Colonial Armies in Southeast Asia

352 Pages·2006·0.46 MB·English

by  Karl Hack

Colonial Armies in Southeast Asia
Colonial armies were the focal points for some of the most dramatic tensions inherent in
Chinese, Japanese and Western clashes with Southeast Asia. In this volume, an
international team of scholars takes the reader on a compelling exploration from Ming
China to the present day: examining their conquests, management and decolonisation.
The journey covers perennial themes such as the recruitment, loyalty, and varied
impact of foreign-dominated forces. But it also ventures into unchartered waters by
highlighting Asian use of ‘colonial’ forces to dominate other Asians. This sends the
reader back in time to the fifteenth century Chinese expansion into Yunnan and Vietnam,
and forwards to regional tensions in present-day Indonesia, and post-colonial issues in
Malaysia and Singapore.
Drawing these strands together, the book shows how colonial armies must be located
within wider patterns of demography, and within bigger systems of imperial security and
power—American, British, Chinese, Dutch, French, Indonesian, and Japanese—which in
turn helped to shape modern Southeast Asia.
Colonial Armies in Southeast Asia will interest scholars working on low intensity
conflict, on the interaction between armed forces and society, on comparative
imperialism, and on Southeast Asia.
Karl Hack is Associate Professor at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang
Technological University, Singapore.
Tobias Rettig is Adjunct Professor in the School of Economics and Social Sciences at
Singapore Management University.
Routledge Studies in the Modern History of
Asia
1 The Police in Occupation Japan
Control, corruption and resistance to reform
Christopher Aldous
2 Chinese Workers
A new history
Jackie Sheehan
3 The Aftermath of Partition in South Asia
Tai Yong Tan and Gyanesh Kudaisya
4 The Australia-Japan Political Alignment
1952 to the present
Alan Rix
5 Japan and Singapore in the World Economy
Japan’s economic advance into Singapore, 1870–1965
Shimizu Hiroshi and Hirakawa Hitoshi
6 The Triads as Business
Yiu Kong Chu
7 Contemporary Taiwanese Cultural Nationalism
A-chin Hsiau
8 Religion and Nationalism in India
The case of the Punjab
Harnik Deol
9 Japanese Industrialisation
Historical and cultural perspectives
Ian Inkster
10 War and Nationalism in China
1925–1945
Hans J.van de Ven
11 Hong Kong in Transition
One country, two systems
Edited by Robert Ash, Peter Ferdinand, Brian Hook and Robin Porter
12 Japan’s Postwar Economic Recovery and Anglo-Japanese Relations, 1948–1962
Noriko Yokoi
13 Japanese Army Stragglers and Memories of the War in Japan, 1950–1975
Beatrice Trefalt
14 Ending the Vietnam War
The Vietnamese communists’ perspective
Ang Cheng Guan
15 The Development of the Japanese Nursing Profession
Adopting and adapting western influences
Aya Takahashi
16 Women’s Suffrage in Asia
Gender nationalism and democracy
Louise Edwards and Mina Roces
17 The Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 1902–1922
Phillips Pay son O’Brien
18 The United States and Cambodia, 1870–1969
From curiosity to confrontation
Kenton Clymer
19 Capitalist Restructuring and the Pacific Rim
Ravi Arvind Palat
20 The United States and Cambodia, 1969–2000
A troubled relationship
Kenton Clymer
21 British Business in Post-colonial Malaysia, 1957–70
‘Neo-colonialism’ or ‘disengagement’?
Nicholas J.White
22 The Rise and Decline of Thai Absolutism
Kullada Kesboonchoo Mead
23 Russian Views of Japan, 1792–1913
An anthology of travel writing
David N.Wells
24 The Internment of Western Civilians under the Japanese, 1941–1945
A patchwork of internment
Bernice Archer
25 The British Empire and Tibet
1900–1922
Wendy Palace
26 Nationalism in Southeast Asia
If the people are with us
Nicholas Tarling
27 Women, Work and the Japanese Economic Miracle
The case of the cotton textile industry, 1945–1975
Helen Macnaughtan
28 A Colonial Economy in Crisis
Burma’s rice delta and the world depression of the 1930s
Ian Brown
29 A Vietnamese Royal Exile in Japan
Prince Cuong De (1882–1951)
Tran My-Van
30 Corruption and Good Governance in Asia
Nicholas Tarling
31 US-China Cold War Collaboration, 1971–1989
S.Mahmud Ali
32 Rural Economic Development in Japan
From the nineteenth century to the Pacific war
Penelope Francks
33 Colonial Armies in Southeast Asia
Edited by Karl Hack and Tobias Rettig

Colonial Armies in Southeast Asia
Edited by Karl Hack and Tobias Rettig

LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 2006 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX 14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York
NY10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006

.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of
thousands of eBooks please go to http://www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk/.”

© 2006 Edited by Karl Hack and Tobias Rettig
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or
by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from
the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Colonial armies in Southeast Asia/edited by
Karl Hack and Tobias Rettig. p. cm.—(Routledge studies in the modern history of Asia) Includes
bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-415-33413-6 (hardback: alk. paper) 1. Asia,
Southeastern—Armed Forces—History—19th century. 2. Asia, Southeastern—Armed Forces—
History—20th century. 3. Imperialism— History—19th century. 4. Imperialism—History—20th
century. 5. Asia, Southeastern—Politics and government. I. Hack, Karl. II. Rettig, Tobias. III.
Series. UA832.8.C66 2005 355′00959′09034–dc22 2005009684
ISBN 0-203-41466-7 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-69278-0 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN10:0-415-33413-6 (Print Edition)
ISBN13:9-78-0-415-33413-6 (Print Edition)
Contents

List of illustrations x
List of maps xi
List of tables xii
List of contributors xiv
Preface xvii
Acknowledgements xviii
Abbreviations and glossary xix

1
PART 1 Background

1 Imperial systems of power, colonial forces and the making of modern 2
Southeast Asia
KARL HACK WITH TOBIAS RETTIG
2 Demography and domination in Southeast Asia 36

KARL HACK AND TOBIAS RETTIG
3 Ming Chinese colonial armies in Southeast Asia 68

GEOFF WADE

99
PART 2 Experimenting with tools of conquest and domination

4 Ethnicity and martial races: the Garde indigène of Cambodia in the 100
1880s and 1890s
SARAH WOMACK
5 Double-edged swords of conquest in Indochina: Tirailleurs Tonkinois, 119
Chasseurs annamites and militias, 1883–1895
HENRI ECKERT
6 The mixed company: fighting power and ethnic relations in the Dutch 146
Colonial Army, 1890–1920
GERKE TEITLER
161
PART 3 Loyalty and revolt in the era of nationalism and war

7 American exceptionalism in colonial forces? The Philippine Scout 162
mutiny of 1924
RICHARD MEIXSEL
8 Colonial forces in British Burma: a national army postponed 185

ROBERT H.TAYLOR

201
PART 4 Decolonisation

9 The impact of the Japanese occupation on colonial and anti-colonial 202
armies in Southeast Asia
ABU TALIB AHMAD
10 Imperialism and decolonisation in Southeast Asia: colonial forces and 227
British world power
KARL HACK

254
PART 5 Postcolonial analyses and residues

11 Colonial militias in East Timor from the Portuguese period to 255
independence
GEOFFREY ROBINSON
12 Colonial forces as postcolonial memories: the commemoration and 286
memory of the Malay Regiment in modern Malaysia and Singapore
KEVIN BLACKBURN

Index 310