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  • Once a land of ancient empires and legendary  rulers, Asia saw itself turn into a colony of  

  • the expanding European powers in the Early Modern  period. Drawn to the Asian silk and spice trade,  

  • their colonization efforts were initially  directed to harness the continent's economic  

  • power. Eventually, the European states started  to use more and more force, and by the start  

  • of the 20th Century, the Eastern world would be  almost entirely in the hands of Colonial Empires.  

  • Welcome to our quick rundown on the European  expansion in Asia and the Pacific. This is a  

  • prelude video to our series on the Pacific  War - we'll release weekly episodes with  

  • events that started 80 years prior, don't  forget to subscribe to never miss them!

  • We are going to talk about the events  that happened 80 years ago in this series,  

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  • In 1492, the European discovery of the New  World ushered a new age of maritime exploration.  

  • For the last century, Portuguese explorers  had been already trying to bypass Muslim  

  • territories to trade directly with West Africa  while also attempting to reach the Indies and  

  • its lucrative spice trade. The Portuguese  sent an expedition into African waters,  

  • at last discovering that the Indian Ocean was  accessible through the Cape of Good Hope. On  

  • May 20, 1498, an expedition led by Vasco da  Gama finally managed to reach India by sea.  

  • Thus, the Portuguese Colonial Empire was bornSoon, they established entrepôts in Kochi,  

  • Calicut, and Goa, later expanding  their Estado da Índia across the region  

  • with the crucial acquisitions of DiuDarman, Pulicat, Colombo, and Chittagong,  

  • among others. In Southeast Asia, the Portuguese  captured Malacca and established settlements in  

  • the spice islands of Solor, Ternate, and Ambonas well as on East Timor and Makassar, but they  

  • also disrupted and diverted trade in the region  and spread Christianity in eastern Indonesia.  

  • Commercial contact was established with  mainland realms in Southeast Asia as well;  

  • and in Burma, Portuguese mercenaries became  essential for the expansion of the Toungoo Empire.  

  • In China, after a long period of conflict, the  Portuguese would be allowed to establish an  

  • entrepôt in Macau; while in Japan, they benefited  from the state of civil war - the Sengoku Jidai,  

  • and the Chinese embargo to monopolize  trade between Japan and Europe

  • The Portuguese also managed to  spread Christianity in Japan,  

  • successfully converting one of the daimyos to  Catholicism, who granted them the small fishing  

  • village of Nagasaki to act as a center of trade in  the region. Although direct control of the village  

  • ended just a couple of years later, Nagasaki  would nevertheless remain the main port of  

  • call for the Portuguese ships thanks to  its predominantly Christian population

  • Meanwhile, thanks to the  Magellan-Elcano circumnavigation,  

  • the Crown of Spain managed to discover and  gradually colonize the Philippine archipelago.  

  • The Spaniards also established themselves in  the spice island of Tidore, sparking a decade of  

  • conflicts with neighboring Portuguese Ternate that  would be concluded with the Treaty of Zaragoza  

  • in 1529, granting the Philippines to Spain and the  Moluccas to Portugal. From their center in Manila,  

  • Spanish colonists would go on to settle Guam  and the Mariana, Caroline, and Palau Islands

  • In 1580, the establishment of the Iberian Union  led to the decline of the Portuguese Empire in the  

  • East, as England, France, and the Dutch Republic  began to create their own overseas empires.  

  • The Dutch would be the main culprits  for the downfall of the Portuguese,  

  • successfully attacking their possessions in  Asia and eventually taking control of Malacca,  

  • Ceylon, the Moluccas, the southern Malabar  Coast, and regions of Coromandel and Surat

  • The initial course of action taken by the Dutch  East Indies would be to found a chartered company,  

  • the VOC, and to establish a colonial center in  the city of Jakarta, which the Dutch renamed to  

  • Batavia. From there, the Dutch would continue  to assault the commercial interests of the  

  • Portuguese, slowly expanding their control  over Southeast Asia, leaving only East Timor  

  • and Macau in the hands of the Portuguese. They  would also colonize the southern tip of the  

  • island of Formosa - modern-day Taiwan to use as  headquarters for attacks against the Philippines.  

  • In response, the Spaniards established  their own colony in the north of the island,  

  • although it was soon overtaken by the Dutch. The  fate of Formosa would be finally decided when  

  • the Chinese warlord Koxinga invaded in 1661,  managing to take full control of the island.  

  • Meanwhile in Japan, the Tokugawa Shogunate started  to show animosity towards the religious intentions  

  • of the Portuguese, leading to their expulsion  in 1639 and the establishment of the Sakoku  

  • isolationist policy in Japan. Yet again, the Dutch  benefitted from this to establish a monopoly over  

  • Japanese trade, being the only European power  to operate in Japan from the port of Deshima  

  • in Nagasaki. With the fall of the Portuguese  hegemony over the East, the British and French  

  • Empires would also start establishing their  own chartered companies in the 17th Century

  • Whereas the French arrived late and only  established a few colonies in India,  

  • the British East India Company quickly set out to  found trading posts in Sumatra, Bengal, and India.  

  • From there, they expanded their control over  Bengal, established their first colony in  

  • Malaysia with the acquisition of Penang Islandand managed to expel the Dutch from Ceylon.  

  • Once the British had gained a foothold over this  island, they soon warred against the Kingdom of  

  • Kandy and established a protectorate over the  entirety of Ceylon and the neighboring Maldives.  

  • Following a series of conflicts with the French  and Dutch Empires, the British would manage to  

  • take most of their possessions in India, becoming  the dominant European power in the region.  

  • Within a century, most of the Indian subcontinent  gradually fell under the rule of the British  

  • East India Company, which prompted the  establishment of the British Raj in 1858  

  • to assume direct control over India. In Burmarelations with the British East India Company  

  • had been always tense after the Burmese  annexation of Arakan, leading to a war in 1824.  

  • This was one of the most expensive  operations of the chartered company,  

  • but in the end, it saw the British takeover  of Manipur, Assam, Arakan, and Tennasserim,  

  • as well as the birth of British supremacy in Asian  coastal waters. A second war broke out in 1852,  

  • in which the British annexed the province of Lower  Burma, leaving the Burmese state in shambles

  • In the 19th Century, the British also decided  to take a more expansionist role in Malaysia,  

  • sponsoring a coup in the Sultanate of Johor and  founding the colony of Singapore. They would  

  • then negotiate with the Dutch for the cession of  Malacca and the remaining Dutch forts in India  

  • in exchange for all British possession in Sumatra  and the recognition of Dutch rights to Indonesia.  

  • British Malaya would continue to grow across  the century, as the Straits Settlements were  

  • established and the Malay Sultanates were  gradually annexed as protectorates. At the  

  • same time, the British established a protectorate  over the Raj of Sarawak in northwestern Borneo  

  • and then established a colony on the Labuan  islands. Meanwhile, the French would take great  

  • interest in the region of Indochina. After  enjoying very good relations with Vietnam,  

  • the French Empire would start to continually  intervene in the country in the 19th century,  

  • culminating with an attack on Tourane and  the founding of the colony of Cochinchina.  

  • In 1867, all of Southern Vietnam fell under  French control and a protectorate over Cambodia  

  • was officially established. The French would also  go on to establish protectorates over the islands  

  • of New Caledonia, Tahiti, Tahuata, and Wallis  and Futuna. Initially, the Tahitians would offer  

  • strong resistance against the colonists, yet they  would be subdued at last and the French would go  

  • on to expand across modern-day French PolynesiaWith the British, they would also establish an  

  • Anglo-French condominium over the New Hebrideswith one English side, and the other one French

  • Meanwhile in China, there was an increasing demand  for opium that was strongly damaging the Chinese  

  • population, prompting the Daoguang Emperor  to end the opium trade with the Europeans.  

  • In response, Britain sent a military expedition in  1839, thus starting the first of the Opium Wars.  

  • The Chinese would be defeated in a humiliating  way, and as a consequence, they would have to  

  • open their foreign trade with Europe and to cede  the island of Hong Kong to the British Empire.  

  • Furthermore, China was left in a state of social  unrest, and it would need the help of French  

  • and British troops to quell the Taiping and Nian  Rebellions. In 1856, another incident over opium  

  • would renew war with the British Empire. Joined  by the United States and the French and Russian  

  • Empires, the British would win againfurther opening commercial areas in China,  

  • legalizing the opium trade, and acquiring  the Kowloon Peninsula next to Hong Kong

  • The Russian Empire, which over the last centuries  had been expanding across Central Asia and  

  • Siberia, would also go on to annex the entire  region of Outer Manchuria. In 1884, the French  

  • Empire would obtain control over northern Vietnam  following their victory over China in another war,  

  • thus consolidating their colony in IndochinaBut the success of the French also threatened  

  • the British position in the region, prompting them  to declare war against the Burmese and annex the  

  • province of Upper Burma. This left the Kingdom  of Siam entirely surrounded by European powers,  

  • and the Siamese would have to relinquish some  territories on the frontiers to maintain their  

  • independence. Thus, the British received the  Shan states and some possessions in Malaysia  

  • while the French enlarged their Indochinese  colony with the addition of modern-day Laos

  • In the 19th Century, the Dutch also started to  gradually expand their East Indies across maritime  

  • Southeast Asia, and by 1920 they had acquired  the modern-day borders of Indonesia. Meanwhile,  

  • the British expanded into Brunei and North Borneo  and managed to colonize Fiji, Christmas Island,  

  • Cocos Islands, the Pitcairn Islands, the Union  Islands, the southern Solomon Islands, and the  

  • Gilbert and Ellice Islands[30]. By the 20th  Century, Great Britain also colonized the islands  

  • of Tonga and Niue, the Phoenix Islands, and the  southeastern side of the island of New Guinea.  

  • Yet, the crown jewel of their Oceanic  Empire would be the colonies of Australia  

  • and New Zealand, from where the British  controlled all their Pacific possessions

  • At the end of the century, the assassination of  German missionaries in China would spark another  

  • conflict with European powers, culminating  with a scramble for concessions in 1898  

  • that awarded the Germans with a lease over  the Jiazhou Bay and Tianjin, that granted  

  • the British a lease over Weihaiwei and the New  Territories of Hong Kong, and that gave a lease  

  • over Guangzhouwan to the French. The recently  established German Empire also colonized the  

  • northeastern part of New Guinea, the Bismarck  Archipelago, the northern Solomon Islands,  

  • Western Samoa, and Nauru. Finally, the entrance  of the United States into the Pacific, the last  

  • main foreign player in the region, would coincide  with the downfall of the Spanish Empire. In 1898,  

  • the same year that the US annexed Hawaii, American  intervention in Cuba led to the ultimate conquest  

  • of the Philippines and Guam in the Pacific. Weakened from their defeat against the US,  

  • the Spaniards could no longer protect their  Pacific possessions, including the Mariana,  

  • Caroline, and Palau islands; so, in 1889,  they sold these territories to the German  

  • Empire for a significant sum of gold marksending the Spanish presence in the region

  • The start of the next century would also see  an increasing American interest in the Pacific  

  • with the colonization of Wake Island, the Midway  Atoll, the Johnston Atoll, Eastern Samoa, and the  

  • Howland and Baker Islands, thus completing the  colonization of Oceania. As you can see, most of  

  • Southeast Asia and Oceania were left in the hands  of Western powers by the turn of the 20th Century

  • Our prelude series that will soon morph  into the weekly coverage of the Pacific War  

  • will continue next week as we observe how the  Japanese turned from an isolationist state into  

  • a regional power in the East, laying the initial  groundwork for the rise of the Japanese Empire, so  

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Once a land of ancient empires and legendary  rulers, Asia saw itself turn into a colony of  

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