Global Asia, 5; IIAS Publications Series. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press; Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press [distributor], 2015. 523 pp. (Illustrations.) US$149.00, cloth. ISBN 978-90-8964-420-6.
This book by the Dutch historian Kees van Dijk is an historical review of global power struggles and negotiations in the Asia-Pacific region, boiling from the latter half of the nineteenth century until the onset of WWI. The global powers analyzed in this volume are Great Britain, France, Russia, as well as relatively recent ones such as the United States, Germany, and Japan. The Dutch mercantile empire, while also having a strong presence in Southeast Asia at this time, is only sporadically referenced (it was, however, the main subject of van Dijk’s earlier work The Netherlands Indies and the Great War 1914–1918 (KITLV Press, 2007). In fact, as he states in the foreword, writing on the Netherlands Indies made him “realize how much international developments in the Pacific in the previous decades had shaped Dutch anxieties about the Netherlands being able to hold on to its colonies in the East” (9) and the data collected to sketch these anxieties forms the basis of this present work.
While the main title suggests that the primary focus is on the Pacific, including its islands (e.g., Fiji, Samoa, New Guinea, and Hawaii) and the Pacific Rim region (e.g., Taiwan, China, Indochina, and Thailand), the geographical areas examined in the book also involve Central Asia, Burma, and Tibet. The main point of van Dijk is that starting from the early 1870s, the Pacific Ocean gradually surpassed the Atlantic as the new traffic centre of world commerce. This was enabled by the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, which drastically shortened the journey from Europe to India, the Far East, and the Pacific. Ports on the Persian Gulf, in India, China, Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand began to serve as important commercial entry points, relay stations, or naval bases, which further affected the politics of these regions and adjacent territories. When one adds to this the advancement of various technologies at the time such as the replacement of sail with steam, construction of transcontinental railroads (e.g., the completion of America’s transcontinental railroad in 1869), and installations of submarine telegraph cables, the strategic position of the Pacific Islands became extremely important. For one thing, steamships needed coaling stations in the middle of their long ocean voyages (17). Cash cropping opportunities such as cotton and copra (54), as well as abundant land and sources of labour (52) to develop plantations, also attracted numerous settlers whose products could now be efficiently moved by these newly developed means of transportation. These settlers and their organizations had long been mingling in indigenous politics and swaying homeland colonial policies in favour of military backing or even total annexation (25). There were even cases where overseas colonies took the initiative to annex territories (e.g., Australia and British New Guinea, 132), or discussed the possibilities of forming an island federation themselves (New Zealand and Fiji, 412). Missionaries from different denominations also played influential roles in intervening in indigenous politics and extending the struggle of the global powers (49). As van Dijk concludes, “The South Pacific, which in the past had not attracted much attention, suddenly became a region of great expectations and dreams of unlimited economic prospects” (47).
While most of the historical events mentioned in this book have already been treated in various scholarly studies, this work’s greatest contribution is to put these events in the context of “rivalry” and to bring out the complex interactions involved. For example, in chapter 4, van Dijk analyzes the Anglo-German rivalry behind the annexation of Fiji. This is an interesting angle because previous studies have focused on either the Anglo-French rivalry reflected in the competition between the Roman Catholic Church and London Missionary Society (see Neil Gunson’s “Missionary Interest in British Expansion in the South Pacific in the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of Religious History 3, no. 4 [Dec. 1965]), or the Anglo-American rivalry in the Pacific (see William David McIntyre’s “Anglo-American Rivalry in the Pacific: The British Annexation of the Fiji Islands in 1874,” Pacific Historical Review 29, no. 4 [1960]). As van Dijk demonstrates, after the British annexation of Fiji in 1874 and the deployment of its subsequent land and labour policies, the interests of German settlers in Fiji were greatly affected, a situation he terms the “Fiji Crisis.” This made Germany aware that its settlers needed greater protection, which deeply influenced the development of future power struggles in the Pacific (74). In chapters 18 and 19, when discussing the involvement of the United States in the Pacific in the late nineteenth century, particularly the annexation of Hawaii, the author also brings in the ambitions of Japan (383) and that country’s early fears for its forces and emigrants in the face of American moves (471), issues that are generally neglected by studies of American activities in the Pacific in this period.
Given the grand scheme of van Dijk’s approach in this book, there are a few minor aspects regarding which I feel more details could have been provided. For example, on page 97 he mentions that in the late nineteenth century Germany would have acquired Taiwan (Formosa) from China. I find this very interesting, which is a lesser known fact in the history of Taiwan. I am nevertheless disappointed to find no reference attached to this statement, which could actually be found in Otto Pflanze’s work Bismarck and the Development of Germany, Volume III: The Period of Fortification, 1880–1898 (Princeton University Press 2014, 115). I also think that the British Admiral Lord George Paulet’s brief occupation of Hawaii in 1843 should have been mentioned in the chapter on the annexation of Hawaii, for it had great significance for Hawaiian sovereignty and Anglo-American rivalry in the Pacific. These points, however, do not diminish the value of this volume as an excellent historical review of the diplomatic, military, and economic activities in the pre-WWI Asia-Pacific region.
Hao-Li Lin
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA
pp. 111-113