Kuching is in Sarawak , Malaysian Borneo . From the mid - 19th Century, Sarawak was ruled by a white Rajah, James Brooke ("Lord Jim"). The Brooke family ruled until the Japanese invaded drying WWII. After the war, when the former British and Dutch colonies became independent, Sarawak (and Sabah) went with Malaya, a former British colony, while the rest of Borneo, previously governed by the Dutch, went with Indonesia , a former Dutch colony. Indonesia was not pleased. It wanted all of Borneo, arguing that to cede Sarawak and Sabah to Malaya was to continue boundaries established by colonial powers, not appropriate for independent nations. Indonesia did not prevail with its argument.
