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ASIA. the establishment of the Hellenistic kingdoms. The Roman Empire gathered in this Hellenized portion of the old East. The rise of Mohammedanism created a new religio-secular power in the southwest which, when the warlike Turkish tribes from the interior became dominant in the Mohammedan world, wrested all of its Asiatic provinces from the weakened Eastern Empire. The Crusades (Eleventh to Thirteenth centuries) were the last mediæval struggle for possession between the West and the East. The rise of the Ottoman power made Asia once more a menace to Europe. (See ; ; ; ; ; ; .) The march of events in the southwest cut off the rest of Asia completely from the Western world, depriving the latter of even such incomplete knowledge of the vast Oriental continent as was possessed in antiquity, when there were trading routes to the farther East through Bactria. The stationary character of Asiatic civilization, and the lack of initiative among the mass of the people, prevented the great social and political changes that make the general Continental history of Europe so full of meaning. Until the advent of the European powers there was little of this general history for Asia, except in connection with the great waves of conquest which rolled over the continent. These are treated in the articles ; ; ; ;.

A new era opened with the rediscovery of the East by Europe in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth centuries. Portuguese navigators and traders followed in the path of Vasco da Gama (1497-98) and established factories at Goa and Macao, and in other places. Spain took possession of the Philippines in 1565, as a result of Magellan's epochal voyage across the Pacific. The Dutch were also among the early comers. The pushing Western nations, in pursuit of commercial advantage, thereafter steadily increased their influence and gradually acquired control of depots or considerable territory in India, the East Indies, and China. In the middle of the Eighteenth Century an apparently insignificant phase of the Seven Years' War was fought out in India between the English, led by Clive, and the French, under Dupleix. The fate of that country of ancient and warring nations was determined by the English triumph. The advance of European influence may be followed in this work through the history of the different countries affected therein. In the meantime, the expedition of the Cossack partisan leader Yermak across the Urals (1580-82) into what is now Siberia began the steady movement of Russia into Central Asia and across the continent to the Pacific. (See ; and .) These latter movements brought the impulse of Western life into the development of Asia, and with it the complications of European politics, the sharp rivalries for political influence in the interest of commercial expansion, and the active modern competition with railway and steamship. The rapid growth of world politics has given a new significance and unity to the history of Asia. The details of this later period of transformation may be followed in the histories of the several countries, especially Chinese Empire, Japan, India, and Russia. See also the article, and the references therewith.

. In the political affairs of Asia, as in those of the African continent, the predominance of European influence has become marked during the last 200 years, though the power of the European nations has not been as completely established over the native races of Asia as over those of the Dark Continent. Still, reference to the table appended to this article will show that nearly two-thirds of the area of Asia, and nearly one-half of its population are under the control of the European powers, and even in the unappropriated area and over the nominally independent peoples, the ascendancy of Western culture, spreading mainly through the channels of commerce, is rapidly being estab- lished. While China, Siam. and Persia are as yet autonomous, the play of European politics is rapidly becoming the guiding force of their national life. Ultimately Siam .seems destined to be annexed to the Indo-Chinese Empire, which France has built up in Farther India; Persia at present is a stake in the political game going on between Great Britain and Russia; and China, by reason of its huge size and the immense op- portunities it promises for exploitation, has awakened the ambitions of all the nations of Europe. Japan alone has safely grounded its national existence, because its people have shown an aptitude for adopting the civilization of the Europeans without falling under the power of their civilizers. The striking fact, then, about conditions in Asia at the present time, is that the continent which first gave civilization to the world has in turn become subject to the higher state of civilization to which Europe, favored by many circumstances, has attained. The struggle for supremacy is much more acute in Asia than in Africa, because in the former coun- try European culture has no free field to work in, and finds itself confronted by political and religious systems of great antiquity and of suf- ficient strength to render powerful resistance. In the southern part of Asia there is not any room for the influx of European colonization, as there is in the sparsely settled continent of Africa. With an area exceeding that of Africa by one-half, the Asiatic continent has about five times its population, and therefore the es- tablishment of European domination must mean not so much the actual occupation of the soil by the Western nations as the control of the native races by the European powers, acting through the long-established machinery of local government and ancient forms of life. The rôle played by Russia in Siberia, however must be distinguished from the part played by the other nations in southern Asia; for Siberia, the Russian provinces in Central Asia, and the Caucasus region are in reality not foreign possessions, but constitute an integral unit with the Russian Empire in Europe, from which the first two are separated by no considerable physical barriers. The plains of Siberia are a continuation of the South Rus- sian steppes, and the nomad inhabitants of Si- beria are closely akin to the Tartar peoples that dwell on the lower Volga and the Caspian. Finally, the vast stretches of Russian Asia, with their mere sprinkling of inhabitants, afford such an opportunity for European colonization as the southern part of the continent can never pre- sent.

Among the Powers of Europe, jealousy and dissension have appeared over the question of pre-