History of colonialism colonies had acquired independence during the Latin American revolutions at the beginning of the 19th century. In Asia, The Great Game, which lasted from 1813 to 1907, opposed the British Empire against Imperial Russia for supremacy in central Asia. China was opened to Western influence starting with the First and Second Opium Wars (1839–1842; 1856–1860). After the visits of Commodore Matthew Perry in 1852–1854, Japan opened itself to the Western world during the Meiji Era (1868–1912). Imperialism also took place in Burma, Indonesia (Netherlands East Indies), Malaya and the Philippines. Burma had been under British rule for nearly a hundred
Immigration to China homeland. Several million may have done so since 1949. The largest influx came in 1978–79, when about 160,000 to 250,000 ethnic Chinese refugees fled Vietnam for southern China, as relations between the two countries worsened. Many of these refugees were settled in state farms on Hainan Island in the South China Sea. Another activity viewed as illegal is the influx of North Koreans into northeastern China. Some 1,850 North Koreans fled their country in 2004, but China views them as illegal economic migrants rather than refugees and sends many of them back. This is also due to pressure from North