. After more than
a hundred years of Portuguese rule, it gave Malaccas inhabitants a Catholic and mixed
blood population which is still evident today. The Dutch displaced the Portuguese in 1641
and Malaccas' fortunes declined and Batavia (Jakarta) became the established Dutch base
in Java, and became the areas principal port.
A challenge to the Dutch monopoly started when a British country ship, captained
by an enterprising Fracis Light acquired Penang, the island off Malaysia's west coast
from the Sultan of Kedah and occupied it for the British East India Company in 1786.
Napoleon's occupation of the Netherlands prompted the British to seize Malacca, less
than a decade later, although British rule there was most finally secured until the AngloDutch Treaty of 1824. The most important British position in the strait was established in
Singapore (formerly known as Temasek) island in 1819 by Thomas Stanford Raffles. It is
to this East India Company official, famed for his enterprise, advocacy of free trade, and
scholarly interests, must be given the principal credit for founding the British Empire in
Southeast Asia (SEA).
Penang, Malacca, and Singapore were administered initially by the East India
Company. In 1867, partly because of the demand by the local British merchants, they
were constituted as a crown colony.
Malay states were partly fragmentary remains of the old Malay Empire of Malaca
but due to their ruler's factionalism and also of European and Siamese incursion--they
failed to unite and evolve in an effective political system.

In 1874, largely at the behest of British and Chinese Straits, merchant

entrepreneurs, the Governor with Colonial office approval, signed a treaty with the
dispossessed heir of Perak. This and subsequent treaties in the 1870s and 1880s with the
rulers of Selangor, Pahang, and Negri Sembilan exchanged British protection for British
Residents advise was to be accepted in all matters except those concerning Malay custom
and Islamic religion. The Residents quickly became the de facto ruler.
In Borneo, the British North Borneo Company began in 1882 to administer
territory which had earlier been acquired from the Sultans of Brunei and Sulu.
The Spanish to whom the Sultan of Sulu was sometimes subject, gave up their
claim of sovereignty over the territory in 1885, and Britain assumed responsibility for the
protection of North of Borneo in 1888, although the company remained responsible for
government and administration.
Earlier in 1842, the Sultan of Brunei had ceded several thousand miles of land to
James Brooke, a British adventurer, for his help in putting down some of the Sultan's
rebellious subjects.
In 1888, Sir Charles Brooke, acquired the state of Sarawak when the Sultan ceded
the area.
In 1896, the four Malay States of Perak, Selanor, Pahang, and Negri Sembilan
were joined in a nominal federation known as the Federated Malay States (FMS).
Between the 1920s and the 1930s, steps were taken to decentralize the powers of the
FMS to the state government.
The ultimate goal of decentralization was to join the four federated states with
five other Malay states which had come under British protection. These five were Johore,
whose rulers had long close relations with the British, and Perlis, Kedah, Kelantan and
Trengganu, which in 1909 exchanged Thai for British suzerainty.
Vietnam
1471 Vietnam defeated the Champa Kingdom on its southern coastal plain area.
17th to the 18th CenturiesVietnams territories expanded up to the border of the Khmer
territories.
Mid-18th Century Vietnamese reached the Gulf of Siam; the furthest limits of their
conquest.
17th to the 19th Centuries 4 European Nations: England, France, the Netherlands, and
Portugal, competed for commercial and religious privileges in Vietnam.

Early 18th Century European trade with Vietnam declined but the Westernmissionary activities particularly that of the French continued despite the
opposition by the Vietnamese Mandarins who viewed Christianity as a threat to
the ordered social structure that maintained the ruling class in its dominant
position.
17th-18th Century relative equilibrium between the Trinh in the North and of the
Nguyen in the South which was disrupted by the Tay San Rebellion led by three
brothers (Nguyen Van Hue, who established himself at Hanoi and was proclaimed
Emperor Quang Trung; Nguyen Van Nhac, who ruled at Hue; and Nguyen Van
Lu, who was located in the extreme south.
They succeeded in putting the Nguyen house to flight, then defeated the
Trinh army and a Chinese invading force and brought substantial unity to
Vietnam. But the situation didnt last long.
A Nguyen prince, Nguyen Anh, slowly recovered territories like Saigon
and the Southern regions; moved up towards the center reconquering Hue, went
north and invaded Hanoi--was helped militarily by Monsignor Pigneau de
Behaine, Bishop of Adran, who had tried to enlist official support from the French
government; and failing to do so procured the aid of French volunteers from
Pondicherry who trained Nguyen Anh's army, equipped his navy, and directed the
construction of fortifications.
June 1, 1802 Nguyen Anh proclaimed head of Empire of Vietnam took the name Gia
Long (1802-1820) but his administration was an oppressive, military despotism.
But he reinstituted competitive examination; though forced labor without
recompense (corvee) was continued. He was nevertheless credited with
attempting to alleviate his peoples distress by redistributing rice lands, revising
and unifying the code of law, standardizing weights and measures, and reforming
land registration (cadastre).
1820-1841 Minh Mang, successor to Gia Long, created a strong, centralized empire and
was particularly devoted to Chinese literature, law and Confucian traditions.
1883 An edict issued declaring those who prefers Christianity a crime punishable by
death.
1841-1847 Thieu Tri, the next emperor, pursued anti-Christian policies with even more
vigor.
1840s French naval forces stormed into Vietnam ports to demand and obtain the release
of imprisoned French missionaries.

1862 Tu Duc signed a Treaty with France which gave 3 provinces adjacent to Saigon.
1867 French occupation of Cochin China completed.
1873 Hanoi conquered by the French.
August 25, 1883 Tu Duc signed a treaty at Hue formally recognizing the French
protectorate over Tonkin and Annam.
1884 Treaty limits French authority in Vietnam. Tonkin administered indirectly by
French residents.
1897-1902 French colonial policy under Governor-General Paul Doumer, and even
during the subsequent administration was largely shaped by the concept of
Indochina as a profitable economic enterprise to be exploited for the benefit of the
mother country.

Laos
Laos was occupied by the French due to:
1) Secure France new possession; threatened by an increase in Siamese control over
the region.
2) Stimulated by rivalry with Great Britain over what were thought to be important
trade routes to the Yangtze River Valley in China.
To constrain the Siamese expansion in the whole of Laos north of Luang Prabang
and establish a military outpost in the valleys of the Black River as far east as Lao Chau
in Tonkin. France obtained agreement with Siam where both recognize the status quo
which sanctioned the creation of a French consulate at Luang Prabang..
Cambodia
The height of the Khmer Empire was during the reign of Suryavarman II (1112ca.1150) when its domain was extended by a series of successful wars against the
kingdom of Champa, which controlled the area now known as South Vietnam, against the
Annamese, and against peoples living as far westward as the region between the Salween
and Irrawady rivers in Burma (Myanmar). He was also credited with the building of
Angkor Wat (a Hindu structure) which is not only the largest religious building in the
world but also the greatest single work of architecture in Southeast Asia.
Suryavarvarman IIs reign was followed by thirty years of dynastic quarrels and a
war with marauding Chams, who in 1177 destroyed the city of Angkor. The armies of

Jayavarman VII (1181-ca.1215) was able to push back and defeat Champa enabling the
Khmer Empire to reach its greatest expansion and to build Angkor Thom (a Buddhist
structure) complex with its 10 miles of walls, the many-towered Bayon, and countless
other temples.
With the passing of Jayavarman VII in the early 13th Century, Khmer power began
to wane. Some factors that contributed to the fall are: the neglect of the baray, the
hydraulic system that made possible the states economic strength; the growth and
influence of the Thai peoples who, in the 12th and 13th Centuries, began to replace Khmer
authority in the Menam (Chao Phraya) Basin and along the upper Mekong river.
It was in the face of these events that the way was laid open to the sack of Angkor
by the Thais in 1432 and the subsequent collapse of the empire. Cambodia then entered
upon a troubled and unhappy epoch from which it was not to emerge until the French
intervention in the mid-19th Century.
During the 400 years following the fall of the Khmer empire, Cambodia was beset
from within by a long series of dynastic rivalries and subjected from without to
encroachment by Siam and Annam. Only by adroit diplomatic maneuvering was
Cambodia able to maintain its independence, but at the cost of rendering vassalage to
both Siam and Annam and of sacrificing provinces along its northern frontier and in
Conchinchina:
Siamese tutelage was imposed upon Cambodia in 1594. In 1673, Ang
Non ascended to the Cambodian throne with Annamese support. Thereafter,
Annam, in competition with Siam, sought to exercise influence over Cambodia
and began to colonize the provinces of Prey Kor (Saigon), Kampeap Srekatrey
(Bien Hoa), and Baria in the Mekong delta. These areas were officially annexed
by Annam in the 18th Century.
.
During the mid 19th Century, when King Ang Duom of Cambodia was striving to
rehabilitate his kingdom which had only recently emerged from nearly a decade of
Annamese colonial rule and after a devastating but inconclusive Siam-Annam war
fought on its soil. Fearing that upon his death these neighbors would seek to partition
Cambodia between them, Ang Duom appealed to Napoleon III for assistance.
The kingdom of Siam threatened reprisals if negotiations were entered into
between Napoleons ambassador and Cambodia.
1857-1859 France intervened in Annam to protect French Jesuit missionaries and to
establish a commercial foothold on the Indochinese peninsula. In the process,
Cambodia was released from Annamese pressures but King Ang Duom died
before the French aid manifested.
1863 France offered Ang Duoms son, Norodom, its protection against external

attacks and internal strife. Norodom was badly in need of the Frenchs help since
his brother, Sivotha, coveted the throne and might ask the Siamese aid to do so.
1864 The new French resident crowned Norodom while persuading Siam to renounce
its suzerainty over Cambodia, while abandoning claims over Battambang and
Siem Reap.
June 17, 1885 Governor General of Cochin-China, Charles Thomson, coerced
Norodom into signing the convention matters Cambodia a de facto colony of
France.
The Philippines
ThePhilippines is the only nation in SEA which became subject to Western
colonialism before it had developed a centralized governmental structure ruling over a
large territory or an advanced elite culture that customarily grew up around a royal court.
Thus, only the Sultanates of Sulu and Maguindanao, with their high level of polity, were,
to a certain extent, able to deflect the Spanish incursion and control over the territories
held by the Muslim rulers.
Compared to what the Portuguese and the Dutch did in Indonesia, and the British
in India and Malaysia, the Spaniards practically de-cultured the Filipinos by converting
the central and northern part of the archipelago, and later the eastern and northern parts of
Mindanao in the south to Christianity.
The general commonality that the Philippines shared with some Southeast Asian
countries is in the realm of slavery. Slaves are needed to work on the Spice Island of
the Moluccas and later on, in Sumatra while, according to Warren (2000), some 2,000 to
3,000 Filipino Christians are kidnapped annually by Muslims from the south and would
either end as: partners by the Muslim slave-traders when the captives show special talents
in business and piracy especially when converted to Islam; gatherers of tripang (sea
cucumbers in the sea) or nido (birds nest) gatherers in the caves of Borneo and Palawan
if physically capable; or sold in Batavia (Jakarta) where the Muslim slave traders deal
with the Dutch officials who often act as middlemen.
The Maguindanao and especially the Sulu sultanate became a part of the global
trading network from the 17th to the 19th Centuries where the British also played a major
role since the latter buys the tripang and the nido which are in demand even in the
Chinese imperial court as delicacies. The British usually exchange opium, gunpowder,
cotton fabrics, iron slags with the Tausug and Samal slave traders for the tripang, pearls,
and nido gathered by the kidnapped slaves.
Thus, in the realm of imperialism, the Spaniards, through their colonial policies of
depriving the Indios (native Filipinos) of weapons in order not to be able to rise in arms

from time to time, became the helpless victims of kidnapping especially those living on
the coastal areas of the archipelago.
Filipinos living on areas pacified by the Spaniards are commanded, through the
reduccion, to live within the sound of the church bells while who refused to do so
would be punished by having their houses and fields burned to the ground. If the other
Asians who were colonized by European powers were commanded to produce spices,
hence give profits to their colonial masters, the Filipinos were asked to produce and sell,
at a price dictated by the colonial authorities, products common to each locality.
Blankets in the Ilocos region, vinegar in Bulacan would be bought under a quota
system called bandalla. The real situado, meant to financially manage the colony hardly
augment the tasacion (in specie or in kind) plus the eight reales collected annually from
each Indio.
Under the Exponi Novis rule from Rome, King Philip II was given the power to
interfere in the affairs of the church and these are manifested in the institutions of the
Patronato Real and Visitation powers of the king that are extended to the GovernorGenerals who administer the colonies. These are made smooth when there was no
separation of the Church and the State. The Exponi Novis also made clear the fact that the
regular priests (those belonging to religious orders) would be responsible for the
conversion of the Indios to Catholicism while the seculars (those priests who do not
belong to any religious orders) would be responsible for the catechism of the newly
converts in the early part of the occupation. History would tell what happened by the
following two hundred plus years.
The systematic rendering of the Indios to the level of near illiteracy plus the
utilization of the former nobilities as tax collectors, petty administrators especially
needed for getting the right number of those who would be rendering the polo y servicio
(forced labor) of males aged 15 to 60 and as executors of getting the bandalla alienated
the former descendants of chieftains from their constituents but at the same time
encouraged the institutionalization of the compadrazgo system that killed the system of
meritocracy and encouraged patronage in all levels of transactions especially in the
government bureaucracy from the colonial period up to the present.
While it is true that the Dutch utilized the former rulers in Java as regents to
administer the colonial subjects, the Mataram sultanate in Central Java was not alienated
from the subjects since the system of patron-client relationship went way beyond the
Islamization of Java. The Sunni Islam in Java blended with the indigenous practice
resulting in the syncretic abangan, their version of folk Islam, plus the fact that the Dutch
did not forcibly convert the majority of the Indonesians to Protestantism.
The British in India and Malaysia are also interested in exploiting the resources of
the colonized territories but the majority of the population were not forcibly converted to
Anglican Christianity hence, the basic cultural framework remained intact; and the fact,
too, that India, by the arrival of the Portuguese during the early 16th Century, to be
followed by British started the squabble for territories and influences.

The Philippines was nearly abandoned as a colony in the early part of the
occupation due to the fact that the archipelago did not seem to be profitable enough and it
was only through the insistence of the religious, who rationalized that the archipelago
would be a convenient jumping off post station towards China and the neighboring
heathen countries.
The Dutch and the British noticeably and systematically administered their
colonies in a business-wise fashion, their East India Companies. It was only on the
latter sign of misadministration and the subjects rebellious actions that the government in
the mother country took direct control of the colonial government.
There were reported to be two important entrepots and trading centers in the
Philippine archipelago at the coming of the Spaniards: Maynilad (Ma-li-lu in Chinese) in
Luzon and Ma-it or Ma-yi in northern Mindoro and it was believed that the latter was
destroyed in order to center all probable trading activities in Manila.
Su-lot or Sulu was believed to be even ahead in time as a trading center, attested
by some Chinese-sounding and Islamic inscriptions on Mount Tumantangis believed to
be of the 14th Century vintage.
Some historians are musing that, had Legazpi been delayed by 50 years in coming
to the Philippines, he would not be able to colonize the north-central part of the
archipelago and we might have been, in one speculation, a province of Indonesia due to
the fact that, by 1600, the Dutch have a settlement north of the Philippines.
The French was able to colonize the area now known as the Indo-China, formerly
known as Cochin-China only due to the fact that the kingdoms/states on the mainland of
Southeast Asia are either engaged in expanding their territories or sphere of influence or
there were internal struggle involving succession like in Cambodia and Vietnam. The
Philippines was too isolated to be involved in conflict with the surrounding kingdoms.

Additional References:

Constantino, Renato R.
1975

A Past Revisited. Quezon City: The Foundation

for Nationalist Studies

Basham, A. L.
1967

The Wonder That Was India. New York:

Taplingen Publishing Company

Majul, Cesar Adib

1999

Muslims in the Philippines. Quezon City:

University of the Philippines Press

Scott, William Henry

1992

Looking For the Prehispanic Filipino. Quezon

City: New Day Publishing

Warren, J. F.
1985

The Sulu Zone: 1768- 1898. Quezon City: New

Day Publishing

Wolpert, Stanley
1977

A New History of India. New York: Oxford

University Press

Cold War in Asia (The Korean and Vietnam War, India-Pakistan War Over
Kashmir, The Khmer Rouge, etc.); Events in Asia Up to the Present; Ethnic and
Territorial Conflicts

Key Words:
The Domino Theory; The Red Menace; McCarthysm; The Sabah Claim;Sphere of
Influence; (In South and North Korea) Saemaul Undong and Juche; (In Israel and
Palestine) Intifada and later, the Hamas

Legends:
*Events related to the Vietnam War
**Events related to the India-Pakistan Conflict
***Events related to the Arab-Israeli Conflict
^Events related to the Cold war
#Events related to the issue on East Timor
##Events related to the Korean Conflict
###Events related to the Tamil separatist movement in Sri Lanka
Other Events Affecting Asia:
1) The Two Chinas: The Peoples Republic of China and Taiwan
2) Chinas Great Proletarian Cultural Revollution; De-Maoization;
Deng Xio-pengs Revisionist Capitalism; Tien An
Men Incident
3) Chinas Invasion of Tibet and the Exile of the Dalai Lama
To Dharmsala, India.
4) USSRs Invasion of Afghanistan
5) The Rise and Fall of the Taliban (as an offshoot of the al-Qaeda
World Trade Center BombingSept. 11, 2001)
6) Iran-Iraq War
7) Sikh Separatist Movement in the Punjab, India.
8) The Achinese Separatist Movement in North Sumatra, Indonesia
9) Philippine Claim on Sabah, North Borneo
10) The Spratley Claim Conflict in the South China Sea

Timeline
Events Prior to the Second World War:
1906 All India Moslem League is founded by Aga Khan. **
1908 Muslims and Hindus riot in Calcutta, India.**
1912 Dr. Sun Yat Sen/Sun Wen founds the Guo Min Dang (Nationalist Peoples
Party).
1913 Mohandas K. Gandhi, leader of the Indian Passive Resistance Movement, is
arrested.**
1917 The October Revolution occurs in Russia, followed by the Russian Civil War.
^
1917 The Balfour Declaration on Palestine occurs, pledging British support to the
creation of a Jewish homeland, provided the rights of non-Jewish Palestinians
are respected.***
1918 Turkish resistance collapses in Palestine; Ottomans surrender to Allies.***
1920 The Russian Civil War ends in victory for the Bolsheviks.^
1921 The first congress of the Chinese Communist Party takes place in Shanghai.
1921 Lenins New Economic Policy goes into effect in the Soviet Union.^
1922 Soviet Russia is renamed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.)
^
1924 Gandhi fasts for 21 days to protest feuds between Hindus and Muslims in
India.**
1924 The Shah of Persia, Ahmed, is dethroned, and Reza Khan is appointed regent,
then shah.
1927 Mao Zedongs autumn harvest uprising is defeated, but Mao begins to see
potential for peasant revolution in China.
1929 All-India Congress claims independence.**
1929 The Jewish Agency becomes representative of all Zionist and non-Zionist Jews.
***
1929 As a result of continued fighting among Arabs and Jews, the British declare

martial law in Jerusalem.***

1930 Gandhi demands Indian independence.**
1934 The Red Army begins the Long March, their strategic retreat to Chinas
northwest. This will end in Yanan, their wartime capital by 1935.
1937 Under the Government of India Act, the Indian constitution is drawn up, and the
All-India Congress Party wins elections.**
January 15, 1942 Gandhi appoints Jawaharlal Nehru as his successor.
**
March 29, 1942 The British present a plan for Indian independence after the wars end.
**
August 9, 1942 Gandhi and other All-India Congress Party leaders are arrested.
December 16, 1944 The Irgun under Menachem Begin proclaims a revolt against
British rule in order to carry out he Biltmore Program of establishing a Jewish
State in Palestine.***
February 24, 1945 The Arab League is founded to oppose the creation of a Jewish state.
***
1946 The Communist Republic of Vietnam is recognized by France.*
1946 -- India and Pakistan become separate British dominions. Both become
independent the following year.**
1947 Exodus 1947 turns world public opinion toward the establishment of a Jewish
National Home in Palestine. The British turn over their mandate to the UN,
which partitions Palestine.***
1948 South Korea proclaims itself a republic; North Korea proclaims itself an
independent communist republic.##
1948 Mohandas Gandhi is assassinated.
October 1, 1949 Mao Zedong proclaims the Peoples Republic of China.
1949 David Ben Gurion becomes the prime minister of the new state of Israel. Head of
the Labor Party, he encourages Jewish immigration through the Jewish Agency,
which helped administer Palestine under the British mandate.***
1949 Indonesia, after a four-year War of Independence, drives the Dutch out of their
country.
1950 China sends forces to occupy Tibet.

1950 The Republic of South Korea is established after attempts to reunify with North
Korea fail. The boundary between North and South is drawn along the 38th
parallel.##
1950 North Korea invades South Korea and captures Seoul, initiating the Korean
Conflict. U.S. General Douglas MacArthur is given command of United Nations
forces.##
1950 The Arab League institutes an economic boycott of Israel.***
1950 The Soviet Union puts ballistic missiles aboard submarines.^
1950 Chiang Kai Shek establishes the anti-communist government of Nationalist China
on the island of Taiwan (Formosa).
1950 -1953 The Korean War is the first war to feature extensive aerial combat by jet
fighters, combat use of helicopters (tactical ad logistical), and synthetic bulletproof vests for infantry.##
1950s The U.S. tests nuclear weapons, including the first hydrogen bomb, at Bikini and
Erewetok atolls in the Marshall Islands.^
1951 General McArthur is relieved of his Far East command for criticizing President
Trumans policy of limiting the war to the Korean Peninsula. A stalemate begins
to take shape.##
1954 Vietnam splits into North and South Vietnam after the communist victory in the
Indochina War. The Vietcong calls this the Dien Bien Phu War of Victory after
occupying Hanoi which forced the complete withdrawal of the French from Indochina.*
1954 The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization ((SEATO) is established to oppose
communism in Asia.^
1954 Ho Chi Minh, addressing French attempts to reoccupy Indochina: You can kill
ten of my men for every one I kill of yours, yet even at those odds, you will lose
and I will win. *
1955 The Bandung Conference of nonaligned African and Asian nations, designed to
promote economic and cultural cooperation and oppose colonialism, takes place in
Indonesia.^
1959 U.S. noncombat military advisers die in a Viet Cong attack. In 1961, the U.S.
agrees to arm and supply South Vietnamese troops.*

1960 Tibetan revolt against Chinese control.

1960 Sino-Soviet split becomes public, a dispute over philosophical differences
regarding communism and the Soviets involvement in Chinese affairs.^
1961 The Berlin Wall is constructed to prevent East Berliners from defecting to West
Berlin.^
1962 The Cuban Missile Crisis: U.S. president John F. Kennedy wins a standout with
Soviet premier Nikita Krushchev, who reverses plans to install missile bases in
Cuba.^
1962 A U.S. military council is established in South Vietnam.*
1963 South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem is assassinated in a military coup.*
1963 Malaysia is formed from the federations of Malaya, Singapore, North Borneo, and
Sarawak. Singapore withdraws in 1965.
1963 The U.S. and Soviet Union set up a hotline between the White House and the
Kremlin.^
1964 North Vietnamese patrol boats allegedly attack U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of
Tonkin, causing Congress to allow President Johnson to increase troop levels.*
1964 The Palestine Liberation Organization is established, with Yasser Arafat as head.
***
1964 China explodes its first atom bomb.^
1965 The first U.S. ground troops (3,500 Marines) arrive in Vietnam at Da Nang.*
1965 India and Pakistan fight a second inconclusive war over the disputed Kashmir
region.**
1965October 31Sukarno ousted by Suharto; end of PKI
1966 Chairman Mao launches Chinas Cultural Revolution (1966-69), a revolutionary
movement by students and workers against bureaucrats in the Chinese
Communist Party. Msos Red Guards begin purging so-called intellectuals and
imperialists, who are believed to be opposed to Maos socialist vision.
1966 Indira Gandhi, daughter of Nehru, becomes prime minister of India.
1967 The U.S. begins mining rivers in North Vietnam. By the years end, there are
480,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam.*

1967 Fifty thousand people protest the Vietnam War at the Lincoln Memorial in
Washington, D.C. Students nationwide burn their draft cards; Muhammad Ali is
stripped of his boxing title for refusing to join the army.*
1967 Loss of the West Bank stimulates the PLOs development into a Palestinian
guerilla army and government-in-exile.***
1967 China explodes its first hydrogen bomb.^
1968 The Tet Offensive: North Vietnam and Viet Cong troops launch a massive attack
during the celebration of the Vietnamese New Year, surprising and demoralizing
U.S. forces.*
1968 U.S. troops massacre 347 men, women and children in the village of My Lai.*
1969The U.S. begins the policy of Vietnamization, turning more of the war over to he
Vietnamese, after U.S. troop levels hit a peak of 543,000.*
1970 Congress repeals the Gulf of Tonkin resolution and forbids the use of U.S. troops
in Cambodia, where the war has spread.*
1971 Civil war breaks out in Pakistan, with India supporting East Pakistan.**
1971 China attends its first UN meeting as a member after the UN expels Taiwan and
formally recognizes the communists as the sole legitimate government of China.
1971 The U.S. turns over the all ground troop duties to South Vietnam.*
1971 Lt. Willliam L. Calley, Jr., is found guilty of premeditated murder in the My Lai
massacre. His conviction is later overturned.*
1971 U.S. planes covertly bomb Viet Cong supply routes in Cambodia.*
1972 Arab terrorists kill 11 Israeli athletes at the Summer Olympic Games in Munich.
***
1972 East Pakistan becomes the sovereign state of Bangladesh.**
1973 In retaliation for Western support of Israel, OPEC embargoes oil supplies,
precipitating a devastating energy crisis in major industrialized nations, but
bringing tremendous wealth to oil-producing countries.***
1973 The U.S. and South Vietnam sign a cease-fire agreement with North Vietnam.
The last U. S. troops are withdrawn on March 29, 1973. *
1973 North Vietnams Le Duc Tho and American Henry Kissinger are awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize.*

1973 Total combat deaths from the Vietnam War: 184,546 South Vietnamese; 937,
562 North Vietnamese/Viet Cong; 415,000 civilians; 45,948 Americans.*
1974 Communist and South Vietnamese forces resume fighting. South Vietnam finally
surrenders in 1975; Saigon is evacuated.*
1975 The communist Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot and Iang Sari, take over
Cambodias government. More than 2 million Cambodians die or are executed in
what comes to be known as the killing fields.
1975 East Timor is abandoned by Portugal and invaded by Indonesia.
1975-77 Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declares a state of emergency to deal with
Indias overpopulation and sectarian violence. She suspends democratic processes and
compels birth control, including voluntary sterilization. She is ultimately voted out of
office and arrested on charges of corruption.
1976 Rebels in Aceh province of Indonesia begin fighting for independence, a struggle
ongoing today.
1976 North and South Vietnam are reunited after 22 years of separation as the Socialist
Republic of Vietnam. Hanoi is the capital; Saigon is renamed Ho Chi Minh City.*
1976Hua Kuo Feng becomes premier of the Peoples Republic of China and chairman
of the Chinese Communist Party after the death of Mao Zedong. A coup attempt
by Maos widow and three accomplices (the Gang of Four) is crushed.
1976 China launches what Deng Xiaoping calls its Second Revolution, reversing many
of Chairman Maos agricultural policies, such as collective farms. From 1978 to
1984, food production increases 50 percent.
1978 China establishes full diplomatic relations with the U.S.
1978 Vietnam invades Cambodia, overthrowing Pol Pot government.
1978 Reconciliation with Israel at Camp David isolates Egypt from the Arab world.
Opposition groups multiply and OPEC cuts off funding, which , along with an
overcommitment to social programs, leads to a fiscal crisis.**
1979 China invades Vietnam.
1979 The Soviet army invades Afghanistan; U.S. President Carter responds with a grain
embargo against the soviets.
1979 China institutes the one-child-per-family rule to help control its exploding
population. Fines, pressure to have an abortion, and even forced sterilization are

some of the penalties for subsequent pregnancies.

1980 Iraq invades Iran, beginning an eight-long-year war; the U.S. supports Iraq.
1980 Indira Gandhi returns to power in India after serving time in jail. In 1984 she is
assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards , provoking anti-Sikh riots throughout the
country.
1980s Deng Xiaoping consolidates his power in China as leader of the Communist
Party. He strives to improve relations with the West and modernize China, and
develops the idea of a socialist market economy to improve the economy.
1980s Southeast Asias little tigers emerge as Hongkong, Singapore, Taiwan and
South Korea follow Japans export-driven economic model.
1980s Islamic warriors called mujahidin take up arms against the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan with the help of U.S. ground-to-air Stinger missiles, which are used o
attack Soviet helicopters.
1981 Sikhs began fighting for independence in the Indian Punjab region, where Sikhism
originated.
1983 Tamil Tiger rebels begin fighting the Sri Lankan government for the right to
create a separate, non-Buddhist state for the ethnic minority Tamils.###
1983 The population of China reaches 1 billion.
1984 Brunei becomes an independent sultanate and the 159th member of the UN.
1987 New Soviet Secretary General Mikhail Gorbachev announces his campaign for
glasnost (openness) and perestroika (reconstruction).^
1987 Soviet troops begin withdrawing from Afghanistan, leaving completely by 1989.
1989 Pakistan rejoins the British Commonwealth, which it left in 1972.
1989 Benazir Bhutto becomes prime minister of Pakistan, the first female head of an
Islamic nation.
1989 China imposes martial law in Llhasa, Tibet.
1989 Burma is renamed Myanmar after a military take over. The name is recognized by
the UN but not the U.S., Great Britain, or Canada.
1989 The last Vietnamese troops leave Cambodia after 11 years of occupation.
1989 The Dalai Lama wins the Nobel Peace Prize.

June 1989 Thousands of students occupy the Tien An Men Square in Beijing, China,
protesting for democracy. After seven weeks, the government imposes martial
law and uses tanks o clear the square, killing an estimated thousands and
damaging Deng Xiaopings improved relations with the West. Zhau Ziyang is
removed as head of Chinas Communist Party for his sympathetic stance toward
the students.
1989-1995 Democratic activist Daw Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar (Burma) holds
gate-side meeting with supporters from her home, where she is under house
arrest.In 1990 she and her party win 80 percent of the vote in the national
elections but are not allowed to come to power. In 1991, she wins the Nobel
Peace Prize but is not allowed to accept it.
1990 1991 Iraq invades Kuwait; a U.S. led coalition liberates Kuwait in the Gulf War.
1991 The Warsaw Pact is finally dissolved.^
1991 The U.S.S.R. officially ceases to exist on December 9.^
1992 Taiwan votes to suspend the ban on trade and social links with the Peoples
Republic of China.
1993 North Korea withdraws from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.##
1994 Kim Jong Il comes to power in North Korea replacing his long-ruling father, Kim
Il Sung. By 2004, North Korea will have earned he worst score on political and
civil liberties from the human rights group Freedom House for 33 years in a row.
##
1994 -- Yasser Arafat creates the Palestine National Authority to govern Gaza and
Jericho. ***
1995 Vietnam resumes diplomatic relations with the U.S. and is the first communist
state to be admitted to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).*
1995 Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated by a Jewish law student in
Tel Aviv for ceding to the Palestinians in the Oslo peace accord.***
1996 New Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu brings the Israeli-Palestinian
accord to an end and renews settlements.***
1996 The Taliban Islamic fundamentalist movement takes over the Afghan capital of
Kabul and imposes Islamic law.

1998 India and Pakistan begin testing nuclear weapons, sparking fears of an arms
race in southern Asia.**
1999 East Timor votes for independence from Indonesia.#
2001 Ariel Sharon becomes prime minister of Israel as violence with Palestinians
worsens.***
2001 The U.S. bombs Afghanistan and topples the Taliban government after linking the
World Trade Center attacks to Osama Bin Laden, leader of the Taliban-supported
militant Islamic group al-Qaeda.
2002 The long-standing dispute between India and Pakistan over the Kashmir region
threatens to erupt into nuclear war.**
2002 North Korea admits to having been pursuing nuclear capability in violation of a
1994 pact with the U.S.##

The Background Behind the Sabah Incidents:

1662 (14 Rabi ul Akhir, 1072 A.H.) Bendahara Abdul Mubin kills Muhammad Ali,
The 12th Brunei Sultan;
--Abdul Mubin proclaims himself Sultan and appointed, his cousin, the
Pangeran Bongsu, as the Bendahara or heir to the throne
--Bendahara Pangeran Bongsu raised the standard of revolt and took
the title of Sultan Muaddin (or Muhyiddin, in other version)
--The Civil War dragged on for 10 years affecting the commercial
Status of Brunei prompting Sultan Muaddin to ask help from the
Sulu Sultan,
--Sultan Muaddin promised the territory of Sabah as reward if the Sulu
Sultan help Muaddin defeat Abdul Mubbin
--The Sulu Sultan went to Pulau Chermin where Sultan Muaddin was
Staying, and promised to see Sultan Abdul Mubbin, who was staying
In Brunei. The Sulu Sultan promised nothing to Abdul Mubbin when
Help was asked.
--the Sulu Sultan went back to Pulau Chermin, the island at the mouth of the
River leading to Brunei, and helped Sultan Muaddin defeat the one in
Brunei.
1672 As promised, the territory of Sabah was given to the Sulu Sultan and the
Territory is even extended by 1704 of the north parts of Borneo from
Keemannees northward with the islands of Palawan, Banguey,
Balambagan.
Around 1888 The Sulu Sultan leased the territory of Sabah to the British East India
Company for 99 years.

Source: Cesar Adib Majul, Muslims in the Philippines. 1999.

Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press,, pp. 199-201.