ASIA
ASIA. Three centuries separate the missions of Vasco da Gama to India in 1498 and George Macartney to China in 1793. Da Gama opened a new sea route to the Orient; Lord Macartney, ambassador of Great Britain, sought to renegotiate the terms of trade with the Qing (Manchu) empire. During the course of the intervening centuries, successive waves of Europeans sailed into Asia—after the Portuguese came the Dutch, English, Spanish, and French. Their experiences taught them that there was more than one Asia. In south and east Asia, there were the powerful and expansive continental empires of the Mughals and the Manchus. In northeast Asia, there the secluded kingdoms of Korea and Japan. But initially, for the Europeans, there was above all the Asia of the Indian Ocean trading network