The answer is oil!:) Actually, it's, "spices" since it was equivalent to oil back then!

But since the Euro super-powers wanted that oil too, then it wasn't too long till this region became "the center of the universe" back then where super-powers of the time really duked it out just to have complete control of spice which was only found here & no other place on earth.

And eventhough spice is virtually nothing nowadays, it set the world on fire back then just as to how oil does since the dawn of the "Industrial Age."

*Please see my Melaka, Malaysia article if you haven't seen it yet 'coz that's where the whole story is:)