(SEAT) Southern and Eastern Asia Today Governance Lesson

Southern and Eastern Asia Today Governance

Not all governments are set up in the same fashion. A government that decides to retain all of the power and not divide it among different levels is called a unitary government. A nation that divides its governmental power between one more powerful, central government and several smaller, weaker local governments is using a federal system of government. Lastly, a government that divides its powers equally among different levels of government is called a confederation.

The form of government- whether unitary, federal, or confederate- does not tell us the amount of civic participation allowed by the government. "Civic participation" describes the role individual citizens play within the government. An example of civic participation would be voting or running for political office. By looking at the amount of civic participation allowed by a government, we can determine the system of government a nation has chosen. An autocracy does not allow any civic participation within the government because usually these governments are represented by a monarchy or dictatorship. An oligarchy is a government where a minority of people are allowed to participate in the government and usually these governments are found in nations where few people have the right to vote or in a nation where one political party yields all of the power. Democracy literally means, "people rule" and has the most civic participation. Republics, where people elect leaders to represent them in either a presidential democracy or a parliamentary democracy, represent these.

India and Pakistan

Located in the South Asia region and right next door to each other, India and Pakistan shared the experience of the British Raj. Mohandas Gandhi was the spokesperson for both Hindu and Muslim Indians and Pakistanis who pushed for independence from British rule. You did an assignment on Gandhi in the last module. Gandhi practiced fasting, peaceful disobedience of British laws, and boycotts of British goods to help bring an end to the British Raj. Following World War II, Great Britain decided that it was time to remove its presence from India and, in 1945, announced that they would withdraw and allow the nationalist movements to take over. The only problem was that there was a split among the nationalists. The division fell along with regional and religious divisions. The Indian National Congress represented the Hindu nationalists and the Muslim League represented the Muslim nationalists. Fear of being underrepresented in a new government that reflected the majority Hindu population, the Muslim League pushed for a separate nation of their own. Therefore, on August 15, 1947, the nation of Pakistan was created and partitioned out of India. Muslims moved out of India into Pakistan and Hindus moved out of Pakistan into India. Each nation developed its own form of government with different leaders. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, an instrumental leader in creating Pakistan, became the newborn nation's first Governor-General. Jawaharlal Nehru, instrumental in securing India's independence from Great Britain, became India's first Prime Minister.

Unfortunately, the first year of India's and Pakistan's independence was marked by war and the deaths of beloved political figures. When India and Pakistan split into two nations, the states along the new border were allowed to choose which side of the border to join. Kashmir, a state in northwest India, was mostly populated with Muslims but was led by a Hindu maharajah. The maharajah chose for Kashmir to remain a part of India and within days of independence Pakistani troops marched into the region causing a year-long war. As for the deaths mentioned earlier, in January 1948, an assassin's bullet struck down the peaceful Mohandas Gandhi. The man who pulled the trigger was an Indian Hindu who blamed Gandhi for the partition of Indian land and the creation of Pakistan. Nine months later, Muhammad Ali Jinnah succumbed to tuberculosis and passed away.

Japan, China, North Korea, and South Korea

These four nations are located in East Asia. Their relatively close proximity to each other caused their histories and cultures to overlap often in the centuries before World War II. Yet, in the seven decades since World War II ended, these nations have taken extremely different paths.

Japan

Japan attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in 1941. Japan fought World War II on the same side as the Axis powers of Germany and Italy. The United States fought alongside the Allied powers of Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union (Russia). After Germany and Italy surrendered and fighting ceased in Europe, the Allies were able to concentrate on defeating the Japanese. However, this task was not going to happen easily. During the war, Japan enjoyed great success at invading other Asian nations. By the time fighting ended in Europe in 1945, Japan occupied parts of China, Manchuria, Korea, French Indochina, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), and the Philippines. Attacking Japan from land or water seemed impossible. The Allies began dropping thousands of tons of firebombs on Japan from the air in the spring of 1945. These attacks caused a great deal of destruction in the mostly wood-built cities of Japan. On July 26, 1945, the Allies issued an ultimatum to Japan to surrender. The Japanese rejected the ultimatum which did not refer to America's secret weapon- the atomic bomb. On August 6, 1945, an American plane dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, decimating it. America dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki three days later. At this point, Japan surrendered. The war ended on August 14, 1945. Japan was now in ruins and it would take time to rebuild. But, rebuild they did- under American occupation.

China

At the end of World War II, the leader of China's Nationalist Party- Chiang Kai-shek- was still in charge of China. As a leader, Chiang Kai-shek had made many improvements in the areas of transportation, education, and industry in China, but he had done very little for the peasants or workers of China. Both groups grew increasingly frustrated with the Chinese government and turned to the only other political party available to them- the Communists.

The Nationalists and the Communists had been at odds for decades. When the Nationalists took over the government, about 100,000 Communists walked on a 6,000-mile journey north called the Long March in 1934 to escape. During the Long March, one particular communist emerged as the party's leader- Mao Zedong. In the late 1930s, under threat of a Japanese take-over, the Nationalist and Communist Parties put aside their differences and worked together to keep Japan from taking over China. But when the Second World War ended in 1945, the two parties resumed their animosity towards each other and began to struggle anew for political control of China. Remember that according to the way the Chinese government was structured at the time, whichever political party was on top was the group that controlled all of the political power in China.

Finally, in 1949, the struggle between the two parties ended. The Communists defeated the Nationalists and Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan taking his government with him. On October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong announced the creation of the Communist state of China called the People's Republic of China.

North Korea and South Korea

During World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union fought on the same side even though one had a democratic government with a capitalist economy and the other had a communist government and economy. When the United States and the Soviet Union no longer had a common enemy, they entered a new stage of their relationship that resulted in the Cold War. The reason their relationship at the time is referred to as a "Cold War" is that technically both remained at peace with each other and never declared war on each other, hence it was "cold." However, no one would call the Cold War a peaceful one, and wars were fought with American and Soviet support on behalf of other nations. The first example of this was found on the Korean Peninsula. Following World War II, the Soviet Union occupied the northern half of the Korean Peninsula while the United States occupied the southern half. The Soviet Union and the United States were at such opposite ends of the government and economic spectrum that they could not agree on how to reunite the two halves of the Korean Peninsula.

Eventually, the two halves formed their own independent governments- one communist with the help of the Soviet Union and one a democratic republic with the help of the United States. However, in 1950 North Korean armies invaded South Korea in the hopes of reuniting the peninsula into one communist nation. North Korea had the support of the Soviet Union to back their war efforts while South Korea relied on American and United Nations support. The war resulted in a heavy loss of Korean lives (on both sides) and heavy destruction of the Korean environment (again, on both sides). When the end of the Korean War came in 1953, the political line that divided North and South Korea had not noticeably moved. The border remained the same (located along the 38th Parallel) as it had been three years earlier.

Vietnam and Indonesia

Vietnam and Indonesia are both located in Southeast Asia. They also have a shared history in both being colonies of European nations before World War II and then being occupied by Japan during the war. Following World War II, both experienced nationalist movements to oust their previous colonial governments and both had to fight for autonomy. However, the similarities end there.

Vietnam

Vietnam was part of France's colonial empire named French Indochina. During the war, Ho Chi Minh- the leader of the Vietnamese Communist Party- set up the League for the Independence of Vietnam as it was known in English. In Vietnamese, they were called the Vietminh. Their purpose was to fight against the occupying Japanese and to resist the return of French rule following the end of the war. They were only partially successful. The Vietminh were able to take control of northern Vietnam and establish a government there. They named their new state the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. But the French retained control over southern Vietnam. France attempted to regain control of northern Vietnam causing a war to break out in 1946 between the French and the Vietminh. Eight years later, the French-controlled city of Dien Bien Phu fell to the Vietminh and a cease-fire and peace treaty were soon drawn up. The border between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and South Vietnam was drawn along the 17^th Parallel- the Democratic Republic of Vietnam established a communist government under Ho Chi Minh north of the parallel and France pulled out of South Vietnam handing over the reins to the local Vietnamese who did not establish a communist government. Part of the treaty that France and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam signed included a plan to hold an election in 1956 over whether or not to reunite the two Vietnams. Ngo Dinh Diem, the elected leader of South Vietnam, refused to allow the election, and disgruntled South Vietnamese rebels began to organize. Known as the Vietcong, these southern rebels went to work undermining Ngo Dinh Diem's government. This, as it turns out, they were pretty good at. When Diem's own military overthrew him in 1963, he was killed. From that point forward, it became almost impossible to set up an honest and competent government in South Vietnam. The United States, which had kept a military presence in South Vietnam since its days as a French colony, increased their military personnel in South Vietnam. In line with its policy of containment, the United States had supplied the South Vietnam government under Ngo Dinh Diem with military aid even though his style of governing resembled a dictatorship more than a democracy. When Ngo Dinh Diem fell and South Vietnam's government experienced year after year of chaos, the United States eventually took over the fight against the communist Vietminh attacking from the north and the local Vietcong attacking from within. In 1965, the United States started sending in American troops and bombing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). By 1968, 550,000 American soldiers were stationed in Vietnam with another 70,000 waiting in the wings. South Vietnam supplied roughly 700,000 soldiers and another 40,000 South Vietnamese civilians willing to assist. Based on these numbers, South Vietnam had over one million people fighting to keep South Vietnam from falling to the communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Yet, in the end, they were not able to stop the approximately 400,000 people fighting on behalf of North Vietnam and the Vietcong. For the five years between 1968 and 1973, the opponents from both sides participated in peace talks that accomplished very little while heavy fighting continued. In the end, the United States slowly withdrew its support and troops from South Vietnam; at the same time, the Soviet Union stepped up its support of North Vietnam. The war came to a halt in 1975 when the South Vietnamese government finally fell to the communists from the north. In 1976, the two Vietnamese nations reunited as one called the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

Indonesia

At first, Indonesia experienced something very similar to Vietnam after World War II. After Japan surrendered, the Netherlands tried to reinstate its rule over its colony. The Dutch soon found that their colonists were not interested in reinstating Dutch rule. Nationalists in Indonesia formed a revolutionary government following the war. However, unlike their neighbors in North Vietnam who set up a communist government, the rebels in Indonesia structured their government as a presidential democracy. The new Indonesian government fought against the Dutch and were finally successful in 1949. However, that did not mean that peace finally came to Indonesia. Indeed, their path to 21^st Century Indonesia has been bloody and full of controversy.

Review this timeline to learn more about Indonesia.

 

Challenge

Take Away

 

After World War II, the Cold War began with the USA and USSR in a standoff to spread democracy and communism throughout the world. Asia was the focal point of this Cold War. Wars in Vietnam and Korea saw communism spreading. After World War II, the United States was able to stabilize Japan and create a long-lasting successful democracy. Today we continue to see the after-effects of communism throughout the region.

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