Korea and Southeast Asia in the Modern

World

Yi Dynasty in Korea in Decline Under Yi rule from 1392 Korea

preserved a correct tributary relationship in China, which was often referred to by Koreans as “elder brother”.

Chinese largely influence Korea on Confucianism and the adoption of the Chinese examination.

Korea experienced a lively cultural growth and fixed their capital in Seoul.

Korean society remained hierarchical although the system is supposed to be conformed in Confucian code.

The reasons of declination: The unity and vigor are not

maintained Its authorities was progressively

weakened by chronic conflicts among bureaucratic and court factions

Devastated by the invasion of the Japanese warlord Hideyoshi

Invaded by the Manchus in 1626.

Korea was especially poorly prepared to meet the challenge

posed by Western and then Japanese imperialist in the

nineteenth century.

Rejection of Foreign ideasThe Korean establishment and

government were rigidly opposed to any and all foreign influences or presences

and had no interest in adopting Western technology even in self-defense.

Catholic missionaries and their converts were persecuted both

foreign and heretical-that is, anti-Confucian-and Christianity was

driven underground.

Korea was called Hermit Kingdom because of its seclusionist and antiforeign attitude.

It increased the foreign curiosity and determination to “open” the country to trade.Started on 1860, Korea pulled the covers over its head and hope the foreigners would go away.

Shipwrecked mariners were treated roughly and expelled. Fired on and drove off foreign ships that tried to establish contact.Christianity did spread despite persecution. Followers in Korea called it “practical learning”.

Tiger hunters- they are bands of armed men who attacked foreigners to repel small-scale foreign expeditions.

Tonghak or “Eastern Learning”, founded by a poor village scholar,

Ch’oe Che-u(1824-1864)- A religious cult which opposed to Western learning and all foreign

influences.

Tae-wongun (“Grand Prince”)- instituted a series of conservative reforms to restore the golden age of Yi dynasty.

Foreign Contention for Korea With the Meiji Restoration of 1868,

Japan began to acquire new strength and new ambition.

U.S went to China with five warships to the mouth of Han River and sent his surveyors up river toward Seoul.

the Americans demanded an apology, and when none was forthcoming, destroyed five forts by gunfire and killed 250 Koreans.

Li Hung-Chang- he take control of relations with and for Korea and tried to foster “self-strengthening”.

Yuan Shih-K’ai – a young Chinese commander in Korea who defeated the guards of the Japanese legation and rescued the king.

Both powers agreed to withdraw their troops and military advisers and to notify each other before sending

them back.The affair was

settled by an agreement between Li Hung-0chang and Ito Herobumi of Japan- known as Li-Ito convention.

In 1896 Korea became Japanese property and suffered terribly.

Japan brutally suppressed all efforts and protest, which they labeled “riots”, killing over 12,000 people.

Korea was officially annexed to the Japanese Empire the following year as Chosen Province.

Korea Under Japanese Rule Japanese rule from 1910 to 1945 Japan milked Korea of much of its raw

materials and foods. Koreans were obliged to take Japanese

names; there language could not be used publicly or taught in schools.

Few Koreans took education that time.

March 1, 1919- a mass demonstration of nationalist feelings and grievances took place .

Over 1 million Koreans marched peacefully in Seoul.

They were met by Japanese force; over 20,000 were killed or injured.

1929- Koreans was forced to use only Japanese textbooks and language.

Japanese regarded Koreans as second-class Japanese.

Japanese spoke to them as “dirty” and as smelling of garlic.

Korea became second to Philippines as the Asian country with the largest Christian proportion of its population by 1950.

The Korean Communist party was founded in 1925 but was kept ineffective by the Japanese police and their agents

Divisions and War 1945 – formal Japanese surrender Soviet dominated Communist

government - ruled the north from its capital at Pyongyang.

U.S. Client Government - ruled the south with its capital at Seoul.

Syngman Rhee – became the first president of the Republic of South.

Syngman Rhee

Kim II Sung – headed the Democratic People’s Republic of North.

Both were puppets of bitterly rival superpowers.

The Korea has been called “ the anvil of East Asia” because of being fought over by China, Japan, Russia and United States.

Kim II Sung

The war caused enormous destruction in both halves of the divided country and greatly set back Korean economic growth; in all, about 800,000 North and

South Korean combatants, nearly 800,000 Chinese, and

about 56,000 UN troops.

Korea Since 1960 By 1960’s the South had begun to

recover from the war and by 1970’s it had lept ahead economically.

Syngman Rhee was forced to resign as president in 1960 after his dictatorial style had alienated not only his rivals but many of his supporters.

General Park Chung-hee was subsequently confirmed as president in the elections of 1963 and ruled until 1969. He was assassinated by the Korean

Central Intelligence agency. General Chun Doo-hwan seized control. There were widespread of protest and demonstrations and hundreds were killed .

Roh Tae-woo – he was directly voted by the people to be their president.

South Korea began to move toward a more democratic order.

Vertical conglomerates such as Hyundai and Samsung emerged.

As south Korea continue to rose it became one of the most polluted cities in the world.

Kim II Sung, created world crisis in 1994 and as he died, he was suceeded by his son, Kim Jong II.

Southeast Asia Since World War II

In Vietnam – struggle against the French colonialism and American invasion

In Philippines – uprising of peasant Communist (Hukbalahaps)

In 1965, Indonesian military, with American CIA support, killed over half million innocent Indonesian Chinese

In Malaya from 1943 to 1957, a small group of Chinese residents led an insurrection, using Mao’s example of guerilla warfare.

In Burma, there were major Communist-led revolts from 1948 to 1950.

Burma won its independence from Britain in 1947.

Vietnam Vietnam has long been under the

shadow of adjacent China. Conquered and incorporated into the

Ch’in empire, under the Han, armies of the T’ang, Sung and repelled three successive Mongol conquest.

But despite of the bitter history towards China, Vietnam adopted most of Chinese culture.

In 19th century they began persecution of both, killing many priests and as many 30,000 converts died.

They capture Saigon, the south capital, and take over the surrounding provinces.

The Sino-Vietnamese war against the French lasted from 1883 to 1885

France drained resources from Vietnam.

French period saw rapid growth of landlordism and sharecropping.

French brutally suppressed all political expression.

They ran Vietnam as police-state. Ho Chih Minh, organized the

communist party of Vietnam in 1930. The world depression and drought-induced famine causing great suffering in Vietnam.

Thousands were killed, executed and exiled.

French rule was ended by the Japanese conquest.

Ho Chih Minh

Vietnam’s 30 Years of War• Viet Minh, or League for the Indepenence

of Vietnam – Vietnamese nationalist organized by Ho.

• September 1945 – Ho proclaimed the independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam

• November 1946 – French naval bombarded Haiphong killing 10,000 civilians and landed troops.

• “ Endless War “ had began.

With the superior American equipment, the French reconquered all of the cities by early 1947.

After 1949, China sent economic aid, training and arms to the Viet Minh.

Geneva Conference 1954 – French agreed to give up their struggle.

In 1955 – Bao Dai declared himself president of the Republic of Vietnam.

January 1968, during Tet ( Vietnamese New Year), North Vietnamese forces mounted a surprise attack on 15 cities in the south, fighting together with NLF ( National Liberation Front)

Strategic hamlets - a fortified encampments wherein other villagers were forced to live.

Peace talks had begun with the North Vietnamese in Paris in 1968.

In 1976 – the country was formally reunited as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, with its capital at Hanoi; Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City.

From the beginning of World War II ( 1945-1975) 2 million dead, mainly military personnel but including very large numbers of civilians, about 4 million soldiers and civilians were wounded and 1 million refugees, driven from homes by fighting.

Bloody Cambodia• French reoccupied Cambodia in 1945

and granted its independence under the rule of Prince Norodom Sihanouk.

• In 1969, the Americans began their so-called secret bombing in Cambodia, in an effort to block the flow of supplies from North to South Vietnam.

• The united States begin to withdraw from Vietnam in 19773, Cambodia became their target, in a campaign of “carpet-bombing” that in eight months dropped twice the explosive tonnage that was droped on Japan in the whole of World War II.

• Phnom Penh was hopelessly overcrowded with 2 million refugees.

• In 1975, the country was taken over by the communist, under the leadership of the man who called himself Pol Pot.

• His forces was known around the world as the Khmer Rouge.

• He ordered the entire population of Phnom Penh to leave their homes and work indefinitely in the countryside.

• As many as 4 million Cambodians died in this holocaust in 1975

Pol Pot

Khmer Rouge

• Cambodia was cut off from all foreign connections.

• Cambodia too announced a “Great Leap Forward”, with much the same consequences in human suffering and economic chaos as in China a decade earlier.

• Pol Pot’s agents continued to torture and murder many thousands.

• In 1979 the Vietnamese army intervened.

Great Leap Forward

A pro-Vietnamese government was installed at Phnom Penh as the

People’s Republic of Kampuchea.Cambodia became a bloody

battleground for two decades.In 1991, official Americcann opinion was at last edging way from support of Pol Pot, who announced his official

“retirement”.

Laos: the Forgotten Country

• In tiny, mountainous, isolated Laos, there has been little peace since 1945.

• By 1963, Laos was engulf in a bloody civil war.

• Vietnamese support for the Communist and their use of Lao territory along the frontier as part of their massive and immensely destructive American bombing of Laos, producing uncounted casualties and nearly 1 million refugees.

But Laos, a poor country to begin with,, still suffered from the

destruction of chronic warfare and from its use as a pawn in contest

between outside powers.

Burma, Thailand, Malaya, and Singapore

The rest of mainland Southeast Asia has had a varied history since 1945. Only Burma has failed to win internal order or benefit from rapid economic growth, while Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore

have been among the most rapidly growing economies in the world.

Burma• Many Burmese had joined an Anti-

Fascist People’s Freedom League, led by Aung San and fought the Japanese.

• AFPFL make demonstrations and strikes to take their independence.

• Burma won its independence in January 1948.

• Aung San was assassinated and U Nu, his vice president, became the first independent premier.

• Burma made little or no economic progress as the central government was increasingly paralyzed by divisions and bureaucratic ineptitude.

• In 1962, army general Ne Win seized power.

• The economy slowed even more, and there were much unemployment.

• In 1989 the military government changed the spelling of the country’s name to Myanmar, linguistically and phonetically equivalent to Burma.

ThailandForced collaboration with the Japanese

had saved the country from the destruction suffered by most of the rest

of Southeast Asia

General Sarit – built wide political support by effectively promoting economic development and education.

Thailand remains at least nominally a monarchy despite the reforms of 1932.

Bangkok had become a huge, overcrowded city of industry and trade..

There were rebellions, fueled by poverty and organized by the small Thai Communist party. Dissent were repressed, but Thai society had been transformed by economic growth.

Bangkok

Malaya and Singapore Malaya suffered brutal Japanese

invasion and occupation. The battle of the colonial government

against what was called The Emergency lasted 10 years.

The independence agreement with the British took effect in August of 1957

Malays were given the dominant position in the new state

In 1963 Singapore joined Malaya. Islam was the official state religion. There were growing industrial sector

in Malaya, with some high-tech electronics and other consumer goods.

Singapore became a major banking as well as trade center.

Malaya under Japanese

Indonesia Former Dutch East Indies Achmed Sukarno and Mohammed

Hatta – chief Indonesian leaders who actively collaborated with the Japanese but were ineffective n moderating Japanese brutality.

They announced Indonesia’s independence as a republic two days after the Japanese surrender

The Americans and the United Nations withdrew their support for the Dutch, and at the end of 1949 the Dutch were obliged to grant full independence.

The territory was scattered over some 3,000 separate islands stretched along more than 3,000 miles.

Christianity had spread widely promoted by Portuguese and Dutch missionaries

• Bahasa Indonesian, was created by the new government as a new national language.

• In 1965, a horrendous bloodbath happen were 500,000 to 1 million unresisting people were killed.

• Bribery became even more widespread• Most Indonesians remained poor as

population continued to grow rapidly.

The Philippines• Hukbalahap (People’s Anti-Japanese Army)

– was involved in the war with the Japanese.

• The granting of independence on 1946 was welcomed.

• As communism triumphed in China and Vietnam and appeared to threaten Malaya, Cambodia, and Laos, the Americans became fearful for the Philippines and lined up in support of successive conservative governments.

Hukbalahap Movement

• Filipinos admired and copied much of American culture

• Corruption became a trademark of Philippine politics, and the government was unable to control destructive inflation, rebuild the shattered economy, or defeat the Huks.

• Louis Taruc- a communist and the head of Hukbalahap, a guerilla group that fought against the Japanese occupation

Ramon Magsaysay - he put down the Huk rebellion (1953) .

- He was killed in a plane crash in 1957 Ferdinand Marcos – elected president in

1965 and reelected in 1969.

- Instead of having democracy for the Philippines he pushed to “constitutional authoritarianism”

- He declared Martial Law on 1972- a great democrat

The press was controlled, many thousands were arrested, jailed, and tortured, normal legal procedures were suspended, and the army was built up.

He proclaimed a New Society on 1973

Government became even more dominated by cronyism and assossiated corruption, most of all by Marcos and his wife, Imelda.

New People’s Army- a reorganized Communist party same as the Huks.

Corazon Aquino- Benigno’s widow (who was shot down at Manila Airport when he returned from US) defeated Marcos in the elections in 1986

Fidel Ramos- succeeded Corazon in 1992

- He made commendable progress and begun to stimulate healthier economic growth