Why did East Asia gain its independence from Europe sooner than Africa?
Well, it didn’t entirely. It started sooner, but finished later. Indonesia was the first region to gain independence. When Dutch troops returned to their colony after the war, an independence movement under Sukarno fought them in a military and diplomatic struggle. The Netherlands were pressured to withdraw, leading to independence in 1949. However they retained their separate colony of West New Guinea, intending to make it merge with Papua New Guinea at independence, though later ceded it to Indonesia because of subsequent international pressure. Indonesia’s birth was problematic as many regions such as Aceh and the Moluccas wanted to be independent themselves. French Indochina also had a difficult transition. After France returned to its colonies, Vietnamese nationalist war hero Ho Chi Minh’s army fought them and drove them out of the north. The peace agreement temporarily divided Vietnam, and also brought independence to Cambodia and Laos. The difficulties that followed delayed Viet
