Great+Britain+and+Far+East

 British Imperialism Britain was the empire that was always on top. It had a strong economy, the newest technology, and power around the world. When the British economy began to lose its lead, the British scrambled for more ideas to keep Britain's reputation growing. When they heard of Henry Stanley, an explorer hired to search Africa for good land, they joined in the action by seizing African lands and taking them over. They already had owned land around the world that they used for trade and establishing colonies, but they were just at the beginning of their imperialism journey. The Industrial Revolution was occurring, and they needed more places to buy things from and new markets to sell their products to. They saw colonies as a ticket to more power, and they were greedy for more land. Their empire was already the largest, but there was still competition from other nations. Nationalism began a great race to take over the most land. Social Darwinism encouraged Imperialism in Britain, because the nation saw they were successfully surviving, and they took this success as a sign that they were an evolved, better nation. They believed this gave them the power to take over other nations. Although the African lands did not have as much to offer as some of their other colonies, they wished to take as much land as they could, leaving the other nations less land. Although many of their ideas were motivated by greed, the British also wanted to share their culture with the people of the lands they owned. They introduced them to their religious beliefs and government policies, whether the people agreed with them or not. They improved their medical standards and built them build schools of western custom. The British, being one of the leading nations in technology, were equipped for any fight they needed to endure to get what they wanted. They had a well-trained army, made up of determined men with the latest weapons. They had the machine gun and the Maxim gun. They were advanced machines, and frightened many nations they sought after. Most of the weaker countries they took over were undeveloped. They also brought Quinine to prevent tropical diseases. This allowed the British to venture into foreign jungle land without getting sick. The British steamship was another key invention that further helped their imperialism. It provided efficient, fast travel. The British conquered many nations including India, regions of Africa, China, Malaya, and North America. They had exceptional success taking over lands in the Far East. The Far East included China and Malay, which they took over by imperialism. They managed to take control of them both, but some attempts took more effort than others.

In the far east their main goal was to imperialize China and Malaya. These countries both had natural resources and strong points that would help Britain. This made them a desirable place for Britain to control.

When the British lost their colonies in Mexico they looked for countries in the Far East to take over. By loosing this colony they also lost its supply of silver which it needed for trade. They needed a place that they could use to make a very large profit off of. They looked to China and Malay, in Malay they began to take over the land and forced them to accept the “land order” which was to make it so that they could not sell land to anyone other than the British. This caused major dissent in Malay, but profit in Britain. This was because since the British had exclusive trading rights with them they were forced to buy expensive British goods.

The British was able to gain control of Malay very easily. There weren’t a lot of problems gaining the control but there were problems with holding on to it. When the British tried to gain control of China they faced one main problem the Opium war. This was fought because the people of China refused to join with Britain and were highly addicted to opium and wanted to trade with Britain but Britain and China had a series of problems to which the Opium was started. The Chinese won the war and Britain wasn’t able to obtain this land. However they were able to obtain exclusive trading privelages with Chinese and in years to come they set up a system where the British were above Chinese law. That made it so that China was in essence, force fed British opium. Many Chinese were angered by Britain's rights, and they had many uprisings against it such as the Boxer Uprising. Britain was a powerful country but they were able to be stopped.

To gain control of China there were some challenges. Britain was facing a country that was able to keep its self wealthy and strong by staying inside of its country. Britain had to use India as a "stepping stone" to get to china. Once they gain control of the country it was easy to keep and handle China. Malay on the other hand was very easy to gain control and keep control.

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