The Big Picture: Major Influences - Dragons and Tigers: A Geography of South, East and Southeast Asia - page 18

0 500 1000 mi

0 500 1000 km Shanghai

East
China Sea

BHUTAN

WEST
PAKISTAN
1947

MACAO
1999

INDIA
1947

Canton

FORMOSA
1945

BURMA
1948

HONG
KONG
1997

LAOS
1954

Diu

Pacific
Ocean

EAST
PAKISTAN
1947

Arabian
Sea

SIAM

PHILIPPINES
1946

Goa

Bay of Bengal

CAMBODIA
1954

South
China Sea

Pondicherry

CEYLON
1948 BRUNEI

1959

MALDIVE
ISLANDS
1965

FEDERATED MALAY
STATES 1963-1965

SINGAPORE
1959-1965

1947

Date of independence
New political divisions at independence

British
British influence
French
Dutch

American
Portuguese
Japanese
Not a colony

INDONESIA
1949

Indian Ocean

EAST
TIMOR
1999

Figure 1-14
Most of Asia was either colonized or strongly influenced by foreign powers, with the exception
of Thailand, which served as a buffer between English and French interests in Southeast Asia.
The Philippines was a Spanish colony from 1565 to 1898 and an American one thereafter .
Formosa (T (Taiwan) was a Japanese colony from 1895 to 1945. Although China was never a
colony , many places such as Canton (Guangzhou) and Shanghai had foreign concessions.

was in full swing elsewhere. Some saw potential for the
island nation as the “Britain of the Pacific.” Why could
Japan not have a colonial empire? After all, it needed raw
materials for industrialization and space for expansion.
Japan flexed its muscles, attacking and defeating both
China and Russia at the turn of the century . China' s island
of Taiwan (1895) and footholds on the mainland were the
rewards of victory . Japan' s empire was taking shape. Korea
was annexed in 1910. Japan' s territorial ambitions were
fervently pursued in China, and by the mid-1930s, Japan
dominated a vast empire (Figure 1-14).
Japan' s ambition was to establish a Greater East Asia
Co-Prosperity Sphere (GEACPS), incorporating Asians
minus the European imperialists. As it defeated both in-
digenous and colonial forces, it propagated the slogan
“Asia for the Asians.” Its grandiose plans were foiled
when it drew the United States into the Pacific theater of
war by bombing Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7,
1941. By 1942, Japan controlled all of the northern Pacific

west of the international date line. Japan then dominated
100 million people!
After its defeat in 1945, Japan was relieved of all its
colonies, but the GEACPS had left a legacy: Japan had
been the vanguard of Asian nationalism. “Asia for the
Asians” became a cornerstone of independence struggles.
But new socioeconomic-political theories were on the
horizon to shape the entire process.

Decolonization and Independence

European imperialism began to crumble under the
weight of independence movements before and after the
first World War. After World War II (1939-1945), it
crashed. During the process of decolonization, inde-
pendence was both negotiated and fought for. Countless
lives were sacrificed. France, which was the most resist-
ant to giving up its colonies, lost 95,000 persons between