Area, Population, and Environment

Area, Population, and Environment

60. Livelihood Patterns

FB.Shifting and Sedentary Agriculture

FC.Deforestation

FD.Mineral Production and Reserves

FE.Economic Meltdown and Its Aftermath

61. Myanmar (Burma)

62. Thailand

63. Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos

FF.The Vietnam War

FG.Vietnam Today

FH.Cambodia: Away from the Killing Fields

FI.The Lao Way

64. Malaysia and Singapore

65. Indonesia and Timor-Leste

66. The Philippines

Southeast Asia contains eleven countries: Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, the Philippines, Indonesia, and East Timor. Most of these nations are physically and culturally fragmented, and all except Thailand were former European colonies. This area was historically lightly populated because of natural barriers and environmental hazards, but modern medical and technological innovations have helped create a population explosion. One-quarter of Southeast Asia’s population lives on the island of Java, and European-financed commercial rice farming has greatly increased population densities elsewhere in the region. Timber is an important export, and foreign demand for tropical hardwoods, along with population and agricultural pressures, have resulted in massive deforestation throughout the region.

Oil production in Southeast Asia is small on a global scale but is locally important. Other minerals such as tin are also important. Several nations in the region, especially Malaysia, are attempting to move away from economies based upon natural resource extraction and become major manufacturing and industrial centers. Economies were hot until the 1997 Asian economic crisis. The “Asian Tigers” experienced severe recessions, though Singapore was unhurt. The recession eventually faded, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations began to adopt policies that would avert future economic meltdowns.

Myanmar (called Burma until 1989) has been unstable since its independence from Britain, with numerous ethnic clashes and civil wars. Myanmar’s ruling military junta is one of the most repressive governments in the world, and has held pro-democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest since 1990. In contrast, neighboring Thailand is a democratic and relatively prosperous country, despite a refugee flood in the 1970s, a currency crisis in the late 1990s and several ongoing guerilla insurrections.

The former French colony of Indochina is now Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. When French forces withdrew in 1954, North Vietnam became a Communist country and South Vietnam a U.S. client state. The North Vietnamese-supported Viet Cong insurrectionist force began a campaign to unite South Vietnam with the north. The U.S. came to South Vietnam’s aid and fought against North Vietnamese troops for a decade in an unpopular war. The U.S. was unsuccessful in repelling the North Vietnamese partly because the North was never invaded. After the U.S. withdrawal Vietnam was unified into one country under Communist leadership. Vietnam remains a Communist nation today, but normalized relations with the U.S. and a more open economic market since the mid-1990s has allowed Vietnam’s economy to prosper. Laos also remains Communist today, but remains poor and undeveloped. Communism came to Cambodia in 1975, and dictator Pol Pot instituted a brutal regime of mass murder and social upheaval. A Vietnamese invasion instituted widespread warfare in Cambodia for over a decade.

Under UN supervision Cambodia has slowly become more stable since the 1990s.

Malaysia is split into two sections, the mainland and the island of Borneo. Malaysia developed as a tin and rubber exporting nation, but is now looking to become a fully developed, industrialized nation by the year 2020. Singapore, located on a small island, is a major global manufacturing, trade and finance center. Brunei is a small country that is also one of the world’s wealthiest, mostly from oil exports.

Indonesia is the largest Muslim country and the fourth most populated country in the world. Indonesia was a former Dutch colony that achieved independence in 1949, and has been turbulent ever since. Though oil exports, timber and tourism bring in revenue, Indonesia was hit hard by the Asian economic crisis. Indonesia also suffers from religious violence and many ethnic separatist movements, particularly in Aceh. East Timor was a former Portuguese colony that was forcibly incorporated into Indonesia and achieved independence only in 2002 after a protracted struggle. The Philippines has a separatist movement as well, Muslims on the southern island of Mindanao wishing to create an independent state. The country of The Philippines is a former U.S. colony, and the two countries have maintained ties since independence.

127. 
     The countries of Southeast Asia are Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia, and East Timor. The land in this region is rugged, with extensive and often volcanic archipelagoes. The region is subject to earthquakes and typhoons, and has either a tropical rainforest or tropical savanna climate. [pp. 333-335]
     

128. 
     The great tsunami of December 26, 2004 was caused by a massive “megathrust” in the Java Trench off the coast of the island of Sumatra. The displacement of water in the Indian Ocean that resulted from the sudden shock of the Indian Plate dropping an estimated sixty feet under the Burmese Plate sent ripples in all directions. These waves were imperceptible in the open ocean, but piled up to great height when they crashed ashore. The death toll exceeded 200,000, principally in Indonesia, Thailand, India, and Sri Lanka, although people drowned as far away as the Somali coast of Africa. It was the deadliest series of tsunamis in recorded history. [pp. 338-339]
     

129. 
     The population in this region was historically very low, as the terrain and climate are difficult for most kinds of agriculture, and geographic barriers such as mountains and seas prevented mass migrations to the area. But with the advent of modern medicine and technology, the challenges this environment presented were lessened and the region’s population began to swell. Increases in food production, especially on the Indonesian island of Java, allowed for enormous populations, though local political, social and agricultural conditions have kept the numbers in some regional countries low. [pp. 334-335]
     

130. 
     Mountainous and tropical conditions throughout the region have limited humankind’s attempts to establish permanent agriculture. Most of the land is used for shifting cultivation, which can only support sparse populations. Subsistence agriculture here is largely carried out with wet rice production, which can support very large populations. Formerly agriculturally unproductive lands were turned into vast commercial rice-growing areas during the period of Western colonialism. Western powers also introduced cash cropping to Southeast Asia, and the region is now one of the world’s major supply areas for tea, pineapples, rubber, cloves, and palm oil. Fishing is also important here. [pp. 335-338]
     

131. 
     Malaysia and Indonesia are the largest suppliers of tropical hardwoods in Southeast Asia. The main market for this lumber is Japan. [pp. 338-339]
     

132. 
     Although only 1.1 percent of the world’s reserves are located here, petroleum is the most important mineral resource in Southeast Asia. Seven countries in the region produce oil, but Indonesia is the largest producer, particularly on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra. Oil accounts for about one quarter of Indonesia’s exports. [p. 341]
     

133. 
     ASEAN’s members are Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Brunei, Vietnam, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, and the Philippines. The coalition was founded in 1967 originally to promote regional trade and to minimize the region’s alignment with either the United States or the Soviet Union. However, U.S. troops pulled out of the region in 1991, and Southeast Asia was left without a “security umbrella” against possible Chinese or Japanese interests in the region. Several ASEAN members strengthened military ties with the U.S. to deter other powers. ASEAN has moved closer economically to China in recent years, and has formed an informal economic cooperation bloc with China, Japan and South Korea, known as ASEAN +3, to adopt policies that would ward off future economic shocks and eliminate regional trade and investment barriers. [p. 343]
     

134. 
     The biggest potential change to the Mekong River is the push to build about 100 dams along the river and its tributaries to produce hydroelectric power. Several dams in China and Vietnam already exist. These dams will create needed electricity, but they will also most likely cause significant declines in the amount of fish caught in these rivers. The regular flooding of the Mekong will also be drastically reduced, potentially ruining the ecosystem of Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake. [p. 351]
     

135. 
     Vietnam has had a turbulent political history. It was part of a French colony, along with Cambodia and Laos, for many years until it was overrun by Japanese forces in 1941. Attempts by France to reestablish colonial control over the region were foiled by Vietnamese guerrillas, and the French withdrew in 1954. Two Vietnams appeared afterward: North Vietnam, which was allied with China and the Soviet Union, and South Vietnam, which was a client state of the U.S. Communists in North Vietnam attempted to unify the two countries, resulting in U.S. intervention in the south that soon led to the Vietnam War. America withdrew in 1973, and the North Vietnamese completed their conquest of the South, and instituted a very repressive Communist regime. Conditions in Vietnam were poor until the government began to implement free-market reforms in 1986. The country’s economy improved dramatically after that, especially after the normalization of relations with China in 1991 and the U.S. in 1995. Laos suffered during the war, and remains a poor, isolated Communist nation today, despite recent efforts to encourage market reforms and foreign investment. An American-backed government in Cambodia was toppled in 1975, and a brutal Communist regime was put in its place. The government, led by Pol Pot, instituted a “new kind of socialism” by killing off the educated, rich, and urban citizens of Cambodia. The country endured further turmoil in 1979 when Vietnam invaded and conquered the country; the Vietnamese starved the country to quell resistance. A democratic government did not return to Cambodia until 1993, and the country has enjoyed relative stability since then. It remains very poor, but with tourism on the rise and Cambodia’s entry into ASEAN, its economy is finally showing some signs of improvement. [pp. 347-353]
     

136. 
     The “boat people” were refugees from Vietnam and neighboring countries who took to the open ocean waters on rafts to escape the war-torn region. Over two million Vietnamese fled the country after 1974, with about half of them taking up residence in the United States. Boat people also occupied numerous refugee camps in China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand. Some of these refugee camps remained open until 1996, when 100,000 Vietnamese were returned to their home country. Roughly 1 million Vietnamese have returned because of improved political and economic conditions. [p. 349]
     

137. 
     Malaysia became a major exporter of tin and rubber during its time as a British colony. Malaysia still exports those today, but has a national mantra of “Vision 2020,” the year by which Malaysia hopes to be a fully developed, industrialized nation. Although this vision was interrupted for several years beginning in 1997 with the Asian economic crisis, Malaysia has worked to expand and diversify its economy; it is now a major manufacturer of automobiles and air conditioners, and high-tech products such as semiconductors. Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur, is a high-tech city interconnected by fiber optic cable, and the nearby new city of Cyberjaya hopes to attract high technology companies and become Asia’s “Silicon Valley.” [pp. 353-355]
     

138. 
     Indonesia is a large, fragmented country home to over 300 different ethnic groups. The ethnic, linguistic, religious, and political tensions that Indonesia has endured, or will potentially endure, makes it difficult to maintain peace, order and unity in the country. The Javanese dominate the country, causing resentment among the country’s other ethnic groups and those living on far-away islands. Numerous areas of Indonesia desire more autonomy or outright independence. Areas such as Aceh, Papua, and the Malukus wish to follow in the footsteps of East Timor, which successfully seceded from Indonesia in 2002. Economic and religious tensions have also affected the Philippines; Muslim separatists on the island of Mindanao have long fought the Philippine government to create an independent state there. [pp. 355-360]
     

This module should enable your students to…

• 
  Recognize China as a land empire in which a single ethnic group added vast peripheral areas to its eastern core
  
• 
  Appreciate the constraints imposed by China’s Communist system on personal, political, and economic freedoms and the recent substantial easing of those restrictions
  
• 
  Balance the pros and cons of China’s hugely ambitious plans to transform its natural environment through dams, canals, forest restoration, and other projects
  
• 
  Consider the economic discrepancies between China’s rural and urban populations and the forces behind large-scale rural-to urban migration
  
• 
  Understand the regional and geopolitical risks of Taiwan’s aspirations for an identity independent of China
  

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