Category Archives: military

by Joel | 3 September 2026 · 6:24 am

Spread of Islam in Nusantaria

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia’s Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle p. 193:

The establishment of Melaka and rise of Demak and other Muslim-dominated communities on the north coast of Java coincided with a power struggle within the Majapahit realm. Islam presented a challenge to Java’s Hindu-Buddhist kingship notions. Internal dissension was also apparent, possibly caused by conversion of some of the aristocracy to Islam, and by intermarriage with Muslims, such as the Cham princess who married King Kertawijaya. This eventually forced the Majapahit to focus on the land base of the kingdom, moving the capital back to Kediri on the upper Brantas. Meanwhile the north coast saw the rise of independently minded trading entities dominated by Muslims, many from India, China and Arabia.

Trowulan was reported to be thriving until very shortly before it was utterly destroyed in 1478 in a war, exacerbated by a dynastic dispute, with Demak. The young sultanate effectively conquered Majapahit but claimed dynastic continuity. The end of Trowulan was the beginning of the end for all Hindu Majapahit, which finally saw its remnants retreat to Bali as Islam made a huge step towards eventual dominance of most of the southern part of the Nusantarian archipelago.

After being razed, Trowulan became overgrown with a teak forest. Stamford Raffles, who, as lieutenant-governor of Java under its brief British rule, initiated the first excavations there in 1815, described it as ‘this pride of Java’ Even then, few physical remains were left of a once great city. Yet the years of Majapahit glory remain deeply embedded in the Javanese collective memory. The memory (and myth) of Majapahit and its empire in Nusantaria remains at the heart of modern Indonesia’s sense of identity, generally overriding Muslim identity and also proving an historical basis for a state created in its present geographical form by the Dutch. Wawasan nusantara, or ‘an archipelagic outlook’ brings the islands together, while the national motto, bhinneka tunggal ika (‘unity in diversity’), is from a Javanese poem, ‘Sutasoma’, of the Majapahit era.

Leave a comment

Filed under Arabia, China, economics, language, migration, military, religion, South Asia, Southeast Asia

by Joel | 2 September 2026 · 6:05 am

Kublai Khan vs. Kertanegara

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia’s Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle p. 182:

Kertanegara’s expansion goal was intended partly to pre-empt designs that the Mongol Yuan dynasty, which had already attacked Japan and Vietnam, might have for a southern maritime empire. He also sought to thwart further southward expansion by the Siamese. But he paid a high price. He only subdued Jambi and Palembang after a long fight and his hold there remained tenuous. However, he did succeed in bringing the smaller straits and southern peninsula ports under his sway to become the leading regional maritime power.

Upset at this expansion of Javanese influence, Kublai sent envoys to demand Kertanegara pay tribute to his empire. But the king responded by deliberately provoking the emperor Kublai, giving his envoys tattoos before sending them back. A furious Kublai then sent a vast fleet, said to be of 1,000 vessels with 100,000 men, to punish him. Before the fleet arrived, Kertanegara was killed in battle by the forces of the leader of Kediri in league with a disloyal general. The details are murky, but the Javanese managed to turn their divisions into an advantage. Kertanegara’s son-in-law Raden Wijaya survived and appeared to align himself with the rebel general against Kediri. They persuaded Kublai’s commander that there was no longer a need to fight the dead Kertanegara but to punish Kediri instead. After Raden’s Kediri rivals had been eliminated, Raden then turned on the Mongols with an ambush.

Although the Javanese could not defeat the invader in pitched battle, they could harass them readily enough. Time was not on the invaders’ side. With supplies running short, Kertanegara dead anyway and facing the change of winds which would have kept them there another six months, the Chinese decided to cut their losses and sail away. Thus ended China’s first military incursion into Nusantaria. It was driven not so much by lust for territory but by a mix of hubris – the demand for fealty – and control of the profits of trade.

One legacy was to leave behind many Chinese stragglers, who helped establish the local Chinese community. Fei Xin, who visited Java with Zheng He’s expeditions more than a century later, noted: ‘Right down to the present time some Chinese live intermingled with the natives because at that time over a hundred were left here and later they brought up families.’

Leave a comment

Filed under China, military, war, migration, economics, Southeast Asia, South Asia

by Joel | 30 August 2026 · 7:41 am

Rise and Fall of Champa

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia’s Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle pp. 134, 147:

Nusantarians, protected by their seas and ships, were relatively safe on their islands from more populous mainland powers. But it is remarkable that their mainland foothold – the Cham territory – on the southern coastal border with China lasted as long as it did: from settlement, probably from Borneo, around 1000 BCE to Champa’s final extinction by Vietnam in 1832.

Champa was the political successor to the Sa Huynh culture but came under Indian cultural influence while retaining its Austronesian language and living by its seafaring traditions. At its greatest extent Cham territory ran from Vishnupura, near modern Dong Hoi, to Phan Thiet, just north of the Mekong delta. The importance of this narrow strip between the sea and the mountains lay not in its resources but in its position. Journeys from Guangzhou to Siam, Sumatra, Java, Borneo and beyond could be direct, but a stop-off point was often needed for safety. Its ports could also serve as entrepôts for goods from Borneo and Mindanao. From early trading communities there developed more organized, Hindu states, tied together, sometimes loosely, as Champa.

…

Another Vietnamese advance in the early seventeenth century included the capture of Nha Trang. The Cham state was formally wiped off the map in 1832 when the Vietnamese took its last stronghold Panduranga (Phan Rang) and advanced through the hitherto Khmer-ruled Mekong delta to the Ca Mau peninsula, modern Vietnam’s southernmost point. Cham resistance to the Vietnamese continued long after the capture of its territory. Vietnamization was a slow process brought about by a mix of immigration and adaptation.

…

By the time the shrunken Cham territory was finally absorbed by the Vietnamese, the majority were Muslims. Today the small Cham minority in Vietnam is divided by religion, though most are non-Muslims. Following the fall of Panduranga in 1832, many Cham Muslims fled to Cambodia, where they remain as a small minority speaking and writing Cham and maintaining such Austronesian characteristics as matrilineal descent. Some also left for Kelantan in Malaysia. Few Cham speakers are left in Hoi An, which inherited a trading tradition from the Cham and was settled by merchants from China and Japan who built the riverside town which is today a World Heritage site like My Son itself. So different in style, My Son and Hoi An are a microcosm of some 1,500 years of Nusantarian history.

Leave a comment

Filed under economics, language, migration, military, nationalism, religion, Southeast Asia

by Joel | 29 August 2026 · 5:50 am

Tamil Chola vs. Srivijaya, 1000s

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia’s Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle pp. 126-127:

For centuries Nusantaria’s seafaring skills and island geography protected it from outsiders. But in 1025, those walls were breached by another trading state, this one from across the Bay of Bengal. The Tamil Chola dynasty attacked and sacked Palembang, seized Kedah and for several decades had a permanent presence on the peninsula. The attacks on Srivijaya by the Cholas were the only known direct military engagement of an Indian state in Nusantaria. They changed trading dynamics and seriously weakened Srivijaya.

By contrast, their cultural impact may have been slight because Indian-derived culture was so embedded in the region that the Chola military intervention barely added to it. Chola interaction with the region pre-dated the attack as Nusantarian trade and cultural relations with south India had long been close. For example, its architectural influence can be seen in Java’s Prambanan temple, built 70 years before the attack. As late as 1016 the Chola King Rajendra donated funds for the upkeep of a shrine in Nagapattinam erected by the Srivijayans. This referred to the Sailendra family as the kings of Srivijaya and Kedah.

These relations between Chola and Srivijaya were further enhanced by the trade boom of the Tang era which saw the rise of the Chola kingdom to control the whole of southern India. A professional army and bureaucracy brought strong government which undertook public works such as damming the Kaveri River and created an environment in which the arts and literature flourished. From its base at Nagapattinam on the Kaveri delta, it expanded its land borders to the west coast and eventually sent its forces north as far as Bengal. The Cholas did not have a permanent navy, but had at their disposal merchant ships able to transport armies complete with elephants. This naval power enabled it to conquer Sri Lanka and the Maldives and become the dominant force in eastern Indian Ocean trade. Before taking on Srivijaya they had had much practice in a war against the Sinhalese: Sri Lanka saw half a century of Tamil rule of most of the island and the establishment of Shivaite temples.

The Cholas were Hindu with a predominantly Shivaist alignment, though Buddhist shrines continued to be patronized. The main driver of rivalry with Srivijaya was commerce, not belief. The Chola kingdom was strongly influenced by its merchant guilds who, emboldened by conquests elsewhere and seeing Srivijaya being challenged by east Java, wanted to reduce the Srivijayan grip on trade and be noticed by China as an important country. Arab sources record how the Srivijayan king controlled the whole of the [Malay] peninsula but the Cholas wanted to capture some of this trade for themselves and not be dependent on Srivijayan cooperation. Indicating their ambitions, they sent an embassy to China for the first time in 1015.

This was a time when trade was expanding again after a pause caused by the declines of the Tang dynasty in China and the Abbasid one in the Muslim world. Now the Song were in control of China and the North African-based Fatimids were the biggest power in the Muslim world. Already by 985 an Arab was writing: ‘Baghdad was once a magnificent city but is now fast falling into ruin […] Al-Fustat of Misr [Cairo] in the present day is like the Baghdad of old.’

War may have started well before the 1025 Chola sacking of Palembang and capture of the king.

Leave a comment

Filed under China, economics, migration, military, religion, South Asia, Southeast Asia, war

by Joel | 28 August 2026 · 6:15 am

When Java Was Buddhist and Hindu

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia’s Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle pp. 117-119:

Srivijayan dominance of Nusantaria was for a long time bolstered by cooperation with fellow Buddhists in central Java, the Sailendra dynasty. Indeed, Srivijaya’s dominance attained its greatest geographic reach following the linking of Sailendra power to Srivijaya’s through a dynastic alliance. The Sailendra’s economic contribution to the alliance was greatly aided by Java’s ready access to the Spice Islands, which added to its agricultural wealth, and by its relatively large population. The Sanskrit name ‘Sailendra’ means ‘Lord of the Mountain’, a reference to the towering volcanoes such as Mount Merapi [Gunung Merapi ‘Fire Mountain’], which overlooks the great Buddhist shrine of Borobudur which they built. Although their power base was in Java, the Sailendras were Malays from Sumatra. This explains the use of old Malay, not Sanskrit or Javanese, for some of their inscriptions.

…

Java, known as Yavadipa, had originally been a centre of Hinduism which reached its peak in the seventh and early eighth centuries. Its spiritual base was the Dieng plateau, literally ‘Mountain of the Gods’ in Sanskrit. The plateau is reached from the plain through a series of rich valleys and then by a narrow mountain passageway to the 2,000-metre high caldera of an extinct volcano, which still has sulphurous springs. Here there were sacred bathing sites and the centre of a cult of Shiva, the god of fertility. It was once the site of some 400 temples of which only eight survive, the oldest stone structures on Java.

The Dieng plateau’s best recorded patron was the early eighth century ruler Sanjaya, who erected a sacred lingam in praise of Shiva, invoking the spirit of his ancestors and noting how in learning and harmonious government he ‘had his feet high above the other kings of good family’. He was titled both a Ratu – the Austronesian noble title found from Fiji to the [Malay] peninsula – and a Maharaja, the Indian king of kings.

The history of the relationship between the Sailendras and Javanese Sanjayas is unclear, but at some point they were joined by marriage alliances in which the Sailendras were dominant; however, despite their Buddhism the Shiva worship of the Sanjayas lived on. Indeed, loyalty to the Sailendras was more important than choosing between Shiva and Buddha.

…

The Sailendras also extended their power outwards. Using Srivijayan seapower they conquered Indrapura, the leading Khmer city, and in 802 installed the Khmer prince Jayavarman II as ruler. (He later rejected fealty to the Sailendras and moved his capital inland to Hariharalaya, south of Siem Reap. He reigned for nearly 50 years and initiated what became the Angkor dynasty.)

The Sailendras were also sometimes in conflict with the Cham, who competed for some of Srivijaya’s China trade. The Cham were not only closest to the great China market, they also had sea links to Borneo and the Philippine islands, from which they could source some of the forest products in demand in China. An eighth century Vietnamese account describes people from Java and Sumatra raiding as far north as Tonkin. A Cham account in Sanskrit of the same era, found at Nha Trang, described how in 774 ‘men living on food more horrible than cadavers, completely black and gaunt, dreadful and evil as death, came in ships’ and burned a temple and stole the lingam before being beaten off by Satyavarman. These might have been orang laut engaged in freelance raiding or have been encouraged by Srivijaya because, only a few years later, in 787, ‘the armies of Java’ came and destroyed another temple. More generally, however, the era saw the strengthening of its trading and settlement posts including Manila bay and Sulawesi.

Leave a comment

Filed under China, economics, language, migration, military, religion, South Asia, Southeast Asia

by Joel | 27 August 2026 · 6:29 am

Srivijaya Thalassocracy

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia’s Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle pp. 106-110:

No empire in historical times has disappeared as completely as Srivijaya. Yet this vast Nusantarian enterprise thrived for almost a thousand years, feeding on and sometimes dominating seaborne trade between China and the archipelago on the one hand and India and beyond on the other. Its importance was noted many times in Chinese annals, yet, unlike other vanished empires, it left barely a physical trace. Its existence was almost unknown to modern historians until the 1930s, when Georges Coedès defined it by reference to Chinese records of a place named Sanfoqi and some inscriptions written in Old Malay. Later, aerial photography identified a system of irrigation canals and other works which once supported a large population. Archaeologists unearthed Buddhist statues, Chinese ceramics and other items so that it is now possible to identify Palembang on the banks of the Musi River in south-east Sumatra as its principal city.

This may seem an unlikely spot for a capital, some distance from the sea and surrounded by flat but not very fertile land, better for root crops than for rice. The same conditions apply to a similar old settlement, Jambi, known also as Melayu, farther north on the Batang Hari River. This was at one time a rival of Srivijaya and later its capital. Jambi at least still boasts the remains of a Buddhist temple from the seventh or eighth centuries; Palembang has no such evidence of its former glory.

The lack of physical imprint has several causes. First, it was what is called a thalassocracy – an empire built on control of trade not of land. The lack of stone or brick evidence of Palembang’s greatness is because buildings on land, including fortifications, were all of wood. There was no nearby supply of stone. Records were written on palm leaves which perished long ago. Most people lived on rafts. There was a practical reason for this: floods were not uncommon in the rainy season and spring tides on the Musi River were up to 4.5 metres. Nothing much changed over the centuries. Even in 1820 a European visitor noted that only the rich lived on dry land in houses with tiled roofs. While the sultan and some senior persons lived on separate islands, all trade and transport took place on the river.

So why Palembang? Its location seems scarcely ideal: it was 120 kilometres upriver, mangrove swamps occupied most of the area down to the sea and its land was incapable of supporting a large population. However, its position on a river which was navigable far inland gave access to the jungle products and timber for ships as well as more precious items from the interior including gold and foodstuffs from the fertile Sumatran highlands. The coastal lands were of marsh and mangrove. Terra firma began at Palembang. There was plenty of space where vessels could anchor and stores be unloaded. The river is wide, deep, tidal for a long distance and its mouth lies close both to the southern entrance to the Melaka strait and to the Sunda strait between Sumatra and Java, thus giving access to the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean. It is well south of the typhoon belt and, being almost on the equator, has calm seas and is an ideal location to wait for the change of monsoon winds from south-west to north-east. Also, the mangrove swamps at the mouth of the Musi and its many inlets meant the city could easily be defended.

…

While there appears to have been an increasing dependence on the growing China trade, reports from I-Tsing and other records show the high level of development of Palembang, the size of its forces and the respect of the Chinese for its Buddhist monks and practices. This was no petty state kowtowing to China but one seeking trade preferences from an equal. Correspondingly, Chinese sought enlightenment from the west (India and Sri Lanka) via Sumatra. The Palembang inscriptions also show that, although the kingship systems, the rituals and the religion were of Indian origin and it was a place where Chinese could study Sanskrit, the official written language was not Sanskrit but Malay. Also, for its inhabitants, commerce, not religion, was its mainspring. Srivijaya’s rise to dominance was also reflected in a change of the Chinese name for it. Prior to 903 it was known as ‘Shih-li-fo-shi’, a phonetic translation, or just ‘Fo Shi’, but it then became ‘Sanfoqi’, the san suggesting that Foqi (Vijaya) had three centres: probably Palembang, Jambi and Kedah, or one of the Java ports.

With its small population and shortage of agricultural land, Srivijaya’s first achievement was its superior organization of the people of the region, the orang laut (‘sea people’). They had centuries of seafaring behind them and could act as pilots or pirates as opportunity offered. By bringing them under its umbrella, Srivijaya could reduce piracy by allowing the orang laut a share of the spoils of war and thereby encourage trade. Trade brought merchants, money, advanced ideas from India and the wherewithal to buy from elsewhere the food needed to sustain the urban settlements. Through better marshalling of the talents of the local sailors and boatbuilders, Srivijaya was able to conquer Melayu. The interior could supply the forest products and gold which Srivijaya needed for trade. In turn, the population of the interior provided a ready market for Srivijaya’s goods. The interior also supplemented Srivijaya’s manpower so that King Jayanasa could field an army several thousand strong as well as a large naval force.

Leave a comment

Filed under China, economics, migration, military, religion, South Asia, Southeast Asia

by Joel | 19 August 2026 · 9:21 am

Migration into Mindanao

From The Making of the Modern Philippines: Pieces of a Jigsaw State, by Philip Bowring (Bloomsbury Academic, 2022), Kindle pp. 183-187:

The island of Mindanao is the most misunderstood part of the nation. Decades of on and off conflict in its Muslim region has long stolen the headlines. Under President Duterte, this provided an excuse for declaring martial law over the whole island. The reality is that for decades the island proved a land of opportunity for hundreds of thousands who moved from over-populated islands, mostly the Visayas, to the relatively underpopulated Mindanao…. Movement from the Visayas to Mindanao long pre-dates the Spanish.

…

The big boost to settlement came with the Commonwealth government, President Quezon recognizing the agricultural and forestry potential of the region as a way to underpin the national economy and raise the Christian population to counterbalance the Moros.

…

The big boost to settlement came with the Commonwealth government, President Quezon recognizing the agricultural and forestry potential of the region as a way to underpin the national economy and raise the Christian population to counterbalance the Moros.

…

The Davao region, meanwhile, had attracted large numbers of Japanese to develop timber and plantation industries and Davao city was on its way to becoming the largest in Mindanao, with far more Japanese than Americans. Japanese ran shops, restaurants, fish canneries and export enterprises, often with sleeping Filipino partners to get around alien laws. The 1930s Japanese-led developments were key to making Davao the premier city of the island that it soon became. Although many Japanese left in 1945, their lands and enterprises were quickly taken over by immigrants from the Visayas and Luzon.

…

The scale of the internal colonization after 1935 was only partly a result of colonial rule or the Quezon initiatives. The underlying demographic driver was that because of improved government in the late Spanish period, and the impact of the US on public health, the population in the Visayas and Luzon in particular grew exceptionally fast. The people of Mindanao had far more land than they were able to occupy and cultivate.

…

Worst off have been the Surigao provinces where few benefit from mining and forest wealth. The Paper Industries Corporation of the Philippines (PICOP) once employed more than 10,000 people in and around Bislig on the coast of Surigao del Sur. At its peak it was the biggest pulp and paper operation in Asia.

…

Caraga encapsulates many of the problems of the wider nation. In theory, it is endowed with great forests, well-watered lowlands and lakes, a variety of mineral deposits, a coastline which offers opportunities for fisheries, and beaches and scenery to lure tourists. The regional capital, Butuan, is the oldest identifiable city in the country, dating back more than 1,000 years and with trading links to Java and China. In recent times, however, Butuan has been overshadowed by the growth not only of Davao City but also Cagayan de Oro to the west.

…

One large mining company, Nickel Asia, operates modern mines but much mining is small- to medium-scale and uncontrolled, raising little if any revenue for the government while polluting rivers and lakes.

Well, this will have to be my last post from this book, since I’ve nearly reached the publisher’s limit for copying. (I appreciate the warnings when I hit 80% of the limit.) The book has a fair number of little proofreading errors, and navigation to the helpful maps on the Kindle often drops you back into the Table of Contents. But the author covers a wide range of topics in great detail.

Leave a comment

Filed under economics, industry, Japan, language, migration, military, Philippines, religion, U.S.

by Joel | 14 August 2026 · 8:33 am

Decline Under Marcos

From The Making of the Modern Philippines: Pieces of a Jigsaw State, by Philip Bowring (Bloomsbury Academic, 2022), Kindle pp. 73-74:

Politically, most of the country was quiet for the first years of martial law. Local politicians were left alone but there was no national stage on which they could play. Central power was increased by the amalgamation of the Philippine Constabulary and local police forces into the Philippine National Police. A few young idealists fled to the hills and the NPA after the imposition of martial law and the urban intelligentsia muttered dissent but there was no sign of any general opposition movement gaining a hold. [Ninoy] Aquino remained in jail and in 1977 was sentenced to death by a military tribunal, but US pressure ensured that this would not be carried out and after the US secured a new bases agreement in 1979, he was allowed to leave the country for medical attention.

An interim National Assembly (Batasang Pambansa) was finally established in 1978 but consisted largely of KBL members, though a Visayan opposition group headed by Hilario Davide, later chief justice, remarkably beat a KBL candidate backed by the Osmenas and other big local families. In Manila, evidence at local polling stations suggested there were far more votes for opposition candidates than were officially reported.

The military, meanwhile, was ever more focused on internal strife, initially mostly in Muslim Mindanao/Sulu. Demand for a separate Moro state had existed before martial law partly, driven by conflict between Muslims and Christian settlers from the Visayas…. By 1975, rebels dominated the countryside and cities such as Marawi, and Cotabato could only be accessed by army-protected convoys.

Eventually the military gained the upper hand and a semblance of peace was established using Libya as an intermediary with Muslims promised autonomy in the so-called Tripoli Agreement. However, the Moros split in 1977, some, led by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) of Hashim Salamat continued the fight and then the MNLF did so too. The MILF was Maguindanao-based and less secular than the MNLF in outlook. Intermittent lower scale actions became the norm.

The Moro issues were geographically contained and far from Manila. The NPA was another matter. Its original base area was close to Manila but it also realized the need for de-centralizing its activities if it were to prosper in the martial law era when it could no longer do deals with local politicians and was vulnerable to concerted military action. … By the early 1980s, it was estimated that about 15 per cent of the population lived in areas controlled or heavily influenced by the NPA and where businesses routinely paid taxes to it for protection.

The Catholic Church hierarchy, fearful of secular nationalism and socialism had originally been quietly supportive of Marcos, but with the appointment of Jaime Sin as archbishop (later Cardinal) of Manila in 1974, a more critical attitude prevailed. At the same time, priests in some areas, being aware of the suffering of the poor, became sympathetic towards the NPA.

However, the fundamental cause of the eventual collapse of the regime was economic failure driven by debts, domestic and foreign, incurred in supporting the Marcos family, the crony companies, and Imelda’s ongoing passion for show and monuments. The technocrats like the foreign bankers for long continued to believe that, for all its faults, it was no more corrupt but more efficient than the Old Society. … The years 1979 to 1980 saw another global oil crisis with the price per barrel doubling within a year. This hit at least as hard for the Philippines as the 1973/74 crisis because other commodity prices did not follow and the country was already too deeply in debt to offset its negative impact.

A bigger problem was the local banking industry’s excessive loans to cronies. In 1981, the mid-sized group of Chinese financier Dewey Dee, which thrived on the crony fringe, collapsed leaving huge debts, including to the Herdis group. As the house of cards then gradually collapsed, Herdis, then Cuenca’s CDCP and Silverio’s Delta Group had to be taken over by the government. The technocrats were seen to have gained ground against the cronies and some banks were closed, but crony debt, much in dollars borrowed from the Development Bank, was in effect nationalized.

Even this weight on an already struggling economy might have been bearable but for the shock of August 1983. Deciding to return to the Philippines, Aquino was shot dead on the tarmac at Manila Airport. A crudely executed assassination by members of the armed forces was almost certainly planned by General Ver, army chief of staff and ultimate Marcos loyalist, though whether on his own initiative or that of Marcos, then undergoing kidney dialysis treatment, or Imelda is unclear. The killing dramatically changed attitudes to the regime, particularly in Washington. Locally, there had been sporadic small bombing incidents by the Light a Fire movement linked to exiles in the US, but the banality of the murder by bullet, so reminiscent of Old Society politics, and the crudity of a cover-up attempt, shocked even those who had no time for Aquino. Before it, Marcos still had the majority of the population behind him. That changed dramatically.

Leave a comment

Filed under democracy, economics, energy, migration, military, nationalism, Philippines, religion

by Joel | 13 August 2026 · 5:56 am

Magsaysay Era in the Philippines

From The Making of the Modern Philippines: Pieces of a Jigsaw State, by Philip Bowring (Bloomsbury Academic, 2022), Kindle pp. 60-62:

Magsaysay was dynamic, reorganizing and enlarging the army, improving discipline and reducing corruption. He exuded a man of the people image, meeting peasants and joining troops on operations. His close links to the US was not an issue for most Filipinos, Huk-leaning peasants included, who were still grateful to The US for helping rid them of the Japanese. He acknowledged peasant grievances and talked of land reform, increased crop shares and offers of free land in Mindanao. Copious US funds brought clinics, roads and services to poor villages. Lansdale was a behind campaigns to discredit the Huks, frighten their peasant supporters with psywar propaganda and use money and the media to highlight the positive. Those measures were at least as important as the military ones. Gradually, the tide turned against the rebellion which remained focused on Central Luzon despite Huk efforts to develop movements in Bicol, the Visayas and Mindanao.

By the time Magsaysay became president, the Huks were weakening, their forest camps threatened by Magsaysay’s troops. They were short of arms and divided ideologically between urban mostly well-born idealist Communists, several of whom were arrested, including the party boss, Jose Lava, as well as Taruc and his men in the field. Many peasants felt they had been heard and that conditions were being ameliorated. The rebellion faded, particularly after Taruc’s surrender following negotiations with Magsaysay’s envoy and a young well-connected journalist, Benigno Aquino Jr. The son of a leading collaborator he was to use the resulting fame to propel his own political ambitions.

Magsaysay was very much America’s man in foreign policy, the Manila Conference of 1954 creating the South East Asia Treaty Organization – a US-led anti-Communist alliance. He also declined to join such giants of anti-colonialism as Nehru, Nasser and Sukarno at the Afro-Asian Bandung Conference in 1955, though he did agree to send foreign secretary Carlos Romulo. Magsaysay’s clout in Washington enabled the nation to re-visit some of the provisions of the odious 1946 Trade Act. Jose Laurel represented the Philippines in negotiating what was known as the 1955 Laurel-Langley Agreement. This freed the Philippines to set its exchange rate against the US dollar and significantly improved trade access to the US through preferential tariffs and quotas. In particular, it benefitted sugar producers now able to sell in the US at a higher price than the world market. Parity rights for Americans were maintained but the Agreement was to expire in 1974. Also in 1955, the Philippines finally reached a reparations agreement with Japan, providing $550 million and a promise of another $250 million in private sector investment.

The flow of US money was the first key to a rapid recovery of the economy, even if it was mostly evident in Manila and a few other cities. Japanese reparations followed with private US investment arriving to take advantage of its privileges. The nation was seen as the most likely to prosper in the region because of its mix of education, access to the US and relatively stable political outlook. Indeed, from 1950, when its GDP per head was already higher than Japan, Taiwan, Korea and Thailand, it had the region’s highest annual GDP growth rate of 6.5 per cent.

Magsaysay died in a plane crash in Cebu in March 1957 and was automatically succeeded by Vice-President Carlos Garcia. He had served as Foreign Secretary under Magsaysay and was identified as a pro-American anti-communist, chairing the 1954 Manila Conference which saw the creation of the South East Asia Treaty Organization. One of his first acts in office was to sign a law making the Communist Party illegal, but in other respects he was a staunch nationalist who resented foreign commercial domination, a reference to the local Chinese as well as to the US interests. Garcia was elected President in late 1957 as a Nacionalista with 41 per cent in an election with several prominent candidates, but his running mate, Jose Laurel, the son of the president appointed by Japan, lost the vice-presidency to Diosdado Macapagal of the main opposition Liberal party. The Nacionalistas controlled Congress, with a representative from Ilocos, Ferdinand Marcos, as the minority leader.

…

The creation of an indigenous capitalist class was a natural goal and one pursued elsewhere in Asia. However, it rested on three pillars: one was the landowning elite who used their resources, wealth and political clout to expand their economic role but were not natural entrepreneurs; the second was the Chinese who, evading laws to deter them, managed the shift from middle-man role to into newer manufacturing industries; the third was the state, supposedly in command but without institutional roots, short of funds and at the beck and call of politicians and rent seekers. The policies did have the effect of bringing more local investment into protected manufacturing. The anti-Chinese Retail Nationalization Act in the longer run helped the Chinese by forcing them out of retailing into manufacturing, whose percentage of GDP rose from 10.7 per cent in 1948 to 17 per cent in 1960.

Leave a comment

Filed under China, democracy, economics, Japan, migration, military, nationalism, Philippines, U.S.

by Joel | 12 August 2026 · 2:13 pm

Philippines Under Japan

From The Making of the Modern Philippines: Pieces of a Jigsaw State, by Philip Bowring (Bloomsbury Academic, 2022), Kindle pp. 51-54:

At least initially, few of the elite saw reason to confront the Japanese. A majority of senators joined the Executive Commission; others kept a low profile. A few were enthusiastic, including Laurel who admired Japanese order and devotion to the nation. Laurel could reasonably claim that some cooperation with Japan was necessary for the good of the people. Accepting the Presidency of the supposedly independent republic, however, was another matter given that the elected president and vice-president had a government-in-exile in Washington.

Another key collaborator was Benigno Aquino, a lawyer and landowner from Tarlac, who had been Secretary for Agriculture under Quezon. The Japanese made Aquino head of a new appointed assembly, known by the acronym Kalibapi (the Association for Service to the New Philippines). Also banging the drum for Japan was the MaKaPili, the Patriotic Society of Filipinos, led by former Sakdal leader Benigno Ramos. Former revolutionary general, Artemio Ricarte, who had always refused allegiance to the US, returned in late 1944 after thirty years in exile in Hong Kong and then Japan. Even Emilio Aguinaldo resurfaced, urging close cooperation with Japan.

Spanish citizens, who were still numerous and influential as priests or from the old elite, were divided. Many had supported the Falangists during the Spanish Civil War and were thus prone to be sympathetic to Japan, but Andres Soriano of the giant A. Soriano Corporation stuck with Quezon as a member of his cabinet even though he had been the local leader of Spain’s Falangists. Others played an equivocal role. Manuel Roxas, who Quezon originally favoured as vice-president over Osmena, was captured by the Japanese and became an adviser to Laurel. The Japanese hoped to make him president in 1943 rather than Laurel but he declined. Late in the war Roxas may have provided intelligence to the Americans.

Whatever its notion of Asia for Asians, the occupation had several problems which fed on each other. The first was the arrogant and often brutal behaviour of the Japanese military for whom easy-going Filipino ways were alien. There was also a demand for comfort women for the soldiery, for which there was little local consent. Second was the quest for raw materials by Japan, combined with the inevitable shortages of a wartime economy shorn of foreign trade. The Japanese needed local resources to feed a 400,000-man army in the Philippines. Food shortages and unemployment were caused by Japanese demands for materials and the collapse of export industries which had been focused on the US market. A third factor was that antipathy towards the Americans was found more among the elite than lower down the social order where the US was associated with progress and aspiration. In exile, Quezon and Osmena provided a focus for resistance, there was pride in the Filipinos’ sacrifices in Bataan, and before long an expectation that the Americans would return.

Guerrilla activity developed, in many cases led by former soldiers, and provided some support brought by American submarines. As only Americans could defeat the Japanese, many Filipinos now longed for their return, past sins forgiven. They provided information and help to the Americans while appearing to be loyal to the puppet government. As resistance grew, so did reprisals and fear of the kempeitai, the Japanese military police. Disorder reigned too with some supposedly anti-Japanese activity becoming a cover for settling feuds between rival families. The resistance spawned many heroes but also, in the aftermath, many bogus claims to it. The most significant resistance, at least in the longer term, was provided by the Hukbong Bayan Laban na Hapon – the People’s Anti-Japanese Army – or Huks in Central Luzon, heart of rice and sugar cultivation, and of big haciendas. Feudal and paternalist tenancy systems, which at least provided stability for families, had been significantly replaced by sharecropping and small farmers, reduced by debt, into becoming wage labourers. As anti-landlord as it was anti-Japanese, some of the movement’s leaders drew inspiration from Mao Zedong. The movement was headed by Luis Taruc, a protégé of early nationalist and convert to Marxism, Pedro Abad Santos, brother of the Chief Justice. Taruc, who had been a full-time peasant organizer for the Socialist, then Communist, Party since 1934, was the leader of several thousand members from the sharecropper and landless workers, mainly in Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Pampanga and Tarlac. The Huks were, however, predominantly a peasant organization born of injustice more than ideology.

…

Post-war tales of Japanese atrocities and Filipino suffering during the occupation helped provide a focus for the nation in the early years of independence, which finally occurred on 4 July 1946. Yet not far under the surface of this massaged history was the reality that the elite recognized. There was little instinct for retribution against collaborators. Aquino was charged with treason but released on bail and died the following year. Laurel was likewise charged with treason but never tried. In 1948, as President, Manuel Roxas, whose own cooperation with the Japanese remained questionable, declared an amnesty. Only five years later, Laurel stood unsuccessfully for president as the Nacionalista Party candidate winning 37 per cent of the vote. The victor was Elpidio Quirino who, despite the deaths of many family members in the Battle of Manila, pardoned the Japanese convicted of war crimes. Vargas went from the puppet republic’s ambassador in Tokyo in 1945 to head of the National Planning Commission in 1946.

Whatever mixture of class solidarity, family relationships, Catholic notions of forgiveness or common nationalism, the quick post-war healing was in sharp contrast to experiences in many other countries occupied during the 1937–45 wars. There were also cross currents. Lingering Spanish and Church sentiments were in favour of the Spanish dictator, General Franco, as a bastion against atheistic communism and hence highly critical of the anti-clericalism of leftist nationalists. Those with Chinese affiliation, on the other hand, were influenced against Japan by its invasion of China. Nationalists came in different colours with some interested in sustaining the status quo but without the Americans. Only those on the far left were consistent in being anti both Japanese and US imperialism and even they were sometimes divided between middle class Marxist revolutionaries and rice farmers fighting landlords.