Last Part of SEA history: Challenges regarding Independence

Post-Colonial and Challenges of independence in Southeast Asia

Hey there! Peter here, I finally finished this book right before the vacation. Therefore, I would like to share what I learned in the last chapters of this book. First of all, independence comes with a price, many countries fought to win independence and suffered heavy casualties. After they gained independence, problems like poverty, political turmoil, economic crises came up. It varied for different countries.

For Thailand, even though we already have independence and was never colonised, political and foreign affairs became a major problem for Thailand after world war 2. During the world war 2, Thailand was on Japan's side. Thailand evaded the penalty after Japan lost by using skilful diplomatic skills. However, after that, Thai politics were in turmoil. As more Thais receive education, they started questioning the monarch which had absolute power at that time. Before the war, there was already a small revolution in 1932 that brought 700 years of absolute monarchy to an end. Thailand was governed by constitutional monarchy. It was in 1963, that the military took complete control over the country. However, in 1973, there was another revolution against the military. It was 1980 that the conflict inside the country started to calm down. On the other hand, the Thai government is not stable until this day.

Revolution in 1973

For other ex-colonised countries like Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia, there were other problems. Since the colonial powers were sponsoring the national treasury, when they backed away, the treasury were almost empty. There were heavy demands on the national budget. Health and education in the countryside was also a problem to these new governments. For Indonesia, the biggest problem is 'maintaining national unity' and freedom of religion. For Vietnam, the problem is that the country was left divided. Communists parties in the region were also getting powerful. However, the economical problems of these countries were quickly solved after the maritime southeast asian countries found oil resources. Each countries started developing their own resources (rubber, spices, oil) and sold it to the outside world. Soon, these problems will disappear one by one.

Modern map of Southeast Asia

~End~