Imperialism In China and Japan

            With pressure of Western Imperialism amidst them, China and Japan reacted in massively different ways. How each empire would react to imperialism and colonialism would define their futures in the rapidly dynamic world; it would become necessary to leave the old world behind.
             China's worldly view would perhaps be the key to their lagging assimilation of western influences. The ideology that the Chinese upheld consisted of: China is fully self-sufficient, China is superior, China is the center of the world, everybody outside of China are barbarians. With such a chauvinistic inward view and ultra conservative beliefs from Confucianism, China quickly fell behind other progressively evolving empires. Outside powers soon blew past China with industrialization, military technologies, and economics (utilization and control of trade). Isolation would allow the strength of outside empires to surpass China's, creating a huge gap in economic and military power. Lack of initial control of trade allowed a domino effect in opium imports that would later ravish China's resources. Furthermore, absence of military modernization allowed the outside empires to abuse their fortunate situations. In the nineteenth century, four wars would take its toll on China; the Opium War with Britain (1839-1842), a war with the French and British (1856-1860), the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), and an allied invasion from Japan, France, German, Britain, and U.S. to break up the Boxer Revolution (China's half hearted effort to maintain isolationist control with a modern army). China was forced into the signing of territorial concessions, opening of her ports and rivers for trading. Europe would exploit China's natural resources for their own growth and benefit. Trying to sustain their dynasty(what they felt was their identity) through isolation rather than self preservation through adaptation would leave China a victim, such as the many others before for them.