New Imperialism

New Imperialism: Definition

Typically, historians define the period of new imperialism between the end of the 19th century and 1914, when the First World War began.

However, things were not that simple. First, countries outside Europe-proper were engaged in imperialism, including the Ottoman Empire and Japan. Second, the First World War did not stop imperialism.

On the one hand, this war led to the dissolution of the Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian Empires. On the other hand, many countries remained colonized until after the Second World War (1939-1945) and beyond.

Fig. 2 - Wells Missionary Map Co. Africa. [?, 1908] Map.

One of the essential outcomes of the First World War was U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Peace Points which professed national self-determination. Another important aspect was the founding of the international peace organization, the League of Nations—the precedent of the United Nations. However, self-determination was not applied equally.

Old Imperialism vs. New Imperialism

There are similarities and differences between old and new imperialism. Old imperialism is typically dated to the late 15th and 18th centuries, whereas new imperialism reached its height from 1870 to 1914. Both old and new imperialism focused on extracting resources, commercial ventures, territorial acquisition or control, cheap or slave labor, colonial competition, and cultural domination of the native population through missionary work, administration, and education. Both forms of imperialism also featured a scientific component focused on exploring, documenting, and systematizing geography, animals, and people in faraway lands. However, old imperialism emphasized colonizing and settling new territories with Europeans, whereas the new counterpart focused on cheap resources and labor.

Old imperialism primarily involved:

• Portugal
• Spain
• Britain
• France
• The Netherlands

New imperialism featured additional countries such as:

• Japan
• Germany
• Belgium

Causes of New Imperialism

There were many causes of new imperialism, including:

• competition with other European powers
• Europe's (and Japan's) insufficient resources domestically
• commercial interests and trade
• military growth and control of the perceived spheres of influence
• territorial expansion, acquisition, or indirect control
• access to cheap resources or those inaccessible domestically
• white man's burden and "civilizing" initiatives
• missionary work

Fig. 3 illustrates Kipling's "The White Man's Burden,” 1899, featuring racial stereotypes.

A critical factor for new imperialism was the relationship between population size and resources in Europe after 1870 as a result of the Industrial Revolution. Its population grew while the continent depended on cheap supplies sourced in the New World. Europe needed to continue having access to affordable resources to maintain its relatively affluent lifestyle. Of course, it is essential to note that the European working class had a much lower standard of living than the middle class, nobility, and big business owners.

Despite the rivalries, European colonial powers sometimes cooperated regarding their imperialist pursuits. In 1884-1885, they split the African continent among 14 European countries at the Berlin Africa Conference.

New Imperialism: Effects

For the colonizers, the benefits were numerous:

• access to land and the rich resources of new colonies, from coffee and rubber to diamonds and gold
• the ability to use various resources to manufacture products and sell them domestically and internationally
• underpaid or slave labor
• having colonial subjects serve in the colonizer's military

There were many adverse effects on the colonized:

• loss of political sovereignty
• lack of immunity to new diseases
• loss of national resources to the colonizers
• loss of ethnocultural identity
• underpaid or slave labor

Some historians point out that the new imperialism featured benefits for the native populations, such as infrastructural development, education, and modern medicine in the colonies. However, by and large, these benefits came at a price of grossly unequal social and political relations.

Examples of New Imperialism

The examples of new imperialism vary and depend on the cultural specifics of the colonizers and the colonized.

Japanese Annexation of Korea

In 1910, Japan annexed Korea into its Empire through the Japan–Korea Treaty and occupied it until 1945. The complete annexation followed Japan, making Korea its protectorate five years prior. The Japanese government began to call Korea Chōsen. At this time, the Europeans considered Japan a great power on par with their imperialist pursuits.

On the one hand, Japan's rule over Korea involved industrializing that country. On the other hand, Japan suppressed local culture and crushed independence movements. Also, Japanese landowners gradually came to own more and more Korean agricultural land.

While some European empires fell apart in 1918, the Japanese Empire continued to grow. By 1931, Japan had invaded Chinese Manchuria, and by 1937, it was in an all-out war with China—the Second Sino-Japanese War. Japan invaded parts of Burma (Myanmar), Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia during World War II. During the war, Japan also occupied the Philippines—a U.S. colony until 1946. The example of the Philippines shows how some places went from one colonial power to another. Japan called its colonies the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Despite the idealized name, Japan used its colonies as a source of supplies, to improve its economic conditions, and to manage an increasing population.

During the Second World War, Japan used young Korean women and girls as "comfort women"—they were forced into sex work for the Japanese imperial army. As Japan was losing the war by 1944, it also drafted Korean men into its army, which was voluntary before that year. Japan lost its colonies through surrender in September 1945.

Congo Free State and Belgian Congo

In central Africa, Belgium occupied Congo in 1908 and established the Belgian Congo. The latter had a precedent, the Congo Free State (1885) ruled by the Belgian King Léopold II. The European exploration of the area began ten years prior. The colonial administration focused on combining state and private commercial interests and Christian missionary work.

• King Léopold II’s rule of the Congo Free State was, perhaps, the worst example of new European imperialism. The Belgian colonizers exploited the local population differently through forced (slave) labor. New diseases brought by the Europeans resulted in many deaths.
• Léopold II controlled a personal army called Force Publique, known for many indiscriminate human rights violations, including mutilating enslaved workers by cutting off their hands for failing to fulfill the quotas in the lucrative rubber industry.
• The king never actually traveled to Congo. However, in 1897, he imported over 200 Congolese to display in a human zoo in Tervuren, Belgium.
• The Belgian king’s rule was too much even for other Europeans who had their colonial indiscretions. Under pressure, Léopold’s colony ended, and the Belgian state formally annexed Congo.

The government of the Belgian Congo was relatively more humane than the sadism of Léopold II. The Europeans pursued infrastructural development and urbanization. However, the relationship between the colonizers and the colonized remained unequal. Unlike South Africa, which had an official policy of apartheid, racial segregation in the Belgian Congo was not codified into law but existed in practice.

Fig. 4 - Rwandan migrants work at a copper mine in Katanga, Belgian Congo, in the 1920s.

Congo attained independence from Belgium only in 1960 and became the Democratic Republic of the Congo. However, European interests in that region persisted.

Fig. 5 - Missionary worker in a rickshaw, Belgian Congo, 1920-1930.