That view of the history of maritime South East Asia which fixed a rigid dividing line in 1511 or 1600, and regarded the assertion of European dominance in the area as marking the frontier between traditional and modern history, has long ago been discredited and discarded. It led to the treatment of the earlier history of Malaya and Indonesia as a mere prelude to the coming of the Europeans, or at least as an era without relevance to later events, to which special criteria must be applied. The later history was treated predominantly as the story of European activities and rivalries, and purely western criteria were applied even to indigenous themes. All this is now regarded as unscientific, and labelled ‘Europe-centric’. Few, if any, contemporary historians would challenge this judgment so far as the internal history of Malaya and Indonesia and their component parts are concerned, and, though there is still ample room for discussion as to its application in practice, this paper does not seek to re-open the debate. It is concerned not so much with the development of maritime South East Asian society, or with the history of individual states within what are now Malaysia and Indonesia, as with the relations of these states with each other.

Persons of mixed European and Asian parentage appeared in the Indonesian archipelago shortly after the arrival of the first “Westerners” in the sixteenth century. Although most of them were absorbed by the indigenous population, some were not and came to constitute a separate, identifiable group. The main reason, apart from paternal pride, seems to have been religious. Christianity, especially during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, encouraged a strong feeling of responsibility toward the biracial offspring of non-European women. A moral obligation was felt to baptize the child and give it the name of the father. Legal rules and regulations facilitated the process: the European father, for example, could “recognize” his natural child by a non-European woman, adopt it, or request a “Letter of legitimation”. Possession of “the status of European” in the nineteenth century permitted persons of mixed descent to benefit educationally from the rapid expansion of “European” (i.e. Dutch) schools. Finally, the Dutch nationality law of 1892 — based squarely on the jus sanguinis principle — contained the crucial provision that all those who were considered Europeans when the act came into force (July 1, 1893) — including those who were legally assimilated and socially a part of the European group — became Dutch citizens.

One of the most arresting periods in modern Thai history is the latter half of the nineteenth century, when a process of social and political development begun in the previous century reached its fruition when a single bureaucratic family obtained a virtual monopoly on high state office in the reign of King Mongkut (1851–68) and the first half of the reign of King Chulalongkorn (1868–1910). This situation had profound effects on the course of modern Thai history; and its study enlightens our understanding of Thailand's foreign relations and of the course of reform and modernization in a period when the successful conduct of these was crucially vital to the survival of the kingdom.

The advance to the South, or Nam-tien, is a major theme of Vietnamese history. Other themes, such as the influence of Chinese civilization or the development of an independent Vietnamese state after the tenth century, are in their ways just as important to the study of Vietnamese history as is the Nam-tien. The Nam-tien is unique, however, for it transcends the different periods in Vietnamese history — pre-Chinese, Chinese, independent, colonial, and contemporary — each with its own theme. It is also important because it provides the opportunity to study Vietnamese history on its own themes and not as part of, for example, French colonial history. Despite the importance which this writer believes it to be, though, the advance to the South has not been the subject of extensive investigation and publication. Only a few scholars, such as Pierre Gourou and Le Thanh Khoi, have looked beyond the usual framework of dates, dynasties, and wars to suggest the existence of social changes in Vietnamese history resulting from the expansion of settlements into new areas.

During the 1930's the pace of contact between the Philippines and Japan quickened noticeably. This was, of course, the result of the concurrence of the promise of the United States to grant independence to the Philippines, embodied firmly in the Tydings- McDuffie Act of 1934, and of the intensified interest in Southeast Asia at all levels in Japan. One manifestation of this phenomenon was the development of mutual Philippine-Japanese undertakings in what might broadly be called the cultural realm. I have already described elsewhere the establishment and operation of such organizations at the Philippine Society of Japan1 and of Philippine-Japanese student exchanges. However, in the paragraphs which follow I will turn my attention to the inception and subsequent scope of the exchange of university professors between Japan and the Philippines. In so doing, I hope to suggest that these exchanges, though limited in nature, were meaningful cultural interchanges for both countries and that their termination was precipitated not by any lack of enthusiasm on the part of either Japan or the Philippines but rather by the impasse in American-Japanese relations which immediately preceded the outbreak of World War II.

The relationship of England and France in the last two decades of the nineteenth century was an unhappy one, marked by acrimony, discord and mutual suspicion. Though the French and English states represented the chief bastions of western European parlia-mentarianism, ideological similarities are rarely sufficient to counteract a long tradition of ill-will. Bitterness had begun to poison the atmosphere of Anglo-French relations at the time of the British occupation of Egypt in 1882, and in the years that followed anglo-phobia appeared to have achieved endemic proportions in France. Great Britain's inclination toward the Triple Alliance was so marked in French eyes that she was generally regarded as the “fourth partner in the concern.” This viewpoint contributed greatly to the inflamed state of Anglo-French relations.

Was British expansion in Malaya the unitary expression of an implacable imperialism, in which gradually but inexorably British economic and political enterprise gained indirect hegemony and then unequivocal rule; in which, by friendship and guile, power and diplomacy, Malay chiefs and populace were controlled, Siamese authority negated, and European rivals bested? There was at Whitehall a steady interest in the late nineteenth century by Salisbury, Balfour, Chamberlain and others in furthering British control in Malaya. But the strategy of expansion, ardently pushed by Straits Settlements officials during the period of ‘High Imperialism’ in the late nineteenth century was checked by other imperatives of British imperialism in Asia. The British were reluctant to take any step in Malaya which, by offending and weakening the Siamese, would encourage French expansion in eastern Siam. Further, the Indian Government, the trustee of British military power in Asia, was unwilling to commit large resources to Southeast Asia which might have been required to combat Russia on India's northwest threshold. These factors limited a British forward movement in Malaya. At times, however, British expansionary fervour did burst stridently upon Malays and Siamese. In 1902 the British wrested concessions from Siam which allowed the placement of British ‘advisers’ in Kelantan and Trengganu, and by which Siam abandoned all prerogatives of interfering with these states' internal affairs. This study is directed to comprehension of the strategy of British expansion in Malaya, particularly of British efforts to sequester control of economic concessions and privileges in Kelantan and Trengganu, and the significance of these manoeuvres in preparing for the transfer of Kelantan, Trengganu, Kedah and Perlis from Siam to Britain in March, 1909.

This does not claim to be an adequate account of the 1915 Kelantan Rising. On the contrary, it is designed to show how little we yet know about it. It is not even mentioned in most English-language histories of Malaya. There is a certain amount about it in the Colonial Office files, but it will be an important part of my argument that these do not reveal what we most want to learn. My main intention is to suggest that a fuller study of it would make as good a starting-point as any for a more general review of the role played by armed Malay resistance in the history of the British period in Malaya. I shall further suggest certain lines which thinking on this subject might follow, but only very tentatively. If this article stimulates such new thinking along any lines at all, it will have achieved its purpose.

Under the direct rule of the British Colonial Government in nineteenth-century Singapore, the Chinese leaders held little political power. They were essentially community leaders, charitable and enterprising. They worked for peace and harmony in a multiracial society and were closely attached to the British Colonial administration. Though the Chinese leadership played various roles in economic, political, diplomatic and social fields, it was in the social arena that it contributed most. These nineteenth-century leaders were essentially social workers who had established no radical traditions nor shaped any unique patterns of leadership.

When invasion forces occupy a land, elements of the local population may regroup and organize into a resistance movement. In so doing, the resisters are challenging the legitimacy of the conqueror-imposed regime. Through tactics ranging from non-cooperation to armed combat, the resisters hope to sap the strength of the conqueror, attract outside military intervention, and eventually expel the alien.

The British Military Administration in Malaya: A Political Analysis

On 15 August 1945 a British Military Administration (BMA) was established by Proclamation in Malaya, newly-liberated from wartime Japanese occupation. In its post-operational phase this BMA comprised the effective government, of Malaya and Singapore pending restoration of civilian regime. From today's perspective this military interregnum demarcated an historic break from Malaya's passive colonial past, as the critical 1945–46 period constituted a political watershed for the movement towards Malayan independence. It is not our purpose here to survey BMA policy and politics, for these have been well documented elsewhere, but rather to study functionally the governmental structures of Malaya's post-war British Military Administration.

Since the end of the Second World War most sections of Malaysia's multi-racial and polyglot society have been significantly affected by political and economic developments. It is doubtful if any of the young nation's many communities have been more dramatically and profoundly influenced during the last few decades than the Orang Asli of Wes: Malaysia. This paper briefly scans the changes which have taken place in the Orang Asli's relationships and contacts with “outsiders” since the British took a direct and active part in the affairs of the Malay States in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Party politics started among the commercial Chinese in Sabah as indeed among the indigenous peoples by way of a reaction to the Malaysia proposal of May 1961. Though Chinese businessmen or towkays at first strongly opposed it they were cautious about how they should organize themselves and their protest. The big businessmen of Sandakan, apparently mindful of the relatively small population of the Chinese advised against a Chinese communal party and proposed a communally open one. Jesselton towkays thought in terms of a North Borneo Chinese Association, along the lines of the Malayan Chinese Association but made no move. Chinese leaders seemed to prefer to wait and see what the indigenous people did. The lead was enthusiastically taken by the United National Kadazan Organization, closely followed by the United Sabah National Party and a third party, Pasok Momogun (Son of the Soil) Organization, consisting of Muruts and those akin to the Kadazans but rejected that regional tribal name. In the event the cautious towkays were overtaken by differentiation among themselves. The lowkays' political organization was not only the last to open shop but did so in two different places under two different auspices. For a variety of reasons, the United Party started in February 1962 in Sandakan and the North Borneo Democratic Party began, after an initial reshuffle, in the same period in Jesselton.

The so-called Afdeeling B or Section B of the Sarekat Islam, discovered in the Sundanese ethnic area of the Preanger Regencies, West Java, in 1919, presents a valuable case study in the uses of local history because of its relationship to the Sarekat Islam, the first mass based nationalist type movement in Indonesia, which began in 1912. The discovery of the Afdeeling B also acted as a catalyst for opinions which had been maturing in all strata of the colonial society, both Indonesian and Dutch, and an examination of the reaction to it gives a clear picture of the diversity of that society.

Though the Persatuan Melayu Selangor (PMS) was not the first association of its kind in the peninsular states, there are several arguments in favour of selecting it for particular attention. To begin with, it is the only Malay political (or quasi-political) organisation of the 1930s for which anything like detailed records exist — a determinant of considerable, if perhaps chance, importance. That these records do exist may well, indeed, be more than a mere accident of time, reflecting rather the relative sophistication of the PMS in organisation and administrative procedure, its fondness for getting everything down on paper, preferably in multiple copies, and its very active life.1 Apart from this, however, the PMS is particularly interesting in other ways, in terms of its leadership (somewhat more variegate than that of other associations), of its close connection with at least one Malay national newspaper, and of the leading role it played not only in bringing about the two national congresses of state Malay associations before the war, but in providing the chairman for these meetings and helping to determine their agenda. This paper will be concerned primarily with the first year of the PMS, from June 1938 to May 1939 (the period covered by the records), but some attempt will be made to set it in context and to outline its later history.

The year 1338 was the occasion of a great event in the life of a certain John of Florence, for in December of that year he set out from Avignon on a journey that was to take him, in his capacity of Papal Legate, to the court of the Great Khan of Cathay in Peking. This Franciscan Friar of aristocratic Florentine lineage is best known to us under the name John Marignolli, sometimes Giovanni de' Marignola, and his importance for the history of South-East Asia lies in the fact that, like Marco Polo, he made his return voyage from China not by the Central Asian overland route again but by sea through the Indies and, what is more, though passing through many perils, survived to tell the tale.

The Philippine political system is an amalgam of 52 provinces headed by elective Governors serving four-year terms of office, dozens of urban and semi-urban communities chartered into cities by the national legislature and governed by City Mayors some of whom were presidential appointees before the passage of an omnibus city law making all these offices elective, hundreds of municipalities run by popularly elected Municipal Mayors, and thousands of rural villages called barrios which are romanticized in Filipino political circles as the place of redemption for those who have lost their souls. On top of these layers of political units is an omnipotent central government headed by a President whose constitutional powers of general supervision over all these local entities are exercised in the form of appointing city department heads such as police chiefs and city attorneys and reviewing city and municipal budgets before they go into effect. Another form in which these powers are exercised are the naming of barrios and city streets and the changing of the names of these barrios and city streets the exercise of which is shared by a bicameral legislature of more than 100 Congressmen and 24 Senators. Thus the polity that is the Philippine national government today is virtually a prototype of its predecessors, the Spanish and American colonial bureaucracies in the island, which charted the course of Filipino political development in years gone by. The purpose of this article is to discuss the role social forces played in the improvement of central-local relationships and evaluate the significance of these improvements in the context of Filipino ideas of politics and in the framework of their government.