The region of Southeast Asia was chocked full of natural resources. Some of these natural resources included coffee, tea and spices. These resources are what originally brought western countries to the area. Many of the top countries in Europe and Asia wanted to conquer parts of this region. Lockard describes the perspective of colonialism from a world view; he states "it served primarily to link Southeast Asia more firmly to a world dominated by the West and to introduce Western ideas and technologies". 1 As Lockard is right in that instance, the conquest that came along with colonial power demonstrated to be a culture clashing experience. The two major imperial powers that will be discussed are Britain and France. Both of these countries had dominated over quite a few regions within Southeast Asia. The two regions in particular are Burma and Vietnam. While both countries were under imperial rule, the journey of decolonization each one went through were distinctive in their own right. Also, many other countries were involved in their decolonization process like Japan, the United States and at times China. .
To understand the trials and tribulations of the decolonization process that went in on in both Vietnam and Burma, we must understand how each country came to be dominated under colonial rule. Both imperial countries had their sights set on each region from an early time. Britain already had vast experience in colonial rule. The British had the United States and then conquered parts of India. The reason the British came to rule Burma was over a land issue. The Konbaung Dynasty in Burma decided to expand their territory to the west which happened to be near a part of British controlled India. The British decided that the move made by the Konbaung Dynasty was too close to their empire. This incident began the first of three Anglo-Burmese Wars. The process of colonizing Burma took the British sixty years to accomplish.