page_title: Western imperialism in Asia
section_title: Russia and "The Great Game"
hierarchical_section_title: Western imperialism in Asia / Russia and "The Great Game"
context_page_description: Western imperialism in Asia involves the influence of people from Western Europe and associated states in Asian territories and waters. Much of this process stemmed from the 15th-century search for trade routes to China that led directly to the Age of Discovery, and the introduction of early modern warfare into what Europeans first called the East Indies and later the Far East. By the early 16th century, the Age of Sail greatly expanded Western European influence and development of the spice trade under colonialism. European-style colonial empires and imperialism operated in Asia throughout six centuries of colonialism, formally ending with the independence of the Portuguese Empire's last colony East Timor in 2002. The empires introduced Western concepts of nation and the multinational state.
  The thrust of European political power, commerce, and culture in Asia gave rise to growing trade in commodities—a key development in the rise of today's modern world free market economy. In the 16th century, the Portuguese broke the monopoly of the Arabs and Italians in trade between Asia and Europe by the discovery of the sea route to India around the Cape of Good Hope.
context_section_description: Tsarist Russia is not often regarded as a colonial power such as the United Kingdom or France because of the manner of Russian expansions: unlike the United Kingdom, which expanded overseas, the Russian empire grew from the centre outward by a process of accretion, like the United States. In the 19th century, Russian expansion took the form of a struggle of an effectively landlocked country for access to a warm water port.
  Qing China defeated Russia in the Sino-Russian border conflicts.
  While the British were consolidating their hold on India, Russian expansion had moved steadily eastward to the Pacific, then toward the Middle East. In the early 19th century it succeeded in conquering the South Caucasus and Dagestan from Qajar Iran following the Russo-Persian War (1804–13), the Russo-Persian War (1826–28) and the out coming treaties of Gulistan and Turkmenchay, giving Russia direct borders with both Persia's as well as Ottoman Turkey's heartlands. Later, they eventually reached the frontiers of Afghanistan as well (which had the largest foreign border adjacent to British holdings in India). In response to Russian expansion, the defense of India's land frontiers and the control of all sea approaches to the Subcontinent via the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf became preoccupations of British foreign policy in the 19th century.
  Anglo-Russian rivalry in the Middle East and Central Asia led to a brief confrontation over Afghanistan in the 1870s. In Persia (Iran), both nations set up banks to extend their economic influence. The United Kingdom went so far as to invade Tibet, a land subordinate to the Chinese empire, in 1904, but withdrew when it became clear that Russian influence was insignificant and when Chinese resistance proved tougher than expected.
  In 1907, the United Kingdom and Russia signed an agreement which — on the surface —ended their rivalry in Central Asia. (see Anglo-Russian Entente) As part of the entente, Russia agreed to deal with the sovereign of Afghanistan only through British intermediaries. In turn, the United Kingdom would not annex or occupy Afghanistan. Chinese suzerainty over Tibet also was recognised by both Russia and the United Kingdom, since nominal control by a weak China was preferable to control by either power. Persia was divided into Russian and British spheres of influence and an intervening "neutral" zone. The United Kingdom and Russia chose to reach these uneasy compromises because of growing concern on the part of both powers over German expansion in strategic areas of China and Africa.
  Following the entente, Russia increasingly intervened in Persian domestic politics and suppressed nationalist movements that threatened both St. Petersburg and London. After the Russian Revolution, Russia gave up its claim to a sphere of influence, though Soviet involvement persisted alongside the United Kingdom's until the 1940s.
  In the Middle East, in Persia (Iran) and the Ottoman Empire, a German company built a railroad from Constantinople to Baghdad and the Persian Gulf in the latter, while it built a railroad from the north of the country to the south, connecting the Caucasus with the Persian Gulf in the former. Germany wanted to gain economic influence in the region and then, perhaps, move on to India. This was met with bitter resistance by the United Kingdom, Russia, and France who divided the region among themselves.
caption: Russian troops taking Samarkand in 1868.