Why only Thailand had not been under colonial rules - Research Paper Example

European aspiration for trade and consumption, creation empires and exploitation of the slave labour has produced an immense impact on many regions of the world. Whereas Spain was a pioneer in conquest and colonial expansion forcing American aboriginal population out in order to take their place and plant the new religion, other European empires took up the baton in this direction of development. The most powerful colonial empires were the Netherlands, Russian Empire, France and Great Britain.

Seeking to gain control over as many beneficial territories as possible, the empires kept on spreading their influence across the New World, Africa and Asia. As the world had seen the first wave of decolonization at the turn of the 19th century when the territories of the New World won their independence weakening Spain as the colonial empire, other colonists set their eyes on the countries of the Old World, territories of South Africa, India and Southeast Asia in particular. The history of the Southeast Asian region was marked by the colonial rule and forced interaction between regional governors and the foreign powers that came to conquer and exploit the territories economically.

Naturally, the origins of the colonialism policy lay in the cradle of Western civilization, in Europe. Whereas the main colonists of the region were France and Great Britain, the Southeastern colonies included Burma, Singapore, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia and East Timor (Ingkhaninan). The beginning if expansion took place in the 16th century when Spain began invasive war against the Philippines conquering the islands and maintaining control over them until 1898. Indochina, in its turn, became an arena for French aggressive expansion with Vietnam and Cambodia being colonized and turned into the so-called Indochinese Union.

Later, in 1893, French colonists conquered Laos. Therefore, almost the