Laval University

From the SelectedWorks of Fathi Habashi

October 5, 2020

Colonization of AsiaFathi Habashi

Available at: https://works.bepress.com/fathi_habashi/658/

Colonization of Asia

Introduction Civilization is developed in Asia at great rivers in Mesopotamia, Indus valley, and Yellow River. In about 1750 BC, King of Babylon Hammurabi introduced the world’s first code of laws. About 1500 BC, written records by Shang dynasty in China was kept and about 600 BC the culture in the Indus valley was introduced. Asia was then dominated by the Achaemenid Empire circa 500 BC founded by Cyrus the Great but it was Alexander the Great (356 – 323 BC) who was the first European to enter Asia, conquer this Empire, and establish the Hellenistic Age. Asia was also known to the Roman Empire through the Silk Road which connected the East and the West. The Road derives its name from the lucrative silk, first developed in China.

Ancient civilizations in Asia

Achaemenid Empire circa 500 BC

Alexandre the Great Empire in Asia

Silk Road opened trade between East and West

Colonization of Asia is different from that of Africa. There was no conference held to avoid disputes by the colonizing countries, and the colonizing powers were not only Europeans but also from Asia itself. The Europeans at that time were mainly concerned with obtaining spices from the East. The Portuguese went to east while the Spaniards thought that going to the west would reach the spice countries. In this way, Vasco da Gama (1400-1524) discovered Cape of Good Hope and went further to reach India, while Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) discovered America what he thought it was India. This was the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution forced the Europeans to acquire more and more raw materials and new markets, often by force. In 1896 Suez Canal was opened to obtain a shorter sea route between Europe and Asia to avoid the long detour around the Cape of Good Hope.

Suez Canal in 1869 shortened the distance from Europe to southern Asia

The Arabs The Muslim conquest of Persia led to the fall of the Sasanian Empire of Persia in 651 AD and the eventual decline of the Zoroastrian religion. The Sasanian Empire had exhausted its human and material resources after decades of warfare against the Byzantine Empire. In 633, General Khalid ibn Walid invaded Mesopotamia (now Iraq), which was the political and economic center of the Sassanid state. In 636, he entered Syria in the Byzantine Empire during the rule of Heraclius in the battle of Yarmouk. In 636 under Sa`d ibn Abi Waqqas, led to the permanent end of Sasanian control west of Iran. However, the Persians maintained their language and culture while Islam would become the dominant religion late in the Middle Ages.

The Arabs at the time of Rashidun Caliphate occupied the Sasanian Empire

The Seljuk Turks The Turkish tribes in central Asia were in the area of Turkestan, the ‘land of the Turks.’ They would eventually overrun eastern Iran, captured Baghdad, and pushing on further into Syria and finally onwards into Anatolia where they founded the Great Seljuk Empire (1037-1194), the direct forerunner of the Ottoman Empire. They were the reason for the Crusades in 1096 when they took over the Christian holy places in Jerusalem.

The Seljuk Empire

Mongolia In spite of the Great Chinese Wall built to prevent the invaders, colonization in Asia took place by the Mongols in late 1100's when Genghis Khan (ca. 1155-1227) became the main force in unifying and organizing the scattered Mongol and other tribes into a powerful alliance. He then created an effective army in that time. After subduing Xi Xia in 1205 the Mongols turned to North China, where the Jin Dynasty was ruling. After capturing the major cities of Jin, Zhongdu, which is currently Beijing, more and more area in the north of the Yellow River were dominated by the Mongols. The Mongol conquest of North China took several decades and was not completed until 1234, after Genghis Khan's death in 1227.

The Great Chinese Wall built to prevent invaders

Genghis Khan

Kublai Khan

Hulagu Khan

His grandson Kublai Khan (1215-1294) completed the conquest of North China and founded a new dynasty in 1271, the Yuan Dynasty. He furthermore occupied South China and launched fierce attacks against the southern Song Dynasty in 1726 which he defeated. In 1279, the Mongols achieved their goal of conquering entire China.

Mongol Empire, the occupying of China and the destruction of Baghdad In 1258, the Mongols under Hulagu Khan (1215-1265) a grandson of Genghis Khan, captured and sacked of Baghdad, which was the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate. The siege is considered to mark the end of the Islamic Golden Age, during which the caliphs had extended their rule from the Iberian Peninsula to Sindh.

Delhi Sultanate The Delhi Sultanate was an Islamic empire based in Delhi that stretched over large parts of northern India for 320 years (1206–1526). It covered parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and some parts of southern Nepal. Five unrelated dynasties ruled over the Delhi Sultanate sequentially. In 1526, the Sultanate was conquered and succeeded by the Mughal Empire.

Qutb ud-Din Aibak

Delhi Sultanate

The Mamluk dynasty was the first Islamic dynasty that ruled from 1206 to 1290. It was founded by Qutb ud-Din Aibak, a Turkic Mamluk general from Central Asia. The Qutb Minar built of bricks, is an example of the Mamluk dynasty's works. It is a minaret and "victory tower" that forms part of the Qutb complex in New Delhi. The height of Qutb Minar is 72.5 meters, has a 14.3 m base diameter, reducing to 2.7 m at the top of the peak. It contains a spiral staircase. Aibak’s tomb is in Lahore. It was followed by Khilji dynasty (1290–1320), Tughlaq dynasty (1320–1414), Sayyid dynasty (1414–1451), and Lodi dynasty (1451–1526). Bakhtiyar Khalji's ruling was responsible for the large-scale desecration of Hindu and Buddhist temples leading to the decline of Buddhism in East India and Bengal, and the destruction of universities and libraries. Mongolian raids on West and Central Asia set the scene for centuries of migration of fleeing learned men, traders, artists, and artisans from those regions, thereby establishing Islamic culture in India.

The Qutb Minar in Delhi, an example of the Mamluk dynasty's works

Details of above

Timur Timur (1336-1405), known also as Tamerlane or Timur Leng [Timur the lame], known for his cruelty, conquered Central Asia, Persia, the Caucasus, the Levant, and parts of South Asia and Eastern Europe. His capital was Samarkand. He married a princess descended from Genghis Khan. His gains were weakened after his death, due to a war of succession between his son and grandson. However, his empire survived until the mid-19th century in the form of the Mughal Empire which was founded by his great-great-grandson Babur.

Timur Empire

Conquest of India Zahir Eddin Mohamed Babur (1483-1530) [or “Babar” meaning tiger], a descendant of both Tamerlane and Genghis Khan came from Ferghana in Central Asian steppes. In 1504, he crossed the Hindu Kush mountains and captured Kabul in Afghanistan. He consolidated his hold of the region and started a campaign into Northern India. He founded the Moghul Empire which was a Muslim Persian imperial power that ruled most of India as Hindustan. The invaders were responsible for transferring the Persian literary and high culture to India and building significant monuments. Mughal is derived from the Arabic and Persian corruption of Mongol.

The Mogul Empire in India in 1605 and its expansion in 1707

In 1556 Jalal Eddin Mohammed Akbar known as Akbar the Great (1542-1605) came to power. The greatest expansion was accomplished during his reign. He set up an efficient bureaucracy and was tolerant of religious differences. The Muslim Moghul Dynasty built splendid palaces, tombs, minars and forts that stand today in Delhi, Dhaka, Agra, Jaipur, Lahore, Sheikhupura and many other cities of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Akbar was a patron of art and culture. He was fond of literature, and created a library of over 24,000 volumes written in Sanskrit, Urdu, Persian, Greek, Latin, Arabic and Kashmiri, staffed by many scholars, translators, artists, calligraphers, scribes, bookbinders and readers. He decreed that schools for the education of both Muslims and Hindus should be established throughout the realm. The Taj Mahal in Agra commissioned by Shah Jahan as a tomb for his wife Mumtaz Mahal (1593-1631) who died at the young age of 33 and the Badshahi mosque in Lahore.

Taj Mahal in Agra

Badshahi mosque in Lahore

The Empire ended in 1707 with the death of Aurangzeb (1618-1707) son of Sha Jahan, who had followed a policy of non-tolerance and spent nearly his entire career seeking to expand his realm. The Empire continued for another 150 years. But following 1725 it declined rapidly, weakened by wars of succession, agrarian crises, local revolts, the growth of religious intolerance, and British colonialism. The last Emperor, Bahadur Zafar Shah II (1775-1862), whose rule was restricted to the city of Delhi, was imprisoned and exiled by the British after the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Spain The Spanish colonial period in the Philippines was from 1565 to 1898. After Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521) discovered the Philippines and died in battle. Manila was made the capital of the Philippines in 1571. This was the time of the reign of King Philip II (1527-1598) of Spain, whose name has remained attached to the country. The Spanish colonial period ended with the Philippine Revolution and Spanish-American War in 1898, which marked the beginning of the American colonization of the Philippines.

Philippines and the other islands conquered by Spain

Europeans settlements in India Different nationalities of Europeans settled on the coasts of India mainly for trading purposes.

European settlements in India 1498-1739

Russian conquest of Siberia The Russian conquest of Siberia took place in the 16th and 17th centuries, when the Khanate of Sibir had become a loose political structure that were being undermined by the activities of Russian explorers. In order to subjugate the natives and collect fur tribute, a series of forts were built at the confluences of major rivers and streams and important portages. The first among these were

Tyumen and Tobolsk. Advancing up the Ob and its tributaries and Tomsk (1604) were built then reaching the Yenisei in 1605. By 1610 the mouth of the Yenisei and Krasnoyarsk (1628) were reached. Following the khan's death and the dissolution of any organized Siberian resistance, the Russians advanced first towards Lake Baikal and then the Amur River. However, when they reached the Chinese border they halted. The Russians reached the Pacific Ocean in 1639. After the conquest of the Siberian Khanate it became known as Siberia. The natives were targeted by the tsars and ethnic Russians were given the natives' reindeer herds and wild game which were confiscated by the tsars. Russian Conquest of Central Asia The Russian conquest of Central Asia took place in the second half of the 19th century. The land that became Russian Turkestan and later Soviet Central Asia is now divided between Kazakhstan in the north, Uzbekistan across the center, Kyrgyzstan in the east, Tajikistan in the southeast and Turkmenistan in the southwest. The area was called Turkestan because most of its inhabitants spoke Turkic languages with the exception of Tajikistan, which speaks an Iranian language.

Russian colonization of Siberia, Central Asia, and Caucasus

Russian conquest of the Caucasus Russian conquest of the Caucasus occurred mainly between 1800 and 1864. In that era the Russian Empire expanded to control the region between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea, the territory that is modern Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Iran and Turkey, as well as the North Caucasus region of modern Russia. Multiple wars were fought against the local rulers of the

regions, as well as the Ottoman Empire and Persian Empire. By 1864 the last regions were brought under Russian control. Trans-Siberian Railway In 1903 the Trans-Siberian Railway connecting Asia with Europe was completed.

Trans-Siberian Railway

British in India In 1600, Queen Elizabeth I incorporated the English East India Company granting it a monopoly of trade. In 1639, the company acquired Madras on the east coast of India, where it quickly surpassed Portuguese Goa as the principal European trading center on India. Through bribes, diplomacy, and manipulation of weak native rulers, the company prospered, where it became the most powerful political force, and outrivaled its Portuguese and French competitors. For more than one hundred years, English and French trading companies had fought one another. French defeat by the British under the command of Robert Clive during the Seven Years' War (1756–1763) marked the end of the French. Robert Clive defeated also an Indian ruler of Bengal that ushered the beginning of British rule. The Mughal Indian emperor became a puppet ruler. The British Parliament, disturbed by the idea that a great business concern, interested primarily in profit, was controlling the destinies of millions of people, passed acts in 1773 and 1784 that gave itself the power to control company policies and to appoint the Governor-General. Under James Dalhousie (1847–1856), Punjab was annexed as well as some princely states. He also banned some Hindu practices such as sati [burning of widow].

The British in India

The 1857 an uprising initiated by Indian troops was crushed after fierce fighting. A consequence of the revolt was the final collapse of the Mughal dynasty. Trained civil servants were recruited from graduates of British universities, and these men set out to rule India. Lord Canning (created earl in 1859), appointed Governor-General of India in 1856. The denial of equal status to Indians was the immediate stimulus for the formation in 1885 of the Indian National Congress, by 1930 to independence. The majority Hindu and the minority Muslim political leaders were able to collaborate in their criticism of British policy into the 1920s. The Muslim League contributed to Hindu-Muslim discord and the country's eventual Partition. Japanese invasion Japan was a closed society and the Japanese used to worship their emperor before going to work. It was Commodore Perry (1794-1858) who opened up this society. Few years later, Korea came under the Japanese sphere of influence in 1876 and a complex coalition of the Meiji government, military, and business officials began a process of Korea's political and economic integration into Japan. The Korean Empire became a protectorate of Japan in 1905. Japan formally annexed the Korean Empire in 1910. Korea's Japanization, accelerating industrialization building public works, and fighting the Korean independence movement. The invasion of Manchuria began in 1931. In 1932, the Japanese established the puppet state of Manchukuo. The South Manchuria Railway Zone and the Korean Peninsula were already under the control of the Japanese Empire since the

Russo-Japanese War of 1904. Japanese rule ended on August 15, 1945 upon the surrender of Japan in World War II.

Japanese worship of their emperor

Japanese expansion in Asia

Intrusions into China The 16th century brought many Jesuit missionaries to China who established missions where Western science was introduced, and where Europeans gathered knowledge of Chinese society, history, culture, and science. During the 18th century, merchants from Western Europe came to China in increasing numbers. However, merchants were confined to Guangzhou and the Portuguese colony of Macau. European traders were increasingly irritated by the high customs duties they had to pay and by the attempts to curb the growing import trade in opium. By 1800, its

importation was forbidden by the imperial government but the opium trade continued to boom. The Chinese commonly used opium during surgery but was not widely used for recreational purposes until the 17th century. The drug was under British control in India. In 1839, China found itself fighting the First Opium War with Britain. China was defeated. In 1842, Hong Kong Island was ceded to Britain, and certain ports, including Shanghai and Guangzhou, were opened to British trade and residence. In 1856, the Second Opium War broke out. The Chinese were again defeated, and forced to open new ports to trade and allowed foreigners to travel in the interior. In addition, Christians gained the right to propagate their religion. The erosion of Chinese sovereignty and seizures of land from Chinese by foreigners contributed to anti-foreign outbreak in June 1900, when the "Boxers" (properly the society of the Righteous and Harmonious Fists) attacked foreigners around Beijing. The Qing Empress Dowager ordered all diplomatic ties to be cut off and all foreigners to leave the legations in Beijing to go to Tianjin. The foreigners refused to leave. British and French forces looted, plundered and burned the Old Summer Palace. German forces were particularly severe in exacting revenge for the killing of their ambassador. France occupation of southeast Asia French imperialism was supported by the notion that French culture was superior to that of the people of Annam (Vietnam), and its civilizing mission through their assimilation to French culture and the Catholic religion. The pretext for French expansionism in Indochina was the protection of French religious missions in the area, coupled with a desire to find a southern route to China through Tonkin, the European name for a region of northern Vietnam. Anti-Christian persecutions in the Far East provided the pretext for the invasion and occupation of Saigon in 1858.

In 1862 the Vietnamese emperor ceded France three provinces of southern Vietnam to form the French colony of Cochinchina. France also secured trade and religious privileges in the rest of Vietnam. Gradually French power spread through exploration, the establishment of protectorates, and annexations. Their seizure of Hanoi in 1882 led directly to war with China (1883–1885), and the French victory confirmed French supremacy in the region. France governed Cambodia as protectorate. Laos too was soon brought under French protection.

The French colonial administrators sought to assimilate the upper classes into France's superior culture. While the French improved public services and provided commercial stability, the native standard of living declined and precolonial social structures eroded. Indochina was important to France for its tin, pepper, coal, cotton, and rice.

Dutch occupation of Indonesia The Dutch East India Company was established in 1602 and built their first permanent trading post in West Java. In 1619 they renamed Batavia the city of Jayakarta, and it became the new company’s headquarters. After many wars finally peace with the Dutch in 1757. The Dutch East Indies was one of the colonies which contributed to Dutch prominence in spice trade. In 1800 the Dutch East India Trading Company got bankrupt and slowly fell apart. The Dutch and the British would sign the Treaty of London. The Dutch would get most of Indonesia and the British would get Malaya, Singapore, and other islands. From 1901 to 1910 the regions of Bali, Borneo, Moluccas, and Sulawesi were all taken over by the Dutch. During World War II, from 1942 to 1945 Japan occupied the Dutch East Indies. Following the Japanese surrender in August 1945, Indonesian nationalists declared independence which they fought to secure. The Netherlands formally recognized Indonesian sovereignty at 1949.

Dutch occupation of the East Indies [Indonesia]

United States of America United States of America occupied the Philippines from 1898 to 1946. It began with the outbreak of the Spanish–American War in April 1898, when the Philippines was still a colony of Spain. In the Treaty of Paris of December 10, 1898, Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States.

Beginning in 1901, the military government was replaced by a civilian government. Philippine Independence took place in in 1946. German in Asia The German colonies in Asia is Papua New Guinea and the nearby islands.

Papua New Guinea a German colony in Asia

Republic of China The Republic of China was established on January 1, 1912 by Sun Yat-sen after the Xinhai Revolution, which overthrew the Qing dynasty, the last imperial dynasty. It served briefly before handing over to Yuan Shi-kai, the leader of the Beiyang Army who maintained full control of the government. Between late 1915 and early 1916, Yuan proclaimed himself Emperor of China before abdicating due to popular unrest. After Yuan's death in 1916, the authority of the Beiyang government was further weakened by a brief restoration of the Qing dynasty. In 1921, Sun Yat-sen established the government of the Republic of China in Guangzhou, supported by the Chinese Communist Party.

Sun Yat-sen Yuan Shi-kai Chiang Kai-shek Moa Ze-dong

General Chiang Kai-shek, who became the Chairman of the Kuomintang after Sun's death, started the Northern Expedition in 1926 to overthrow the Beiyang government, which was accomplished in 1928. In April 1927, Chiang established a nationalist government in Nanjing, and massacred Communists in Shanghai. The latter event forced the Communist Party into armed rebellion, marking the beginning of the Chinese Civil War. In 1946, after the surrender of Japan at the end of World War II in 1945, the Chinese Civil War resumed. In 1949, the Communist Party under Moa Ze-dong established the People's Republic of China, overthrowing the nationalist government on the mainland, with the nationalists moving their capital from Nanjing to Taiwan. Asia today