Responding to a Prompt - Essay Example

China The main goal of British Imperialism in China was economic. There was very high demand for Chinese silk, porcelain, and tea in Britain (Salter35). However, the British colonial machine did not have enough silver to trade with China’s Qing Empire. As a result, a barter trade system dominated by Indian opium was established to remedy this issue of payment. Conflicts between the Qing regime and British traders eventually resulted in the Opium Wars (Salter 35). Consequently, the British were offered Hong Kong and trading rights in Shanghai and Canton. Even though British imperialism never politically established itself in mainland China as was the case in Africa and India, it had a huge cultural and political impact (Salter 38). Hong Kong is still a global hub of finance and its government still works in the same manner it did under British colonialism. In addition, the language of British and English culture had a huge impact on Southern China and Hong Kong’s society for over one hundred years (Salter 38). The early contacts between the European merchants and missionaries on one side and the Chinese officials and emperors, on the other hand, clearly accepted the high social standing of the Chinese. Even after China’s defeat in the 1840 Opium Wars, the country’s rulers and public regularly encouraged the notion of restoring China’s honor. Every war, even when China was defeated resulted in more nationalist awareness among the Chinese (Salter 38). Even when they were affected by Japanese modernization after the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the Chinese distinguished between fundamental values and techniques for use. Adopting Chinese tradition as the foundation and applying Western ideals for application was a concept advanced by some Chinese philosophers in the late 19th century (Salter 43). The developments after the Chinese Revolution showed that all foreign impacts were partially incorporated into the domestic struggles resulting in unique Chinese experiments and strategies. Even when China opted to adopt Western theories and methods, concepts about society and nature they did it from a standing of independence and self-confidence (Salter 44). They did it during objective evaluation and fair negotiations instead of as an offshoot of colonial knowledge that symbolized a relationship of political authority and domination. Unlike India, China was not a colony. It was a semi-colony under different domination by the Japanese and European powers. India The British East India Company conquered India using a combination of military force, political strategy, and intrigue that was applied cleverly. India became a colony of Britain in 1858. Powerful countries, including Holland, Spain, France, England, and Portugal had used their enormous monetary and military resources to establish colonies in Africa, Asia, and the Americas (Salter 46). Many colonies, like Australia and North America, were established by military intervention. Other colonies (e.g. India) were initially opened via trade and commerce which finally resulted in their political control and external economic domination. England’s colonies were Singapore, Burma, Malaysia, India, and Ceylon and hundreds of other small and large territories worldwide (Salter 47). The English justified their conquests by stating that they were a superior people with a divine goal: to spread and advance Western civilization. In today’s world that sounds extremely racist, but it was a firm conviction of most Englishmen at that time. Although England gained from its colonies, the territories suffered disease and oppression. In the nineteenth century, the British brought vital advances of the Industrial Revolution to its colony in India (Salter 49). However, a century of their rule brought poverty and weakness to a once wealthy and important India. In 1835, the British Empire introduced English education to consolidate its power. Indians performed well in the new education system with fateful results. They read, in English, how U.S. colonies united together in 1776 to break the yoke of British colonization and create a democracy (Salter 49). They learned how the French, in 1789, achieved freedom by overthrowing their king. Indians correctly concluded that their ancestral land, Bharat Mata, had the same rights as France or the United States to be autonomous and free. However, it would require one hundred years to realize this goal. The East India Company was in charge of India until the 1850s, after which a major uprising (the Indian mutiny of 1857) led to the British government’s official and direct takeover of India (Salter 53). Japan Japan had traditionally wanted to avoid external intrusion. For many years, only the Chinese and the Dutch held rights to trading depots. Each of them was given access to just one port. No other foreigners could land in Japan although England, France, and Russia attempted, with little success (Salter 84). The first major crack in the country’s travel and trade was pushed by the United States in a bid to reinforce, strengthen and guarantee its shipping interests in the Far East. Japan’s ships and guns were no match for Commodore Perry’s two American naval expeditions to Japan in 1853 and 1854(Salter 84). The Japanese clearly aware of the effects of foreign incursion through watching what was taking place in China attempted to restrict Western trade to just 2 ports. However, in 1858, Japan signed a treaty with America, with subsequent ones signed with France, the Low Countries, Britain, and Russia (Salter 85). The treaties’ nature was familiar: resident foreigners received extraterritorial rights like in China; import and export duties were pre-set, hence eliminating control that Japan may otherwise enforce over its foreign trade; and more ports were opened to foreign merchants. Many efforts have been made to understand why a weak Japan did not fall to colonialists or, at the very least, did not go down China’s road. In spite of the lack of a universally accepted theory, 2 factors were surely influential. On one spectrum, the Western countries did not pursue their efforts to colonize Japan as aggressively as they acted elsewhere (Salter 85). In Asia the interests of the colonial powers that were expanding aggressively focused on China, India, and the close surrounding regions. When more interest developed in a likely success in Japan in the 1850s and 60s, the leading colonial powers were busy with other important matters. Such matters included the Crimean War, the U.S Civil War, the Indian mutiny of 1857, French intervention in Mexico, and the Taiping Rebellion. International envy may also have been influential in inhibiting any one power from attempting to gain exclusive right over Japan (Salter 85). On the other spectrum, in Japan itself, the growth of commerce, the threat of foreign military incursion, and a discontented peasantry resulted in a bitter power struggle and eventually to a revolutionary upheaval in the country’s society and an intense modernization program (Salter 87). This modernization program is what gave Japan the economic and military power it needed to resist any attempts to colonize it. Work Cited Salter, Christopher L. Eastern Hemisphere. Orlando, Fla.: Holt McDougal, 2012. Print. Read More