South East Asia

Physical Geography

  • This is a region of peninsulas and islands

  • tectonic activity has created much of the physical geography

  • volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and tsunamis occur along this plate boundary

  • this archipelago is formed as the Indian-Australian Plate plunges beneath the Eurasian plate

  • The archipelago is grouped into individual countries, some containing thousands of islands

Regional Themes

  • climate change is a major factor in the region’s most critical environmental issues

  • Globalization has brought success and occasional declines to economies of the region

  • Political freedoms have expanded but at times, authritarianism, corruption, and violence reverse these gains

  • As a whole the region is only 47% urban, but cities are growing rapidly

  • Indigenous peoples are losing land to production for global markets, and their basic rights are ignored in national planning. Some are becoming acrtivists against habitat destruction.

  • Southeast Asian countries used economic strategies pioneered earlier in East Asia: the formation of state-aided market economies and export-led economic development

  • The feminization of labor is the rising numbers of women in both the formal and the informal labor force

  • Conditions improved when competition with service sector jobs increased

Subregions

Mainland and Southeast Asia: Myanmar and Thailand

  • Has a rugged topography with ridged and gorges issuing out form the Tibetan plateau

  • the Irrawaddy river delta is found at the tip of Myanmar and the Chao Phraya runs down through Bangkok into the gulf of Thailand

  • Many ancient migrants from around Southern China, tibet, and eastern India settled in the mountains in the north, contrasting with the more urban, industrialized Buddhist south

  • Myanmar is poorer, dependent upon agriculture, supplies raw materials to other countries and has more repressive government

  • Thailand is more industrialized, does manufacturing and has a thriving tourism industry

  • The only country in Southeast Asia to not be colonized by Europe is Thailand

  • Thailand (then Siam) was geographically located to function as an ideal buffer zone to the British colonies of the Malay peninsula and the French colony of Indochina

  • Siamese kings, in order to avoid colonization, transformed their political system into a more Europeanized versio, and began an enormous nation-building project that lead to the modernization of today’s Thailand

Mainland and Southeast Asia: Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam

  • Common heritage if Buddhism

  • Communist states

  • Vietnam is the most populous (94million) and developed (HDI) country Lao/Laos the least

  • Tourism picked up in 1990s/2000s

  • Colonies until the end of World War II and fought to transform themselves into independent nations

  • These countries went through a half-century of war (Focus: The Vietnam War)

Island And peninsular Southeast Asia: Malaysia, Brunei, and Singapore

  • Malaysia and neighboring Singapore and Brunei are the most economically successful countries in Southeast Asia

  • All were British colonies

  • Brunei’s wealth comes from natural gas, Singapore’s from a more diversified economy focused on global trade (including pharmaceuticals)

  • Malaysia is home to 32.5. million ethically diverse people, most living on the peninsula

  • Many Singaporeans have Chinese ancestry and the country has a meticulously planned, safe cityscape

The Philippines

  • More than 70000 island spread over 500,000 square miles

  • Luzon in the North and Mindanao in the south compose 2/3 of the country’s land mass

  • the islands are volcanic giving the Philippines fertile soil and rich mineral deposits (gold, copper, iron, etc)

  • The capital of Manila has a metropolita area of more than 24 million, another of the densest places on Earth

  • 96% of the population belongs to one or more of the 60 distinct indigenous groups and most (83%) are roman Catholic, but some areas are Muslim

  • The vast majority of wealthy Filipinos are descendants of Spanish and Spanish-Filipino plantation owners or Chinese financiers and businesspeople

Timor-Leste

  • Indonesia contains some 17,000 islands, but some are uninhabited.

  • Its unity as a country and national unit did not exist before the colonial era. Rivalries continue

  • Indonesia has the world’s largest muslim population

  • Java, the seat of government is home to 57% of the country’s population, but only 7% of the country’s land. Sumatra holds 21% and is highly volcanic

  • Timore Leste was recognized as independent in 2002, after 20 years of armed conflict and as many as 250,000 deaths. Before this it had been Portuguese colony, then under Indonesian sovereignty from 1976 - 1999

  • Timor Leste has oil and gas deposits that Indonesia wanted to control

The Vietnam War: Violently Linking Regions of the World; Linking Regions of the World Through Peace