A Scenario for a More Unstable Southeast Asia

LRB,

How does the Dutch following a "divide and rule" policy gel with Falecius's claim that they ended up making Malay the official language of the entire Dutch East Indies?

Wouldn't that contribute to a united Indonesian identity.

Wars between the Sultanate of Brunei and the Phillippines could be interesting, although the U.S. would back the Phillippines big-time.

The Soviets backing a third-world monarchy to annoy a U.S. client? That would be interesting.

Or maybe the Sultan uses oil $$ to create an independent war machine himself?

Perhaps instead of OTL's Vietnam War, we could see the Sultanate kicking the Filipinos off Mindanao and the U.S. kicks them off. Think the Gulf War, only in the 1960s in Southeast Asia.

If the Filipinos mistreat the Muslims there and the Sultan invades as their liberator, things could get all morally gray, there could be protests, etc.

Well, the Dutch did try at "divide and rule" when they came back after Japanese occupation. But it was too late. They did not do that enough before, with some (it was more economical to run the whole thing as a centralized thing, I guess). And also the Malay official language thing was just using what was already local lingua franca in many parts of Archipelago. But endorsing it, and especially pushing for Latin script, gave Malay a boost over other languages, even the ones with more native speakers and historical prestige, such as Javanese. Dutch cultural policy in Indonesia, as I said, was rather unique and indeed quite interesting in itself. (As a sidenote, East Timor clung to its former colonial language, Portuguese, to stress its non-Indonesian identity, though of course Malay was used in the area as it was in the rest of Archipelago before colonial times. That's seems to support the idea that the official linguistic identity of Indonesia, among other things, is for a great part a byproduct of the Dutch colonialism).
The Dutch federal Indonesia plan is really fine for you, but I still fail to see how the POD leads to it.
Independent Indonesia followed the pattern set by the Dutch before WWII in its centralization under Sukarno and Suharto.
Of course there were many people unhappy with that, especially because it ended up in mostly Javanese dominance, but my guess is that only Irian and Aceh actually had serious nationalist projects opposed to the unified Indonesian one. The Dutch needed strength to enforce their plans for a federal Indonesia, and they had little of it, even with France on their side (they had limited British and US support OTL).
 
my guess is that only Irian and Aceh actually had serious nationalist projects opposed to the unified Indonesian one. The Dutch needed strength to enforce their plans for a federal Indonesia, and they had little of it, even with France on their side (they had limited British and US support OTL).

Actually, in the 1950's there were dozens of rebellions that could seriously affect the stability of Indonesia, such as one in Manado called Permesta, which was aided by the CIA, and the Negara Islam Indonesia (link in Indonesian), which had strongholds in West Java, South Kalimantan, and South-west Sulawesi.
 
Actually, in the 1950's there were dozens of rebellions that could seriously affect the stability of Indonesia, such as one in Manado called Permesta, which was aided by the CIA, and the Negara Islam Indonesia (link in Indonesian), which had strongholds in West Java, South Kalimantan, and South-west Sulawesi.

But those two did not work out alternative national programs and identites, from what I gather. Permesta was rebellion of military official if i understand correctly, who had quarrels with the central government. While they might favore lesser centralization, did they have an alternative state project?
 
Hmmm...perhaps in TTL Sukarno could try to aid the North Vietnamese against the French/South Vietnamese and eat a sniper-round for his pains. When the French decide to act, they don't mess around.

If it's before these rebellions and unless someone like Suharto can quickly restore order, Indonesia proceeds to disintegrate.
 
Okay, here's the Wikipedia article on the whole time period:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonkin_campaign

I need to think of a POD for this scenario before I can start writing a more detailed version.

POD #1: Henri Riviere falls off a horse and breaks his neck. No attack on Hanoi and not Battle of Paper Bridge that prompts France to send soldiers to avenge Riviere.

POD #2: Riviere dies per OTL but the French do not decide to avenge him. After all, he was prone to rash, illegal actions and this is an embarrassment. However, Jonathan Kan said the French, in the aftermath of the defeat by the Prussians, wouldn't be inclined to lose face.

POD #3: The Vietnamese attack the more isolated French outposts before Bouet can recall them and put more effort into attacking Hanoi and Nam Dinh. The French positions, without the extra troops provided by the consolidation, fall before Admiral Courbet can arrive. This means a potential protracted war in Indochina.

The French naval forces can still attack Thuan An and threaten the Vietnamese imperial court, but even with success there, they've been defeated repeatedly on land and their position isn't as strong. They can still impose OTL's treaty due to their proximity to the capital, but the French position in Indochina is going to be weaker come the Son Tay campaign...

TTL's Son Tay campaign will be more in favor of the Black Flag Army due to the weaker French military in the area. This may butterfly away the Bac Ninh Campaign, since the French might not be confident enough to attack the Chinese.

Even if the French do, the Black Flags might be inclined to intervene when their assistance could actually matter--OTL the bloodied Black Flags did not, but in a scenario where the BFA is stronger and doesn't view the Chinese Imperial forces and Vietnamese as a bunch of ingrates who didn't support them, they might.

The French were hoping for a fait accompli to present to the Chinese but that might not happen. Faced with the possibility of a war with China they'd hoped to avoid, they could negotiate a different version of the Tientsin Accord that divides Vietnam into spheres of influence. Given how badly the Black Flag Army was treated in OTL, the treaty could include their expulsion from Vietnam by the Chinese troops, forcing them into Laos.

POD #3 is more in the spirit of my original idea, but my knowledge about this whole situation comes from Wikipedia.
 
Given how relatively little attention this thread is getting, when the time comes to write the real TL, I think I'll post it in a new thread.

Would "Half a Loaf Is Better than None: A Southeast Asian TL" be a good title? It references both Vietnam and eventually the Dutch East Indies.
 
But those two did not work out alternative national programs and identites, from what I gather. Permesta was rebellion of military official if i understand correctly, who had quarrels with the central government. While they might favore lesser centralization, did they have an alternative state project?

No they didn't. They were basically challenging the existing regime in the central, not separatists.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Indochina

Looking at the map here, Cochinchina seems too small to be a viable state in the face of a Nguyen or Nguyen-successor state controlling Annam and Tonkin attempting to pull a reconquista. Maybe if it was hyperdeveloped and had a conscript army, it might be better able to survive, but it's still rather small.

How much of Annam would need to be taken in order for Cochinchina to survive on its own or with only minimal French support?

That could be a source of instability within our hypothetical Francophone Catholic South Vietnam--Cochinchina is the core pro-French territory but the outlying regions, kept on for territorial buffers and reserves of rice and soldiers to maintain Cochinchina, hate the Saigon regime and need to be kept down.

Also, does anyone have any figures for the total number of French colonists in Vietnam? I know there were only 600 in Laos and I don't recall the figures for Cambodia beyond there were several thousand who were ejected by the Khmer Rouge.

My plan is to have Cochin be more heavily developed to compensate for its limited territory and for the French, more conscious of the danger from the Nguyen remnant, not being such a-holes.

(A high French official warned against abuses of the local population and might not have been listened to.)

Cochin might end up being the Southeast Asian equivalent of the West African "Four Communes," where the people had French citizenship and rights.
 
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