Справка.
Sabah. Information.
SABAH is Malaysia's easternmost state, one of two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo. During the 7th century CE, a settled community known as Vijayapura, a tributary to the Srivijaya empire, was thought to have existed in northwest Borneo. The earliest kingdom which suspected to have existed beginning the 9th century was Po Ni as been recorded on the Chinese Taiping Huanyu Ji. It was believed that Po Ni existed at the mouth of Brunei River and was the predecessor to the Bruneian Empire. In the 14th century, Brunei became the vassal state of Majapahit but in 1370 transferred their allegiance to Ming dynasty of China. The Maharaja Karna of Borneo then paid a visit to Beijing with his family until his death. He was succeeded by his son Hiawang who agreed to sent tribute to China once every three years. Since then, Chinese junks come to northern Borneo with cargoes of spices, bird nests, shark fins, camphor, rattan and pearls. Many of this Chinese traders eventually settled and established their own colony in Kinabatangan River as been stated on both Brunei and Sulu records. A sister of the Governor of the Chinese settlement, Huang Senping (Ong Sum Ping) then married with Muhammad Shah (the founder of the Sultanate of Brunei after embracing Islam). Perhaps due to this relations, a burial place with 2,000 wooden coffins with an estimate of 1,000 years were discovered in Agop Batu Tulug Caves, also in the Kinabatangan area. It is believed that this type of funeral culture was brought by traders from Mainland China and Indochina to northern Borneo as similar wooden coffins were also discovered in these countries. In addition with the discovery of Đông Sơn drum in Bukit Timbang Dayang on Banggi Island that had existed between 2,000–2,500 years ago. During the reign of the fifth sultan of Bolkiah between 1485–1524, the Sultanate's thalassocracy extended over northern Borneo and the Sulu Archipelago, as far as Kota Seludong (present-day Manila) with its influence extending as far of Banjarmasin,[40] taking advantage of maritime trade after the fall of Malacca to the Portuguese. Many Brunei Malays migrated to this region during this period, although the migration has begun as early as the 15th century after the Brunei conquest of the territory. But plaguing by internal strife, civil war, piracy and the arrival of western powers, the Bruneian Empire began to shrank. The first European to visit Brunei is the Portuguese, of which they describe the capital of Brunei at the time surrounded by a stone wall. This was followed by Spanish soon after Ferdinand Magellan death on 1521, when they sailed to the islands of Balambangan and Banggi in the northern tip Borneo and later led to a conflict known as the Castilian War. The Sulu gaining its own independence on 1578, forming their own sultanate known as the Sultanate of Sulu. In 1761, Alexander Dalrymple, an officer of the British East India Company, concluded an agreement with the Sultan of Sulu to allow him to set up a trading post for the first time in the northern Borneo area, although it proved to be failure. In 1765, Dalrymple managed to obtained the island by having concluded a Treaty of Alliance and Commerce with the Sultan of Sulu. A small British factory was then established in 1773 on Balambangan Island, a tiny island situated off the north coast of Borneo. The British sees the island as a suitable location to control the trade route in the East, which capable of diverting traders from the Spanish port of Manila and Dutch port of Batavia especially with its strategic location between the South China Sea and Sulu Sea. But the British abandoned the island two years later when the Sulu pirates began to attacking. This forced the British to seek refuge in Brunei in 1774, and temporary stop to find any alternative sites to replace their failed factory at Balambangan Island. Although an attempt was made in 1803 to turn Balambangan into a military station, the British did not re-establish any further trading posts in the region until Stamford Raffles began to founded Singapore in 1819. In 1846, the island of Labuan on the west coast of Sabah was ceded to Britain by the Sultan of Brunei through the Treaty of Labuan, and in 1848 it became a British Crown Colony. The Japanese forces landed in Labuan on 1 January 1942 prior to the Second World War, and continued to invade the rest of northern Borneo. From 1942 to 1945, Japanese forces occupied North Borneo, along with most of the island as part of the Empire of Japan. The British sees the Japanese advance to the area are motivated by political and territorial ambitions rather than economic factors. The occupation drove many people in the coastal towns to interior in search for food and escaping the Japanese brutality. The Malays was generally appeared to be favoured by the Japanese, although some of them were also oppressed whilst others races such as the Chinese and indigenous natives were severely oppressed. The Chinese were already resist from Japanese occupation especially with the Sino-Japanese War in Mainland China. They formed a resistance known as Kinabalu Guerillas that was led by Albert Kwok with broader supports from various ethnic groups in northern Borneo such as Dusun, Murut, Suluk and Illanun peoples. The movement was also supported by Mustapha Harun. Kwok along with many other sympathisers were however executed after the Japanese foiled their movement. After the Japanese surrender, North Borneo was administered by the British Military Administration and in 18 July 1946 it became a British Crown Colony. The Crown Colony of Labuan also integrated as part of this new colony. During the ceremony, both the Union Jack and Chinese flag been raised from the bullet-ridden Jesselton Survey Hall building. Due to massive destruction in the town of Sandakan since the war, Jesselton was chosen to replace the capital with the Crown continued to rule North Borneo until 1963. The Crown colony government established many departments to oversee the welfare of its residents as well to revive the economy of North Borneo after the war.[74] Upon Philippine independence in 1946, seven of the British-controlled Turtle Islands off the northeast of Borneo were ceded to the Philippines as been negotiated early between the American and British colonial governments.
