European Influence and colonisation. Good or Bad?

European Influence and colonisation 

Hi guys! I hope you all are doing well. Peter here. Today I am bringing up a topic about the the naughty but mighty Europeans in the Southeast-Asian region. The Europeans were the ones to bring to spotlight of History back onto this region after it's dark age.

Here is a map of Siam (Thailand) losing land to the Europeans for

the sake of their independence. In fact, they were the only country

that survived the colonisation as an independent country.

So... during the 17th-19th century, the mighty Europeans expanded their empire around the world. The most well known European power during this period is of course, Britain. Britain has the largest empire in the world at that time. Of course, part of Southeast-Asia fell under its control. There are other European countries that came as well like; France, Netherlands, Spain and Portugal. I will mention the 3 most important.

The British: Before the colonisation of Southeast-Asia, Britain owned part of India bordering Burma. Driven by their greed and ambition, they invaded Burma. They won 2-3 wars and completely conquered the burmese. The British also gained Malaya in the region. At the same time (around 1850s), the British took Hong Kong and Guangzhou from China. The plantations of the southeast-asian region made a lot of profit for Britain. Britain also created a wealthy state of Singapore at the tip of the Malaya peninsula. So of course, Britain developed the region exceptionally well.

The French: The naughty French envied the British and sent their army to Vietnam. Poor Vietnamese put up resistance but it was useless against the French elite 'Foreign Legion'. The French also took Laos and Cambodia from the Siamese Empire in the Sino-French War (the Siamese lost the war). Afterwards, the French created a government inside the 'French Indochina' (Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos). They built railroads and infrastructures to the region. The government worked extremely well creating wealth and development to the region.

The Dutch: At that time, the dutch was very very very very rich. They looked for wealthy colonies. Indonesia was perfect for them because of its exotic resources and spices. At that time, Indonesia was divided into many small states. This was easy for the Dutch. The dutch quickly conquered the entire region. The spices and resources were sent back to the Netherlands. The Indonesian nationalists and natives were treated very badly in the colonial empire.

In conclusion, I think the colonisation was pretty bad for my country (Siam) since we lost a lot of precious land and had to pay the Europeans for the sake of our independence. However, the Europeans did make the neighbouring countries develop at a very fast speed. Without them, our region would probably be very very backwards. So, there are up and down to this 'imperialism'.