Which Asian Nations Were Never Colonized by Europe? - 0 views
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Between the 16th and 20th centuries, various European nations set out to conquer the world and take all of its wealth.
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uncomfortable position between the French imperial possessions of French Indochina (now Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos) to the east, and British Burma (now Myanmar) to the west
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managed to fend off both the French and the British through skillful diplomacy. He adopted many European customs and was intensely interested in European technologies. He also played the British and French off of one another, preserving most of Siam's territory and its independence.
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The Ottoman Empire was too large, powerful, and complex for any one European power to simply annex it outright.
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the European powers peeled off its territories in northern Africa and southeast Europe by seizing them directly or by encouraging and supplying local independence movements.
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the Ottoman government or Sublime Porte had to borrow money from European banks to finance its operations. When it was unable to repay the money it owed to the London and Paris-based banks, they took control of the Ottoman revenue system, seriously infringing on the Porte's sovereignty. Foreign interests also invested heavily in railroad, port, and infrastructure projects, giving them ever more power within the tottering empire. The Ottoman Empire remained self-governing until it fell after World War I, but foreign banks and investors wielded an inordinate amount of power there.
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Like the Ottoman Empire, Qing China was too large for any single European power to simply grab. Instead, Britain and France got a foothold through trade
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Both Great Britain and Russia hoped to seize Afghanistan as part of their "Great Game" - a competition for land and influence in Central Asia. However, the Afghans had other ideas; they famously "don't like foreigners with guns in their country,
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This shielded British India from Russian expansionism while leaving Afghanistan more or less independent.
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Like the Ottomans, the Qajar rulers of Persia had borrowed money from European banks for projects like railroads and other infrastructure improvements, and could not pay back the money. Britain and Russia agreed without consulting the Persian government that they would split the revenues from Persian customs, fisheries, and other industries to amortize the debts. Persia never became a formal colony, but it temporarily lost control of its revenue stream and much of its territory - a source of bitterness to this
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However, the Gurkhas fought so well and the land was so rugged that the British decided to leave Nepal alone as a buffer state for British India. The British also began to recruit Gurkhas for their colonial army.
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Bhutan, another Himalayan kingdom, also faced invasion by the British East India Company but managed to retain its sovereignty.
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they relinquished the land in return for a tribute of five horses and the right to harvest timber on Bhutanese soil. Bhutan and Britain regularly squabbled over their borders until 1947, when the British pulled out of India, but Bhutan's sovereignty was never seriously threatened.