Any tl with even a slight oreintation towards Laos gets my vote!
Even a Laos ruled over by a Chinese dynasty descended from a bandit king?
Any tl with even a slight oreintation towards Laos gets my vote!
I'll take it!Even a Laos ruled over by a Chinese dynasty descended from a bandit king?
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.
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.
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?