Asia History

Asia History

Collapse of Colonialism in India

• Colonization occurs when one government takes control or forces change over another

• It includes taking control of the political, social, economic, and cultural systems of a country

• By the end of WWII, many European countries began to lose control over their colonial empires.

• Nationalism occurs when people of a country are strongly devoted to their country. • It is when a country controlled by a

foreign country desires political independence from that foreign country.

• British colonialism victimized India • For almost 350 years, the British completely

controlled India.• The British ignored Indian culture• Indians were deprived of opportunities to

succeed in their own country

• Indians educated in British schools started to wonder why they should be westernized or why they should become more like the British

• There were many organizations in India that worked to achieve independence from the British

• One such organization was the Indian National Congress

• Surendranath Banerjea was one important leader in the Indian independence movement

• He encouraged people to buy Indian made products and boycott British made goods

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

• important leader in the Indian independence movement

• believed that nonviolent resistance as well as a full boycott on all things British including goods, schools, universities and courts were ways to bring about the end of British rule

• on August 15, 1947 India gained its freedom

Japan after WWII

• After the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on 2 Japanese cities the Japanese finally admitted defeat

• Japan was now under the control of a U.S. Army occupation led by General MacArthur

• The U.S. wanted Japan to become a peaceful nation able to democratically govern itself

Before and After of Hiroshima

• The U.S. believed that the conditions that allowed for the extremely militaristic colonial empire of Japan to exist had to be destroyed

• At the end of the war, much of Japan’s infrastructure was gone,

• Infrastructure consists of the public systems and services of a nation

• The atomic bombs, as well as the regular bombs of war, were responsible for the destruction

• Transportation systems, industry, and urban infrastructure needed to be rebuilt

• Economically, a land reform program was put in place

• Labor unions were also encouraged

• Those business leaders who were a major part of the militaristic Japan were stripped of their power

• With the new Japanese constitution, the emperor was stripped of his power and only a figurehead and states that Japan would never again be the aggressor in war.

• Japan could no longer use its land, sea, or air forces to settle international disputes

• Presently, Japanese economy is one of the strongest in the world.

The Reign of Mao Zedong

• Mao Zedong came from a peasant background • He studied Marxism, which is a political

philosophy that focuses on class struggle.• Its goal is to have a classless society where all

people are equal. • Many basic ideas of communism come out of

Marxist philosophy.• In 1921 Mao attended the founding meeting of

the Chinese Communist Party

Mao Zedong

The Great Leap Forward

• In 1958, Mao instituted the Great Leap Forward

• This was a series of policies that Mao thought would help China to become equal in agricultural and industrial production.

• Mao believed in the power of the peasants to bring about great results.

• the peasants’ labor was not enough to bring about the results Mao desired

• peasants even lied about the amount of grain that had been produced rather than disappoint their leader

• massive famine resulted• Millions of Chinese died

The Cultural Revolution

• Several actions led up to the official start on June 1, 1966.

• Mao realized that a large gap still existed between the educated elite of the cities and the peasants of the countryside.

• Mao thought that through the Cultural Revolution, he could renew the spirit of the Chinese revolution

• Spoke out against the bourgeoisie• The bourgeoisie are often landowners or factory owners

who have power over the working class and peasants.

Tibet after the Cultural Revolution

The Red Guards

• Mao encouraged high school students to form groups called Red Guards.

• These Red Guards were given much power and mistreated many innocent peoples.

• Foreign ideas and old Chinese cultural ideas were frowned upon.

• The Red Guards had the government’s permission to destroy anything that showed connections to China’s past or to foreign ideas.

• Schools and universities were closed• Teachers were mistreated and often sent out

to the countryside to do hard labor• Family members were often separated for

years• They were sent off to work doing manual

labor out in the countryside

• Neighbors told on one another for “crimes” that they may or may not have committed

• No one was safe• The Cultural Revolution was a time of great

chaos in China• It lasted for a total of ten years and only

ended when Mao died in 1976.

The Korean War

• The struggle for world power between the U.S. and the Soviet Union and their allies is known as the Cold War.

• No direct warfare between the Soviet Bloc and the U.S.

• the 2 superpowers supported armed conflicts between democratic and Communist nations around the world.

• The first of these conflicts happened in Korea.

• After WWII, Soviet and American forces split the country into 2 roughly equal parts at the 38th parallel, marking the separate countries of Communist North Korea and democratic South Korea.

• A common theory of the time was the domino theory

• It was believed that if one nation fell to communism, then others in the area would follow just like dominoes falling over

• The U.S. feared that if all of Korea became a Communist nation, then other nations in Asia would become Communist as well

• On June 25, 1950, General Chai Ung Chai’s Communist divisions from N. Korea invaded S. Korea over 6 routes.

• In less than a week, the capital of S. Korea, Seoul, fell to N. Korea forces

• The UN and the U.S. sided with S. Korea• By August 1950, S. Korean and U.S.

troops, organized under the UN, had withdrawn to the Pusan Perimeter in the south.• By the end of August, all UN forces,

were in the Pusan Perimeter

• During September 1950, U.S. and Korean troops under Vice Admiral Arthur D. Struble captured Inchon

• Inchon was a key area to control

• It is on the coast of S. Korea and west of Seoul

• Shortly after taking Inchon, U.S. forces got control of Seoul

• It seemed as if victory was in reach

• By October, UN forces captured Pyongyang, the capital of N. Korea

• The U.S. and UN forces did not need to worry about Soviet forces helping N. Korea because the Soviets had just lost millions of people during WWII.

• But, they should have worried about the Chinese.

• U.S. forces didn’t expect help from the Chinese for N. Korea

• The Chinese army started attacking UN forces in N. Korea by the end of October 1950.

• 14,000 UN soldiers vs. 120,000 Chinese soldiers

• On 01-04-1951, the Chinese captured Seoul Seoul, South Korea: Statue of Brothers

• By March the UN took Seoul back• In June 1951, the 2nd phase of the Korean war

started.• It would last for 2 years

• Massive artillery fights around the 38th parallel took place

• During this period, peace negotiations took place without much hope of ending the war

• From July to August 1952, U.S. air strikes almost destroyed Pyongyang

• On October 8, 1952, peace talks reached a deadlock and the sides involved took a break

• Talks resumed on March 30, 1952• On July 27, 1953 an agreement was signed in

Panmunjom along the 38th parallel• This agreement continued the division of

Korea at this parallel

• The war lasted 3 years and ended in a stalemate, with neither side gaining much in terms of territory

• In 1953, an armistice was declared. • An armistice is an agreement to stop fighting• No peace treaty ending the war has ever been

signed

• Today, roughly 38,000 U.S. soldiers provide a defense force guarding against invasion from the militant N. Koreans

• S. Korea has become a prosperous democracy whereas N. Korea is still Communist that has suffered many economic problems

The Vietnam War

• After WWII, the Japanese left SE Asia• The French saw this as their chance to reclaim

Indochina• Vietnam wanted to rule themselves• The Vietnamese defeated the French in 1954• Once the Vietnamese defeated the French, an

international peace conference was held in Geneva

• It was decided that Vietnam would be divided at the 17th parallel

• North of this line, Ho Chi Minh and his Communist forces would run the government

• N. Vietnam’s capital was in Hanoi• In the South, the noncommunist government

of President Ngo Dinh Diem was in control, S. Vietnam’s capital was in Saigon

• The two countries were separated by a demilitarized zone similar to that of Korea

• The Vietnam War was primarily a civil war involving the N. Vietnamese Communists and the S. Vietnamese Viet Cong fighting in S. Vietnam against the U.S. and Southern Vietnam’s government.

• The U.S. viewed the conflict as another example of Communist aggression

• Just as in the Korean War, the domino theory played a part in the Vietnam War.

• U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower believed that if Vietnam fell to communism, then other nations in the region would too.

• President Eisenhower thought U.S. presence in Vietnam was needed in order to prevent the Communists from overtaking all of Vietnam

• Guerilla fighters used hit and run tactics when fighting rather than traditional fighting methods

• the U.S. decided to increase its presence• The war escalated with the Gulf of Tonkin

incident in 1964, when it was said that the N. Vietnamese attacked U.S. navy ships

• As a result of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, President Lyndon Johnson received support from the U.S. Congress to increase U.S. involvement in the war.

• In 1965, U.S. combat troops were sent to Vietnam

• Long before U.S. involvement increased in Vietnam, N. Vietnamese troops started using the Ho Chi Minh Trail

• This was a system of paths through the jungles and mountains that connected N. Vietnam to S. Vietnam via Laos and Cambodia

• It took over one month to get from N-S Vietnam using the Trail, yet it was a very effective part of the Vietnam War

• The Communists launched the Tet Offensive in 1968• succeeded in reducing the American public’s

support of the war• After the Tet Offensive, President Richard Nixon

would begin to withdraw U.S. troops from Vietnam

• This policy of turning over control of the war to S. Korea while the U.S. troops withdrew was called Vietnamization

• The last U.S. troops in Vietnam left in 1973, after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords

Ho Chi Minh Trail

• The Vietnam War showed the world that even the U.S. with the most advanced army and the best equipment, could be defeated by a lesser power

• The Viet Cong’s guerilla tactics worked, and the more the U.S. bombed the Vietnamese countryside, the more the local people sided with the Viet Cong

• The Vietnam War resulted in over 58000 U.S. deaths and about 2 million Vietnamese deaths

• U.S. involvement in the war lasted through the terms of 4 presidents

• This was the 1st time in American history that the public was so clearly against war

• The dissent ultimately caused President Johnson to withdraw from the 1968 presidential election

• The war ended in 1975, when the S. Vietnamese surrendered before the capture of Saigon, by the N. Vietnamese army

• In 1976, N. Vietnam united both N. and S. Vietnam to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam

• Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City in honor of the former president of N. Vietnam

• Hanoi became the country’s capital• Vietnam remains a Communist country to this

day