What changed that situation was Western imperialism. In the 19th century, Britain, the United States and France, soon followed by Russia, Germany and other Western nations, forcefully "opened" a reluctant East Asia to Western trade and religious proselytizing by imposing a series of "unequal treaties." The distinctive ways in which China, Japan, and Korea reacted to this Western challenge would dramatically affect their individual and collective futures. China, disdainful of the Western "barbarians"" and confident of its own moral and cultural superiority, tried to buy off the imperialists with small concessions, and later, as its vulnerability became increasingly apparent, to acquire Western weapons and a few "self-strengthening" institutions. China's miscalculation of Western power and determination would result in the total collapse of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, leaving the country in chaos and vulnerable to outside predators.