After the reign of Emperor Aurangzeb in the early 18th century, the Mughal Empire began to weaken, leaving a power vacuum that various local rulers sought to fill. As the empire's control fragmented, many regional states asserted their independence. Meanwhile, the British East India Company, initially focused on trade, expanded its influence by securing trade rights and the right to collect taxes in key Mughal territories. By establishing coastal trading posts in cities such as Calcutta, Bombay, and Bengal, the Company gained increasing control over trade and local governance. The Company capitalized on the weakening Mughal power and the divided local political landscape, using a combination of diplomacy, military force, and alliances with local rulers to solidify its control. Notably, the Company maintained its own private army and recruited Indian soldiers known as sepoys to defend British interests, further entangling local elites in the imperial system.

By 1765, the Mughal emperor, powerless to resist, was forced to formally recognize British rule. While the Company began to implement policies designed to "modernize" India, but this modernization largely served British economic interests. India became a crucial supplier of raw materials, such as opium, tea, cotton, and coffee, which were exported to Britain and China (mostly the opium). In exchange, British imports flooded India, undermining local industries, particularly the once-thriving textile sector. In 1857, both Hindus and Muslim sepoys, joined by peasants and some elites, rebelled against British control in the First War of Indian Independence. 

After the rebellion, the British government took control of the colony, implementing a more centralized bureaucracy to govern the colony. The Indian Civil Service created an elite class of well educated British and Indian men. The colonial government also invested in infrastructure projects (like railroads, telegraphs and irrigation systems) to further support commerce and governance, and they encouraged farmers to grow cash crops for export (opium, tea, sugar, cotton). While British rule brought technological advancements and created new economic opportunities, it also entrenched social and political hierarchies. The highest-ranking jobs remained reserved for the British, and the majority of Indians were excluded from political power. However, the British also established universities that introduced Western education to a small, but growing, class of Indian professionals. This educated elite would later become the leaders of the Indian independence movement, challenging the very system that had educated them.

By the mid-19th century, the Ottoman Empire faced intense external and internal pressures. Militarily, repeated defeats and growing threats—especially from Russian expansion—exposed the empire’s vulnerability to industrialized European armies. During the Crimean War, the Ottomans relied on Britain and France to defeat Russia, preserving the empire in the short term but revealing deep dependence on European powers. By the late 19th century, however, the empire had lost significant territory and influence: Russia had expanded into Ottoman borderlands around the Black Sea and Caucasus; nationalist movements in the Balkans, often backed by European powers, led to independence for Greece, Serbia, and others; and France and Britain established control over much of North Africa. Together, these losses left the Ottoman state territorially reduced, diplomatically constrained, and increasingly vulnerable to imperial pressure by 1900.

In response to mounting military, economic, and political pressures, Ottoman leaders attempted to reform and strengthen the state in order to preserve imperial rule, most notably through the Tanzimat Reforms. Maintaining and funding reform increasingly required integration into European financial and trade networks, making the empire more dependent on foreign loans, investment, and trade agreements that favored European interests and limited Ottoman economic and political autonomy. This growing fragility produced a complex diplomatic problem known as the “Eastern Question,” as European powers debated how to manage or divide Ottoman territories without triggering a major war. At the same time, reform efforts helped sustain the Ottoman state into the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

These tensions between reform, dependence, and imperial pressure were especially visible in Egypt, which remained nominally part of the Ottoman Empire. British and French investment financed the construction of the Suez Canal, a project that transformed global trade but relied heavily on forced labor and left Egypt deeply indebted. When Egypt could not repay its loans, Britain used a nationalist movement against foreign influence as a pretext to invade, gaining control of the canal and Egypt by 1882.

For centuries, China maintained a belief in its central role in the world, viewing itself as superior to other nations. However, in the 19th century, this self-perception began to falter as European powers, particularly Britain, sought to expand their influence in East Asia. Central to this interaction was the Canton System, which regulated foreign trade by restricting foreign merchants to the port of Canton (Guangzhou) and subjecting them to Chinese law. While this system allowed for profitable and relatively stable exchanges, it also limited European access to Chinese markets and fueled widespread smuggling.

By the mid-1700s, British merchants increasingly relied on the illegal opium trade to offset their massive demand for Chinese tea and to finance industrial growth at home. But as the opium trade became destructive, Qing officials attempted to ban its importation. Confucian scholars and officials debated how to manage foreign trade and respond to growing Western pressure, but consensus proved elusive. Meanwhile, British and American merchants partnered with Chinese merchants to continue the trade and pressure China to open more ports to western trade. 

Tensions escalated when the Qing government attempted to more aggressively suppress the opium trade, leading to the Opium Wars. Britain’s superior naval and military technology—combined with internal instability—overwhelmed Chinese forces, forcing the Qing to sign the Treaty of Nanking. China paid reparations and ceded Hong Kong to Britain and open more ports to trade. Other Western powers soon imposed similar “unequal treaties,” creating spheres of influence that severely weakened Chinese autonomy. 

These defeats contributed to growing discontent and uprisings such as the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864) and the later Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901). While foreign powers ultimately assisted the Qing in suppressing these revolts, reliance on outside support highlighted China’s growing vulnerability. In response, Qing officials pursued limited reforms to strengthen the state and adapt to Western power, but these efforts were constrained by foreign intervention and unequal treaties. 

In 1853, US Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in Japan to pressure the Tokugawa Shogunate to open the country to trade. Since the 17th century, the Shogunate had restricted foreign trade to the port of Nagasaki, maintaining relations only with the Dutch and Chinese. By the mid-19th century, Western powers had sent expeditions to Japan requesting trade access, but Perry’s use of 'gunboat diplomacy' forced Japan to end its period of relative isolation. The US sought coaling stations, export markets, and easier access to China, and Perry threatened naval force if Japan refused. In 1854, the Treaty of Kanagawa (one of several “unequal treaties”) required Japan to open ports to American ships and established a U.S. consul in Japan.

Japanese nationalists protested the unequal treaties and the Tokugawa Shogunate’s inability to resist foreign pressure. This discontent contributed to the overthrow of the Shogunate in the Meiji Restoration of 1868, which restored the emperor to power. The new Meiji government implemented sweeping political, economic, and military reforms, modernizing Japan to become an industrial and military power capable of competing with Western nations.

By the late 19th century, Japan sought to assert itself as a global power. In 1894, Japan invaded Korea, sparking the Sino-Japanese War as China came to Korea’s aid. Japan’s victory over the declining Qing Dynasty secured Taiwan and the Liaodong Peninsula as colonies. In the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05), Japan shocked the world by defeating Russia in a conflict over competing claims in Manchuria. The Treaty of Portsmouth recognized Japan’s dominance in Korea and forced Russia to cede territory in Manchuria to Japan, establishing Japan as a major imperial power.

In Korea, Japanese merchants began settling in cities, and by 1910 the number of Japanese settlers in Korea was over 170,000. Many Koreans became tenant farmers for Japanese landowners, growing rice to export to Japan. Many Korean families had to send family members to work in factories in order to pay rent. The Japanese also exploited the Korean sources of timber, coal, and iron. They also pursued a policy of "Japanization," creating a school system model after Japan's and accelerating industrialization and public works (including railroads). Among Koreans, Christianity (brought by Protestant missionaries) became an expression of opposition to Japanese rule, which would not end until after WWII.

Russia had been expanding in virtually all directions since the reigns of Peter and Catherine the Great, often relying on Cossacks, semi-autonomous frontier fighters who explored, conquered, and settled new lands on behalf of the tsar. This form of land-based imperial expansion differed from the overseas empires built by Britain and France, but it would intensify during the 19th century as Russia pushed deeper into Central Asia. Through a series of wars with the Ottoman Empire, Russia seized territory in the Black Sea and Caucasus regions, most notably Crimea, while also weakening Ottoman control in the Balkans.

Russia then conquered territories that today include Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Kyrgyzstan, justifying expansion as a civilizing mission. As Foreign Minister Prince Gorkov bluntly put it, "The position of Russia and Central Asia is that of all civilized states which are brought into contact with half savage nomad populations, possessing no fixed social organization...The more civilized state is forced in the interest of the security of its frontiers and its commercial relations to exercise a certain ascendancy over those whose turbulent and unsettled character makes them undesirable neighbors."

Central Asia provided Russia with cotton, grain, and raw materials and served as a strategic buffer against British influence in India during the rivalry known as the “Great Game," when Russia and Britain battled for influence in Afghanistan and Persia. Local rulers were often removed or reduced to figureheads, while Russian administrators imposed new laws, taxes, and settlement policies. Slavic settlers moved into fertile lands, disrupting nomadic lifestyles and reshaping regional economies. Russian rule weakened local autonomy and intensified ethnic and religious tensions that would persist into the 20th century.