26 Asia And the Pacific in the Era of Imperialism 1800–1914

> How did Asian leaders respond to the challenges posed by Western imperialism? Chapter 26 examines the impact of nineteenth-century Western imperialism on Asia. At the beginning of the century Spain, the Netherlands, and Britain had colonies in the Philippines, modern Indonesia, and India, respectively. By the end of the century most of the southern tier of Asia, from India to the Philippines, had been colonized. Not all the countries in Asia were reduced to colonies. Although Western powers put enormous pressures on China, it remained politically independent. Much more impressively, Japan became the first non-Western nation to meet successfully the many-sided challenge of Western expansion. By the end of this period Japan had become an industrialized, imperialist power itself.