page_title: Western imperialism in Asia
section_title: U.S. imperialism in Asia
hierarchical_section_title: Western imperialism in Asia / U.S. imperialism in Asia
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: Some Americans in the Nineteenth Century advocated for the annexation of Taiwan from China. Aboriginals on Taiwan often attacked and massacred shipwrecked western sailors. In 1867, during the Rover incident, Taiwanese aborigines attacked shipwrecked American sailors, killing the entire crew. They subsequently defeated a retaliatory expedition by the American military and killed another American during the battle.
  As the United States emerged as a new imperial power in the Pacific and Asia, one of the two oldest Western imperialist powers in the regions, Spain, was finding it increasingly difficult to maintain control of territories it had held in the regions since the 16th century. In 1896, a widespread revolt against Spanish rule broke out in the Philippines. Meanwhile, the recent string of U.S. territorial gains in the Pacific posed an even greater threat to Spain's remaining colonial holdings.
  As the U.S. continued to expand its economic and military power in the Pacific, it declared war against Spain in 1898. During the Spanish–American War, U.S. Admiral Dewey destroyed the Spanish fleet at Manila and U.S. troops landed in the Philippines. Spain later agreed by treaty to cede the Philippines in Asia and Guam in the Pacific. In the Caribbean, Spain ceded Puerto Rico to the U.S. The war also marked the end of Spanish rule in Cuba, which was to be granted nominal independence but remained heavily influenced by the U.S. government and U.S. business interests. One year following its treaty with Spain, the U.S. occupied the small Pacific outpost of Wake Island.
  The Filipinos, who assisted U.S. troops in fighting the Spanish, wished to establish an independent state and, on June 12, 1898, declared independence from Spain. In 1899, fighting between the Filipino nationalists and the U.S. broke out; it took the U.S. almost fifteen years to fully subdue the insurgency. The U.S. sent 70,000 troops and suffered thousands of casualties. The Filipinos insurgents, however, suffered considerably higher casualties than the Americans. Most casualties in the war were civilians dying primarily from disease.
  U.S. attacks into the countryside often included scorched earth campaigns where entire villages were burned and destroyed, and concentrated civilians into camps known as "protected zones". Most of these civilian casualties resulted from disease and famine. Reports of the execution of U.S. soldiers taken prisoner by the Filipinos led to disproportionate reprisals by American forces.
  The Moro Muslims fought against the Americans in the Moro Rebellion.
  In 1914, Dean C. Worcester, U.S. Secretary of the Interior for the Philippines (1901–1913) described "the regime of civilisation and improvement which started with American occupation and resulted in developing naked savages into cultivated and educated men". Nevertheless, some Americans, such as Mark Twain, deeply opposed American involvement/imperialism in the Philippines, leading to the abandonment of attempts to construct a permanent U.S. naval base and using it as an entry point to the Chinese market. In 1916, Congress guaranteed the independence of the Philippines by 1945.
caption: One of the New York Journal's most infamous cartoons, depicting Philippine–American War General Jacob H. Smith's order "Kill Everyone over Ten", from the front page on May 5, 1902.