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The shift to the modern world in East Asia was accomplished in part via the experience of colonial rule as Europeans, Americans and Japanese in the late nineteenth century constructed elaborate colonial empires throughout the region. Local reactions included collaboration, resistance and learning - and the latter fed into locally made nationalisms that fuelled popular revolts against foreign rule. When the system went into crisis with numerous wars during the 1930s and 1940s, local nationalists took their chance and lodged claims to independence. As the fighting subsided it became clear that empires were no longer tenable, and independent nation states began to be constructed. Today they form the underlying political structure of the burgeoning region of East Asia.
