section_path: History/Background
section_name: Background
paragraph_text: Background
  
  Besides their close geographic proximity, political scholars consider Southeast Asian nations a cultural crossroads between East Asia and South Asia, located at critical junctions of the South China Sea as well as the Indian Ocean, and as a result received much influence from Islamic and Persian influences prior to the European colonial ages.
  
  Since around 100 BCE, the Southeast Asian archipelago occupied a central position at the crossroads of the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea trading routes, which stimulated the economy and the influx of ideas. This included the introduction of abugida scripts to Southeast Asia as well as the Chinese script to Vietnam. Besides various indigenous scripts, various abugida Brahmic scripts were widespread in both continental and insular Southeast Asia. Historically, scripts such as Pallava, Kawi (from ancient Tamil script) and Rencong or Surat Ulu were used to write Old Malay, until they were replaced by Jawi during Islamic missionary missions in the Malay Archipelago.
  
  European colonialism influenced most ASEAN countries, including French Indochina (present-day Vietnam, Laos & Cambodia), British Burma, Malaya and Borneo (present-day Myanmar, Malaysia & Singapore, and Brunei), Dutch East Indies (present day Indonesia), Spanish East Indies (present-day Philippines and various other colonies), and Portuguese Timor (present-day Timor-Leste), with only Thailand (then Siam) not formed from a prior European colony. Siam served as the buffer state, sandwiched between British Burma and French Indochina, but its kings had to contend with unequal treaties as well as British and French political interference and territorial losses after the Franco-Siamese conflict of 1893 and the Anglo-Siamese Treaty of 1909. Under European colonization, Southeast Asian nations were introduced to European religions and technologies, as well as the Latin alphabet.
  
  The Japanese Empire, in the vein of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere concept, sought to unite and create a pan-Asian identity against Western colonial occupation, but Japan's alliance with the Axis powers in World War II soured relations between many colonies of Europe and the United States. Defeat of Imperial Japan eventuated in decolonization movements throughout Southeast Asia, resulting in the independent ASEAN states seen today.