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Britain is kind of weird because they didn't set out to become colonizers from the get-go like some other powers did but they kept doing these sorts of minimum
by throwaway0a5e 4y ago
Britain is kind of weird because they didn't set out to become colonizers from the get-go like some other powers did but they kept doing these sorts of minimum effort "back the friendly faction" interventions to protect their economic interests abroad and of course the tin pot dictators and banana republics they were setting up couldn't stay stable without a lot of constant attention and one thing lead to another, troops were stationed, governors were installed, let that run its course for 100yr and suddenly you have an empire.
- nobodyandproud 4y agoRight. I don’t think the British decolonized because they wanted to either. I understand Hong Kong during the 1950s or 1960s wasn’t exactly peaceful, but they handled it better than the other former European powers. That is to say, they wanted to retain influence if not control. Though you have flare-ups like the Falkland Islands; which from an outsider’s perspective seems weird that Britain retained influence and not given to Argentina. Edit: Just to be clear, the British really screwed over nations like China. So it’s strictly about how they handled their pull-out in the last hundred years.
- legalcorrection 4y agoWhat’s weird about it? The Falklands is almost exclusively inhabited by English-speaking people of British descent.
- nobodyandproud 4y agoI get that the residents want to remain under British rule. But from what I understand it was mostly a headache and cost center for the UK, given the distances involved.