occupation of Kabul in 1839 and to continuous rivalry between the two
empires throughout the nineteenth century (Hopkirk 1994; Meyer & Brysac
1999). The conWscation by the Chinese authorities of a cargo of opium in
1839 was the excuse Britain needed to declare war (the so-calledWrst Opium
War 1840–2) and force the Chinese to allow her to expand her trade. The
result for Britain was favourable. Its technological superiority led to the
cession of Hong Kong in the Treaty of Nanjing in 1842 and to some Chinese
ports, including Canton, to be opened to British residence and trade. Soon
afterwards, the French and the Americans obtained similar advantages. China
was again defeated in 1856 in a second opium war and the Treaty of Tianjin
(1858) opened new ports to trading and allowed foreigners including mis-
sionaries with passports to travel in the interior. The US and Russia—whose
expansion into Turkestan in the 1860s would represent a threat to China and
the other imperial powers in Asia 10 —also signed separate treaties to obtain
similar privileges. This situation weakened the Qing dynasty and in 1911 it
collapsed, plunging China into chaos (Wakeman 1975).
In Japan the Tokugawa, the military overlords ruling from Edo (modern
Tokyo), had governed the country from 1600. In the nineteenth century
foreign ships attempted to break Japan’s isolation and gain access to the
Japanese market without success. Europeans could only trade through
Dejima, an artiWcial island oVthe coast of Nagasaki. The last decades of the
Tokugawa were marked by conservatism and corruption, but the political
crisis forced the ruler to resign and in 1868 Emperor Meiji took control.
Westernization and industrialization were quickly introduced, including the
declaration of a Western-style constitution in 1889. The Japanese, who had
already been trading on their own with Europe from the early seventeenth
century with expeditions such as that of Hasekura Tsunenaga (1571–1622)
organized companies to compete with Westerners in the maritime trade.
Pressured by the Russians, China and Japan turned upon Korea, which
resisted until Japan forced a series of agreements from 1876. Taiwan, where
the Japanese had attempted to create colonies from the mid 1870s (Eskildsen
2002), was occupied by Japan in 1895. Control over Korea led to the Sino-
Japanese War (1894–5), with a favourable result to the Japanese. Eventually
Japan occupied Korea during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–5 and annexed
it in 1910. As a result, Koreans were assigned Japanese names, converted to the
10 Fighting against Russian ambitions to invade the Chinese Xinjiang and Tibet, in 1904
Britain invaded the latter, although in the 1907 Anglo-Russian convention Britain agreed to
refrain from interfering in Tibet’s internal aVairs. The convention, which aimed to limit the
rivalry between Russia and Britain, deemed essential to India’s defence, also included agree-
ments on Afghanistan and Persia. Thus, theWrst passed to the British sphere of inXuence as well
as the southern part of Persia, whereas the northern part of Persia became Russian, leaving a
neutral zone in between (Leach 2003: 13).
Latin America, China, and Japan 187