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An Analysis of the British Colonialism in Southeast Asia in the 19thCentury: Based on the Theories of the “Official Mind” and “Gentlemanly Capitalism.”

Seung-Won Song 1

1서강대학교

Candidate

ABSTRACT

This article aims at analyzing the origins and natures of the direct British control over parts of Southeast Asia in the 19th century by applying two major theories on the subject of British Imperialism, “the Theory of Official Mind” by Robinson and Gallagher, and “the Theory of Gentlemanly Capitalism” by Cain and Hopkins. While these two theories have been in fluential in the study of British imperialism in the third-world countries, the case of Southeast Asia has not been seriously dealt with inprevious scholarship. In case of Southeast Asia, these two theories should be applied without marginalizing one. From the analysis of three areas of the Malay World, Sarawak, and Burma, a conclusion can be derived that the British government maintained its “strategic concern” in Southeast Asia in the beginning of the 19th century aiming at protecting India and China, its major markets, while this trend began to change when Gentlemanly Capitalists in London began to be interested in the economic benefits in the region. Supported by the local British merchants and bankers, these Gentlemanly Capitalists pressed and petitioned the British government to take more actions to bring this region under the direct British control. Accordingly, Britain’s expansion in the region can be understood as the amalgam of “strategicconcerns” of the British government at the initial period and “economic concerns” of the Gentlemanly Capitalists in later period.

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* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.
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