48 EASTERN ASIA
In this chapter
- Geography and History
- Religion and Philosophy
- Literature
- Architecture
- Performing Arts
- Visual Arts
GEOGRAPHY and HISTORY
Colonialism in East Asia
British attempts to gain control over regions of Asia beyond India and Hong Kong were often frustrated by Russia, which also sought to expand its influence there. The ongoing struggle between the two was called The Great Game. From the 1850s through the 1870s, Russia gained control of kingdoms occupied by Turkic-speaking peoples in central Asia and incorporated them into its empire as a region called Turkestan (Figure 9.22). Russia argued that its actions were necessary to “civilize” the region’s inhabitants and protect important trade routes. Britain feared Russia would try to absorb India as well. To protect its prized possession, Britain sought to use the Emirate of Afghanistan as a buffer zone. When its diplomats were refused admission to Afghanistan in 1878, the British army invaded. Britain emerged victorious, gaining the right to act as a go-between for Afghanistan and Russia. When Russia gained control of much of what is now Turkmenistan in 1881, the two European nations jointly established the boundary line between an independent Afghanistan and Russian territory, ending a serious conflict between the two powers.
Russia also desired to expand control over the far eastern end of its empire, on the Pacific coast. Here, however, it found itself in conflict with a new imperial power—Japan. Lacking many of the raw materials necessary for industrialization, Japan, like other industrialized nations, began to seek them abroad. It first took control of the Ryukyu Islands and also claimed the Kurile Islands and Sakhalin Island (Figure 9.23). Russia, however, also laid claim to these territories, and for a while the two nations shared Sakhalin Island. In 1875, Japan relinquished its claims to the island in exchange for complete control over the Kurile Islands.
Japan’s most desired prize was Korea, then a largely isolated tributary state of China. Japan traded with Korea but in a limited way. In 1873, however, Korea’s King Gojong began to consider opening the nation to the outside world. Anxious to gain an advantage, in 1876 Japan sent a gunboat to force Korea to sign the Japan-Korea Treaty of Amity (Ganghwa Treaty) before it could make commercial treaties with other nations. Among other provisions, the treaty allowed the Japanese to establish trading ports in addition to the one to which they already had access. It also let Japanese merchants live and work in Korea while subject only to Japanese law. In addition, Korea was declared to no longer be a tributary state of China (Figure 9.24).
China did not wish to relinquish its control so easily, and a series of uprisings and mutinies in Korea in the 1880s gave it the opportunity to reassert its authority. In 1885, however, both Japan and China agreed to withdraw military forces from the peninsula in 1885. Although