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Stratfor mentioned the crucial aspect of Chinese industrial success, massive
subsidy of energy prices. It is not just wage differentials keeping
consumer products cheap, it is all the money that the central government is
paying not to have a fuel cost shock like the American economy is enduring.
If individual Chinese people and companies had to pay market prices for
gasoline and fuel oil, industries would shut down, people would park their
cars and the country's economy would collapse. On the other hand, if China
continues paying these subsidies, there will not be any money left to loan
to companies to modernize to keep up with consumer demand. This too will
doom their economy as countries and factories with cheap labor, access to
Western capital markets and oil of their own (Mexico) are able to once again
be competitive with the Chinese.

Colonialism's Effect on Southeast Asia

Southeast Asian history features the stories of indigenous cultures that had arisen without much intermingling with outside influences, save for the occasional raids by the remote neighbors, being forced to contend with the arrival of Chinese and Western sailors and adventurers. In some cases, especially in the first years of the scramble for colonial holdings, the interaction was benign and even beneficial on both sides. “European visitors to Southeast Asia in the seventeenth century approached Asians as equals, displaying an openness and readiness to learn that was often lacking in the nineteenth century, when scientific and industrial developments had produced a technological gulf between Europe and the rest of the world.” 1 In other cases, the interaction was more indifferent, such as the West’s interaction with Siam. Often, the relations were much more negative and wrenching, as it was in Vietnam and every other country with which it came into contact. The Chinese went to Southeast Asia for tribute. Chinese Emperors believed that since China was the Middle Kingdom, all other peoples were compelled to literally pay respects to Chinese power. “[The tribute system] showed that China was the superior centre and its rules had duties toward all other rulers as his inferiors.” 2

Colonialism in Southeast Asia brought modern Western ideas and concepts to Southeast Asia. Some of these new ideas included the nation-state and its concomitant bureaucratic structure, education for ambitious youth in political theory and human rights, new economic opportunities and travails and new perspectives on religion. Each of these innovations served to change the nature of life in Southeast Asia countries. Prior to the arrival of colonial powers, Southeast Asia had a small population that was probably a result of a number of factors including high female work load, rampant gonorrhea, prevalent abortion and instability of residence. 3 This dynamic changed as the colonial powers brought colonial governmental structure and the will to organize the economy to produce salable goods. With more order and with economic incentives for the people in the region to remain in place to produce raw materials, populations began to increase. As more wealth was produced, more outsiders were drawn to Southeast Asia, bringing their own cultures and religion into contact with the locals, and engendering change, and unfortunately, prejudice. “Throughout the region, the many different ethnic groups live side by side with their diverse languages religions customs, occupations, and education and social statuses. As in much of the rest of the world, these differences give rise to prejudices and stereotypes.” 4 The differences also gave rise to nationalism.

Nationalism, as it was expressed throughout Southeast Asia, looked different in each country. The various religions and cultures found in the countries in the region were so unique that some observers coined a term for the unique Southeastern Asian expression of nationalism. “We shall use the term ‘indigenism’ to describe the structure of policies and institutions created to transform the racial dimensions of the colonial type economies inherited by Southeastern Asian societies.” 5 While these scholars further broke down “indigenisms” into the individual country “ism” for each unique county in Southeast Asia, the scholars noted that all countries did share one characteristic. Even though each country had different colonial experiences, all people shared a similar, negative perception of colonialism. “Contrasting sharply with the diversity in colonial policies and practices is the uniformity of images held by Southeast Asians of their colonial experiences. Nationalism is seen as the movement to liberate the national society from the constraints…which prevented the fulfillment of individual and collective capacities for economic and political development.” 6

Kratoska hinted at what might be the actual root for these negative colonial images in the minds of indigenous Southeast Asians: the usurpation of traditional ruling prerogatives by the efficient colonial bureaucracies. The colonial bureaucracies allowed the state to reach into areas previously untouchable by any central authority. The colonial powers’ influence and authority touched all people within a large geographic region. Because colonial policies were so pervasive in a way previously in a way that had not previously been experienced, all people in the colony shared the same antipathy to the big, foreign authority in their presence. 7 The shared loathing of the colonial power resulted in “indigenism.”
It should be noted that most nationalists and revolutionaries in Southeast Asia did not object to structure and bureaucracy per se. Revolutionary leaders, most of whom had been educated in the West, understood that an efficient bureaucracy was intrinsic to the functioning of the state. Further, most Southeast Asian revolutionaries did not object to the usurpation of power from the local chieftains (unless, of course, the displaced chieftain returned as a revolutionary). Instead, the indigenous leaders objected to the foreigners being in power, not to the governmental structure necessary to projecting the power. These local leaders were content to displace the colonial rulers while maintaining the trappings of power. 8

An example of this phenomenon is Indonesia. Prior to the arrival of the Dutch, the people of the islands that eventually came to be known as Indonesia saw themselves as subjects of a this or that kingdom or as members of a particular ethnic group. After the Dutch set up political boundaries and asserted authority throughout the islands did the people on those islands have something towards which to direct their resentment and around which to unite. Ambitious, Western educated revolutionaries recognized the power of the resentment that could be leveraged to expel the Dutch while at the same time admiring to political infrastructure that the Europeans had created. After finally forcing the Dutch out, the revolutionaries grabbed power but soon realized that the temporary unity displayed by the Indonesians in ridding themselves of their colonial overseers would not persist. Indonesia has found that replacing a foreign hegemon with a local authoritarian has not instantly improved the lives of the people. 9

Indonesia has striven to create itself as a nation-state, but has been largely unsuccessful since the people have reverted to their natural affiliations to local leaders, ethnic groups, and now increasingly, religious preferences. These sub-allegiances work to subvert the foundation of a nation state in general, and in Indonesia in particular, making the idea of a nation state in Southeast Asia a chimera. “In some way the state's sovereignty is inherent within the people, expressive of its historic identity. In it, ideally, there is a basic equivalence between the borders and character of the political unit upon the one hand and a self-conscious cultural community on the other. In most cases this is a dream as much as a reality. Most nation-states in fact include groups of people who do not belong to its core culture or feel themselves to be part of a nation so defined.” 10

The fact that many Southeast Asian revolutionaries only recognized their desire to overthrow and supplant their colonial masters after availing themselves of Western educations is another common theme to the post-colonial period. There is some evidence that many of these highly educated individuals would have been content to return to a position of power in their own countries even only to serve the colonial administration. However, Western powers were not willing to provide much opportunity to these returning scholars. So, instead of working within the colonial structure to buttress the status quo, these revolutionaries worked to undermine it. Colonialism thus “contained the seeds of its own destruction.” 11 Young people with good educations could recognize the strengths and weaknesses of the colonial system, and therefore could attack the weaknesses and preserve the strengths. Additionally, these young, intelligent leaders could to some extent rally the people who as we have seen, shared with these returning intellectuals an antipathy towards foreigners, although the antipathy grew out of different causes such a lack of respect for religion or blame for wild, disconcerting economic swings. “The colonial powers inadvertently nurtured Asian nationalism by combining political repression with opportunities for Western (or Japanese) education. The most talented and capable indigenous leaders were offered the benefits of colonial education but denied profession opportunities to use it. Strain rapidly increased between traditional values and new ones, between efforts to adapt modern Western material techniques and the need to maintain a distinctly non-Western cultural identity, and between the impulse to assimilate the intruder and to expel him completely.” 12

Another by product of colonialism was introducing new religious beliefs that supplanted indigenous, traditional ones. These new beliefs became a way to set populations apart from one another. “Southeast Asia is a crossroads of many religious influences, which have always been treated syncretically. One precondition for this basically peaceful syncretism is the fact that the different religious communities largely eschew orthodoxy and content themselves with their followers' commitment to a particular ritual practice (orthopractice).” 13 This syncreticism has begun to erode however, as the religions brought into the region by the colonial powers begin to insist on a rigid orthodoxy enforced through worldwide communications and hardened in reaction to one another.

Colonialism’s effects in Southeast Asia continue to this day. The region has a large, dense population brought about by the economic effects of colonialism. The density of population and the wealth in the region has brought many different cultures into contact, and altered the religions and culture. Colonial education policies introduced ideas about nationalism and human rights that encouraged and inspired revolutionaries who ultimately overthrew the colonial order. The revolutionaries co-opted the colonial bureaucratic structure to administer the governments they now controlled. The results have been mixed, but the legacy of colonialism and the nationalism it engendered remain to the present.

Notes
1 Paul Kratoska, “Nationalism and Modernist Reform” in Nicholas Tarling, ed., The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia Volume Two, Part One From c. 1800 to the 1930s (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) 1999, pg 250.
2 Denis Twitchett and John K. Fairbank, The Cambridge History of China Volume 10 Late Ch’ing, 1800-1911, Part 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) 1978, pg 30.
3 Nicholas Tarling, “The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia Volume One, Part Two From c. 1500 to c. 1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) 1999, pg 117.
4 Clark D. Neher, Southeast Asia Crossroads of the World (DeKalb, IL: Southeast Asia Publications) 2004, pg 16.
5 Frank Golay, Ralph Anspach, M. Ruth Pfanner, Eliezer B. Ayal, Underdevelopment and Economic Nationalism is Southeast Asia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press) 1969, pg 9.
6 Ibid, 17.
7 Kratoska, ibid, pg 248.
8 Ibid.
9 Leo Suryadinata, Nationalism and Globalism, East and West (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asia Studies) 2000, pg 38.
10 Hastings, Adrian. The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism. (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press) 1999 , pp. 2-5.
11 Michael Brecher, The New States of Asia: A Political Analysis (Oxford: Oxford University Press) 1963, pg 22.
12 Mark Borthwick. Pacific Century: The Emergence of Modern Pacific Asia (Boulder: CO: Westview Press) 2007, pg 153.

Bibliography
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Brecher , Michael, The New States of Asia: A Political Analysis (Oxford: Oxford
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Golay, Frank, Ralph Anspach, M. Ruth Pfanner, Eliezer B. Ayal, Underdevelopment and
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Hastings, Adrian, The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism.
(Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press) 1999.

Horstmann, Alexander, “Reflexive transformation and religious revitalisation:
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Kratoska, Paul, “Nationalism and Modernist Reform” in Nicholas Tarling, ed., The
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Neher, Clark D., Southeast Asia Crossroads of the World (DeKalb, IL: Southeast Asia
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