The moment that Europe embarked on long-distance trade with Asia in 1498, when the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama landed at Calicut in India, a process started that would ultimately lead to large European colonial empires. More than three centuries later, these empires spanned the globe. It is easy to see what happened in Asia before 1800 in the light of what happened later, but conquest depended more on Asian circumstances than on European superiority. However, this can also stand in the way of understanding what might have actually happened in the past. It would be a mistake to equate European expansion in Asia with the relatively easy conquest by small groups of heavily armed Europeans of the Mayan, Aztec and Inca empires in the Americas, since Europeans were able to get a foothold in Asia only over centuries, and not until halfway through the 18th century.
Over the past 30 years, European commercial and military interaction with Asia before the impact of industrialisation has been cut to size in view of the enormous Asian contributions to both phenomena. The overall conclusion is that we should not exaggerate the European presence in Asia, due to several factors that held Europeans in check. For instance, diseases did not facilitate European conquests in Asia like they did when Europeans arrived in the Americas. Asia was part of the Old World and had a similar disease environment to Europe. At the same time, calculations of the numbers of Europeans who made the voyage to the East in the 17th and 18th centuries have brought back the European presence to its true proportions, certainly when we take into account the high degree of mortality of the few Europeans who did go to Asia. The flotillas and fortresses armed with canons gave Europeans an edge at sea and at trading hubs but, on land, their naval advantages were non-existent. [...]
Certain Asian societies were more vulnerable to manipulation than others. Europeans in Asia were always ready to exploit social conflicts and divisions, while also negotiating with Asians on interventions. This collaboration took advantage of developments in local societies: the Europeans made alliances with Asian rulers, enlisted the help of people of mixed Eurasian descent, and enrolled Asian soldiers in their fights. A comparative approach, looking at different empires, notably the Dutch, but also the French and English, allows a better grasp of the extent, and especially the limits, of European expansion in Asia in this period. I will compare several regions where interactions between Asians and Europeans had different outcomes, starting with the Banda Islands, a case that illustrates how long-held beliefs on European expansion are changing. Then I will turn to other spice islands where it was much harder to impose European dominance. Finally, I will focus on the large gunpowder empires, showing that only in the case of internal division at the end of the 18th century were Europeans able to breach their defences, meaning that European intrusion had to wait far into the 19th century.
