Decolonization in Asia

We explain what the decolonization process in Asia was. In addition, its causes and history.

What was decolonization in Asia?

The decolonization in Asia was A process that led to the independence of the old European colonies in the Asian continent. Most independence occurred after World War II, especially At the end of the 1940s and during the 1950s and 1960s.

Decolonization It was due to the impulse of the nationalist movements of the Asian colonieswhose leaders often received a western education. These movements were very active since World War I (1914-1918), and expanded their independence pressure after World War II (1939-1945), when France and Great Britain showed that they were not invincible powers.

The first Asian territories that emancipated after World War II, in 1945, were those that had been occupied by the Japanese between 1941 and 1942, although their consolidation and recognition took some years.

In the Middle East, independence began in 1946 (With the exception of Iraq that obtained it in 1932), and The main British colony (India) became independent in 1947. The other European possessions in Asia were accessing independence in a process that, In some cases (such as Indochina), it was linked to the conflicts of the cold war.

See also: decolonization in the twentieth century

Causes of decolonization in Asia

The maintenance of colonial empires with presence in Asia and Africa (British, French, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese) began to become unsustainable after World War II. European governments had to access the claims of independence movements For a series of reasons:

• The nationalist movements, generally led by leaders formed with Western ideas of freedom and independence, intensified their claims due to the discredit that European governments had suffered during the war (such as France and the United Kingdom, which depended on the intervention of the United States and the Soviet Union to overcome Nazi Germany)
• The independence claims gained legitimacy due to the Participation of some colonial troops in allied armies during the war (like the Indian forces in the British army).
• The Economic weakness that Europe was going through After the devastation of the war caused European nations to concentrate their efforts on their own internal reconstruction.
• The two superpowers that arose from World War II (United States and Soviet Union) were contrary to the old European colonial orderand the UN (United Nations Organization) encouraged the end of colonialism. This situation generated, on the other hand, that some struggles for independence would be linked to the cold war, that is, they were freed by movements related to communism (supported by the Soviet Union or by communist China) or aligned with Western capitalism (supported by the United States).

Even so, Negotiations to get to Independence were not exempt from episodes of violence and sometimes they gave rise to fierce wars. Anyway, the process was quite fast and, in the sixties, most of the colonies had accessed independence. Dozens of new states thus joined the international community.

India independence and partition

The Indian nationalist movement

The Nationalist Movement of India It was one of the oldest. As of 1885 he was organized around the Congress Party and, after World War I, led by Mahatma Gandhi, defender of nonviolence, who had conducted university studies in England.

Together with his disciple and then the main political leader of the movement, Jawāharlāl nehru, Gandhi insistently claimed the independence of India regarding the British Empireeven before World War II ended, when he promoted the movement India Quit (Abandon India) in 1942, which caused Gandhi, Nehru and other nationalist militants to be imprisoned by the British.

The difficult economic situation of Europe after World War II and the victory of the Labor Party in the United Kingdom in 1945 (which led its leader, Clement Attlee, to the position of Prime Minister) facilitated negotiations with the Indian nationalists who began that same year. However, two facing positions emerged: Gandhi and Nehru defended the maintenance of a single multi -religious state, while The leader of the Muslim League, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, raised the colony partition In two states, one Hindu and another Muslim.

After a series of violent disturbances (1946-1947), Nehru finally accepted the partition. The result was the Birth, on August 15, 1947, of two independent states: the union of India (then Republic of India), Hindu majority and led by the Congress party of Nehru, and Pakistan (then Islamic Republic of Pakistan), of Muslim majority.

Hindu and Muslim population transfers through the borders during the partition process caused acts of violence with a balance of thousands of dead. From now on, India and Pakistan filed a conflict that continues in the 21st century.

The Republic of India

After independence, India, the second most populous country on the planet, became “the greatest democracy in the world” (that is, the democratic regime with the largest population in the world). The 1950 Constitution proclaimed a Federal Republic with political freedoms and vote right for the entire adult population.

In addition, Nehru was one of the drivers of the movement of non -aligned countries (together with Nasser, from Egypt, and Sukarno, of Indonesia), which intended to defend the interests of the decolonized countries of the Third World in the context of the Cold War.

The Congress Partywhose direction was in the hands of Nehru and, then, of his family, ruled from independence to the nineties. Jawāharlāl Nehru happened as Prime Minister his daughter Indira Gandhi (1966-1977 and 1980-1984) and, after the murder of this, his grandson Rajiv Gandhi (1984-1989).

Nehru implemented a state -controlled economy, whose results were a growth around 3 % of GDP, which barely compensated for the powerful population growth.

The situation of economic stagnation and poverty, added to Certain acts of corruption attributed to the Rajiv Gandhi government, caused political alternation In the nineties, with the electoral defeat of the Congress Party and the application of liberalizing economic reforms (some of them implemented by the Congress party itself) that raised the growth rates.

Indonesian independence

During World War II, The Empire of Japan defeated and evicted the Dutch from their colony in Indonesia (called Dutch Eastern Indies) in 1942. In this context, the nationalist movement led by the Indonesian revolutionary Sukarno, who had been educated in Dutch institutes in the colony and had been sent into exile for exile for his anti -colonial agitation, charged vigor.

With the arrival of Japanese troops in 1942, Sukarno was released from his exile. Three years later, when these troops surrendered to the allies, Indonesian nationalists proclaimed the independence of the country on August 17, 1945.

Once World War II, The Netherlands government tried twice to resume the control of the archipelago by forcein 1947 and 1948. The pressures of the UN and the United States were added to the Indonesian resistance (the US government came to threaten to withdraw the help of the Marshall Plan to the Netherlands, an assistance program for the economic recovery of European countries after the devastation of the war).

This situation led, at the end of 1949, to Indonesia will reach its independence under the presidency of Sukarnorecognized by the Dutch government. Indonesia became a democratic republic, but during the fifties it was affected by political instability, which resulted in an authoritarian government model that sukarno headed with the name of “directed democracy.” In 1967 Sukarno was overthrown and replaced by General Suharto, who ruled Indonesia until 1998.

Indochina and Korea wars

Indochina (Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia) was part of the French empire since the second half of the 19th century. Korea fell under Japanese control in 1907, officially annexed to the Empire of Japan in 1910. After the end of World War II, The decolonizing process in both countries was confused with the conflicts of the cold war.

The leader of Viet Minh (nationalist and communist guerrillas of Vietnam), Ho Chi Minh, proclaimed the independence of Vietnam in September 1945 and this caused a war with the French army between 1946 and 1954. With the support of communist China, Viet Minh managed to defeat the Frenchwhich were definitely defeated in the battle of Dien well Phu (1954).

The result of the Indochina War was the signing of the Geneva agreements, which They agreed the independence of Laos and Cambodia and the Vietnam partition in two states: Northern Vietnam (communist), governed by Ho Chi Minh, and South Vietnam (Pro-Western), which was based by the United States.

From 1955 A new war between the north and the south broke out, in which the United States became increasingly involved: First he sent advisors and then troops to counteract the advance of communism in the region. The result of the Vietnam War was the triumph of the communists in 1975 and the Unification of Vietnam under a single socialist government.

In Korea, The 1945 Japanese defeat caused the Korean division in two areasthe northern under the influence of the Soviet and southern union under the influence of the United States. But the South Invasion by the North Korean government in 1950 caused a war that lasted until 1953. American troops were involved supporting South Korea, while the Soviet and China Union supported North Korea. The result was an armistice that ratified the separation between two states.

Asian tigers

The decolonization of the “Asian tigers”

Two small countries (South Korea and Taiwan) and two cities (Singapore and Hong Kong) starred in an important economic development since the early sixties. South Korea was constituted as an independent republic in 1948although he had to cross the Korean war between 1950 and 1953.

Taiwan became independent of the Empire of Japan in 1945 and became part of the Republic of China. However, after the defeat of the Kuomintang nationalist army against the communist troops led by Mao Zedong in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party established the People's Republic of China and The nationalists retreated in Taiwan, where they established their own republic.

Singapore It was a British colony that remained in the hands of the Japanese in 1942 and returned to British control in 1945. He obtained his independence in 1963 when he joined the Federation of Malaysia, and in 1965 he separated of said Federation to be constituted as the Republic of Singapore.

Hong Kong was a British colony which was occupied by Japan in 1941 and recovered by the United Kingdom in 1945, Until she was ceded to the People's Republic of China in 1997. Since then it is a special administrative region that It is under Chinese sovereignty but has an important degree of autonomy.

Economy and Politics of the “Asian Tigers”

Except for Hong Kong, The economic growth of these regions as of the 1960s was based on rapid industrialization That combined state intervention, business spirit, export promotion, high productivity, labor abundance and a high level of population savings.

These territories they abandoned the condition of underdeveloped countries and they belonged to the payroll of industrialized countries, So they were known as the four “Asian tigers”. Economic development did not correspond to a democratization of political systems.

In South Korea, although it was formally a republic, it ruled a dictatorship headed by General Park Chung-Hee between 1961 and 1979, which lasted until 1987 (when the Constitution was reformed). In Taiwan, General Chiang Kai-Chek ruled as president until 1975, so some characterize him as a dictator. Only in 1992 the first free elections on the island were held.

Singapore was authoritatively governed from before Independence in 1965 and until 1990 by politician Lee Kuan-Yew, and Hong Kong stopped being a British colony only in 1997.

Independence in the Middle East

In the interwar period, the United Kingdom recognized the independence of some Arab countries, such as Egypt (in Africa) and Iraq (in Asia). In 1946, After World War II, independence took place in the territories of the Mediterranean Levant that had been under the authority of the United Kingdom and France: Syria, Transjordan (then Jordan) and Lebanon.

The British Palestine mandate concluded in May 1948 with the creation of the State of Israel. Previously there had been conflicts between the Jewish and Muslim populations of the region, which led the UN to approve in 1947 a plan of division of the territory between a Jewish state and an Arab State.

Once the independence of the State of Israel was proclaimed on May 14, 1948, an Arab coalition (Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq) invaded the territory of the new state and thus began The First Arab-Israeli War that He concluded in July 1949 with the Israeli victory. This result consolidated the position of the state of Israel, who continued to receive Jewish immigrants while thousands of Palestinians became refugees, but did not stop the Arab-Israeli conflicts in the region, which continue in the 21st century.

Decolonization in other countries in Asia

Other countries that became independent during the decolonization process in Asia were:

• Philippines (1946), which had been colonized by the United States.
• Burma (1948), which had been British colony.
• Sri Lanka (1948), called Ceylon during the British domain.
• Malaysia (1963), which was made up of old British colonies.
• Eastern Timor (1975), Portuguese colony that after independence was occupied by Indonesia, until its independence was recognized again in 2002.

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References

• Getz, T. (SF). Political decolonizationC.1945-1997. Khan Academy. https://www.khanacademy.org/
• Metcalf, B. and Metcalf, T. (2014). History of India. Third edition. Akal.
• Springhall, J. (2001). Decolonization Since 1945. The Collapse of European Overseas Empires. Network Globe Press.