From the Beijing lecture from Wednesday, I didn’t know that the 1800s famine was as overwhelming as it was and affected most of China. I find it interesting that it caused out migration from Southeast Asia to the United States, and I wonder if that migration brought in a lot of the Asian population that makes up the United States today. I know it doesn’t make up the majority of the population today but I am curious of how many migrated over at that time. I also find it interesting that the Taiping rebellion was the largest civil war in world history. That is crazy to think about because three million people were killed and I’m sure thousands more were injured and had near death injuries. The Taiping civil war sounds horrific and I think they should have battled the British instead of each other because the British were the ones who took over their ports and some of their land. However, I guess the invasion of the British and other European countries benefitted China and other Asian countries, in becoming as powerful and technology driven as they are today.
The creation of the Suez Canal connected Africa to Asia. This was very beneficial to European countries importing, exporting and traveling to places in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. This made their travel time to those parts of the world quicker and more efficient. I wonder if the creation of the Suez Canal was beneficial to Egypt and other African nations. It definitely could have been, if those countries were free to sell their products to other nations without interference and control of European powers over there economy. It also would have been beneficial if the African countries had the means of making or buying ships in order to sell to other nations, if not then the Suez Canal had no benefit to Egypt and surrounding nations.
Elites of Japan responded the to shifts in the global economy and global balance of power, sort of late. It wasn’t until the 1860s when Japan modernized but they did so at a rapid pace for years.