In their evolution of political structures and life, countries often undergo significant conjunctures or what is sometimes referred to as historical junctures. For parsimony, the term conjuncture which appears to better reflect a confluence of forces has been chosen. A conjuncture involves “interaction effects between distinct causal sequences that become joined at particular points in time”. During such moments “relatively long periods of institutional stability and reproduction are punctuated occasionally by brief periods of institutional flux”. At the formative level, such conjunctures are likely to be important starting points in the historical evolution of a society or country. Just like ethnic nations, these formative episodes are likely to involve an important event, declaration or document. The American Civil War in the 1800s and the Magna Carta in the United Kingdom constitute such episodes. Subsequently, and deriving their legitimacy from these formative events, structures, rituals and practices that acquire symbolic and mythical value evolve over time. Whereas such practices naturally undergo changes over time to reflect both the popular will as well as administrative refinements, there is a certain permanence about these foundational norms. For example, in the United Kingdom, as democracy evolved, power gradually shifted from the upper House of Lords to the lower House of Commons. Notwithstanding the changes in the configuration of power between both Houses, it can be argued that the structures have remained intact. In fact, the transfer of power from the Lords to the Commons quite simply reflected the democratic value that state sovereignty should be vested with the citizenry rather than the elite aristocracy.

Foundational conjunctures are likely to determine structural and cultural norms that order political life. Such events typically identify the rules of engagement and provide both opportunities and constraints to regulate politics. Changes then occur incrementally while the basic principles or rules of engagement become reified. However, from time to time states and societies undergo major events that reorder political structures and norms.

The Industrial Revolution in the West introduced to the world a series of technological changes embodied in the development of railways, steamships, the telegraph, and the mechanized factory. They were made possible mainly by three categories of individuals — inventors, engineers and entrepreneurs. Inventors and engineers created things that have never been created before. Entrepreneurs think of ways of adapting the inventions to the needs of the consumer markets, that is, they turn an invention into an innovation. Thomas Edison, for example, is an inventor — but he was also an entrepreneur because he invented a feasible electric bulb, then designed a system that would deliver electricity to lighting customers, and eventually incorporated a number of companies to manufacture all parts and to supply the electric service. Colonial Singapore did not possess inventors who created products that were developed by entrepreneurs for the mass markets, or structures and projects that were completed by the skills and knowledge of locally trained engineers. It was strictly a busy trading outpost where the engine of commercial growth was driven by thousands of migrants from India, China and the Malay Archipelago, and parts of the British Empire. They were convinced that, with the protection of the British law, there were many pots of gold at the end of the rainbow. This chapter looks into the pioneering roles of nineteenth century individuals in laying the foundation of Singapore's entrepôt economy.

Role of the European Agency House and the Chinese Comprador

Beginning with the arrival in 1819 of Alexander Johnston who started the first European agency house in the following year, a steady stream of European merchants and entrepreneurs soon arrived and established agency houses and business operations, many of which were the forerunners of several big companies in Singapore today. Notable among them were Alexander Guthrie, Edward Boustead, William Paterson, Benjamin Keasberry, Abraham Logan, Robin Woods, and John Cameron. As Singapore's trade grew the number of European firms also increased steadily, from 14 in 1827, to 36 in 1855, and 62 in 1872. The number of residents in the European community, however, remained small and grew slowly, from 74 in 1824, to 360 in 1849, and 466 in 1860.

The main aim of this chapter is to analyse and assess the impact of historical conjunctures on modern Cambodian society. Important changes in modern Cambodia are assessed with the goal of identifying a selected number of historical conjunctures to be included in the study. The conjunctures that are selected are presented empirically and their impact on Cambodian society is outlined. The study also includes a discussion and assessment of the relative importance of the selected conjunctures.

The study is structured in the following way. First, historical conjunctures for inclusion in the study are selected. Second, the selected historical conjunctures are empirically presented. Third, the impact of the conjunctures on Cambodian society is outlined. Fourth, the relative importance of the conjunctures is discussed and assessed in the concluding section.

THE HISTORICAL CONJUNCTURES

Selecting the Historical Conjunctures for Inclusion in the Study

Cambodia's modern history since it gained formal independence from France in 1953 displays a number of relevant historical conjunctures. In the context of this study a select number will be studied. Interestingly, the fact that Cambodia gained independence from France in 1953 is in itself a historical conjuncture since it implied that Cambodia was not part of the First Geneva Conference on Indochina held in 1954 and that the anti-French forces — The Khmer Issarak — were not given any area to regroup in within Cambodia contrary to the situation in both Laos and Vietnam. Instead, some of its cadres were relocated to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV). This would impact not only on the country but also on the perception of Vietnam within the Cambodian communist movement. Notwithstanding the importance of this event it will not be included in the study. Instead, historical conjunctures ranging over a period from 1970 to the early 1990s will be included. They are the overthrow of Prince Norodom Sihanouk in 1970, the fall of Phnom Penh in 1975, the military intervention of Cambodia by Vietnam in 1978–79, and the United Nations' peacekeeping operation in Cambodia in 1992–93.

This chapter argues that the twelfth general election of 8 March 2008 in Malaysia was a watershed political event, which may be appreciated as a historical conjuncture, following Ganesan. Certainly, 8 March altered significantly the political parameters of electoral politics and, as I have argued elsewhere, constituted or at least contributed to a reconfiguration of the political landscape in Malaysia. In terms of electoral politics, it may be suggested that 8 March created a de facto and perhaps a de jure two-party (or two coalition) system if one considers both the parliamentary and state levels of governance. The character of Malaysian federalism may have paradoxically allowed for such a development.

The event saw the ruling National Front (Barisan Nasional) government lose its two-thirds share of seats in parliament which it had held since Malaysia became independent in 1957. The opposition parties, later formalized as the People's Alliance (Pakatan Rakyat), won a total of 82 out of the 222 seats up for contest. The National Front barely won 50 per cent of the 7.9 million ballots cast, demonstrating that the electorate was virtually split down the middle. Furthermore, five state governments fell to opposition hands, unprecedented in Malaysian history. This essay argues that the political moment creating a two-party system in Malaysia was reinforced by several subsequently held by-elections after 8 March. The outcome of these by-elections indicates that the momentum and the factors that explain the 8 March result continue to drive current political developments. Factors driving Malaysia's new politics are both a function of its political transformations which have disembedded political legacies since arguably the 1980s and certainly after Anwar Ibrahim's sacking and incarceration in 1998. I suggest that while ethnicity remains a crucial variable in Malaysian politics, cross-ethnic voting represents the driver of Malaysia's new politics. Citizens across the board are now more informed of universal issues such as corruption and minority rights.

VIEWS OF THE MONGOL EMPIRE

Historians confront serious obstacles trying to understand the Mongol empire. Westerners have, until recently, generally portrayed the Mongols as barbaric conquerors, and some historians in Russia and the Soviet Union, in particular, have depicted them as oppressive plunderers, who razed numerous towns and massacred untold number of inhabitants. Most disturbing, the Mongols reputedly severed Russia's relations with the West, preventing the spread of European ideas and technologies to the Tsarist State that replaced the so-called Tartar yoke. A few historians blamed the Mongols for introducing a more despotic form of government in Russia. Traditional Chinese historians described the Mongol-ruled Yuan Dynasty as having ravaged Chinese territory and decimated the Chinese population, having undermined the proper operation of government by suspending the civil service examinations, having fostered the development of more despotic rule in Ming China, and having caused many talented men to avoid government service. Central and Western Asian historians emphasised the horrors of the Mongol onslaughts and invasions, although later rulers such as Tamerlane sought to identify with the Mongol heritage to bolster their claims to universal rule. Because Korea had legitimate familial links to the Mongols due to royal intermarriages, the Khan's procurement of Korean concubines, and Korea's recruitment of talented men for its bureaucracy, its primary sources and its later historians were not as critical of Mongol rule. Japanese historians depicted the two abortive Mongol assaults as evidence that Japan was divinely protected even from brutal conquerors.

Starting in the mid-twentieth century, specialists on the Mongol empire began to challenge these negative images. While they did not ignore the almost catastrophic destruction and the loss of life engendered by the Mongol invasions, they also noted that the Mongols facilitated travel and contact throughout Eurasia, which witnessed the first direct contacts between China and Europe, resulting in trade, cultural and artistic diffusion, scientific and technological borrowing, and religious exchanges.

Hülegü Khan's arrival on the south bank of the Amu Darya, or the Oxus, in the 1250s was the second time that a large Mongol-led military force had landed south of the great river poised to advance on the Iranian plateau. Three decades earlier his grandfather, Chinggis Khan had unleashed his forces in a destructive campaign of retribution and conquest, whereas Hülegü Khan came in response to an invitation from the Persian notables of Qazvin. He and his brothers harboured the aim of extending the mercantile, political, and cultural power of the Chinggisid empire and its emerging new dynamic reincarnation under Möngke Khan, eldest of the brothers, by consolidating their grip over the southern half of the greater Chinggisid empire encompassing Iran, Tibet, and China. A delegation from Qazvin had approached the newly-enthroned emperor and requested that he extend his direct rule over the Iranian heartlands and appoint a prince to replace the ineffective and corrupt military regime, which had been in place since the early 1220s. The Iranians had seen the rising fortunes of individual Persians and Muslims in the Chinggisid domains, and they sought to bring their land out from the cold and in from the peripheral political wastelands of the West. They sought to pre-empt any ambition that the Turanian rulers might harbour towards their land and welcomed the new generation of sophisticated, worldly, and educated young princes and, as they had done so many times before, assimilate the migrants from north of the Oxus. This essay aims to show how and why various Iranian players contributed to the assimilation and development of Il-Khanid rule in Iran. With individual notables and their families, such as Baydawi, the Iftikhariyans, and the Juwaynis, exploiting their contacts and positions, by the turn of the century the courts of the two ‘Iraqs’ were awash with linguistically adept adventurers and entrepreneurs with their gaze fixed determinedly eastward. Many had seen the hand of God in the rise of the Mongols.

The essays in this volume derive from an International Research Workshop entitled “Eurasian Influences on Yuan China: Cross-Cultural Transmissions in the 13th and 14th Centuries” convened at Binghamton University on 20 and 21 November 2009. Professors John Chaffee (of Binghamton University), Ralph Kauz (now at Bonn University), Angela Schottenhammer (now of Ghent University), Tansen Sen (of Baruch College of the City University of New York), and Mathieu Torck (of Ghent University) had conceived of the need for such a workshop, and Professor Chaffee, with assistance from the Institute for Asia and Asian Diasporas, the Departments of Asian and American Studies and History, and the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Binghamton University and the Nalanda-Sriwijaya Centre of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, organised the Workshop. The Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation provided financial support, for which the participants are grateful.

In addition to the essays in this book, Professors Bettine Birge (of the University of Southern California), Mau Chuan-hui (of the National Tsing-hua University), and Mathieu Torck and Dr. Linda Komaroff (of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art) presented papers that they plan to publish elsewhere. Thanks are due to them for their contributions to the discussions, as well as to a number of observers who attended the meetings.

The workshop discussions about individual papers were lively and constructive. This pleasant atmosphere of give-and-take did not, of course, lead to unanimity. Disagreements about themes and conclusions persisted, although the participants concurred that all the papers were well-researched. Not all participants would necessarily agree with the conclusions in the revised and edited versions of these essays presented in this volume. This lack of lockstep agreement is, in fact, valuable in a book that is designed to stimulate additional research on an understudied Chinese dynasty. I myself do not entirely agree with some of the views expressed, but I have used my editorial pen to help make the strongest case possible for each paper.

Like Cinderella, the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368) has been treated as a step-sister in the study of China. The Song Dynasty (960–1279), with such luminaries as the reformer Wang Anshi (1021–1086), the historian Sima Guang (1019–1086), the philosopher Zhu Xi (1130–1200), the poet Su Shi (1036–1101), and the painter Fan Kuan (ca. 1023), has overshadowed the Mongolian-ruled Yuan. To be sure, the Song has rightfully received considerable attention. Its achievements in philosophy, the arts, technology, statecraft, historical writing, and literature compare favourably with Athenian Greece. Its capital of Hangzhou, the most populous city in the world, boasted an elaborate canal system, a fire department, and fine restaurants, and theatre. It was a center of culture and refinement and has attracted the interests of historians, art historians, and scholars of literature and philosophy, not to mention specialists on the history of science and technology.

Yet the Yuan also had considerable achievements to its credit and had greater global significance. The thirteenth-century Mongolian invasions had linked East Asia to Central and Western Asia and even to Europe. Eurasia became a reality, as developments from as far away as China influenced Iran and the Italian city states. Merchants, missionaries, entertainers, artists, and scientists travelled across the relatively peaceful routes stretching from Venice and Genoa to Tabriz and Samarkand and on to Hangzhou and Daidu (or Beijing). Circulation of people led to technological, religious, and artistic diffusion. The Mongols, requiring assistance in ruling the various domains they had subjugated, recruited advisers and officials of diverse ethnic backgrounds to govern their different realms, including China.

The Mongols' negative and positive impacts on Chinese affairs were also significant. The destruction they caused is undeniable. China's population declined, and the Mongol armies razed numerous towns and cities during their initial attacks. The Chinese were prevented from filling some of the most important government positions.

The Mongol epoch in world history has long been recognised as a period of unprecedented east-west communication and cross-cultural transmission. Scholars have typically pointed to the eradication of political barriers in continental Eurasia, with the result that the Silk Route flourished as never before. This essay, by contrast, will focus on the maritime trade routes linking China with southern and western Asia as a medium for cross-cultural transmission, and it will argue that maritime trade and communication functioned differently under the Mongols than they had previously, most notably in their politicisation and centralisation, and that these differences had significant cultural implications. For the first time, individual merchants and merchant families come into historical focus, in some cases as politically important actors. The unprecedented east-west flows of people, goods, and ideas helped to give the Muslim communities of southeastern China a semi-colonial character.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The system of maritime trade inherited by the Mongols following their conquest of the Song in the 1270s had its origin in the protrade policies of the post-Tang Southern Kingdoms and the early Song. In an approach unique in pre-modern Chinese history, the imperial government allowed virtually free trade while relying on it as an important source of revenue, employing a combination of compulsory purchase and import taxes. Although tributary trade from frequent tribute missions was important through the early decades of the eleventh century, and briefly in the late Northern Song, these tapered off so that through the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the Song government's interactions with the maritime world occurred almost exclusively through the superintendencies of maritime trade which dotted the coast, the two most important of which were located in Guangzhou and Quanzhou. The superintendencies did not simply tax the incoming ships; they welcomed ships when they arrived and saw them off, provided support to foreign seamen and merchants in distress, and served as the point of all political contact between the ships and government.