Colonialism, Nationalism, and Communism

As Europe moved into the industrial era, Asia became increasingly important to it as a source of raw materials and as a market. China and Japan, both of which had been admitting Christian missionaries, attempted to isolate themselves from further Western encroachment. China permitted foreign trade only at Canton (now Guangzhou); Japan, only at Nagasaki—and only with China and the Netherlands. In the 18th and early 19th centuries Great Britain expanded its control over India, occupied the tip of the Malay Peninsula, and started to conquer Burma. Meanwhile Russia absorbed western Turkestan and extended its rule to the Pacific, annexing all the region north of China.

In the mid-19th century the isolation of the Far East was shattered. Britain seized Hong Kong in 1841–42, and in 1854 Commodore Perry of the United States forced Japan to open trade to the West. During the latter part of the century France established itself in southeast Asia, and Britain and the Netherlands enlarged their interests there. Japan began its own colonial expansion, acquiring several island groups and in 1895 seizing Formosa (Taiwan) from China.

Encouraged by the Japanese victory, the European powers forced China to grant them leases for commercial operations. Germany and Britain established themselves on the coast of Shandong Province, and Russia occupied Manchuria. The Boxer Rebellion, an attempt by the Chinese in 1900 to expel foreigners, was put down by an international force including United States troops. A U.S. State Department proposal for an "open door" policy permitting all foreign nations to trade freely with China was adopted by the nations concerned.

In 1904 Russian and Japanese territorial rivalry led to war, by which victorious Japan gained control of Korea and other areas. There was a growing realization in China that the monarchy was ineffectual and the nation stagnant. In 1911 a revolution began, and in 1912 China became a republic. Outer Mongolia and Tibet declared themselves independent. Rival factions in China soon plunged the country into civil war. Japan joined the Allies in World War I. Germany lost its foothold in China, and its island possessions in the Pacific became Japanese mandates.

The war made some profound changes in western Asia. The Ottoman Empire, an ally of Germany, lost all its domain except what is now Turkey. Mesopotamia became the kingdom of Iraq, under British mandate until 1932. Syria (including Lebanon) was placed under French mandate. Several independent kingdoms arose in Arabia.

Nepal gained independence from Great Britain in 1923. Meanwhile a movement for independence from Britain had started in India. The newly organized Soviet Union gained influence over Outer Mongolia, which in 1924 became a people's (socialist) republic.

Factional differences in China led to a split of the Revolutionary party into Nationalists and Communists and to continuous fighting. In 1931 Japan seized Manchuria from China, and war between the two nations began in 1937. The rival Chinese factions were nominally united against Japan, but the fighting was done largely by the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek.

Bent on creation of a "New Order in East Asia," Japan sent troops into southern Indochina in July, 1941. December brought the Japanese air attack on the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and entrance of the United States into World War II. Within six months Japan held a large part of eastern Asia, including strategic areas of China. Japan was defeated in 1945 and stripped of its overseas possessions.

In the postwar period most colonial powers bowed to the prevailing anticolonial sentiment. Syria and Lebanon gained independence in 1944; Transjordan (Jordan) in 1946; India (part of which became Pakistan) in 1947; Palestine (Israel), Ceylon (Sri Lanka), and Burma in 1948; Indonesia in 1949; French Indochina (Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam) in 1953 and 1954; and Malaya in 1957.

In China, civil war between the Communist forces under Mao Tse-tung and the Nationalists resumed. In 1949 the Nationalists were forced from the mainland and retreated to Taiwan. The Communists conquered Tibet in 1950–51.

New conflicts developed in other areas. The Arab League, founded in 1945, opposed the creation of Israel and went to war against that nation, 1948–49. With the encouragement of the Soviet Union and Communist China, strong Communist movements developed in some of the newly independent nations. There was war between Communist and anti-Communist forces in several of the countries of Southeast Asia and in Korea, where full-scale war, 1950–53, left the country divided. In 1954 the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) was formed to prevent Communist aggression.

The partition of Vietnam in 1954 caused new tensions there, and the United States began aiding South Vietnam. War began in 1957, and American troops joined the struggle in 1964.

Many of the Asian nations remained neutral in the cold war between the Western and Communist powers and joined with unaligned African nations to form an Afro-Asian bloc in international politics. A rift that developed between Communist China and the Soviet Union in 1963 created new tensions in Asia and throughout the world. Both the Soviets and the Chinese, however, gave military assistance to North Vietnam.

The Vietnamese War ended in 1975 with the conquest of South Vietnam by the Communists. The same year, the Khmer Rouge, a Cambodian Communist group, seized control of Cambodia, and the Pathet Lao, a Laotian Communist group, seized control of Laos. Hundreds of thousands of persons fled Indochina and sought refuge in foreign countries. The Khmer Rouge imposed an extremely harsh rule, killing hundreds of thousands of persons. In 1977, SEATO, having failed in its objective to contain Communism, disbanded.

In 1979, following a series of border conflicts between Cambodia and Vietnam, the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia, overthrew the Khmer Rouge, and installed a moderate government. The Khmer Rouge continued to control a small area of the country during the 1980's, but they were unable to dislodge the Vietnamese-supported government.

Despite the events in Indochina, several Far Eastern countries experienced peace and prospered economically during the 1970's and 1980's. The most thriving economies were those of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Thailand.

The Indian subcontinent experienced much conflict. In 1971 East Pakistan rebelled against West Pakistan, and with the aid of India emerged victorious and became the independent nation of Bangladesh. During the 1980's India and Sri Lanka were troubled by rebellious minority groups. India had to contend with terrorism by the Sikhs, who wanted independence for their state of Punjab; in Sri Lanka there was a guerrilla insurgency by Tamil separatists.

The Middle East was especially torn with strife. In the Six Day War (1967) Israel defeated neighboring Arab countries, and seized the West Bank (all Jordanian territory west of the Jordan River) from Jordan, the Golan Heights from Syria, and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt. In 1973 another Arab-Israeli war erupted, which was halted on the 22nd day by a cease-fire brought about by the United Nations. Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty in 1979, and the Sinai Peninsula was returned to Egypt over a three-year period.

In 1975 civil war broke out in Lebanon among Christian, Muslim, and Druse groups, who divided the country into separate enclaves. Syria intervened in 1976 and occupied part of the country in an attempt to restore peace. Israel invaded in 1982, attempting to expel Palestinian terrorists. The Israelis occupied much of the southern part of the country until 1985.

In Afghanistan the Soviet Union engineered a coup against the government and installed a puppet government in 1979. From the 1980's to the early 1990's, the country was torn by civil war between the Communist government and rebellious Afghans. The government was aided by Soviet troops until they were withdrawn during 1988–89.

Meanwhile, the shah (king) of Iran, Mohammed Riza Pahlavi, was overthrown in 1979; his government was replaced by a militant Islamic regime. In 1980, Iraq invaded Iran in an attempt to regain border territory it had ceded in 1975. In 1982 Iran drove the Iraqis out of most of the invaded territory and carried the war into Iraqi territory. The fighting was ended with a cease-fire in 1988.

In 1990 Iraq invaded and seized Kuwait. In the Persian Gulf War the following year Iraq was expelled from Kuwait by a coalition of Western and Middle Eastern nations led by the United States.

An Islamic group, the Taliban, imposed a strict interpretation of Islamic law on Afghanistan when they gained control of it in the mid-1990s. The same group supported al-Qa'ida, the organization accused of being behind the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11th of 2001; later in 2001, the U.S. and its allies helped Afghan forces to drive the Taliban out of power.

The U.S. attacked Iraq in 2003 and overthrew the Iraqi government. Afterwards, the U.S. and allied forces based in Iraq tried to restore stability and rebuild the country; however, militants from Iraq and elsewhere attacked the coalition forces as well as non-related targets.

In 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed and the 15 republics that had made up the union became independent states, most of which abandoned Communism. Five are in Central Asia. Four of them—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan—are inhabited mainly by Turkic peoples; the fifth, Tajikistan, by persons of Iranian heritage. The newly independent Central Asian nations, most of whose inhabitants are Muslims, established close political and commercial ties with Turkey and Iran.

The end of the Soviet Union meant the end of the Cold War; political events in Asia reflected these developments. In 1991, for example, the Vietnamese-backed Cambodian government and three rebel groups, Communist and non-Communist, signed a peace treaty. The same year, North Korea and South Korea signed a nonaggression pact. Israel also improved its relations between Jordan and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in the early 1990s. However, tension returned and escalated into fighting between Israel and PLO in the early 2000s.

After Portugal ended its colonial rule of East Timor, Indonesia took over in 1975; however, many East Timorese opposed Indonesian control, and the United Nations did not recognize Indonesia's claim. In 1999 the majority of East Timorese voted for independence, and the country became independent three years later.

In 1997 Britain transferred the colony of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty, and Portugal did likewise in 1999 with its colony Macao. These territories became Special Administrative Regions of China.

In 2004, a tsunami hit the coastal areas of South and Southwest Asia, especially damaging Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand. The total number of deaths is estimated between 216,000 and 283,000 people, and millions more were left homeless; the tsunami also caused billions of dollars of property damage.