Burma (Franco-American War)

The Republic of Burma (မြန်မာ့အသံ သမ္မတနိုင်ငံ) is a sovereign state n southeastern Asia. It is the only state in all of Indochina which doesn't have monarch. Burma borders Thailand, Laos, China, and India.

Early history
Around the second century BC the first-known city-states emerged in central Burma. The city states were founded as a part of the southward migration from the Tibeto-Burman speaking Pyu city states. The earliest inhabitants of what is modern-day Burma lived in modern-day Yunnan. The culture of ancient Burma was heavily influenced by trade with and migration by Indians; similar to those of the other modern-day Indochinese city-states. In the mid-to-late 9th century the Bamar people founded a small settlement at Bagan. This would later grow to become the first major Burmese empire. Bagan gradually grew to absorb its surrounding states until the 1050s–1060s when Anawrahta founded the Pagan Kingdom, the first ever unification of what is now modern-day Burma. In the 12th and 13th centuries, the Pagan Empire and the Khmer Empire were the two main powers in southeast Asia. Repeated Mongol attacks caused the Pagan Kingdom to collapse.

Imperial Burma & Colonization
Pagan's collapse was followed by 250 years of political fragmentation that lasted well into the 16th century. Numerous city-states were founded, referred to simply as the Shan states. These states came to dominate the entire northwestern to eastern arc surrounding the Irrawaddy valley. In the late 1300s, two sizable powers, the Ava Kingdom and the Hanthawaddy Kingdom, emerged. In the west, a politically fragmented Arakan was under competing influences from its stronger neighbors until the Kingdom of Mrauk U came to dominate the Arakan coastline. Early on, Ava fought wars of unification, but could never quite reassemble the fallen empire. This caused Ava to greatly weaken; the empire finally fell when the Confederation of Shan States conquered Ava. Like the Pagan Empire, Ava, Hanthawaddy and the Shan states were all multi-ethnic polities. Despite the wars, the nations were all culturally synchronized. Many of the great temples of Mrauk U were built during this period. Political unification returned in the mid-16th century, due to the efforts of Taungoo, a former vassal state of Ava. Taungoo's ambitious king Bayinnaung conquered most of mainland southeast Asia, spanning from parts of India to Thailand. However, after Bayinnaung's death, Tanguoo fell, most of it being conquered by the Thai Ayutthaya Kingdom. The dynasty regrouped and defeated the Portuguese in 1613 and Siam in 1614, creating a smaller, more manageable, Burmese state. Its trade and secular administrative reforms built a prosperous economy for more than 80 years, though the kingdom would eventually be damaged by repeated Meithei raids. Burma and Thailand went to war from the late 1700s until 1855, but all resulted in a stalemate, exchanging Tenasserim to Burma and Lan Na to Thailand. During this minor war, King Bodawpaya turned west, acquiring Arakan, Manipur, and Assam. This empire was short-lived however; the United Kingdom conquered all of the newly acquired territories. In 1886, all of Burma was annexed by the United Kingdom. Burmese resentment was strong and was vented in violent riots that hit Rangoon all the way until the 1930s. U Wisara, an activist monk, died in prison after a 166-day hunger strike to protest against a rule that forbade him from wearing his Buddhist robes while imprisoned. Burma was a major battleground in the Pacific War, being annexed by the Japanese as a puppet state; the State of Burma. To read about the State of Burma, click here.

Modern Burma
Despite fighting in the Indochina War; Burma never received sovereignty like its neighbors to the east did. Instead, the Burmese people had to wait until the Japanese Imperial War to win independence, along with neighbor India. Burma is now a rich, stable democracy in Indochina, a complete opposite of our world's Burma. It benefits from its strategic location near the Bay of Bengal, allowing trade with India, Ceylon, and states as far west as Ethiopia and Egypt. The former occupation has created a harsh relationship with Japan, however, and has supported the side opposing the Japanese side in all international issues involving them, and to a lesser extent, the United Kingdom; for example, Burma recognizes Ireland as an independent state and Chinese sovereignty over the territory annexed by Japan during the Pacific War.