I decided to make this update a bit shorter and include the East Indies with the update on Australia and New Zealand, since I'm not sure how much detail I'm going to go into on Australasia in the overview. Also ITTL, Indochina refers to the whole of Southeast Asia.
The World in a New Century, Section XIV: Indochina
Published by the McNally Corporation in Chicago, 1901.
Burma and Siam:
While the Indian subcontinent has been thoroughly brought under British colonial control, British expansion into southeast Asia has met much more resistance. The Burmese, a naturally warlike people, have been able to resist futher British influence. Burma has been able to resist incursons by the British largely thanks to the difficult terrain that the jungle and mountains of the country poses to foreign invaders. Burma under kings Mindon and Kaunang[1] also launched a series of reforms to modernize the Burmese military. These reforms led Burma to prevent Great Britain from taking any more Burmese territory in the last century. However, the army is the only thing in the country that has had reforms. In other areas, Burma remains as backward as most other Asian countries.
The neighboring country of Siam is, like Burma, a Buddhist monarchy. However, unlike Burma, Siam has not been able to resist the incursions of British influence into the region. After the loss of the Anglo-Siamese War that ceded the remainder of the Malay Peninsula to the British, the kingdom of Siam under Rama V went into an isolationist period[2]. However, the British have forced further concessions from Siam that have increased the British influence on the Siamese government, and the country has had uprisings by the people in the junges in the north of the country. At the turn of the century, Siam has become a mere puppet of the British Empire.
Belgian Indochina and British Malaya:
Burma and Siam are the only independent nations in southeast Asia. Along with these countries, Belgium and Great Britain have also established large colonies in the region. Belgian Indochina, along with Borneo, form the core of Belgium's colonial possessions. Belgian Indochina is divided into six different administrative units, each led by representatives appointed by the Belgian government as well as local tribal chiefs. While the Belgians have only entered Indochina in the past few decades, the economic productivity of the colony has quickly surpassed that of Borneo, likely owing to the larger number of people in Indochina and the richer agricultural productivity of the land.
However, the wealthiest colony in the East Indies is the British colony of Malaya. Separate from the British East India Company, the British have kept a royal colonial presence in the Malay Peninsula for almost two centuries. The Straits Settlements, the oldest British possessions on the peninsula, remain the most important centers in the Malaya colony. Much of the wealth of the Malay colonies comes from the trade through the Malacca Straits and cities such as Penang and Singapore, as goods traveling by sea east from British India or west from Japan, China, and the Indies must pass through the straits. Like Gibraltar, the Malacca Straits are yet another strategic point that Great Britain is able to control because of the empire's naval superiority on the oceans[3]. However, with plans for a canal through Central America, the importance of the Malacca Straits may lessen in the future.
[1] Mindon's brother who in OTL was killed in 1866 during an attempted coup. He is remembered as a great modernizer in Burma.
[2] In TTL Chulalongkorn is raised in the wake of the Anglo-Siamese War so doesn't get a western education and bows to the conservatives.
[3] France's naval superiority is still mostly confined to the Mediterranean.
