The United States Southeast Asia In The Twentieth Century

This course begins with a general introduction to US relations with Southeast Asia from the early twentieth century, when America concluded its colonization of the Philippines to the present. Here, you will become familiar with US-European interactions in response to the rise of Japan after World War One and the impact of European communism on Southeast Asian nationalism, unleashed by the Communist Revolution in Russia. Thereafter, you will study how Japanese imperialism severely weakened the European powers, focusing specifically on the Japanese occupation period and the experiences of Southeast Asians. Seminal events that you will examine include US competition with the Soviet Union and China for clients and allies in Southeast Asia; American meddling in revolutionary nationalist movements in the region; the impact of the Vietnam War upon regionalism in Southeast Asia, the Asian economic miracle and crisis from the 1980s through the 1990s, and how the stage was set for Southeast Asia to become the second front in the global war on terror, as well as the theatre for the Sino-US rivalry in the new century.