did europe have little impact on east asian developments prior to the 19th century
I need some assistance with these assignment. did europe have little impact on east asian developments prior to the 19th century Thank you in advance for the help! White presence in the countries of the Far East was predominantly commercial and confined to the coastal settlements where traders and soldiers got together under the auspices of Western men-of-war, yet in truth relied on their hosts’ goodwill. For the major empires of China or Tokugawa Japan shogunate, they were both strategically and politically marginal and insignificant1.
Furthermore, in China, Joseon Korean kingdoms and in Japan religious and social structures were rather resistant to rapid change and conferred much stability continuity. The systems of Buddhism and Taoism were taking hold along with Confucianism that emphasized individual moral obligations to the society. Neither in China nor in Korea nor in Japan was an individual viewed as ultimately autonomous. Furthermore, these societies did not focus on individual freedoms.
Nevertheless, continuity and stability are relative notions. Asian cultures developed a curious patchwork of social customs, languages, religious beliefs and different ways of thinking. Ancient varieties of astrology, geomancy and animism were still omnipresent, particularly in rural areas where pantheism offered plenty of opportunities for religious tolerance.
In China, Korea and in Japan reverence for elders, ancestors and deities of nature, dating from thousands of years before Christ, were considerably amalgamated into the newer mode of thinking. In most places, religious systems were linked to the complicated social structures. These cultures were not fit to separating political and social affairs from belief or faith.
Such distinctions made no sense in most parts of East Asia. Likewise, they make no sense nowadays either. Religious and quasi-religious systems are present in all aspects of human life: in politics, family and social relations, in philosophy. .For example, Confucianism is notable for both being a system of political, personal and social ethics as well as for being an effort to explain the world as a whole in rational terms. . .