This study is intended to give a short survey on the development of shipping and trade between two main German ports and the Indian Ocean from the early years of the Bismarck period to the beginning of the First World War. The study deals with the area from East Africa to East India and from Indochina to Indonesia. China, the Philippines, and Australia will not be considered. It is based on an analysis of published material.

In September 1945, the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) headquarters in Kunming dispatched a mission to Laos. The purpose and composition of the mission were described on the first page of the mission's report as follows:

The Raven Mission was put on by OSS in cooperation with AGAS [Air Ground Aid Section], and parachuted near Vientiane, French Indo-China on 16 September 1945 for Prisoner of War relief work. This mission was activated following a request by G-5 SOS. The mission was composed of the following personnel: Major [Aaron] Bank, Mission Leader; Major [Charles] Holland, Executive Officer; Lt. [Alger] Ellis, Asst. Executive Officer; Lt. Phelan, AGAS Representative; Lt. [B. Hugh] Tovar, Reports Officer; Lt. Reese, Reports Officer; T/5 McKowan, Radio Operator; T/5 Blandin, Medic; Lao Trug [Luu], Interpreter.

The growth of British interest and activity in areas east of the Bay of Bengal during the latter half of the eighteenth century has often been explained as a response o t the problems posed by the expanding China trade. The drain of specie from Europe and India to Canton, so the argument goes, rendered necessary the establishment of a commercial emporium to the east of India which would attract Chinese products, notably tea, in exchange for Indian textiles, saltpetre, opium and cotton, and spices from the Malay archipelago.1 Such an entrepot would also free the trade from the vexatious customs and restrictions which applied increasingly at Canton after 1757. Yet it is the central argument of this article that the rival interests and behaviour of other Europeans in areas beyond India provided a significant inducement for intervention.

In November of 1873 a force of a few hundred men — French marine troops,’ Chinese regulars from Yunnan, and the sweepings of the ports of East Asia — took? the citadel of Hanoi and gave France the opportunity to add Tonkin to her possessions in Indochina. It was a bold venture, but hardly unplanned. The two most prominent figures in the affair, Jean Dupuis and Francis Garnier, had long been interested in opening southwest China by a direct route through actual or potential French territory, and Dupuis had been taking steps in this direction; since 1868. The attempt had the discreet — if not actually surreptitious — support of the current governor of Cochinchina, admiral Dupré. Yet by the end of December Francis Garnier was dead, his conquests in the Red River delta had been given back to the Vietnamese, and France's chief negotiator for the liquidation of the affair had branded the acts of Dupuis and Garnier as “odious aggression”. Dazzling victory turned into stunning defeat almost overnight, and France was to wait eight years before taking up the initiative of Dupuis and Garnier in Tonkin.

The action of the 30 September Movement on 1 October 1965 in Indonesia is sometimes described as an abortive coup d'état. In fact it would be more in accordance with reality to call it a pseudo-coup. It is true that in line with the technique of launching a coup, the movement led by Lieutenant-Colonel Untung from the palace guard quickly occupied strategic and vital points in Jakarta, the capital, such.as the telecommunications centre and the central radio broadcast station. It is also true that Untung on 1 October issued a decree dismissing the Sukarno Cabinet, i.e. the government of the day, and establishing the Revolution Council as ‘the source of all authority in the Republic of Indonesia’. In reality, however, no action was taken against President Sukarno and his Ministers (apart from the Minister for Defence and Security, General Nasution, and the Minister/Commander of the Army, General Yani) in the form of arrest or other ways of political neutralization. As expressed by the former commander of the air force, Omar Dani, during his trial for his alleged involvement in the 30 September Movement: ‘Why did they (Untung and his associates) act as if they were not serious? There was no concrete takeover of power. The President was still in power, and so were his Ministers and his military commanders’.

During the 1970 decade the Indonesian economy grew at unprecedented high rates after a long period of relative stagnation. It is commonly assumed that this significant improvement in growth performance is largely explained by the rapid growth of oil exports from 1971 to 1978, during which period petroleum's share in total export earnings rose from 39 per cent to 64 per cent. During this period, petroleum exports (in dollar value) rose at an average annual rate of 43 per cent, compared to 30 per cent for non-petroleum exports. Thus, even during the period of rapid petroleum export earnings growth, other exports also grew at a rate far above their long-term trend.

British planning for post-war Burma had been set back by the Cabinet's decision in April 1943 not to adopt the proposals put forward by Leopold Amery, the Secretary of State. Designed also to meet the need for wartime propaganda, the proposals had envisaged a programme of reconstruction aided by the British, carried forward during a period of direct rule, to be followed by advance towards self-government. There were doubts about the amount of aid Britain could promise. There were also doubts as to the wisdom of the concept of direct rule, though in fact the Cabinet accepted the principle without setting a limit to the period. Above all, the Prime Minister opposed further policy declarations on Burma. The war, Churchill believed, was not the time for them. Amery and Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith, the Governor, thought that he really believed that no time would be right for them. They were not without hope that he would “come round”. Meanwhile, it was decided that the Burma Government, in exile in Simla, would remain in existence. “I can not help thinking that it would be a bad thing politically actually to do away with the office of Governor of Burma, if only because it would [be] a welcome propaganda point for the Japanese who would doubtless use it to demonstrate either that we have given up all hopes of retaking Burma or that we visualise setting up a Military Government in Burma.…”

Sir Winston Churchill's doctor has recalled the “stupefying” effect which the fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942 had upon his patient. Britain's wartime leader, Lord Moran suggests, knew that the surrender was “something more than a reverse. I think he wondered if it were a portent”. The spectre of one of the worst defeats in British military history was to return to haunt Churchill in later years. His torment was, perhaps, not solely portentous but also recollective for in the years 1924–29 Churchill himself, while serving in Stanley Baldwin's second government, had played the major role in delaying the building and defence of the Singapore naval base and in disparaging its associated strategy.

The 2005 launch of a large-scale rubber plantation in Bachiang district, one of several in southern Laos, caused serious discontent among the local villagers whose traditional farming and foraging lands were seized and leased to a rubber company. This and other similar rubber developments based on land concessions in the south have drawn criticism from various quarters, including scholars and nongovernmental organisations. This study highlights how the locals’ views, livelihoods and lifestyles have been changing since the plantation was established, especially since rubber tapping began, and focuses on desires that may have directed their actions. Through an ethnographic approach tracing these changes over time, this study demonstrates that differentiation and diversification within the village have become increasingly apparent owing to both the recent shift to plantation work and other impacts and changes brought about by wider society.

The descendants of Bugis mercenary forces that liberated Riau from east Sumatran invaders became an integral part of the local Malay community by the mid-nineteenth century. At that time Raja Ali Haji and Haji Ibrahim, two Malay authors of Bugis descent, wrote various tracts to legitimise their presence in Riau and to facilitate Bugis integration into the Malay community, but may have led to continuing divisions along ethnic lines in later years.