EARLY USES AND CONCEPTUALIZATION OF THE TERM ‘SOUTHEAST ASIA’

Abstract

This article traces the earlier use and conception of the term ‘Southeast Asia’ in the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries. In the period not only the term but also several regional terms were used in the United Kingdom and Singapore. The article examines how these terms have been defined and used in English newspapers published in the two countries in the past. The author argues that the term ‘South East Asia/Southeast Asia’ was well used and the conception recognised before the establishment of the military organization, South East Asia Command (SEAC) in 1943, which made the regional term popular. Though the regional term ‘Southeast Asia’ became a widely-used term in public after that year, partly because of the development of the area studies of Southeast Asia in the United States, the regional conception varied from one scholar to another by the 1960s. The establishment of the indigenous regional organizations such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
helped to increase recognition and usage of the term and also to reach a consensus on its
conception. This article examines the terms for this region used earlier in India, China
and Japan, before tracing the emergence of the English usage of the regional terms.