Fluid Frontiers: Oceania and Asia in Historical Perspective.

This article, like the special issue it introduces, presents an attempt to think systematically about the durable and complex relationship between Pacific Island and East and Southeast Asian histories. Settled by people whose languages originally took shape in East and Southeast Asia, the Oceanic Pacific has deep links with Asia. Given that the changes that have unfolded in the Pacific World since the 16th century arise from linkages between the Americas, Asia and Europe which emerged through the creation of a global economic system, it is logical to treat Asia as one of the core contexts for Pacific history. The intensified connections between Pacific Island societies in the 18th and 19th centuries were strongly influenced by Asian economic, political and cultural systems. The decades between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries were a period of complex engagement of Pacific Island worlds with Chinese, Japanese, European, British, American and Southeast Asian influences. World War II, a conflict between the United States and Japan for domination of the Pacific, was a product of these earlier structures and a break with them. Today, Pacific peoples engage with powerful political, economic and cultural influences emanating from East Asia, most notably the People's Republic of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]