ABSTRACT
In the last quarter of the nineteenth century the increasing influence of foreign powers was discernible in Asia as well. This influence manifested itself more as a reinforcement of processes that had already been set in motion than as new developments in their own right. Since the Opium War the increasing influence of Europeans had been noticeable in China, especially on the coast. Other countries besides England were establishing spheres of influence here, while Russian expansion was extending over the periphery of the Chinese empire into Manchuria. Japan was undergoing rapid modernization and emerging as an imperialist power in the Far East. Japan's victory in its war against Russia provided an important impetus for nationalism. In the old colonies of British India and the Netherlands-Indies, England and the Netherlands were expanding their actual authority and exerting more and more influence on the economy.
