Title: “Hot” or “Cold”What Hath Wars Achieved in Southeast Asia in the 20th Century?

Date and Time: October 1st (Thurs.), 2015 14:00-16:00
Place: Tonan-tei (Room No. 201), Inamori Foundation Memorial Building, Kyoto University

Speaker: Professor Ooi Keat Gin, at Asia Pacific Research Unit (APRU-USM), Universiti Sains Malaysia and CSEAS visiting scholar

Moderator: Noboru Ishikawa, CSEAS

Abstract:
Wars, conflicts, and military occupations are as old as mankind. Man has fought one another over foods and mates, subsequently over territories, material possessions, and ultimately the quest for power, control and domination. Weapons of war evolved in sophistication, efficacy with alarmingly destructive dire consequences. Over the past centuries wars continued to be waged and conflicts abound in practically every corner of the world on land, on sea, and in the air. Has man not learn anything from his belligerent and disparaging behaviour over time? Apparently and regretfully nothing has been learnt. There are presently scores of hotspots of various degrees and on-going armed conflicts alongside all-out wars across the globe, others simmering to blow-up at any time whilst some have been protracted clashes and occupation over decades and seemingly unending.

Across the Asian landmass wars and conflicts were and still are common place phenomena throughout the ages. The mid-twentieth century, however, was incomparable when warfare swept across most of the Asian continent. Arguably the Second World War (1939-45) that engulfed the whole of Asia (besides the European and African theatres) consumed over 50 million lives where more than half were Asians and the majority civilians and non-combatants. Wartime military occupation, more often harsh and uncompromising, could contribute to a higher death rate particularly of civilians than the front-lines. Moreover the toll of lootings, molestations, rapes, brutal treatments on the one hand and diseases, protracted hardships, deprivations, starvation on the other hand made wartime occupation the greater evil vis-à-vis the battlefield.

With Southeast Asia as the base of reference this presentation ascertains the extent and evaluates the impact of the various conflicts (wars, insurgencies, rebellions, police action, armed revolutions, emergency, etc.) on the region either in general or on specific territories such as Vietnam, Malaya, Indonesia, etc.

“Hot” denote the open armed conflicts between nationalist elements and Western colonial governments. With the notable exception of Thailand, Western powers – Britain, France, Portugal, the Netherlands, and the United States – possessed exclusive domination (political and economic) over practically every corner of Southeast Asia. Opposition to colonial rule including armed rebellions occurred intermittently and disproportionately throughout the region during the first half of the twentieth century. Finally the imperial and colonial powers themselves clashed openly in the destructive Pacific War (1941-5), the Pacific theatre of the Second World War that included Southeast Asia. “Cold” refers to the term “Cold War”, the struggle from 1947 between the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (US) with their respective “new” allies, the former with the Warsaw Pact (mainly Eastern European states) and the latter with NATO (primarily Western European states) for supremacy and world domination. Referred to as “Cold” due to the fact that there were no direct open military clashes between the two superpowers whereby both claiming to champion their respective cause, viz. communism versus capitalism. The collapse of the USSR in 1991 concomitant to the end of the Warsaw Pact, the subsequent self-determination drive of East European states declaring independence and severing ties with Moscow. Such radical developments brought about the close of the Cold War. The 1990s saw beginnings of more non-conventional faces of conflicts collectively referred to as terrorism undertaken by groups, movements rather than nation states

Did the “Hot” wars brought benefits to Southeast Asians, for instance unshackling the colonial yoke and attaining independence? Did the Saya San Rebellion (1030-1932) pose a nationalist threat to the colonial British administration of Myanmar the? Or did the Vietnamese nationalist strife to end colonial rule reluctantly got entangled in the “Cold” war USSR-US struggle? To what extent did Cold War rivalry forced the end of the Indonesian Revolution? These are but some of the threads of inquiry in addressing the underlying question of “What Hath Wars Achieved in Southeast Asia in the 20th Century”?

About the speaker:
Ooi Keat Gin is Professor of History and coordinator of the Asia Pacific Research Unit (APRU-USM) in the School of Humanities, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia. His book-length publications related to the Pacific War (1941-5) inter alia The Japanese Occupation of Borneo (Routledge, 2011), Traumas and Heroism (Opus, 2007), Rising Sun Over Borneo (Macmillan/St Martin’s Press, 1999), Japanese Empire in the Tropics, 2 vols. (Ohio, 1998). Other scholarly pursuits include social and economic history, socio-cultural and heritage issues, urban history of colonial cities, women and labour, and development of colonial education. Reference works include Southeast Asia: A Historical Encyclopedia, From Angkor Wat to East Timor, 3 vols. (ABC-Clio, 2004), Historical Dictionary of Malaysia, new ed. (Scarecrow, 2009), The Works of Nicholas Tarling on Southeast Asia. Critical Concepts in Asian Studies, 7 vols. (Routledge, 2012). His most recent book is Post-war Borneo, 1945-1950: Nationalism, Empire, and State-building (Routledge, 2013). A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (London), Professor Ooi is founder-editor-in-chief of the e-journal International Journal of Asia Pacific Studies (IJAPS) (www.usm.my/ijaps/) and series editor of the Asia-Pacific Studies Series under the auspices of APRU and Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM Press).