Expansion in the Industrial Age - Asia Movement

EXPANSION IN THE INDUSTRIAL AGE HIST 1301 | History Asia Movement India continued to be Britain's most significant foreign colony even after its expansion into Africa. The British East India Company, which directly controlled almost half of India, had been in possession of the country. However, the sepoys—Muslim and Hindu troops employed by the company—rose up in rebellion in 1857. After the uprising was put down by the British troops in 1858, Parliament dissolved the British East India Company and seized control of the region it had administered. Local leaders who had stayed faithful and whose authority the East India Company recognised were kept in nominal leadership of their kingdoms, but in practice they were subject to Britain. In 1876, Queen Victoria was formally crowned empress of India, and the final Mughal emperor—who had refrained from participating in the uprising— was banished. The British Raj, a time of direct British authority, started with this change of power. India was Britain's lifeblood; without it, it probably could not have continued to amass the riches and influence that allowed it to rule the rest of the globe for the majority of the nineteenth century. England was inundated with foreign-made goods that dominated the market because the country refused to apply hefty tariffs like many other industrialised nations did. By the middle of the nineteenth century, England had shifted most of its economy to manufacturing, and it also relied on commerce with other nations to provide food. Because of this, it was able to maintain a negative trade balance with much of the globe, meaning that it bought more goods from other countries than they did from it. Britain's economic collapse was a threat posed by this mismatch. Despite a heavy price for the Indian people, India prevented Britain from suffering this destiny. Indian farmers were compelled to plant cash crops like cotton and tea in order to sustain British companies and homes, hence reducing Britain's trade imbalances. Indian textiles faced high excise duties, which resulted in Indian customers purchasing English fabrics at a lower cost than those produced domestically. Indians were subjected to exorbitant taxes by British administrators in order to support their soldiers and officials who were stationed there. Additionally, British rails, locomotives, and wire were purchased with tax money to build railroads and telegraph lines in India. The new infrastructure benefitted the colonisers considerably more than the colonised, with the main purpose of building it being to bring Indian cash crops to the coast for transportation to the British Isles and British manufactured products into the interior for sale. Russia, which also aimed to increase its influence in Asia, frequently thwarted British attempts to seize control of territories outside of India and Hong Kong. The Great Game was the name given to their continuous battle. Russia seized control of Turkic-speaking countries in central Asia from the 1850s to 1870s, incorporating them into its empire as an area known as Turkestan. Russia said that its activities were required to safeguard vital trade routes and "civilise" the local populace. Britain was afraid that Russia might also attempt to annex India. Britain intended to utilise the Emirate of Afghanistan as a buffer zone to safeguard its valuable property. In 1878, the British army invaded Afghanistan after its diplomats were sent away. After winning, Britain was granted the authority to mediate disputes between Russia and Afghanistan. A major battle between the two European powers came to a conclusion when Russia took control of a large portion of what is now Turkmenistan in 1881. Together, the two countries marked the border between independent Afghanistan and Russian territory. Russia also wanted to increase its influence on the Pacific coast, which is the farthest eastern tip of its empire. Here, though, it came up against Japan, a brand-new imperial force. Japan, like other industrialised nations, started looking outside for raw resources since it lacked many of the essentials for industry. Along with claiming Sakhalin Island and the Kurile Islands, it initially seized control of the Ryukyu Islands. But Russia also claimed these areas, and the two countries shared Sakhalin Island for a period. Japan gave up its rights to the island in 1875 in return for total authority over the Kurile Islands. Korea was a mostly isolated Chinese tributary state at the time and Japan's most coveted prize. Japan had minimal commerce with Korea. But King Gojong of Korea started to think about opening up his country to the outside world in 1873. Japan dispatched a gunboat to Korea in 1876 in an attempt to obtain an edge so that Korea could sign the Japan-Korea Treaty of Amity (also known as the Ganghwa Treaty) before it could negotiate trade agreements with other countries. The pact permitted the Japanese to develop commercial ports in addition to the one they already had access to, among other things. Additionally, it permitted Japanese businessmen to reside and operate in Korea under Japanese law alone. Furthermore, it was announced that Korea was no longer a Chinese tributary state. China was unwilling to give up power so easily, and the 1880s saw a number of mutinies and uprisings in Korea that provided China with an opportunity to regain control. However, in 1885, China and Japan both agreed to remove their armed forces from the peninsula. Despite the fact that this briefly avoided a military confrontation between China and Japan, tensions soon broke out between the two. Following the death of proJapanese Korean leader Kim Ok-Kyun in Shanghai in 1894, a furious Japan eagerly anticipated the chance to take the Chinese to task. Disgruntled peasants in Korea requested social changes in the same year that the Donghak Rebellion broke out, providing China with a justification to send a military force to Korea against its agreement with Japan. After China was confronted by Japan, the First Sino-Japanese War broke out. China possessed a significantly superior military force, but Japan's fleet was far more advanced and easily beat the Chinese. Embarrassed, China signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895, ceding to Japan territories on the Liaodong Peninsula in Manchuria, Taiwan, and the Penghu Islands, as well as acknowledging Korea's independence. Now Japan possessed an empire. But Japan soon saw that it would have to protect its advantages against Russia, its longtime foe. The proJapanese administration that was in place in 1896 was overthrown by the Korean people, who were incensed with the murder of their pro-Chinese queen by Japanese operatives. Russian influence increased as Japanese control decreased, and Russia quickly gained the right to dig and harvest timber in the northern Korean peninsula. In Manchuria, Russia also started to intrude on Japanese territory. Vladivostok, Russia's lone port in the Pacific, was frequently frozen over. Russia acquired land from China on the Liaodong Peninsula in 1897 and constructed Port Arthur, a new port, in search of a harbour free of ice all year round. A cautious Japan maintained authority over Korea in return for Russia being allowed unrestricted access to the Liaodong Peninsula. The Russo-Japanese War began in winter 1904 when Japan attacked the Russian navy at Port Arthur because Russia would not budge. Japan triumphed over a much larger nation once more. Japan was granted sovereignty over southern Manchuria and recognition of its right to Korea in the September 1905 Treaty of Portsmouth. In 1910, Korea was legally conquered by Japan. France mostly stayed out of the competition between Britain, Russia, and Japan for dominance over Asia. Its main focus on the Asian continent was Indochina (present-day Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia). The Vietnamese monarch issued an order for French missionaries to depart the nation in 1858. Napoleon III retaliated by ordering the emperor to give France authority over three southern provinces and dispatching gunboats to defend the missionaries and their Christian converts. When the Vietnamese emperor refused to follow the conditions, soldiers came in 1862 and made him give up even more land. By 1887, Cambodia, a subordinate state of the Siamese ruler, and the remaining provinces of Vietnam were under French protectorate (now Thailand). Following a brief military battle between Siam and France in 1893, Laos, which is also Siamese territory, joined French Indochina. China was unable to stop Asia from being ate up. China had become a shadow of its former self by the second part of the nineteenth century. It had been weakened by defeat in the Opium Wars of 1839 and 1856, and the peace treaties that ended the Second Opium War had forced it to open more ports and grant citizens of the United States, Britain, France, and Russia the freedom to travel and enjoy the right of extraterritoriality—that is, to be subject only to the laws of their home countries while in China. Additionally, China was compelled to permit the practice of Christianity. Many Chinese in the 1860s started to demand reform as they became alarmed by their country's incapacity to defend itself against external threats. Among them was the scholar and official Feng Guifen, who promoted the study of western science and the use of western military equipment. Prominent military figures like Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang were also in favour of these changes. Prince Gong backed the reformist Self-Strengthening Movement after he had made peace with the French and British invaders in 1860. Shipyards to build contemporary warships and arsenals to produce and store modern weaponry were created. There were attempts to establish coal and iron mines, as well as to construct railway and telegraph lines. The founders of the movement promoted educational reform with a new focus on mathematics, science, and foreign languages (so foreign texts could be translated) instead of the Confucian classics, even if they remained adhered to traditional Confucian principles. They saw the Self-Strengthening Movement as a means of preserving rather than of destroying the Qing dynasty. Modernization efforts were not without opposition. The increasing focus on science and technology was seen by government officials, who were deeply versed in Confucian philosophy, as a challenge to their authority. It was also unpopular among many Chinese to let foreigners own or invest in companies or railroads. The loss of China by Japan in the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895 dealt a severe blow to the SelfStrengthening Movement. The movement's detractors asked why China was making these reforms when they did not result in the military might that the reformers had promised. The United States and other European countries fought for even greater advantages after China was defeated in 1895. Yunnan, Guangxi, and Guizhou provinces came under French rule. Britain's sway expanded along the Yangtze River Valley. Jiaozhou Bay, the Shandong Peninsula, and the Yellow River Valley to the north were all ceded to Germany. Before long, almost every industrialised country had received concessions, enclaves inside port cities like Shanghai and Tianjin where they could use their extraterritorial privileges. At the US Secretary of State John Hay's insistence, a number of these countries signed a pact with the Chinese government in 1900. China committed to trade on equal terms with all nations under the parameters of the Open Door policy established by the treaty. No industrialised nation could have an edge over the rest in this fashion. They agreed not to annexe any land in China in return.