Communism, Cold War and Commodity Chains: Southeast Asian Labor History in a Comparative and Transnational Perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 97 ◽  
pp. 159-179
Author(s):  
Ulbe Bosma
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Commodity Chains ◽  
Global Commodity Chains ◽  
Advanced Economies ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World

The geographical term “Southeast Asia” dates from the 1930s, and came to denote a topic for academic studies in the early days of the Cold War. As such, it includes Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Indochina, Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia, Brunei, and the Philippines. Southeast Asia has become thoroughly incorporated in the global economy over the past 150 years; first, as a producer of commodities, and later, as a supplier of cheap garments and electronic components. Under Dutch colonialism and British hegemony—the latter established by the conquest of Burma and the imposition of free trade on Siam and the Philippines in the 1850s—Southeast Asia was turned into a key provider of commodities for the industrializing countries. During high colonialism, from 1870 to 1930, the region became increasingly intertwined, via Singapore as the central port and through the role of mainland Southeast Asia as the rice basket for the plantations of maritime Southeast Asia. After the Second World War, the region was the world's most violent frontier of containment for communist expansion. In recent decades, Southeast Asia has become integrated in global commodity chains as a producer of cheap industrial goods, often as a subcontractor for more advanced economies, such as those of Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, and later on, Southeast China.

scholarly journals The “Natural Ally” of the “Developing World”: Bulgarian Culture in India and Mexico

Slavic Review ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 77 (3) ◽  
pp. 661-684
Author(s):  
Theodora Dragostinova
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Developing World ◽  
Cultural Diplomacy ◽  
Global South ◽  
Cultural Relations ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Second World

This article examines Bulgarian cultural relations with India and Mexico in the 1970s to explore the role of cultural diplomacy in the relationship between the Second and the Third Worlds during the Cold War. In 1975, Liudmila Zhivkova, the daughter of the Bulgarian leader, became the head of the Committee for Culture; under her patronage, Bulgarian officials organized literally hundreds of exhibitions, concerts, academic conferences, book readings, cultural weeks, and visits that involved the three countries in an intense cultural romance. Even though Bulgaria was known as the “Soviet master satellite,” culture provided a considerable level of independence in Bulgarian dealings with international actors, which often caused Soviet irritation. In the end, by using culture, in addition to political and economic aid, Bulgaria managed to forge its role as an intermediary between the Second World and the Global South, and to project its notions of development on a global scene.

Southeast Asia and the United States

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenton Clymer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Southeast Asian ◽  
Asian Countries ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Southeast Asian Countries

The U.S. relationship with Southeast Asia has always reflected the state of U.S. interactions with the three major powers that surround the region: Japan, China, and, to a lesser extent, India. Initially, Americans looked at Southeast Asia as an avenue to the rich markets that China and India seemed to offer, while also finding trading opportunities in the region itself. Later, American missionaries sought to save Southeast Asian souls, while U.S. officials often viewed Southeast Asia as a region that could tip the overall balance of power in East Asia if its enormous resources fell under the control of a hostile power. American interest expanded enormously with the annexation of the Philippines in 1899, an outgrowth of the Spanish-American War. That acquisition resulted in a nearly half-century of American colonial rule, while American investors increased their involvement in exploiting the region’s raw materials, notably tin, rubber, and petroleum, and missionaries expanded into areas previously closed to them. American occupation of the Philippines heightened tensions with Japan, which sought the resources of Southeast Asia, particularly in French Indochina, Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies (today’s Indonesia). Eventually, clashing ambitions and perceptions brought the United States into World War II. Peeling those territories away from Japan during the war was a key American objective. Americans resisted the Japanese in the Philippines and in Burma, but after Japan quickly subdued Southeast Asia, there was little contact in the region until the reconquest began in 1944. American forces participated in the liberation of Burma and also fought in the Dutch Indies and the Philippines before the war ended in 1945. After the war, the United States had to face the independence struggles in several Southeast Asian countries, even as the Grand Alliance fell apart and the Cold War emerged, which for the next several decades overshadowed almost everything. American efforts to prevent communist expansion in the region inhibited American support for decolonization and led to war in Vietnam and Laos and covert interventions elsewhere. With the end of the Cold War in 1991, relations with most of Southeast Asia have generally been normal, except for Burma/Myanmar, where a brutal military junta ruled. The opposition, led by the charismatic Aung San Suu Kyi, found support in the United States. More recently American concerns with China’s new assertiveness, particularly in the South China Sea, have resulted in even closer U.S. relations with Southeast Asian countries.

In the Name of Anticommunism: Chinese practices of ideological accommodation in the early Cold War Philippines

2019 ◽  
Vol 53 (05) ◽  
pp. 1543-1573
Author(s):  
CHIEN-WEN KUNG
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Chinese Diaspora ◽  
World War ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Resident Aliens ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World

AbstractThis article builds on work by social and cultural historians of the Cold War such as Heonik Kwon and Masuda Hajimu by showing how three groups of Chinese actors helped create the locally specific reality of Chinese anticommunism in the Philippines during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It argues that, in a climate thick with Sinophobia and fears of communism, but largely devoid of actual Chinese Reds, anticommunism for the Chinese was only secondarily about rooting out subversives, ideological authenticity, and supporting Chiang Kai-shek's counterattack against mainland China. As a social phenomenon, it was primarily a diverse and flexible repertoire of practices, from crime to civic associationism, that Chinese elites and their challengers employed to bolster their reputations as anticommunists, enrich themselves, and pursue vendettas against their ‘communist’ enemies. By focusing on these practices of what I call ideological accommodation, the article intervenes in scholarship on the Chinese diaspora after the Second World War by showing that anticommunism was essential to how the overseas Chinese adapted to being resident ‘aliens’ in post-colonial Philippine society.

The Changing Role of Dialogue in the International Relations of Southeast Asia

Asian Survey ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 51 (5) ◽  
pp. 953-970 ◽  
Author(s):  
KIM HYUNG JONG ◽  
LEE POH PING
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
External Threat ◽  
Dialogue Mechanism ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Changing Role

ASEAN’s dialogue mechanism has been evolving from consensus-seeking to strategic means, to use the Habermas distinction. This consensus norm was maintained during the Cold War because of rapport among ASEAN leaders and the presence of an external threat. However, ASEAN expansion to 10 countries, the emergence of non-traditional threats to security, and democratization have weakened this norm.

scholarly journals The Heritage of the Cold War in Contemporary Curricula and Educational Reforms

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 11
Author(s):  
Tomislav Topolovčan ◽  
Snježana Dubovicki
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Educational Reforms ◽  
Educational Systems ◽  
World War ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World

Using a theoretical-critical and historical approach, this paper analyses the implications of the Cold War in national curricula and educational reforms of the second half of the 20th century with emphasis on the 21st century. The context of the time after the Second World War and the beginning of the Cold War is shown, as well as the social and political changes that are significant for education and were prompted by the wars. The emergence of the international Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (whose focus is not educational but economic) and the role of behavioural psychology were also analysed, which explained their significance in later educational reforms. The role of the Cold War in reducing socio-humanistic teaching contents and the implementation of natural sciences and mathematics has also been explained. The synthesis of the analysed aspects suggests that the Cold War military and technological race resulted in the implementation of the STEM area, thus the measurability of learning outcomes, which influenced the psychologisation, standardisation, economisation, and globalisation of education. Most of the current (un)successful national educational and curricular reforms were initiated in that direction without respect for the social, cultural, and historical features of individual countries. These changes have left a mark in pedagogy, in which the humanistic approach appears to counteract other approaches. Some educational systems demonstrate a shift from such trends, from the technical-scientific curriculum towards the didactic tradition of Bildung and the philosophy of education. The reasons can be found in the above-average results on international standardised evaluations of those countries that have national curricula, in contrast to what is recommended by the globalisation and standardisation of education as some of the elements of the Cold War heritage.

scholarly journals “A most bountiful source of inspiration:” Dobzhansky’s evolution of tropical populations, and the science and politics of genetic variation

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 281-297
Author(s):  
Tito Carvalho
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Variation ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Theodosius Dobzhansky ◽  
Science And Politics ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Social Orders ◽  
Second World

Abstract Theodosius Dobzhansky has been studied for how he integrated field naturalism and laboratory experimentation in ways that helped produce the Modern Synthesis, as well as how he leveraged biological expertise to support liberal and cosmopolitan values amidst Second World War and the Cold War. Moreover, Dobzhansky has been central in analyses of the institutionalization of genetics in Brazil, where he spent several years. This article situates Dobzhansky’s Brazilian research within the science of variation and the politics of diversity. I conclude by raising questions about how the ways in which science figured in politics depended on ideas about the role of scientists in society whichwere advanced in parallel, suggesting research on the “co-production” of natural and social orders.

The Cuban Diaspora

2021 ◽  
pp. 279-298
Author(s):  
Lester Tomé
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Brain Drain ◽  
Labor Migration ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Local Economy ◽  
Local Institutions ◽  
Cuban Diaspora ◽  
Return Home ◽  
The Cold War

Since the 1990s, many dancers from Cuba have found work in North American and Western European ballet ensembles. This chapter describes how their international dance careers reflect high-skilled labor migration in the global economy, as well as the decentralizing expansion of ballet’s labor market. Migrant Cuban dancers cite a depressed local economy and the artistic stagnation of the Ballet Nacional de Cuba as fundamental reasons for looking for work in international ensembles. Their exodus is also political—extending into the present practices and discourses associated with the Cold War concept of defection. The numerous departures constitute a detrimental form of brain drain for Cuban ballet, which loses precious human capital and is relegated to the subaltern role of labor supplier for the international ballet community. Yet, this diaspora could also fuel brain gain—a scenario in which émigrés such as Carlos Acosta return home to reinvest in local institutions the knowledge and resources acquired abroad.

The Cold War in Southeast Asia

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ang Cheng Guan
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Historical Event ◽  
Interstate Relations ◽  
Southeast Asians ◽  
Nation States ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter examines the history of the Cold War in Southeast Asia. It explains that the onset of the Cold War coincided with nationalist struggles and decolonization, and explains why Southeast Asians should appreciate that the Cold War is a historical event which has significantly affected the development of their countries, particularly in terms of the role of the Cold War in shaping the political development of the nation-states and interstate relations in the region, and the growing interest in rewriting the history of the Cold War.

The origins of the Cold War in Southeast Asia: Pre-Second World War Siamese cooperation with foreign powers against communism

2022 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Alexandre Barthel ◽  
Wasana Wongsurawat
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
World War ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
Colonial Order ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World

The origins of the Cold War in Southeast Asia are most often located in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, in the late 1940s. Historians sometimes trace its origins to Japan's expansionist phase in the 1930s, which accelerated the decline of the European and American colonial order in this part of Asia. However, the necessity of the fight against communism appeared very clearly in the minds of the leaders of the major colonial powers well before the 1930s. Focused on the case of Siam, this article aims to show that the origins of the Cold War in Southeast Asia dated back to as early as the 1920s with the emergence of international cooperation in the fight against communism and the Thai elite's manipulation of imperialist powers to further their own political agenda and support their dominance in the domestic political arena. The Cold War in Southeast Asia was not only about the postwar fight against the spread of communism, but also closely intertwined with the decolonisation and nation-building efforts of every country in the region — including of the so-called un-colonised Thailand.

An unfinished battle: George C. Marshall and intelligence in the early Cold War

2021 ◽  
pp. 096834452110179
Author(s):  
Raphaël Ramos
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Central Intelligence Agency ◽  
Truman Administration ◽  
Intelligence Community ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
Covert Action ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World

This article deals with the influence of Gen. George C. Marshall on the foundation of the US intelligence community after the Second World War. It argues that his uneven achievements demonstrate how the ceaseless wrangling within the Truman administration undermined the crafting of a coherent intelligence policy. Despite his bureaucratic skills and prominent positions, Marshall struggled to achieve his ends on matters like signals intelligence, covert action, or relations between the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency. Yet he crafted an enduring vision of how intelligence should supplement US national security policy that remained potent throughout the Cold War and beyond.

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