East Asia, The Modern Transformation notes

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Page 7
Notes from

East Asia, The Modern Transformation
by John K. Fairbank, Edwin O. Reischauer, and Albert M. Craig

Even when it was a Spanish colony, Americans had important commercial interests in Manila, which was a gateway to the China trade. Manila was made an open port in the 1830s as the British East India Company monopoly was being ended in Canton. "American firms (like Russell, Sturgis and Company of Boston) for some decades played a major role in foreign trade in Manila" [726]

The pro-American bias of Transformation stands out in the treatment of the Philippines, where for instance on page 728 it mentions 4200 Americans died suppressing the Philippines independence movement, with no number for Filipino soldiers and civilians killed. The U.S. passed the Jones Law of 1916, revising the act of 1902, and promised independence to the Philippines "as soon as a stable government can be established," meanwhile establishing a Senate and House of Representatives to pretend to rule the colony. [728]

Just plain wrong data: "Since plantation-owning by non-Filipinos had been prevented and American investments in Philippine sugar, unlike those of Hawaii, were not great, no large vested interests opposed independence and the tariff barriers it would bring against Philippine products in the U.S.A." [729]

But in Siam (Thailand) in December 1920 the United States gave up extraterritoriality. [744]

American missionaries had flooded into Korea looking for more marks after the opening to Western contact in 1882. By 1910 about 200,000 Koreans were Christians. They caused trouble for the Japanese administration. Over a hundred Christians were arrested and imprisoned in 1911 after conspiring to assassinate the Japanese governor-general. Syngman Rhee [ later dictator of South Korea] was educated and converted by American Methodist missionaries, and after agitating for independence studied at Harvard, Princeton and George Washington University, then lived in Hawaii for 25 years. [761]

While Japan's rule over Korea was authoritarian and arrogant, it did result in substantial modernization, economic development, public health measure, an increase in the Korean population, and education. [762]

In April 1919 an attempt to set up an independent Korean government (effectively rebelling against the Japanese) got no response from President Woodrow Wilson. [763]

"Koreans were consequently the first East Asians to participate in the Soviet revolution." A Korean Communist Party was organized in 1918. While the Washington Conference acted as if Korea did not exist, "Moscow offered Korea full equality and brotherhood in the world revolution." As is typically the case, the pro-independence Koreans were deeply politically fragmented. [763-764]

In Burma, where anti-British feelings were strong, the Japanese were welcomed with "Asia for the Asiatics." But poor treatment by Japanese soldiers dulled Burmese enthusiasm. Ba Maw became the head of Burmese administration in August 1942, and the Japanese granted Burma independence on August 1, 1943. Maw declared war on the British Empire and its allies. But in March 1945 the Burmese National Army turned against the Japanese. The war destroyed much of Burma's infrastructure and even agriculture. [The British Empire cruelly reasserted itself in 1945 and did not formally admit to Burmese independence until January 4, 1948]

Summary of how Japanese in World War II strengthened independence movements is on page 773.

The alleged "granting" of independence to the Philippines by the U.S. in 1946 was marred by the U.S. maintaining military control through 99 year leases of bases and economic control through measures that would last until 1974. [774]

The cruel Dutch Empire reasserted control on Indonesia behind the British Army even as the Indonesian Republican Army was fighting the Japanese for control of Djakarta. As Dutch troops arrived they fought the Indonesians. "Faced with widespread disorder, the British for a time stopped disarming the Japanese and had them recapture cities from the Indonesians." By late 1946 the British and Japanese were both gone. The Dutch would fight to reconquer Indonesia for three years before giving up. [776] To many Indonesians it seemed America was neutral in order to help the Dutch empire. [777]

The Vietnamese under Ho Chi Minh had declared independence on September 2, 1945. The allies, Chinese in the north and British in the south, reoccupied Vietnam in mid-September 1945. The "Free French" [as opposed to the deposed Petain regime] arrived with the British imperial stormtroopers. When the British left in January 1946 the French Empire was in military control of most of the largest cities and towns in the south. The Chinese, however, cooperated with the Vietnamese, made a commercial treaty with the French, and withdrew during the spring of 1946. The Vietnamese nationalists (led by the Communists) in the north held an election [? when exactly], but on March 6, 1946 Ho signed an agreement whereby the French Empire recognized the Democratic Republic of Vietnam as a state within the French Union. Then French troops reoccupied Hanoi. French arrogance caused relations to quickly sour, and on December 19 the Viet Minh launched a war to force the French out of all of Vietnam. The United States provided arms to the French Empire. [778-780]

Continued on East Asia Transformation Page 8

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