The Japanese invented Southeast Asia. This is just one of the pieces of intellectual dynamite that Benedict Anderson tosses into the reader's lap with this extraordinary set of essays in theoretical provocation.
Anderson also has the gift of prophecy. Published before the recent horrors in East Timor, "The Spectre of Comparisons" anticipated the birth of Timorese independence. In his mental powers, Anderson must be the envy of his discipline.
As for the notion that the Japanese invented Southeast Asia, he is entirely serious. He contends that power makes geography. If we understand the world as a collection of regions, it is because, at some crucial phase of its history, a region was given unity and coherence by a great power. Regionalism begins with hegemony.